Pennsylvania Coaches

Tagul is a web service that enables you to create gorgeous tag clouds. You can read more in the FAQ section, visit the Blog or explore the Forums.

Both of these presentations are excellent. If you have whiteboard or clickers in your school or use promethean software you will learn so much from Deb Pickerings presentation. I recommend that everyone take time to review these archived presentations.

Here is the link for the PDE conference 2010 keynote speakers. Deb Pickering was excellent. I haven't had a chance to view Doug Reeves presentation yet but Pat Kennedy said it was good.

Weblist is a new way to gather and organize content on the web. Create your list of URLs centered on a specific theme and we will combine it to one easy to navigate URL. Once you have created your list you can save it as a smart bookmark or as a customizable home page, share it with friends via email or through the top social media networks, and post it on your blog. Weblist is a great place to discover new user edited content across the web. Find lists in any subject from musical playlists to lists of informative scientific articles and anything in between. Weblist is a free service and registration is optional. If you choose to register as a user your entire list will be saved under your account and you will be able to edit, delete and add to your lists.

Searchable database of premade SMART notebook files. Search by subject, grade level, standards.

"Beyond educational computing and technology foundations for teachers, ISTE has established Technology Facilitation Standards for teacher education programs or professional development that prepare candidates to serve as building/campus-level technology facilitators. Candidates completing this program will exhibit knowledge, skills, and dispositions equipping them to teach technology applications; demonstrate effective use of technology to support student learning of content; and provide professional development, mentoring, and basic technical assistance for other teachers."

Shared by @altapp on another list. She got it from @kjaretts on twitter. See what a PLN can do for you?

This is the handout that Google gave during a training. Nice information! Shared by one of our coaches on the listserv today

This is a link to the site for The Center for Schools and Communities. I am linking this site to our district web site. the video "Protecting Kids Online" has some really good information for parents to be aware of and think about with regard to their child's use of the Internet. In addition, the video has kids sharing real life situations that they found themselves in with regard to the Internet. If you have trouble getting parents to come to you, maybe you would be interested and taking this to the community like we are. We are posting questions that came with the copy of the video. If you would like to see the video user's guide that goes with the video, let me know and I can sent it to you.

I am going to be putting this link with this video onto our district web page. It provides lots of good tips for parents and students and also has kids talking about real internet issues they have encountererd.

Welcome to the Mnemonicizer, the Mnemonic Device Device. A mnemonic device is a sentence that helps us to memorize a string of words. For example, music students use "Every Good Boy Does Fine" to remember the order of notes on the treble clef. (E, G, B, D, F). Math students use "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally" to remember the order of arithmetic operations (Parentheses, Exponent, Multiply, Divide, Add, Subtract.). But the range of usefulness extends beyond music and math. They are an invaluable resource whenever you are trying to remember something.

Shared by one of my grad students. Cool site to help students develop mnemonic devices.

"DoodleBuzz is a new way to read the news through an experimental interface that allows you to create typographic maps of current news stories."

"The literature, life and times of Edgar Allan Poe....in Baltimore and beyond."

Great resource for exploring the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe

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.

"With the advent of the World Wide Web and the huge amount of information that is contained there, students need to be able to critically evaluate a Web page for authenticity, applicability, authorship, bias, and usability. The ability to critically evaluate information is an important skill in this information age. To help you get started with this process with your students, I have designed a series of evaluation surveys, one each at the elementary, middle, and secondary school levels. The elementary, middle, and secondary surveys have been re-designed and updated in February of 2009. The virtual tour, blog, podcast, and teacher site evaluations have been added since 2005 and updated in 2009."

This site offers a growing bank of imaginative, highly visual teaching-aids developed for use with interactive whiteboards in 11-18 Schools. The resources are designed to be used as rich sources of visually stimulating material, making use of both animations and drag and drop interactivity. The appropriate Key Stage is indicated for each resource. It is hoped that the resources will help students to make sense of some of the more challenging concepts they encounter.

Online tool for foreign language teachers - can provide online assignments with audio/video.

Your Next Read is a neat little site that provides you with a web of book recommendations based on the authors and books you already like. Here's how it works; type in the title of a book you like or author you like and Your Next Read will provide you with a web of books that might also enjoy. Click on any of the books appearing the web to create another new web. Below you'll see the web of recommendations that appeared when I typed in Gary Paulsen's book Hatchet.

These folks promote a "computer-free" computer science curriculum. Agree or disagree, this is probably useful to keep for times whenever the network gives up the ghost. "Each Unplugged activity is available to download in PDF format, with full instructions and worksheets. Background sections explain the significance of each activity to computer science, and answers are provided for all problems. All you need for most of these activities are curiousity and enthusiasm. There are photos and videos showing some of the activities in action, and we've collected links to other useful resources. The activities are primarily aimed at the five to twelve year-old age group, but they are by no means restricted to this age range: we've used them to teach older children and adults too, with little modification."

Voisse has three core features at its heart - Record, keep and share. 1. Record Voisse allows users to record any audio (or sound) they choose in whatever way they want - on-line using any modern browser, phone by calling a dedicated number or uploading existing recordings. In doing so anyone, from the youngest child to the oldest adult can create recordings (Voisses). 2. Keep The heart of Voisse is a personal store for all your Voisses, called My Voisses. This area is private by default and provides users with a simple method of cataloguing and tagging their Voisses. These Voisses can then easily be grouped together to create fantastic slideshows each with their personal narrations, giving relevance and context and a rich user experience. Slideshows can be viewed on-line through a custom built viewer or downloaded to an iPod device so that they can always be with you and viewed whenever you want. The portable slideshow is in technical terms a podcast. No-one else gives the you the ability to easily create their very own podcasts. There's desktop software that does similar things to Voisse, but it's infinitely more complex and require considerable technical ability. 3. Share A core reason people choose to record audio is to share. Voisse gives you this ability, if you choose, via email or social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Many people have things to say, experience and wisdom to pass on, things which others value. For those who have popular or unique recordings or slideshows, we have created a Marketplace where they can be bought and sold. The Voisse Marketplace offers you a unique area to create and sell your audio content.