83 EdTech Resources You May Have Missed–Treasure Chest February 5, 2012

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

• Are You Ready for Some Football? A Techie Guide to the Super Bowl. – Ina Fried – Media – AllThingsD–For those looking for a side of tech to go with their Super Bowl, Ina Fried offers a guide to all the apps, streaming and more, designed to make the most of NFL’s championship Sunday.
• What If Schools Created a Culture of “Do” INSTEAD of a Culture of “Know?” – The Tempered Radical–Here at Educon yesterday, I had the chance to learn a bit more about design thinking from David Jakes. David’s central point was that schools and teachers often get stuck in a “Yeah, but…” mindset when thinking about change. Instead…
• 10 vital questions to ask before investing in classroom technology | Informed Education–There are so many new technologies and devices appearing on the education market every day now that it can become very difficult to determine where to spend your money, if indeed you should spend it at all. Before you make your next investment, ask yourself the following questions:
• When Students “Fail” Should They be Allowed Do-overs? « Center for Teaching–First, he defined the terms or parameters for how teachers could go about incorporating test corrections into their teaching.  Here are examples he shared with us
• Educational Technology Guy: 10 Tech Skills Every Student Should Have–After reading a few articles about specific tech skills, I thought I write what I think are the 10 Important Tech Skills Students Need.
• 8 Things Teachers Do To Cause Boredom — Smart Classroom Management–When students get bored their minds drift. And while some settle on daydreaming, tile-counting, and general inattentiveness, other students are drawn to more…ahem…destructive pursuits. For where there is boredom, there is misbehavior percolating just under the surface, ready to pounce.
• What Can America Learn From the World’s Most Successful Education Systems? – Education – GOOD–School redesign expert Linda Darling-Hammond explains why we’ll be a prison nation if we don’t implement major reform …
• What Schools are Really Blocking When They Block Social Media | DMLcentral–In reality, the debate has been shaped by one key fact: the almost universal decision by school administrators to block social media.

• Facebook Files IPO: What It Means For You–Facebook shocked no one by filing an initial public offering of its shares today. The filing was the first glimpse into the company’s inner financial workings and, as expected, Facebook said it would try to raise $5 billion when the company’s shares begins trading – a number that could eventually be raised to $10 billion and would ultimately value the company between $75 billion and $100 billion. Today marks the day that Mark Zuckerberg goes from being the guy who makes world-changing technology to the guy who makes money. (He could be worth $20 billion when all is said and…
• Extra Credit For Charity « My Island View–I am anticipating that this post may be among the most unpopular posts I will write as a blogger.
• Everything You Thought You Knew About Learning Is Wrong | GeekDad | Wired.com–According to one expert, most common learning strategies are actually hurting our ability to acquire and retain long-term knowledge.
• The Truth About Tablets: Educators are getting iPads and ereaders into students’ hands—but it’s not easy — The Digital–While many schools and libraries have launched pilot programs to get ereaders and tablets into the hands of students or have allowed them to bring their own devices to class, it’s still early days.
• 15 things kids can do instead of homework–If you are a parent (or a teacher who wants to give a recommendation to an interested parent), and you believe the arguments against homework (see my previous post: 25 Myths of Homework) then you might be asking yourself now, okay so my kid isn’t doing homework: what else should they do instead?
• Blogging About The Web 2.0 Connected Classroom: My Favorite @Livebinders–I want to highlight a few of my favorite binders to give you a taste of what you can do with them:
• Pinterest: Everything You Need To Know Is In This Massive Post — SocialMouths–Pinterest is growing at crazy rates on the social web. Here is everything you need to know to use Pinterest to promote yourself or your business.
• The Innovative Educator: Creating a plan with students to use cell phones for learning–Want to integrate cell phones into learning? You can involve your students with this planning lesson where students will focus on cell phones as learning tools
• Hating on the Ladies: The Real Backlash Against Pinterest – Lifestyle – GOOD–Social media criticism should focus on whether a service works, not the people who use it.
• 5th Grader Discovers New Molecule | The Mary Sue–Kenneth Boehr wasn’t expecting more than the usual from his ten-year-old students when he started a lesson on the Periodic table and handed out the molecule modeling kits.
• In Some Cash-Strapped Schools, Kids Bring Their Own Tech Devices | MindShift–At Mankato Public School System in Minnesota, students bring their homework, their lunches, and books to school like most students across the country. But they also bring whatever tech devices they own — and they don’t have to hide it or turn it off when they walk into class.
• The Must-Have Guide To Helping Technophobic Teachers | Edudemic–The blogosphere and the mainstream media is filled with success stories of technology’s successful adoption in education. However, many educators complain that when they try to introduce technological innovation on their campuses, they face obstacles.

