83 EdTech Resources You May Have Missed Treasure Chest–December 18, 2011

Welcome to this week’s edition of Treasure Chest—83 EdTech Resources You May Have Missed.

It’s really difficult to keep up with all that happens in educational technology. This is my attempt to make it just a little easier. I post a Treasure Chest every Sunday!

Featured

• 30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself–When you stop chasing the wrong things you give the right things a chance to catch you. As Maria Robinson once said, “Nobody can …
• Announcing the 2011 Winners – Congrats to All! | The Edublog Awards–We are proud to announce all of the winners of this year’s Edublog Awards!
• 26 Amazing Facts About Finland’s Unorthodox Education System–It puts the rest of the world to shame.
• SOPA and everyday Americans – Boing Boing–Alec Macgillivray (Twitter General Counsel, former Google attorney, Berkman Fellow) has a great post explaining how SOPA might impact everyday Americans:
• Why SOPA Could Kill the Open Education Resource Movement – Education – GOOD–If SOPA passes, global knowledge sharing could come to a grinding halt.
• What You Need to Know About SOPA Now–As the Stop Online Piracy Act moves into the House of Representatives, here are the most important things you need to know about SOPA now.
• INFOGRAPHIC : Behind SOPA : What It Means For Business & Innovation–Ever since the Internet began, online piracy has been a big problem with the two biggest casualties being the music industry (RIAA) and the movie industry (MPAA). The Internet made it extremely easy to download whatever people wanted and the music & movie industries responded with copy protection measures, including the infamous and universally hated Digital Rights Management (DRM).
• Where to Find Santa Claus Online This Year | Techland | TIME.com–At this time of year, Twitter and Facebook might come in handy for proving the existence of Santa Claus to cynical children. But given the abundance of fake Clauses out there, we thought we’d provide a guide to choosing your online Saint Nick wisely.
• Santa’s Christmas Eve Workload, Calculated – Philip Bump – Technology – The Atlantic–Santa’s impressive logistical feat broken down, country-by-country, time zone-by-time zone
• Digital Natives: Ten Years After–Because the myth of the digital native is still alive and well, this article aims to examine the findings that have come out of recent research with regard to digital natives and their true nature, as well as turn a critical gaze onto the assumptions, taken as common sense knowledge, of what the characteristics of digital natives are.
• YouTube for Schools: All the TED Talks, None of the Cat Videos–YouTube has launched a new initiative called YouTube for Schools, which will enable educators to open up classrooms to the wide world of educational content on YouTube without all the junk.
• YouTube Blog: Opening up a world of educational content with YouTube for Schools–While schools that completely restrict access to YouTube may solve this distraction concern, they also limit access to hundreds of thousands of educational videos on YouTube that can help bring photosynthesis to life, or show what life was like in ancient Greece.
• Free Technology for Teachers: Bookboon – More Than 500 Free eTextbooks–Bookboon is a free service offering free full-length textbooks, travel guides, and business books in digital form.
• Facebook Timeline: What You Need To Know–Facebook’s new Timeline is rolling out to the public, offering users the chance to upgrade to “a new kind of profile.” Timeline turns the profile into an illustrated, browsable history of a user’s entire life, with major milestones and little moments smartly chosen by Facebook’s algorithm. The recent history is specific and full of activity, but Facebook automatically focuses older stories on life’s big moments….
• The Associated Press: Report: half of schools fail federal standards–Nearly half of America’s public schools didn’t meet federal achievement standards this year, marking the largest failure rate since the much-criticized No Child Left Behind Law took effect a decade ago, according to a national report released Thursday.
• I Ain’t Emailing! « My Island View–I am often intrigued by the controversy surrounding the contraction, “ain’t” which, to the best of my knowledge, has been created by the American education system.
• The 10 Best Mac Apps of 2011–From omniscient calendars to powerful photo editors, here are out picks for the top 10 apps to grace Apple’s Mac App Store in 2011.
• 60 Inspiring Examples of Twitter in the Classroom | Online Universities–Teachers around the world have found innovative ways to use Twitter as a teaching tool.
• Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Shooting Hoops in the Hallways of Learning–Sometimes teaching is like basketball. When you are hot… All net. You can’t miss. Things are clicking. Everyone is learning. Everyone is behaving. You’ve got it together.
• for the love of learning: Why I don’t like the Edublog Awards–Because I believe learning should always be framed as a collaborative activity and never a competitive one, I am critical of the Edublog awards.
• Blogging About The Web 2.0 Connected Classroom: Why I Deleted My Klout Account–For those that don’t know, Klout aims to measure social influence across the web. Basically you connect your Twitter account, Facebook page, Foursquare account, pretty much any social network you use and through their “sophisticated algorithm” they assign you a score based on the number of people you influence, how much you influence them and your reach
• Warning: Flipping Your Classroom May Lead to Increased Student Understanding | Teaching Science and Math–Flipping a classroom is not a teaching technique, it is more in line with a philosophy or way of teaching
• Should Computer Science Be Required in K-12? | MindShift–Computer science is not widely taught, even though programming may be one of the most important skills of the 21st century.
• When Less Is More: The Case for Teaching Less Math in Schools | Psychology Today–In an experiment, children who were taught less learned more. By Peter Gray…

