Tuesday, November 30, 2010

why do, when there is freebies :)

Amplify’d from www.freetech4teachers.com


10 Places to Make and Find Flashcards Online

Flashcards are one of the simplest and most common ways to study for a test. Free Technology for Teachers has featured numerous flashcard resources in the past. Here are ten good places to create and find flashcards online.

1. Cramberry allows users to share flashcards with other users. After creating your flashcards you can contribute to a public gallery of flashcards. If you don't have time to make flashcards of your own, you can search for and study flashcards in the public gallery. To use the flashcards you will need to create a Cramberry account. For your students that have iPhones (none of my students have one) Cramberry now has an iPhone app called Flash-Me.

2. Flashcards created using Funnel Brain can include a "third side" to a flashcard. A side that contains the explanation for the answer to a question. In addition to text Funnel Brain flashcards can include videos, audio, and pictures. Under your videos and images you can type your question, answer, or explanation. Just as with many other flashcard services Funnel Brain flashcards can be shared with other users.

3. Ediscio is a little different from a lot of flashcard creation tools because Ediscio lets you build sets of flashcards individually or with the help of other Ediscio users. The other distinguishing feature of Ediscio is that flashcards can include images. (Ediscio is also featured in Twelve Essentials for Technology Integration).

4. Cobocards, like other flashcard services, allows you to create customized sets of flashcards. One of the key differences between Cobocards and other flashcard services is that Cobocards provides you with pdf copies of your flashcards that you can print to study offline. Of course, you can study also study your flashcards online.

5. Flashcard DB is one of the most well-designed free flashcard programs that I've seen on the web. Flashcard DB, like most flashcard programs, allows you to browse existing sets of flashcards or create your own custom set of flashcards. What makes Flashcard DB different from its competitors is the study methods that can be used with the flashcards. Flashcard DB allows students to study using the Leitner System or the Graded Space Repetition Method.

6. On Quizlet you can make your own flashcards or study from publicly shared sets of flashcards. Quizlet offers you the ability to study your cards in five different ways including playing a couple of games with your cards. When creating your flashcards you can enter information for each card individually or import information from a text document to be used in your card set. If you don't have the time to create your set of flashcards, browse the publicly shared flashcards.

7. Study Stack is one of the better review game creation tools that I've tried. Study Stack allows teachers and students to create flashcards, crossword puzzles, matching games, word searches, and other classic study games for any subject area. You can create a game using any type of numerical or text data. Once you're data is in your account, you can use that data to create multiple games.

8. On Muchobeets students can create their own customized "stack" of flashcards. For students preparing for a general exam like the SAT, Muchobeets has a good collection of publicly shared vocabulary flashcards. The Muchobeets service is very easy to use. If you want to make your own flashcards simply register with your email address and get started using the very intuitive flashcard creation template. No registration is required if you want to use the publicly shared stacks of flashcards.

9. Knowtes is a great resource for finding or making all kinds of flashcards. The Knowtes library is full of ready to use decks of flashcards covering subjects appropriate from Kindergarten through college. The option to download a library of flashcards is the best feature of the Knowtes program. Students who have laptops can download flashcards and use them to study without having to find an Internet connection. For example, in the district where I teach every middle school student is given a laptop, but many students do not have Internet access at home. Being able to download study tools is very useful for those students.

10. Flashcard Flash is a handy little search engine designed for one purpose, helping you find sets of flashcards. Flashcard Flash was built using Google Custom Search. Flashcard Flash searches six different flashcard services including Flashcard DB, Quizlet, and Study Stack all of which I've previously reviewed and found to be excellent services.
Read more at www.freetech4teachers.com
 
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/grpt

Posted by homec-tter ❤ [hoh-mac-ter] at 9:08 AM 0 comments

Ten Steps to Better Web Research


Ten Steps to Better Web Research

Teaching the Ten Steps to Better Web Research is a Slideshare presentation created by Mark Moran and Shannon Firth at Dulcinea Media. Dulcinea Media is the producer of Sweet Search a search engine for students. The presentation includes some statistics about students' search strategies (or lack thereof) that all educators should be aware of. It's those statistics that lead into the ten steps for teaching students how to search effectively and how to analyze the results of their searches. View the presentation below. Teaching the Ten Steps to Better Web Research
View more presentations from SweetSearch.
Posted by homec-tter ❤ [hoh-mac-ter] at 9:05 AM 0 comments

Wow: China's Free Bag Ban Reduced Consumption by 50 Percent

Amplify’d from www.good.is via Google Reader

Back in June of 2008, China made it illegal for stores to offer plastic bags for free. They had to charge customers for the bags. Store owners could set their own price for the bags—as long as it wasn't lower than the cost of the bag—and keep the profits themselves.

