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This is a good resource for teachers who regularly develop lessons around readings.

This is a great tool for teachers who develop lesson plans around readings.

This is a pretty cool site, even in its basic version. It will generate a lesson oriented to ELLs, using vocabulary clues, pronunciation, reading comprehension questions, and tie the lesson it creates to Comon Core standards. I pasted in text from a fairly complex academic article, and LessonWriter did a rather good job in these tasks, generating several pages of exercises for students, and also a lesson plan with key to the answers for the teachers. The lesson was printable, savable as pdf, and could be emailed to students or put on a webpage. This would be a great tool for teacher training: student teachers could study the lessons that are generated to see how that work--or don't.

"If you're looking for a quick and thought-provoking writing prompt, a twitter bot account now could have a solution providing you with a random, fictional inventory for a list of items. Just post a tweet with 'i' or 'inventory' to the @YouAreCarrying account for your items." A great way to start writing or creating a do-it-yourself adventure game.

"Real-world learning experiences can significantly improve children's knowledge in a matter of just days, a new study suggests. "Researchers found that 4- to 9-year-old children knew more about how animals are classified after a four-day camp at a zoo. "It wasn't that children who attended just knew more facts about animals, the researchers noted. The camp actually improved how they organised what they knew - a key component of learning. "This suggests the organisation of knowledge doesn't require years to happen. It can occur with a short, naturalistic learning experience," said Layla Unger, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher in psychology at The Ohio State University." A very, very small study, but supports intuitive notions of the neccesity of real-world, real-life experiences.

"When you first look at Webjets, you might think, "Oh, it's like Padlet." And in some ways, you'd be right: In Webjets, users create boards where they gather items on cards, placing these on a desktop that feels like a bulletin board. "But with Webjets, these cards work even harder than they do on Padlet, and they come in a variety of formats: A card can contain an image, an embedded video, a live Google Doc, an attached file, or a table containing a variety of elements organized into columns. Probably the best feature is that cards can be collected into folders, where the items are listed along the left, and the selected item appears in a larger window on the right. You can keep multiple folders on one board, and all cards can be collapsed or expanded, making it easy to neatly collect large amounts of resources all in one place. "Webjets would be an excellent, flexible tool for any kind of group project or curation task, whether it's done by you or your students." T/h J. Gonzalez

"Wikis are an exceptionally useful tool for getting students more involved in curriculum. They're often appealing and fun for students to use, while at the same time ideal for encouraging participation, collaboration, and interaction. Read on to see how you can put wikis to work in your classroom." Suggestions include Resource Creation, e.g., for presentations, math problems, glossary, study guides; Student Participation, e.g., for exam review, portfolios, peer editing; Group Projects, e.g., organizing ideas, tracking progjects, showing participation; Student Interaction, e.g., for collecting data, discussion of a book, creating and authoring a group story; for the Classroom, e.g., creating a FAQ, a calendar, sharing class news; Community, e.g., writing a local history or nature guide, a place for parents to see their children's work; and generally as a hub or Website, or to track progress.

"Because "hypertext is a mental process, as well as a digital tool,"[1] one of the larger cultural implications arising from this change in the meaning of text concerns the role of the reader. Text in print implies and, to a certain degree, constructs a passive reader, one who is often a "receptacle" of information. Hypertext is shaping an appropriative reader who is interacting with the text, and is involved in knowledge construction."

"Mote works through a Chrome extension that makes it easy for teachers to leave students voice-recorded feedback in Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, and Classroom. Students don't need the Mote extension or even an account to listen to recorded feedback. It's a real time-saver and a great way to provide effective feedback. " While Nick is right that voice annotation may be a good way to explain you thoughts on student writing, I think that MS Word has a voice annotation feature. And the written notes to students are still important if for nothing else than a reminder as the student re-writes. Mote requires uploading a document to Google Docs first, though that is no big deal. Worth a try, and Nick explains clearly how to run through the whole process.

"For most students, assessment can be a bit of a mystery, which is really unfortunate given how much a student's future depends on how a teacher assesses his or her achievement. In Ontario, we've been working hard to make assessment explicit to students and parents. One of the expectations is that educators and students co-construct success criteria and rubrics so that students have a thorough understanding of what is expected of them." Shows how a class of 6th-graders creates their own holistic rubrics for a difficult class project using ideas from the Ontario Achievement Chart.

"1 Upload Your Video FLV video format only, 25 MEG limit Click the BROWSE button to start! Download video from YouTube! 2 Capture & Edit 1. Capture up to 30 images 2. Add titles and descriptions 3. Add a title to your Vidinote 3 Print Your Vidinote Print directly to your printer or create a PDF to share! " Kind of a reverse of making a storyboard. Might be a good activity to summarize and followup a video project. Students might compare vidinotes to see if they all felt the same frames were key to a project.

"TheInterviewr is a new mashup that makes it super, super simple to record telephone interviews online using your existing telephone. It is a dream come true and for now at least - it's free. The system uses APIs from Twilio and Box.net to let users schedule interviews with contacts, enter notes for the interviews and upload associated files to a central place. Then, when it comes time to do the interview, both parties are sent an SMS to remind them it's about to begin. The person performing the interview clicks a button on TheInterviewr website and both peoples' phones are called automatically. Have a conversation, refer to your notes and documents, then click the same button to end the call. A recording will be available to listen back to immediately. It's like magic." Looks like a good way to get real-life listening/speaking practice.