Tools

Best Windows Downloads for Any New Computer ~ LockerGnome

• Yahoo! App Search–The search engine that helps you find exactly what you’re looking for. Find the most relevant information, video, images, and answers from all across the Web.
• Free Technology for Teachers: Seven Alternatives to Picnik–The popular image editing tool Picnik was included in the list of services that they’re shutting down. I’ve had a few people ask me for recommendations for alternatives to Picnik, so here’s a short list of alternatives to explore.
• The 3 Best Alternatives To The Picnik Photo Editing Tools–We recently reported that Picnik will be closing on April 19th. The demise of the popular online photo-editing service has been met with scorn from fans, who are unhappy with Google’s decision to kill one of the web’s best free tools in the name of consolidation. There’s no need to panic, however. There are some solid alternatives available that are just as free
• Technology and Education | Box of Tricks–Latest update 10th October 2011 – These are some of the best free internet resources for education. This page is constantly updated; every time I come across
• CCleaner for Mac Comes Out of Beta, Adds New Browser and Disk Cleaning Features–Mac OS X: CCleaner for Mac has been in beta for awhile, but now Mac users can enjoy the final version of our favorite Windows utilities. If you’re a little starved for disk space or just want to engage in some early Spring cleaning on your Mac, CCleaner is now finished, stable, and ready to help you out.
• Best Security Suites: PC Bodyguards | PCWorld–These all-in-one defenders can block baddies, tackle Trojans, and drop-kick drive-by downloads. We test the top contenders.
• Five Great Video Editing Programs for Windows ~ LockerGnome

• Free Technology for Teachers: 29 Days of Android Apps for Teachers and Students–Today, because it is February 1st I decided to put together a list of 29 of my favorite apps that I think educators and students should try over the next month.
• 5 Excellent Open Source Content Management Systems To Start A Website–Every day, more and more people are building their own websites and leading their own communities. Soon, owning a website will be akin to owning a car or a house. If you’re looking to start a website of your very own but don’t have much technological knowledge or experience, your best bet would be to get familiar with content management systems, or CMS’s.
• Firefox 10: Add-on Compatibility, Full-Screen Web Apps & UI Tweaks [Download]–Firefox 10 is now available for download, with some major improvements and changes. The new version automatically hides the Forward button until you …
• Free and premium Video Hosting Platforms – Best Of–Video content has been growing in popularity and influence online for the past few years as more and more people worldwide gain access to broadband internet
• Firefox 10 Review & Rating | PCMag.com–Firefox remains a lean, fast, customizable browser that can hold its own against any competitor. This time better extension updating and new developer tools.
• Skip Ads on YouTube–YouTube was once a place where we could peacefully watch videos starring skateboarding cats and nasty honey badgers. We could bounce from video to video, never encountering any resistance other than the occasional slow Internet connection or rogue flaming comment from disgruntled video watchers.
• Educational Technology Guy: Differentiator – free web app to help teachers differentiate using Blooms Taxonomy–The Differentiator is a simple web app that helps you create objectives based on Bloom’s Taxonomy.
• 50 Web 2.0 Tools Your Students Want You to Use–Reviews by students of technology tools
• Top 10 Sites for Creating a Chart or Graph–Charts and graphs are effective tools to convey information in a simple and visual way. They’re also a great way to track trends and help explain complex datasets. Following are my top favorite sites for creating a chart or graph.
• Best file and folder synchronization freeware for Windows 7–List of free file sync or synchronization software for Windows 7 with review and download links.

