AzTEA Mini-geekfest Resources

"This section will give you the opportunity to explore numerous lesson ideas on how to incorporate Diigo into your subject area. Diigo will help students develop and improve skills in communication, organization, and classification. "

"Welcome to the world of Diigo, one of the leading Top 10 research tools. Diigo is a cloud based information management system that helps you organize relevant facts you find online. With Diigo you can keep track of those favorite websites and revisit them from any computer at any time. "

"Logo Generator" The sites below can all be used to create cool and exciting text or logos for your portfolio or website.

Compilation of links shared during June 13, 2011. Mini-geekfest webinar hosted by Peggy George and Kim Thomas.

Compilation of links shared during May 9, 2011. Mini-geekfest webinar hosted by Peggy George and Kim Thomas.

Compilation of links shared during March 14, 2011 Mini-geekfest webinar hosted by Peggy George and Kim Thomas.

Compilation of links shared during December 13, 2010 Mini-geekfest webinar hosted by Peggy George and Kim Thomas.

Compilation of links shared during December 13, 2010 Mini-geekfest webinar hosted by Peggy George and Kim Thomas.

I'm happy to announce that from now on, the Wordle front page will never feature images or links that are inappropriate for classroom use. It's now possible to configure an institution's "site-blocking" software to keep Wordle safe for classroom use. Simply have your networking administrator block the following base URLs1: * http://www.wordle.net/gallery * http://www.wordle.net/next * http://www.wordle.net/random and your users will not see anything that's not safe for classrooms. You'll still be able to save your work, bookmark your individual Wordle creations, print them out, and share the URLs of saved Wordles with each other and with families.

Fantastic compilation of copyright-friendly resources for educators by Joyce Valenza.

Most of the media in these collections are in the public domain or are attached to generous copyright licensing. Though you may not need to ask permission to use them when publishing on the Web for educational purposes, you should cite or attribute these images to their creators unless otherwise notified! If you see any copyright notices on these pages, read them for further instructions. Note: always check individual licensing notices before publishing on the Web or broadcasting!

This is a great and growing compilation of web 2.0 tools for educators that provides links and brief descriptions of the tool--organized in very useful categories. It's a wiki so anyone can add to the resources once you join the group.

Tons of excellent links and resources for web 2.0 tools! Web 2.0 definition: the next generation of the internet where the content of the web is created or edited by end-users (either individually or collaboratively) rather than those few geeky computer nerds. Further, these sites often allow collaboration, sharing, and assimilation to bring about exchanges of ideas from many different perspectives in the form of text, photos, videos, and/or other multimedia components.

Excellent discussion groups for K-12 educators!

Google for Educators Discussion Group. We'll be using this group to keep you updated on Google's K-12 Education initiatives, but our real hope is that this will become the home of a vibrant community of educators. We encourage you to use this space to start discussions with fellow teachers. Excellent lesson plans are shared in the "Submit your Lessons" group for using Google tools in the classroom. Lots of great resources for teachers.

An excellent, free online course that can be taken at your own pace with selected activities to learn about tools and resources for incorporating images into your instruction. Fantastic model for designing similar, online, interactive courses.

In this six-week, free, online workshop offered through the Electronic Village Online, participants will be introduced to various online image manipulation tools and will learn how to effectively incorporate these resources into their teaching practices. They will explore how images can be used in educational settings.

Very informative article that describes successful strategies for using data to improve instruction that goes beyond standardized test scores and ties it to possible uses for stimulus funds.

Montgomery, a suburb of Washington, D.C., spends $47 million a year on technology like Edline. It is at the vanguard of what is known as the "data-driven" movement in U.S. education. The high-tech strategy, which uses intensified assessments and the real-time collection of test scores, grades and other data to identify problems and speed up interventions, has just received a huge boost from President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan. The Obama economic stimulus plan provides $100 billion for schools over the next two years, almost doubling the federal education budget. To qualify for much of the money, states will have to provide data showing progress in student achievement -- giving the edge to districts such as Montgomery that already have systems in place.