Group items tagged

From creating short surveys to delivering multiple choice quizzes Google Forms is a great tool for teachers. Today, Google announced the addition some useful new features to Google Forms. The most significant enhancement in the option to collaborate on Form creation and editing. Now you can share your forms and add comments to them just like you can in Docs, Spreadsheets, and Slides.

Screen Leap is a free screen sharing service that I recently learned about through a post by Vicki Davis. To share your screen using Screen Leap just visit the site, click "share your screen," enable the Java applet, and send the sharing code to the person you want to view your screen. The person receiving your invitation code will be able to see your screen when you have Screen Leap activated.  Applications for Education  Screen Leap could be a handy little tool for those times when it is easier to show someone how to do something than it is to tell them how to do it. I'm thinking it could be particularly useful when you're trying to walk someone through setting up an account on a new-to-them web service.  Here are some other screen sharing services you might want to try:  Quick Screen Share  Join.me  Big Marker

Zipcast is a new service from Slideshare for conducting online presentations. Using Zipcast you can share your slides, talk to your audience, respond to your audience, and have your audience interact with each other in realtime on one page. The best part is you can do all of this without having to download anything. Using the free version of Zipcast your presentation can be private or public (a small ad is inserted at the bottom of your presentation). The premium version of Zipcast removes ads and allows you to password protect your presentation.

Phrays is a simple site that publishes a new word of the day everyday. Each word is published with its definition and part of speech. Visitors to the site are encouraged to write and submit a sentence using that word. Registered users can read the sentences submitted by others and vote for their favorite sentences.

Digital Dialects offers a nice selection of educational games and activities for learning 55 different languages. Most of the games are designed to learn and practice the basics of each of the 55 languages listed on the Digital Dialects homepage.  Another good website for learning and practicing language basics is Literacy Center.net. Literacy Center offers games for learning and practicing French, Spanish, German, and English. The Literacy Center is a 501c non-profit with a contract from the US Department of Education.  Applications for Education The educational games and activities found on Digital Dialects and Literacy Center are great for students just beginning to learn a new language. The games provide instant feedback to students and parents so that they can monitor progress and choose a skill or set of vocabulary terms to practice. 

7 Good Screen Capture Tools for TeachersIntroducing new technology tools to your students or to your colleagues can become a frustrating exercise if you end up repeating the same step-by-step directions over and over again. Not only is it frustrating for you to repeat those directions, it can also be frustrating for the students who want to go ahead but can't because you're waiting until everyone is on the same page. One way to avoid that is to create annotated screen captures of the tools you're introducing. Another way to avoid repeating directions over and over again is to creating screencast videos in which you explain each step of the process. Here are seven tools that you can use to create annotated screen capture images and screencast videos.

Live Minutes - Free Webinar Hosting Live Minutes is a new service offering free hosting for webinars. It takes less than thirty seconds to set-up a webinar on Live Minutes. To get started just click "start sharing" and a meeting space is created for you. That meeting space is assigned a URL that you can share with the people you want to join you.  Live Minutes offers a good selection of tools that you can utilize to share ideas with others. You can talk to each other using either the Live Minutes audio or by connecting through Skype. Live Minutes offers a collaborative whiteboard for drawing. Uploading images and documents for others to see and comment on is also an option. And in the future Live Minutes will allow you to share videos during your webinar.  Applications for Education Live Minutes could be a great way to quickly host a live online tutoring session with students. The option for drawing free-hand on the whiteboard could be very handy for illustrating concepts that are difficult to type quickly on a keyboard or that lose meaning when someone is just explaining rather than showing.

Have you ever wanted to learn a second language? I have always wanted to learn either French or Italian, but once you are out of school, unless you happen to be able to move yourself to another country and immerse yourself in the culture, it isn't an easy thing to do. Sure, you can spend a fortune on expensive software like Rosetta Stone, or the slightly more affordable Fluenz, but it still takes dedication and time in front of a computer… Because for the most part, they only work on a full computer with a microphone, hardly convenient for being able to pick up any time. The answer, instead, is the 100% free Duolingo software, which runs in a browser… Or on your iPad, iPhone, or any Android device. Did I mention how free it is? Completely! In fact, they will never charge for it, because they use the platform for tuning machine learning and translating the web. The really great thing about this app is that it works by gamifying the learning process - as you advance through the levels, you earn points and you can unlock new levels. Each level builds on what you learned in the last one. Each level switches between a number of learning methods… In some, you will see a phrase and be able to pick the words to translate it from one language to another, and in others you will write them out. In some, you will listen to the voice speak the sentence, and others you have to speak to the app. It all works amazingly well to teach you a little at a time. In my case, I will be getting married to a French girl in two months, and we are going to Paris for a while… And this time, I want to be able to speak the language. You can even add your friends to the app to track your progress against them. My username is lowellheddings, so if you want to learn French, feel free to add me and keep me on track. Note: just search the App Store or Google Play for duolingo to install it. Or go to www.duolingo.com and access in your browser.

* Over 1,000 non-fiction reading passages with associated text-dependent question sets, leveled using the Lexile framework (http://www.readworks.org/books/passages) * 100's of easy to use lesson plans that help you explicitly teach comprehension to K-6 students (http://www.readworks.org/lessons/grades) * All reading passages, question sets, and lesson plans are research-based and aligned with the Common Core State Standards * Student Handouts, Graphic Organizers and Teacher Materials that can be easily downloaded and printed for your use Visit ReadWorks often for new non-fiction reading passages, question sets, and lessons. We're always adding more resources to help make your planning easier.