Ed Tech Crew

"Yesterday I finalised the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2010 list.  Many thanks to the 545 people who shared their Top 10 Tools for Learning and contributed to the building of the list.   Although this list is available online, I also created this presentation which provides the information as a slideset - embedded below."

ShowMeDo is learning with the open-source community. Learning Paths are visual scripts for navigating lessons.

Every Year 8 student at Warwick Senior High School has been given an iPod to use during class and school hours to research, access school-created information and download relevant applications. Assignments and homework can also be completed online. A huge array of applications has been made available to download, enabling students to create practice tests, learn about percentages and translate voice recordings.

A cool Flash based website that shows how Google works and its development over the past decade.

QR codes are two-dimensional bar codes that can contain any alphanumeric text and that often feature URLs that direct users to sites where they can learn about an object or place (a practice known as "mobile tagging"). Decoding software on tools such as camera phones interprets the codes, which are increasingly found in places such as product labels, billboards, and buildings, inviting passers-by to pull out their mobile phones and uncover the encoded information

website clicks embeddable

research and table with research on gaming by Kapp Notes

Here comes the web .... "Google has just soft-launched its latest browser experiment, the Google Body Browser, which is basically Google Earth for the human body."

Research in support of 1:1 devices (Like we needed any convincing! ;) "A Computer Per Student Leads to Higher Performance Than Traditional Classroom Settings"

But perhaps the rarest thing about Digi-Comp is the combination of hands-on and minds-on fun it affords. It definitely still has things to teach*, like Boolean logic and problem-solving... and it's rewarding to build and use. That's why Minds-On Toys decided to reintroduce it in an affordable kit format, with a thorough and professional revamp of the original documentation.

Just ordered myself one of these for christmas, an elastic-band powered computer that comes as a DIY kit. I can hardly wait to turn up.

"2010 was the year the cloud's impact became clear, permanent and more far-reaching than this slow-thinker had previously realized. Few things we did in my school district have not been in some way cloud-related - and those projects on the horizon look to be as well. My own personal technology use for both work and leisure has changed significantly this year due to ubiquitous cloud access and the devices meant to take advantage of it."

Interesting to consider some of the 2011 trends identified in this blog entry.

Great tool to make your own shortcuts

While Twitter is a great online social network, there is a lot of room for improvement in its search interface. If you want to find an old Tweet or entry, then you have to go through many search pages before you find what you are looking for. Twitter search is made much more convenient by SnapBird, an absolutely free Twitter client that lets you easily search the Twitter stream.

"We've been getting a lot of questions ever since our GMAT Choose Your Own Adventure video went up. Well, one question, really: How can I make one for my students? Answer: It's easy! Youtube has a great tool called Spotlight that lets you make any video interactive. It's really handy for lessons and quizzes. Essentially, you can ask students a question - or a series of questions - and when they answer show them a personalized video response according to how they did."

Simple free AIR app for drawing on a "blackboard" background. Recommended for flow charts. Pro version for $19.

"The rules and frontiers of our classrooms are changing with the disruptive technologies now being embraced by our society and integrated into our schools. In some ways, we are still playing catch-up with these technological and social changes. I am redefining my role as an educator in his new education landscape."

A short video that I made whilst on holiday about changing borders in our classrooms. Thought that you may be interested.

If trig was ever a mystery to you .. this site may be able to help explain how it all fits together!

"Panther is a programming language aimed at young users with only a small knowledge of programming. Panther offers you a more advanced version of Scratch, a simple programming language developed at MIT."