Useful links

  by  crystal.eisenhauer 

• 20 Google Docs Secrets for busy teachers and students. – Edgalaxy 20 great tips every teacher and student should be using to get the most of the collaborative learning opportunities Google Doc’s offers.
• 24 Digital Tools That Represent New Ways To Study
• Wartime Snapshots ”Wartime snapshots are background information guides with teaching activities on topics of Australia’s wartime history.  The wartime snapshots relate to posters developed by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and distributed for Anzac Day, Remembrance Day or to mark special commemorative anniversaries.  These guides containing background information, resources, website links and teaching activities and are suitable for teachers to use to introduce or explore a theme, or encourage discussion around an image.”
• cooltoolsforschools » home A great wiki site to find good resources
• Top scientists agree climate has changed for good – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) ABC article: “The nation’s top climate scientists and science bodies have for the first time endorsed a major report that says Australia’s climate has shifted permanently in some cases.”
• How 7 Education Technology Platforms Have Changed How We Learn
• Metropolitan Library System eMedia on Vimeo
• Ken Robinson on Passion on Vimeo In this video from The School of Life, Robinson articulates the ethos at the heart of The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything and echoes, with his signature blend of wit and wisdom, many of the insights in this indispensable collection of advice on how to find your purpose and do what you love.
• Social Media in Education: Pros and Cons – EdTechReview  Social media is being widely used to support learning. It offers new opportunities to share knowledge and experiences in fun and exciting ways. Good post and great infographic.
• How To Cite Social Media: MLA & APA Formats | TeachBytes Now you can officially cite social media sources in MLA and APA formats.
• Why (Not How) We Should Use iPads In Education | Edudemic  You can also insert the term “Tablet” for iPad: the questions and arguments for thinking about the task before the technologies are still very valid and worth considering.
• 6 Time-Saving Writing Apps For Students | Edudemic Some options for organizing your writing and writing on the go with different apps and web tools.
• 9 Steps to Create A Classroom Poster Using Google Docs ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning  ”Google Docs has a drawing canvas that is really excellent for creating posters for your classroom and here is a step by step guide on how to do it”.
• Educational Technology and Mobile Learning: writing tools  Links to posters on writing.
• 22 Ways to Apply Blooms Taxonomy to Twitter ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning ” A good graphic from Teachbytes”
• Designing Libraries – Planning school libraries  Collection of articles that discuss the important considerations for designing the learning environment for modern, 21st Century school libraries.
• 10 Techy Icebreakers for The 21st Century Teacher ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning Several lists of digital tools you can use for these activities. Icebreakers are ” discussion questions or activities used to help participants relax and ease into a group meeting or learning situation” (Dover, 2004). Icebreakers are very important in the learning-teaching process that takes place within the classroom. They can help in creating and maintaining a healthy and successful learning environment for students and are also the best warm-ups to get students engaged in a learning task.”
• Barcode Feature & Bibliophiles | Free | AppCrawlr: Search Engine for Apps
• Apps similiar to Kobo – 1 million FREE Books – Read eBooks! » alternative recomendations » for iphone,ipad  Book apps
• Cool Cat Teacher Blog: 89 cool apps, sites, and tools for teaching  A lot of those mentioned are for Apple products but some android devices too.