A student at the University of Gothenburg, Haoran He, recently studied the effect of this law on people's behavior and the results are remarkable.

Consumers in Beijing and Guiyang used an average of 21 new plastic bags weekly before the bag-fee ordinance was passed in June, 2008, and rarely used the same bag twice. But after the law was imposed, consumption dropped 49 percent and nearly half of the bags were re-used. While that represents a significant reduction, researchers say there is much room for improvement, especially when it comes to enforcement. Months after the law was enacted, the researchers say, nearly 60 percent of all plastic bags were still given away free.

So with even with very weak enforcement, China's ban has reduced the number of plastic bags people use by half. After its first year, The Guardian reported the ban had saved the country 40 billion plastic bags. By now the cumulative number of bags saved is probably more like 100 billion, and if the law were enforced well, it'd be a lot higher.

Read more at www.good.is
 
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/grpa

Posted by homec-tter ❤ [hoh-mac-ter] at 8:58 AM 0 comments

Seven Ways to Build Your Own Educational Games

Amplify’d from www.freetech4teachers.com

There are hundreds of places to find educational games and quizzes on the Internet. That said, sometimes you still cannot find quite what you're looking for. In those cases you're better off creating your own games. Here are seven good tools you and your students can use for creating games.

Sharendipity makes it possible for students and teachers to quickly create and share simple video games. Sharendipity's drag and drop creation tools can be used to create a game in as few as four steps. For new Sharendipity users the tutorials provide clear directions and helpful game ideas. Games created on Sharendipity can be embedded in your blog or website.



ClassTools.net is a free service teachers can use to create their own educational games. Games made on ClassTools.net can be shared via email or embedded into a blog or website. (Yet another reason for having a class website or blog). ClassTools.net provides fifteen easy to use templates with which teachers can make educational games for their students. There are also pre-made games on ClassTools.net which teachers will find useful.



Purpose Games is a free service that allows users to create custom games, share games, and play games. There are two styles of games that you can create and play on Purpose Games. The simpler of the two styles is a fairly basic multiple choice game. The other style uses images and maps on which players have to name the places represented by placemarks on the image or map. For an example, try this game about the skeletal system. Purpose Games gives game creators the option to make their games public or private. If you select the private option, only the people to whom you send invitations will be able to play your game.



What 2 Learn is a website offering more than two thousand educational games for middle school and high school age students. If that library doesn't have what they're looking for, teachers can create custom games using twelve different templates provided by What 2 Learn. What 2 Learn also offers teachers the option to monitor their students' scores. What 2 Learn is a European based website so some of the games, particularly the math games where money is expressed as Euros and Pounds, may not be appropriate for US students. Aside from that most games are appropriate for use with US students.



YoYo Games hosts hundreds of relatively simple online games created by amateur and professional game developers. That's not why I'm pointing it out to you. I'm pointing it out because YoYo Games offers a free (for PC) game development tool called Game Maker 8. Game Maker 8 enables users to develop simple video games using a drag and drop editor. Game Maker 8 gives users the ability to customize backgrounds and actions throughout their games. For the first-time user YoYo Games offers a series of free Game Maker 8 tutorials. 

Jeopardy Labs is a free service you can use to create your own online Jeopardy game. Jeopardy Labs provides a blank template on which to build your game. You do not need to register in order to build your own game. However, if you want to be able to edit your game at a later point you will want to create a password before you create your game. When completed your game is given its one unique url. Post that url on your blog, wiki, or website and anyone can then play your game.


