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Free Online Screen Recorder

I nice tool to create PPT presentations with audio and to share those presentations. In the development of these PPT sharing tools, this is a nice tool for having students create simple multimedia presentations. 

The website says: "THE Place For Educational Games!Our research-based and standards-aligned free educational math games and language arts games will engage, motivate, and help teach students. Click a button below to play our free multi-player and single-player games! In the future we'll add features enabling you to save records, tailor content for differentiated instruction, and pinpoint student problem areas." I think using the games in conjunction with a holistic approach to developing skills would make for a great way of getting students to practices some skills. Let students play, set goals, monitor those goals, reflect on their progress, and apply strategies/heuristics to specific problems they struggle with would create an environment in the classroom where learning was fun, self-monitored, and successful. 

the Lincoln Archives Digital Project (www.lincolnarchives.us) is providing unlimited access to the historic but fragile paper records of the administration of President Abraham Lincoln.  This digital archive is not available on any other website.

Anytime you have students using the internet for research then you 'should' be teaching about copyright. It is something that we as teachers often ignore, but it's an important lesson to learn and to share with our students. This is a recorded presentation by Wes Fryer. Worth a listen, some simple applicable points that you can immediately incorporate into your classroom.

The top ten breakthroughs of 2008 by Popular Mechanics is an incredible list. There are several that have potential impacts on education including the Amazon Kindel and the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen. I am fascinated with the smartpen, because I think it makes taking notes in a lecture setting potentially multidimensional (I can take my notes graphically, but also record what the instructor is saying about those notes).

Some interesting activities to do with the Smart board in a mathematics classroom. I tried a couple of the activities and I did like that students were asked to estimate and predict. If teachers had clickers in their classrooms, this would be a great way of getting students to predict, record and then predict again and use the clickers for more than opening bell activities.

Multimedia online note taking tool. Students can capture screen images, make audio recordings for notes, or write text notes to accompany drawings. These different media can then be organized into videos!  I envision it being similar to Evernote with more interaction capabilities and with the great addition of being able to create videos of the information gathered. I like this tool!

"Stacey Roshan is using an approach dubbed by her students as the "backwards classroom."... The students watch pre-recorded lectures the night before the class, when homework problems are traditionally done, then spend the time in class getting answers to questions, working on additional problems with partners, and getting one-on-one assistance from the teacher. No more lectures in class." from The Backwards Class, by Dian Schaffhauser, THE Journal, 02/02/11

The typical student at the Newcomer Center, an alternative school in Township High School District 214 in Arlington Heights, IL, is a recent immigrant with little or no English skills. The school is a temporary stopover for these students--they stay at the center for about a year, building up their English-language skills, and are then transferred to an ESL program at their home school in the district.

Kickboard keeps classrooms afloat. Integrated student academic and behavior records highlight trends. Automated classroom management systems save teachers time. Customizable settings mean Kickboard fits your school's existing systems from the start.

* "Picturing the 1930s," a new educational web site created by the Smithsonian American Art Museum in collaboration with the University of Virginia, allows teachers and students to explore the 1930s through paintings, artist memorabilia, historical documents, newsreels, period photographs, music, and video. Using PrimaryAccess, a web-based teaching tool developed at the university's Curry Center for Technology and Teacher Education, visitors can select images, write text, and record narration in the style of a documentary filmmaker.

Using the arts to teach biology. Stanford instructor records 5 raps that describe different aspects of his biology curriculum for his students. I'm not sure they are incredible examples, but they do set a tone that music can/will help students understand/remember the material more effectively. It's not for everyone, but is another example of differentiating instruction for those who need/want/like to receive information in different formats. Why does the format have to be lecture? (My pessimistic response is that the lecturer learns best by that modality therefore dictates that others should learn that way!)

For the record...this is an implementation point, a discussion starter. Those of us that provide staff development around instructional technology have identified a need to share more than just tools with teachers. To evaluate them based on Bloom's Taxonomy is simply a way to connect the tools to those that would be identified with the Affective, Psychomotor, or Cognitive domains--specifically the Cognitive. The visual that you see here is the seed of discussion.

Great way to create podcasts with students when they interview someone for their class. They can "meet" experts online and record the conversation so they can revisit the conversation and share with others.

MyBrainshark.com is the perfect solution for the shyer set. Audio narration can be added through this website, as well as some nice background music for effect.

Good cheap tool. It's web based and you really need the Pro account for editing purposes. 

Another screencasting tool. Jing is by TechSmith who makes Camtasia (the best tool but $300). Unfortunately/fortunately Jing limits screencasts to 5 minutes. Really forces focused video production which is actually a good thing. 

Screencasting tool. It's free and relatively easy to use.