86 EdTech Resources You May Have Missed–Treasure Chest Holidays 2011 Edition

by Jeffrey Thomas on December 23, 2011

Welcome to this week’s edition of Treasure Chest—86 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!

Happy Holidays & Merry Christmas!!!

Featured

7 Mistakes made by ICT Co-ordinators – Articles – Educational Technology – ICT in Education–So, you’ve landed a great new job, an important one at that, as an ICT Coordinator or Technology Coordinator. But in your eagerness to make an impact, are you making some fundamental mistakes? Here’s a quick guide about what not to do.
7 MORE mistakes made by ICT Co-ordinators – Articles – Educational Technology – ICT in Education–I gave the topic a bit more thought and then realised I could have easily listed a few more. Well, here are a further seven to be thinking about! Have you made, or are you making, these mistakes?
Teacher Reboot Camp-And Maddest of All to See Education As It Is & Not As It Should Be–For decades, I have seen policies, curricula, standardized testing, instructional practices, institutional rules, bureaucracy, and classroom design destroy the joy of learning.
How We Fail Young Students with Facebook–In America we seem to have a tendency in general to cover our ears and pretend kids are not doing things they shouldn’t, rather than actually teach them how to do it safely
Should Portfolios Replace Placement Tests? – Education – GOOD–It’s what you’ve done, not how you scored.
Top 5 Ed Tech predictions for 2012 | ZDNet–Here’s hoping I’m more accurate than I was last year.
History of Santa

A Brief History of Santa

US college degrees: Still the best among world’s top universities? – CSMonitor.com–A US college degree has been the gold standard. But global economics and a crisis of confidence may be pushing the US down in rankings among top universities
Rules to Limit How Teachers and Students Interact Online – NYTimes.com–School districts across the country are imposing strict new guidelines that ban private conversations between teachers and their students on cellphones and online platforms.
3 Fun Christmas Websites For Kids || Free Software–Here are 3 fun Christmas websites for Kids which are full of Christmas stuff, and would give a complete feel of Christmas to your Kids.
Steve Jobs: 20 Life Lessons–Having finished the Steve Jobs biography I realize that there are larger lessons we can all glean from Steve Jobs’ remarkable life.
If Apple Wins We All Lose–Yesterday’s news that courts had ruled against HTC in favor of Apple was a tidy little victory for Apple. But HTC is just an initial skirmish in a much larger fight. The real war is against Android, and if Apple wins that, we’ll all lose.
Over 40 Internet Companies Come Out Publicly Against SOPA | TechCrunch–SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) essentially allows ISPs to block entire domains because a piece of hosted content infringes copyright.
Cartoon: SOPA Opera–Oh, SOPA – you do know how to hold an audience
50 Tools that didn’t quite make the 2011 Top 100 Tools for Learning List Learning in the Social Workplace

50 More Tools

View more presentations from Jane Hart

Two Rapping Teachers Take on Plan to Slash L.A. Busing – Education – GOOD–$38 million in cuts will take away school bus transportation in Los Angeles starting January 1.
What Is Carrier IQ And How Do I Know If I Have It?–Carrier IQ has sprung into our lives several weeks ago, with a video by security researcher Trevor Eckhart who found some hidden apps running on his HTC device. Since then, speculations and panic have risen to the point in which many users believe their every action, including text messages, email and web content is being recorded and transmitted to carriers.
Polishing the Student’s Image on Facebook Timeline | MindShift–Facebook and schools have been on a collision course, and especially in the past week, the media has spotlighted the tension between the social media site and its relationship with students and teachers.
11 Tech Factors That Changed Education in 2011–With rising tuition costs and more free learning resources online than ever before, we’re seeing drastic changes in the way education is pursued. Here are the big trends of 2011.
Another Tarnished Silver Bullet « My Island View–If we are to travel the path to online learning, we need people to lead the way.
YouTube for Schools – A Leadership Embarrassment
The Year in Education: Seven Innovations Changing the Way the World Learns – Education – GOOD–From gaming to teacher leadership, 2011 brought plenty of classroom innovation that promises to make us smarter.
8 Social Media Strategies for Your Classroom | Getting Smart–Are you ready to bring social networking to your classroom? If you’re looking to make your classroom more relevant, connected, and meaningful to your students, it’s the best place to start. Study after study has confirmed the benefits of networking. Before we delve into strategies, though, let’s look at some reasons why we should connect with students in this manner.
Is It Time To Abolish The Twitter Retweet Button? | Social Media Today–What if Twitter decided to kill the ubiquitous retweet button?
Prepare To Be Amazed At What Happens Every 60 Seconds In The Tech World [INFOGRAPHIC] | Redmond Pie–Sixty seconds seems like a relatively small period of time, if you asked me what I believe I could achieve in a sixty second time frame I would probably admit to it being not very much. So just what does happen around the world in one single minute?

