Useful links

   by  kathryn.heiser 

5 Popular Tools That You Might Not Realize Work on Android Tablets | Android 4 Schools Richard Byrne has written a very helpful post about tools that would be useful for teachers. “Five of my most frequently recommended tools that will work on Android tablets as well as on Chromebooks, iPads, and in your laptop’s web browser.”

21 Top Presentation Tools for Teachers – More Than A Tech “An annotated list of 21 of the best presentation apps for educators.” There is also a chart “What Works on What Device” that makes some helpful comparisons.

Gamification And Game-Based Learning: Two Different Things – eLearning Industry

The tech divide: An opportunity gap schools must close | The Edvocate “Computer programming is growing at twice the average rate of national job growth according to Code.org. By 2020 there could be nearly a million more IT jobs than U.S. college graduates available to fill them, representing a $500 billion economic opportunity waiting to be realized.

Growing up with access to technology, and the opportunity to learn key IT skills such as coding and app development, gives students a huge economic advantage over their peers.”

How Minecraft could help teach chemistry’s building blocks of life “Minecraft is much more than just a game. Used carefully it can also be a powerful educational tool. It allows young people to create and explore places that are completely inaccessible by other means. Within the blocky world, they can roam around historical sites, delve into the geology beneath their feet or fly through the chambers of a heart, and much more besides.

The rich resources of these virtual worlds, coupled with the educational version of the game, allow teachers to immerse young people in a comfortable but exciting learning environment. “

10 online tools for better student research | The Edvocate “The biggest responsibility of any teacher is to equip students with the tools that they can use in everyday life.

The content is important, but with information so easily accessible, it is ultimately more helpful to them if they have critical thinking, analytic ability, and research skills. You can best serve your students by engaging them in active debate, fun and absorbing problem-solving activities, and relevant research assignments.
High-school students are among the hardest to engage, so you have to approach them in a way they understand. Traditional is out, online is in. Giving them the opportunity to use the tools they are most comfortable with can help them in ways that no amount of lecturing can accomplish.
You can make your students better researchers, and thinkers, with the 10 online tools listed in this post”

Makerspaces on Pinterest | Education, Learning and Librarians Makerspace pinterest board with great resources

A Principal’s Reflections: Free Resources to Support Your Makerspace “makerspaces are being instituted to allow students to tinker, invent, create, and make to learn.  A makerspace can best be defined as a physical place where students can create real-world products/projects using real-world tools in a shared work space. With natural connections and applications to STEAM areas as well as a focus on self-directed, inquiry-based, and hands on learning, it is difficult not to appreciate and admire the positive impact that makerspaces can have on all students.  In times when many schools and districts have cut programs such as wood/metal shop and agriculture, makerspaces provide a 21st Century alternative to meet the learning needs of our most at-risk students. ” There are links to many resources that are available. There arelow cost and free resources.

 Students Can Learn From Their Mistakes If We Let Them – Finding Common Ground – Education Week

“There are many ways to build student engagement in the classroom. What we need to get away from is the adult in the classroom answering their own questions, and fostering an atmosphere where students can rely on each other and work in collaboration. As with anything, this requires balance because we want to make sure the student who doesn’t want to answer questions actually takes the opportunity to do so.
As Hattie says learning is hard work and it offers us challenges. We know that as adults but want to prevent our students from seeing the challenge because it doesn’t always feel good. We need to change our expectations to make sure that students understand they do have to take ownership over their own learning, and not giving them the answers sometimes may be the place to start. “

Mindfulness at School Outside the Classroom | Edutopia “In this post are some popular and effective ways for introducing mindfulness outside of a traditional classroom setting. These settings can complement classroom teaching or be powerful stand-alone activities.”

BreakAppz — Top 5 Literacy Lesson Starters  “These activities and games require minimal resources and are extremely fun and easy to play. The games can be used at the start, middle or end of a lesson. The students will often learn more and be more engaged due to the fun and competitive nature of these literacy activities.”

5 Ways OneNote Helps Make Digital Lesson-Planning Easy | Gaggle Speaks Blog | Tracy Duncan “Whilst the note-taking functionality in OneNote is often discussed by teachers, it is also useful for creating digital lesson plans.”

Explain Everything & Book Creator part 3 “Part 3 of a 4-part series looking at how the popular educational apps Book Creator and Explain Everything can be used together. Other parts include: Part 1: Exporting a PDF from Book Creator to annotate in Explain Everything. Part 2: From Explain Everything to Book Creator to iTunes  Part 4: Hand-drawn animations in Explain Everything – published with Book Creator”

Five reasons to teach robotics in schools  Technology is critical for innovation, yet schools struggle to get students interested in this area. Could teaching robotics change this?

The Queensland government has just announced plans to make teaching robotics compulsory in its new curriculum – aimed at students from prep through to year 10.

