Extra 4-11-2014: ReferenceMe

ReferenceME is a free mobile app that makes managing and organizing research simple.

 

Use the ReferenceME app to scan book or journal barcodes to create and manage references for your essay or research report. You can alternatively enter the ISBN, ISSN, DOI, or website URL into the ReferenceME search field and the reference will be created.

 

ReferenceME creates references in Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, MHRA, MLA, Oxford, APA, and Turabian formats. You can request custom styles at the online platform.

 

 

ReferenceME syncs with the ReferenceME web platform or you can save your references to Evernote to organise your research.

 

ReferenceME for iOS is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch and requires iOS 7.0 or later. The Android app requires Android 4.0 and up.

 

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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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Extra: 12-8-2013 FindTheData

The purpose of FindTheData is to help people find the data they need to make factual comparisons and intelligent, informed decisions. 

FindTheData is the ultimate research hub. They collect the best information available, product information, education data, or business statistics, and much more.

Then all that information is delivered using tools that help people make sense of it all, from visual icons to smart filters to scatterplots.

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Featured: 9-11-2013 Hunt Institute

The Hunt Institute is a leader in the movement to transform American education, working at the intersection of policy and politics, supporting and empowering state and national policymakers.

Drawing on expertise from every corner, The Hunt Institute works to bring together the best people and resources to sharpen visionary leadership, encourage active dialog, and mobilize strategic action.

The Hunt Institute bases its work on these core beliefs:

• Education is the cornerstone of American democracy and must be available to all citizens. 
• A free PreK-12 education is the birthright of every child and should be of sufficient rigor and relevance to ensure high school graduates are prepared for citizenship, college and work.
• Access to higher education should be available to all citizens at the most affordable price.
• Leaders who are endowed with the public trust have a responsibility to make informed decisions that create and maintain educational standards that are second to none in the world.
• Opportunities for lifelong learning are critical to sustain the nation’s economic health and the prosperity of individuals.

The goal of The Hunt Institute is to "use our unique qualifications to help lead the way to sustainable solutions."

 Go to the Hunt InstituteYou Tube channel

The Hunt Institute was established in 2001, as an affiliated center of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Featured: 5-30-2013 The Teacher's Guides To Technology And Learning [Reference]

The Teacher's Guides To
Technology And Learning 

The Teacher's Guides To Technology And Learning by Edudemic are intended to offer teachers some of the best and most popular resources currently available.

In creating The Teacher's Guides To Technology And Learning, Edudemic has explored hundreds of resources in order to make their guides easy to read, use, and share.

The Teacher’s Guide To Flipped Classrooms

Because the flipped classroom is one of the most sought-after topics in terms of questions on social media, search queries, and more, Edudemic thought it would be useful to organize all of their many resources into one easy-to-use guide. It’s a curated list of many of the most useful flipped classroom resources.

The Teacher’s Guide To Copyright And Fair Use

Teaching students about copyright and fair use involves more than just telling them that they should be doing their own work, and not copying off the web. Plagiarism and copyright violations are significant issues in the classroom.

The Teacher’s Guide To The Library Of Congress

The Library of Congress is an incredible resource for teachers. The largest library in the world, it’s home to millions of books, recordings, photographs, and other materials, many of them original sources. This guide, written for teachers and education in general, promises to be an easy and solid resource to refer back to as needed.

 

The Teacher’s Guide To Choosing The Best Digital Content

Blended learning is becoming a noteworthy trend in education technology as teachers realize technology alone isn’t the 'magic bullet' of education. A blended learning environment means  mixing technology with standard teaching practices in order to enhance education.

Other available guides:

• The Teacher’s Guide To Twitter
• The Teacher’s Guide To Digital Scavenger Hunts
• The Teacher’s Guide To Pinterest In The Classroom
• The Teacher’s Guide To Keeping Students Safe Online
• The Teacher’s Guide To Badges In Education
• The Teacher’s Guide To Google Glass

The Teacher's Guides To Technology And Learning are always a work in progress. The current guides are always being updated and refreshed, and new guides are being developed.

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Featured: 4/10/2013 NCETM [Math]

Created in 2006, the goal of the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) is to ensure all teachers of mathematics have access to high quality continuing professional development.

To do this, the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics has been developing a sustainable program of continuing mathematics professional development. The NCETM supports teaching schools and other improvement agents in their work with schools, colleges, and teachers across England.

The NCETM encourages educators to learn from their own best practices by working jointly among staff and by sharing good practices locally, regionally, and nationally.

Collaboration takes place both virtually through the NCETM portal and face-to-face through a regional network of established self-sustaining CPD network meetings facilitated by the NCETM.

Principal features provided by the NCETM include:

• Online support for professional development.

