Group items tagged

Spaaze is a free online sticky note service that offers some handy functions for teachers and students. Spaaze allows you to write notes, edit notes and reorder your notes. Your notes can be simple text notes or you can create notes that contain videos, images, or links. Use the Spaaze browser bookmarklet to add a note to your collection anytime you come across an interesting find on the web. The video below gives a good overview of what can be done with Spaaze. Applications for Education Spaaze could be used by students as a personal organizer. Spaaze could be particularly useful for students who don't have their own computers and need to rely on computer labs in order to get work done online. By using Spaaze those students can create notes of what they need to do, what they have done, and create notes about the useful things they find while researching on the web.

Shared notes one took during an Alan November conference

It is an advanced Open Source typing tutor and a free download. The 8MB archive is also portable and runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Amphetype is described as being layout agnostic that means it does not come with a virtual keyboard, but gives you lessons you can use to practice any keyboard layout with it. The software supports the learner with speed and performance measuring features and detailed statistics. One of the important metrics is that Amphetype also measures viscosity i.e. it measures the "pauses' one takes in between words. More pauses means higher viscosity. A lower rate of viscosity translates into better typing performance. Features of Note:  You can generate text fragments to type from Project Gutenberg or any other plain text source to practice your typing. Review mistyped words and even generate custom lessons to practice difficult words or problem words. A performance tab gives a snapshot of WPM, accuracy, measures performance by session, and plots a graph to show progress. Another alternative Open Source keyboard and language independent typing tutor you can try out is Klavaro. It has ready to use keyboard layouts like Dvorak, QWERTZ, Colemak, AlphaGrip5, and more. There are many options to practice your touch typing. I have usually found that using software tools like the two mentioned above, and my personal favorite - TIPP10, and supplementing them with typing games to be the best way. You can always come back to these tools and bump up your WPM (Words per Minute) to an acceptable figure. Want more practice? Look into the following sites too 

 You have to register to start off. Interactive tutorials start-off from the very basics where you familiarize yourself with the home row keys, and then on to the more advanced lessons which are all about drills. There are specialty lessons too where you get to type chapters from literary classics and other works. So, even if you have nimble fingers, you can start off somewhere in the middle rather than start over. One of the nicer intelligent features of the online tool is that it learns your most error prone keys as you type the lessons. Once TypingWeb has learned which keys cause you to stumble, a custom practice lesson can be created for working on those specific keys. Features of Note: 12 typing games serve up practice and fun. A free teacher's portal with features like interactive lessons, real-time student monitoring and reporting can be used by schools worldwide. You can set any among seven languages and choose from 26 different keyboard layouts.

will geolocate "this day in history" facts for you. That is exactly what One Day In does. One Day In places "this day in history" trivia facts on a Google Map in the place where each event happened. You can find facts through searching by date or by simply clicking placemarks on the map. Applications for Education I know some teachers like to include a little "trivia for the day" element in their classrooms. One Day In is one way to provide students with a little geographic context for those bits of trivia. One thing to note about One Day In is that the content is crowd-sourced so use your best judgment in determining the validity of all information on the site.

RT @diigo: [New!] Diigo for #iPad ~ bookmark, highlight, add note, save image, readlater on #iPadapp http://bit.ly/gHOJee #micon - Monte Tatom (drmmtatom) http://twitter.com/drmmtatom/status/33549538492944384

"Lino is a free sticky & canvas service that requires nothing but a Web browser."

How to intro and teach blogging to students using paper. Used in 7th grade but very adaptable to all grades.