Catch of the Day - Text2Tape - 5/31/2011

Text2Tape is a Mac application that lets you record documents as audio files using OS X's built in speech technology.

Text2Tape features:

• Supported file types include TXT, RTF, DOC, DOCX, XML, HTML, ODT, and Webarchive
• Batch record multiple supported documents in any combination
• Audio files are automatically named after the documents from which they were recorded
• Audio files will be recorded using the voice selected in the OS X Speech Control Panel
• Choose audio output to either AAC or AIFF format

Listen to this as a Text2Taperecording

Text2Tape ($0.99) and Text2Tape Lite (free) are available in the Mac App Store.

Note: Text2Tape Lite supports only TXT files.

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EasyBib Adds iOS App

EasyBib is an automatic bibliography and citation maker. Users can cite books with just an ISBN number and websites with just a URL. EasyBib is a fast, easy way to create accurate, comprehensive works cited lists.

EasyBib has launched an iOS app to allow users to create accurate MLA, APA, and Chicago-style citations by simply scanning a book bar code or by manually entering the name of a book.

Use the EasyBib app to make and manage your works-cited lists, then email your citations or export them to EasyBib.com's online bibliography management service.

Go to earlier posts about EasyBib

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The Rearview Mirror 5/28/2011

For those of you who may have missed a Catch of the Day or who didn't have the opportunity to look at some of them during this past week, here's a second chance.

Monday

ArtsAlive.ca is the educational website of Canada's National Arts Centre. Visitiors can learn about orchestral music, dance, English and French language theater, as well as explore archival collections.

Tuesday

The Show.me.uk website is packed with games and resources from the UK's museums and galleries.

Wednesday

Scrible is a free web tool to mark up web pages in your browser, manage them, and collaborate on online.

Thursday

This PBS website is designed to correlate with the educational information in the three-part series BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

Friday

Flat World Knowledge is the world's largest publisher of free and open college textbooks.

Catch of the Day - Flat World Knowledge - 5/27/2011

Flat World Knowledge is the world's largest publisher of free and open college textbooks.

Flat World Knowledge books are free online and open for instructors to modify and customize for their own courses. Flat World Knowledge books are also the center of a social learning network where students learn from each other as well as the books.

Some students will use the books online, but some will prefer other formats. Flat World Knowledge also offers a number of convenient, moderately priced options for these students: print-on-demand softcovers, audio books and chapters, self-print options, and more.

The books offered by Flat World Knowledge are written by experts and are peer-reviewed, edited, and evolved. They are supported by test banks, PowerPoint notes, instructor manuals, print desk copies, and knowledgeable service representatives.

Educators can search the Flat World Knowledge catalog, request a print review copy or review a book online, complete an online adoption form, give a URL to students, and download supplements. You can customize a book before adopting it or anytime afterward.

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Catch of the Day - BENJAMIN FRANKLIN - 5/26/2011

This PBS website is designed to correlate with the educational information in the three-part series BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

The eight lesson plans and activities found in the BENJAMIN FRANKLIN website's downloadable Teacher's Guide are intended to encourage middle and high school students to explore the life and times of Franklin and explore his accomplishments.

The lessons and activities engage students using a rich multimedia environment in addition to traditional print resources. Flexible lesson plans help teachers adapt the instruction to their own students' needs.

The BENJAMIN FRANKLIN TV series draws upon the writings of Franklin and his contemporaries. It is set in the context of events in which Franklin was a key figure: the Age of Scientific Discovery, the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, and the Constitutional Convention.

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Catch of the Day - Scrible - 5/25/2011

Scrible is a free web tool to mark up web pages in your browser, manage them, and collaborate on online.

To use Scrible, add the toolbar or bookmarklet to your browser, use the tools to annotate web pages with highlighting, notes, and more, and share, organize, and search these annotated pages online from your Personal Library.

Highlight, color, bold, underline, italicize, and strikethrough to mark important text and parts of a web page. Use a 32 color palette to emphasize distinct types of content differently. Add color-coded notes to the web page to correspond to selected text.

Use smart legends to categorize annotations by type and color to automatically track the kinds of annotations used on a web page. Quickly and easily export some or all of your notated content into a document.

See a video introduction to Scrible

Note: Scrible does NOT currently work in IE9.

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Catch of the Day - Show.me.uk - 5/24/2011

The Show.me.uk website is packed with games and resources from the UK's museums and galleries.

