Group items tagged

"It's not especially easy to quickly demonstrate your education technology skills when you're not in the classroom. Sure, you may know how to effectively integrate Google Chromebooks or Apple iPads while simultaneously leveraging a project-based learning approach to STEAM subjects, but how do you actually convey that when chatting with colleagues or others? It's not easy. That's why many teachers are turning to professional development from the major tech companies like Apple and Google."

"Tech Tips For Teachers: Free, Easy and Useful Creation Tools"

When its too long to tweet, but too short to blog, just TwitWall it! TwitWall is the easy-to-use, quick-to-blast-out blog companion for Twitter. FREE...and its available- instantly! It's just that easy.

Why should I use this? Picking and remembering strong passwords is a pain. It's easier to convert an easy to remember one. It works anywhere on any computer. It also works offline if you print out the chart. Its free, easy and secure. Everything is done in your browser -- no passwords are sent over the Internet.

"Ditching Google Reader after the changes? This site makes it easy to use Twitter instead"

"Do you know a teacher who just always seems to know about the latest technology, and makes it look so easy to produce cool content that students find fun and engaging? Maybe you are one of these teachers? It's doesn't have to be hard to use slick tech tools in the classroom. There are so many free, easy to use tools out there. Here are five of my favorites to recommend."

"Sending attachments via email is practically second nature for most computer users. Create a set of documents that need to be distributed to your colleagues an off they go as attachments. On desktops and laptops its easy to send multiple attachments. On Android and Windows Phone devices you can also easily attach multiple files to an email. On the iPhone and the iPad, not so much. In iOS, sending multiple attachments in an email is not something for the faint of heart. The word cumbersome gets new meaning when applied to this process. In fact, for those who like or need to quickly send multiple attachments on an iOS device the lack of an easy way to do this is enough to make you wonder where all the talk about iOS devices being used for business and the enterprise comes from."

"Sometimes it feels crazy overwhelming to keep assessing students and know exactly what they do/don't understand. That's where these quick and easy formative assessment ideas comes in! My school district sent us a monthly newsletter from the GATE department. This was a particularly helpful chart, so I kept it. But the image was too small, so I've remade it into an easier to read version (see below)."

"So the camera on the classroom iPad is turning out to be one of the most useful features for us! It's so easy to use, and so easy to share pictures that we're turning to it more and more often. Here are five ways that we or other teachers we know have used the iPad camera in the classroom."

"There are lots of great apps for gathering information about current events and finding stories that are of high interest to your students.  NPR has an easy to navigate website and high quality iPad app that makes it easy to find articles and interviews.  In addition to accessing print content that you might find in other newspapers"

"Creating augmented reality has never been so easy until now! DAQRI 4D Studio gives educators and students the ability to easily create experiences and instantly publish them to share with the world. As our friend Katie Ann said during her augmented reality presentation at Podstock this year, "If you can copy and paste, and drag and drop, then you can create augmented reality." Each experience created and published by in 4D Studio for Education can be viewed using the target image and free DAQRI application.  "

"This year at ISTE in Atlanta, I shared with teachers one easy way to add QR codes to three-dimensional shapes.   The app Foldify lets users create a template for a variety of three-dimensional shapes.  Instead of drawing a picture or adding family photos, I used a QR code generator on my iPad, saved the pictures to the Camera Roll, and placed them on my Folidify creation.  They are easy to assemble after your print them out and great for having students roll a dice for a mystery writing prompt or math problem."

Read out this blog entry for easy craft ideas for toddlers. These are very much helpful in raising their imagination power and develop ability to work independently.

Read out this blog entry for easy craft ideas for toddlers. These are very much helpful in raising their imagination power and develop ability to work independently.

"Long gone are the days of students reading textbooks, memorizing, and regurgitating information. Let 2015 be the year of increasing engagement and learning in your students. Giving students an authentic audience to showcase what they know can increase their sense of purpose, which can lead to a deeper understanding of what you want them to learn everyday in your class. If you've given your students a "pretend" audience, try some of these easy ways to boost learning and give students a real audience:"

"What does "effective online research" even mean? Type in a search term and get going, right? While on one hand, it literally is that easy, if you want to find good quality, highly relevant materials, you need to move far beyond a quick Google search and visiting your old pal Wikipedia. We have some great, easy tips for how to make the most of online research coming your way. How do you make the most of online research"

"Cardboard for prototyping presents 3 big advantages: it's cheap it's sturdy it's recyclable It's one of the most practical skills you can learn for designing products. Almost free, easy to find, easy to manipulate, cardboard prototyping is also super fun."

"These days, new ideas about "best practice" in the classroom are published every day. It is an indication that educators are increasingly taking ownership of their own destiny, and with social media making the sharing of ideas so easy, teachers have constant instant access to new and exciting suggestions from around the world. Though this is exciting, there is an associated danger. The ideas badged as "best practice" are, more often than not, untested in any reliable way. This means that teachers could be implementing practices that do not impact positively. Worse still, they could be having a negative impact on learning. Perhaps rather than "best practice", we need to consider "effective practice". Thankfully, we now have access to a body of research that helps us know what sits in the area of effective practice: the work of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) is hugely accessible and allows teachers to see what works, and how much it costs. Similarly, the work of John Hattie, from the University of Melbourne's Graduate School of Education, helps us get to grips with what he terms "visible learning" - aspects of teaching that can be seen to makes a difference. Both the EEF and Hattie cite the development of metacognition in our students as a highly effective approach to securing progress over time. Metacognition is not an instantly easy word to understand - people sometimes glaze over. But in my experience, once it is explained, people "get it", and "want it". It is a powerful concept that can make a significant difference to our students."

"It's often easy to get stuck into a narrow view of what a particular field of study entails, but as Dominic Walliman reveals in his impressive science infographics, there's much more than meets the eye when thinking of particular STEM subjects. Walliman demonstrates the diversity and complexity of biology, chemistry, computer science, physics, and mathematics in visual maps that explore the breadth of each field. Walliman, who also created animated videos exploring his science infographics, manages to pack all the shades of each complex field on one page. For instance, the Map of Mathematics travels from the origins and foundations of the field to the differences between pure mathematics and applied mathematics. Likewise, chemistry is divided between rules and different sub-topics like biochemistry and inorganic chemistry, with fun illustrations to clearly show what falls underneath each area. Whether you are a scientist who feels like people never quite get what you do or a student who can't put their finger on how they might use their math or science degree, Walliman's infographics will come in handy. Consider them roadmaps to possible careers or cheat sheets to figuring out how quantum physics is related to the theory of relativity. Best of all, by studying the visual maps, it becomes easy to see how all these scientific fields overlap and fit together like a puzzle."

"Podcasting has had a resurgence over the last couple of years. Part of that resurgence is due to the increase in easy-to-use tools for creating podcasts as well as an increase in platforms through which you can listen to podcasts. Anchor.fm is one of those easy-to-use podcast creation tools. I featured it in a video in my tip of the week in late February. The folks at Edublogs were kind enough to share it with their followers and include it in their new comprehensive guide to classroom podcasting."

"Email aliases are an easy way to get fresh email addresses in Gmail without having to sign up for an account all over again. Creating an alias is as easy as appending a + sign to your Gmail username followed by a keyword of your choice. Any email sent to this new address still ends up in your Gmail inbox, but will show a distinct To address that's different from your primary Gmail address. Here's how you can make this feature work to your advantage to manage your Gmail inbox better."