ALIA Report: Comparison of Ebooks and Elending in Australian Public Libraries | ebooks in libraries advocacy “ALIA 2014 report – Comparision of Ebooks and Elending in Australian Public Libraries 2013 v 2014. Approximately one third of the 1500 public libraries in Western Australia responded to the survey.”

Ebook Usage in U.S. School (K-12) Libraries: 2015 Report | School Library Journal

P-Day 2015 | Blogush Interesting ideas. P-Day = Passion Day. Kids research and follow through on a passion that they have.

How Do Schools Get Tech R.I.G.H.T.? – Angela Maiers – Linkis.com

Social Media in Schools Good disciussion of the topic. “In the past the school buildings were the hub of the community where everyone came to see and share what their children were doing. Today many families have someone working 24/7, some parents are out of town and other may do shift work starting at 4 pm. The makeup of families is changing as well and some kids have two families and homes they belong to. Communication can be a challenge.

A new stage emerges which is Social Media. Parents no longer pack parking lots, but they pack Facebook. They tweet. They share pics on Instagram. They look at them. Parents congregate and share online to see what is happening. The research shows that parent involvement can make as much of a difference as 3/4 to a full grade point of a child’s GPA. That’s a letter grade. We need to involve parents and we need a new stage. Social media gives us a large stage where people from around the world can mix, mingle, and find their clique.”

New study reveals large gaps in opportunity in Australia’s education system | Mitchell Institute “A major national data study, released 26/10/2015), shows large opportunity gaps in Australia’s education system with around 1 in 4 young people missing out at key educational milestones. While some catch up at the next milestone, up to ten per cent of all Australian students miss out on every milestone – from school entry right through to young adulthood.

This is the stark reality presented in Educational Opportunity in Australia 2015 which uses national data to reveal how well Australia’s education system is serving young people at four key milestones: school entry, Year 7, school completion measured at age 19, and early adulthood measured at age 24.”

As abuse culture escalates, what ethical framework governs the digital age? – The Minefield – ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) “The spotlight has been turned on the technology industry as stories of toxic work environments emerge and user frustration with online abuse builds. The Minefield (Waleed Aly, Scott Stephens, Alister Cameron) considers whether this is an inevitable part of digital disruption—and whether we should opt out altogether.”

How digital gives literacy a boost | The Edvocate

Versus / and / or: The relationship between information literacy and digital literacy | ACRLog A good discussion trying to understand the different but related terms and what they mean to education

Evaluate Information – How to Research – LibGuides at Red Deer College “This guide focuses on how to evaluate your sources, especially web sites.”

An Easy Yet Powerful Method for Differentiating Instruction – Blogging Through the Fourth Dimension
`

Advertisement

Useful links

  by  shareski 

;

• Cite a Book in APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA, or Vancouver style – Cite This For Me A simple-to-use online citation tool.

• A Must See Interactive Graphic on Teaching Students about Copyright ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning This post looks at how you could use “this wonderful resource from Cyberbee. This is basically an interactive image which includes important information in the form of answers to questions students might raise when discussing the topic of copyright. To start using this resource all you need to do is to hover your pointer over a student to read the question then click on that student to read the answer.” Offers a guide to questions the students might answer before (as a test of what they know) and after or as they go through the information.

• Google PageRank: What Do We Know About It? | Smashing Magazine Google PageRank is the status of a site that is rated to 10. The higher the number, the higher the probability to be seen in the top of Search engines. Basically the high PR site ranks top in search engine finds. “PageRank is only one of numerous methods Google uses to determine a page’s relevance or importance. Google is also concerned with the authority of a website”

• Formative Assessment Infographic | WJU EdTech A formative assessment infographic to show ideas for assessment with and without the aide of technology.

• Let the Students Set the Rules | An Ethical Island Spend time the first class creating rules with the class. It starts the students thinking , bonding, and taking responsibility for their own education. The infographic here gives you a good framework

• http://www.knowledgeworks.org/sites/default/files/A-Glimpse-into-the-Future-of-Learning-Infographic_0.pdf Infographic that attempts to visualise the future of learning

• Learn Best Practices For Pinterest Account Management [Infographic & Insights] How to make the best use (and get the most from) Pinterest

• WordPress Infographic 2013 – A Visual Representation of Matt’s “State of the Word” | Elegant Themes Blog Wordpress is a wellknown and well used platform. This a run-down of its 2013 standing in the online world

Useful Links

• 14 Books To Read Before They Hit The Big Screen | Ocean 98.5 A list of some interesting books that are having movie versions made of them. They are recommended “Because 99% of the time, the books are better than the movies. Some of these film adaptations, though, look really promising”

• 7 Ways Teachers Use Social Media in the Classroom Some simple ideas that could be adapted for many classrooms

• 10 Specific Examples Of Emerging Educational Technologies The piece uses the 2013 Horizon Report as the basis for the discussion. There are many example given to illustrate how the technologies are already being used – across a variety of subject areas.

