I love Evernote and Circus Ponies’ Notebook. Notebook holds my ideas, files, sound files, links, images – everything for a unit I’ m teaching. What’s more, I confess to having a lot of “loose” papers that I use often, but that never seem to make it back into their file, or, they have multiple uses. I’ve created a number file and when I have a paper I don’t know what to do with (no time or place), I put it in the number file and add it to a master numbered list. I use the Text index and put in a key word and I can find the paper in a flash. Notebook is purchased software – under $30 – and may only be for Mac.
As for Evernote, how did I ever survive without it? Quick quotes, messages, copies of online receipts, phone numbers – it’s all there right at the top of my screen. This teacher says it well. And…
I came across a site I had forgotten about, even though it is in my collection of links (which, as most know, can become too big to be useful unless well-organized and tagged). It is called Animator vs. Animation. Alan Becker is the creative genius.
Thanks to a tweet from twitter, I learned about Embedr today. I’ve already signed up and created a video playlist with it. I will be teaching a technology integration class this spring at CityU and think this will be handy. Students can access the videos on their own time and they are in one place. I can reorganize them, edit them, add more, create several. I can embed or link to the URL of my playlist on a blog or website, and the videos were very easy to add. I used mostly CommonCraft YouTube videos but I believe any videos can be added. Pretty neat. One caveat: since they are YouTube videos without being “kicked” or otherwise converted, the playlist will be unavailable in the classroom for viewing by students, but videos from and about the class, TeacherTube, or other unblocked sites should work fine. I’ll let you know if they don’t!
I Stumbled Upon this intriguing site (through the Firefox extension program, Stumble Upon). It’s called WorldProcessor. I love the visual data represented on this very extensive site. Great for social studies, math, science, literacy, and all-around interest in the world around us. You can navigate the data like population, natural resources, and birth and death rate by title, number, or, my favorite visual globes.
This is a project reaching back to 1985, so be aware that some globes represent data that is older. Keep this in mind as your progress through it. They are numbered, and the higher numbers are the more recent data. There are about 300 globes on the site so it won’t all load immediately.
This was also posted on my other blog, Another Train.
I love Inspiration software for its ability to let students organize data in a “hands-on” way (if abstract words and numbers can be hands-0n). I was set to have them use it in our Computer Lab the other day and found it was no longer there. We used Bubbl.us instead, but it was a bit clunkier and didn’t have the tools Inspiration has. But, aha! today I learned about Webspiration, a web-based tool that looks very much like Inspiration and can import Inspiration documents. Now we can work back and forth easier, since our 7 classroom laptops use Inspiration.
Once again I found this school library site from my PLN on Twitter. It’s Joyce Valenza’s, the Queen of Library/Tech resources and ideas. Love it. This is just a portion of it so you can get the idea. Drawn by another Valenza! Daughter?
(This video is from kevinsclassroom.com – a great source of its own. In checking his great website of ideas, I loved the landforms trading cards (using Big Huge Labs). I’ve been having my students draw maplike illustrations in a geography dictionary, but this year, I’m doing this!
As my previous post mentions (Happy Camper), our district has now unblocked many sites for teachers. Find in Bud the Teacher post here a well-framed response to those who would block sites because they are a “distraction” to students.
I’m back from a 5-day trip to Florida (literally the other end of the country!) to say a last good-bye to a cherished aunt whose family my own spent our childhood with. Although it was hard to leave cousins and family, I am glad I gave myself a day to regroup before returning to work. (There are always mixed emotions at such events – family and friends you never get to visit with except for weddings and, sadly, funerals.) In doing so, I checked out the list of followers on Twitter and, as I would have predicted, have found some great resources and links. Among them:
A New York Times article on the social/emotional skill of “executive function” as it plays (pun intended) itself out at preschool.
Tilt-shift photography (Photos of real things made to look like miniatures!) and Webitech, a site with or amazing photography for inspiration.
Started this draft a while back and just discovered I never completed it! Otherwise I would give direct credit to the Tweet that sent me to this site. If I find it, I’ll be sure to link it directly.
Another gem from a Twitterer in my PLN: This site lists Web 2.0 and other technology resources that address the different learning styles in a classroom:
Below is a sampling. I’m always amazed at how many new resources I find although I consider myself fairly well-traveled along the Web2.0 road!
Disclaimer: I haven’t checked out all of these yet. I trust this site, but I do intend to visit them all soon. These are just a few. The site is rich with other suggestions.
Once again I found 
