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JUst in my inbox - a new bookmarking site for academics. My name is Andrew Cullison. I'm an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Fredonia. I just launched a social bookmarking site for academics, and you seem like someone who might be interested in playing around with it. You can check out the site here - http://www.sympoze.com I love social bookmarking sites like Digg, but I was always disappointed with the academic content that was promoted. I thought it would be great if there were a site like Digg that only allowed academic philosophers to vote up links. That way, I would know that the philosophy content that was voted up would definitely be up my alley. So two years ago, I started that site. Just two days ago, I expanded the site to all areas of academia. We are in beta testing now, but the idea is to eventually set everything up so that grad students and professors only vote up links in their area or a variety of general interest categories. It should be a quick and easy way for academics to find out what is popular in their area with their professional peers.

SweetSearch (http://www.sweetsearch.com/), A Search Engine for Students, is a free custom search engine that searches only 35,000 Web sites that have been evaluated and approved by our team of Web research experts. It excludes unreliable sites that often rank high in other search engines and waste students' time. With only credible results to evaluate, students can focus their energy on determining which results are most relevant to their research. Here are but two examples where SweetSearch's results are far superior to those of Google or Bing: "Shakespeare" http://bit.ly/7Reg7p vs. http://bit.ly/6lUphg vs. http://bit.ly/6ycRcZ "War of 1812" http://bit.ly/87HMYn vs. http://bit.ly/57hoOO vs. http://bit.ly/5L7xiz It's not just that we exclude obvious spam sites; we also usually exclude marginal sites that read well and authoritatively, but lack academic or journalistic rigor, and thus are not citable. As importantly, many of the best academic resources on the Web, such as university or other .edu web sites, make little effort to optimize their search rankings and thus often don't appear till the 3rd or 4th page of Google results. Because SweetSearch searches a smaller, more qualified pool of sites, these academic sites often appear on the 1st page of SweetSearch results. And to most students, the 1st page is the only one that exists. To place a SweetSearch search box on your own Web site, copy the code for our widget onto your site: http://www.sweetsearch.com/widget.html

"SweetSearch is a Search Engine for Students. It searches only the 35,000 Web sites that our staff of research experts and librarians and teachers have evaluated and approved."

    Every Web site in SweetSearch has been evaluated by our research experts.         SweetSearch Web Research Tutorial Teaches Web Research Skills to Educators and Students.  SweetSearch4Me is our search engine for emerging learners.      

I'm testing the share my lesson site, in particular, the friending feature. I've friended some people that I know but was hoping that some of you who are planning to join the site  or are already there would friend me. (If you're doing common core, it is a must join to get free resources and lesson plans aligned to common core.) This is the sister site to the TES site out of the UK that I've been using for some time now and if you have a profile there, just log in with that and accept the terms to move things over. If you uploaded to the TES site, you'll want to move over those resources. Thanks for helping me test it.  Full disclosure, I've been doing work for TES and share my lesson for some time now. As you can tell, I do love what they are doing and their passion to help teachers mobilize and organize their own free content to share with others. the TES site uses the UK system and standards and now they've done the same thing in the US. Thanks for helping me test. (I would also appreciate someone sending me a message to see if that works too and you can message me any feedback and I'll pass it along.)

This is the "site community" for my blog -- I'm learning a lot about what people have marked and the annotations feature is really cool. If you blog or have a website, you should look at the automatically created site community -- also check it out for those sites you really enjoy reading -- you may turn up some of their great old posts that you've not read!

This is a sample of the "site community" that is created around every website-- all bloggers should take a look at the site community created around their own site. Cool!

