Lighthearted resources to brush up on grammar rules.

An awesome chart that shows which social media tools to use depending upon the task. Great idea to show to principals who hesitate to involve social media and learning

"Easily incorporate computational thinking into your curriculum with these classroom-ready lessons, examples, and programs. For more resources, including discussion forums and news, visit our ECT Discussion Forums. Note: Lessons include complete teacher editions, student worksheets, and any applicable Python programs. Examples include short exercises from core subjects with key CT concepts to consider. Programs include Python examples and exercises for teachers to enhance their existing lessons. All lessons, examples, and programs are based on California K-12 state standards."

"Through Dan Meyer's blog I just learned that Google has recently released dozens of lessons for exploring computational thinking through the use of Python programming. Now if you're wondering, "what the heck does that mean?" don't worry, I wondered the same. But since Dan Meyer is one of the people in the edu-blog-o-sphere that I have great respect for, and since he wrote one of the lessons, I had to investigate exploring computational thinking through Python. Python is a programming language. Exploring computational thinking through Python is a series of lessons in which middle school and high school students use Python to try to put mathematics and science concepts to use."

"The following lesson ideas utilize several of the Lite or free apps available for the iPad. These are basic lesson ideas that demonstrate the concept with specific content areas, but can be applied with a variety of curricular areas and grade levels."

"You've completed your lessons for the day, but you still have some time left and a group of eager students with nothing productive to do. What can you do in this time to keep your class under control until the bell rings? Here is a list of 10 things to do when you only have 5 minutes left in class."

"Are there alternative presentation approaches beyond PowerPoint, and which are accessible to small colleges? We explored this topic through a NITLE prediction market, which closed last week. As noted in our earlier post, researching that game's outcome triggered a wide-ranging discussion about presentation methods and technologies. We will address presentation methods in a subsequent post; here we will survey available technologies. The prediction market selected five, when it launched this past May:"

"Laments about our schools are nothing new; everyone is an expert, it seems, when it comes to education. While most critics point to the lack of funding or the shortage of teachers, John Taylor Gatto insists the problem goes deeper; we've turned our schools, he says, into "torture chambers." If that sounds abrasively radical, consider this: Gatto, with almost thirty years' experience as a public-school teacher, has just been named New York City's Teacher of the Year for 1989. Gatto teaches seventh grade at Junior High School 54 on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Something of a local legend, he's a chess player and a songwriter - and he grows garlic. He was once named Citizen of the Week for coming to the aid of a woman who had been robbed. He has lectured on James Joyce's Ulysses at Cornell University and has taught philosophy at California State College. Perhaps it's not surprising that he's been approached by a film company interested in making a movie of his life. Gatto once ran for the New York State Senate on the Conservative Party ticket, and some of his ideas are quite traditional: he stresses "family values" and questions increased funds for education. But he's too much of a maverick to be easily labeled. At a recent hearing in New York, he castigated the school system for "the murder of 1 million black and Latino children," and was met with a standing ovation. What follows is the text of the speech he gave upon being named Teacher of the Year."

"Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship Digital citizenship can be defined as the norms of appropriate, responsible behavior with regard to technology use. "

"The open-access.net platform aims to meet the growing demand for information on the subject of Open Access (OA). Our editorial team gathers information which is scattered across many sources and bundles it thematically for presentation to various target groups. Since we wish to progressively expand and optimise open-access.net in response to user needs and feedback, we welcome your input. So please don't hesitate to send us an E-Mail if you have any questions, comments or suggestions. You are also welcome to participate in the current debate on OA by joining our experts forum which takes the form of a moderated mailing list. "

It's FREE! Processing videos with filesize up to 300 MB Analyse video files and provide in-depth information such as video codec, bitrate, resolution, frame rate... Video converter supporting all well known file formats (3GP, AMV, ASF, AVI, FLV, MKV, MOV, M4V, MP4, MPEG, MPG, RM, VOB, WMV). - Simple mode: select output video format only - Advanced mode: wider range of settings available video settings: video codec, resolution, bitrate , framerate audio settings: audio codec, bitrate, sampling rate, channels Add watermark text to a video file Cut video by setting new start and end time Crop video with just few clicks Merge several video files into a single one Demux video files (extract audio, video or subtitles from a file) Record video from a webcam or any other available input device Take video snapshots (make video thumbnails)

"Why shouldn't learning start with hunches? As a new teacher, there are many times I feel stranded somewhere between the older students I teach and the younger teachers above me. I still have strong memories of being a high school student, but am operating in an authoritative role "above" them. I've gotten used to being "the new guy" on the staff, but also to being "the tech guy" to whom many come with questions. I enjoy the dichotomy that being new and also holding a position of soft power puts me in; It's a place that fosters frequent reflection, which is good." An excellent comparison of traditional research methods to 21st Century skills. A great discussion to advocate for the use of Wikipedia, and the difference in research styles between students being a positive thing.

"Today's math curriculum is teaching students to expect -- and excel at -- paint-by-numbers classwork, robbing kids of a skill more important than solving problems: formulating them. At TEDxNYED, Dan Meyer shows classroom-tested math exercises that prompt students to stop and think." This is one of the most inspirational videos that can be shown to a math teacher.

Trick.ly is a free service that shortens and password protects web links you want to share with select individuals on the internet. Rather than rope you and your contacts into a new social network, Trick.ly allows you to share with people on-the-fly.

As Twitter surges toward an estimated 12 million registered users by year's end (though some new stats may disagree), some of us are starting to deal with what we recently dubbed "followholism." You've followed so many people, it's hard to keep up, and it's probably time to do a little housekeeping. But where do you begin? Twitter's own tools for managing followers are subpar. It's nearly impossible to figure out who among your followers are following you back, and the interface for paging through followers is clumsy and difficult to use. Fortunately, Twitter's API has given rise to a vast universe of amazing third party apps. So we've assembled a toolkit below of 10 services that can help you take control of Twitter and organize your followers. If you know any other tools that would be helpful for organizing tweeps, add them in the comments.

CoSketch is a multi-user online whiteboard designed to give you the ability to quickly visualize and share your ideas as images.  Easy to share, similar to other online interactive whiteboards.  I haven't experienced any compatability issues.  Another quality online whiteboard tool.

Math is one of the easiest subjects to use well on an interactive whiteboard. The Internet is awash with SMART Board Math games, but not all are worth your time. The ones in this article have been tried and tested in my classroom, and are long standing favorites with my students. Some are Internet based, and some are SMART Notebook files for you to download, but all are great fun and will help bring added engagement to your Math lessons. The majority of these SMART Board Math games can be used in a K-6 environment, but many can be used beyond that.