The Teachers section of Show.me.uk is designed to help you quickly and easily access relevant content. All content is targeted at Key Stages 1 and 2 (ages 5-11). Interactives and resources are organized by topic and listed in a scrollable menu. These topics include:

• Art and Design
• Science and Technology
• Prehistory
• Ancient Civilizations
• Anglo Saxons, Vikings, Romans, Tudors, and Victorians
• 20th Century Britain
• Natural World
• Dinosaurs
• More

You can receive a regular email newsletter from Show.me.uk updating the educational news from museums and galleries.

Show.me.uk is a free-to-use site produced by Culture24, the latest news, exhibition reviews, links, event listings, and education resources from thousands of UK museums, galleries, archives and libraries.

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Catch of the Day - ArtsAlive.ca - 5/23/2011

ArtsAlive.ca is the educational website of Canada's National Arts Centre. Visitiors can learn about orchestral music, dance, English and French language theater, as well as explore archival collections.

The objectives of ArtsAlive.ca are to involve younger generations in information, multimedia resources, and activities relevant to the performing arts, and to provide free educational resources to students and teachers to help them in learning about the performing arts.

ArtsAlive.ca makes lots of tools available for teachers to bring the performing arts into the classroom.

Music

• Free teacher resource kits
• Play-along recorder music for students
• Interactive activities and games
• Access the life and times of great composers for projects and research
• The Instrument Lab lets you rotate 3D-images of instruments

Theater

• Learn about the professions of acting, directing, design, and production
• Watch interviews with theater professionals
• Explore contemporary theater around the world
• Research theater through history
• Find theater reading lists

Dance

• TheVirtual Dance Studio, an interactive choreography tool to create your own dance
• Over 180 biographies of world-renowned dancers and choreographers
• Advice from dance professionals on becoming an artist
• Dance video clips and artist interviews

ArtsAlive.ca is made possible through the support of the Department of Canadian Heritage through the Canadian Culture Online program and thanks to financial investment by the Virtual Museum of Canada.

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Quick, Simple File Sharing with Go Pileus

Go Pileus is a quick, simple, cloud-based file-sharing service. Drag-and-drop files onto the Go Pileus web page. Once uploaded, you will be given a short-url ready to share with anyone.

Users create a box and use it to keep files sorted and easy to find. You get 1 Gb of free storage with a maximum 50 Mb file size.

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The Rearview Mirror 10/21/2011

For those of you who may have missed a Catch of the Day or who didn't have the opportunity to look at some of them during this past week, here's a second chance.

Monday

Tutorhub is a UK-based website intended to help school age kids with their homework.

Tuesday

Course Hero provides an open platform where students and teachers can access and share quality learning resources in a wide variety of subject areas.

Wednesday

At Teachers Media you will be able to find all the 3500 Teachers TV videos and other resources in a high quality format.

Thursday

Mangahigh is a free games-based-learning site, where students learn elementary, middle, and high school mathematics through casual games that balance fun and learning.

Friday

BrainCake is a website from the Girls, Math & Science Partnership aspiring to reach girls from around the globe who are interested in changing the world with math and science.

Catch of the Day - BrainCake - 5/20/2011

BrainCake is a website from the Girls, Math & Science Partnership aspiring to reach girls from around the globe who are interested in changing the world with math and science.

BrainCake is a resource for teachers and students offering inventive, powerful, high-quality resources for education, research, and support for gender equality in the sciences.

The intent of the Carnegie Science Center's Girls, Math & Science Partnership is to "engage, educate, and embrace girls as architects of change" by working with 11-17 year old girls and their parents and teachers.

With BrainCake, girls can engage in current science, helping them understand its relevance and see how science affects their everyday lives.

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Catch of the Day - Mangahigh - 5/19/2011

Mangahigh is a free games-based-learning site, where students learn elementary, middle, and high school mathematics through casual games that balance fun and learning.

Games-based learning combines computer games with academics to provide an engaging addition to the classroom. All Mangahigh games are tied to the US Common Core standards

Features that can make Mangahigh an effective curricular supplement:

• Each game is designed to dynamically adapt its difficulty to the ability of the student
• Game mechanics overlay the core math concepts for a new and more efficient way of learning
• Games-based learning helps develop the ability to observe, hypothesize, test, evaluate, conclude, and refine ideas
• Games provide contexts that can bring out the "real-world" application of the topic increasing student interest

Challenges are exercises that a teacher can assign to an individual or to whole classes. By achieving the target within the allotted time, students can successfully complete these challenges.

Mangahigh was founded by a team of mathematicians and game specialists with the intent of effectively mingling game play and education.

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Catch of the Day - Teachers Media - 5/18/2011

At Teachers Media you will be able to find all the 3500 Teachers TV videos and other resources in a high quality format.

