Featured 7-7-2014: Brown v. Board of Education

 

Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark case in which the US Supreme Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional, overturning the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public education. The unanimous decision handed down on May 17, 1954, held that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. This ruling opened the door to integration and was a major victory of the civil rights movement.

 

 

The National Park Service, in support of the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Kansas offers a collection of lesson plans and curriculum units for K-12 on their website. Related Common Core standards for all the materials are specified.

 

 

The National Archives provides a compilation of documents related to Brown v. Board of Education  as well as lesson resources, standards correlations, teaching activities, a document analysis worksheet, a timeline, and biographies of key figures.

 

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Featured 5-21-2014: ChalkUp

 

ChalkUp is a student engagement platform designed to foster real-time school-work collaboration, learning, and studying, ChalkUp enables students to ask questions, discuss and share interesting educational content, and work with each other.

 

Dashboard is a real-time feed where you can comment on discussions, submit assignments, and even view files. Chalkup keeps all assignments, quizzes, and tests in one place.

 

Assignments can be delivered to students quickly and in real-time. Drag-and-drop a document from your computer or use one that you have stored on Google Drive or Google Apps for Education. Create folders, rename files to be organized.

 

Students can turn in assignments as easily as dragging-and-dropping, uploading as many files as necessary. Annotate and grade uploaded file submissions right inside ChalkUp. Personalize feedback with a quick note.

 

 

Messaging lets the people in your class chat in real-time and share files with each other. Teachers can send messages to students to clarify, remind, and keep them engaged. Chalkup uses 256-bit AES encryption to make sure your messages are safe.

 

The free version of ChalkUp provides 1 GB of storage per class with a file size limit of 25 MB, and all the core features including integrated flashcards.

 

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Featured 4-28-2014: Scrawlar

 

Scrawlar offers schools free cloud-based collaborative word processing that works on any smartphone, tablet, or computer.

 

Use Scrawlar to create, edit, share, and save documents on any web-connected device. No app, installation, or plugin is needed.

 

 

After creating and saving a document, students have the option to share with any classmates. They can also choose whether other people can edit or just view the original document.

 

As a teacher, create an account for any class. Add your students to your network, each student is assigned a password. Students login using the class code you provide and their unique passwords. No student signup or email is required.

 

Teachers can leave feedback right on documents, and parents can follow along in real-time from anywhere.

 

 

Scrawlar also offers an easy-to-use whiteboard interface that includes basic drawing tools and text.

 

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Featured 4-10-2014: Slidedocs

A Slidedoc is a visual document, developed in presentation software, that is intended to be read and referenced by individuals rather than projected on a screen before a group.

 

Slidedocs combine visual communications with short nuggets of written text. This results in a product that can be digested more easily and quickly than either a standard document or a full scale presentation.

 

Slidedocs are intended to be distributed and read on screens or printed for individual use without a presenter and as such could be very useful in a flipped classroom. Their easily browsable nature makes them useful as pre-read, reference, and leave-behind materials.

 

 

Your ideas can be easily integrated into other uses because of the modular design of a Slidedoc.

 

 View the Guide to Slidedocs which is itself a Slidedoc

 

Free templates will give you a headstart creating Slidedocs. Included with the download of the Slidedocs file are two PowerPoint-ready Slidedoc templates featuring easy-to-use master templates; simple, intuitive layouts; and beautiful, professional design.

 

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Featured 4-9-2014: Today’s Document Mobile App

The National Archives has released their first mobile application called Today’s Document  based on the Today’s Document website from the US National Archives.

 

The Today’s Document app (available for both Android and iOS) is an interactive gallery that allows you to explore the holdings of the  National Archives through a collection of 365 documents and photographs from throughout history. Find out what significant event happened on any date, search the documents by keyword, or browse the full collection.

 

Featured documents have included popular documents like the Declaration of Independence and Emancipation Proclamation as well as lesser known documents like the Zimmerman Telegram, President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1961 Farewell address, and a handwritten draft of President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 Inaugural Address.

 

 

You can zoom in on the high resolution images to get a closer look, use the calendar feature to select a specific date, or select 'Surprise Me' to show a document at random. Learn more by tapping the Info icon to get background information on the document and links to related websites. Share documents by email, Facebook, and Twitter. Add documents to your list of favorites.