How-To

• How To Write Your First Book In iBooks Author–Apple recently introduced iBooks Author in a live presentation at the Guggenheim in New York. The software is aimed at textbook writers and publishers, but it can just as well be used for producing cookbooks, picture books, interactive fiction novels, how-to books, and the like. iBooks Author looks to be the first consumer-based e-Pub software designed for multimedia books.
• How to Blog Every Day ~ LockerGnome

• Geocaching with Google Earth | Google Earth Blog–Amazing things about Google Earth – news, features, tips, technology, and applications
• How to See When Someone Unfriends You on Facebook–Would you like to know when someone “unfriends” you on Facebook? We’ve found a tool to help.
• Personal Learning Networks for Educators: 10 Tips | Getting Smart–I often begin my workshop on personal learning networks (PLN) for educators by asking these questions: Who is in your learning network? Who do you learn from on…
• 7 Twitter Photo Sharing Tips To Spread Your Photographic Masterpieces–In mid-2011, Twitter announced its photo sharing feature. It was major news because it put Twitter at loggerheads with the existing third-party Twitter photo sharing services like TwitPic , yfrog, and Instagram. But we users weren’t really bothered about the behind the scenes bad blood for it gave us a more convenient way of sharing photos from within Twitter itself.
• How To Quickly Check If Your Site Is Visible Behind The Great Firewall Of China–Do you have a website that you want the Chinese people to see? Here’s how to check if your site is visible behind the Great Firewall of China.
• Google Cloud Print: It’s Actually Awesome, and Here’s How to Set It Up–Google Cloud Print is an under-appreciated service that can send print jobs from virtually anywhere to a connected printer in any other location.
• 6 Ways to Unleash Creativity in the Workplace–The demand for creativity from employees is rising in this age of rapid technological advancement.
• Free Technology for Teachers: Webinar – 11 Ways to Use Evernote in Your Classroom–The webinar, conducted by Evernote staff, is a free event on February 15th at 10am PST.
• Web research on the iPad using Evernote and Skitch (how-to) | ZDNet–The iPad is a great tool for doing web research, especially when used with Evernote and Skitch. Here is how I do it on a daily basis.
• Upgrade and Speed Up Your Computer This Weekend–It’s a sad fact of life that over time, all of our computers get a little bit slower. Before you start shelling out for a new machine, take some time this weekend to perform some maintenance tasks, upgrade a single piece of hardware, or even overclock your machine for a little speed boost.

iOS

• iPads in the Classroom – Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything–This site will be both a support site for my presentations about iPad use for teaching and learning and also include links to other iPad information pages.
• 3 Free iPhone Apps for Creating Your Own Stop-Motion Videos–We have tried and tested three simple iPhone apps for stop-motion animation. Give them a go.
• Avid Studio rolls onto iPad, treads on iMovie’s toes (video) – Engadget–There may be a number of options for budding iPad Scorseses, now you can add Avid’s …
• iPad 3: Everything We Think We Know–It’s that magical time of year again, when everyone expects a new iPad to be right around the corner. Which in turn means an amassment of iPad 3 rumors clogging up our lives. Here’s a quick guide to making sense of them.

• The beginners guide to iMessage in iOS 5 | News | TechRadar–The beginners guide to iMessage in iOS 5 Send free messages from your iOS 5 iPhone, iPod or iPad : TechRadar
• Keeping Your Kids Safe on iOS Devices–Are you losing sense of how to keep your children safe while on an iOS device? Here are some apps to help you keep your child safe.
• 4 Dictionary Apps Every iPhone User Should Know About–If you are looking for a portable and an extensive dictionary, check out the following below four given dictionary apps for the iPhone, which all have two things in common – being free and having a large word bank.
• Norton Identity Safe: Secure Online Password Vault [PC, Android & iOS]–In an attempt to help you with managing and securing your personal online identities (user profiles and passwords), Symantec has released a brand new app
• Performing Search In iOS: What’s Your Alternatives?–With iOS, there are choices when using a search engine. You can either use it from within Safari or another browser, just like you would in Mac OS, or you can use a separate search engine app. Which option you choose depends much on personal preference.

