Noel Erskine, Technology Coordinator Norris Schools

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Incredible free apps, and web resources top the list in this week resources - Erskine's list is out.

Thursday, January 30, 2014


Web resources: 
20 WONDERFUL online museums and sites for virtual field trips to use in class. Also a list of ipad apps! goo.gl/vlY5JK

Code combat: an open sourced game that teaches everyone how to program by programming the game. 

 Poster on citing information from online sources using MLA style-- great for secondary students.

Lots of fun stuff for education - K-12 on the internet goo.gl/YjE5u <---- WOW, this is a honey hole of resources, check it out!

Get your free ebooks! - Freebook Sifter makes it easy to find over 39,000 free eBooks on Amazon.com. Search by category quickly: ly.tcea.org/tkoxv


IOS apps and more!

14 Good Social Studies Apps for Teachers and Students zite.to/LLeiCe

Top 200 Special Education Apps bit.ly/SckU9T

6 Apps to Help You Read on the Move http://goo.gl/hf80GN

31 iPad Apps For A Smoother-Running Classroom teachthought.com/teaching/30-ip…

iPad Apps Separated by Subject Area bit.ly/R0FNHh

Free apps for the day - 
Free for a limited time! (Norm $5.99) PDF Connect -   Nice free tool for scanning, annotating, uploading to cloud services and more.  This is another good list of PDF tools- 10 Excellent iPad Apps to Annotate, Highlight, and Add Comments to PDFs -Thanks to Ryan Ruhl for pointing out this list! 

The iMums list for today has some great free kid apps, including titles by McGraw hill and even a free Monopoly game for the family!   This is a great list to follow for the K-8 teachers looking for free apps of the day! 
All of these are from this site- some great McGraw Hill math apps for the younger kids:
Grammar Wonderland (Elementary) by McGraw-Hill School Education Group
Fly, swim, feed, and toss your way to grammar mastery. Who knew grammar practice could be so much fun? Lead your character through many wonderful adventures as you practice using nouns, verbs.

ELL Teacher GPS  (Great for the ELL teachers!)  The ELL Teacher GPS helps you expand your understanding of English language learners by explaining through videos, tips, and templates about language proficiency levels, classroom strategies, and examining cultural considerations that influence teaching.


Google tips, tricks and resources: 
If your not using labels (and filters) in your gmail - You are missing out!  Here is a nice how-to article at TechRepublic. 

Take a peek at all of the resources here: "Google Apps for Education" (GAFE) goo.gl/2ohZjl

Google is updating it's Google Education site. Check it out. 


Twitter - A little Twitter Humor! 
(If you are not using Twitter for your PLN, you are missing out.  It's all about who you follow!)






If you like the above cartoons, visit their sites.  The andertoons.com site, and some great toons for us teachers! :)


Free web storage, apps, amazing websites and more. -This weeks gems for EDU!

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Free Cloud storage, and awesome app, form a top-notch company... BOX: 
Get your 50 gig of free online storage from a top-notch
Want 50GB Free storage? Box gives you just that with Version 3.0 of iOS App ow.ly/sD7py  Their new app is pretty awesome too!   IOS App or Android App  (Tip -- If you do not have an iPad, you could borrow someone's that has the new app installed, and log into your Box Account from that app... and BAM... you get your 50 Gig free.) If you do not have a Box account - Now is the time.

Great educational web sites and tools:

If you aren’t using Edmodo yet, what are you waiting for? Great resource outlining features and why you should be using this resource

Augment Reality: Ideas for Teaching in the 1 Tablet Classroom http://bit.ly/1ayZ7EZ

15 places with fun and engaging social studies games http://goo.gl/MrcYHq
Websites to use for each level of Bloom's 

One for the K-8 teachers: Top Ten Websites of 2013 http://goo.gl/jx19If 

Did you know that over 1200 courses are available through MOOCs? Learn more from this handy cheatsheet on MOOCs! goo.gl/Gl7ESH

Make the web tell a story... with Storify  Collect media from across the web... Publish on Storify, embed anywhere... Share and notify sources. 

Digital Citizenship... STOPiT Class.  Some nice resources, and a great idea from Nebraska's GINW and Cozad Schools. 

Great free educational apps:
A simple app to share files from any device - Check out @get_flick getflick.io

Here is the iMums list of free apps for today (1-21-14). Follow them daily, to find some great apps. (You can get a daily email as well.) <--- Sign up! 

Google Chrome:
Shut those noisy tabs up with Chrome's latest update.http://pcwrld.us/1m27td1

And Chromeboook...
Chromebooks in Education - Awesome Resources! Mostly about Chromebook and Chrome, with some Android spice thrown in.

