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Here's a breakthrough tool to help all teachers better understand copyright and fair use.

How do I know if my use is a fair use? This tool has been developed to help teachers and students reason through the fair use process. You can see an example of how this tool is being used HERE Use the form online. The data from this form feeds into a google spreadsheet so you can compare how individuals or groups reason the fair use of copyrighted material in a work. If you would like to use this form in your work you can click here. If you have a google account, you can sign in and copy into your google account.

sign up for events field trips, etc..

This is an amazing site which allow up to 4 people to collaboarate and play virtual instruments over the web in real time. Play a variety of guitars, drums and drum machines and keyboards. There is no sign up needed and you just invite other 'musicians' by sharing the link and begin jamming. Set to 'pro' mode to play using your computer keyboard. Requires Google Chrome. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Music%2C+Sound+%26+Podcasts

This is a great site for finding quality images to use in your projects. The images can be used for both personal and commercial projects and you don't even need to sign in to download them. The images have been uploaded by users for the public good. Upload your images to help others. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Photos+%26+Images

In a huge turn of irony, at least if one considers how Bill Gates began his programming career, a spat over Office 365 coming to the ipad and Apple's desire to get 30% commissions for anyone signing up for the service if it originates on the ipad, may mean that office 365 won't come to the ipad at all. The evolution of the platform to tablet devices is critical to software companies and yet, many balk at the steep cut some like Apple take. It is interesting to watch, but there is a bigger issue here. Microsoft continues to have the best Office suite, but, as with Google Drive, many move because of a lack of ubiquity and collaborative ability driven by the walls erected by Microsoft in their traditional, but understandable proprietary system. I have to think that there are bigger issues at stake for Microsoft here. These are interesting times, to say the least, as I sit here watching Batman on my Apple TV streaming via the wifi and read this article on my ipad as I blog in the den using a bluetooth logitech keyboard.

This is an amazing collaborative whiteboard where multiple users can edit a multimedia board in real time. The site allows you to signup and sign in using a Google account and you can access and add your files and media on your Google Docs/Drive area making this a fabulous companion to schools using Google Apps for education. You can write by typing or you can write in 'freehand' so you can use your interactive whiteboard to write and archive the lesson to use or refer to later. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

A very interesting platform that teachers of younger students are using for them to create and share what they are doing. It seems to be more visually based rather than text based. It is free and right now has two versions, one for the classroom and another for home. It is in beta and if you sign up now it is free. Would love to hear what some of you think.

Interesting new tool that lets you overlay and tag people, etc. in a video. There are interesting (and some scary) applications for this. This is one of those sites you'll want to play with. The neat thing is that you can add tags to objects as well. This could have some fascinating applications for flipping the classroom. "The tool is free to use, so everything you saw in the video example I sent would be possible when you sign in to wireWAX studio. The only limitation for a free user is the size of the overlay is limited to 200px by 200px, but apart from that we hope there is plenty of scope to do as much creative stuff as you like, from using the overlay boxes or the inbuilt widgets (Flickr, Instagram, Youtube, Facebok, Twitter etc). 

Find thousands of superb videos on diverse subjects from across the curriculum. You can search and watch the videos without signing in to the site. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Video%2C+animation%2C+film+%26+Webcams

This site has a great set of maths games that are sorted into different primary age groups. Practise multiplication, more/less than, decimals and much more. No sign in or registration needed. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

Information on whispercast and how to sign up. This looks like the system for managing Kindles belonging to your school and in fact, you should move towards this. I don't know about moving the books you already have. I do like how you can upload pdf's etc. to distribute.

I think every literature teacher should participate in National Novel Writing month in November. It is a great free program that is gamified and electrified by students writing together. Sign up now and plan this into your writing curriculum. You set the goals for your student writing.

"This is a lovely collection of inspirational and motivating classroom posters. Download them as a PDF to print."

An amazing set of interactive biology, chemistry and physics activities, animations and virtual experiments. A free sign up is required. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Science

Zimmertwins is a widely used animation maker. It's easy to use. Just click the scene/actions you want and make changes. View other users creations. No sign in is needed to make a movie. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Video%2C+animation%2C+film+%26+Webcams

creating infographics online

Another infographic maker that I've tested is easel.ly. I could not use this at all in Chrome but in Firefox it was a nice graphic maker. This is more for narrative story type graphics than Infogr.am, in my opinion. There are several basic themes to choose from and you edit and add your own graphics. Another tool you could use with students although if you want graphics that have a lot of data you should go with infogr.am. I found Easel.ly to be very simple to use with a quick sign up process, although it was totally unresponsive in Chrome, so make sure they are using IE or Firefox if you pick this tool. I recommend this tool for writing teachers, bloggers, and as a nice way to graphically organize stories, etc. Cost: free

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