Group items tagged

"Over the years, Google has left its humble origins behind to become one of the largest companies in the world, offering a wide range of devices and services. To keep those services free, Google records data about you and uses it to display targeted advertising-their main source of revenue. As the debate around online privacy ramps up, many people are looking for an alternative. Fortunately, DuckDuckGo might be the privacy-focused search engine you've been looking for."

"In my post earlier today about tools for creating book trailer videos I mentioned a couple of sources of free sound effects and music. Picking the right music or sound effects can have a drastic influence on how we react to a scene in a video. Here are some places that you and your students can find free sound effects and music to download and use in video projects."

"Here, we are listing out some of the best and very useful arduino project ideas which are collected from different resources and are very interesting to implement them. Arduino is a single-board microcontroller. It is intended to make the application of interactive objects or environments more accessible. The hardware consists of an open-source hardware board designed around an 8-bit Atmel AVR microcontroller, or a 32-bit Atmel ARM. Here, we are listing out some of the best and very useful Arduino project ideas which are collected from different resources and are very interesting to implement them. Recommended read: Arduino Starter Kits."

"FEBRUARY 22, 2018 -From the instant replay that decides a game to the bodycam footage that clinches a conviction, people tend to trust video evidence as an arbiter of truth. But that faith could soon become quaint, as machine learning is enabling ordinary users to create fabricated videos of just about anyone doing just about anything. Earlier this month, the popular online forum Reddit shut down r/deepfakes, a subreddit discussion board devoted to using open-source machine-learning tools to insert famous faces into pornographic videos. Observers say this episode represents just one of the many ways that the this technology could fuel social problems, particularly in an age of political polarization. Combating the negative effects of fabricated video will require a shift among both news outlets and news consumers, say experts.  "Misinformation has been prevalent in our politics historically," says Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., who specializes in political misperceptions. "But it is true that technology can facilitate new forms of rumors and other kinds of misinformation and help them spread more rapidly than ever before." So-called fake news has been around long before Macedonian teenagers began enriching themselves by feeding false stories to social media users. In 1782, Benjamin Franklin printed a falsified supplement to the Boston Independent Chronicle maligning Seneca Indians in an attempt to influence public opinion during peace negotiations with Britain."

"By now, you know that YouTube isn't only for watching cat videos and smartphone voyeurism. If you're smart, it can be your go-to place for learning new skills and finding gems for research. But one of the best uses for YouTube is as a source of free music that you can legally download for free and use for all kinds of projects and endeavors. "

"That you probably use Wikipedia but tell your students not to is why we're here. Wikipedia has long been the bane of educators-a poster child for the 'don't believe everything you read on the internet because anyone can publish anything' movement. While making for wonderful subject matter in teaching credibility, authority, source citations, and more, the idea of actually using Wikipedia to teach explicitly teach research for an entire unit is lesson common. Luckily, the good folks at Wikipedia Education have you covered with the following (very long) unit. In the unit, students will create, edit, expand, and otherwise immerse themselves in the surprisingly complex world of public-knowledge-article editing."

"Did you know that more than just about any other activity, play is what promotes the healthy development of your child! The most important thing to remember about play is that it should be pleasurable.  That means that if your child is having fun, then you are doing it right!  Play can use the mind, body or even props.  It engages the imagination and exercises the muscles, and it also allows our children to practice new skills. All children are curious beings.  They like to explore and play, and these behaviours usually come quite naturally to them.  Play that allows for exploration provides a sense of discovery and learning.  This discovery and learning are actually a valuable source of pleasure to the child.  They find exploring and learning fun."

"We understand that it can be difficult (and sometimes confusing!) for students to piece together their MLA citations. That's why we created an MLA format citation template for you to share, distribute, and/or post for your students. This infographic helps your students properly cite books, websites, online videos, online journal articles, and digital images in MLA format. While there are other variations for these citations, this template reflects the most common way to cite these source types. Whether you decide to use this in conjunction with a research project, place it on display in your classroom as a visual reference, or print it out so students can store it in their binders or notebooks is up to you. The possibilities are endless. We want your students to be responsible researchers, who acknowledge the work of original authors, which in turn prevents plagiarism. Hopefully, this template makes it easier for your students to achieve this goal. "

"We rely on expensive computer programs to edit photos and video, deal with office work, and protect our computers from malware. But they're not our only options. Often, commercial studios will offer the most basic versions of their products free of charge. In other cases, volunteers who believe that software should be free will develop open-source alternatives. Between them, you can find free programs to cover just about any computing task. However, not all free apps are created equal. We've narrowed down the plethora of options to highlight 10 of the finest free alternatives to pricey computer programs."

"Whenever I talk about copyright I always encourage teachers and students to use their own images when they need to include visuals in a paper or presentation. If you don't own an appropriate picture then look for images that are in the public domain. While Google Docs does have a built-in image search tool, Google Images is far from the best place to find images that are in the public domain. Pixabay and Unsplash are better places to find public domain images. If you need to use images in a Google Document, both of those sources are accessible through Google Docs Add-ons."