AwesomeStories is a gathering place of primary-source information. Its purpose - since the site was first launched in 1999 - is to help educators and individuals find original sources, located at national archives, libraries, universities, and government web sites. Sources held in archives, which document so much important first-hand information, are often not searchable by popular search engines. One needs to search within those institutional sites directly, using specific search phrases not readily discernible to non-scholars. The experience can be frustrating, resulting in researchers leaving sites without finding needed information. AwesomeStories is about primary sources. The stories exist as a way to place original materials in context and to hold those links together in an interesting, cohesive way (thereby encouraging people to look at them). It is a totally different kind of web site in that its purpose is to place primary sources at the forefront - not the opinions of a writer. Its objective is to take a site's users to places where those primary sources are found, and to which the site's users may otherwise not go. The author of each story is listed on the "chapters" page of the story. A link to the author provides more detailed information.

Learn to play guitar with this beautifully designed site. Work through the lessons using your own guitar along with your computer's microphone so the site can interact with you as you play in real time. The site will even help you tune it. If you haven't got a guitar to hand, you can use the on-screen virtual guitar. The course is designed for beginners, but lessons progress quickly. The site seems to work best on Google Chrome. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Music%2C+Sound+%26+Podcasts

This is a MUST TRY site. It's not often that I'm amazed be an educational resource, but I am with this one. Pora Ora is a stunning educational virtual world for Primary school aged students. Play truely fun educational games which practise skills in English, maths and many other subjects. The graphics and useably is superb. Online safety is at the heart of this site. The parential admin account can set the student's account to free chat with everyone to completely locked down where they have the world to themselves and everything in between. The site has a language filter and users can report any incidents of trouble. Also, the first task requires the user to complete an online safety task. The site is free with a few premium features coming out later. You have got to try this one! http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

Civil War Augmented Reality project -- just in my inbox. You civil war buffs and history teachers may really get a "kick" out of this. Speaking of "kick" they are trying to get a grant that requires people to vote for them. Take a look: "This message is from a group of educators in Pennsylvania who have developed a Social Studies project that is in the process of raising a modest amount of money to build prototypes for gathering additional partners. Our project, the Civil War Augmented Reality Project, is intended to enhance the experiences of students visiting Civil War sites. It is also intended to increase attendance and revenue for historic sites by offering both "high" and "low" tech experiences to best reach the majority of the population. We feel that our project is fulfilling a need that educators, park workers, technology enthusiasts, and Civil War enthusiasts have discussed in the past: How can historic sites both raise educational value and public interest in their institutions though technology, while not alienating the non-technical history fans? We have worked hard on the answer, and are interested in promoting our creative solutions. We would like to make clear that the project is not intended solely for Pennsylvania. It is our hope that the project will expand to other venues, as we feel that we have the ability to use our ideas to enhance the experiences of all students at historic sites."

The National Park service provides links to public domain digital images of many of those sites, including national parks, monuments, historic sites and related areas.

This site provides links to public domain digital images of many of those sites, including national parks, monuments, historic sites and related areas.

a music site that offers a unique progressive pricing structure that lets you save money for selecting music before it gets popular.When a new song or album is added to the site it's available for free or very cheap (the site doesn't specify a maximum starting price). The price only goes up as demand for a song increases (in terms of total downloads).  The more attuned you are the cheaper your music prices will be. And even if you're late to an artist, the highest price a song can reach is 98 cents (one cent below the starting price for songs on an unnamed service run by a guy who favors mock turtlenecks). The site also rewards users for recommending new music. If you recommend a song that happens to get popular, Amie Street will credit your account as more users download the track (the amount of credit you receive increases as the song gets more popular).

GogoFrog - Easy 3D Web Site Creation Gogofrog allows you to experience the ultimate 3D world in your browser. You don't need to download anything to your computer, just sign up to the site and start create your own 3D place with unlimited online space. At Gogofrog you can share your art, photos, journals and interests with an ever-expanding network of friends and visitors. Chat with your site visitors, furnish your environment and change the space to suit your mood

"The Unofficial Google Sites Help Center is a free service offered by bcj19 and KC Cloud Solutions." Google Sites FAQ, Step-by-Step Guides, Google Sites News, video tutorials

"Finding good quality websites for kids is a bit of a challenge. That's why I was delighted to find this site chock full of great sites and learning resources for children. The site is sponsored by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association. Animals, Art, Sciences, and Reference sections are some of what you'll find there. I really liked the Reference section, but all other segments have great content."

