Group items tagged

"Earlier this month, Facebook dropped a bombshell by not only acknowledging that Facebook pages' organic reach was declining but also by telling us we shouldn't expect them to recover. Facebook's VP of Product for Facebook Ads, Brian Boland, went on to explain that this is the new world we live in now, that the same thing happened with search engines before and that we'd better get used to it. It's true that many platforms go through a similar cycle: first, they present a great free opportunity, then more and more people grab it - decreasing the return for everyone until finally, the platform focuses on those ready to pay for play. It happened with Google Search; it happened with Apps (yes, Apple doesn't sell ads but others do - such as coincidentally… Facebook). And now that all social media are publicly-traded company with ambitious revenue targets to reach, it will happen to social media as well. So what does the decline of organic reach on Facebook and social platforms exactly mean on a practical basis?"

"APPitic is a directory of apps for education by Apple Distinguished Educators (ADEs) to help you transform teaching and learning. These apps have been tested in a variety of different grade levels, instructional strategies and classroom settings."

"Save Money. Save the Environment. Tired of printing web pages only to find your printout is full of ads, empty space and other junk you don't want? PrintWhatYouLike is a free online editor that lets you format any web page for printing in seconds!"

I use a firefox addon called Aardvark and can vouch for the advantage of being able to trim your webpages on the fly, especially when removing advertising and other junk before preparing a page for students, keeping it child friendly.

"PrintWhatYouLike lets you print the good parts of any web page while skipping ads and other junk."

"Join Howard Rheingold and other noted educators in creating a world-class resource for teaching critical thinking and Internet literacies. We are building a framework in the pages linked in the menu to the left. Get started by adding to the list of tools and the list of important vocabulary. Check out the latest bookmarks on the Diigo Resources page. You can join the Diigo group and subscribe to the RSS feeds."

This is a really interesting QR code maker that enables you to add as much text as you wish in the note. A mobile page is then created and a QR code generated to which can be added an optional disqus discussion and a range of 'Like' buttons.

Superb tool.

"Simply put teachem allows anyone to create a class from YouTube videos by adding time stamped flashcards and review questions"

50 from a favorites list. Lifehacker asked readers to indicate which free apps they were most thankful for. There were hundreds of suggestions both classic and new. They took the votes (and added a few of there own) and ranked our 50 apps using those votes as a guide. 

"The news of Google shutting down iGoogle (November, 2013 for existing users) has left people scrambling to find alternative start page services on the web. One alternative to iGoogle that I tried last fall is MyLinkCloud. MyLinkCloud just added a couple of important features that are attractive to longtime iGoogle users."

"Google Translate just added a cool new feature that allows you to easily create a personalized phrasebook with the phrases and sentences you want to memorize and/or find yourself translating repeatedly."

OuiWrite will format papers, resumes, book reports, blog entries, letters, and bibliographies into MLA, APA, or Chicago Style and create footnotes. OuiWrite even helps put together content. While typing a paper, OuiWrite automatically searches for the content and finds sources. These sources can then be cited or added as a bibliography automatically. OuiWrite has other nifty features: templates for different types of papers and bibliographies, a dictionary and thesaurus, a plagiarism checker, and a genius button. 

"Over the last few days I've featured a couple of free tools for adding interactive elements to your videos. In the last year I've reviewed a few other services and methods for doing the same thing. This is a round-up of the ways that you can add interactive elements to your videos. The first four tools could be used by students to create a series of choose your own adventure videos. These tools could be used by teachers to enhance the short videos that they create for flipped lessons."

"...... there are many online web applications which can edit your pictures and images online without the extensive knowledge of any graphics application. Photo Editing is always fun and its pretty essential if you want your pictures to look good. You can apply many cool effects, that can make your photo look better and more enhanced. Some common photo editing techniques include 3D effects, adding textures, adjusting backgrounds, editing text etc. Just choose picture from your computer and it will do the rest. So here are 20 Best And Free Online Photo Editing Websites that can make your photos look better."

"Google Form is getting better and better, with every new update Google adds new awesome services. Now users can easily add images to their forms. Until a couple of days ago , you can only create text-based forms but now with a single click you can embed images right into the content of your form. This is particularly useful for teachers creating image-based quizzes and surveys."

"Chrome is not only a browser but the power of extensions enables computers in the same network to share desktops. Adding the extension Remote Desktop, from the Chrome Web Store allows one computer to share its desktop giving the other computer access and control. "

Do you work in design, or any field where you need to download fonts for use on your project? If so, you know that finding top quality fonts is often easier said than done. Plenty of websites offer free fonts, but many of them are filled with ads, and a lot of the fonts are just not of the best quality. That's where the website FontPro comes into play. It offers a clean interface, and all the free fonts you could ever want to download

This is Jason Ranieri's support site for his great Google Presentation on 20 ways to Use Cloudshare in the Classroom http://goo.gl/qRr0P (Note not all of the links are active at the time of adding this link).

"WPBadger is a simple WordPress plugin for issuing badges and adding them to a user's Open Badges backpack. "

Flipboard has announced a new feature for its popular app for iOS that lets users co-curate magazines. Starting today, Flipboard curators can invite others to contribute to their magazines. So if there are people who share your passions or have expertise about your topic of interest, invite a bunch of your friends to be co-curators. Once they accept, they'll be able to easily flip content into the magazine via the + button on Flipboard and the "Flip It" Web bookmarklet. The magazine will be added to their dashboard, as well.

Duckie Deck is a nice educational games site. Each of the games is ad-free and is designed to help children learn something new or practice a skill. You'll find games for learning about potty training, kitchen appliances, and brushing your teeth. You'll also find games for practicing counting and games for learning the alphabet. Duckie Deck offers 125 games in all.