Top Posts of 2013

End-of-Year lists and recaps seem to be all the rage as the year draws to a close. Far be it from me to buck the trend. So here are 2013’s most popular EDge21 Featured posts month-by-month.

 

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January

Developed by MIT graduates, MathScore provides math practice and assessment online, and is proven to raise math test scores through adaptive math practice.

February

The mission of The Math Board Game™ is “to help teachers and parents effectively educate their students and children in math by engaging them with a fun and unique learning tool.”

March

NaturalReaderis a free iOS text-to-speech app that converts entered text, PDF files, MSWord documents, e-books websites and more into spoken words.

April

Math for Morons Like Us is a site created by students for students. You'll find tutorials, sample problems, and quizzes, even a place to submit questions. A formula database gives quick access and explanations to all those tricky formulas.

May

ReadWriteThink's Word Mover is a free iPad app that can be used to supplement and reinforce classroom instruction and promote increased student engagement through the use of modern technology.

June

The Answer Pad is a browser-based student response system with two main components: Go Interactive and The Answer Sheets, and the option to use mobile devices.

July

Spark101 delivers dynamic, real-world STEM content to classrooms bridging the gap between classroom learning and real-world applications.

August

Flowboard is a free iPad app that lets you create side-scrolling presentations with text, images, video, and links.

September

Kaizenareinvents the teacher feedback process. It’s as easy as highlighting and speaking. Voice comments make your feedback personal and engaging.

October

The United Nations Cyberschoolbus offers informative and interactive educational resources, curriculum, and quizzes/games to a global community.

November

The iResponse Classroom Responder System is a classroom response and assessment distribution system that functions on iOS devices.

December

Discover, purchase, and share educational apps, books, and videos easily with Google Play for Education, a new online destination just for schools.

 

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--- HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! ---

 

Extra: 12-30-2013 MyndBook

MyndBook is for free form note taking. Brainstorm, organize, and review in the way that fits you best.

 

Jot down notes as they happen, organize them later. Note mapping employs both the analytical and the creative sides of the brain. Learn and brainstorm in a visual, non-linear way.

 

 

 See a Myndbookvideo demonstration 

 

MyndBook facilitates review and study. Generate flashcards, outlines, and presentations with just the click of a button. 

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Extra: 12-28-2013 Website to PDF

Use the Website to PDF online tool to save web pages as PDFs for storing, sharing, printing, and otherwise using web content. Just copy and paste the URL of the page you want to save and click the CONVERT button.

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Extra: 12-26-2013 The Grain Chain

grainchain.com is a comprehensive educational resource providing a wide selection of teaching materials exploring farming, food, and healthy eating within the context of the wheat growing and flour milling industry. 

 

grainchain.com is a resource to enable teachers and parents to inform children about the story of grain-based food - from farm to mill to plate. Find teaching materials, worksheets, videos, quizzes, recipes and activities about farming, milling, and baking. 

 

 Watch The Grain Chain: An introduction

Browse lesson plans by age and topic. Each topic provides a full lesson plan plus other ideas for lesson structure, content, and discussion. Search the database to find resources, worksheets, and videos to supplement your lesson.

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Extra: 12-23-2013 Problem-Attic

Problem-Attic makes a large body of questions available for free to the education community, for personalized learning and teaching. 

 

Tens of thousands of questions from a variety of sources including the NY Regents, state assessments, NAEP and TIMSS, and three NC math contest organizations can be found at Problem-Attic.

 

 

All of the questions are in a database, organized by topic, and individually selectable and re-formattable. They can be inserted into all kinds of new documents: tests and quizzes, worksheets, flash cards, and slides. 

 

 View Welcome to Problem-Attic!

Problem-Attic is a product of EducAide Software, which has a long history of developing question banks and other teaching/testing tools. 

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Rearview Mirror 12-21-2013

For those of you who may have missed an EDge21 featured post or who didn't have the opportunity to look at some of them during this past week, here's a second chance.

