Microsoft Upgrades their teacher resource page

If you visit the Microsoft Education website, you will see an updated site with even more resources for teachers.

There are many more teacher resources and how-tos and a large variety of lesson plans too.

Old Radio Shows for Class

Old Time Radio Network Library is a collection of old dramas, comedies, westerns, and science fiction. There are more than 12,000 programs. The programs come from more than 160 series, mostly ranging from the early 1930s through the 1950s, but some from as early as 1929 and as late as the early 1960s. The programs are interesting for their dramatic or comedic contents, and also for the content of their commercials. All programs are copyright-free. 

File Sharing on Facebook with filefly

Dropbox has been around and almost everyone is using it because it is so convenient and good.
This week I was introduced to filefly which tris to do the same as dropbox, except that it does it with facebook and is a secure folder between you and your friends.
The reason I thought of this is that I have had some people who are avid facebook users, but have not been able to get up to speed with dropbox.

Here are the 3 features of filefly

 

1. Share Easily — Create and share a folder with just a few clicks, accessible anywhere. 
2. Transfer Quickly — Download and upload anything up to 2GB at blazing fast speeds. 
    3. Pay Nothing — Filefly is free for you and your friends!
So try it out and see how it works for you.

Microsoft Education: for educators

 

Keep visiting the Microsoft website for more tools and resources.

Online Photo Editing

 

There is a plethora of online photo editing sites out there and everyday a new one seems to get created. One of the biggest advantages for us is that we do not need to spend lots of money on image editing tools when all that is needed is an internet connection. Here are a few links for photo-editing sites.These are for your images that you can upload and edit.
Most of them have similar feature sets, but some of them are more friendly and easy to use.  The kids in my school seem to like picnik a lot and use it often.

   

 

 

 

3 Websites to download free eBooks

 

As teachers, we all need to foster the habit of reading. With ebooks, we do not have to worry about space and storage of actual books as we can build our libraries of ebooks.

I have come across 3 sites that offer free ebooks for download. The books are legal for download, in case you were wondering about how the whole free ebook downloading goes.

 

1. Manybooks.net

A huge collection of older novels that you can dow nload in many different ebook formats.

2. Getfreeebooks.com

A collection of more modern books on a variety of subjects. More books by new authors and first time authors and some free offers by publishing companies.

3. Bookyards.com

Their goal is to be the library to the world.  They currently have Bookyrds has a total of 17,008 books, 41,784 external web links, 4,197 news & blogs links, 384 videos, 32,963 Ebook links and access to hundreds of online libraries (800,000 Ebooks).  I have not verified it but its possible.

Well here we have it, more free ebooks for all top use. Have fun with this.

Current Events with theweekinrap.com

 

If you want to change your current events around a bit in the classroom, you could try showing the week in rap.  It is a summary of the news headlines in a short rap video usually under 1:30 minutes.

They also have a transcript so you can read the news beforehand. The news is entertaining, a bit US centric, but they are based in the US. They update every Friday, so if you live in Asia, it can be a  part of the new week’s classes.

Free presentations for your classes from Pete’s Power Point Station

Pete’s Power Point Station is a huge collection of free presentations in PowerPoint format. These presentations are designed for the K-12 teachers and students.

Even though the page looks very kid friendly and has extremely vivid colors, there is a wealth of resources available.  There are presentations on almost every topic you can think of for a school setting. And for a teacher who is teaching a lot of classes, this is a great way to help with finding more resources.

I have used some of the presentations here and would recommend this site for any teacher who has to teach a lot of classes and needs help with presentations.

Free fonts from Dafont.com

 

Do you need free fonts for your schoolwork? If so look no further than Dafont.com. This webiste has been a favorite of mine for many years.  The fonts are arranged by theme and you can also search for the kind of font that you are looking for. There is also the option to preview what your text will look like in the font.

The best part about Dafont.com is that the fonts are all free to download and use, without you having to worry about using them illegally.

Here are the themes:

 

 

 

 

Free Games for you to create and host from Classtools.net

You can create free educational games, quizzes, activities and diagrams in a flash. Host them on your own blog or website.

The free version has ads in bright colors at the bottom of the screen, and there is a big push to get you to sign-up for the premium membership. However, the free tools work the same.

 

Here is a list of all the games with links to them:

• Fakebook
• Arcade Game Generator
• Random Name Picker
• Countdown Timer
• Twister
• Keyword Checker
• Plagiarizr
• Dustbin Game
• Telescopic Topic
• Post It
• Diamond 9
• Fishbone (Ishikawa)
• Venn Diagram
• Animated Book
• Timeline
• Lights Out
• Target
• Hamburger
• Living Graph
• Learning Cycle
• Jigsaw Diagram
• Priority Chart
• Source Analyser

Free McGraw-Hill apps!!