Android

• Where To Go? Suggests POI, Provides Turn-By-Turn Navigation [Android]–Where To Go? is a location-based amenity and point of interest (POI) finder for Android and iOS-powered devices
• Dolphin Browser For Android Now Features Skitch & Evernote Add-Ons [News]–Dolphin has recently announced the release of two brand new add-ons for its popular Android browser. The Dolphin browser already features a number of useful add-ons such as Read It Later, Dolphin Translate, Dolphin.fm, and various tab management add-ons, and has now added the Skitch add-on and the Evernote add-on.
• Five Million Android Users Might Have Fallen Victim to Another Malware Attack–According to Symantec, 13 apps from three developers—many in the official Android Market—have been carrying malicious chunks of code called Android.Counterclank, and are suspected of running on as many as five million phones, stealing info and running ads against the will of the device’s owner.
• Likes! For Android: View Your Facebook Friends’ Likes In One Place–In a very short span of time, the social media giant Facebook has had an enormous impact on our daily lives. Not only does the world’s most feverishly …
• Google Docs for Android Gets Offline Access | PCWorld–Google Docs users can now get offline access to documents on their Android-based smartphones and tablets, Googlesaid in a blog post on Wednesday.

Miscellaneous

• Free Technology for Teachers: SOPA and PIPA Explained in an Infographic–SOPA and PIPA may have been tabled for now, but that doesn’t mean those bills won’t pop-up again in the future
• 21 Must-Follow Pinterest Users–Scoot through our gallery to discover some of the most popular curators on Pinterest, the hottest social circuit on the web today.
• This Week’s “Links I Should Have Posted About, But Didn’t” | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…–Instead of letting that backlog grow bigger, I regularly grab a few and list them here with a minimal description.
• Who Gives a Tweet – Carnegie Mellon University–Twitter users say only a little more than a third of the tweets they receive are worthwhile. Other tweets are either so-so or, in one out of four cases, not worth reading at all.
• 3 Websites To Find Software Compatible With 64-Bit Operating Systems–Chances are, those of you who are buying a brand new computer in the next year will be getting your hands on something running a 64-bit operating system. x64 has its pros and cons, but it is the future. Not even the strongest personal complaint about software incompatibility is going to be enough to bring technology to a halt! Here are three solutions that ought to put you on to some brand new, 64-bit compatible goodies.
• Google Launches Redesigned Education Site | MindShift–Google has revamped its site for educators, creating a redesigned repository for all its educational tools and resources for teachers, schools, and students.
• Educational Technology Guy: Infographic on the digital divide – interesting data–The infographic has some interesting data on the digital divide including lack of computer and broadband access by poor students, by race and around the world.
• Amazing Optical Illusions On Web – Fun – TechMynd–Appearances can be deceiving. Here are some of the best illusions online. Crazy Almonds You would think that these almond are moving, but these …
• NASA – NASA Mission Returns First Video From Moon’s Far Side–A camera aboard one of NASA’s twin Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) lunar spacecraft has returned its first unique view of the far side of the moon
• 10 Things High School Students Should Never Post on Facebook–Individuals searching for 10 Things High School Students Should Never Post on Facebook found the following resources, articles, links, and information helpful.
• Komando: Don’t let Timeline embarrass you – USATODAY.com–Time’s up. The new Facebook format known as Timeline is now moving from optional to mandatory
• 100+ Wallpaper Collections to Spice Up Your Desktop – How-To Geek–Are you bored with the wallpaper on your desktop PC? In the past we have posted links to over 100 different collections of wallpaper images. Download your favorites and switch them out from time to time to provide some variety
• Free Technology Tutorials » WordPress Termonology: What is a Ping and a Pingback?–Within the WordPress interface, “ping” is sometimes used to refer to Pingbacks and Trackbacks.
• Mobile Apps Review | Just another ERAC Commons Network site–ERAC teacher evaluators have reviewed almost 200 mobile apps focused for education and for various platforms.
• Dropbox offers an additional 5GB of cloud storage to beta users – TechSpot News–For users willing to be guinea pigs, Dropbox is offering an opportunity to score 5GB of free space through the popular cloud storage service. PCWorld is reporting the 5GB is actually in addition to the standard 2GB issued to free

Video/Slideshow

• Creative Commons Kiwi – YouTube

• QR Code Video – YouTube–Justin from the Glogster team shows you how to use the QR code to view your Glog on a phone. This is a really cool feature that is on all printed Glogs

Tagged as: Edtech, Resources, Treasure