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"Your Gravatar is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog. Avatars help identify your posts on blogs and web forums." Gravatar will identify you on postings and can be integrated with Twitter, Wordpress, and FB.

Last fall I asked readers to contribute to a list of tips for new teachers. I compiled that list and put it together as a Google Docs presentation of 131 tips. This year, I would like to expand the list with more tips from you. If you have a helpful tip for new teachers, be it technology related or not, please consider leaving a comment on this post and I will add it to the presentation. Last year's list is embedded below.

"All it takes is a quick look at one of the extensive comment threads of an iPhone-eccentric post to see that people have different opinions on iOS. But what you rarely see debated are its accessibility features."

Free from Microsoft Research: Songsmith generates musical accompaniment to match a singer's voice. Just choose a musical style, sing into your PC's microphone, and Songsmith will create backing music for you. Then share your songs with your friends and family, post your songs online, or create your own music videos. (No help if you can't sing) - comment by Kathleen Nann

Science News for Kids is a web site devoted to science news for children of ages 9 to 14. Our goal is to offer timely items of interest to kids, accompanied by suggestions for hands-on activities, books, articles, Web resources, and other useful materials. Our emphasis is on making the Web site appealing by offering kids opportunities to comment on and grade the subject matter, get ideas for science projects, and try out mathematical puzzles. At the same time, we offer teachers creative ways of using science news in their classrooms.

Browser bookmarklet that lets you watch and share YouTube videos on a clutter-free interface. The application can remove all surrounding distractions and present the video on a clean clutter-free page. - comment by Jennifer Dorman

From Wes: These are my notes from Joseph Morelock's presentation, "Student as Prosumer: Content and Mobile Devices in 21st-Century Learning Environments" at the 21st Century Learning @ the West Lake Expo held Oct 31 - Nov 3, 2009 at Xi Hu, China, also known as West Lake. West Lake is in the center of Hangzhou, China, which is about an hour by bus southwest of Shanghai. MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS.

Interesting comments in this blog post by Chris Kennedy, Superintendent of Schools / CEO with the West Vancouver School District (West Vancouver, BC)

" The popular multimedia conversation tool VoiceThread has announced plans to launch a mobile app for iOS devices in the near future. Their blog post doesn't specify a date for its release, but hopefully it will be in time to use this fall. Watch, and comment if you like, on the VoiceThread about the mobile app embedded below."

"After reading many articles and comments from teachers, I notice a common question is "Are there any good apps for free?" The answer is yes! In addition, many apps offer a "lite" version to try before purchasing. Many of the lite versions just have advertisements so it's well worth installing, if it is a good app. "

" The Most Important Video Ever Mark Barnes | May 20, 2014 | Featured, Inspiration | 4 Comments If there was ever a video that needs to go viral, it's this one. While it may be intended to promote Google to the viewers' subconscious, the video does far more than this. It also promotes the kind of change we've needed for nearly a century. In fact, this may be the most important video ever made."

"So the other day I tweeted out this comment, "I am amazed each day to see so much educational progress in my Twitter feed. This should be the norm, not the exception." Many people in education talk a great game when it comes to the effective use of technology, but the results (lack there of) speak for themselves. I constantly see and hear about leaders who tout themselves in a way that makes others develop a perception that they actually know something about the effective integration of a variety of technology tools to improve professional practice. However, once you get past the rhetoric you quickly realize that it is just talk with a clear lack of substance.  This is not to say that they are unwilling to learn or embrace significant change in this area.  It just hasn't happened yet, at least from my view.  Thus, the use of social media in schools by educators continues to be an uphill battle.  "