Here is the new edition of Treasure Chest, lots of “stuff” I’ve found this week concerning EdTech resources. If you’re like a lot of us, it might have been hard to keep up with everything due to the Thanksgiving holidays! In addition, check out my new post this week–The Complete Dropbox for Educators. If you are interested in looking at previous Treasure Chests, simply search for Treasure Chest in the Site Search widget in the sidebar. Have fun surfing!
Featured
- If we were really serious about educational technology | Dangerously Irrelevant–A Must Read! Add to the list! If we were really serious about educational technology, we would… [here are 10 to get you started]
- Megan Allen: Teachers Must be Part of the Conversation on Education Policy–No matter how the reshuffled Congress shapes what the new version of the No Child Left Behind Act looks like, we already know who it will be implemented by: Teachers. So shouldn't we be part of the national policy conversation?
- Teach An Elderly Person How To Email, Browse The Web & More With Eldy–The Eldy Association is an Italian non-profit organization looking to make it easier for new computer users to learn about email, browsing the web and more.
- 8 Ways Technology Is Improving Education–Technology’s role in schools has evolved from a contained computer class into a tool that’s changing how we demonstrate concepts, assign projects and assess progress
- How to Add Classic Style Retweets to New Twitter – How-To Geek ETC–The New Twitter web site is more like a web application than a site, and there’s only one thing missing—the ability to do the old-style quote retweets. Here’s the easy way to do it.
- Schools are churning out the unemployable – Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Learning–I realised that, for all the talk of encouraging entrepreneurial attitudes in schools and giving more choice to students, too many schools still hadn’t understood what’s actually required to do this successfully, in a way that benefits society later.
- Disservice to Pre-service Teaching–I recently read in the Washington Post that the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education issued a report recommending that students preparing for a career in teaching should spend less time in course work and more time in real classrooms for clinical practice.
- Education Needs Reflective Educators–In blogging for education reform, Greta Sandler and I have collaborated together on an initiative we believe represents what education needs, bloggers for education!
Twitter in 60 Seconds
Tools
- Tech Ease–Provide Answers to Tech Questions Easily from Web20Classroom describes this great site for instant tech support!
- 5 Unique Uses for Bit.ly Bundles–Bit.ly recently launched a new service called bit.ly bundles, allowing you to share a collection of shortened links using one bit.ly link.
- Google Docs Gets Drag-and-Drop Uploads–Google just announced it’s extending the drag-and-drop functionality in its online office suite, Google Docs.
- Flash Free: Aviary Hatches A Lightweight HTML5 Photo Editor For The Web–Aviary is very good at what they do. That is, offering relatively powerful tools for amateur artists to edit content online. But all of those tools are Flash-based. And some of Aviary’s partners didn’t like that too much, feeling they were too cumbersome. And some users were interested in the tools, but also wanted something more lightweight. So Aviary went to work, and came up with a new editor built entirely with HTML5.
- Teaching Programming for Kids with C-Jump, Alice, Kids Corner–Teaching children programming softwares makes the kid to promote concentration and logical reasoning. Start teaching the basics or first step in programming for your kids.
- Skype Video Recording Plugins & How to Record Skype Video Calls–Learn how to record Skype video calls and make your own skype video call recordings. Here’s a list of Skype plugins/extras to record skype video chat calls.
- 35+ Free online Image and Photo Editing Tools @ Techie Blogger–35+ Online image editing tools helps to resize and crop images online for free. Online image or photo editors will help to create special effects in your photos with ready made templates.
- Hate PowerPoint? Here Are 5 Web-based Alternatives–Whether they’re for clients, customers or colleagues, visual presentations are an unavoidable part of doing business. For years, Microsoft PowerPoint has been the standard bearer of slide presentation …
Games
- Games at PrimaryGames | Free Online Kids Games | The Fun Place to Learn!–Play free online games for kids on PrimaryGames. Site features learning games, action games, puzzles, card games, virtual worlds, coloring pages, and more!
- Free Educational Science Games – SimpleK12–Are you looking for fun, yet educational, online science games for your students to play to reinforce important curriculum concepts? Here’s a list of websites that you will find free educational science games! If you aren’t a science teacher… please share with the teacher next door who is. I promise…they will thank you for it.
iPad, iPhone, etc
- Best iPad Photo Editing/Painting Applications – Portable Devices–Best iPad Photo Editing/Painting Applications, Portable Devices, Handhelds, palmtops, cellphones, PDAs, pocket organizers, and all those other devices that make computing part of your lifestyle..
- How To Watch Almost Any Type of Video On Your iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch–We recently covered the launch of the iOS version of VLC Media Player making life much easier for Apple users who don’t want to have to convert videos to watch them on their iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.
Miscellaneous
- Wikimedia Commons–a database of 7,791,390 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute.
- 10 Awesome Free Documentaries That You Can Watch Online–Do you love documentaries? Do you love watching them for free? Well, you’re in the right place.
- Dr. Seuss | Seussville.com–Official site of Dr. Seuss and the Cat in the Hat featuring games, printable activities, the complete illustrated character guide, information about creator Theodor Geisel and his books for kids, parent and teacher resources, and a photo gallery of his artwork.
- Free Technology for Teachers: Three Ways to Cut, Mix, & Mash YouTube Videos–Sometimes you only need to show a part of a video to illustrate a point. Other times it could be useful to string together a series of videos. The following tools can be used to cut, mix, and mash-up YouTube clips.
- Mary Fran’s Google Sites Tutorial–A tutorial on the features of a Google Site.
- Educational Technology Guy: Science NetLinks – great science resource for teachers–Science NetLinks is a great resource for science teachers (and any other teacher looking for science information and resources). They have resources for grades K-12. Resources include lesson plans, online resources, lesson tools, and more. It is all free!
- 10 Educational Uses of a Flip HD | DigMo!–There is nothing more motivating (and exciting) as digital creativity in the classroom. I personally think you would be hard pushed to find a teacher who doesn’t love offering their pupils digital creativity opportunities yet we all face the age old problem of having little TIME to learn new technologies and even less time to freely experiment in class.
- TED Talks Demystified for Teachers | The History Teacher’s Attic–The title of this post is not meant as an insult! It’s just that so many of us (educators) are clearly impressed with the brilliance exhibited in the TED Talks, but have trouble sorting through all of the material to discover something appropriate for our disciplines.
- WordPress.org: Possibly the best web building tool around | Technology Teacher–I chose WordPress.org for many reasons, but the three main reasons were (1) ease of use, (2) plugins, and (3) it is free
- 10 Ways to Download Wikipedia for Offline Browsing | Binary Head–List of 10 software program, tools and hacks that allow you to access Wikipedia Encyclopedia Offline on PC and Mobiles without being connected to internet. Downloaded Wikipedia dumps can be burnt into DVD or can be carried in flash or USB drive for offline reading.
Video
Brighton Grammar School – iPad App Building Project
Related articles
- Tech-Ed 2010 – Download the presentation videos free (downes.ca)
- 22 Minutes With EdTech Pros (freetech4teachers.com)
- Learning Today Chosen as 2010 Award of Excellence Winner by Tech & Learning Magazine (prweb.com)
- What Would You Do With $2,000 for EdTech Purchases? (freetech4teachers.com)
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