 

EDge21: Rearview Mirror

 

Monday

Office 365 Education provides a school staff, faculty, and students free email, websites, online document editing and storage, IM, and web conferencing.

Tuesday

Facilitating learning about the important roles of young people throughout history is the objective of Children and Youth in History.

Wednesday

Use Metta to create learning stories, documentaries, summaries, and compilations from videos, pictures, text, and sounds that are already on the web or upload your own material.

Thursday

With Class Charts you get data-rich seating charts and streamlined behavior management tools. It is even possible to collaborate with other teachers and work together to address behavior issues.

 

Created with Blogsy

Featured: 12-19-2013 Class Charts

With Class Charts you get data-rich seating charts and streamlined behavior management tools. It is even possible to collaborate with other teachers and work together to address behavior issues.

 

Class Charts lets you optionally include and display key data about each student which can be used to intelligently position students in the classroom to maximize learning. Use icons or photos to identify students.

 

The seating plans you create in Class Charts can also be a behavior management tool which you can use collaboratively with colleagues to track and analyse student behavior. Quickly give behavior points and get detailed reports of behavior for classes or individual pupils. 

 

You can add students individually with the Quick Add feature or you can upload a spreadsheet containing all student data. 

 

 

Class Charts uses industry-standard SSL encryption for data transfer and key database fields, safeguarding student information. They are registered with the Data Commissioner* and all staff have enhanced Criminal Records Bureau checks. 

 

 Watch a video overview of Class Charts

 

Class Charts works on any Internet-enabled device, so there is no software to download or install, and Class Charts is totally free to use.

 

*The UK’s independent authority set up to uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals.

 

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Featured: 12-18-2013 Metta

Use Metta to create learning stories, documentaries, summaries, and compilations from videos, pictures, text, and sounds that are already on the web or upload your own material.

Insert polls and quizzes into your Metta stories, lessons, or slides to get feedback from your viewers. Get insights and track who answered your questions, when, and where.

A convenient Collect Button makes it easy to gather videos, images, and text wherever you’re browsing on the the web with just a click.

 See an example Metta story

Your Metta profile can be shared with your followers and you can follow other Metta users. Even build your own channel.

All Metta plans includes a 30-day free trial. The free plan allows you to create and publish an unlimited number of stories, but you get only 10 MB of media storage and are limited to just 10 responses per poll. If you decide to go with a paid plan, be certain to check the EDU Discount box for 50% off.

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Featured: 12-17-2013 Children and Youth in History

Facilitating learning about the important roles of young people throughout history is the objective of Children and Youth in History.

Children and Youth in History helps teachers and students by providing access to information about the experiences of children and youth from multiple perspectives as well as changing notions about childhood and adolescence in past cultures and civilizations.

The free website addresses questions such as: What was it like to be a youth throughout history? How has childhood changed and how has it remained the same? What factors have shaped childhood? How did children shape history, society, and culture?

Key features:

• A Primary Source Database with guidance on how to use those sources critically and tools for annotating and organizing the sources
• Website Reviews that focus on online resources for studying and teaching the history of childhood and youth in world history
• Eleven Teaching Modules that provide historical context, teaching tools, and strategies for teaching with sets of primary sources
• Teaching Case Studies that model strategies for using primary sources to teach the history of childhood and youth

The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University and the University of Missouri–Kansas City received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to create Children and Youth in History.

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Featured: 12-16-2013 Office 365 Education

Office 365 Education provides a school staff, faculty, and students free email, websites, online document editing and storage, IM, and web conferencing.

Office 365 Education lets schools and districts modernize their communications and productivity infrastructure on their terms.They can get needed enterprise-grade communication and productivity services with flexibility.

All Office 365 Education plans include email and calendars, web conferencing, instant messaging, file storage and sharing, team sites, Office Web Apps, privacy, security, and more.