• Twitter For Learning: 7 Ideas For Using Hashtags In The Classroom Some good ideas on how to make good classroom use of Twitter by using the hashtag option.

• Rubrics for Teachers | www.rubrics4teachers.com Rubrics4Teachers is good especially if starting out on rubrics. It has a lot of free content with a focus is on already created rubrics, not make-your-own. It offers a lot of pre-made rubrics covering a variety of subjects that are available for use. You can search by subject matter or by term.

Useful links

  by  Colette Cassinelli 

• No! You Can’t Just Take It! | Langwitches Blog A great post by Silvia Tolisano (@langwitches) about her frustration with teachers who are not taking responsibility and modelling good digital citizenship to their students nor playing fair with colleagues who share . We all need to be taking care to live by the creed of good digital citizenship as well as teach it to our students.

• Typography/Calligraphy A Pinterest board devoted to the above.It offers many interesting alphabets and letters.

• Forms and Things to Help You | Blogging Through the Fourth Dimension Post from “Blogging the fourth dimension” by teacher Pernille Ripp. Gives links to many useful forms for teachers to facilitate the use of technology with students. Templates include: questionnaires, permission forms, preparation sheets, outlines, reflection, self-assessment, guideline contracts.

• Interesting Forms to Help you Use Technology in Teaching ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning Links to many useful forms for teachers to facilitate the use of technology with students. Templates include: questionnaires, permission forms, preparation sheets, outlines, reflection, self-assessment, guideline contracts. From Ed Tech & Mobile Learning

• Listly List – List of Free eBooks Website #ipad #android #books #free #mac #windows #kindle #ebooks #pc #download #freebooksfreedownload A long list of places on the Internet from where you can download free (and legal) eBooks. If we are aiming to have improved access, with everyone knowing and understanding how to access and find what they want to read, then we are opening up a new world for some an and using technology to create better readers. This is in a listly from Fasal Khan.

• What the Future of Learning Might Look Like | MindShift “Education and learning could look radically different in the next few years. The education foundation KnowledgeWorks has released a forecast on the future of learning, focusing on ways that technology and new teaching strategies are shaking up traditional models. Check out this snapshot of an infographic the organization created to depict a learning ecosystem that includes whole communities in education.”

• 8 Ways The Librarian Of The Future Will Keep Themselves Busy

  Post that contains an infographic that tries to explain what the librarian of the (near) future might be doing.

• The 10-Minute Guide To Bloom’s Taxonomy | Edudemic

• The 8 Digital Skills Students Need for The Future ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning A post that tries to make sense of data from PEW survey about learning and the skills our current students might need.

• Listly List – Infographics, Charting and Mapping Tools & Apps #stats #statistics #graphics #infographics #infographic #graphs #in #imagesinformation #datavisualization #maps #bigdata #mapping #charts #charting #datamapping Over 60 and growing – Listing Tools, Applications, Inspiration, Visualisation and Data Sources for making Infographics. Ideas, Software, Design, PSD.

• Internet Safety Cheat Sheet For Digital Media Use In Schools The infographic offers advice about how to set filters, etc on a variety of social media tools

• Flavorwire’s Ultimate Literary Calendar: A Bookish Event for Every Day of the Year – Flavorwire “A literary calendar, complete with a literary event for every day”

• Art Apps for Every Age | On Sarah’s iPad A post offering advice about the many painting and drawing Apps available for iPads and iPhones, “It is a must to have at least one of these on your device as they can be used in so many ways.  The trick is working out which to get.  Some are free, some are paid, some have very basic features and some have lots of bells and whistles.  In addition to some great apps for children, there are a couple of great Art Apps for the more serious artist.

• Why Stephen King Spends ‘Months and Even Years’ Writing Opening Sentences – Joe Fassler – The Atlantic An interest article detailing the thoughts of prolific writer Stephen King. “A book won’t stand or fall on the very first line of prose — the story has got to be there, and that’s the real work. And yet a really good first line can do so much to establish that crucial sense of voice — it’s the first thing that acquaints you, that makes you eager, that starts to enlist you for the long haul”It is especially true in YA literature. You need to hook the reader early if they are to continue to read the book.

• What Students Need to Know about Copyright ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning. A great slide show that explains the concept of copyright in such a very easy and understandable style. Offers a great way for students to learn about the concept.

• 4 Important Graphics on Blended Learning for Teachers ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning. A post that links to a set of interesting graphics offer a great visual way to understand everything about blended learning

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

Useful Links – Weekly

• It Will Be Awesome if They Don’t Screw it Up: 3D Printing | Public Knowledge An article that looks at the intellectual property implications of 3D printing (written with quite some detail).

