Group items tagged

"The following video was created in an infographic style with big simple graphics and text. In the video, I present 8 tips for using PowerPoint to create video infographics."

Looking at the New Directions for school leadership and the teaching profession discussion paper, the only evidence presented to support the assertion that Victoria's education outcomes are not improving is the report "Challenges in Australian Education: results from PISA 2009: the PISA 2009 assessment of students' reading, mathematical and scientific literacy" Specifically the New Directions paper focuses on reading literacy, where in 2009, 14,251 students were given a two-hour pen and paper comprehension test. To get an idea of what types of competencies the reading test is assessing we can look at the sample test , with questions range from comprehension about a letter in a newspaper, the ability to interpret a receipt, comprehension around a short story, an informational text, and interpreting a table. While it doesn't seem unreasonable to want our students to be able to accurately perform these kind of tasks, these tests are not a true or accurate representation of the skills and competencies our students need in today's technology driven world.

Onle tool, Transcribe, helps you transcribe audio without alternating between an audio player and a text editor.

Gooru is a new service (still carrying the Alpha label) that aims to provide teachers and students with an extensive collection of videos, interactive displays, documents, diagrams, and quizzes for learning about topics in math and science. As a Gooru member you have access to hundreds of resources according to subject areas such as chemistry, biology, ecology, algebra, calculus, and more. Within each subject area you can look for resources according to media type such as video, interactive display, slides, text, and lesson plans. When you find resources that you want to use, drag them to the resources folder within your account. Gooru also offers you the option to add resources to your folders even if you did not find them within Gooru.

Educators can apply for a free Animoto Plus account for use in the classroom. Its powerful features can be used to create stunning presentations incorporating images, video clips, music and text.

"I never quite understood internet cookies, except that I should erase my "cookie history" every few weeks. Turns out internet cookies are just plain text stored in your computer's browser. However, these little cookies pack a huge punch by leaving an easily trackable internet trail. Check out today's infographic about internet cookies and how they affect your computer!"

A great outline of where to start in regards to texts and resources associated with digital literacies.

"Reading is inherently time consuming because your eyes have to move from word to word and line to line. Traditional reading also consumes huge amounts of physical space on a page or screen, which limits reading effectiveness on small displays. Scrolling, pinching, and resizing a reading area doesn't fix the problem and only frustrates people. Now, with compact text streaming from Spritz, content can be streamed one word at a time, without forcing your eyes to spend time moving around the page."

"Could there be a less expensive Google Glass competitor coming soon? GlassUp aims to give customers an alternative to Google's connected glasses with its own pair of augmented reality specs. Italian company GlassUp was recently added to crowdfunding site Indiegogo and has already raised nearly $25,000 (of its $150,000 goal). Similar to Google Glass, the eyewear works with your smartphone and makes it easy to see emails, text messages, Facebook updates and news right in front of your eyes. Its maker, Gianluigi Tregnaghi, says he created GlassUp two years ago - before Google ever announced its Glass product."

Content aggregation into text ebooks. faculty tool.

"Subtext is a free iPad app that allows classroom groups to exchange ideas in the pages of digital texts. You can also layer in enrichment materials, assignments and quizzes-opening up almost limitless opportunities to engage students and foster analysis and writing skills."

Lulu gives you the opportunity to upload a document and convert to epub format. The site contains photo book tools and you can add images and text to tell a story. Tools are also available for creating poetry books and digital portfolios

"With Dictation, you can use the magic of speech recognition to write emails, narrate essays and long documents in the browser without touching the keyboard. To get started, just connect the microphone to your computer and click the Start Dictation button. Dictation uses your browser's local Storage to save all the transcribed text automatically as you speak. That means you can close the browser and it will resume from where you left off."

Waterlife is an interactive story about the water cycle in the Great Lakes. Waterlife is a twenty part story through which students can learn about the role of water in our lives. Through the story students learn about things like fishing, pollution, invasive species, wetlands, and the politics of water conservation. When students select a part of the Waterlife story they will be able to hear narration, see visuals, and read the text of the story. Some parts of the story also contain links to external resources that student can explore.

"Wickr is a free app that provides: ·military-grade encryption of text, picture, audio and video messages ·sender-based control over who can read messages, where and for how long ·best available privacy, anonymity and secure file shredding features ·security that is simple to use"

"The track record of commercial products designed with privacy as a top priority has been abysmal - at least until recently. The ephemeral texting app Snapchat is turning assumptions upside down about young people and their desire for digital privacy."

"OpenStax College offers students free textbooks that meet scope and sequence requirements for most courses. These are peer-reviewed texts written by professional content developers. Adopt a book today for a turnkey classroom solution or modify it to suit your teaching approach."

"According to a recent survey of people in 65 countries, 73.4% of people own a smartphone. Those with smartphones check them an average of 110 times per day, which amounts to every five or six minutes spread out over a twelve hour period. Another study found a slightly higher frequency - 150 times per day. That's a lot of people with instant, constant access to email, social networking, and text messaging. Not all of them will suffer all or most of these negative effects, but the draw of checking  your phone "just one more time real quick" is obviously difficult to resist. Heck, most people don't even try to resist it, because staying connected and apprised of everything everywhere can only be a good thing, right? Let's take a look at some of the possible consequences:"

"My prediction is that if dictation technologies become less expensive and more widely available, and if it becomes normal to use them for everyday writing (such as email and text messaging), then students will grow disinclined to type their writing assignments, preferring instead to rattle off their compositions by voice. Educators will thus be confronting inescapable decisions about how they should respond to students' inclinations to write with dictation technologies."

"Animoto is an excellent tool for creating audio slideshows. But there are some limitations to it that some teachers don't like. Most notable of those limitations is the time limit (30 seconds unless you get an Animoto for Education account), lack of space for text, and that students have to remember a username and password to use it. The YouTube slideshow tool provides a tool for creating audio slideshows without those three limitations of Animoto."