A terrifically useful article by R. Byrne on making and using QR codes. He describes the tools that can be used and gives good examples of what to do with them, including QR Voice, which allow you to create a short audio message that will come up when the QR is scanned. Links to other useful articles on using QR.

Great links for using Google Earth for science classes, as well as for English/Language Arts (see "Lit Trips"), math, culture and history, etc. Pre-made lessons. Also links to "How to create Placemarks and Tours," "To Geography and Beyond," etc.

Describes the mind-mapping tool that saves to Google Drive, and pedagogical applications for it. Also links to 4 other mind-mapping applications.

This blog entry describes what a rubric is and how to create rubrics for your own purposes. "Authentic assessments typically are criterion-referenced measures. That is, a student's aptitude on a task is determined by matching the student's performance against a set of criteria to determine the degree to which the student's performance meets the criteria for the task. To measure student performance against a pre-determined set of criteria, a rubric, or scoring scale, is typically created which contains the essential criteria for the task and appropriate levels of performance for each criterion. "

A neat tool to mind-map, show related features of pro and con in a debate, etc. Versatile and free. Over 12K maps already available on many topics.

"A movie trailer is a perfect summarizing activity. It can also act as a "teaser" as an introduction to a presentation or student paper. A movie trailer can readily showcase the acquisition of knowledge of a lesson or unit." A good description of how to use iMovie on the iPad/tablet.

True grit may be the most important thing students can learn from you, according to this TED talk. Darwin thought that hard work was not only the most important thing in intellecutual endeavor, but the only thing. To see how to inspire grit, check out Larry Ferlazzo's inks and other resources, including free excerpts from his books, at this blog post.

This is a smart little app to create and edit your own apps for Apple and Android, and both Mac and Windows PCs and tablets. Be forewarned that it has to leave cookies on your machine, but you can supposedly develop and run your edits in your own web browser. Clever students will figure out ways to use it constructively.

Insert a URL on this page and it will render a readability score using Flesch, SMOG, etc., plus statistics such as number of words, sentences, etc. This could be helpful to determine readable authentic materials for ESL/EFL learners. However, I suspect most webpages all run pretty close to the same level. This would be interesting to experiment with, and especially useful for electronic books and content materials.

R. Stannard shows how to use Bubblr to make cartoon strips or anime novella with your students for writing activities that can be embedded in a blog or website and shared by email.

Download and print Flashcards in several different sizes. Math, science, language arts; pre-K - Grade 2. In English, Spanish, Chinese, or other languages of study.

This e-book is free from British Council and is quite short, but contains important chapters on secondary and adult language teaching with technology, ESP, EAP, assessment (co-authored by Russell Stannard), and professional development.

The article suggests capturing your Prezi with a screen capture tool to create a video. A work-around, but could be useful. I find screen captures are usually pretty fuzzy, however.

This site has some amazing links for all the content areas: sciences, lanugage arts (lit trips), maths, and social studies, including U.S. History Tours, using Google Maps and Google Earth. For multiple grades.

This might be a nice way for students to get listening practice. Though set up to read blog-to-sound, students could also read the blog while listening. he teacher might also set up a blog and insert texts or words specifically for students to follow on audio.

"Based on the motivational theories of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, the game encourages students to assess themselves not on how smart or talented they are, but on how hard they work. And the reward for completing quests with characters is significant: Help the Cheshire cat from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and he'll help you turn invisible so you can sneak through the virtual world a la Harry Potter and his invisibility cloak. "The more characters from literature you get to know, the more powerful you become," says Schell. "

Many of these sites/apps have surprising features, such as the ability to insert a poll, educational portals where student accounts can be created, easy embedding of a collage or slideshow in a blog, student response systems within the slideshow, video mash-up, animation, video narration side-by-side, mobile apps, etc. Far more than Powerpoint can do.

This is an amazing site -- the news of the day is provided in three different levels of English, so you can select the reading level that is just right for your students. You can also have the news sent to your email. There is a word translation link also. Still free!

Learning2gether is a project of Vance Stevens and the Webheads. Vance regularly recruits experts and tech-using teachers to offer live webinars weekly. Links to the full schedule and archive of over 300 hours of recordings from past events may be found a this Wordpress blog.

This is a nice update on where to find resources for student projects. Mike Alfred's students use creative projects to show what they have learned, making all types of video from animations to full movies.