• Portal resources such as the sector magazines.

• Online development modules.

• Support for providers of continuing professional development.

The National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics also funds and publishes research into effective mathematics teaching practices and continuing professional development.

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Featured: 11/29/2012 Lincoln Archives Digital Project [History]

The Lincoln Archives Digital Project is providing access to the fragile historic paper records of the administration of President Abraham Lincoln.

The Lincoln Archives Digital Project is the first project to scan the entire contents of a president's administration. When complete, the approximately 14 million federal records housed within the National Archives, including all documents, maps, and photographs from the Civil War era, will be available online. The period of time covered by the project is March 4, 1861, through April 15, 1865.

The Lincoln Archives Digital Project is supplemented by related maps, photographs, newspaper articles, essays, and video podcasts to provide a broader picture of this period in American history.

The Lincoln Archives Digital Project  also includes several documents, signed by Abraham Lincoln, that have never before been cataloged.

The Lincoln Archives Digital Project is a private enterprise.  The project receives no federal funding and is supported by memberships.

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COD - 10/9/2012 - Citelighter [Tools]

Citelighter is a browser plug-in that saves and organizes your research and formats it to a bibliography, stored in the cloud, that's accessible anytime, anywhere.

Citelighter collects most of the relevant information to create accurate citations for you and asks you to complete any remaining items. Once you have completed the citation, the correct bibliographic info will be attached to that page forever. You can choose to format your citations as MLA, Chicago, or APA. 

You can view each and every one of your findings from the toolbar drop-down window, and reorganize them by simply dragging-and-dropping them in any order you need. Additionally, Citelighter lets you add your own thoughts in the comments box.

Citelighter also includes a dynamic notepad that is there only when you want it, but is unobtrusive when you don't. The notepad fades away when idle. It re-appears when you're ready to take notes. Citelighter allows you to export your citations, notes, and quotes to Word, Google Docs, or email.

Watch a video about Citelighter

You can download the Citelighter plug-in for Chrome, Firefox, or Safari.

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COD - 9/5/2012 - Film Story [Social Studies]

Film Story is an interactive resource to explore the relationship between film and history and to start conversations and provide interaction about historical topics.

Because so many people interact with and learn about historical people, places, and events through film. Film Story is intended to get people talking about the events of the past represented in film and use that dialogue as a place of learning.

Film Story strives to generate a sense of exploration and curiosity as you explore the relationship between history and film. You can dig through and interpret layers of historical information for yourself. 

Using Film Story, look beyond a film's representation of history and investigate the history of the film itself. What does a film tell you about the times in which it was made?

A goal of Film Story is to promote the access to, viewing of, and purchasing of the films featured. You should be able to locate the films featured on Film Story through online sources, DVDs, WorldCat, or local film rental stores.

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COD - 6/13/2012 - ClassroomWindow [Sharing]

ClassroomWindow is based on a simple premise: teachers are the real experts and no one knows better than they do what works – or doesn’t work – in the classroom.

ClassroomWindow is a place where teachers' voices can be heard by publishers, product developers, and district decision makers. Teachers may share their expert opinions about the books, curricula, and tools they use daily.

ClassroomWindow taps the practical experience of potentially millions of educators working with classroom products on a daily basis, combining the breadth of crowd-sourcing with the depth of expert analysis and evaluation, finally allowing purchase decisions to be made based only on the effectiveness of educational products and services.

ClassroomWindow hopes the transparency created via their site will heighten competition among education vendors, leading to more effective products that better meet the needs of today’s classroom.

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COD - 5/24/2012 - Fold3 [History]

Fold3 believes that it is the web's foremost collection of original military records, providing convenient access to US military records, including the stories, photos, and personal documents of the men and women who served.

Original records at Fold3 help you discover and share stories about America's everyday heroes, forgotten soldiers, and the families that supported them.

Fold3 is a redesign and rebranding of a site previously reviewed here, Footnote.com, as part of a move to focus on creating the premier website for military records.

The site's name, Fold3, comes from a traditional flag folding ceremony in which the third fold is made in honor and remembrance of veterans who served their country.

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COD - 5/8/2012 - ReadCube [Research]

ReadCube is a tool designed to help researchers be organized and save time, while discovering more.

Import PDFs in a single step. ReadCube creates your article library instantly with one-click download of related articles from PubMed, Google Scholar™, or publisher web sites. ReadCube will automatically identify the author, title, and journal citation information of every article you download.

All your articles are organized in one place. They’re full-text searchable and can include your own highlights and sticky notes. Go directly to the articles referenced in the paper you are reading with clickable references. Easily view articles that cite the paper you are reading, or articles related to it.

ReadCube automatically recommends relevant articles every day to help you stay on top of the latest research.

