This Prezi wasn’t designed by me, but I thought it was a fantastic way to showcase the type of presentation capabilities that Prezi is capable of. Beth Arledge is the original author and has done a fantastic job of showing some of the functionality of this new and exciting presentation tool. Prezi offers free and paid accounts as well as educator accounts. Get one and move away from the Powerpoint.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Popularity: 5% [?]
Here’s a great video to help start your week.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Edublogs is a wonderful blogging platform, based on the WordPress system, but is set up for teachers and schools to blog safely with others in Education. It is also free for a basic account. They also offer a paid Pro and Campus account as well. This week Edublogs announced that they are supporting three new plugins for their platform to those paying subscribers who have the Pro or Campus accounts. The three updates are;
1. PayPal Plugin – This plugin allows you to collect donations and payments right inside of your blog. Payments for field trips, materials, clubs and more are now easy to manage – and are available in over 100 currencies and countries
2. Calendar Plugin – It is now easier than ever to keep everyone up to date and informed by using this new powerful plugin. It is easy to manage events, assignments, birthdays, or exams right from inside your blog’s dashboard.
3. Facebook Like Plugin – This plugin will place a “like” button at the top or bottom of your posts. Since many of your students or blog readers are probably on Facebook, this helps build community and interaction on your blog.
Edublogs have recently upgraded these Pro accounts with 10Gig storage. It’s a growing platform that has morphed through some good changes over the years. It’s stable and consistent, and for an educator who is toying with the idea of a blog, either for themselves or their class, look at what this platform can offer. At about $3.35 per month, with no ads and up to 50 individual blogs, it’s well worth considering.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Application: ViewPure
This is probably the most down to earth website I have seen. It’s very similar to It’s so basic in it’s presentation but so profoundly simply. And I’d say that’s exactly what the creators of ViewPure want you to recognise. The premise of their site is to take YouTube videos and strip away all the other ‘nonsense’ that you don’t need when watching a tube video in class. There are no coments, no embedding or sharing options, no related videos – just the video you want.
There are three unique features to this site;
1. You copy the Youtube url or ID and paste it into their prompt, press create and you get access to the video.
2. Clicking the ‘Options’ button on the left allows you to tweak a few things. You can create your own url at pureview.com, a password to protect the link, whether you want it wide screen or standard 4:3, a white or black background, and as a final option, you can specify a particular time within the original clip for the video to start.
3. The third feature is an ability to drag the button up into your bookmark bar (or right click and favourite it in IE) so that whenever you are on a YouTube page you can immediately strip the video of all unnecessary elements.
Here’s an example of a video as presented through ViewPure of my kids using a FlipCamera.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Thanks to the resources of the Web2.0 search engine somebody, who seems to have a lot of time on their hands (of which I am not complaining of) has compiled 1001 social media resources. Listed here on the EduDemic website, these are broken down into categories, and one of the features includes the ability to see similar products;
What follows is a huge and long list organized by subject. You’ll likely want to scroll or hit CTRL+F to find what you’re looking for. For example, you can hit CTRL+F and type ‘Pandora’ to see all the other competing companies that are like Pandora, but a bit different. Enjoy!
As I wrote, all the applications and sources are broken down into categories. The categories include;
As I noted, there are heaps of categories, some of which I had never heard of. You can imagine the list that these categories provide. Have fun searching, finding and using products for your teaching and learning. Again, here’s the link.
Popularity: 8% [?]
Application: Tradukka
The web can be an amazing place for the classroom. Nowdays we can bring a shuttle launch into our room, play it again and discuss. We can, with a few clicks, find real time weather from around the globe. We can now start to do things today that would have taken much more effort and difficulty than in previous years. No matter what the classroom or the lesson there seems to be always a tool from the internet that can be used.
For LOTE or ESL teachers Tradukka can prove indispensable. An online, realtime translator that automatically detects the language you type in and translates to any other given language. Google has a similar tool, but Tradukka is an accessible and almost full screen tool.
You can email or hyperlink your results so that you can keep a record of the session. I would like to see a version or a fix where the resultant translation is spoken out loud. I’m not an ESL teacher, but would find a spoke feature a nice little app to have.
Popularity: 9% [?]
Tim Holt has put together a page of Education widgets that you can quickly and easily embed on your website or blog page. Tim is taking further input on widgets people would like to share. You can contact him via his email address which is located down towards the bottom of the page. Currently listed are;
Popularity: 5% [?]
Application: Some Lemonade
For many people, the internet does not just revolve around Facebook, or Twitter, or Tumbler, or Youtube. In fact, many internet users have accounts at all these applications and more. Some Lemonade exists to simplify the feed that comes in from these accounts. Some Lemonade allows you to ‘filter’ the feeds that you wish to view. Starting with your Twitter sign in, options continue to exist for other application sign ups.
One thing I was particularly impressed with was that the links to pictures and videos that are shortened in the Twitter updates are shown in full blown colour and size.
No doubt applications like this will continue to be launched, and Some Lemonade has shown a cool and refreshing way to update, favourite and read your feeds and accounts.
Popularity: 19% [?]
Resource:
Story Line Online
StoryLine Online is just as its name suggests. It is a site that has a list of stories that are read and seen through the video link. The stories are read by members of the Screen Actors Guild Foundation. It seems that as of March 2009 there haven’t been any updates to the site, however the list of books available are as follows;
To Be a Drum, by Evelyn Coleman; read by James Earl Jones
Guji Guji, by Chih Yuan Chen; read by Robert Guillaume
Sebastian’s Roller Skates, by Joan De Deu Prats; read by Caitlin Wachs
Sophie’s Masterpiece, by Eileen Spinelli; read by CCH Pounder
Stellaluna, by Janell Cannon; read by Pamela Reed
Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, by Mem Fox; read by Bradley Whitford
No Mirrors in My Nana’s House, by Ysaye M. Barnwell; read by Tia and Tamera Mowry
The Night I Followed the Dog, by Nina Laden; read by Amanda Bynes
Thank you, Mr. Falker, by Patricia Polacco; read by Jane Kaczmarek
My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother, by Patricia Polacco; read by Melissa Gilbert
Knots on a Counting Rope, by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault; read by Bonnie Bartlett and William Daniels
Brave Irene, by William Steig; read by Al Gore
A Bad Case of Stripes, by David Shannon; read by Sean Astin
Private I. Guana, by Nina Laden; read by Esai Morales
Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch, by Eileen Spinelli; read by Hector Elizondo
The Polar Express, by Chris Van Allsburg; read by Lou Diamond Phillips
Me and My Cat, by Satoshi Kitamura; read by Elijah Wood
Dad, Are You the Tooth Fairy, by Jason Alexander; read by Jason Alexander
When Pigasso Met Mootisse, by Nina Laden; read by Eric Close
White Socks Only, by Evelyn Coleman; read by Amber Rose Tamblyn
Romeow and Drooliet, by Nina Laden; read by Haylie Duff
Enemy Pie, by Derek Munson; read by Camryn Manheim
The books come with a choice of related activities. You can view them online or download the activity pdf for each book. This would certainly appear a tremendous resources for the primary age kids, and any timesavers that teachers can find they should avail themselves of.
Site – www.storylineonline.net
Popularity: 46% [?]