Health teachers will love this site for kids. If you have a rainy day and have access to some computers, this would be a great place for activities. As we emphasize health, we should seek out engaging content in this area. This site is free. Love it. "The multi-award winning program is focused on teaching the basics of cardiovascular health, including anatomy, nutrition, and exercise, by offering comprehensive curriculum materials to teachers and a site just for elementary school children to explore. The curriculum was developed as part of our mission to educate the public in a collaborative effort with medical professionals and certified teachers.  Project Heart is completely free to use and free of advertisements. It is also fully translated into Spanish. 

Miguel Guhlin is doing what many of us are doing after the last straw - Google pulling GoogleReader. He's documenting how he's going to pull his dependence upon Google. For me, my biggest decision caused by Google is that I'll be moving to Wordpress over the summer. I do think Google Sites is next although I've received several heated emails that this isn't accurate - if you look at the market share of google Sites, it is far less than that of Google reader. Yes, it is something educators depend upon but you get what you pay for. I think Google would be better served to have a freemium model -- if advertising doesn't pay for it, we'll let you keep the service if you pay. I don't know how I"d move from gmail. I just don't but if I had to, I guess I could. I don't think gmail is going anywhere, but I do have my personal email boxes going into that inbox. I agree wikispaces is far superior to Google Sites. It started quite a few years a go with Google Lively and it has just continued every year. Thank you Miguel for your transparency. I hope Google is listening, many of us are still HOT about Google reader going away.As great as Feedly is, it doesn't have Diigo or ifttt.com integration yet which is a problem.

This site has been a wonderful source of discussion ideas in my class, especially in philosophy sessions. This site has an archive going back to 2007 of over 1,000 fabulous question that will get your class (and you) thinking and discussing. You can even submit your own brain bouncing questions to the site. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/PSHE%2C+RE%2C+Citizenship%2C+Geography+%26+Environmental

A great site where you can collaborate with an online whiteboard. Invite other by giving them the page link and see then their drawings in real time. Upload images, chat and embed the whiteboard on your site. Your whiteboards are automatically saved for you to return to later. I'm excited by the possibilities of this site! http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

I'm hugely excited by this site. Make collaborative videos in your web browser with this amazing site. Just upload your images, videos and audio and invite others users to edit your project with you. As the files are stored online your students can access the project from home or at school. The videos do not have watermarks and they can be easily embedded into your site or blog. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Video%2C+animation%2C+film+%26+Webcams

A superb assessment resource which allows you to gain real-time feed back through tests, quizzes and even allowing students to annotate a document that you upload. Set up your quiz/test using true/false statements, longer text answers or students can draw the answer. You can setup a marking key meaning that the site will mark the answers for you and give instant data on who is correct. Your student can either have there own free account or they can access the material using a link. The site works across a wide range of devices.

A superb assessment resource which allows you to gain real-time feed back through tests, quizzes and even allowing students to annotate a document that you upload. Set up your quiz/test using true/false statements, longer text answers or students can draw the answer. You can setup a marking key meaning that the site will mark the answers for you and give instant data on who is correct. Your student can either have there own free account or they can access the material using a link. The site works across a wide range of devices.

The top five search tools for finding Flickr images are designed to help teachers and students locate just the right image for use in any subject area and project. Without these tools finding the right image on this image hosting site is often an impossible, or at least a tedious, task. The value of this site is its ability to provide digital pictures which are often impossible for a teacher to obtain any other way. Like everything else on the internet, trying to find something is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. This where the top five search tools become valuable resources for teachers and students trying to find images comes into play. These search engines are specifically designed to search the more than three billion pictures on the Flickr hosting site.