Useful links – some of the January ones

• How to Make Unique, Inexpensive Book Displays in Your Library | eHow.com The ‘eHow’ website offers a lot of ideas and advice. Here Virginia Allain gives lots of catch phrases and great ideas for creating library displays for every month of the year. It is an American site so the themes are sometimes out of kilter with Australian seasons here.

• Libraries Should Own the Future-Here’s How They Can | Cities on GOOD Libraries Should Own the Future—Here’s How They Can – Goodreads & Meetup, coffeeshops & bookstores and CSAs

• Educational Technology and Mobile Learning: youtube tools There is a whole section to how teachers and educators can best leverage the power of this video platform in education.

• The Best YouTube Tools and Tips for Teachers ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning Tricks and resources for teachers

• Five Custom Searches You Should Enable In Your Browser Right Now Custom search engines are one of the better features of the modern browser. With just a few keystrokes, you can search Wikipedia right from the address bar or do a custom Google search

• Breaking Research: Most Apps Bad – EdTech Researcher – Education Week  Article that evaluates 137 recently published “educational literacy” apps, websites, and e-books. Considers most of them as very basic. Good read for those who might be thinking about creating their own (and help them avoid the pitfalls)

• How to Raise Boys That Read (As Much as Girls Do): Not With Gross-Out Books and Video Game Bribes – WSJ.com Thomas Spence writes on The Wall Street Journal Taste page about the reading gap between boys and girls, but says that the current recipe, which involves giving boys ‘gross-out’ books about bodily functions, will not work, while taking away video games will certainly help.

• Future of Impacts: ‘How to’ guide to social media, podcasting, blogging and writing your REF impact case study | Impact of Social Sciences

• The Innovative Educator: Top 5 most popular technology solutions in 2013 Five solutions that should become reality but probably will be on the 2014 list

• Do We Still Need Libraries? | John Palfrey A post that dicusses one of the New York Times Room for Debate series: The future of libraries. The debaters include Luis Herrera, director of the San Francisco Public Library: Susan Crawford, visiting professor at Harvard Law School; Buffy J. Hamilton, a school librarian at Creekview High School in Canton, Georgia; and Berkman fellow Matthew Battles. All four of their essays are excellent. And each of them answers the “debate” question in the affirmative: yes, we do still need libraries.

• How To Know If You’re Correctly Integrating Technology – Edudemic  The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for K-12 students. The TIM incorporates five interdependent characteristics of meaningful learning environments: active, collaborative, constructive, authentic, and goal directed. The TIM also associates five levels of technology integration (i.e., entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and transformation) with each of the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments. Together, the five levels of technology integration and the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments create a matrix of 25 cells.

• The 17 Best Twitter Hashtags for Education (2012 ) ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

• A Simple Guide To 4 Complex Learning Theories – Edudemic ”This helpful infographic does a solid job of breaking down the basics of learning theories in a visual and understandable format.” tag

• Six Traits for Identifying Complex Texts > Eye On Education The Common Core State Standards for Reading call upon students in grades K-12 to read and comprehend complex literary and information texts independently and proficiently. But before students can learn how to tackle complex texts, teachers must be able to identify texts that meet this challenge. In Big Skills for the Common Core: Literary Strategies for the 6-12 Classroom Amy Benjamin and Michael Hugelmeyer outline six traits that can be used to identify complex texts and the difference between informational texts and literary nonfiction.

• Copyright & Schools: photocopy, scan, screen or broadcast copyright resources in classrooms – simple advice for teachers  “One-stop-shop with guidance for teachers copying and using books, magazines, newspapers, music, film & TV in classrooms – from the CLA, ERA, NLA, CCLI, PPL, PRS, MPLC, PVS”

• Now you can download your Twitter archive – Technology on NBCNews.com  If you can’t remember what you tweeted 2 hours or 2 years ago now you can access them. Twitter has introduced a feature that lets you download your Twitter archive.You will get all your tweets — including retweets — going back to whenever you started using Twitter.

• Pitfalls of Using Wikipedia for Academic Research ”Wikipedia may be easy and fast, but its not a reliable source for academic research for a multitude of reasonsstarting with the fact that its intended to be used as an encyclopedia, not an academic resource.”

• 6 Great Videos on Teaching Critical Thinking ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning  “Critical thinking is a skill that we can teach to our students through exercise and practice. It is particularly a skill that contains a plethora of other skills inside it. Critical thinking in its basic definition refers”  to a diverse range of intellectual skills and activities concerned with evaluating information as well as evaluating our thought in a disciplined way “. All of our students think in a way or another but the question  is , do they really think critically ? are they able to evaluate the information they come across ? are they capable of going beyond the surface thinking layer ? Can they make connections between what they learn and the outer world? Can they question the status quo of their knowledge ?”

