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Tired of reading? Select text you want to read and listen to it. SpeakIt converts text into speech so you no longer need to read. SpeakIt is an app that uses Google and iSpeech text-to-speech service. It allows students to select text and it will read it in more than 50 languages. I think this will be a great tool for English learners and special education students because it will offer material in a different way. Some schools do not have translators for English learners and this app is going to facilitate their communication with the teachers as well as their understanding of the material.

This is a really cool extension. I especially love that it is able to read other languages.

The ability to customize Google Chrome to suit one's needs can be overwhelming due to the amount of extensions available. This article makes the job a little easier by listing ten free extensions that add functionality to a student or teacher's browser.

This had a lot of good resources for teachers. The grammarly site would be useful to me in particular as a student and teacher.

"Is the phone the new pencil?" article I found was very interesting and can help teachers be more open minded when it comes to technology. Yes, often teachers as well as parents think that technology is taking over many things even when t comes to education, but in a way it is keeping our children's mind working and thinking about what they are going to write. However, the downfall in my opinion is that are children using correct grammar? Also, how does this affect the social skills when it comes to being face to face versus on a screen. There's many factors that even out the usage of cell phones and pencils.

Writing professor and researcher Jeff Grabill discusses a Michigan State University study which suggests that, although students spend much of their day with cell phone in hand, their "writing lives" are blossoming.

The article speaks about President Obama's delivering his State of the Union address, and his first line was about the commitment of passionate teachers who have help increase graduation rates across the country. The important thing delighting education technology leaders, Obama made the announcement about delivering high-speed broadband to 15,000 schools. This would result in 20 million students with new digital learning opportunities. President Obama also spoke about the Race to the Top program, which he said "has helped states raise expectations and performance." Obama talked about how it requires everything from more challenging curricula and more demanding parents to better support for teachers and new ways to measure how well our kids think, not how well they can fill in a bubble on a test.

UNC-Greensboro won a massive grant of $7.7 million that will go towards technology integration. The article appealed to me because I am a math major, and the money is specifically meant for training future educators in the fields of science, technology and engineering and math. In my opinion, this is a big step in other schools possibly winning similar large grants. Additionally, it shows the recognition of large schools taking part in technology integration.  

As time goes on we will see less and less paper in the classroom. OneNote is a digital three-ring binder. This program is used as a way of interaction between teachers and students. OneNote has three different sections which are collaboration space, content library and the student's private space. Taking advantage of the new technological advances is good because the more you know of a program, the more efficient you will be able to be.

This article introduces the idea of classrooms going completely paperless. The idea behind going paperless is amazing. The impact that it would have on the environment and on student's learning abilities is something that needs to happen. By using Microsoft's OneNote, teachers can connect with students in a different way. In many ways our INTC class is paperless already. 

This article really stood out to me because I found it so interesting and amazing how much our society is advancing. Basically, O'Brien has this great idea to take Google Exploration to a whole new level. She has interns that are getting some experience with her job, but she says that they are choosing their jobs with fear. They are taking the safe route because people just do not know exactly what is out there. No one can know the experiences others have with their jobs on a daily basis. This is why O'Brien wants to take Google Exploration to a new level. If you watch the video in the article, it shows exactly what Google Exploration is. It is a new technology that allows students to "travel" anywhere and see what they are actually learning. Better than a picture, better than a computer screen, the students hold up cardboard lenses with an iPhone on the other side, which is a virtual exploration. O'Brien was fascinated by this creation, and wants to capture individuals lives on the screen. She wants students to experience the jobs they are interested in, and see what each one entails. I think this is a brilliant idea for education and it shows the true advancement that we have with technology. This will help individuals all around discover what they want to be in life.

This article is great for any new teachers or for any teachers that want to advance their technological teaching skills. It explains in a step-by-step way that is easy to understand from integration to evaluating the new methods. The article also goes into describe Digital Learning Day, a day that inspires educators to utilize technology in teaching to give students "access to high-quality digital learning opportunities, no matter where they live".

This article describes the competition called Pitch Fest. It is a competition where companies pitch their different education inspired programs and are judged until there is a winner.

This article calls into question finding a balance between technology and educators in a classroom. It describes a need to find a way for technology to enhance teachers, not replace them. This relates to our class because as we are learning to use new technologies, we must also learn how to effectively incorporate them into a classroom in a way that augments what we are teaching to students.

This is a great perspective on flipping the classroom. Jon Bergmann breaks down the reasoning behind flipped learning, explains how to begin flipping your classroom, and creates an interesting diagram that breaks down the process of flipping a classroom that educators can use to identify where they are at in the process and what the next step is for them.

This constructive article written by Nicole Krueger stresses the importance of developing student's abilities to tell their stories through the use of many technological mediums, focusing primarily on video. In today's digital age, sharing our stories or work with the world is an integral part of making learning meaningful and positioning oneself to take place in digital society. While many teachers are still hesitant to integrate video projects into their curriculum, "creating a video can provide an authentic learning experience that brings together critical skills, such as analytical thinking, problem solving and collaboration." Therefore, I think this article is very helpful to our class and other educators alike as it promotes the use of technology in a very creative, innovative, and opportunistic way for students to think beyond the classroom, develop essential abilities, and strive for excellence. The progression of utilizing video projects in the classroom can only implicate stronger motivation for students to exercise technological tools as a major pathway of transferring their learned knowledge and skills to real world application.

This is a very informative article about how to integrate twitter into the modern classroom lesson plan. It shows that social media platforms can be used in schools and develop good academic skills. It also provides insight and opinions from professionals in the field.

There are major predictions for 2015. Teachers all over the nation will be able to share/provide information with online groups. It will also bring an explosion of new classes being formed so students can create and experiment with newer technological programs. People all over the nation will experience a new speed of technology and a new level of privacy.

This article describes upcoming technologies that will be placed into school systems and their benefits to students and teachers. This article foresees a bright future in the tech world. They will be implementing faster internet speeds due to the lack of connectivity in several schools across the U.S. With things such as this being implemented into schools, technology seems to be the only future education has and will only be improving from here.

The growth of online learning in PK-12 education has expanded brick-and-mortar schools to include a virtual learning environment far beyond the boundaries of the traditional classroom.

This article acknowledged that with the heavy curriculum of high school classrooms preparing for AP test, Standardized testing and SAT/ ACT testing, it is hard to find the time to add unnecessary technology resources. However, it then lists great ideas to use it everyday. This article is very useful for prospective high schools teachers who want to integrate technology more than power points and research. The best point made was that the more preservice teachers are trained in technology the more they tend to use it in the classroom!

I like this article a lot because it has to do with integrating technology in high-school. Most articles are directed at elementary school teachers and how to make it fun for the kids. Well adding a game or an activity that is fun for a ten year old is not going to please a sixteen year old. Most examples of integrating technology are examples of elementary school activities too. So this article is a nice refreshing take on how to integrating technology in high-school.

This article discusses how technology will actually be beneficial when it comes to teaching with the common core standards, where some people were afraid this would not work. As future teachers, we must use the proper technology to ensure students are receiving a quality education and finding accredited information on the internet.

Tayne Martin, is an educator and World of Warcraft aficionado, stating that boys make up 80 percent of  the computer classes at her school, and very few girls enroll in AP Computer Science. Girls are gamers too.  Martin, who is coordinator of the Professional Development Support Division at Broward Schools in Florida, is part of a team presenting the ISTE Professional Learning Series webinar "Girls, Games, and Coding" on Thursday. The reason to combine games and coding is simple: There is a clear relationship between gaming and technology.