Tools

• Google Maps Mania: The Google Map of the World’s News–With Hubii users can zoom in on any location on Google Maps and find local newspapers. As users pan and zoom the map news stories from that location are automatically loaded into the map sidebar
• 5 Really Useful Web Apps You Might Not Know About | Free and Useful Online Resources for Designers and Developers–There are many web apps out there for general web users, but getting by free and good ones is not that easy. That is why I am sharing 5 Really Useful Web Apps You Might Not Know About. Read each entry in the list and see which one suits your needs best.
• Ozge Karaoglu’s Blog – A to Z Web Tool: K–Here comes next letter on the alphabet:K
• Promethean ActivInspire Training Resources | The Whiteboard Blog–A collection of Promethean Activ Inspire (and Activ Studio) training resources including video guides and tutorials.
• Google Docs gets Stock Photos – Apps User Group–The Apps User Group website connects and assists schools in the use of Google Apps for Education. The site contains resources for implementing and using Google Apps, news from the Google blogs, links to schools that use Google Apps, a discussion forum, a calendar for training opportunities, and more
• Nine Excellent (Yet Free) Online Word Cloud Generators | Free and Useful Online Resources for Designers and Developers–There are many online word cloud generator out there for web users, but getting by free and good ones is not that easy
• 9 Tools For Using Wikipedia in the Classroom | Edudemic–Wikipedia cannot and should not be ignored. While it’s of course not the definitive source of information, it is easily one of the most useful digital resources that’s not used as much as it should be.
• Google Forms – More Than Just Multiple Choice – LiveBinder–Information from ISTE 11 BYOL Session

How-To

• How to Master Facebook Timeline in 5 Quick Minutes | Gadget Lab | Wired.com–Yesterday, Facebook rolled out its new Timeline feature to the masses. This ultra-illustrative, chronological listing of posts, photos, shared links, check-ins, and more is a radically different arrangement than the Facebook profile you’ve been used to. Here’s how to curate it to best effect.
• How to Use Facebook’s New Timeline Feature (and Hide Your Embarrassing Old Posts)–Facebook finally rolled out its much-anticipated Timeline feature today, which brings a snazzy new interface to your profile, not to mention the ability to see every post anyone’s ever made back to their first day on Facebook. Here are the things you need to know about using it.
• What To Do If Your Computer Gets Infected By A Virus–Viruses are the scourge we are all afraid of. Let’s say that you followed all recommended safety tips to protect your computer and you still ended up getting infected, as you probably noticed once an antivirus tool you never installed suddenly tells you your computer is about to self-destruct. Well, that’s just great. What do you do now? There’s hope and solutions on offer. So, read on.
• What are Browser Cache and Cookies, and Does Clearing Them Help?–A browser cache is a special folder tucked away among other folders that stores web page elements that a browser thinks it will need again.
• Top 10 Tips for Using Your Feature Phone as a Smartphone–You’d be surprised — that feature phone of yours is smarter than you think!
• Free Technology for Teachers: 15 Things Teachers & Students Can Do With Edmodo–For those not familiar with Edmodo, in a nutshell it is a microblogging system designed specifically for teachers and students.
• Stump The Teacher: Chrome-Tweetdeck Tutorial