• Free Technology for Teachers: Crash Course – The Great Gatsby  The video (part 1) by John Green who has started a new Crash Course series on English Literature.  ”These videos won’t replace actually reading and discussing the works with teachers, but they can provide students with some help in understanding the major plot lines of The Great Gatsby.”

• Educational Technology Buzzwords A interesting interpretation of where we are heading with the current technology available to us.

• The Readventurer – Home A blog by 2 avid readers about reading and encouraging reading

• mind blown by searching google and evernote at the same time | Brad Kozlek

• 10 New Educational Web Tools for Teachers ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

• The “Cheap and Cheerful” Librarian, Melissa Techman, Shares Tips on Pinterest – The Digital Shift libraries

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Useful links (Weekly)

  by  gcouros 

• Canada | BiS A number of Canadian public libraries are pioneering a new service delivery model, which emphasizes collaborative service development and delivery, with library staff and the communities the library serves. Through this community-led service framework, library staff work with communities to understand their needs and deliver services that meet those needs, often devoting significant time outside the library walls. This article highlights two Canadian urban libraries which have embraced the community-led service approach, in order to remain relevant in our ever-changing environment.

• Mobile Apps: Implications for Libraries « Dysart & Jones From the NYPL’s “Engaging Communitities, Promoting Learning” conferenceon the current state of mobile, and encouraged them to consider the implications for libraries.

• On Pinterest | What I Learned Today… Blog post from @nengard. Pinterest (& other social media tools) & fair use. Pinterest does one thing and does that one thing very well – it’s an image sharing/bookmarking tool.

• ALA President Molly Raphael releases report on e-book talks with e-book distributors | American Libraries Magazine A report, released by American Library Association (ALA) President Molly Raphael, regarding meetings with e-book distributors during the Public Library Association (PLA) Conference, March 13 – 17.

• What Should I Read Next? Book recommendations from readers like you A tool to assist with find something you might like to read based on another book you have enjoyed. Not fool-proof but offers a starting point. Easy to use: “Enter a book you like and the site will analyse our huge database of real readers’ favorite books to provide book recommendations and suggestions for what to read next.”

• APA Referencing Style Guide (6th edition) The University of Waikato Library’s APA reference style online guide 6th edition 2012. Includes up-to-date reference guides for images and figures

• Thanks to Amazon, Android Could Overtake iPad by 2016 | Gadget Lab | Wired.com Cheap Android tablets, namely from Amazon, could boost Android tablet sales numbers past the current dominating force known as the iPad, according to research firm IDC.

• Academic Literacy Academic Literacy is a resource site for Bachelor of Education students at the University of New England.

• Beginner’s Guide to Transliteracy « Libraries and Transliteracy

• 20 Ways Libraries Are Using Pinterest Right Now | Edudemic Good article with lots of great ideas/suggestions for using Pinterest

• Education Cartoons | Randy Glasbergen – Today’s Cartoon Cartoons About Education Topics by Randy Glasbergen.

• Survive and Thrive! An Advocacy Toolkit for School Librarians ”In order to better communicate to our community members what “21st century skills” are all about, we created a brand or “taglines” for the 21st century skills of the Colorado Academic Standards. On this site, you will find message templates (sample e-mails, letters, newsletter blurbs, brochures, and even videos) containing these taglines and targeting specific stakeholder audiences in order to promote school librarians as 21st century skills experts.”

• numberphile’s Channel – YouTube Numberphile is n interesting YouTube channel about fun number facts. There are currently thirty-three videos in the Numberphile collection. The videos cover things like 998,001 and its Mysterious Recurring Decimals, Pi and Bouncing Balls, and 1 and Prime Numbers.

• The Innovative Educator: Top 10 Technology Blogs for Education

• Kindle Authors Who Lend Books In Library See 26% Higher Sales – eBookNewser

• 20 free tools to evaluate social media | Articles Article by By Dirk Singer about free tools that are not for measurement, but instead evaluation. They will give you some form of meaningful data to use in reports

• Education Nation 2011: 7 Tips For Using Social Media in Your Classroom A post discussing how teachers can use social media (eg. social networks and microblogging platforms.) to meet students on their own turf and provide an engaging avenue to learning. Several lesson ideas are explored.

