Featured 7-16-2014: MIT OpenCourseWare

 

MIT OpenCourseWare makes the materials used in the teaching of almost all of MIT's undergraduate and graduate courses freely available on the web.

 

With more than 2200 courses available, OpenCourseWare provides free MIT educational content that can be used to augment your knowledge or in teaching others.

 

Each course consists of at least two parts: some type of instruction (a syllabus, lecture notes, reading list, calendar, etc) and a learning activity such as assignments, quizzes, or exams.

 

You may choose to use a complete course from beginning to end or just implement select concepts. You may use the material at your own pace.

 

 

OpenCourseWare offers several resources for you to use, adapt, and share with your students:

• Use advanced search to find assignments, recitations, exams, labs, study materials, or related resources on a specific topic.
• Simulations, applets, and visualizations let your students modify or control experiments.
• Audio and video lectures can facilitate a flipped classroom.
• Students can review concepts they should master for your course.

 Visit the MIT OpenCourseWare YouTube channel

 

MIT OpenCourseWare is free and requires no registration.

 

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Featured 5-5-2014: eduCanon

 

eduCanon is an online learning tool that can be used to build and share interactive video lessons transforming passive content into an active experience for students.

 

Begin with a YouTube, Vimeo, or TeacherTube video. Use eduCanon to break the content into digestible chunks by time-linking activities that students interact with as they view the video - increasing student engagement and, with real-time monitoring, informing the next day’s lesson planning.

 

Principally designed to be used in a 1:1 student learning environment, teachers have used eduCanon in class as a blended tool, assigned students an eduCanon lesson as homework in a flipped setting, and had students to create their own lessons. eduCanon is flexible enough to be adapted to your resources and teaching style.

 

 

eduCanon is a web-based app, so no downloading or installation is required. It works on Macs and PC, on all major browsers, but the best experience comes with Chrome or Safari. It can even be embedded into a website or blog.

 

 Watch eduCanon’s introductory video

 

eduCanon is committed to keeping a free, functional site. Some premium features are offered such as gradebook export, free response question types, and a lesson search giving you access to the library of high-quality lessons created by users.

 

Note: Students are not required to have an email address to sign up for eduCanon.

 

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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 3-18-2014: Knowmia

Knowmia is a free, easy-to-use collection of video presentations and interactive assignments that can impact students both in and out of the classroom.

 

Knowmia is designed for education, without limits or ads. Knowmia's growing library of educational video content includes over 25,000 video lessons from teachers everywhere on a wide range of school subjects. Each lesson is tagged, making it easy to find.

 

Teachers can use the Knowmia library to share lessons with a wider audience as well as with their own students. Users can upload any video file. Because students have individual learning needs, Knowmia welcomes a variety of teaching styles.

 

The Assignment Wizard Tool is an easy-to-use, web-based tool that enable you to create assignments with video lessons, summary or instruction slides, and interactive questions. Each assignment can include a series of lessons that you create or find in the lesson library. Once you send out an assignment, assignment tracking provides real-time results with detailed reports on each student.

 

Free training for teachers shows you how to use the Knowmia tools to create and find engaging video lessons and share them with your students. Gather five or more interested teachers and schedule an online learning session.

 

 Watch an Introduction to Knowmia

 

 The Knowmia Teach iPad app is a free lesson planning and recording tool. It helps you create video lessons on any subject and publish them on Knowmia  Import your own visuals, organize them in steps, and record your voice and face. You can record illustrations as you draw them and create animation sequences.

 

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Featured 3-13-2014: Vyew

Vyew is a free next-generation online collaboration and web conferencing service that brings people and content together.

 

With Vyew you can give a presentation to an entire class or post a document for review by your students in class or at home, facilitating a 'flipped classroom' concept. Vyew is extremely flexible allowing you to bring online collaboration and sharing into your teaching.

 

Vyew allows you to meet and share content in real-time or at anytime convenient to your viewers. Upload images, files, documents, and videos into a room that users can access and contribute to at no matter when.

 

Vyew is web-based, running in your browser, no downloads necessary. Consequently it's compatible with PC, Mac, and Linux. Vyew supports a broad array of file types: doc, xls, pdf, ppt, jpg, gif, png, swf, txt, rtf, mp3, flv, and more. Mix and arrange files any way you like.

Conferencing features include whiteboarding, video conferencing, screen sharing, and VOIP. Collaboration features such as contextual discussion forums, voice-notes, tracking and logging activity can be found. Continuous rooms are always saved and always-on. 

Key features of Vyew:

• Draw/Annotate – full set of drawing, commenting and discussion tools
• Desktop Sharing – Stream your screen in real-time to people in your meeting
• Instant Screen Capture – Take snapshots of your screen and insert them into a meeting
• Video Conference – Up to 5 people can broadcast their video to everyone in the room.
• Publish – Include read-only versions of your meeting on a web site, blog, in HTML emails, etc.

 View a demo of Vyew

 

Vyew promises the free version (unlimited use with up to 10 people) will remain free, however, it is ad-supported.

 

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Featured 2-26-2014: Gooru

Gooru is a free search engine for education that makes it easy for K-12 teachers to discover topic-relevant content aligned to Common Core standards.

 

With millions of online resources available, teachers can organize learning playlists called collections to use in the classroom or to assign to students in a flipped classroom concept. Teachers receive direct feedback on mastery and progress as students study collections and answer questions,  allowing educators to differentiate instruction to meet individualized learning needs.

