Tech Tuesday

Read Central

2012-02-08T08:55:00.002-05:00

I've written about online text repositories before and now I have another to add to the list. Remember, choice is good!Read Central is a free, ad-free, online collection of over 5,000 novels, dramas, poetry, short stories, essays, and non-fiction books. No account is necessary to take advantage of all that Read Central has to offer.Search quickly by author or title. Read Central's Smart Reader

Mobile Graphing Calculator (Free!)

2012-01-26T09:43:00.004-05:00

In my last post, I wrote about a free online graphing calculator from Desmos. However, knowing that many students today have mobile devices, finding a graphing calculator that works on mobile devices was my next charge. Visit the Apple App Store and you'll find a few available, but I was looking for free, and guess what? There's a free graphing calculator app from developer William Jockusch. Pay

Free Graphing Calculator

2012-01-24T13:11:00.004-05:00

Graphing calculators are expensive. On behalf of a math teacher and the students she works with, I've been on the lookout for inexpensive free web-based alternatives. I'll still keep on looking, but an option has indeed presented itself. Desmos.com provides a free, interactive, web-based graphing calculator. The Save and Share feature provides users with a unique web address for sharing their

Election 2012: 270 to Win Interactive Map Resource

2012-01-20T18:00:00.000-05:00

The news is rife with the political goings on of parties and candidates vying for the opportunity to become President of the United States. Welcome to 2012! The process, from declaring intentions to run, to Election night is a very long road indeed. In the end, it boils down to Electoral votes to win. Two-hundred and seventy to be exact.Help your students better understand the Electoral voting

Evernote: Digital Content Management in One Place

2012-01-11T09:10:00.011-05:00

If you're like me, keeping and maintaining content organized can be a challenge. I've used different tools at different times in attempts to address my organizational myopia, but the tools didn't stick for one reason or another. That's all changed. I've been using Evernote (my personal digital assistant) for two months and absolutely love it. Evernote allows users to create individual notes

Markup

2012-01-05T16:46:00.007-05:00

Markup is a handy bookmarklet tool that allows you to draw or write over any web page. Basically it lets you "mark up" a web page you're on without having to capture it first. You can draw lines, arrows, circles, boxes and text. You can resize what you draw or write. Color is an option as well.When you're done marking up the page you can simply click the browser refresh button and the markups

Interactive Keynote Presentations

2012-01-03T11:57:00.005-05:00

As I shared in my previous post about Keynote Tutorials, Keynote is a classroom favorite. The software is a powerful vehicle that has the potential for allowing student to share the depth and breadth of their knowledge on almost any subject or topic. However, the customary use of Keynote is the stand-alone linear slide show for presenting information. This form of content delivery is not terribly

Keynote Tutorials

2011-12-19T13:47:00.004-05:00

Keynote is a favorite of teachers and students alike. It's a great way to collect, house, manage, and present content (text, tables, charts, images, and multi-media). While it's probable that many teachers and student know how to use Keynote with an acceptable degree of confidence, it's probably not safe to assume that everyone does. If you're in the latter group, this post is for you.I've

Memidex

2011-12-13T10:39:00.006-05:00

Memidex is a free, online dictionary. Uh... big whoop. There are a few of those around, right?But wait, Memidex (brought to you by Princeton University) offers a free bookmarklet for your web browser that allows you to get definitions of unfamiliar words while navigating the web.The bright spot in all of this for you and your students? Well, using the Memidex bookmarlet brings dictionary content

Precenden: A Timeline Generator

2011-11-07T20:00:00.000-05:00

Timelines serve as useful tools that provide a structure and a framework for looking at a series of events in relation to one another. Examining them a little closer, timelines allow students to chunk events when exploring decades, centuries, or eras. In doing so students can look for and uncover trends that might otherwise escape notice had information simply been presented in paragraph form. If

Project Gutenberg and Other Text Repositories

2011-11-01T08:50:00.009-04:00

My work involves collaborating with teachers and students as we discover avenues and tools where technology has the potential to uncover the depth and breadth of the teaching and learning spectrum. Our work is a world of discovery; uncovering that which might otherwise lay dormant. Akin to spying through the keyhole of a wardrobe, we begin the task of examining and exploring what it is we don't

Time Calculator: Oh, How the Time Adds Up

2011-10-31T12:20:00.001-04:00

Lately, I've been preparing an online course for middle school students. The first lesson included 5 short video clips for them to watch. One was 2 minutes and 10 seconds. Another was 3 minutes and 53 seconds. A third was 4 minutes and 17 seconds. The fourth was 2 minutes 45 seconds and the last was 1 minute and 34 seconds. Knowing all of the times was all well and good, but I wanted to plan how

Screen Time Equals App Addict?