Watch a video introduction to ReadCube.

ReadCube is a free public beta app for Mac or Windows.

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COD - 5/1/2012 - National Institute for Early Education Research [Early Education]

The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) supports high quality, effective, early childhood education for all young children through its research.

The National Institute for Early Education Research believes such education enhances the physical, cognitive, and social development of young children, and can lead to subsequent success in school and later life.

Among the aims of NIEER's research program are to provide a usable and understandable vision of early education excellence, monitor and assess national and state progress toward early education excellence, and explain the costs, outcomes, and economic benefits of alternative policies.

The NIEER works to:

• stimulate national and state discussions of early education policy.
• develop a coherent national research agenda in partnership with other organizations.
• deliver and publicize vital information about early education.

The National Institute for Early Education Research supplies independent, research-based advice and technical assistance to educators, researchers, policy makers, and journalists.

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COD - 3/29/2012 - Shelfster [Writing]

Shelfster is a free tool designed to collect resources and place them all at your fingertips when creating a document. Your ideas and sources of inspiration are gathered together in one place, no longer lost or scattered in different locations.

Shelfster is sort of a hybrid of Evernote on the capturing and collecting side and Google Docs on the document creation side.

Shelfster's capturing tools let you clip text, capture all or parts of screens, bookmark sites, take notes, save online images, take snapshots, and record audio.

Features of the ShelfsterOnline Document Creator:

• Create new documents with everything easily at hand
• Access captured information and previous documents
• Drag-and-Drop images into documents
• Share documents and get feedback
• Export to PDF or HTML, download, or print documents
• Organize captured information and documents

Watch the videoShelfster - tools for writers

Try out the Shelfsterdemo

There are Shelfster desktop apps for both Mac and Windows, mobile apps for iOS and Android, browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox, and a convenient bookmarklet for any browser.

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Is a "Wandering Mind" a Bad Thing?

 

I get some of my best ideas when I wake up early and can lie in bed for a time and just let my mind roam freely. I've been this way for as long as I can remember. Are you like this? When do you get your best ideas?

Yesterday, I read a very interesting TIME magazine piece by Annie Murphy Paul, "Why Morning Routines Are Creativity Killers" that explained why this happens. Murphy cites research that suggests "that imaginative insights are most likely to come to us when we’re groggy and unfocused. The mental processes that inhibit distracting or irrelevant thoughts are at their weakest in these moments, allowing unexpected and sometimes inspired connections to be made."

She points out that this research seems to indicate the discursive attentional focus of sleepy people may cause them to subconsciously broaden their search of their personal knowledge base, thus leading to an increase in creative problem solving.

You can, and should, read the entire article here.

I wonder if there are implications here regarding the effect that working with a background distraction, such as music softly playing or the ambient noises of a coffee shop, may stimulate creativity in certain individuals. Personally, I seem to be more creative in circumstances like those than I am when working in a totally quiet environment. And, if so, what does this mean for teaching and learning?

BTW, I have enjoyed many of  Annie Murphy Paul's TIME articles and would strongly recommend you consider following her on Twitter at @anniemurphypaul.

 

COD - 112/19/2011 - Searcheeze [Curation]

Searcheeze users can search and curate content collaboratively. Collect, curate, and publish content about your favorite topics.

Collect text, images, video, and audio streams from the web with Searcheeze. Organize content in whatever way you like, even mix content from different pages. Contextualize content for added value.

Curate in groups and publish a magazine for each topic you curate. Share your work on blogs and social networks.

Searcheeze is the evolution of the earlier service known as Ibrii.

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Catch of The Day - PageFlip-Flap & CiteThisForMe - 9/8/2011

The catch today actually pulled in two simple tools that you might find useful, PageFlip-Flap and CiteThisForMe.

Online Flash-driven page flipper PageFlip-Flap transforms your doc, pdf, or movie file into an interactive flipbook. Simply upload your file. PageFlip-Flap accepts pdf, doc(x)/ppt(x)/xls(x), ods/odt/odp, jpg, png, gif, avi, mov, flv, zip, and more file types.

You will shortly receive an email with the URL to your creation. You can share this with colleagues, students, or friends by email, on your blog or wiki, or on your favorite social networks. It's free and no registration is needed.

See an example I made from one of my Pixelmator tutorials

CiteThisForMe is a free tool designed to help students prepare their whole bibliography or reference list quickly and easily. It uses the Harvard referencing style, one of the most common referencing styles in academia, to generate citations for books, newspapers, journals, websites, and more.

Complete the form corresponding to the kind of source you are citing and an appropriately formatted citation will be added to your reference list. These can then be downloaded as an RTF document for copying and pasting.

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