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"We hear about it all the time: Universal access to research, education and culture-all good things, without a doubt-made possible by things like open source software, open educational resources and the like. But what are these various communities and what do they mean? How can we all learn more and get involved? School of Open has rolled the conversation back to square one so that understanding the basics is easy. Through a list of new courses created by users and experts, people can learn more about what "openness" means and how to apply it. There are stand-alone courses on copyright, writing for Wikipedia, the collaborative environment of open science, and the process behind making open video. These free courses start March 18 (sign up by clicking the "start course" button by Sunday, March 17): Copyright 4 Educators (US) Copyright 4 Educators (AUS) Creative Commons for K-12 Educators Writing Wikipedia Articles: The Basics and Beyond These free courses are open for you to take at any time: Get a CC license. Put it on your website Open Science: An Introduction Open data for GLAMs Intro to Openness in Education A Look at Open Video Contributing to Wikimedia Commons Open Detective "

"I work in an Independent School in Melbourne, Australia, and this year we have made a commitment to help our students (grades 7-12) create ePortfolios, using an Edublogs campus as the platform. Here are 5 reasons why we are making student blogging and portfolio development a high priority."

"Teaching to the Text Message" Ways in which a college professor teaches kids to write concisely.

Capture your child's voice and imagination with our creative story building tool and share them with friends and family. Encourages creativity and self expression Helps reinforce reading and writing skills A GREEN alternative to books NO ads, NO merchandising, NO external links Made with kids in mind! It's Fun and it's FREE for everyone!

PrimaryWall is a web-based sticky note tool designed for schools that allows pupils and teachers to work together in real-time" Primary Wall is a web-based sticky note tool designed for schools that allows teachers and students to work together in real-time, adding sticky notes to a group 'wall' like a pinboard. Simple, fast and user-friendly, the site also hosts other great collaborative tools for students working together to create projects, with group writing and drawing tools also available. Great for creating class brainstorms or inviting students to create a collaborative mood-board with lots of different ideas or quotes. Resulting masterpieces can be saved and referred back to later!

" Turn any book or document into a digital classroom. Subtext is a free iPad app that allows classroom groups to exchange ideas in the pages of digital texts. You can also layer in enrichment materials, assignments and quizzes-opening up almost limitless opportunities to engage students and foster analysis and writing skills. Watch video »"

This SAT prep program is free and has more than 60 lessons in math, reading, and writing. It also includes a score projector. This is something parents CAN have their children do to prepare for the test (unless you want to get my FAVORITE book for this -- SAT prep for dummies .) 

"To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a professional developer. This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app's behavior."

Brilliant!!! Scratch style app building. MIT has done it again...

Evernote is a great web service and software application that we can use in education. A lot of ink has been shed on this topic and just one click in a search engine is enough to get hundreds of links to guides and tutorials about Evernote. I have been going through so many of these resources and have collected ideas, videos, notes and many more. If you are a loyal reader to my blog ( I am glad most of you are ) you would clearly notice that guides I write here are different in that they are simple. to the point, address teachers and students direct  need, and most of all written in an easy and simple language. In this regard, I am working on an ebook that will contain all the guides I have posted here so far but will be available for free only to my subscribers. Without any further ado, let us get back to our guide.

Grockit is very easy to use and has a user friendly interface. It lets its users search for a YouTube video and once found, they can then both watch the video and use the right side panel to write their questions or comments. They can then share this page using a generated URL with their students or colleagues.

"Pinterest's members are solely responsible for what they pin and repin. They must have explicit permission from the owner to post everything." What's more, Pinterest places all blame and potential legal fees on its users. It writes: "You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold Cold Brew Labs, its officers, directors, employees and agents, harmless from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses, including, without limitation, reasonable legal and accounting fees, arising out of or in any way connected with (i) your access to or use of the Site, Application, Services or Site Content, (ii) your Member Content, or (iii) your violation of these Terms." Basically, if a photographer sues you for pinning an image illegally on Pinterest, the user must not only pay for his or her lawyer, they must also pay for Pinterest's lawyer. In addition, the defendant must pay all charges against him or herself, along with all of Pinterest's charges. Kirsten likens Pinterest to Napster as an enabler of illegal activity. It wasn't just Napster that went down -- 12 year old girls who downloaded music were sued too. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-copyright-issues-lawyer-2012-2#ixzz1nsmeSGHc

Thimble makes it ridiculously simple to create your own web pages. Write and edit HTML and CSS right in your browser. Instantly preview your work. Then host and share your finished pages with a single click. Easy, huh?

Many of us use email signatures on our emails to promote yourself, by putting personal information, some quotas or they write some funny messages, WiseStamps allows you to put customize signatures on your email."

Socrative makes a web, iPhone and Android app that functions as a clicker system. After a teacher sets up an account, he or she receives a classroom number to give students. They simply enter the number in their phones or on a laptop and are ready to answer multiple choice questions, write short answers and compete in team challenges. "They don't have to create a user name and a password, it doesn't have to be approved by an administrator, it doesn't have to go through the school, we didn't have to spend 45 minutes setting it up. … I get an excel sheet that I know what to do with," she says.

ThumbScribes is a platform for creating collaborative content. Co+Create haiku, poems, short stories, flash fiction, novellas, exquisite corpse and songs, real time or asynchronously with your computer, tablet, cell phone or even IM.

A superb, 'must try' collaborative whiteboard site. Invite collaborators to draw, write, screen capture and upload documents onto your whiteboard in real time. Great for webinars, distance learning, howework or group work in class.

A fantastic, simple real-time document conferencing tool, Sync.in allows students to collaborate on the same piece of work at the same time without becoming confused about whose contributions are whose. The tool allows multiple users to edit the same document simultaneously, but marks each contributor's edit in a different colour and instantly reflects any changes on every contributor's computer screen, so the document updates for each user in real time. Brilliant for brainstorming, project planning or sharing group revision notes and text guides.

Thus, the competition places a particular emphasis on higher order thinking skills, problem solving and creativity. Students working collaboratively in teams are highly stimulated by competing in tasks that encompass engineering, mathematics, code breaking, games of strategy, art and poetry, Science, English and forensic sleuthing.