Tagxedo - Word Cloud Generator with Shapes!

Check Out Tagxedo [tag-SEE-doh]

Word Cloud Generator  

There are two things that separate Tagxedo from similar tools like Tagul, Wordle, and Word It Out.   First, as anyone can see by visiting Tagxedo, it is very easy to customize the design of your word clouds. You can select from a variety of shapes in which to display words or you can design your shape for your word cloud. You can enter text into the word cloud generator manually or simply enter a url from which Tagxedo will generate a word cloud. As with other word cloud generators you also have options for excluding words from your word clouds.

The second thing that makes Tagxedo different from its competitors is a good variety of image download options. Tagxedo gives you eighteen options for saving your word clouds as png or jpeg files.



Applications for Education  Word cloud tools like Tagxedo can be useful for visual learners who need a visual depiction of the words of emphasis in a text. You could try having students use Tagxedo as an tool in the editing of their written work. Have students paste the text of an essay they've written into Tagxedo to see how often they use particular words or phrases. The students can then reflect on why they've used a particular word so often. 



Nov. 3 - Republicans
Take House, Democrats
keep Senate



Or you could pull up their Daily Tagxedo   http://daily.tagxedo.com/  Each day a Tagxedo is created from current events, trending topics or whimsical Idea of the Day!

Dipity - Create Digital Timeline

What is Dipity? http://www.dipity.com/

What it is: Dipity is a site that makes it simple for your students to create and share interactive timelines about any subject or topic. It allows students to embed You Tube videos, Twitter, RSS feeds, Blogger, flickr, Picasa, Last FM, and more right into their timelines.
Dipity makes timelines relevant and fun for students and best of all, students are creating timelines in “their language.”  You have to check this one out…look at a sample timeline to see how truly superior these timelines are to the traditional paper/pencil timeline.

How to integrate Dipity into the classroom:

• Create a timeline of your fieldtrip, demo in the classroom,
• Students can bring history to life by embedding relevant You Tube video into their timelines.
• Create a timeline of your day by combining Dipity with your classroom tweets from Twitter.
• Timelines can be created by students individually or as a class and posted on a class website as a study resource.

Dipity makes your classroom interactive and engaging for students. This is where real learning takes place! To introduce Dipity to your students, invite them to create a timeline of their day or their lives using Dipity (if they have a family Flickr account they can embed pictures right into their timeline).
Tips: Students can look at the content they add to Dipity in four different views:
Timeline, List View, Flipbook, and Map View (this only works if the timeline has been tagged with locations.)

Braineos - Flashcards and Custom Quizzes

Braineos - Flashcards and Custom Quizzes

There is no shortage of flashcard and quiz services on the web. Braineos is a newer entry into that market that you might want to take a look at. Braineos provides users with a platform to create their own flashcards or study flashcards created by others. Braineos provides users with four ways to study their flashcards' contents. Users can study through traditional flipping of cards (question then answer) or flipping cards in reverse (answer first, question second). Users can play a game called Papilio based on the content of their flashcards. In Papilio players zoom through scenes gathering correct answers as they go. Finally, users can take multiple choice quizzes that are generated based on the content of their flashcards.

You can use Braineos by signing-in with a Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, or Google Account.

Applications for Education
Braineos, like many similar services, offers students an easy-to-use platform for studying facts and definitions. One of the things that I like about Braineos is that students have a handful of different options for using the service without having to create yet another user name and password that they have to remember.

Here are some related resources that may be of interest to you:
Ediscio - Collaboratively Create Flashcards
Flashcard Flash - Search for Flashcard Sets
Quizlet - Create and Share Flashcards

JING - Free "Capture Screen"

Jing:

Instant screenshots and screencast. http://www.techsmith.com/jing/free/

Jing comes with free, online tutorials. So you'll be working smarter and faster - sooner.  This guide to taking your first capture will help you get started.

http://www.techsmith.com/learn/jing/

Install Jing and Sign Up for Screencast.com

Download and install Jing.

Double click the installer and proceed as directed.
You get 2 GB of storage and 2 GB of bandwidth per month for free.  You can also choose to host your captures elsewhere, such as Flickr or your own FTP server.

Is it private?    YES
You own and control all your content. Only people you choose can see it, and it’s only deleted when you delete it.