"WordWriter is a new writing tool from BoomWriter. WordWriter allows teachers to create vocabulary lists that they want students to incorporate into a writing assignment. Assignments are distributed directly to students through the class lists that teachers create in their BoomWriter accounts. Students do not need email addresses to receive the assignments. Teachers can log-in at any time to see if and when a student has completed an assignment." "WordWriter assignments offer a good way to have students practice using new vocabulary words in context. Through the assignments you can have students demonstrate their understanding a word's meaning. You could also use WordWriter assignments to assess a student's ability to use the correct form of a verb. " T/H to R. Byrnes

"This is a listing of 82 sites that legally offer free textbooks and written course material. "There is a separate page with links to free audio and video courses Free Audio & Video Courses Online "To the best of my knowledge all of the websites listed here offer only content that they are legally entitled to transfer to you. If you find a site listed here that you know illegally offers copyrighted material, please contact me through the site with a link to the infringing content. Mr6n8 "To the best of my knowledge every website listed here, and its downloads, are safe. By the rules of this site, no website that has a red or an orange rating at Web of Trust (WOT) is allowed in the listings. I also use LinkExtend, a browser addon that offers the ratings from six other website rating products, to verify the sites here are clean. I have never encountered any issue while visiting these sites. Additionally, I have downloaded something from every site that offers a download and have never encountered an issue. If you should ever encounter malware on any of these sites, please contact me through the site and provide the link to the offending content. Mr6n8" The lists will take some time to go through: 783 sites are included, with minimal descriptions. Variety of subjects. T/H to psmiley in Group diigo in Education This list is not comprehensive and if you know of any other sites please post in the comments below or at our forums. A comprehensive alphabetical listing of free books for reading or listening can be found on these pages:"

This is a great description of how a teacher organized a poetry slam in his high school. Includes a video of the slam and Flickr photos, and detailed directions for how to elicit poetry, ground rules, etc. This is a great way to bring a school together.

Sounds like a good place for many different kinds of content- and project-based learning. "Free Map Tools is an online resource that allows you to utilize maps in really cool and interesting ways. With this site you can find the distance between two points, by land and air. You are able to calculate the area of a region on a map. It allows you to determine how far you can travel while walking, riding a bike, or driving a car for a designated amount of travel time. It will even tell you where you would end up if you tunneled through the earth. Free Map Tools is a very cool website that has applications for social studies, science , and math teachers."

Tips by R. Stannard on how to use G-Docs with your students. Includes how to create a Doc in your personal G-Drive. Students do not need a Google account to access your selected documents. For example, students can discuss a question with a table indicating which group students belong to. Students write their answers/discussion within the cell of the table. Once the doc is created, one student can access a computer to put in all the ideas generated by the group, using a shareable link. Google provides an area to shorten the link so it can be written on the board. [Remember, all students could type in the Doc simultaneously, and chat in the margin of a G-Doc.]

This software helps learners develop their basic paragraph writing skills. Students learn how to write an effective paragraph -- developed by reason, detail, sequence, example, and cause and effect. The full version of the software provides 15 interactive writing activities on a variety of topics. Choosing from a menu of topics, students are guided to generate ideas, write a topic sentence, body of a paragraph, and a conclusion. Each interactive activity includes the following steps: pre-writing, writing, organizing, revising, rewriting, and publishing. The software is a great tool for assessment and self-assessment, for individual practice, and may be especially useful in classes where a teacher is not able to provide personal attention to individual student. -- From Lena Shvidko The focus on process in writing is important, from pre-writing to developing an idea. Would probably be appropriate for both young and adult learners.

Examples "of the way faculty members are using technology to revolutionize the teaching of foreign languages at Oberlin. "This is just one example of how technology can create bridges between schools, cultures, countries,and languages," Sawhill says. "It is extremely difficult for an American to travel Saudi Arabia, but technology can take us there - and once we are connected, we are able to experience an entirely different world." Sawhill has also started using Skype, a free, voice-over IP tool that makes computer-to-computer long-distance "telephone calls," as a way to bring additional native speakers to the students.

"Wink is a Tutorial and Presentation creation software, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel etc). Using Wink you can capture screenshots, add explanations boxes, buttons, titles etc and generate a highly effective tutorial for your users. Here is a sample Flash tutorial created by Wink "

Pupils have a say in what their classroom will be. "HIGH TECH: 21st century classroom on the horizon Pupils have say in their future - by John Thorne in Mid Devon Gazette - 6/11/01 Primary school pupils have been given the opportunity to say what they think a high-tech 21st century classroom should contain. The pupils took part in a technology day at Chulmleigh Community College, which has been chosen as the site for a pioneering classroom of the future project, along with Witheridge and Winkleigh primary schools. Devon County Council has been awarded £900,000 by the Department for Education and Skills for the innovative scheme. It aims to help boost learning opportunities for children and adults in rural communities. Devon is one of 12 local authorities selected following an invitation by the Government to councils to come up with plans for a classroom of the future. Each of the three schools would be equipped with the latest computers, audio and video technology. This would allow pupils and adult learners to benefit from video links with experts at three of Devon's technology colleges, including Queen Elizabeth's at Crediton. They would be able to take lessons or give lectures without moving from their home base. The idea is to provide greater learning opportunities for people living in rural areas and help to cut down social exclusion in isolated communities."

"A movie trailer is a perfect summarizing activity. It can also act as a "teaser" as an introduction to a presentation or student paper. A movie trailer can readily showcase the acquisition of knowledge of a lesson or unit." A good description of how to use iMovie on the iPad/tablet.