Tools

Ozge Karaoglu’s Blog – @ozge ‘s Favourite Web Tools of 2011–Here are my favourite web tools from 2011:
Top 10 Apps Downloaded in 2011–The top 10 apps downloaded in 2011.
Twictionary–The Dictionary for Twitter
Top 10 Under-Hyped Web Apps, 2011 Edition–We all discover new web apps each year but not every one of them gets the recognition it deserves. With 2011 drawing to a close, we wanted to highlight the 10 we felt deserved a bit more hype.
Nine Free Video Editing Tools You Need to Know–Applications, tutorials, ideas, educational games, mobile apps, and web tools to help you integrate technology into education and enhance mobile learning
Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection: Remotely Access Windows PC On Mac–Those of you who use Microsoft office on Mac are well aware of the Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection app that comes bundled with the package.
A List of Free Web Tools to Create Disposable Email Addresses–Applications, tutorials, ideas, educational games, mobile apps, and web tools to help you integrate technology into education and enhance mobile learning
SketchBook: Image Editor With Layer, Lasso, Crop Tools & Brushes [Mac]–Of the many image editors for Mac we’ve reviewed in the past, most were simple with a few noteworthy features. The fact that they were free generally implies
Download Firefox 9 With Improved JavaScript Performance–Firefox 9 is now available for download, with some huge performance improvements
Free Technology for Teachers: Rubrics for Assessing Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts–In the collection you will find rubrics for assessing student blogging, student wikis, podcasts, and video projects

How-To

How To Get Around SOPA (If It Ever Becomes Law)–The what-if scenario few in the tech world want to consider – What happens if the Stop Online Piracy Act passes into law? – may be fixed by something as simple as a browser extension.
Share Any Word, PPT, PDF Documents, Image Files Using QR Codes–How to Share Any Word, PPT, PDF Documents or Image Files Using QR Codes.
10 Tips on Using Twitter Wisely–Twitter is far and away my favorite social network, but it does have its downsides. The 140 character limit? Nope, I actually enjoy the challenge of crafting meaningful …
4 Ways To Optimize Your Dropbox Experience–It can’t be denied. We at MakeUseOf, along with most of the world, still love Dropbox dearly. It’s the synchronization tool of choice because it simply works like you expect it to. However, using just the basics of the software may make you miss out on some useful stuff that could make your life even easier.
20 of the Best Windows 7 Articles of 2011 – How-To Geek–How-To Geek has provided all kinds of tips and tricks to help you get the most from your Windows 7 system. The following are 20 of the best articles we’ve published about Windows 7 in 2011.
Apps in Education: Creating an Appropriate App Collection within your School Budget–Collections of Apps can be expensive. How do you locate appropriate apps at a reasonable price or better still for FREE. Here are some really easy ways to locate apps that might be useful in your classroom.
How To Burn Blu-Ray Movies a to Blank Disc–We showed you how to rip and convert Blu-ray discs to MKV format format for backup and streaming on your home network. If you want a physical backup copy of a Blu-ray movie, you can do that too.
How to: Hiding your Facebook friends–Depending on your paranoia privacy needs… Facebook has many wheels and dials available to tighten things up a bit. Today I have a quick tip to hide your friends list. Here’s how you do it.
How to Stretch Your Android’s Battery Life When It Is Critically Low–The worst thing with your Android phone is to have a low battery when you need it most. Here are a few steps you can take to ensure your phone last the entire day.
The Basics of Using Facebook’s Timeline–Facebook released their Timeline profile to everyone. There are a lot of really cool features and customizing you may want to get the hang of before it’s forced on you and you are playing catch-up.
10 Ways to Add Facebook Functionality to Your Website | Social Media Examiner–Facebook social plugins: Check out the Facebook plugins available today with recommendations on the types of sites each is best suited for.
The Beginner Guide To Customize Your Twitter Page–Here is a beginner guide to help you turn your plain boring Twitter page into a professional business profile.
How to choose the right password | News | TechRadar–How to choose the right password Passwords are vital, but how should we select them?

