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Whether it's quitting time at your job or the remains of the 15 minutes you gave yourself to clean your inbox, it's handy knowing how much time you've got left. This minimalist URL-based web timer provides exactly that service.

"Simply putting traditional courses online could have negative consequences, especially for lower-performing and language minority students."

SweetSearch came about as the byproduct of making findingDulcinea, an aggregator that terms itself the "Librarian of the Internet." It's a database of about 35,000 web sites vetted by researchers, librarians, and teachers, with priority given to spots like the Library of Congress, Smithsonian, and other public and academic sources. It sweeps away the pseudo-science, forums, and sites that read like paraphrased summaries.

So you probably all already know that Google Calendar is a lifesaver when it comes to organizing classes. The problem, though, is that sometimes professors don't create a Calendar-ready syllabus for us! Don't fret - here I'll share how I've managed to harness the power of Google Docs to streamline a Calendar for each of my classes, so hopefully you can do the same. Start by loading the template located at http://bit.ly/importtemplate, then rename it to correspond to the name of the class syllabus you're working on. Leaving the header row, fill in the assignment and due date, as well as the time.

If you need to edit some video away from your home, free web-based video editor JayCut will likely get your project going, whether you need simple cutting and pasting or text, transitions, and impromptu audio recording.

Odiog audio widget reads the blog to you. Why not have students create their own raps?

video of teacher drawing as he explains US constitution

The Left Behind game and books: end of life scenarios thru Christian doctrine and violence. Tweeted by Pat Dolenc

There's no doubt that plain old YouTube can be tons of fun, but when you get bored of watching clips the traditional way, there are a ton of sites that can help enhance the experience.

For those instructors who are up to working with YouTube this might be a very useful how-to guide

With classes potentially looking for ways to make their communications hub unique, this is a great how-to gudie

news widgets, some book stuff

Consumer Reports, a longtime trusted name in product ratings and reviews, has today released its annual "State of the Net" report, which finds that over half (52%) of social network users post risky information online. Among the transgressions: using weak passwords, listing full birth dates, ignoring privacy settings and making mention of when you're away from home, to name a few.

The many uses of Google Earth and Google Maps never ceases to impress me. But a lot of people hear the words Google Earth or Google Maps and only think about locating places and not all of the other things that can be done with these great tools. Google's site for UK schools has some great lesson plans for using Google Earth and Google Maps with primary school and secondary school students. (The equivalent in the US is elementary school and middle school).

The end of the school year is quickly approaching for many of us in the teaching profession. In fact, my last day of school is 27 days from now. Like many other high school classes, my classes will soon begin reviewing for final exams. One of the review activities that I've had students do in the past is create multimedia timelines containing key events and concepts from the year. Last year my students used XTimeline to do this, but there are other good options available. Here are five ways students can create multimedia timelines.

Requires wireless mouse(s) Microsoft Mouse Mischief is a free software download for PCs that integrates into Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 and 2010 to allow educators to insert questions, polls, and drawing activity slides into lessons for participation for up to 25 students. Each student or pairs of students uses their own wireless mouse to do this. Additionally, the teacher gets statistics of who answered first and correctly in order. I priced some wireless mouses for the classroom and found used ones for $6 so this can be a relatively cheap

SnipSnip.it is a new service that allows you to easily clip a section from a YouTube video and share that section with others. 

Teacher Robert Drewnowski had only $300 in grant money to help him develop a more effective way of teaching math to fourth graders. He used it to buy a Wii.