73 EdTech Resources You May Have Missed–Treasure Chest January 29, 2012

by Jeffrey Thomas on January 26, 2012

Welcome to this week’s edition of Treasure Chest—73 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

National PBS Survey Finds Teachers Want More Access to Classroom Tech–PBS LearningMedia announced today findings from a national survey of teachers grades pre-K-12 that sheds light on the rising role of technology in America’s classrooms, as well as barriers teachers face to accessing the “right” digital resources
Why OnLive’s Windows-on-iPad App is Revolutionary | PandoDaily–The app—a bare-bones, free version was released last week at CES—lets an iPad run Windows 7 in the cloud. It’s a bizarre, head-turning experience: You touch the app and suddenly Microsoft’s familiar interface is emblazoned on your Apple screen.
Googling Towards ePortfolios- Educational Collaborators–Much has been written about ePortfolios, which combine curated archives of digitized student work, “rubrics” indicating the learning objectives the work responded to, and student-teacher commentary about how well the work met those objectives.
The Landscape: My Top 25 Free Math Resources for Education–To be a well-informed citizen and a participant in the knowledge economy, Americans must be mathematically literate.
Computational Thinking: A Digital Age Skill for Everyone – YouTube

Computational Thinking: A Digital Age Skill for Everyone

Are You Sick Of ‘Highly Paid’ Teachers? | Addicting Info–Teachers’ hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or10 months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do – babysit!
Judge: Americans can be forced to decrypt their laptops | Privacy Inc. – CNET News–Colorado federal judge gives Ramona Fricosu until February 21 to decrypt her PGP Desktop-encrypted Toshiba laptop–or face the consequences. Read this blog post by Declan McCullagh on Privacy Inc..
What NOT To Post On Facebook: 13 Things You Shouldn’t Tell Your Facebook Friends–According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s unofficial mission is to make “the world more open and connected.” But there are limits to how open you should be on Facebook and while you might enjoy sharing photos and status updates, there are some pieces of information you would do well never to share.
How Poor Performance in College Sets Students Up for a Lifetime of Difficulty – Education – GOOD–College students not used to being asked to study are struggling in the real world.
The True Cost of High School Dropouts – NYTimes.com–Proven educational strategies to increase high school completion provide returns to the taxpayer that are two to four times their cost.
Thought SOPA Was Bad? 10 Reasons to Oppose ACTA–So, we’ve shot down SOPA and PIPA. Congratulations Internets for a job well done. Mission accomplished, right? Not so much. While that’s two bad pieces of legislation pushed …
What You Should Know About ACTA and Your Rights–The most controversial measures of concern to Internet users in the final version of the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) for most Internet users are …

Tools

Top 13 Web 2.0 Tools for Classrooms « Ask a Tech Teacher–If a program survives the hands-on grade-level labor of dozens of students, if they can get through the required steps to create a project that supports their learning in new creative ways and still have fun, I’ve found a good tool.
Best 117 Free Windows Software–On this page you will find the best 117 free Windows programs for all your needs. We’ve taken the effort to categorize the apps and …
50 new tech tools you should know about – CNN.com–You may have dozens of apps on your phone and scores of websites bookmarked on your laptop, but that doesn’t mean you have all the latest tech tools at your fingertips.
My 3 Favorite & Easiest Ways To Download Videos Off The Web–We’ve talked a lot on this subject in the past, but I’m confident that you’ll find my ways to be the easiest and most effective. Storing remote video content locally is a challenge no more.
Educational Technology Guy: Soapbox – real time student feedback during class–Soapbox is a beta web service that allows presenters and educators to have students/audience provide input during the class/presentation.
Five Best Online Meeting Services–Here are five of the best services to conduct productive online meetings, based on your nominations.
Facebook Apps: Highlights of the 60 New Integrated Applications–If you enjoy using Spotify or Foursquare on Facebook, imagine having the same integration with a bevy of other Facebook apps.
Five apps for crapware cleanup | TechRepublic–You don*t have to put up with the aggravation of crapware. Here are several effective tools for removing it from your Windows PC.
Four Creative Commons Photo Sites You Should Know About « Ed Tech Ideas–Students need to be taught about copyright and how to find royalty-free images that are ok to use in projects. Below are four great sites that I use with my students.
The Best Screencasting App for Mac OS X–Mac OS X is full of ways to record your screen, with a tool built-in to Quicktime Player and a vast number of third-party apps. Among the many tools, Screenflow is easily our top choice. It’s fast, feature-rich, handles everything about the screencasting process from start to finish, and doubles as possibly the best simple video editing application on the Mac.
Heard Wonders About Camtasia But Can’t Afford It? Try ActivePresenter [Windows]–Camstudio is a simple open-source screen recorder that’s great for someone who’s starting out his or her YouTube show on software tips and how-to’s. If you’re looking for something that allows you to enhance your videos even more, check out what ActivePresenter offers. ActivePresenter is a screencasting software that you can use to author training tutorials and software walkthroughs.
Best 60 Ubuntu Linux Applications For Year 2011 [Editor's Pick]–At the beginning of each year, we at AddictiveTips compile a list of the best applications from numerous platforms, to deliver a summary of the most useful
The Best Tools to Check for Software Updates | 7 Tutorials–This article compares the best tools: Appudater, CNET TechTracker, FileHippo Update Checker, Secunia PSI, Software Informer Client and SUMO
Aviary Comes To Facebook As An App [News]–Looking to edit images on Facebook? You now have one more option, and it’s a doozy. Aviary is now available on Facebook as an app.
Moving at the Speed of Creativity – Calculate and Learn about Percentages with Percentage Calculator–Mateusz Mucha, a web developer in Krakow, Poland, has developed a free, online tool called “Percentage Calculator” you should show to your math students and use with them in class