 

 See a demonstration of Today’s Document

 

The Today’s Document mobile app is currently available free in the Android Marketplace and the Apple iTunes Store.

 

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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: 11-18-2013 Cometdocs Mobile App

 

Cometdocs is a popular, free, online document management system that has served more than 3 million customers. Document sharing, transfers, and storage are among the many many free services it offers. You can now experience the benefits of Cometdocs’ features on your smartphones and tablets.

 

 

The Cometdocs mobile apps give you the ability to do document conversions to and from multiple formats on-the-go from iOS and Android devices. Transfer large files to anyone from your mobile device. There is no limitation on converted pages or size.

 

Find the document on your device, and open it with Cometdocs. The file is then uploaded to your Cometdocs account, after which you can choose the conversion type you desire. Shortly, the converted file will be available. 

 

Supported conversion formats:

• Converting from PDF to Word, Excel, Images, HTML, and AutoCAD, OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Text, PowerPoint, and more.
• Converting to PDF from numerous formats such as jpg, xls, xlsx, doc, docx, pptx, ppt, rtf, png, pub, and more

 

Your documents can be accessed from anywhere - your desktop browser, mobile phone, or tablet. Have them with you and ready to be edited or converted at all times. 

 

 

 

 

 See a short how-to-use guide for Cometdocs mobile apps

 

The Cometdocs app for iOS or Android is available free of charge. To use Cometdocs from your mobile app, you need to have a registered account.

 

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Featured: 10-21-2013 ShareLaTeX

ShareLaTeX is an online editor that enables smooth collaboration among users. Everyone with an Internet connection can access and edit the latest versions of the same LaTeX documents.

ShareLaTeX documents are always available online. You and your collaborators can even work on the document at the same time with this real-time editor. Built-in chat lets all editors communicate while you're editing.

ShareLaTeX is designed to be easy to use, even if you’ve never used LaTeX before. ShareLaTeX highlights any errors in the LaTeX log to make debugging as simple as possible.

More features of ShareLaTeX:

• There's no installation needed.
• Example projects are ready to be compiled with one click. 
• Download your projects to work offline any time you like.
• Upload existing documents to get your work onto ShareLaTeX quickly.

Dropbox sync, available with paid plans, keeps all of your LaTeX projects synced to your Dropbox folder. You can make changes inside the Dropbox folder then see them sync back to ShareLaTeX.

 See an overview of ShareLaTeX

The ShareLaTeX free personal plan provides unlimited projects for you and one free user per project. You also get unlimited compiles, but with a low compiling priority.

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Featured: 6-17-2013 Kingsoft Office Free

Kingsoft Office Free 2013 for Windows provides a no-cost, powerful alternative to the MS Office monolith.

Smaller and faster than most other office suites, Kingsoft Office Free 2013, includes a built-in PDF converter and automatic spell check, as well as an innovative Paragraph Adjustment tool.

Kingsoft Office Free 2013 includes the usual modules for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations:

• Writer provides word and text processing with drag-and-drop paragraph editing, a section tab, support for .doc and .docx.
• Easily create and edit Spreadsheets, a calculator, graphing, and multiple other tools for complex data analysis, export to both .xls and .xlsx extension files.
• Presentation lets you create dynamic slides for speeches and presentations, with Flash, sound and animation effects, and artistic backgrounds.

 Watch a video introduction to Kingsoft Office

In addition to the traditional interface which resembles older versions of MS Office, Kingsoft Office Free 2013 gives you a choice of a new interface similar to the newer versions of Office. You can easily switch between the two versions according to your preference.

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Featured: 5-29-2013 Mobile PDF Apps [Tools]

 

Investintech.com offers a number of tools for working with PDF documents including three free apps for iOS and Android mobile phones and tablets.

Able2Extract Mobile is a free, lightweight, easy-to-use app for creating and converting PDF documents. Users can create PDF documents from MS Office documents and convert PDFs to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more.

Able2Doc Mobile converts PDFs to Word documents. This uncomplicated app promises to deliver high quality conversions on the go from your smartphone or tablet.