Google tools, tips and more: 

AWESOME update to Google Drive coming... Keep track of changes in Google Drive with new Activity Stream 

Google Improves Image Search Tools Menu via Free Technology for Teachers - http://goo.gl/xw9g7U

GE Teach Version 5 - A Good Resource for Teaching With Google Earth via Free Technology for ... http://goo.gl/yNmo2I

Using Google as a Timer - you can really do this!

Great tip for printing GoogleDocs with comments... Save/view as a html file. The comments are then placed as footnotes


Bring some amazing resources right into your classroom with Google Hangouts. 
How to Use Hangouts in the Classroom - EdTechReview™ 
More about the Google+ Connected classroom, with links to some sample hangouts that have already occurred. 
Google's Connected Classroom website.

Start the new year off right with these apps, sites and tools for the classroom. Free Apps, web tools, and more!

Monday, January 13, 2014

Misc. Web Resources
Bulk QR Code Generator - This page allows you to generate up to 100 QR codes at once! 

5 websites with massive amounts of free educational resources: seekoutlearning.blogspot.com/2014/01/5-webs…

Three Good Tools for Building Flipped Lessons That Include Assessment Tools ow.ly/suakr

PLN Starter Kit - Livebinder: livebinders.com/play/play?id=4…

11 free online typing practice activities for students: ly.tcea.org/krxwq

Chrome apps and extensions:
4 Chrome Apps for Student Creation 
The new Chrome Apps: We pick the best via PCWorld slide deck. 

Google docs grading tips & tricks! goo.gl/SwKqZS

IOS apps:

Taking a poll or doing online quizzes on the iPad... These apps are awesome

Five Free iPad Apps for Elementary School Math Practice ow.ly/suaxj

The 55 Best Free Education Apps For iPad teachthought.com/apps-2/the-55-…

8 Great iPad Apps for ESL Students edudemic.com/top-9-fantasti…

5 Apps and Web Tools for Elementary School Students edutopia.org/mobile-apps-fo…


Here are a few great apps and resources, compliments of our MS media specialist, Jessie Andre. (Thanks Jessie!) 
Virtual Manipulatives  iOS app (They
  have provided a virtual set of fraction bars on www.abcya.com for several years. But now, they have a free iPad app too!) 
 


Tellagami this is a Google and iOS app

Tellagami is a mobile app that lets you create and share a quick animated message called a Gami.

A Gami can be an exciting tweet or status update. It can be a fun way to tell a story. It can be a thank you message or a vacation postcard. It can be a birthday greeting, party invite or cool way to share photos.
Create a Gami in 3 easy steps. 1 - Customize a character and choose your background. 2 - Record your voice or type a message for your character to say. 3 - Share your Gami on Facebook, Twitter or send via text or email.


Movenote  This is a Google and iOS app

Movenote demo

The Movenote app let’s you record video alongside documents or pictures to create an integrated video presentation with slides. 

Creating presentations is easy and fast. Simply record video with your device and swipe to synchronize the slides to the video. Presentations are shared by sending a link to the recipient and can be viewed without the app.

First add the material you want to present to form a slideshow. Add pictures from your photo albums or take them directly with your camera. Alternatively bring a document from your mailbox or cloud storage like Dropbox. Also you can combine material from all these different sources. Secondly, record the video and simultaneously change slides by swiping. The recorded presentation will play out with the exact same timing.

ASK3 class presentation app:   
Ask3 turns iPads into interactive Whiteboards so that teachers and students can collaborate
Ask3 demo (YouTube Video)
The Ask3 app allows students to ask questions and classes to collaborate on the whiteboard presentation.  

Word Resources:

These resources were recently sent out to our staff from Char Brotherson.  Thought I would promote them in my email/blog as well!

These seem to be great sights for word parts.
roots and prefixes

This one you can type in a part and it will give you words that contain it.

YouTube Resource:

If you have not subscribed to the Crash Course YouTube channel, now is the time!  It has a ton of great video resources for the classroom. (Thanks to Jessie for promoting this resource, it's awesome!)

Some great free apps from Autodesk! 
Autodesk just announced it's 123D Circuits app. With 123D Circuits you can create projects ranging from simple blinking LEDs to complicated circuitry for DIY robotics. The thousands of shared circuit designs give you a springboard to start from on your own projects. 

The easiest way to get started with 3D
Discover free apps to take you from photos to modeling to making. These apps from Autodesk are worth checking out!  (This list will soon include the 123D Circuits app mentioned above.)