Useful links

  by  edtechworkshop 

• Google Educast | EdReach The Google Educast, hosted by the Google Certified Teachers, features a weekly roundup of the newest Ed tools from Google, highlighting best practices using Google tools, and further highlighting the impact that these tools have on the classroom, schools, and school districts.tools
• mikefisher821′s LiveBinder Shelf A lot of good livebinders on many 2.0 topics for schools/education
• The Teens Are All Right: 2011′s Top 5 YA Novels : NPR
• Australian political cartooning – a rich tradition – australia.gov.au “Australia has a strong and vibrant history of political cartooning. Since the 1830s, when political cartoons were first featured in Australian newspapers, they have provided satirical, witty or humorous comment on political and public affairs, social customs, fashions, sports events and personalities.”
• Surfboard // Experience The Web In A Flippable Newspaper-Like Format Surfboard is a neat little service that displays any website in a flippable newspaper-like display. To use Surfboard all you have to do is enter the url of your favorite website and click “get surfing.”
• Motivating Boy Writers: A Multi-Genre Approach | NWP Digital Is
• Hubii Hubii is a new website featuring a map of newspapers from around the world. Visitors can locate online newspapers by clicking on the placemarks on the map. Registered users can subscribe to the online editions of the newspapers they find. When you subscribe (it’s free) to a newspaper in Hubii it is added to your Hubii Mapazine in which you can read the newspapers to which you are subscribed.
• Nobel Prize website-All Educational Productions The site has an educational games site designed to help students learn about subjects in the areas of Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, Peace, and Economics. In all there are twenty-nine interactive games for students to play. Each of the science-related games and the economics game is based upon the research of Nobel Prize winners. The literature and peace games are based upon concepts central to the work of Nobel Prize winners in those fields.
• Download free textbooks online Bookboon is a free service offering free full-length textbooks, travel guides, and business books in digital form. The textbook section of Bookboon offers more than 500 digital textbooks. On Bookboon there are etextbooks available for twenty-five subjects, but the bulk of the etextbooks are focused on Economics, Engineering, and IT.
• Rubrics for Assessment A collection of rubrics for assessing portfolios, cooperative learning, research process/ report, PowerPoint, podcast, oral presentation, web page, blog, wiki, and other web 2.0 projects.
• How Video Games Helped My Kids Get Along | Common Sense Media
• For Libraries and Publishers, an E-Book Tug of War – NYTimes.com

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

Useful links

  by  ecastro 

• How I Went From Writing 2,000 Words a Day to 10,000 Words a Day A post by author Rachel Aaron (latest book: The Spirit War (Eli novel #4)) She wrote about her methodology to keep up her writing output (and staying focussed).

• - 25 Free Resources from Discovery Education Discovery Education is a great resource for educators, with assessment tools, streaming videos, TechBooks (online, interactive “textbooks”) and much more.

• Lilydale Connected Library#History A great collection of websites for Australian History

• Learning at their fingertips – Opinion – Editorial – General – The Canberra Times Digital technology is revolutionising the classroom and schools are scrambling to keep up.

• Five Forms of Filtering « Innovation Leadership Network Why is filtering important? Understanding the variety of filters available explains why there are often arguments about the discrimination process, and over what role a particular filter plays. If someone writes about filtering, and they mean ‘algorithmic filtering’, a reader thinking of filtering in terms of ‘network filtering’ is likely to misunderstand the discussion.

• Digital Citizenship Resources – LiveBinder This binder is an attempt to collect and organize Digital Citizenship resources by age (grade level). Often when we think of Digital Citizenship, we only think about the safety aspects of it but being a digital citizen is much more than just being safe.

• A Guide to Ebook Purchasing | American Libraries Magazine An interesting article by Sue Polanka in the magazine of the American Library Association.

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

Useful Links (Weekly)

 
  by  Jeannine St. Amand 

• The Anatomy Of An Infographic: 5 Steps To Create A Powerful Visual | SpyreStudios A good post about infographics. Information is very powerful but can also be presented in a way that is bland and unimaginative. Infographics impart information in a visually pleasing and sometimes a more understandable manner, making it more powerful. Inforgraphics have now permeated all aspects of the modern information world.  

• 45+ Free Online Tools To Create Charts, Diagrams And Flowcharts | Free and Useful Online Resources for Designers and Developers A guide to online tools for helping with data visualization    

• Create unique websites without writing code | Muse (code name) This is an impressive free tool for developing unique websites. It’s quite intuitive to use with a very logical workflow and drag and drop design features. Great for developing your own unique site     

• Bundlr – Bundle and share web content easily A very handy tool for collecting together web content for study or presentations. Create collections of the best media you find on the web and share them with everyone.    

• 30+ Cool Content Curation Tools for Personal & Professional Use ”The need to find relevant content that is specific to our unique interests and perspectives has given rise to a new generation of tools that aim to help individuals and companies curate content from the web and deliver it in a meaningful way. These new tools range from simple, application-specific types such as social media aggregators and discovery engines, to more complex, full-blown publishing solutions for organizations.”   

• Knoword | Expand your vocabulary! Knoword is a game of quick thinking, smart decisions and great words. It focuses on teaching and advocating proper spelling habits, as well as good observational, analytical and typing skills. It is fast-paced and addictive gameplay with a competitive and comprehensive player ranking system    

• Essential synopsis-writing and querying tips from 20 amazing Australian authors: Part 2 of 4 | Zena Shapter   

• Essential synopsis-writing and querying tips from 20 amazing Australian authors: Part 4 of 4 | Zena Shapter   

• Essential synopsis-writing and querying tips from 20 amazing Australian authors: Part 3 of 4 | Zena Shapter   

• calibre – E-book management This is a free and open source e-book library management application developed by users of e-books for users of e-books. Manage your ebook library. You can search and download the metadata and cover for books. You can customized the fields in the database. Callibre creates and stores copies of the ebooks in its own directory sturcture so that you don’t have to worry about storing them.     

