The web’s best interactive math and science tutorials, ready when you are!
Created by an expert tutor and a designer, Virtual Nerd gives students a new option to turn to when they need help. For a fraction of the cost of private tutoring, students gain access to hundreds of interactive step-by-step video tutorials that match up with the practice problems in their textbook. Virtual Nerd’s patent-pending e-Learning system anticipates students’ questions, so they can easily drill down to related tutorials if they get confused. The innovative design makes it easy for students to stay focused. Plus, unique reporting features mean parents and teachers can stay involved with students’ progress.
It’s impossible to be available to every student, every time he or she needs help. That’s why we built Virtual Nerd! We use our patent-pending e-learning platform to provide anytime, anywhere access to online tutorials.
We’re focused on helping students. But we have a lot to offer educators as well, starting with free access to our entire library of tutorials!
Cleck it out: http://www.virtualnerd.com/
Simple telephone reminders: Wakerupper is the web’s easiest telephone reminder tool. Schedule reminder calls on the web. It couldn’t be simpler. Use Wakerupper to…
Set a wake-up call at a specific time
Remind yourself of important events
Remember to take medication on time
Escape from a boring date or meeting
Remind child or spouse to do chores
Set reminders for tasks and follow-ups
Students at Florida’s Clearwater High School are using Kindle e-readers instead of textbooks this year as part of a new initiative. The students will have access to all of their texts on the district-owned Kindles, as well as additional features that allow them to take notes and highlight text as well as access word definitions and text-to-speech technology. The school opted for e-readers over laptops because of the lower cost, which is roughly equal to the price of two textbooks, the principal said.
Read the full story, T.H.E. Journal (9/2)
A Florida school is using text messaging as part of classroom instruction. Jill Lloyd, who teaches 11th- and 12th-grade science, is using a free online program to survey students and project a live feed of the discussion on a screen in the front of the class. Students share phones with others who do not have them, and say they enjoy using the technology. “It gets the whole class to participate,” one student said.
Read the full story, WFTS-TV (Tampa, Fla.)
Check out these elementary kids podcasting. Pretty cool! Do you know of other, add them to Comments.
Bethke Elementary in Timnath, Colorado:
http://www.bethkeelementary.com/kbob-studios.html
Podcasting 10 year olds:
http://www.schooltechnology.org/2010/04/22/podcasting-10-year-olds/
Podcasting Students: The Lazy Way:
http://www.schooltechnology.org/2010/04/23/podcasting-students-the-lazy-way/
Karen’s Mashups-Show 4-Elementary Student Productions:
http://www.k12handhelds.com/mashups/?p=17
Jamestown Elementary:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jamestown-elementary/id81520874
West Salem Elementary Cardinal Casts
http://www.salem.k12.va.us/west/podcasts/index.htm
Be a part of the excitement!
Saturday, October 2, 2010
The 2nd annual ASSET Educator Institute… EXPERIENCE PBS for PreK, K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12 Educators and early childhood care providers! 4 Strands… LITERACY… SOCIAL STUDIES… STEM… ARTS… NATIONALLY recognized programming… NATIONALLY researched resources… LOCALLY aligned/standards-based resources. SPACE is LIMITED! TEAMS of staffs encouraged to attend. Professional development hours provided for participation.
Pages Templates… The laconic and clean-cut Pages Templates 5.2 extends the fourth version’s tradition by offering a comprehensive collection of documents for business and personal use that focus heavily on design quality. Like its predecessor, Pages Templates 5.2 fuses an up-to-date print style with bold lettering, contrasting colors, and tasteful minimalism. But it’s just a bit lighter and fresher…and half of its contents is completely, absolutely new.
Pages Templates 5.2 includes 105 complete templates: 50 from the previous version and 50 brand-new additions. The kit offers a variety of documents, from brochures and photo albums to posters and invitations. Most of the templates include up to 10 different sections, so the package provides an extensive array of 360 layouts to meet your most exclusive needs. Each layout, from the plain refinement of text-only pages to the bold mix of pictures and slogans among the advertisement and photo album templates, features prime design quality which is set apart by attention to detail, high usability, and abundant creativity.
Most of the 105 templates are available in both paper size A4, the standard prevalent in most countries in the world, and US Letter, the most common paper format in the US and Canada. Besides, users of the previous version will notice improved functionality and a significantly boosted level of intuitiveness, which will make every document appreciably easier to adjust according to individualized needs.