iOS

Skitch for iPad is Here! « Evernote Blogcast–Skitch is the amazingly fun and surprisingly powerful way to move your ideas and projects forward using fewer words.
How to Take Great Holiday Photos with Your iPhone–Holidays are the perfect time to capture magic moments with friends and family and take the time get creative with your photography. Here are some simple tips to get the best photos from your iPhone.
The Top 10 iPhone Apps I Like To Use The Most–We’re in the habit of reviewing hundreds of new apps here at MakeUseOf, and though most of us probably have pages and pages of random apps on our iPhones, how many of those can we honestly say we use on a regular basis – like at least once a week? Once I took a cold hard look at my home screen, I narrowed it down to the following 10.
Remotely Access Your PC Or Mac With LogMeIn For iOS [Free Version]–LogMeIn is a tool that can be used to create a remote connection between one desktop computer and another, or between a desktop and a smartphone.
LogMeIn Offers a Free Remote Access App for iOS with the Ability to View, Control, and Access Files–As far as remote access is concerned, we enjoy LogMeIn, but its $30 price was always a bit off-putting. However, with a recently released new version of the app, you can get basic remote access for free
The Top 20 iPhone and iPad Games Of 2011 | TechCrunch–In our previous post, we listed the top 20 iPhone and iPad apps of the year. But games are in a class by themselves, often pushing the limits of the hardware, software, and graphics capabilities of Apple’s iOS devices.
15 Amazing Wallpapers For iPad Including Ones in Upcoming iOS 5.1–Check out these 15 Amazing Wallpapers For iPad Including Ones in Upcoming iOS 5.1.
iPad EdResources | EdReach–As 2011 winds down, I have spent a good deal of time thinking about all of the online resources and tools that have helped make this past year a successful ‘Year of the iPad’ in my school district. And with an upcoming winter vacation ahead for many educators next week, I thought it might be nice to share out some of my favorite resources for using iPads, iPods, and iPhones in the classroom. Although there are many, many fantastic resources [...]
Tectonic For iPad | See Of All Earthquakes Around The World | TCGeeks–The interface on Tectonic for iPad is just fantastic. The world appears as a globe. You can spent it round in any direction with your finger
New iPad App Lets Any Teacher Be Like Sal Khan | Edudemic–The Educreations iPad app, which launched this week as a free download in the App Store (iTunes link), transforms the tablet into an interactive whiteboard that records a teacher’s voice and handwriting as they explain a concept or work through an example problem
VideoCam3D For iOS Lets You Shoot & Convert Movies To 3D | TechCrunch–NXP Software, developer of the CineXPlayer mobile application, is launching a new iOS app for recording and converting video into 3D.
5 Reasons To Spend $5 On GarageBand for iOS [iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch]–Apple’s popular home music production suite GarageBand has been iOS-friendly on the iPad for a while now, and thanks to last month’s update iPhone and iPod Touch users can finally jam along too. This article is for anyone who has never used GarageBand before, and is not sure what to expect. It’s also for anyone still considering whether the app is worth the token $5 Apple are asking (hint: it is).
The 10 Best iOS Games of 2011–From the visceral, intense experiences to the more thoughtful, here are 2011′s finest titles on iOS.

