Webheads

Project this web page in your classroom and have at it! A nice application to get a low-cost alternative to the whiteboard.

Great resources for planned and executing project-based learning in your school: "According to Edutopia, studies have shown that students who use project-based learning remember the material much longer and have healthier attitudes toward education. "Project-based learning is based on the idea that students learn best by tackling and solving real world problems. Students are much more engaged with the subject matter and look to the teacher as more of a coach who guides them through their own reflections and ideas. Project-based learning often involves students working in pairs or groups, thus facilitating a deeper understanding of cooperation and communication in solving problems."

Potentially a place to publish your students' creative writing. A good place to learn about writing by reading short narratives and poetry. Some classic authors also.

This might be an improvement over Google Docs for collaborative writing, as revisions are clearly labelled by color for each participant. The teacher could keep track of who was doing what.

This creative mapping tool can hold text, photos, and multimedia. Would be nice to use with an international project. Requires sign-up and log-in. Available in several languages, including Chinese and Turkish.

While the article by R. Byrne talks about various tools, it often gives great tips for lessons using the QR code makers in ingenious ways.

This is a useful way to use Google to create your own search engine. The screencast embedded in the blog entry here gives informative details on the how-to for this built-in Google feature.

From R. Byrne: "Creating and delivering quizzes and tests online offers a number of advantages over paper-based quizzes and tests. Many online quiz services allow you to create quizzes that give your students instant feedback. Some of the services provide the option to include picture and video prompts in your quizzes. And all of these services save you the hassle of printing your quizzes. "

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.