• Upload Videos to YouTube the Easy Way–YouTube’s upload process can be tedious for power users. Navigating to the YouTube website, then choosing the video, setting categories, waiting on the video to process—all of these steps become very old, very fast.
• Maximum PC | How to Benchmark Your Android Phone for Free–If you’re the owner of an Android handset, there’s a lot of options out there to see how hard your phone rocks. Here’s three of our favourite free benchmarking tools, along with the reasons why you should use them.
• How to Cancel or Delete a Stuck Print Job in the Windows Print Queue – How-To Geek–If you tried to print, but the job just got stuck in the queue without being able to cancel it, you’re experiencing a stuck print job. There’s a simple way to clear out the print queue, but it’s not always the most obvious thing. Here’s how to do it.
• Tip of the Week – Six Great Ways to Publish Student Work « History Tech–Publishing student projects online in visually stimulating formats is now easier than ever. There are tons of tools available that you and your kids can use to get stuff out there.
• How to Create a Dropbox-like Setup for Windows Live Mesh | 7 Tutorials–One of the features appreciated by Dropbox users is that it uses only one folder for synchronisation. What most people don’t know is that Windows Live Mesh can easily work with a similar setup.
• Reset Lost Windows 7 User Account Password With Ubuntu Live Disk–Windows 7 has an in-built option to create password recovery disk to log into system in case a user forgets the Windows account password.
• What’s an IP Address, Difference Between Static & Dynamic IP Address?–GT Explains: What is an IP Address and Difference Between a Static and Dynamic IP Address?
• How To YouTube Your Classroom | Edudemic–The idea here is not that classrooms need to function like YouTube, but rather to wonder out loud what might happen if education experimented with some of the lessons YouTube’s staggering success has taught us.
• How to Create a 60 second Highlight of Any YouTube Video With Snipreel–Learn How to Create a 60 second Highlight of Any YouTube Video With Snipreel.

iOS

• iPad Starter Set: Collection of 70+ iPad Apps, Nearly All Free | iPad Academy–70+ apps for the iPad. A starter set for those new to the iPad. Nearly every one is free. Apps for adults and children with a live link to the app description page to make it easy for you to decide which ones you want.
• Educreations Launches New iPad App and Turns Your iPad Into an Interactive White–Available for the first time ever today, the new iPad app from Educreations will transform teaching.
• Popular Social Media App MyPad For iPhone Free For Limited Time–Lately, the iOS App Sore has been swarmed with apps that combine Facebook and Twitter into one platform. But when you add multiple user login, free music and
• Download The Yellow Submarine as a Free, Interactive eBook | Open Culture–A year ago, Apple began selling The Beatles’ catalogue of music on iTunes. Now, twelve months and many millions of downloads later, Apple is giving away
• How To Copy a DVD to an iPad, iPhone or iPod–Copying your DVD collection to an iDevice (iPad, iPhone or iPod) is very simple if you know how to do it. Recently my wife and I took a long flight with the kids and having their favorite DVD’s on my iPad and iPhone proved to be a life saver. Here’s how I copied the DVD’s
• Windows Live SkyDrive for Apple iOS [First Look]–Yesterday Microsoft announced the SkyDrive app for Apple iOS Devices. Here’s our first look at how to use the app and what you can expect.
• Curate Your Own Digital Magazine With Scoop.it For iPhone | TechCrunch–News curation startup Scoop.it has arrived on the iPhone today, allowing you to create your own digital magazine while on the go
• 9 Killer iOS 5 Features You Probably Didn’t Know About–Check out these 9 Killer iOS 5 Features You Probably Didn’t Know About.
• NowBox For iPad: Virtual TV Guide For YouTube Videos Of Your Liking–Searching for your favorite episodes and songs on YouTube can be so exhausting at times. Things would be a good deal easier if you could train an app to look…
• 3 Free iPhone Apps To Find Book Reviews–Buying books is one situation where you will seek the opinions of others before you take the plunge