Android

Skype 2.6 Comes To Android, Adds File Sharing [News]–Are you worried that the 26 different apps that show up when you want to “share” something with your Android device weren’t quite enough? Skype has you covered.
Blog on the Go With the Free Posterous Android App–Blog on the Go With the Free Posterous Android App
5 Best Android Phones of 2011–So, here in this article we will introduce you with some of the best Android phones made up to-date.
5 Worthy Siri Alternatives for Android Smartphones–If you want to buy an iPhone just because of Siri, you might want to read on ahead as there are some good alternatives for Siri found on Android too!
Android Users Lose 1 Million To Malware In 2011 [News]–Have you ever wondered how severely malware impacts Android users?
WordPress 2.0 For Android: Revamped UI, Easier Text Editing & More–WordPress is certainly among the most extensively used blogging tools and online Content Management Systems out there. The official WordPress client for Android
Android 4.0 Device Upgrades Coming In Early 2012 – Yahoo! News–Samsung Electronics and other Android-based handset makers plan to roll out Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich update on their mobile devices early next year. Samsung said Tuesday that the platform update, otherwise known as Android 4.0, will be ready for launch on the company’s Galaxy S II smartphone and Galaxy Note device during the first quarter of 2012.
Share Files Between Your Computer & Your Android Device With Dropbox–Dropbox is an ingenious file storing and sharing tool. Not only can you upload files to your online Dropbox and share single files or entire folders, you can also install the Dropbox application on your computer, use it like a regular folder, and have all your files and sub-folders synced automatically.
Android Arrives as a Music-Making Platform With Audiotool Sketch | Underwire | Wired.com–Until recently, the Android platform suffered from a dearth of high-powered music-making apps. But new software, like Audiotool Sketch, is changing the game. The app, currently available for $1, serves up one melodic synth and two drum machines.
Dropbox For Android Updated With Batch Upload, Improved Gallery & More–As announced on the official Dropbox forums, a preview build of the updated (v1.3.0.6) official Dropbox client for Android has just been released

Miscellaneous

Free Technology for Teachers: 60+ Virtual Tours & Webcams for Social Studies–Click any placemark on the map to find a link to a virtual tour or webcam for that location. The map is embedded below.
Apple Moves Forward With TV Plans – WSJ.com–Apple executives in recent weeks have discussed their vision for the future of TV with media executives at several large companies, according to people familiar with the matter.
Online Textbooks Aim to Make Science Leap From the Page – NYTimes.com–“Principles of Biology,” a digital-only textbook, includes interactive features that take it beyond early e-textbooks that were static reprises of the print versions.
Online Math Tools – Number Empire–Online Math Tools – Number Empire
Free Classes Teach You How to Use Your Smartphone | PCWorld Business Center–Millions of users will join the ranks of smartphone users this holiday season, and Verizon is here to help with free workshops to teach them to use Android or iOS.
YouTube Reveals Most Watched Videos For 2011 On YouTube Rewind [News]–2011 is drawing to a close, and many sites such as Twitter and Facebook are introducing their top stories of the year. In the spirit, YouTube has released YouTube Rewind, a recap in YouTube videos of everything that happened in 2011. This year, YouTube has reached one trillion views (that’s 1,000,000,000,000 playbacks), and they are now announcing the most watched videos of the year.
Free Audio Download: The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis | Open Culture–Before the days of Harry Potter, generations of young readers let their imaginations take flight with The Chronicles of Narnia, a series of seven fantasy
How a scientific equation can predict whether a song will be a chart hit | Mail Online–Scientists at the University of Bristol have come up with a ‘hit potential equation’ that can predict how stars, such as Adele, could get a top five hit with 60% accuracy.
This Is Why You Were Friended or Unfriended [STUDY]–While some Internet interactions are online-only relationships, the most common reason we add friends on Facebook is because we know people in real life.
50 Surprising Facts About Technology Usage In College | Edudemic–There are more than 50 fascinating tidbits about the usage of technology on college campuses in the below infographic. Enjoy!