How-To

26 Tips for Writing Great Blog Posts | Social Media Examiner–Want to get the most our ot your business blogging? Follow these 26 tips to create optimal blog posts every time you sit down to write.
How to figure out the new iTunes U | iPhone Atlas – CNET Reviews–With the spotlight turned on education after Apple’s iBooks 2 media event, iTunes U has gotten a facelift as well as some important resource pages on Apple’s Web site. Read this blog post by Joe Aimonetti on iPhone Atlas.
Networking Guide for Bloggers: Why It Is Important (Part 1)–In today’s blogosphere a lot of discussion is going on about various aspects of positioning and growing a blog. Even though the space gets more and more crowded
Which Blogging Platform Should I Use?–Dear Lifehacker, I want to start a new blog, but I’m not sure which platform is best for me. Obviously WordPress is the most popular, and there are many more common choices, but I’m not sure what will fit my needs the best. Can you help?
Quick Tip: How To Delete Your Google Chrome Browser Sync Data – How-To Geek–There are a number of reasons one might want to delete their Google Chrome Sync data. Regardless of the reason why, there’s one simple place to do it from, though it might not be obvious.
How-To Decrypt DVDs with HandBrake (So You Can Rip Them) – How-To Geek–Ripping DVDs is a great way to keep a backup and stream videos over your network. The process typically takes 2-3 different programs to accomplish the task. Here’s how you can skip a step and decrypt DVDs using HandBrake.
5 Web Apps Which Show Us How To Make Use Of QR Codes Differently–You must have spotted at least one QR code by now. If not, then you are a certifiable alien from Mars. QR codes are quite the rage. We have them on everything from food labels to car bumpers. And yes, tattoos too! QR codes are definitely mainstream now, given a boost up the use of smartphones and intelligent scanning apps that reside in them. So, here are five more web apps which show us how QR codes have gone conventional.
30 Amazing Mobile Apps for Photographers–Mobile photography is becoming more and more popular with an ever expanding sea of apps available to aid anyone with a keen eye and a smartphone.
7 Splendid Techniques to Encourage Comments on Your Blog–One of the best ways to gauge the health of your blog readership is to check out how many comments you have for your posts. More comments mean that your readers
10 Photography Tips for Beginners | PCMag.com–You don’t have to buy a new camera to perfect your pictures. Follow these easy tips to improve the quality of your snapshots

iOS

The top 50 iPad apps | Technology | The Observer–It’s the apps that bring the iPad to life. If you want to read a book, watch a movie, make a video call, paint a picture or just browse on the sofa, there’s an app for you
Free iPad Notes – Handwriting, drawing, typing, audio recording and speech to text! | iGo With My iPad–The folks from Nuance Communications, the provider of Dragon voice recognition, have released their free iPad notes app – PaperPort Notes.
5 Free Awesome iPad Games You Simply Have To Try–If you own an iPad, you already know that games are its best feature by far. We’ve covered lots of free iPad games here at MakeUseOf, but free awesome games are a well which never dries. Here are 5 games that have survived the 10-minutes test, and are probably some of the best-value free games you can find.
iTunes U 2.0: Not Perfect, Just Awesome–iTunes U has been around for a long time, but its expansion last week onto iPhones and iPads, as well as into new content like K-12 curriculum, has truly made this a 2.0 release
iPad a solid education tool, study reports – CNN.com–Today another data point emerged, demonstrating that the iPad can be a valuable asset in education.
TPACK iPads in Schools – Hello to my new iPad–If you are a new iPad user this blog will guide you through the basics and help you to get started.
The Best Voice Recording App for iPhone–There are more voice recording apps for iPhone than you could ever hope to try, and most them don’t offer much more than the simple functionality you get with Apple’s built-in Voice Memo app. Audio Memos, on the other hand, earns our top choice because it offers tons of control over your recordings and makes them very easy to share.
Blooms Taxonomy of Apps–iPad Apps separated by Bloom’s Taxonomy