Sonic PDF Creator Mobile easily converts MS Office documents attached to emails or stored on your device to PDFs, right on your Android or iOS device.

Investintech.com also offers a full range of desktop tools for managing PDF documents.

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Featured: 5-22-2013 Padlet [Tools]

Padlet is an online application that teachers and students can use to easily express and share their thoughts on a common topic.

Padlet (formerly known as Wallwisher) describes itself as a multimedia friendly, free-form, real-time wiki.

A Padlet 'wall' is basically the web page where people actually post content. It works like an online sheet of paper where people can post almost any content, such as images, videos, documents, and text, anywhere on the page, collaborating with anyone, from any device.

To post on Padlet, double-click anywhere on the wall, then you can:

• Write some text.
• Add a link (YouTube, Wikipedia, image).
• Add a file (document, spreadsheet, pdf).
• Insert a webcam snapshot.

You can also drag-and-drop files from your desktop directly onto the page and it will get uploaded and displayed immediately.

 Watch a video intro to Padlet

By default, Padlet walls are private. When you create a new wall, its URL is known only to you and not published publicly. If you share the address with others, the wall becomes semi-private as people who have the link can access it as well. There are options that allow more control, as well.

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Featured: 5-21-2013 RealtimeBoard [Tools]

RealtimeBoard is an online tool for creating and implementing real-time visual presentation and collaboration.

RealtimeBoard online whiteboards can enrich your lessons:

• Use whiteboards to dynamically draw your lessons.
• Discuss the tasks with students either in or out of the classroom.
• Access boards any time from everywhere.
• Make a rich presentation to share with your class.

Create a new board from a template or from scratch. You can upload your own images or use images from the RealtimeBoard library of vector images. Add videos to your boards by pasting YouTube or Vimeo links. Use the mark-up tools to draw, create text, and make sticky notes.

RealtimeBoard works with Google Drive, too. Drag-and-drop files from Google Drive onto your boards. With a Chrome extension, grab images from websites and web searches right to the RealtimeBoard library.

 Watch a video demo of RealtimeBoard

Share your RealtimeBoard public boards, or keep boards private. Invite colleagues to share boards. Set access rights: editors can make changes to your boards, viewers cannot.

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Featured: 4-23-2013 GrammarBase [English]

 

GrammarBase is a free grammar checker and corrector, a free online spell checker, and can even help with dyslexia mistakes.

 

 

GrammarBase checks for all types of grammar mistakes, contextual errors, modifiers, prepositions, punctuation, quantifiers, and more.

 

To use the free GrammarBase online grammar checker you don't need to register or download anything, just copy your text and paste it into the website and see your grammar mistakes highlighted. You will receive a detailed report identifying any issues and offering simple suggestions for improvements and corrections.

 

 

With GrammarBase’s spelling checker, you will get your spelling checked in context to ensure the right words are used in your document.

Watch a video demo of GrammarBase

The GrammarBase grammar checking tool can be a great help for those who are trying to learn English. Learners can identify the mistakes in their writing and learn how to correct them, thus improving their English skills.

 

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Featured: 3/11/2013 Natural Reader [Text-to-Speech]

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

With NaturalReader, you can have any text read to you in one of over 30 natural-sounding voices. NaturalReader can be a great help to students with dyslexia or other reading difficulties. By listening to text rather than reading, some students may be better able to comprehend reading materials or detect errors in their work.



Since NaturalReader can help pick out mistakes in your work, as well as giving you a sense of the natural flow of what you have written, it is also an efficient proofreading tool.

NaturalReader features:

• Works with Word documents, PDF files, web pages, eBooks, and many other formats.
• Provides over 30 natural sounding voices in 5 languages.
• Increase or decrease the speed of the voice reader.
• Input text via keypad, copy/paste, or from the application’s built-in browser.
• Load files from Dropbox, email attachments, computers via iTunes

Simply tap a sentence, and NaturalReader begins reading aloud from that point, and follow along with written text. Text automatically scrolls up the screen as it is being read.



NaturalReader Is free from the iTunes App Store. It is compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd, 4th, and 5th generations), and iPad. Requires iOS 5.1 or later.

Note: NaturalReader requires a Wi-Fi Internet connection in order to transfer text and audio from cloud spaces.

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