2011-10-25T08:06:00.007-04:00

The New York Times published an article today about the amount and type of screen time of children under the age of 8. In the article, a report by the American Academy of Pediatrics documents the "app gap" or the disparity between affluent families that can afford mobile educational games and those in low-income families who cannot. Here are some of the other highlights of the story:Parents are

Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2015

2011-10-19T16:04:00.001-04:00

The Beloit Mindset List for the Class of 2015 is out. "Uh Huh," you might be saying to yourself, followed by, "What's the Mindset list?"Well, the Mindset list, started by Tom McBride and Ron Nief of Beloit College, has been issued every September for the past twelve years. The list is a frame of reference belonging to the college graduating class of 2015; basically this year's graduating high

Filter Bubbles

2011-06-25T08:04:00.011-04:00

Eli Pariser, a Maine lad and recent TED Talk guest, is driving home the message of the Filter Bubble. So, what is the Filter Bubble you and why should you care? Well, do yourself a favor and give Eli's TED Talk a hard, close look... Go ahead... then read the remainder of the post below. ... So, now that you've heard Eli's talk, think about your interactions and content management on the web. Do

Teaching and Learning with Technology: Setting Goals

2011-05-31T14:24:00.010-04:00

My goal, as a technology integrator, is to move students, teachers, administrators (yes, and even parents) along a continuum focused on teaching and learning in such a way as to make technology an almost seamless component of the educational experience. Goal setting requires deliberate thought about the journey from Point A to Point B. In terms of the technology integration journey there are all

SuperTeacherTools.com

2011-05-31T09:51:00.004-04:00

It's not very often that one web resource meets many needs. Super Teacher Tools is most assuredly an exception to the rule. At Super Teacher Tools you'll find a number of tools that will help you manage your classroom and others that will engage your students in activities that they'll jump right into! There's so much Super Teacher Tools has to offer, I won't go into too much detail on each in

KenKen Math Puzzles

2011-05-23T13:13:00.009-04:00

KenKen is a math puzzle akin to SuDoku with a twist. Invented by Tetsuya Miyamoto, a Japanese mathematics teacher, KenKen requires players to apply math operations to solve "cages" or squares within what looks like the typical SuDoku puzzle. This article in the New York Times does a good job in describing KenKen from start to finish.I've located three tutorials for KenKen. A text-based tutorial

Timing is Everything

2011-05-16T14:37:00.006-04:00

Well, it's been a while since my last post. That's what happens when graduate class assignments and projects intersect with snow melt and the start of gardening season! In this post I'm going to suggest that now (yes, right now...) is actually a good time to "experiment" with a technology-based project or web-based tool. Why is now a good time? I could be wrong, but I figure by this time you know

Spring Web Cams

2011-04-13T09:59:00.004-04:00

In what way does technology and nature meet? The answer? Web cams. Spring is the perfect time for all of us to check in on the habits and habitat of parents attempting to bring their young into the world.Check out the osprey web cam here: http://www.briloon.org/watching-wildlife/osprey-cam.phpThe eagle cam can be found at: http://www.briloon.org/watching-wildlife/eagle-cam.phpThe peregrine cam

MathsMaster.org: Video Tutorials

2011-04-04T11:16:00.003-04:00

MathsMaster.org serves as another tool for teaching math concepts using well paced, easy to listen to videos. There are five categories to MathsMaster.org. The categories include Number; Algebra; Shape, Space, and Measure; Data Handling and Probability, and finally, Activities. In the Numbers category you'll find video tutorials about addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and

Avoid Being an April Fool

2011-04-01T10:19:00.007-04:00

I recently had a teacher approach me, laptop in hand. There was a problem and the symptoms indicated an approaching hard drive failure. I quickly pulled all of the data off the laptop to an external hard-drive for fear of impending "Data Loss Doom." This story has a happy ending as the teacher acted promptly. A spare laptop was issued with all her data intact. Will you be so lucky?Yesterday,

MLTI: 10 Years Later...

2011-03-29T13:54:00.003-04:00

MLTI is just about ten years old. Take a few minutes to read this article from the Lewiston Sun-Journal recapping the experience with interviews from teachers, students, and those involved in the project from the beginning.