"Audacity is a free, open-source program for recording and editing audio. It's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux computers. For classroom podcasting projects or other classroom audio recording projects, it is hard to beat Audacity. The only trouble is that it can feel a bit overwhelming the first time that you open it up on your desktop. Fortunately, there is no shortage of YouTube videos that will show you everything you need to know and then some."

"ou've probably heard the latest brain research focused on cementing learning that says that drawing something can help a person better remember it. This works regardless of the age of the student or the content he/she is trying to master. And, good news for folks like me who can't draw a straight line, the benefits of drawing are not dependent on the students' level of artistic talent, suggesting that this strategy may work for all students, not just ones who are able to draw well. So when we draw, we encode the memory in a very rich way, layering together the visual memory of the image, the kinesthetic memory of our hand drawing the image, and the semantic memory that is invoked when we engage in meaning-making. In combination, this greatly increases the likelihood that the concept being drawn will later be recalled. (Source: https://www.edutopia.org/article/science-drawing-and-memory)"

"This set of tutorials provides instructions on how to record audio material from a variety of sources and then deploy it to CD, your computer or portable music player."

"Tweetroot is an interesting app that is free today and only for a limited period of time. Tweetroot allows you to easily generate word clouds from tweets. Source data of your word clouds can be based on Tweets  a particular user shares, a hashtag, or mentions. For instance, creating a word cloud from the hashtag #edtech will enable you  to visualize the prominent words or topics being shared through this hashtag. You can also use the same strategy to analyze, for instance, your Twitter timeline and learn more about the things you have tweeted the most through a word cloud based on your 1000 most recent tweets. To use Tweetroot, you will obviously need to allow the app access to your Twitter account."

"There are an amazing variety of robot kits available, but which one is right for you? There is no such thing as the best kit, just the one most suitable for your purposes. Still, the number of choices can be confusing. Why start with a kit? Well, there are several advantages. Generally, kits will be cheaper than buying all the same parts. The companies that put kits together buy parts in quantity, usually passing the savings to you. You also save on shipping costs, since you buy one box from one supplier. It is often a challenge to get all the parts you need for a robot from a single source, so you end up paying a significant amount in shipping costs."

"While the original layout for the app was quite straight-forward, Snapchat has now evolved into a jack of all trades. The app offers direct communication like texting, calling, video messaging, and more with friends and family in a one-on-one messenger style, lets people record and post their videos and photos to their Snapchat Story that last 24-hours while giving people the option to save their Snapchat Stories to their camera roll, and delivers current news and information from credible sources and entertainment sites like IGN, The Economist, Refinery29, Mashable, Harper's Bazaar, VICE, National Geographic, CNN, The New York Times, and so, so much more."

"I am a big fan of music in the history classroom and I have created a number of Spotify Playlists for this purpose. Often this is merely to help create a calm and purposeful working atmosphere, when a bit of Chopin or Debussy sets the tone perfectly. Occasionally it's even possible to have calming instrumental music directly related to the topic in question: for example, Elgar's Cello Concerto in E Minor, which was inspired by the composer watching British troop ships heading off to France in 1914. However, some songs are better used to stoke up some energy during lessons, whilst the very best of all are historical sources in themselves, combining musical feeling with powerful lyrical content. What follows is a list of songs I regularly use in class, organised in broadly chronological order in terms of the topics they relate to, with a brief explanation of how you could make use of them with your own students. What follows is a list of 25 principal songs, but with links to others on similar themes or by similar artists, bringing the total up to over 50. If you have any other suggestions, please contact me (@russeltarr / @activehistory on Twitter) and I'd be delighted to add them to the list (as long as it isn't "We didn't start the fire" by Billy Joel. Which I admit is superb, but we all know this one, surely?)."

"Chances are you've heard a lot about digital citizenship  by now. Many reputable and respectable organizations have devoted their life's work to developing digital citizenship resources to promote its values in educators and learners worldwide. We at the Global Digital Citizen Foundation are proud to be among them. We all know the world is different now. We're all globally connected by technology, so making the world a better place by fostering a compassionate and mindful citizenry isn't just the responsibility of a chosen few. Now, it's on all of us. Don't be worried, be overjoyed-especially if you're a teacher. You are in the perfect position to be the best source of digital citizenship development any student could hope for. You're not alone, either-we've gathered a list of digital citizenship resources and websites from people who are just like you, and that are behind you all the way."

"The Remake Learning Playbook is an ambitious project to open source the project code for learning innovation ecosystems. Created by The Sprout Fund as a digital & tangible product, the Playbook documents the process and outcomes of both the Pittsburgh region's efforts to create a community-wide learning innovation network, and specific projects the network has catalyzed. The Playbook captures the spirit and substance of the Remake Learning Network in action. It covers the theory and practice of building learning innovation networks, the resources and strategies required to put networks into action, and the impact of the network in schools, museums, libraries, communities, and more."