WSD eToolBox

"Glogster on-line training videos" A very nice collection of 20 videos for Glogster. A nice start for anyone wishing to learn glogster on their own.

"Summer has officially started for many of you! I know that you will probably be relaxing for the first few days, but eventually you may feel the need to be inspired and motivated for the upcoming school year! Social media provides us with incredible opportunities to choose the way we want to develop professionally. You can choose the topic, the medium, and who you want to learn from. You can choose the way you like to learn, because social media provides us with several multimedia experiences, such as webinars, LMS, live video, and more. The experience is usually dynamic and motivating because you are learning with others around the world! Additionally, you will be developing your Personal/ Passionate Learning Network (PLN)."

A nice overview of Diigo: how to bookmark, annote, share web resources

"There are many teachers who want to start using technology in their classrooms, but just aren't sure where to start. That's why I got together ten prominent ed tech bloggers, teachers, and school administrators to create The Super Book of Web Tools for Educators. In this book there introductions to more than six dozen web tools for K-12 teachers. Additionally, you will find sections devoted to using Skype with students, ESL/ELL, blogging in elementary schools, social media for educators, teaching online, and using technology in alternative education settings."

Twurdy uses text analysis software to "read" each page before it is displayed in the results. Then Twurdy gives each page a readability level. Twurdy then shows the readability level of the page along with a color coded system to help users determine how easy the page will be to understand. The Goal Twurdy's goal is to provide web searchers with information that is most appropriate for them. This will mean that 10 year olds doing school assignments don't have to click through difficult material to find something they can use. It will also mean that phd students do not have to click through websites designed for kids in order to find what they are looking for.

Curriculum 21 is the outgrowth of the work of a dynamic group of educators worldwide attempting to help colleagues transform curriculum and school designs to match the needs of 21st century learners. The impetus originated from the Curriculum Mapping work developed by Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs. As we examined maps emerging across the United States and overseas it was evident that curriculum and instruction remains dated although both students and teachers recognize the need to become current and forward thinking in our planning.

This is an online course for teachers who want to improve their classroom instruction. We're glad you've decided to participate in this exciting and challenging learning experience. The goal of this course is to help teachers improve student achievement by implementing research-based instructional strategies supported by the effective use of technology.

In this series of lessons, students learn the purpose of an electronic portfolio; use Google Blogger to create such a portfolio of their best work, including multimedia extensions as desired; and respond to each other's work online using the Comments feature of the blogs. Teachers create a basic class website from which to link to each blog. This fosters an online community in which students can easily move from blog to blog to view and respond to each other's content.

"With the right software an interactive whiteboard can become a massive graphics tablet - it is a very different drawing experience to using a mouse. Here are 10 great websites that all Art teachers should have bookmarked. Most are free online drawing packages, but one or two a slightly different, but still worth exploring."

Word Tamer is a neat site for learning the process of developing characters, settings, and plots in creative writing. Word Tamer is set up as an interactive journey through a carnival of literary devices. As students move through the carnival they develop characters, develop a setting, and develop a plot for their stories. At each stop in the Word Tamer carnival students can print out the words they have written. Along the way there are videos to help students understand the roles of characters, settings, and plot development in crafting a good story.

You can do a lot with wikis. But before you get to the fancy stuff, you have to master the basics - and that goes for your students, as well. Now that the school year is underway, we put together a quick 15-20 minute activity, designed to get students comfortable with using wikis. All you need is this PDF handout, a wiki of your own, and a few minutes of preparation:

It is the intent of this web page to help you, the teacher, manage your classroom while students are busy creating multimedia projects.  A variety of strategies will be presented.  Choose the ones that work best into your current classroom management system.

Nice slideshow with techniques and ideas

A fast tool for finding and downloading all of Microsoft's free tools for teachers and students. Microsoft Partners in Learning helps educators connect, collaborate, create and share. TeachTec helps educators find relevant and effective ways to use technology to inspire teaching and engage students. Together we have consolidated the latest and most popular teacher and student resources that Microsoft provides to all schools, districts and education organizations around the world.

"With approximately six hours of actual instructional time per school day, what percentage of that time are students actively engaged and cognitively invested in what is being taught or learned in your classroom? What evidence do we as teachers have that students are actually cognitively in tune with us? And what wonderful and deep critical thinking are we missing out on by not requiring evidence of processing and content-based interaction by our students? Listening Objects"

30 great tech makeovers and ideas to help you get started in using technology in your teaching and learning.

Nice collection of free audiobooks.

WorkFlowy is an organizational tool that makes life easier. It can help you organize personal to-dos, collaborate on large team projects, take notes, write research papers, keep a journal, plan a wedding, and much more

"This post could be almost infinite: there is most certainly an extraordinary array of options for videos which expand educators' understandings and inspire advances in 21st century learning.  But curation is about choice and selection, and while I know I will leave out many, I thought I'd offer up a set of 15 of my favorites for your consideration for video screening at at back-to-school or beginning-of-the-year faculty meetings (and/or parent and board meetings)."

"Students improve their reading skills by: * Listening for modeled fluency * Reading for practice * Recording their reading * Checking comprehension with quizzes "