 

 

Users can contribute to an active community of teachers and students by sharing collections and best practices. Over half a million teachers in 140 countries and all 50 US states use Gooru to help students reach their full potential. Free learning materials can be found, rated, remixed, and shared.

 

 Watch Gooru: Discover, Organize, Teach

 

Gooru, developed by a non-profit organization whose mission is to honor the human right to education, is free of cost and ads. 

 

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Featured: 11-25-2013 Kahoot!

Kahoot! delivers educational content through asking meaningful questions in real-time, resulting in a social, fun, and game-like environment.

Build quizzes, called Kahoots!, on any device using a simple drag-and-drop tool. Include embedded images and video.

Project the quiz onto a screen or interactive whiteboard to engage and focus students who quickly join through their personal device, seeing their name appear (without needing an account).

Students play against each other, answering questions in real-time through an easy-to-use interface, while you facilitate and discuss the content.

Kahoot! allows learners to both respond and create with any device that has a web browser and works over wifi or 3G/4G. Students can share their knowledge by playing their Kahoot back to classmates. You can assess the quality of student questions, while the other students answer the questions.

 Watch a video demonstrating the basics of the Kahoot! website for the K-12 classroom.

Formatively assess individual knowledge and adapt learning. Kahoot! data provides you with a ‘snapshot’ of each learner's current understanding and tracks longer term progress.

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Featured: 9-12-2013 Net Texts

Net Texts helps schools replace or supplement traditional textbooks with customized multimedia courses delivered to students' iPads, Android tablets, and laptops.

Teachers can use NetTexts' Content Management Website to select existing courses or to create new ones by mixing and matching items from the NetTexts library with their own educational material. Courses can include videos, slideshows, e-books, PDFs, text, audiobooks, and Web links.

Students then use the NetTexts iPad, Android, or web app to download and view these courses. Students will feel more engaged and have more ownership of their learning, whether reading the latest assigned e-book or watching a 'flipped classroom' video.

Net Texts consulting services help your school get the most out of Net Texts. Teachers will be trained how to use the content management site and mobile apps, how to find Open Educational Resources, and how to create high quality content.

Net Texts can build customized OER courses based on teachers' recommendations, syllabi, and state standards. A school or district can replace textbooks with a multimedia curriculum based on OER, saving money on textbooks for years to come, as Net Texts courses can be updated with new material at any time.

 Watch Introducing Net Texts: The Digital Backpack for Your iPad

Net Texts courses contain teacher-created material as well as Creative Commons-licensed and other open education resources from the Web.

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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: 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: 5-20-2013 EdCanvas [Tools]

Drag-and-drop resources to create a dynamic EdCanvas that will help you effectively teach your lesson while increasing student engagement.

EdCanvases are useful for organizing, presenting, and sharing online resources with your students and colleagues.

If you are implementing a flipped classroom, EdCanvas makes it possible to easily gather and annotate online resources, including rich multimedia, into lessons using just one link. EdCanvas is also a handy tool for Web quests, project-based learning, and class presentations.

Mix assessment with your content. Quickly create a quiz on any empty canvas tile by clicking “Add Quiz". They are instantly and automatically graded, providing you with a detailed and easy-to-use report.

With an invitation from you, students can create canvases, too. Create a class for your students, then invite them by entering their email addresses. Your students will receive an invitation to sign up for Edcanvas. You will be able to see all the canvases they create.

 Watch the video: Edcanvas Basics

EdCanvas for Schools offers reports and data to improve learning, real-time collaboration for students and teachers, a parent portal, shared resources pool for teachers, Common Core-aligned content and canvases, unlimited file storage and uploads, and more.

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Featured: 2/26/2013 YourTeacher [Math]

YourTeacher is a leading digital publisher specializing in middle school, high school, and college-level math. YourTeacher's subscription website and their extensive line of math videos, have provided hundreds of thousands of students with math tutoring, standardized test prep, and homeschooling.



YourTeacher provides individualized grade reporting and progress tracking. Each lesson includes a multiple-choice self-test to indicate how well the lesson has been learned. Self-tests can be taken multiple times with new problems each time. The results of the self-tests are recorded in the grade management system.

Keep track of student progress by monitoring YourTeacher usage. Teachers, parents, and students are able to see the number of completed lessons and self-tests, total logins, and the most recent login.



YourTeacher is also working to revolutionize the textbook industry with a patent-pending math ebook featuring "a textbook with a teacher inside." The ebooks and free samples are available from the iBooks store.

Visit the YourTeacherYouTube channel

YourTeacher is available online 24/7 on any computer, laptop, smartphone, or tablet device. including PCs, Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Android devices. There is no need to download an app.

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EXTRA - 11/2/2012 - ShowMe [iPad Whiteboard]

A special series of posts this week featured four iPad apps that can help you use your iPad effectively with an interactive whiteboard. While preparing the planned posts, I found another app worthy of mention, ShowMe.

ShowMe is a free iPad app similar to Educreations which was presented Wednesday. ShowMe allows you to record voice-over whiteboard presentations and tutorials and share them online. It’s an intuitive app that anyone should find easy to use with a minimal learning curve.

Features of ShowMe:

• Voice-record
• Multiple brush colors
• Pause and erase
• Import images
• Unlimited lesson length
• Free to upload to ShowMe.com to share your recordings with friends
• Easy embedding for sharing anywhere

Watch a video about ShowMe

There is really very little difference between ShowMe and Educreations. The most notable differences are that ShowMe has more pen colors, but as far as I can see, does not support making your videos private.

Also, it appears that ShowMe outputs to the web in HTML5 and Educreations is in Flash.

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