• Online Free Flash Pageflipper PageFlipFlap (a flipbook where you can flip the page instead of scrolling down) lets you use this sleek format by helping you convert any Word orPDF document and even images into a flip book. All you need to do is upload the documents or images and provide an email address when you want to receive the link to your flip book.   

• Atlas – Mapping for Online Publishers A simple and free mapping tool. Find a location, add info to create a customized dynamic map, get the code and embed it. (This tool uses Google maps)  

• The Writing Assignment Framework and Overview – National Writing Project   

• iCharts – Sign In / Sign Up Page  

• Learn to Type | Free Typing Tutor | Typing Lessons A tools that improves skills by allowing user to practice typing, play games, and have fun whilst learning. 

• Home – Gymnasium for Brain The site offers brain teasers and challenging math problems. Great for using when we teach about problem solving skills. Includes puzzles, math problems, pattern exercises, and more. The goal is to activate higher level thinking and have fun learning.    

• Examining Teachers’ Beliefs About ICT in Education  A study of teachers beliefs about ICt. The survey is described and the method could be used/adapted by others interested in such information. 

• Powerful Images to Give Lessons Punch | The Whiteboard Blog A post detailing some sites to find great images. The blog itself is mainly about interactive whiteboards and how they can be used effectively in education but there is also discussion of other technologies that impact on education   

• To Ban or Not to Ban: Schools Weigh Cell Phone Policies | MindShift   

• High Tech Schools: 7 Innovative Ways Teachers Are Using Tech In The Classroom Schools are experimenting with devices, such as iPads and digital whiteboards, even as the debate about the role of technology in the classroom continues   

• Google Image Chart Creator: Create and Embed a Variety of Graphs and Charts Charts and graphs allow us to conveniently represent data in a manner that effectively communicates its meaning. Microsoft Excel is widely used to create such graphs. But when you need an embeddable chart, you need to turn to online applications that let you create your desired graph and then generate its embeddable code.   

• Digital Citizenship Resources A good LiveBinder by VisionsByVicky “This binder is an attempt to collect and organize Digital Citizenship resources by age (grade level). Often when we think of Digital Citizenship, we only think about the safety aspects of it but being a digital citizen is much more than just being safe. The nine elements of Digital Citizenship as outlined in the book Digital Citizenship in Schools by Mike Ribble and Gerald Bailey   

• 10 Technologies in Online Learning | Inside Online Learning    

• Highly Effective School Library Programs: Power Libraries for All The Power Libraries Program is a statewide program designed to help administrators and staff develop highly effective school library programs that will result in higher student achievement. Site offers information, resources, school list and forms.  

• Power libraries for all – Home – Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog  

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

Philip Pullman – Tips on writing

The Guardian(UK) ran an article, to celebrate the launch of the Guardian children’s books website, on Philip Pullman. It contained a series of questions put to Philip by young readers and his answers. There were some great questions put to Philip and asked in a way that only young people can/do. Questions began with some about his latest book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ?, went on to His Dark Materials trilogy and  I Was a Rat!. They asked about his own reading habits and reading in general and for some insight into his writing.  His answers were considered and thoughtful. It is an interesting article for all Pullman readers and for writers as well.

The last question (and answer) was one I shall be highlighting to some aspiring writers in my school.

What are your tips for aspiring novelists?

There are several things I think it’s important for an aspiring writer to know. When I was young I read all kinds of that sort of advice, and I thought it was all rubbish. Later on I found out for myself how important a few things are, and I’ll tell you three of them here.

• One: work every day. Get into the habit of it. Work when you don’t feel like it, when you’ve just broken up with your girlfriend or boyfriend, when you’re feeling ill, when you’ve got homework to do. Put your work first. Habit is your greatest ally. Get into the habit of writing when you’re young and it’ll stay with you. Sixteen is a very good age to start.
• Two: find out what way of working (place, time, writing instrument, desk light, and so on) suits you, and insist that you get it.
• Three: don’t listen to anyone who tells you you should study what the public wants, and give it to them. They don’t know what they want, or they’d be writing it themselves. It’s not their job to tell you what to write. It’s your job to write something they could never have thought of, and then offer it to them. Good luck!