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is holding its annual conference this week and in honor of this event McGraw-Hill has dropped the price on select iOS educational applications. The sale started earlier this week and extends until the conference ends on April 16. During this time, the following applications will be free:
Everyday Mathematics Addition Top-It : 0 to 10 basic addition and number comparison game Everyday Mathematics Subtraction Top-It : 0 to 10, 2-digit subtraction and number comparison game
Everyday Mathematics Name That Number : Computation and order of operations game
Everyday Mathematics Monster Squeeze : Octopus monster-themed number comparison and recognition game
Everyday Mathematics Equivalent Fractions : Fraction flashcard game
Everyday Mathematics Tric-Trac : one or two-player addition game
Everyday Mathematics Beat the Computer : Multiplication (0-10) game
Everyday Mathematics Baseball Multiplication 1-6 Facts: Baseball-themed multiplication game Everyday Mathematics Divisibility Dash: Number multiples and division practice

Create “word clouds” with Wordle

 

Have you wanted to create a word cloud for your website? Try wordle out, you might like it. You can enter text taht you want to create the cloud with, or you can type in a website address. ( it has to have an RSS feed)

You create the wordle, and then comes the difficult part, you cannot save as image or save as. You must first display your Wordle at the desired size, then take a "screen shot" or "screen capture". I am sure that this will not be a problem later. But for now, here are a couple of  wordles I created from this site feed.

Do Schools kill creativity? Sir Ken Robinson thinks so

 

There is sometimes a knock on students from the sub-continent that they are good memorizers and not much more. However, when given the opportunity, they have proved that they are more than memorizers. Our school systems seem to stifle creativity, and only the fortunate ones who get a teacher that is different are the ones who benefit. Anyway, I came across this video from Ken Robinson and it makes sense. So here it is.

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

 

Here is his book:

“There is a paradox. As children, most of us think we are highly creative; as adults many of us think we are not. What changes as children grow up? Organizations across the globe are competing in a world that is changing faster than ever. They say they need people who can think creatively, who are flexible and quick to adapt. Too often they say they can't find them. Why not? In this provocative and inspiring book, Ken Robinson addresses three vital questions:

Why is it essential to promote creativity? Business leaders, politicians and educators emphasize the vital importance of promoting creativity and innovation. Why does this matter so much?

What's the problem? Why do so many people think they're not creative? Young children are buzzing with ideas. What happens as we grow up and go through school to make us think we are not creative?

What can be done about it? What is creativity? What can companies, schools and organizations do to develop creativity and innovation in a deliberate and systematic way?

Teacher inspiration from "I Love That Teaching Idea"

This site contains a whole lot of teacher created ideas to improve your teaching and experience as a teacher. You can browse through the Idea Directories and also submit ideas to their site.

Many of the ideas are small practical tips and tricks that teachers have used and they make for an interesting read and you can read through them in a short time.

Free Flashcards directory

Flashcard Exchange is a web-based flashcard program to help you study. They allow you to create your own or just browse the directory to view what others have already created.

I clicked on Languages: French and saw that there were 48 pages of French flash cards.
When you get to a flashcard set, you have the option of saving the cards to your flashcards, downloading them or printing them.

There is an emphasis on education with the study tool which has some features like:

• Track your progress with a detailed study history that will let you restart study sessions.
• View cards in random order or the order set by the flashcard author.
• Study either side of the flashcard first, quizzing yourself on the reverse side (i.e. show the answer and guess the question).
• Change the font face and font size when studying.
• Use keyboard shortcuts to speed up navigation.
• View hints if the flashcard author added a hint.
• Study three sided flashcards.
• After a study session continue by studying only those flashcards answered incorrectly. There is also a cram mode if you have an exam tomorrow.
  
  

Free Ebooks for Kids from freekidsbooks.org

 

If you are looking for free PDF ebooks for kids you should check this website out.

There are 20 books for free download. If you like them and want the actual book there is an option for purchase the hardcopy. They are divided into 3 categories: Toddlers, Children and Young Adults.

Try this out and add to your ebook collection.

Here are a couple of books available there.

Free Educational Videos from Watchknow.org

 

Watchknow.org has thousands of videos  explaining topics that are taught to school kids. (24, 645 videos when this was written.)

Their vision is simple “ Free educational videos delivered over the Internet. Viewed any time, from anywhere.”

The videos are available without any registration or fees to teachers in the classroom and to students. They are all divided into a directory of over 3,000 categories.

