Group items tagged

"Students, teachers and the public turn to their librarians for help researching everything from technology to genealogy to homework help and lesson plans. Even if your library is equipped with subscriptions and memberships to top of the line databases and online journals, you've probably had to get creative during a patron's requested search for something unfamiliar."

"this report seeks to analyse the use of technologies for learning around the world and draw out lessons for innovation in the uK education systems."

"Improve your vocabulary" This is a simple tool that will assist with learning English (to Advanced English), Spanish, and Polish vocabulary. More languages may follow. It can be used online or with a free Android app. It is similar to a lot of other language learning applications. You can create lists of words and phrases that you want to learn or you can select a list that was made by someone else and shared to the Vocabla library. You can study each list as a type of flashcard and when you are ready you can take a practice quiz. Teachers might like using Vocabla to create a list of words and share with their class. All the students could use the list to study on their own

"Create your live podcast with Spreaker. It's fun, simple and free." "Spreaker provides you with a user-friendly console to manage voice, special effects, and your music library

This is pretty big if you are an Edmodo user .. "Today we're please to announce that Google Docs has been integrated into Edmodo. This highly requested feature allows you to sync your Google Docs with your Edmodo Library so you can easily access and share your Google Docs with your Edmodo groups."

Every once and a while something comes along that causes me to wonder: Why isn't everyone using this (or something like it)? I look around college classrooms and libraries I find people using the usual suspects of programs:  MS Word and Pages.  I use Pages too, but it's only really good for the final composition of a paper, and it's a terrible research and note taking tool (it's a word processor, not a note taking tool). I've come to the point where nearly all my studies are done with Evernote.  I know there are are a ton of other programs out there (like Zotero, Scrivener, OneNote etc...) and this is not to say that those aren't good programs (I use Zotero with Amazon.com to make bibliographies super easy - but Zotero's note taking tool feels tacked on), but I just happen to use Evernote, heavily.  If you're a student and you are not using something like Evernote, you are probably missing out on being more productive and doing better work.

Been toying with the idea of using Augmented Reality in your classroom or library? Here's your chance to use the latest in AR to excite your students and get them looking at environmental issues through a new lens, then lens of their smart phone, iPad or tablet. If you are looking for a super #edtech way to engage your students, I have just the thing for you this World Environment Day - June 5. How about  a 700 x 1156 pixel poster which when scanned with the Augmented Reality (AR) app Layar will display rich  media elements.

ost people use Microsoft PowerPoint to create presentations, however there are many other tools which enable creation of more dynamic presentations. One such example is the Prezi web application which is well known for its unique zooming UI. Similarly, Impress.js is a JavaScript library and a free alternative to Prezi. Unfortunately, Prezi comes with a huge price tag and Impress.js can only be utilized by developers. If you are a lay user who wishes to get the functionality of the aforementioned tools to create more innovative presentations, then try Infinite Canvas. As the name suggests, it is a web based canvas which can be used to add images for creating slides which can be zoomed (in and out) like Prezi and Impress.js.

Easy way to get a hold of a Google Music account (up to 20,000 songs in the cloud).  I went through all the steps and it worked a treat. Grabbed the Google Music App for Android off the XDA website just searched for google music apk and downloaded it to a dropbox folder and installed. Make sure you sign up for google music first before installing the App. Let you know in 20 days how I go uploading my entire library.

FYI XDA Developers link http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1072655

The Boys' Reading Commission has found that boys' underachievement in reading is associated with the interplay of three factors: -  The home and family environment, where girls are more  likely to be bought books and taken to the library, and where  mothers are more likely to support and role model reading; -  The school environment, where teachers may have a limited  knowledge of contemporary and attractive texts for boys  and where boys may not be given the opportunity to develop  their identity as a reader through experiencing reading for  enjoyment; -  Male gender identities which do not value learning and  reading as a mark of success.

An interactive online course to teach students how to make their own games. This 12-Module course includes everything you need to make your own game, including the software, graphics, and sound effect libraries.

Turn simple photographs into videos using this site. Once you sign up (it's free) you begin by choosing a video template and then adding your pictures from Facebook, Flickr, or your computer. You can set the order of your pictures, add captions to them and add text slides if you wish. Next you add music, either from their library or add your own from your computer. Your last step is to add a video title and any additional text and you're done. Completed videos can be uploaded to You Tube or Facebook and can even be embedded into a website or blog. The site does have a 30 picture maximum but that is long enough for most people.

Another interesting piece about makerspaces. This time how one teacher librarian (librarian and English teacher) in the US used robotics kits in her library to respond to their reading. Her students to created characters from the stories they read and then brought them to life. Innovative and engaging hands-on learning - what's not to like. Other examples are discussed as well.

"You may know that Flickr is one of the largest repositories of freely usable public domain and Creative Commons photos in the world, hosting collections contributed by libraries, national archives, foundations, museums, galleries, and individual users (I've uploaded more than 10,000 CC-BY-SA images of my own). However, with its latest redesign, Flickr has made is very difficult to copy the images it has been entrusted with, and nearly impossible to correctly attribute them in accord with their license terms. Today, we're fixing that. A little, anyway."

This looks like it could be a good tool to get students enthusiastic about publishing online magazines of their own. I a wondering if I can get some of our writers and reviewers to create a magazine for the library..