Udemy

Udemy is a new free platform for teaching courses online. Anyone can sign-up for Udemy and start creating courses in minutes. Udemy offers a variety of tools for delivering content online. Course creators can publish slideshows, publish videos, and create mash-ups of slideshows and videos synched together. Course creators can also hold live online sessions through Udemy's virtual classroom platform. Watch the video below to get a sample of how Udemy works. http://www.udemy.com/ You probably will receive an error message if you use Internet Explorer. Try a different browser.

What 2 Learn Games

Use your own content to create a game. Choose from different game templates. Play on the web or embed in your blog or wiki.


http://www.what2learn.com/

StoryJumper

Show the world that you're an author. Share stories online for free.
This site offers a great way for students of all ages to create online stories. They can explain a science experiment, recreate the important events in a novel, display dialog between two figures from history, tell how to solve a math problem, or describe something in a foreign language. Don't miss this one. Very easy to use and fun. www.storyjumper.com If you find it a bit hard to operate try using a Firefox or Google Chrome browser - they both work better here at school for this site.

Popular Science Archives

Popular Science Magazine has partnered with Google to offer the entire 137-year archive for free browsing. Each issue appears just as it did at its original time of publication, complete with period advertisements. It's an amazing resource that beautifully encapsulates the ongoing fascination with the future, and science and technology's incredible potential to improve our lives.
In the future, Popular Science will be adding more advanced features for searching and browsing, but for now, visit the link below and enjoy.

I can image using this in any curriculum area. English teachers can have student write about how ideas of a given topic has changed over time. See how art and music has been affected by technology and science trends. Look for new ideas in Math and space travel.
http://www.popsci.com/archives

SCAN - For higher order thinking skills.

You Don’t Have To Be An Einstein! Give your brain-power a major boost with SCAN, a set of super-simple, user-friendly online tools designed to help you think better, faster. Who wouldn’t want a piece of that? Watch this short video for more information.

This great tool is FREE to teacher until June 30. Don't miss your opportunity to get your students discussing the issues in a logical and powerful way. Just point your browser at: http://www.yourtake.org/ Sign up for a FREE account at: http://www.yourtake.org/subscribe

Lie to Your Student Part 2

I AM A LIAR!

A while back I posted about why you might consider telling lies to your students. My friend and fellow coach, Jason Heiser has a blog devoted to this. A very interesting idea to promote critical thinking. Want some tips? Click on the above link to visit his blog. You can check out Jason's latest posts on the bottom left of this page. "I AM A LIAR"

Education and Technology

This is not one of my typical posts which include general resources for your use. Instead I will get up on my soapbox for a minute and share some information from a National Survey. This is an except from e-School News.

In a national survey that reveals K-12 students’ use of technology at home and at school, students overwhelmingly agreed that access to digital media tools and the ability to collaborate with peers both inside and outside of school can greatly enhance education.

“Students, regardless of community demographics, socio-economic backgrounds, gender, and grade, tell us year after year that the lack of sophisticated use of emerging technology tools in school is, in fact, holding back their education—and in many ways disengages them from learning,” the report says.

Interested in reading more? Create a free account at http://www.eschoolnews.com/2010/03/16/digital-access-collaboration-a-must-for-students/?
Sign in and read the entire article.

Google Docs.

For those of you using Google Docs. there have been some improvements. Check out some of the latest here. One BIG catch. - Uploading to Google Docs., one of my favorite features, will not work under our network constraints. The option of uploading a document at home up to 1GB is outstanding. You can then share with anyone with a free Google Account as well as being able to access it from any computer with Internet Access.
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Upload any file
Over the next couple of weeks, we’re rolling out the ability to upload, store, and share any file in Google Docs. Your files will be stored in their original format and downloadable from anywhere. Uploading files to the cloud allows them to be safely stored and accessible at all times.

Shared folders
Now you can simultaneously share a group of docs with your friends, coworkers, or family, by sharing an entire folder with them.

Bulk upload
Upload multiple files quickly to your Docs list.