• At One School, iPods Help Improve Reading Scores — THE Journal ”After noticing an uptick in ELL and other students with below average reading scores at his school, Skip Johnson, principal at El Crystal Elementary in San Bruno, CA, created a forward-thinking reading program pairing iPods and print books that has helped to successfully boost reading comprehension scores among non proficient readers”

• How To Cite A Tweet In Academic Papers | Edudemic Post on edudemic about citing a tweet woith comments: “The Modern Language Association (MLA, yes that MLA format) just released its official usage for citing tweets in academic papers.”

• How Are Wikis Really Being Used in the K-12 Classroom? ”Social media usage at the K-12 level has exploded over recent years, with some 40% of teachers saying they use blogs or wikis in the classroom. But what does wiki usage in the K-12 classroom really look like? How are teachers and students using them? And are these online learning opportunities equitably distributed across different socioeconomic populations?”

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Useful links (Weekly)

  by  shareski 

• Storyboarding Nice and simple, visual tool to help junoir grades create storyboards

• Tony Vincent’s Learning in Hand – Blog – Guide to Using Free Apps to Support Higher Order Thinking Skills Links to the apps used in the activities published an eBook titled Hot Apps 4 HOTS: A Guide to Using Free Apps to Support Higher Order Thinking Skills by Lisa Johnson and Yolanda Barker. The book includes nine step-by-step activities that focus on each level of Bloom’s taxonomy and includes loads of links to further resources.

• qwips.com (beta) An easy-to-use, free tool. Go to the main page and sign in using your Facebook or Twitter account. Once logged in you can click on record and start talking . You have up to 30 seconds of recording length so you may need to prepare a script. When your audio message is ready Qwips generates a URL for you so that you can use to share your messages. You can embed it on your blog or share it with others via email. You can also use your audio message as an image caption.

• Tony Vincent’s Learning in Hand – Blog – Ways to Evaluate Educational Apps

• Moving at the Speed of Creativity – Technology Today Enhanced ePub eBook Post about using eBook Creator” on an iPad2 to create an eBook, and shared via Dropbox and a free Posterous blog

• Pottermore and OverDrive reach exclusive distribution agreement Post from No Shelf Required – Overdrive has entered into an exclusive worldwide distribution agreement with Pottermore.

• 10 Graphic Novels for the Literary Minded | LitReactor A post that offers “10 graphic novels for the literary minded, broken down by genre to give you a fighting chance at picking something you might enjoy. The usual suspects avoided – Maus, Watchmen, and the like, which are both excellent of course, but have also been recommended a million times before – in favor of some more recent offerings that you may or may not have heard about.”

• iPad As…. The apps organised in this post by what you want your students to do. A good list with results and advice in tabular format.

• UsefulCharts.com | Cool Charts & Timelines Offers a lot interesting charts as well as timelines about science, history, psychology, social studies and more. Could be usefull for lesson plans, study help, or quick reference.

• Wiki Summarizer . Wiki Summarizer is a site that allows you to search Wikipedia, have articles summarized by key points, and provides lists of articles that are related to your original search. Recently, Wiki Summarizer got a few nice upgrades that should prove to be useful. In an effort to make Wiki Summarizer more visually appealing and easier to navigate, Wiki Summarizer offers expandable webs of related articles. For example, I searched for “German Shepherd” and a web of related terms was created. Clicking on the “+” symbol next to each term opens a new element of the web. All parts of the web link to Wikipedia articles.

• Gooru Gooru is a new service (still carrying the Alpha label) that aims to provide teachers and students with an extensive collection of videos, interactive displays, documents, diagrams, and quizzes for learning about topics in math and science. As a Gooru member you have access to hundreds of resources according to subject areas such as chemistry, biology, ecology, algebra, calculus, and more. Within each subject area you can look for resources according to media type such as video, interactive display, slides, text, and lesson plans. When you find resources that you want to use, drag them to the resources folder within your account. Gooru also offers you the option to add resources to your folders even if you did not find them within Gooru.

• FreeFoto.com – Free Pictures – FreeFoto.com This is a collection of images developed by Ian Britton. FreeFoto offers a mix images that are available for free and for a licensing fee. Students can use the images on FreeFoto for free provided that they adhere to the student use guidelines. Visitors to FreeFoto can search for images by keyword or they can browse the galleries. The galleries are arranged by the locations of where the images were captured, by natural subject (sunsets, seasons), and many other subjects.

• usnationalarchives’s Channel – YouTube The U.S. National Archives YouTube channel offers a somewhat eclectic group of videos that include everything from old propaganda films like this one (also embedded below) to lectures from historians to short lessons about items in the National Archives.

• Kwiqpoll – Simple Web Polls This is a simple tool for quickly creating and posting polls. Go to the site, type a question and then type your answer choices. The poll you created can stay online for up to seven days. Kwiqpoll assigns a unique url to each of the polls created so you send that url to the students that you want to participate.