 Watch the Office 365 Educationoverview

Two of the Office 365 Education plans include the latest desktop version of Office. The plans that do not include the desktop version of Office support Office 2010, Office 2007, and Office 2011 for Mac with the latest browsers across your devices using Office Web Apps. You can take advantage of the Office 365 cloud services such as business-class email, HD video conferencing, and file sharing.

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Special Offer to PBworks Education Users

PBworks has partnered with ApplyKit to offer PBworks educators and education users and their students a free tool to manage all the parts of the college application process.

 

What ApplyKit can do for your students:

• Research more than 9,000 two- and four-year colleges throughout North America.
• Apply to multiple colleges (not just Common App schools) from one online location and track your progress with checklists and analytics.
• Stay on top of upcoming deadlines, so that you never miss an application component.
• Share your progress with recommenders, consultants, and parents who will receive automatic updates on your progress.

Educators or mentors can manage the progress of all their students using the ApplyKit educator dashboard.

 

As a special bonus, any high school that uses or upgrades to PBworks Campus Edition can get the premium version of ApplyKit for free (normally priced at $99 per account) for every current student. 

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The Rearview Mirror 12-14-2013

For those of you who may have missed an EDge21 featured post or who didn't have the opportunity to look at some of them during this past week, here's a second chance.

Monday

The Smithsonian X 3D viewer offers students the ability to explore some of the Smithsonian’s most treasured items using 3D objects.

Tuesday

Women@NASA includes a collection of 64 videos and essays from women across NASA who contribute to the agency's mission in many different ways.

Wednesday

The aim of ExamTime is to change the way you learn, with more engagement, more understanding, and an enriched learning experience.

Thursday

Anki is a program which has been designed to make remembering things easier. Decrease the time spent studying, or increase the amount you learn.

Featured: 12-12-2013 Anki

Anki is a program which has been designed to make remembering things easier. Decrease the time spent studying, or increase the amount you learn.

People who need to remember things can benefit from Anki. It can be applied to study all kinds of content, supporting images, audio, videos, and LaTeX for science/mathematics.

Some possible uses for Anki might include language learning, studying for professional exams, memorizing names and faces, brushing up on geography, and more.

Features:

• The free AnkiWeb synchronization service keeps your cards in sync across multiple devices.
• Anki has a numerous options for customization, from card layout to review timing.
• Embed audio clips, images, videos and scientific markup on your cards, with precise control over how it's shown.
• Anki can handle decks of more than 100,000 cards.
• It's fully extensible with a large number of add-ons available.

 Watch an Ankitutorial

AnkiWeb is a free companion to the downloadable version of Anki and can be used to review online when you don't have access to your home computer.

Anki works on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, any device with a web browser.

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Featured: 12-11-2013 ExamTime

The aim of ExamTime is to change the way you learn, with more engagement, more understanding, and an enriched learning experience.

ExamTime provides free study tools that empower students to build best practices into their study habits:

• Goal setting
• Personal learning styles
• Comprehension techniques
• Brainstorming
• Practice & testing
• Collaborative learning

Intuitive and easy-to-use tools allow users to create, discover, and share engaging study resources such as mindmaps, flashcards, notes, and quizzes using ExamTime.

With ExamTime teachers can easily form learning groups to share resources and conduct discussions. The structure of groups simulates the organization of a real classroom online. Ask a question or share an article or study resource and let your students react, respond, and engage. 

Timetable tools let you drag-and-drop your subjects onto your calendar, setting up flexible and responsive schedules that allow you to make changes as needed. The goal setting feature allows you to mark important dates such as exams and assign tasks that need to be completed by due dates.

Any Mindmap or Note you create can be instantly turned into a presentation. Use the Mindmap tool for giving introductory presentations. Notes allow you to embed more media: videos, images, audio, links, even slideshows.

 See a video overview of ExamTime

ExamTime is a Web-app and can be accessed via the internet browser on any Android or iOS device.

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