Drawings improvements
Choose 'Insert Drawing' in any document, spreadsheet, or presentation to check out these new features.

Snap to guides
Snap to guides helps you easily align objects with the drawings canvas and other objects.

Polylines
Create continuous lines or even enclosed custom filled shapes composed of multiple segments. You can close shapes, fill them, and even move around points on a line by double-clicking the line.

Draw multiple lines
It's now easier to quickly draw a sequence of related lines. Now when you finish drawing a line, arrow, or scribble, you stay in line drawing mode so you can start a new line immediately.

Senduit

Did you ever want to send a file to a co-worker that was too large for e-mail? Have your students created a file too large to e-mail to you? Here is a free and secure online site which allows you to upload and send files up to 100mb in size. http://www.senduit.com/

Poll Anywhere.

I'm not sure how you feel about having your students use cell phones in school but this sure is an interesting concept. Before using this I suggest you check with your building administration. Also it might be wise to inform parents about the project.

Ask your audience a question.
They answer using SMS text messages, Twitter, or the web.
See real-time results in your web browser or PowerPoint right on your projected screen.

http://www.polleverywhere.com/

PosteRazor

PosteRazor is a free software that easily helps you make your own posters at home. All that you need is an idea, the PosteRazor freeware and a standard color printer. PosteRazor is open source and a really small download at 484KB. You will need your credentials to override the block.

This is one of the best solutions to the problem of creating large size digital posters. Imagine assigning to your class a project which includes mapping the important developments in a novel. Your students could create a digital image using PowerPoint - saving it as a .JPeg image, dropping that JPeg into PosteRazor and print out large size poster to share in class. A great application for Spirit Week. If you wish to use at school it does require a download so contact me or the IT department. Here is the link: http://posterazor.com/

NEO K12

Neo K12 is an outstanding online collection of educational videos, lessons and games for students in grades k-12. Neo K12 believes that “kids learn best by ’seeing’ the real world.” They have created this site with that belief in mind. Neo K12 has cataloged the best free online educational videos from the Internet in one place. Each video is watched and reviewed by k-12 educators to ensure their accuracy and appropriateness for students. Subjects include physical science, life science, human body, earth and space, social studies, math, English (including phonics, stories, and grammar), and fun videos such as time lapse, slow motion, arts and crafts, learn magic, music lessons, and sports lessons. In addition to videos, Neo K12 has Web 2.0 tools. The School Presentation tool is a mashup of Flickr and Wikipedia, and allows users to create and share presentations online. To create a presentation, students choose pictures for their presentation from Flickr, read and article about the subject from Wikipedia, and then add text to their presentation. When the presentation is finished, it can be printed or viewed online as a slideshow. Quizzes, games, and puzzles on Neo K12 are an interactive way to improve learning. Teachers can create and share videos playlists complete with notes and instructions for their students. Many of the videos are linked from YouTube. You may need to unblock YouTube using your credentials prior to accessing some of the videos. Here's the link: http://www.neok12.com/

Prezi - Taking PowerPoint to the next degree.

Easy to use and free. Great tool for you or your student to create presentation. Check out the video and the site and sign up for a free account: http://prezi.com Make sure you sign up for the expanded student teacher version. You will get more storage and watermarks will be removed.

Lie to Your Students!

That's right. Lie to your students. Here is how it works. Take one minute in the beginning of class to tell your students that you will lie to them today. It is their job to find the lie and report it to the entire class during the next scheduled class. During the next class give students an opportunity (2 minutes) to report what the lie was and provide the accurate information. You may use your creative ability to come up with some rewards system to compensate the student(s) for finding and reporting on the lie. This can be used in any subject area with any group of students. Not only does this provide an opportunity for students to research beyond the classroom setting it serves as a good review of the previous day's lesson.

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Special thanks to Jason Heiser for this great idea.

Thinkfinity.org

This site has it all. Lesson plans, interactives, other resources all tied to the state standards. If you are looking for something to jazz up a lesson this is a great place to start. http://thinkfinity.org/home.aspx