What is ThinkTutorial?
Think Tutorial is a database of simple, easy to follow tutorials covering all aspects of popular computing. Technology is fantastic, but it can be difficult to keep up with at times. Think Tutorial’s strength resides in its very intuitive approach and design. Every inch of web estate is used wisely keeping everything simple and organized.
Why free?
Free, easy, straight-to-the-point stuff? That’s what people want!
We posted about 130 tutorials a month for the past three months. There is currently 384 tutorials available and there are currently 65 users browsing our tutorials right now.
Our objective is to keep listening to your needs and provide you with the highest quality of tutorials. Our weekly schedule includes minor UI changes, and continuous updates of tutorials.
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The Pump Challenge
How much did Americans pay for a gallon of gas at the pump in 1920? How much money would that be in 2005 dollars, and 2010?.
Time saving tip: Formulate a search query before starting the timer. Time to beat 10 minutes!
After speaking at the annual TED conference in Long Beach, California, twelve-year-old teacher, speaker, and author Adora Svitak wanted to bring a TED-like experience home to Redmond, Washington. “I had such a great experience during my first time at TED, but I realized that not everyone had such an opportunity,” she explained. “Through TEDxRedmond, I’m hoping to share the magic of TED in an independently organized event.”
Darren Cannell (http://twitter.com/dcannell), an assistant principal in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in Canada. He and his family will be embarking on a worldwide trip, traveling to 35 countries starting in September, and that as part of his travels, his 2nd grade son will be blogging about it.
His son’s blog can be followed 
http://daxjournal.darrencannell.com/
His blog had a Google map showing all the places they will be visiting. What a trip, wish I was going, but I am looking forward to following his adventures on his blog. A 2nd grader blogging, wow and Kudos to Mom and Dad!!
Daxtin’s Travel Journal
Starting on September 2o, 2010 Daxtin and his family will be travelling around the world this journal will be about this eight month journey.
by Michael Zimmer , The Pursuit of Technology Integration Happiness
I tried to abbreviate this post and send you to right off to Michael’s blog, but for the life of me, I could not do it justice. So, here it is in full with a link at the end to Michael’s site where you can comment. I hate to copy completely, but…..so my apologies to Michael…….and Thank you for some excellent ideas.
1. Standard Homework Assignment: Create a poster board over a book/person/event.
Technology Alternative: Create a Glog using Glogster for Education
2. Standard Homework Assignment: Find an article about a certain topic (Current Event maybe) and bring into class with a write up discussing the content
Technology Alternative: Have students find that article online and post a link to it on a blog or wallwisher wall discussing the content. Share the blog/wall in class the following day.
3. Standard Homework Assignment: Complete the questions from a certain section or chapter review in your textbook.
Technology Alternative: Create a Back Channel Chat using a site like TitanPad and discuss the questions from the book at a certain time that night.
4. Standard Homework Assignment (Math): Do a certain number of problems from your book and bring them in to check for correctness
Technology Alternative: Use a site like Twiddla and provide a whiteboard area for students to collaboratively work together on the problems.
5. Standard Homework Assignment: Complete a worksheet and turn in to the teacher the following day
Technology Alternative: Create the worksheet and make it available to students online (Use a Word to PDF converter or on a Mac>Print>PDF). Have students search the Internet for the answers and provide a link to the source for where they found the answer.
6. Standard Homework Assignment: Read a poem/story/section of a book and be prepared to discuss in class the next day
Technology Alternative: Read a poem/story/section of a book and create a blog or Twitter account for students to discuss the night they read it. Then share the comments on the blog with students to facilitate the discussion in class the next day. It also provides a way to grade them for participating in the reading. If they do a blog response, they get a grade, if not, they don’t.
7. Standard Homework Assignment: Write a Poem.
Technology Alternative: Use a site like PicLits and write the poem using an image as inspiration. Email the completed poem to the teacher. Share in class.
What Technology Alternatives do you have for the Standard Homework Assignment? Feel free to comment on Michael Zimmers Blog, Click Here
Last week Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers posted a survey asking his readers about new things they were trying in their classrooms this fall. He is has put together a great presentation with 140 items. Wow, just packed full of good ideas. Check out his presentation at:
Last year one of the best ads released during the SuperBowl was this simple ad by Google. Shortly after the release of this video, Google asked you to make your own search stories. Simply go to http://www.youtube.com/searchstories and start creating your story. This could be a great way to teach students search skills. Give students a start and end point. For Example, Jeff Utecht, of The Thinking Stick blog has many great ideas. For example, rocks for the start and volcanoes for the end. Then the student does the research and brings the two together.