• Australian Curriculum Inquiry Sequence

• How Teachers Actually Feel About Education Technology [Infographic] | Edudemic ”This infographic shows some interesting stats, courtesy of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation via Socrato.The graphs show that the vast majority of teachers (US) agree that technology helps in the learning process. The teachers they polled even agree that ANY multimedia can help in the process of learning. That includes magazines and newspapers.”

• Flamingnet Teen Book Reviews When you read a really great book, don’t you want to make sure everyone knows about it? That’s how Seth Cassel felt. That’s why he started FLAMINGNET, a site where teens can tell other teens what they think about the books they read. .

• How to Remove Your Google Search History Before Google’s New Privacy Policy Takes Effect | Electronic Frontier Foundation On March 1st, Google will implement its new, unified privacy policy, which will affect data Google has collected on you prior to March 1st as well as data it collects on you in the future.  If you want to keep Google from combining your Web History with the data they have gathered about you in their other products, such as YouTube or Google Plus, you may want to remove all items from your Web History and stop your Web History from being recorded in the future. It is important to note that disabling Web History in your Google account will not prevent Google from gathering and storing this information and using it for internal purposes. More information at the end of this post.

• Adobe – tutorial : Edit storyboard style Excerpted from “Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 for Windows: Visual QuickPro Guide” by Antony Bolante. Before shooting any footage, filmmakers usually create a storyboard—a series of sketches that depicts each shot in the finished program. Planning each shot in a storyboard can save you enormous amounts of time, money, and energy in production. In postproduction, you can use a similar storyboarding technique to plan a rough cut and instantly assemble it into a sequence, again saving time and energy.

• Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling This site was created by the University of Huston. This website includes many ideas and practices, including tutorials, story boarding tips, and examples of stories, for educational and personal use of digital storytelling. It incorporates technology and other formats with storytelling.

• Top 100 Learning Game Resources | Upside Learning Blog Some useful links to the use of games in schools/education

• 10 Jaw-Droppingly Awesome Infographics on Education | Socrato Learning Analytics Blog A nice collection collection of infographics based around education

• ALA Presidential Task Force: Focus on School Libraries 2012 |

• Koalas to the Max dot Com

• Getting ready for iPad deployment: ten things I’d wish I’d known about last year « Darren Coxon This article draws on the experience one school had in implementing an iPad – 1 to 1 scheme When making the move towards using the mobile devices in the classroom, there were a number of practical considerations to bear in mind. They made some mistakes but learnt from them. The experience is shared in the hope that other schools can learn from both what has worked, and what hasn’t.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Technology and Students – Infographic

I love the great infographics that are being produced. This is another one that I thought I could use to begin a discussion with the students at my school. Many of our boys relate to visual stimuli and I think they would respond well to this one. I am trying to get them to think about how they learn and study best so this is quite timely.

This infographic is from a post entitled “Using Twitter Improves Students’ Grades, And Other Surprising Tech Usage Facts” written by Alyson Shontell on Aug. 10, 2011, in Business Insider

 

Via: OnlineEducation.net

Are We Wired For Mobile Learning?

I found this infographic on the VoxyBlog. It offers some interesting observations and the blog even goes so far as to offer a way to use it in a classroom setting. 

I don’t like the term “digital native” because I believe these labels are a bit of a catch-all. [The same way I dislike the use of terms such as "babyboomers", "gen-Y", etc, to clump all sorts of people into oversimplified groups  rather than making allowances for the huge variety of people in society, all different stages and levels. These terms get bandied about too much, especially in the mainstream media.] I do think that in all other respects this infographic is an interesting visualisation tool that could be used to start discussions about learning and education.

I think it would also be interesting to use it in a staff meeting. We need to look at what we are doing, figure out learning is important and then look at how we are going to assist with this learning. The tools we use should suit the tas but the wealth of technologies out there today offer us so many options to make learning interesting and more authentic as well as catering for different skills.

I spent the first part of today working with year 7 students in the classroom where they had a variety of tasks and a variety of technologies/tools that could be used to complete them. The students were all very motivated, came up with interesting final pieces and were keen to share their ideas and products.

The first class today was run in a classroom where a week ago, after classes had finished for the day, I changed the seating arrangement to facilitate group work the next morning. When I arrived there the next morning I found that another teacher had noticed the arrangement and, to help me out, had put it all back into rows. She was trying to be helpful but why is something different automatically considered ”wrong”. This is just a little thing that the class rectified quite quickly but the principle.

If we are not ready to try  a different approach to learning and students we may find schools becoming irrelevant to the students of today and in the future. 

Via: Voxy Blog