Android

• Top 5 Android Launchers Worth Trying Out | Tech Drive-in–If you are thinking about customizing Android, Launchers are a good place to start. There are quite a number of good third-party Android Launcher apps, both free and non-free, available in the Android Market.
• CALCNEXT: Handy 7-In-1 Calculator/Converter For Android & iOS–The mobile/smartphone world is certainly no stranger to calculators and metric conversion tools. Whether you’re looking for a replacement to your device’s
• Dolphin Browser HD – Fast & Elegant Mobile Browsing On Your Android–Dolphin Browser HD is a mobile browser for Android 2.0.1 and up. With over 250,000 downloads, it is the most popular browser on the Android market. The browser supports flash, HTML5, navigation with gestures and multi-touch zoom. It comes with a sidebar for tools and bookmarks, a speed dial in new tabs to quickly access your favorite websites, and much more
• An iPhone Lover’s Take On The Galaxy Nexus | TechCrunch–Rather than do a full-on review — you’ve probably already seen plenty of those — and given that I now write an Apple-centric column for TechCrunch, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to continue my “An iPhone Lover’s Take…” series
• The 5 Best Strategy Games For Android [Gaming]–Of all the genres that can be played on a mobile device, strategy is my favorite. Touchscreens often aren’t the best choice for titles that rely on quick reflexes, but in strategy titles where planning is more important than reacting, that’s not a problem. It’s also a bit hard to look mature while tapping away in a game like N.O.V.A. 2.
• Beautiful Free Christmas Live Wallpapers for Android–Here are some wonderful live wallpapers to enjoy the holiday season, chilly winters, and welcome the upcoming Christmas and New Year 2012.
• Stream Live Videos To Your Facebook Wall With Strimz [Android & iOS]–Strimz is a Facebook app that, apart from letting you broadcast/stream live video to your Facebook Wall, also records each streaming session, allowing you to
• The Best Office Suite for Android–Android has several good options when it comes to productivity and office software on the go.

Miscellaneous

• The Innovative Educator: 10 Talking Points to Lift the Ban on Cell Phones–If you want to begin the process necessary to lift bans on cell in your school or district, create responsible use agreements, and change school policy these talking points will help
• Download Microsoft Learning Suite Free | The Windows Club–Microsoft Learning Suite is a free download from Microsoft hich includes free software, innovative applications, web-based tools, and teacher resources specifically aimed at schools
• 10 most useful Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts that you should know | The Windows Club–A list of 10 very useful keyboard shortcuts for Windows 7 that you should use to work faster.
• Quad-Core Phones: What to Expect in 2012 | PCWorld–Revolutionary a year ago, now dual-core mobile processors are standard; next, chipmakers say quad-core processors will support mobile multitasking comparable to the performance of a desktop computer.
• What the World’s Biggest Websites Looked Like at Launch–It’s hard to imagine that the treasured websites we all use today were at one point just scribbles on a piece of paper.
• A New Collection of Christmas Desktop Wallpaper | blueblots.com–Christmas is fast approaching and while we are counting down the number of days until we celebrate the big event and pass Christmas gifts and good wishes to each other, it would be better if we load up some Christmas pictures on our screen to also keep up our festive spirit
• Is Twitter Trying to Kill Tweetdeck? – Adobe Air, Desktop Twitter Client, New Tweetdeck, New Tweetdeck review, Old Twee–Some might think that this is a bit over-the-top-title. But many power users (including me) think Twitter, who bought Tweetdeck in May 2011 for a whopping price of million, is severely cramping up the most popular desktop application by cutting down its unique core features (discussed in detail below) in the name of speed.
• Five apps that keep me clued in to tech issues | TechRepublic–Succeeding in IT means staying on top of an overwhelming volume of new trends and developments. Here are a few good ways to keep up.
• Jean-Paul Sartre Breaks Down the Bad Faith of Intellectuals | Open Culture–How many of the great philosophers have you actually heard speak? This clip comes from the 1976 documentary Sartre by Himself, which features discussions
• Blogger Gets “The First of Many Google+ Features”–Blogger has announced “the first of many Google+ features” today, launching an automatic +snippet sharing box after you publish a blog post
• 32 Science Websites for Fifth Graders « Ask a Tech Teacher–This list covers all sorts of science from nature to geology. Like with the math websites, for my Science websites to scintillate students, occasionally I put a list on the internet start page and let students go there during sponge time (click the link and see what’s up this month):
• Help the Environment: Places Where You Can Donate Old Computers–Electronic waste, or e-waste as it is more commonly known, is a huge problem facing both the developed and undeveloped world. Many old computer parts contain materials that are hazardous to the environment and burying your old Dell in a landfill is not helping the situation. Instead of throwing your old computer out why not donate it?

Video/Slideshow

• Future Learning: David Merrill – YouTube

• Incredible Mental Math Gymnastics on “Countdown” | Open Culture–Countdown is a British TV game show revolving around words and numbers. In the numbers round, contestants select six of twenty-four shuffled tiles with…
• James Martin 952 – YouTube

Tagged as: Edtech, Resources, Santa Claus, Treasure