A new organization from the same people who previously operated Teachers TV, Teachers Media is aimed at helping you make the best use of the Teachers TV archive both for professional development and to support you in the classroom.

On Teachers Media you will be able to:

• Stream all the Teachers TV videos in high quality
• Search and navigate the Teachers TV archive
• Access documents and other resources linked to the videos
• Use the interactive Behaviour Challenge training tool

Full access to the Teachers TV archive of videos should be available in the next week or so. Sign up for Teachers Media emails or follow them on Twitter or Facebook to know as soon as the content goes live.

Read here about the demise of Teacher TV

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Catch of the Day - Course Hero - 5/17/2011

Course Hero provides an open platform where students and teachers can access and share quality learning resources in a wide variety of subject areas.

Course Hero "aims to provide a forum where access to information can be simultaneously accessible and protected."

Features of Course Hero:

• Access to the best learning materials - more than 6,500,000 student-uploaded documents from over 5,000 universities around the world
• Tutors - a diverse set of experts are on call and available to walk you through your questions
• Textbook help - study guides, chapter summaries, practice problems and notes, for your textbooks
• Materials from top educators - Over 1,000 educators from more than 100 universities publish their class materials on Course Hero
• Open 24/7 - access to every necessary academic resource whenever you want

Course Hero provides educators with a platform and tools to establish an unlimited global presence where you can share your knowledge and impact your academic area.

The Course Hero platform gives every educator the power to distribute materials, publish content, and follow the work of others in his or her field of expertise.

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Catch of the Day - Tutorhub - 5/16/2011

Tutorhub is a UK-based website intended to help school age kids with their homework.

Tutorhub offers private one-to-one tutoring using instant messaging. Kids can get help when they need it. Questions can be posted for free and answered by other students.

Enter a question into the Ask A Question bar at the top of each question list. Tutors will see the question and may offer to help. It’s up to each student to decide which tutors to accept. Browse tutor profiles to learn a bit more about them and check out their rates.

Tutorhub users may also accept the offer of private one-to-one tutoring sessions from the many professional Tutorhub tutors. Criminal Records Bureau-checked tutors set their own rates so that students are billed only for the time spent with a tutor. Top-up your pre-paid Tutorhub account and use it as much or as little as you like.

If they wish, parents can take control of the entire account and view completed tutoring sessions.

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The Rearview Mirror 5/14/2011

For those of you who may have missed a Catch of the Day or who didn't have the opportunity to look at some of them during this past week, here's a second chance.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused by Blogger's craziness this week.

Monday

Memorize.com is designed to help you remember and understand information using interactive learning pages you or others create.

Tuesday

EDSITEment is a resource for teachers, students, and parents searching for high-quality material in the subject areas of literature and language arts, foreign languages, art and culture, and history and social studies.

Wednesday

Number2.com offers students and teachers access to free comprehensive online test prep for the SAT, ACT, and GRE.

Thursday

Teach the Earth is the Science Education Resource Center portal for geoscience educators.

Friday

FlipSnack enables you to create digital interactive flipping-page books from PDF documents which can then be shared or embedded into your website or blog.

Catch of the Day - FlipSnack - 5/13/2011

FlipSnack enables you to create digital interactive flipping-page books from PDF documents which can then be shared or embedded into your website or blog.

FlipSnack is simple to use. Add one or more PDF documents from your computer or from the web. Choose a cover type, set the flipping book's size, color scheme, etc. Your published flipping-page book can be shared on the web in many ways.

FlipSnack books can be embedded or downloaded for both HTML websites and Flash websites. You can embed your FlipSnack books in several social networks, including Facebook and Tumblr.

More FlipSnack features:

• Customizable flipping books layouts
• Stylish and fresh templates
• Embed several books at once
• Unlimited number of flipping books
• Free unlimited hosting

Most FlipSnack features can be used free, though a few sharing options are available only to premium subscribers.

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Catch of the Day - Teach the Earth - 5/12/2011

 

Teach the Earth is the Science Education Resource Center portal for geoscience educators.

Teach the Earth connects teachers to thousands of pages of activities, workshops, course descriptions, and more from hundreds of geoscience educators. Teach the Earth is a gateway to geoscience education content available through dozens of independent project websites. Site guides highlight key resources within these project websites.

Resources to enhance your teaching:

• research on teaching and learning
• designing courses
• assessment
• teaching large classes
• teaching in the field

Search the Teach the Earth supporting catalog for geoscience resources both in print and online.

Users are invited to contribute materials to Teach the Earth.

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