Make Posters with PosteRazor

2011-03-21T12:40:00.002-04:00

PosteRazor is a pretty cool application. After downloading the software (free), users can upload a .jpg or screenshot (other files too) and the PosteRazor software will parce out the image in pieces. These pieces (pages really...) will be enlarged and can be assembled as one large poster once all the pages are printed. The poster can be color, black and white, or gray-scale. I printed my poster

Shorten Web Addresses

2011-03-16T12:42:00.006-04:00

Have you ever tried to have your students navigate to a web address by having them manually type in the URL (Uniform Resource Locator, aka, web address) you wrote on the board? Painful isn't it? The painful part is not you writing on the board, it's the agony of inaccuracy on the part of the students. The process can be long and as I said... painful.There are other ways.URL shorteners are handy,

Daylight Saving Time

2011-03-14T00:01:00.001-04:00

This past weekend we set our clocks ahead one hour for Daylight Saving Time. In the days leading up to Sunday, we've all been cheerfully reminded, to pay attention to this important task like it's some kind of really special privilege that will bring you riches. I don't know about you, but I'm not a fan... and there's absolutely nothing special about it. I've lost an hour and I don't get it back

Pi Day 2011

2011-03-07T00:01:00.003-05:00

How long does it take to recite Pi to 4,000 decimal places? It took a young Chinese student about 25 minutes! But... I'm sure it took much, much longer to memorize them!Monday, March 14th (3.14) is Pi day and now is the time to begin planning activities and finding a round-about way to dovetail this amazing number into your students' day. A quick history of Pi is here. You should know that the

ARKive: A Wildlife Multimedia Resource

2011-02-28T00:01:00.004-05:00

ARKive is a non-profit, whose mission is to promote the public understanding and appreciation of the world's biodiversity, and the need for its conservation, through the power of wildlife imagery. Over 3,500 contributing film-makers, scientists, conservationists, and photographers have pooled their resources in one place to make ARKive the place to visit for locating powerful wildlife

Qwiki Multimedia Presentations

2011-02-17T09:12:00.003-05:00

Qwiki is an ever growing collection of short multimedia presentations that can serve to grab the attention of your students on a broad array of subjects. Each Qwiki is a presentation of images and text in a slide show format. As the Qwiki plays, the text is spoken. Users can start, pause, and start presentations again as desired. Replay is also an option. The combination of these features

Behold: Image Database from Flickr

2011-02-14T00:01:00.002-05:00

We live in a graphic world. Images are everywhere and indeed, they help communicate meaning in many different ways. Today I'd like to share Behold, a search tool for finding images using Flickr.com, the photosharing management database.What separates Behold from other image collections? The most striking is the fact that the images from Behold are of high quality. No more grainy, poor quality

Search Google by Reading Level

2011-02-09T17:34:00.002-05:00

Do you have students who struggle finding appropriately leveled reading content on the internet? Do you have students who want to locate more advanced content? How about the student who wants easy to read content, but not too easy or not too hard? Are all of your students named Goldilocks? No, of course not.To help students with conducting research that is just right for them, consider using the

Knoword for Vocabulary

2011-02-07T19:01:00.007-05:00

I wrote about VocabTest.com last March as a way to creatively involve students in academics while appealing to the game-like structure that engages so many of our students. The past year has shown that VocabTest.com has become a staple in many of the classrooms in my buildings.Another web-based experience for engaging students with language is offered by Knoword.org. Knoword is a timed experience

AlgebraHelp.com

2011-01-31T00:01:00.000-05:00

Math is not one of my strong points. I imagine, for a number of students (pun intended), the same could be said. So, when I come across a good math resource, I'm ready to share!AlgebraHelp.com provides lessons for key algebra topics such as equations, simplifying, and factoring, and more. You can visit all of the lessons here.There is also a collection of online Calculators for students to use.

Wordles and Video: 2011 State of the Union Address

2011-01-26T07:13:00.005-05:00

Generating a jumping off point for classroom discussions regarding current events is often times a challenging task.If you're looking for something to spark a little thought in your students, consider sharing the following word cloud from Wordle of the 2011 Sate of the Union Address.If you really want to challenge your students and have a broad, far reaching discussion, check out this link; a

ifitweremyhome.com

2011-01-25T11:09:00.002-05:00

ifitweremyhome.com allows users to compare standards of living with other countries of the World. The default setting compares the United States to other countries.After selecting a country for comparison, the user is provided with a Google map of the United States. Superimposed over the US map is an overlay of the country under consideration. This feature allows the user to get a relative feel