Open publication – Free publishing – More apps

Apple iBooks in schools: Devil is in the hardware | From the Editors – CNET News–CNET Reviews Editor-in-Chief Lindsey Turrentine knows schools, and she’s sad to say that outfitting public classrooms with sophisticated hardware will cause more problems than schools are ready to face. Read this blog post by Lindsey Turrentine on From the Editors.
Reviewing Apple’s iBooks Author–Apple recently announced the launch of its free iBooks Author desktop application, which – they claim – allows anyone to create beautiful Multi-Touch
Secret iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch Keyboard Shortcut Tips–Did you know that Apple iPhones, iPads and the iPod touch devices have secret keyboard shortcuts you can access by pressing and holding a key on the keyboard? OK… perhaps not exactly secret however, Apple did a nice job of hiding this groovy feature on iOS devices and I’ll bet you’ve never heard of it before. This is a quick tip so grab your iDevice and keep reading.
20 Great Classroom iPad Apps to add to your Collection (1-5) | edte.ch–Over the last year and a half I have really enjoyed exploring the types of iPad apps that can be used in the classroom and so I thought I would begin to draw …
Apps in Education: Dual Browsers for Real MultiTasking on iPad–Dual Browsing is about ease of use. It is not essential or even necessary – it is just convenient.
Getting started with iPads and App sites for Teachers–Getting Started with iPads is my site, it contains apps by content area, articles, information, resources and about anything you want to know

Android

4 More Distraction Deterring Android Apps To Increase Your Productivity–While working on mobile, you need to be able to be efficient. Here are a few Android applications to help you manage your distractions and be more productive.
5 Free Android Math Apps || Free Software–Here are 5 free Android math apps which will help you to exercise and improve your mathematical skills. Download Free Android Maths Apps.
5 Reasons To Choose Android Over iPhone [Opinion]–If you’re looking at buying a smartphone, you’re probably going to buy an Android device or an iPhone (sorry, Microsoft). What’s the difference, and which should you choose? We recently gave the pro-iPhone side of the story, and now in the interests of balance, it’s time for to put forward the case for Android.
AndroGET: Android Download Manager With Acceleration & Resume Support–The Android Market contains many third-party download managers and browsers that come packed with download managers of their own, each claiming to provide you …
Decide.com For Android Is A Smart Virtual Shopping Assistant–Decide.com is a web-based shopping assistant that utilizes a comprehensive pricing history of various consumer electronic products from over 30 product
10 Best Arcade Games for Android–Need to sharpen your lightning-fast reflexes? These 10 Android games are the cream of the crop when it comes to arcade action.

Miscellaneous

I Want to Teach Forever: 3 Fun Online Games For Reviewing Slope and Linear Equations–These three fun flash games were successful in keeping my students’ attention for a full 50 minute period, which doesn’t happen frequently.
Free Technology for Teachers: Video Project Idea – Get to Know Your School–The idea is this, have students create “this is our school” videos that can be displayed on your school’s website.
Timeline Apps | Facebook–Add apps to your timeline to share what you’re listening to, reading and more.
Why Tablets Are So Important | Tim Bajarin | PCMag.com–Sure, tablets are great for media consumption, but the future of personal computing depends on their productivity.
Things About Windows 7′s Calculator You Probably Didn’t Know–I love Windows 7′s calculator. Still, it wasn’t until today that I discovered that there are more functions in this little program than were present in its previous versions
Angry Birds Coming to Facebook–Starting on Valentine’s Day, you won’t be able to focus on your work at all (if you could until now, that is). Why? Angry Birds is coming to..
Google+ Welcomes Teens–Aiming to hit Facebook in a vulnerable spot, Google on Thursday opened Google+ to teens — and added security enhancements designed to help secure their privacy.
QR Codes on the Rise in Print Magazines–Mobile UX designers and marketing and analytics firm Nellymoser released today a comprehensive study of print magazine action codes. They took the time to review every 2011 issue …
Timehop Shows Your Activity on Social Sites Same Day a Year Ago–Timehop is a Service that Shows Your Activity on Social Sites the Same Day a Year Ago. Works with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Foursquare.
5 Amazing Things Internet May Have Ruined–Many of us are unable to survive without the internet because our modern society has grown to become so reliant on it. We go online everyday and has grown so …
When’s the Best Time to Blog & Share?–Anyone who spends their day on the Internet inevitably wonders this question. Should I start publishing later in the day, to hit the after-work traffic? Should I publish earlier in the morning, to catch commuters while they’re on the way to work? Or is everything completely random, driven by the off-chance that a post will end up on StumbleUpon and enjoy a slightly longer tail? Social sharing widget Sharaholic looked at its 2011 data, breaking it down to the top 100 days and times for sharing. See the results in Eastern Standard Time….
Bill Gates Sent A Letter To Steve Jobs Before His Death | Redmond Pie–There were undoubtedly good times and bad times shared between the two rivaling tech-gurus Steve Jobs and Bill Gates over the years.