The Times, They Are A-changin'

The EDge21Catch of the Day will be taking a short holiday break June 30 and July 4, and will return July 5.

When the Catch of the Day returns on July 5, daily posts will go up at a new time, 5:00 PM ET, rather than 10:00 AM.

See you then!

Catch of the Day - Pegby - 6/30/2011

Pegby is a web tool that lets you collaborate with friends, family, co-workers using an unlimited number of Boards to get stuff done.

A PegbyCard can include a title and a description. It can be assigned to yourself or any collaborator. Cards can be dragged around or pushed off. Drag-and-drop a card onto another card to make a Stack. Stacks can be minimized and dragged.

Make your plans by “pegging up cards” to your Pegby board or boards. Boards can have as many Columns as you like. With the ability to minimize and drag-and-drop, create as many columns as you want but focus on the ones that matter most to you.

Watch a video demo of Pegby

Pegby is in beta and is not currently admitting new members. However, if you register your email address, you will receive an invitation shortly.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Catch of the Day - The Tutors' Association - 6/29/2011

The Tutors' Association is a UK site offering a tutor-student connection service, links to free resources, and charity fund raising.

As a tutoring service, The Tutors' Association system is simple. Tutors register and provide appropriate evidence of their suitability to teach. Students contact the The Tutors' Association with their needs and are then contacted directly by tutors.

Prospective tutors purchase The Tutors' Association registration form for £4.99(UK) via eBay. They then complete, print, and submit the registration form with photocopies of teaching qualifications, CRB check, and photo ID.

The categories of The Tutors' Association links to third-party resources include literacy, numeracy, science, art, languages, and many more.

Ten percent of the registration fee is donated to charity.The Tutors' Association links to the following charities: Jeans for Genes, Oxfam, and Save the Children.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Catch of the Day - Chalkboard Learning - 6/28/2011

The goal of Chalkboard Learning is "to ensure that the foundations are built in the most effective and practical way possible."

Chalkboard Learning was set up by a pair of graduates of Oxford University who see two broad concerns for education: to inspire a desire for learning in the young and to ensure that basic competencies have a firm foundation.

The focus of Chalkboard Learning is to solve two perceived problems:

• time wasted on unsuitable questions that are either too easy or too hard
• losing track of how a child is performing, what things are going well and which need more work

Chalkboard Learning is designed to adapt to the learners who use it ensuring that they are always being challenged. They are able to progress at an appropriate pace using their time effectively. The Chalkboard Learning platform has the added benefit of centrally tracking and analyzing all of a student's learning.

Chalkboard Learning is free to use for math. For verbal and non-verbal reasoning, you will get access to a selection of questions in the different subjects. To get full access to all reasoning questions, exams, and detailed reports, you need a full account (£29.99(UK) / year).

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Catch of the Day - Webdoc - 6/27/2011

Webdoc is a socially-oriented web tool allowing users to express themselves and interact with others in free-form spaces called “webdocs” where they can post their own mix of pictures, videos, sounds, and more.

Users can put almost anything into a webdoc:

• pictures, videos, and audio
• interactive content such as games, polls, or slideshows
• web services such as Google Maps and Twitter

The rich social conversation on Webdoc happens naturally and spontaneously around people, events, and topics. Anyone can start a conversation with just one friend or with all of them, or just listen. Both friend people and follow conversations.

Watch a video demo of Webdoc

Share things with your friends, colleagues, or students. Webdoc offers a richer way to connect with people, beyond simply broadcasting your message. People can get involved and be more interactive.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Introducing the Desmos Calculator

The subject of a recent post, Desmos is a free portal for building and sharing rich, interactive content. The objective of Desmos is to serve as a web-based, unifying standard for interactive lessons built around their browser-based collaborative environment for remote tutoring called a "virtual Whiteboard".

The Desmos Calculator has just been introduced. This browser-based calculator is powerful, intuitive, and free. This calculator can be used for graphing, calculating, sharing, and creating.

Watch an introduction to the Desmos Calculator

Go to an earlier post about Desmos

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

The Rearview Mirror 6/25/2011

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

DropVox is an iOS app that records audio and sends it directly to your Dropbox account in high quality .m4a format.

Tuesday

Using Newspaper Map you can link to the websites of newspapers from all over the world.

Wednesday

Acadam.com is a website designed to put students and tutors in contact with each other.

Thursday

Diagramly is another free web-based tool for easily creating many kinds of diagrams such as flow charts and organization charts.

Friday

Myklassroom is a social learning platform intended to use the social web and virtual classrooms to connect the world of education.

Catch of the Day - Myklassroom - 6/24/2011

Myklassroom is a social learning platform intended to use the social web and virtual classrooms to connect the world of education.

The Myklassroom interface is designed for interaction and engagement of students in a collaborative environment. Students using Myklassroom will be able to:

• collaborate with their peers beyond brick-and-mortar boundaries
• monitor and improve their own performance
• express themselves openly and creatively
• form social connections with their institutions and peers

Myklassroom maps the student’s profile with available online educational content including lectures from top-ranking institutions. Access the materials created by other instructors in the network. Create and share your own content as well.

Myklassroom can make it possible for teachers to spend less time evaluating class data and facilitate class planning to improve the student performance. Tools include a dashboard, a calendar, polls, performance analysis, attendance tracking, and more.

Watch a video demo of Myklassroom

Myklassroom offers tracking and analyzing of student information at an affordable cost to institutionswith both a feature-rich free version and a paid version with a few more capabilities.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Catch of the Day - Diagramly - 6/23/2011

Diagramly is another free web-based tool for easily creating many kinds of diagrams such as flow charts and organization charts.