Wow!!!! I am so excited, my daughter lived in New York City a year ago, so I was lucky enough to spend time wandering around in the MoMa multiple times that year when I went to visit. MoMa just released a free App for Apple’s mobile devices like the ipad and iPhone and iPod Touch. You can see the museum’s enormous collection of modern art, along with other interesting museum content. There is a calendar of events that includes exhibitions and film schedules. The mobile tours part is what you use when you actually visit the museum. The Info screen provides museum hours, admission, a floor plan, and much more.
Of course being at the museum in person is always the better, but the Art category of the app is pretty darn good. The catalog of the museum’s collection gives information and high quality images of every piece to ever pass through the MoMA’s doors. Art can be searched by artist, collection, and exhibition. It also has a comprehensive “Art Terms” section. The only downside to the app is that due to its small size, it relies on a Wi-Fi or 3G connection to load the majority of its content.
Boy this could really be useful to an art teacher (which is was at one point)!! Here is the link to the MoMa main website too: http://www.moma.org/
You can download the app here
TeachTechie.com. This is a cool little site. There are resources for many content areas. Check it out. It is clear it was created by a teacher using iWeb on a Mac. Nicely done, simple and full of resources. http://www.teachtechy.com
Teacher Gradebook
This is the best gradebook software on the web. Our beautiful design and wonderful user experience makes you wonder why you’ve been using other gradebooks. Plus we’re free. Your new found productivity means you can spend more time doing what you do best: teach.
All Your Accounts — In One Place
Now you can have one place for all of your accounts. Manage your gradebook, lesson plans, calendars, scheduling, and more from one place: LearnBoost. Once you switch, you’ll wonder what life was like before LearnBoost.Get your free account!
What is LearnBoost?
LearnBoost’s product allows teachers to manage their classroom by offering an amazing gradebook and software for managing and creating lesson plans, tracking attendance, maintaining schedules, integrating calendars including Google calendars, seamless tagging of Common Core State Standards, and so much more.
Who are the investors?
LearnBoost raised a seed round from leading venture capital firms such as Bessemer Venture Partners, Charles River Ventures, RRE Ventures, and Atlas Ventures. LearnBoost’s angel investors include Naval Ravikant, Bill Lee, James Hong, Karl Jacob, Othman Laraki, and several others.
Our investors have backed successes like Twitter, Skype, LinkedIn, Tesla, and more. They’ve also backed recent innovative education companies like Knewton and Grockit.
A site that merges many sites together. Creaza offers a mind-mapping tool, cartoon creation, movie editor, and audio editor.
- Video about the Mind-mapping software.
- Video about the Cartoon software
- Demo/Video of the Video Editor (Does take some time to load)
- Video about the Audio Editor
Of course, like everywhere, you have to register. Creaza seems to have many useful tools all in one place. Use audio tracks you make in the audio editor in the video editor and the video editor offers a ton of options. I would absolutely watch the videos first.
Soungle is a free site, developed by Southern Codes, for finding all kind of sound FX and musical instruments samples on our mega online library. As different from most of similar sites, Soungle is NOT a Web search engine. It only searches in our growing monster database. Our goals are to keep it simple to use (search, preview and download) and to keep it free.
Keyword searches are performed by entering any word or phrase in a search box. The retrieved results of a keyword search are displayed ten to a page. Clicking on play icon allows you to preview a file. Download button instantly downloads the sound effect or musical instrument sample file. A short description of the sound appears on top of every sound , followed by the frame rate, duration and bit rate. Remember, all of our sound effects and samples are royalty free for downloading.
Soungle has over 100,000 royalty free sound effects for your students to download and use in multimedia projects. No need to register and extremely teacher and student friendly.
From Mac|Life Magazine, by Florence Ion
After that last huge update, we switched to Safari as our default browser, and we have to say that we’re really impressed. For one, the browser’s speed and streamlined user interface made surfing the web a whole different experience for us. And all of the new Safari updates, including the Reader, HTML5 support and extensions sold us on switching to Safari permanently.
To read the full story, CLICK HERE
I haven’t kicked Firefox to the curb yet and I have to admit I have not given Chrome a good try, but these extensions do sound intriguing. Guess, I should give Safari a better try now.