ProProfs Brain Games allows you to build interactive crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, word searches, hangman games, and sliding puzzle games. The games you create can be embedded into your blog or shared via email, Twitter, Facebook, or Myspace. If you don't want to take the time to create your own game, you can browse the gallery of games. All of the games in gallery can be embedded into your blog.



Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:

35+ Educational Games

25 More Educational Games

32 Puzzles and Logic Games
Read more at www.freetech4teachers.com
 
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/grp3

Posted by homec-tter ❤ [hoh-mac-ter] at 8:48 AM 0 comments

Three Ways to Cut, Mix, & Mash YouTube Videos

Amplify’d from www.freetech4teachers.com
This post was inspired by a request from a reader for a tool that can be used to mash-up YouTube clips. YouTube is full of great content that can be useful in the classroom (YouTube is also full of nonsense that causes schools to block it). Sometimes you only need to show a part of a video to illustrate a point. Other times it could be useful to string together a series of videos. The following tools can be used to cut, mix, and mash-up YouTube clips.
TubeChop gives you the ability to clip a section from any YouTube video and share it. This could be useful if there is a section of long YouTube video that you want to share with your students. One such instance could be if you want to show students studying public speaking a section of commencement address as a model.

Splicd is a service that lets users select and share a segment of a YouTube video. Splicd is a simple and easy service to use. To use Splicd all you have to do is select a video from YouTube, copy the video's url into Splicd, then enter the start and end times of the video segment you wish to watch. This service will be particularly useful for those times that you want to share only a part of a long video. Click here to see Splicd in action.



If you made mix tapes in the 80's, the concept of Drag On Tape will be familiar to you. Drag On Tape makes it easy to string together a series of YouTube videos and or sections of YouTube videos. Create your mix tape of videos just launch the Drag On Tape editor, enter a search term for videos, then drag videos on to the Drag On Tape timeline. You enter searches and drag videos as many times as you like. To trim video timings and string videos together just match them up on the timeline editor. Drag On Tape allows you to collaborate with others on a mix.



On a related note, if you have raw video footage that you want to edit or you have a collection of your own videos on YouTube that you want to edit, the YouTube video editor is quite easy to use. You can find the directions here.



Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:

47 Alternatives to YouTube

Auto-captioning Available for YouTube Videos

Downloading Videos for Use in the Classroom

Free Guide - Making Videos on the Web
Read more at www.freetech4teachers.com
 
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/grp2

Posted by homec-tter ❤ [hoh-mac-ter] at 8:47 AM 0 comments

Monday, November 22, 2010

A Quick Way to Make Everyday Bottles Display Worthy

Recycling !

Amplify’d from www.apartmenttherapy.com
032210bottles1.jpg

A Quick Way to Make Everyday Bottles Display Worthy
Canadian House and Home

Oh, how I love a DIY that a) is inexpensive, b) takes almost no time and c) yields great results. When I came across this bottle makeover idea at Poppytalk, it not only fit my criteria, but almost felt a bit like cheating. How could something so easy look so great? And where do I find such fantastic bottles?

  • After finding some bottles with great shape and detail, remove the labels, clean the inside and let them dry out completely.
  • Next, pour a good size dollop of paint into the bottom of the bottle. The color options here are endless. This set is monochromatic, but a few bold contrasting pieces would be quite nice as well.
  • With the paint in the bottle, you will have to slowly rotate the bottle to get the paint to coat the entire interior of the bottle. Depending on the opacity of the paint, this might require two coats. (Acrylic paint will work for this as it will adhere to the glass, but note that you shouldn't fill the bottle with water later.)
  • Let it dry thoroughly and you are all set.
Read more at www.apartmenttherapy.com
 
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/frp9

Posted by homec-tter ❤ [hoh-mac-ter] at 12:01 AM 0 comments

Sunday, November 21, 2010

rubric marking

FOR PEER RUBRIC MARKING : )
Taken from:  http://www.scribd.com/doc/5581113/Blog-Scoring-Rubric

Posted by homec-tter ❤ [hoh-mac-ter] at 2:11 AM 0 comments

Saturday, November 20, 2010

more edu web 2.0 @ pBwiki

General Technology Integration 

by Richard Byrne :)






















































































































































































































 

Posted by homec-tter ❤ [hoh-mac-ter] at 2:02 AM 0 comments
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)