Group items tagged

"Hello and welcome to my 38th gems post. This is where I share five teaching ideas I've seen on Twitter. As teachers start making plans and preparing resources for September, there's been a flurry of inspiring ideas on Twitter - I can barely keep up!"

"In today's Gems, we take a look at several of the most popular apps for working with Microsoft Office​ documents on the iOS platform. The first three of these are from QuickOffice and DataViz, long-term developers of mobile Office suites for a wide variety of platforms, while Office² comes from an iOS-specific developer."

"Welcome to my 123rd gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers."

"On comparing iPad apps with iPhone equivalents, one thing rapidly becomes clear: apps for Apple's tablet are pricier. Many of the best free iPhone apps cost 59p or more in their iPad incarnations, and the quality level of what's still free is often ropey. But among the dross lie rare gems - iPad apps that are so good you can't believe they're still free. Of those we unearthed, here is our pick of the best free iPad apps. Note that apps marked 'universal' will run on your iPad and iPhone, optimising themselves accordingly."

"The new Smart Strings section in GarageBand for iOS is a real gem, but its true power is easily missed. Learn how to use it effectively with this 7 minute tutorial video from Lynda.com. For the full 2.5 hour GarageBand course, head on over to Lynda.com."

"As an app developer (see TechChef4u app), I have the rare pleasure of previewing iOS 6 before it hits iDevices in schools, businesses, and homes everywhere. While iOS 6 is chocked full of new and hidden gems, I thought the following 10 were the most promising features for educators and the iClassroom!"

"Most of us know of the Googley Goodness of Google Drive and related apps for education, but did you know there is much, much more that Google offers for FREE! There are so many hidden gems for teachers and students. "

"In this wonderful video Google engineers Liu and Merrified share some interesting tips and insights on how to effectively search your Gmail and  Drive.The purpose is to enable you to tap into some hidden gems that will allow you to search for what you need in Gmail or Drive quickly and accurately. All of the search tips Liu and Merrified talked about in this tutorial include search and Boolean operators. This document from Gmail Help features some of the most useful operators to use when conducting internal searches in your Gmail. You should definitely bookmark and keep it for reference."

"Video Time Machine is an extremely slick little app that serves up videos from any year from 1860 to 2011. Honestly, if you're interested in popular culture throughout the decades Video Time Machine will keep you entertained for many hours. With over 10,000 videos to find and enjoy, and with support for Airplay and social media sharing, Video Time Machine is a real gem."

from April 2008 but still a gem!

"YouTube is definitely one of the best platforms for searching and accessing  educational video resources. We have already covered several ways teachers can leverage the  power of this platform in instruction. In fact, the strength of YouTube is not only in it being a resource of educational videos but is also a powerful tool for creating and editing videos. Several teachers still overlook some excellent editing features and creative possibilities that YouTube provides. For instance, you can use YouTube editor to create beautiful slideshows and presentations to share in class, or create use it to create a Hangout  and invite students to take part. These and several other hacks are all available right in your YouTube account and if you need help discovering YouTube's hidden gems, this section is a good place to start with."

"Where is your first port of call when looking for the right book? Amazon? iTunes? Even an actual brick-and-mortar library??? All good options, but there is one delightfully simple place you should be trying first. Google Books. Not only can you preview a large portion of a book to try before you buy, you may even strike it lucky and get the whole thing for free! Here are five completely free eBooks to get you started, but make sure to take some time and explore, who knows what gems you might find."

"Over the last couple of months, Google added several new updates and features to Google Drive the latest of which is the New Google Drive. As you know, Drive is full of tons of hidden gems that allow you to enhance your productivity beyond measures. One of the features I like the most of about Drive is the third party extensions. Some of these add-ons are really wonderful and add way more functionality to Drive. In today's post, I am sharing with you two examples of good extensions to use in Google Drive. "

"Over the past few months Gmail has witnessed the addition of a lot of interesting features and functionalities that enhanced its overall performance. Gmail also provides several hidden gems to users who are willing to dig a bit deeper and take their email experience to the next level. To help you make the best of Gmail, we have gone through Gmail help documentation and handpicked these wonderful tips for you. These are simple hacks that you can use on your Gmail to increase your productivity and be a Gmail savvy teacher."

"Apple has released iOS 8.3, it's biggest update yet to iOS 8 that was first launched alongside the iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus in September 2014.   The new OS from Apple brings a host of new features, tips and tricks. We've worked our way through the phone operating system to try and bring you as many of the features as possible to allow you to get as much out of the latest software on your phone without having to upgrade to the iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus. Most of these tips are new to iOS 8, but we've also included some gems from iOS 7 that you might not have found yet. We'll be keeping an eye on things as new updates roll out and if you've got any tips of your own that we've not covered please feel free to add them to the comments below."

"APPS & WEB TOOLS 20 FREE characters to encourage Scientific Thinking1 ByPaul HamiltonPosted on January 1, 2016 I've learnt a few things in my 15 years of classroom teaching. One of these gems is 'the power of visuals' to prompt, stimulate little imaginations. Whether it be using world builders to ignite creative writing, or a simple image to develop thinking routines. One subject area that I see huge potential to prompt thinking is Science. I often have my students taking photo's of different stages of science experiments and investigations. But it is sometimes difficult for my students to think scientifically and communicate these ideas with others. So here are 20 FREE kids scientist images that I hope will act as a stimulus for scientific thinking."

"Time is a valuable commodity in today's education world. This blog can save you a little as we highlight the top 20 blog posts from TCEA in the past year. With all of the amazing information that's currently available to each of us on the internet, it can sometimes be very hard to find the real gems. To assist with that, I'd like to share what tens of thousands of educational blog readers thought was most valuable via our Top 20 Blog Posts list. See if any of these resources resonate with you!"