The Week in Rap

2011-01-24T11:32:00.002-05:00

The Week in Rap is a weekly summary of National and World news in... you guessed it, a rap. The video raps, on average, run under two minutes in length.If you've been viewing CNN Student News (which I wrote about here) with your students, you might want to consider taking a look at The Week in Rap on Friday's when the new weekly rap is ready.It may be interesting to compare and contrast what your

Quizlet: Now with Audio

2011-01-23T00:01:00.001-05:00

Time for a Quizlet update...In November I wrote about Quizlet, the web based tool that allows you, the teacher, to create Flashcards for your students to learn, practice, study, and test with.Well, Quizlet now comes with an audio feature. By clicking the speaker icon for each flash card, the user can listen to the text being spoken. This is a great feature for foreign language teachers or for

Doodle: The Meeting Scheduler

2011-01-21T11:12:00.005-05:00

Ever wish you could poll invitees or guests to coordinate a meeting time? I mean, let's face it, we're all busy and scheduling meetings or events can be wrought with playing phone tag or bouncing e-mails back and forth.Consider using Doodle, the free, no account needed, online polling/scheduling service.Here's how to get started...Go to the Doodle web link: http://doodle.com/Click: Schedule

Dynamic, Interactive Periodic Table of Elements with Ptable

2011-01-20T00:01:00.002-05:00

At Ptable.com you'll find a free, fully functioning, searchable, interactive Periodic Table of Elements all on a single web page. Point and click your way through learning more about each element such as: Physical PropertiesChemical PropertiesHistoryUses and applicationsPrecautionsAnd more!Navigation on Ptable is kept to a single page. Interaction won't create new windows or pages. Download the

Colby at Sea:

2011-01-18T00:01:00.001-05:00

I met Professor Whitney King at a dinner party this fall as he was in the final planning stage of a stint at sea aboard the Melville as part of a cooperative research venture, Colby at Sea, with Colby College, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science, and the National Science Foundation.As I write, the Melville, along with its cadre of scientists and student researchers are bound for Cape Town, South

ScrapBook Plus: Saving and Managing Captures

2011-01-12T14:42:00.012-05:00

Now that you have ScrapBook Plus (SB+) added to your Firefox browser menu, it's time to put it through a few paces. This is kind of a long post, so stick with me!Adding captures can be done two ways. The first method is to use the SB+ pull down menu on the Menu Bar. The second method is to Control-Click anywhere on the screen.Using either of these two methods you will see that you have three

ScrapBook Plus: A Firefox Add-on for Content Management

2011-01-12T09:12:00.016-05:00

One of the benefits of MLTI is the opportunity for students to take the laptop home. A natural benefit of this opportunity is the extension of the school day. An extension of the school day equates to more time on task. That, we hope, translates into the broadening of students' knowledge and expertise (not just increased test scores). Please keep in mind that when I write about the use of the

SnipSnip.it: Video Editing

2011-01-09T08:10:00.008-05:00

In this earlier post, I wrote about TubeChop, an easy to use online tool that makes it possible to clip videos. Having the ability to edit videos is useful when you wish to provide content to students that plays exactly what you want them to see and not the entire clip.SnipSnip.it is easy to use and no account is necessary. Simply paste the URL of the video you wish to clip into the entry box for

SnagFilms

2011-01-07T00:01:00.005-05:00

A colleague arrived at my door earlier this week and asked if I could help solve a problem. It seems that my friend uses the documentary film , Supersize Me," in her classes. Problem is, a number of students she sees have missed the classes when the film was shown and scheduling the kids up to make-up the missed viewings is an issue. What to do? Well, after a little research, I've found the

Wordle: The Study of a Word Cloud

2011-01-05T13:43:00.005-05:00

Wordle, a word cloud generator, is a powerful tool for examining, in a graphic sense, pieces of writing. Political affiliations aside, the content of events like today, (Wednesday, January 5th, 2011), Paul LePage's swearing in as Maine's governor, are worthy of a closer look.I've created my own Wordle of the speech. Think about creating your own Wordle cloud, sharing them with students, and

Time on Task: Digital Resources

2011-01-05T00:01:00.002-05:00

Time on task. Sometimes, that's what teaching and learning boils down to.Now let me ask you this... have you every assigned a medium to long-term project or task that just seemed to drag on and on and on... like forever? Yeah, I thought so.One method of drilling down on the whole time on task thing is to not send your students out on the web to search for "stuff", by the seat of their pants. At

Give Voice

2010-12-31T14:53:00.002-05:00

"For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning." - T.S. Eliot May you continue to "give voice" to the endeavors of teaching and learning; not only on behalf of the students in your charge, but your "self" as well.Best wishes for a happy, healthy, and successful 2011.