A useful guide to using Google apps such as Google forms and Google sheets. They are free and relatively easy. "The tools available combine to provide and excellent way to receive feedback and even distribute self-graded quizzes"

From @coolcatteacher "Is Game-Based Learning the Same as Gamification? Not exactly. Gamification is "applying typical elements of game playing (e.g., point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity." Great classrooms often use both. Every day in my classroom, I'm using the essentials: gamification elements, reward systems, and game-based learning. I've already covered 5 Ways to Design Effective Rewards for Game-Based Learning. Let's learn how to pick the games."

"A list of some of the tech tools, including some that are becoming increasingly popular and widely used, that should be part of any teacher's tech tool arsenal, whether for their own personal use or as educational aids in the classroom. They are listed under the categories: social learning, learning content, lesson planning and useful tools"

A Top Tech Tool Infographic that seeks to anticipate questions from teachers. The haeding "What tool can I use for..." lists tasks and icons of tools that might be used (both iOS and an alternative Google/web versions). Each is linked to the tool itself. The creator will continue to update the infographic if and only if a more efficient tool finds its way into his educational learning environment.

"Adobe's Creative Suite is one of the best software packs out there for professionals, but the suite is prohibitively expensive for most people. If you can't drop the cash, you can still get a similar experience with free or cheap software. Here's how to build your own Creative Suite. Adobe Creative Suite is more than just Photoshop: it contains other software that helps you build websites, design logos, edit video, layout books and more."

Simple to use. Go to the site to access the expanding library of jigsaw puzzles created by others. You can search for puzzles based on a theme, by puzzle difficulty (easy is 60 pieces or less and challenging puzzles have 240 plus pieces). In the puzzle work space, you can zoom in or out to give yourself more room to work. The 'full screen' mode removes other distractions and helps to focus on the challenge at hand. The site requires the Flash plug-in to make the puzzles interactive. If you create an account (it's free) you can upload your own images to make your own jigsaw puzzles to share. This will also remove ads from the puzzle pages. The tool does not require an email address to register.

GifDeck is a tool that can convert your SlideShare presentation into an animated GIF. It is simple to use - go to the site, paste in a SlideShare URL, and out comes an animated version. You can then embed the GIF whatever you like. You can also adjust how long you want each slide to appear, how many slides you want to included and the size of the GIF.

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..

This looks as though it could be a useful free tool this will help to gamify a classroom. It could help with to help to improve motivation and classroom behaviour.

"Online learning can take many different forms. It is interesting to look at some of the trends and challenges that moving from an in-person to a virtual environment can pose. The infographic in the post (developed by Education Dive), takes a gander at some of the trends in online learning (and a few fun statistics) and some of the challenges that online learning poses."

This offers some research-based evidence about how Twitter can be useful to educators. "In order to convince teachers of the possible benefits of using a new technology, such as Twitter, we decided to look for evidence of its qualities. What in particular, does Twitter offer educators? Is it worth getting involved?" 30 leading educators (with an interest in educational technology) were identified. They were the ones who were currently using Twitter. The study analysed samples of their tweets in order to determine their purpose and the possible benefits of the tweets to their followers. Also examined were a sample of tweets from the twitter streams of two popular educational hashtags: #edchat and #edtech, in order to determine what 'followers' may gain."

"Google Classroom is finally available to all Google Apps for Education teachers and students. The venture into the world of learning management systems seems to be a pretty solid one. First impressions: It looks and feels like a Google product and so is familiar to most. It's clean and simple (which should make it easy to use) It provides a home base for everything you do in Drive" The author then briefly explains 12 ways she would use some of the features in a classroom situation. They offer ideas worth considering.

There is an add-on teaches kids to code their own modifications to the game. In this Wired article, Klint Finley explains how the creators of the add-on called LearnToMod hope their tool could be a gateway for students to discover a love of computer programming.

Maker Space - It offers so much opportunity for schools to improve the education of students. This post throws up ideas, suggests things that we should be aware of, safety points, and plenty of links. It challenges the reader to think seriously about maker spaces.

A useful guide to hosting or joining a Twitter chat, as well as some description of some of the different Twitter tools available