• My Top 10 Web Curation Tools as A Teacher ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning A good list of some curation web tools that are easy to use and that versions that can be used with most computers

• 16 e-textbook providers: Who’s publishing and who’s selling? | Education Dive “16 names in e-textbooks that you should know about, as well as what each of them are doing to set themselves apart in a competitive new area of education:”

• Ebook Friendly – ebooks made simple and cool  “The Ebook Friendly is a site for e-book geeks. You can find here simple tips and fun stuff about ebooks, digital publishing and the future of books!”

• Guest post: Steve Saville of Alfriston College, Auckland, on comics in the classroom | Books and Adventures  “Post by Steve Saville, deputy principal at Alfriston College in South Auckland. For four years, Steve has championed the use of comics in the classroom through a series of innovative workshops which have allowed students to develop and publish their own high quality comic books. In the first of a two-part guest post, Steve tells the story of Alfriston’s unique comic book education project.”

• Learning Ratings | Common Sense Media Ratings are given for a variety of digital media products based on core academic content. There is an assessment of the learning potential. Alternative games and sites that achieve the same goals as the product being reviewed as also given.

• The Difference Between Content Curation and Link Spraying | Social Media Today

• Caitlin Barry: Educators, Please Stop Confusing Media Literacy with Ed Tech

• Great Critical Thinking Map for your Classroom ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning “You ask any teacher today about the skills they want their students to develop and you will get critical thinking skills as an obvious answer; of course together with other skills. With the advance of technology and the educational paradigmatic shift that ensued , critical thinking skills have occupied a central part in the literature of teaching and learning pedagogy, not that these skills were not important before but I would say they came to the foreground now more than in any time before”

• A Bill of Rights and Principles for Learning in the Digital Age The broad aim is to inspire an open, learner-centered dialogue around the rights, responsibilities, and possibilities for education in the globally-connected world of the present and beyond

• 11 Facebook Updates to Privacy and Timeline You Should Know | Social Media Today  “It’s common for Facebook to undergo drastic (or silent) changes whether the users like it or not. The real question is, how ready are you when Facebook is determined to ‘make the world more open and connected’? Have you made full use of the privacy and account settings to your advantage? Also, if you’ve been observant enough you should’ve discovered several improvements on the existing features to make them more visible and user friendly. Why not give this list a run-through and see if you missed any.”

• A Must Have Check List Poster for Innovative Teachers ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

• Maybe ‘What do you want your students to do?’ is the wrong question | Dangerously Irrelevant  “Laptops. iPads (or other tablet devices). Chromebooks. Maybe even netbooks or ultrabooks… As more schools and districts move toward 1:1 computing, one of the most common questions is ‘What device should we get for our students?’ The typical response is another question: ‘Well, what do you want your students to do?’ I wonder, though, if that’s the wrong question…”

• How Teachers are Using Tumblr in the Classroom | Emerging Education Technology Some of the different ways teachers are using tumblr in their classrooms

• 10 Secrets To Unlocking The Learning Potential Of The iPad The ideas and concepts apply to tablets (or mobile devices) not just the ipad

• ML: Macaulay Library The Mcaulay Library is the world’s largest and oldest scientific archive of biodiversity audio and video recordings

• Library Services in the Digital Age | Pew Internet Libraries

• ‘Bill of Rights’ Seeks to Protect Students’ Interests as Online Learning Expands – Technology – The Chronicle of Higher Education “12 educators, many of them well known in online-education circles, did manage to draft a document that they hope will serve as a philosophical framework for protecting the interests of students as online education. Called “A Bill of Rights and Principles for Learning in the Digital Age,” the document proposes a set of “inalienable rights” that the authors say students and their advocates should demand from institutions and companies that offer online courses and technology tools.”

• 26 Latest Photoshop Tutorials 2013 | Tutorials | Graphic Design Junction Jan 2013 Photoshop Tutorials. These tutorials are created by Photoshop experts. The article gathers professional Photoshop tutorials that may enhance designing skills and improve the quality of digital works.

• The Ultimate List of Pinterest Tips – Blogging with Amy  A good number of tips. Areas covered: Pinterest Basics; How to Use Pinterest to Drive Traffic; How to Add the “Pin It” Button to Posts; Pinterest Copyright Issues; Further Reading

• How to Track Traffic From Pinterest in Google Analytics How many referrals does Pinterest generate? How many people use the “pin it” button on a site? Which pictures on a site are the most pinned and repinned? Here are four ways to measure Pinterest using Google Analytics.

• New Pew Internet & American Life Project Report Looks at Younger Americans’ Reading and Library Habits | LJ INFOdocket A new report (Oct 2012) from Pew Internet focusing on the reading habits and public library habits of younger Americans’ (ages 16-29) is now available online.

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