Diagramly is freely and easily accessible. There’s no software to download and install. You don’t need Flash installed to use Diagramly, it's built entirely in HTML and JavaScript and runs in your browser.

The Diagramly interface is very much like a desktop application and is easy to learn and use. Two pretty conventional toolbars featuring familiar icons are docked at the top of the window. On the left is a collection of object libraries including basic as well as more specialized shapes. Simply drag an object out of a library onto the drawing canvas. Diagramly seems fairly quick and responsive.

Watch a video demo of Diagramly

No account registration is required to use Diagramly. Just visit the site and start creating diagrams instantly. Saves go directly to your hard drive and can be formatted as XML, PNG, JPG, or SVG. You can print directly from the app, too.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

 

Catch of the Day - Acadam.com - 6/22/2011

Acadam.com is a website designed to put students and tutors in contact with each another. Their mission is "to be a preferred meeting place for students and tutors, thus allowing for the creation of an academic support network that addresses the needs and passions of all of its users."

Students can receive help that meets their needs and tutors provide instruction that draws on their strengths. Acadam.com offers a series of products to its tutors in order to enable them to provide a complete, positive service to their students.

Students who are interested in your tutoring services will contact you by email (or by phone if you have a PRO account). Using the online payment system on Acadam.com, you can create and manage invoices for your students. Your students will have access to the invoices through their student accounts. The payments themselves are made through PayPal.

Students are able to post comments and evaluate your services on your profile. These comments will be visible to other students.

With a free Acadam.com account, all of your information, except for your contact info is available to visitors. With a PRO account, all of your information, except for your address and last name, is available to visitors.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Catch of the Day - Newspaper Map - 6/21/2011

 

Using Newspaper Map you can link to the websites of newspapers from all over the world.

 

Newspaper Map also makes it possible to translate most of them to and from several languages with a single click. Often you will also find links to the YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media feeds of these newspapers.

A UK version of Newspaper Map is available, as well as a German edition and a Japanese variant.

Watch a video introduction to Newspaper Map

Newspaper Map regularly collects and updates these links.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

 

Catch of the Day - DropVox - 6/20/2011

 

DropVox is an iOS* app that records audio and sends it directly to your Dropbox account in high quality .m4a format.

With DropVox, capture your spoken ideas, reminders, or lectures. You can later listen to your recordings on your computer or mobile device anywhere that you can access your Dropbox account.

You can put your recordings into your Public folder to share with colleagues and students. Record actual classroom audio and make it available to students for review or to absent students.

More DropVox features:

• Upload finished recordings in the background, so you can continue working with other applications
• Start recording immediately when DropVox launches, a single click operation
• Continue recording while DropVox is in the background or your device is locked

DropVox is $1.99(US) in the iTunes App Store.

DropVox requires a Dropbox account. If you don't yet have one, get a free account here.

*Note: Android users may want to see this post from the DropBox blog.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

 

The Rearview Mirror 6/18/2011

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

The Free Teacher Resources provided by Discovery Education include a wide selection of free classroom resources to complement and enhance learning in any classroom.

Tuesday

K-5 Geosource is a one-stop professional and classroom resource website for teachers of elementary Earth science.

Wednesday

The Molecular Workbench is a free and open-source modeling tool for designing and conducting computational science experiments in an interactive environment that supports science inquiry.

Thursday

Diagramo is an HTML5-based (no Flash) web tool that allows you to create, edit and share diagrams with a user experience similar to desktop applications.

Friday

Honeytomes.com is a website where you may explore educational materials addressing "issues of wellness and our shared human experience-to care for self and others."

Catch of the Day - Honeytomes.com - 6/17/2011

Honeytomes.com is a website where you may explore educational materials addressing "issues of wellness and our shared human experience-to care for self and others."

The Honeytomes.comWellness Products for Children of all ages may be used in many educational settings such as mainstream classrooms, ESL, bilingual, special education, and gifted classrooms.

These materials may also be useful in guidance programs and to educators of acutely and chronically ill or hospital-bound kids.

Honeytomes.com is the official home of GP’s Honey Tomes, LLC, based in Bronx, New York.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Catch of the Day - Diagramo - 6/16/2011

Diagramo is an HTML5-based (no Flash) web tool that allows you to create, edit and share diagrams with a user experience similar to desktop applications.

Diagramo can be used to create organization charts, diagrams, network diagrams, graphs, flow charts, and more.

No browser plugin or extension is needed in order to use Diagramo. Share your work and collaborate with anyone who has a web-connected browser. Export your diagrams as SVG, PNG, or JPG.

Watch a video demo of Diagramo

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Catch of the Day - The Molecular Workbench - 6/15/2011

The Molecular Workbench is a free and open-source modeling tool for designing and conducting computational science experiments in an interactive environment that supports science inquiry.

The Molecular Workbench covers numerous science topics including gas laws, fluid mechanics, properties of materials, states of matter, heat transfer, chemical bonding, chemical reactions, the genetic code, protein synthesis, and light-matter interactions.

The Molecular Workbench provides a platform for educators to create and publish their own model and simulation-based curriculum materials. You can customize or create your own simulations which can be run as applets embedded in your own blog, wiki, or website.

The Molecular Workbench puts a simulation in a learning context, supporting the authoring of learning activities that employ models and simulations to teach. Learning activities can range from a simple demonstration that shows a single concept to a completely developed digital textbook that provides the entire learning media for a topic.

Note: Molecular Workbench requires Java be installed on your computer.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0