Lots of videos to watch. Why don't you visit the site and see all that they have to offer.

Giving Live Writer a spin.

I use a PC at work, so I decided to try out MS Live Writer. I used this a long time ago when I was just starting out with blogger and have not revisited it for many years.  After spending just a few minutes with it I can already see why it is so popular with bloggers and why it gets such high reviews. 

I have already unistalled the MacJournal trial that I had downloaded on the mac and will be waiting to try out something new that can compare to Live Writer.

Here are some of the features that I am already enjoying after using this for 5 minutes.

Images: Extremely easy to insert, align, resize and hyperlink.

Text: It takes the theme of the website and simulates you updating in your blog. Very easy to type, edit and add hyperlinks.

Inserting a table	which was not there in any other that I tried earlier
	can insert rows or columns at will
	easy to resize tables

Video:

A Live Writer Tutorial

Testing out MacJournal!

I have been updating the blog online using the blogger website. But today I decided to make an effort to use some blogging software for the Mac. The first one is MacJournal and this is my first entry.

Free Ebooks from Microsoft

Microsoft Education has some books and guides available for teachers to download. Here are some of them:


Windows Live Movie Maker Guide

Microsoft Office Web Apps: Teacher Guide

Developing Critical Thinking Skills through Web Research

Free Tools for the Classroom

Digital Storytelling

Free Lesson Plans from Microsoft education

We had mentioned the Microsoft education website earlier and some of the tools that were available. This time we are looking at the lesson plans that are available on their website. MS Lesson Plans .

You can browse by subject, the subjests being:
Arts, Design, History, Social Studies, Music, Digital media literacy, Language arts, Physical education, Geography, Mathematics and Science.

There is a newsletter that you can sign up for too. 

Free Educational video with Snag Learning

SnagLearning features carefully selected films from SnagFilms’ award-winning library of over 1,600 documentaries that are appropriate for students from middle school and up. Our titles cover nearly every classroom subject and many are produced by well-known educational sources, including PBS and National Geographic. The goal of this site is to highlight documentaries that make for engaging educational tools. We will also feature guest teacher bloggers as well as special programming stunts like Q&As with the filmmakers.

Teachers can submit and share their own lesson plans, quizzes and homework ideas with fellow educators. The commenting area on each film page functions as public forum to share and discuss.

Collaboration around the world with Skype in the classroom.

Skype in the Classroom, a video networking service for educators worldwide, is officially out of beta today.
The service, which has been in beta since December, allows educators to collaborate with others around the world over video. The VoIP provider said it developed the service "in response to, and in consultation with, the growing number of teachers using Skype to help their students learn."

 

Teachers all over the world are using Skype to make learning more exciting and memorable. It's easy to see why: Skype offers an immediate way to help students discover new cultures, languages and ideas, all without leaving the classroom.
Cultural exchange: Introduce your students to new ways of seeing the world with a cultural exchange between your class and another classroom anywhere in the world.
Language skills: Bring language to life with real-life conversations where students can practice a new language with a class of native speakers, or help English learners practice their skills.
Discovery: Try mystery Skype calls, where classes connect online and give clues to help each guess the other's location. Or introduce your students to a classroom in the location of a book they're reading or a subject they're studying.

 http://education.skype.com/

Sticky Notes for Class

As teachers what would we do without sticky notes? I have been looking for the different sites where you can create and share walls of post it notes for you and your students to share quick scraps of information. Here are some of the best sites. Clcik on the images to go to the websites.

Scrumblr: no registration required

Stickr: need to install the Stickr browser extension or bookmarklets.

Wallwisher:

Fun Lesson Plans from funlessonplans.com

Here are some fun preschool lesson plans for you to use. Many of them can be downloaded as PDF files. some of their offerings include: Across the curriculum lesson plans include shapes for math, the water cycle for science, health, manners, a free alphabet banner for reading, and a free numbers book for writing.

Youtube.com what more can you do with the site?

We all have been to Youtube and watched videos there, commented, uploaded video, read comments by others. But have you stopped to check all that is there on offer from the site.
If you are a video creator, there is a special creators cornerwhich has ideas, tools and helpful ideas to make the most of your YouTube experience.
Some of the options allow you to: edit your video online, optimize it, find a community online, create your own videos and more. And now you can create videos using Stupeflix, Xtranormal and Go Animate within your YouTube account. What are you waiting for? Try this out.

Current Events - The Best sources for what is happening in Libya

Here are some resources to keep your class updated on the latest from Lybia.


The BBC links 


Timeline Muammar Gadaffi


Map of how the rebellion is unfolding in Libya 


Civil war in Libya  from CNN