Find and Launch Jing
Did you notice anything has changed on your computer. Look carefully around the top edges of your screen. On Windows, the Jing Sun Launcher location is at the top center of the screen. On Macintosh, it’s in the upper right corner.  As you move over the “sun” three options will emerge. The most useful one is Capture.Learn More Cool Stuff About Jing!

JING has two great resources you should check out sometime. 

• The Help Center at     http://www.techsmith.com/learn/jing/? requestsource=productredirect&redirlang=enu&redirproduct=jing&redirver=2.0.0
• Their blog at http://blog.jingproject.com/ is a great place to learn the latest news, join the conversation, and see how others are using Jing! 

WallWisher- Post a Message

What is WALLWISHER?     http://www.wallwisher.com/

Wallwisher is an Internet application that allows people to express their thoughts on a common topic easily.

A wall is basically the 'web page' where people actually post messages.
YouTube video:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBn1EVzh6wk

What can I do with Wallwisher? 

• Brainstorming/ Idea Gathering




This is my WallWisher to use with Seniors.
Asking if they learned anything today?


• Homepages - a place to gather resources, post announcements, leave messages, provide homework help, etc.
• Skill building – note-taking, vocabulary, sorting and summarization work wonderfully on this.
• Portfolios of Student Work – either as a class or an individual.
• Classroom REVIEW of the day's learning.
• Book Recommendations
• Teachers can use these posts to gather feedback from students, have them ask questions anonymously, and pose their own thought-provoking queries.
• 29 Interesting Ways to Use WallWisher in the Classroom (@ SlideShare)  https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dhn2vcv5_436f8kscmdc

What if I just want a private wall?
Yes, you can set a wall to be private. In that case only you can see or add notes to the wall. Ideal for personal stuff like things-to-do.

Do I need to sign up to make a wall?
No you don’t need to. You can start building a wall straight away. We will, however, need your email address. A temporary account will be created for you using your email address so that you can come back and make changes to the wall. You can use this account for all your subsequent visits to this site, or if you dislike us so much, keep using the site as a stranger.

Do people need an account to post on a wall?    No

How much does it cost?   FREE

Note:   Some other online sticky note services worth exploring are Lino It, Stixy, Spaaze, and Postica. However, these services require all users to create an account before they can post sticky notes.

Glogster EDU - Multimedia Posters

What is Glogster EDU

Glogster EDU is the leading global education platform for the creative expression of knowledge and skills in the classroom and beyond.  They empower educators and students with the technology to create GLOGS - online multimedia posters - with text, photos, videos, graphics, sounds, drawings, data attachments and more. Instead of creating a poster for a presentation, students can create an interactive glog to display information.

Glogster can be used for history, math, language arts, book reports, science, social studies, and for public service announcements.
Start with the FREE EDU BASIC plan

• Click here to see many education Glogs!  http://edu.glogster.com/glogpedia/

• Here is a YouTube video on using GLOGS:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvC47fUANLk&feature=related

• How teachers can use Glogster (No more Poster Boards or Tri-folds!)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7Go-piDcRg      from YouTube

There are 29 videos on YouTube describing "HOW TO." 

• Chech out their CATEGORIES OF GLOGS:    http://edu.glogster.com/categories/

Glogster's Educator Resource Library: 

The Glogster EDU Educator Resource Library is a database of outstanding examples of Glogster lesson plans and rubrics, standards alignment activities, and Glog building media resources.  The is a download as a PDF file.   
http://edu.glogster.com/download/glogster-edu-educator-resource-library.pdf
______________________________________________________
New Glogster Widget
If you have a Glogster account, now you can embed your posters directly into a wiki page, without ever leaving Wikispaces, and without having to copy any code.
Here’s how it works:
1. Go to your page and click Edit.
2. Click the Widget icon.
3. Choose Poster from the Widget menu, then click the Glogster EDU logo.
4. Enter your Glogster nickname and password, and click Log In.
5. Pick the glog you want, and either Insert it into the page, or View a preview.
6. Save the page.
It is that easy!!!
__________________________________________________________

The benefits of the Glogster Edu version are:

  Students can’t see content from the regular Glogster site when they are

     making Glogs in the EDU zone.

 You can embed your work in wiki pages.

 All Glogs made by students on the teacher page are PRIVATE.

 You can easily set up accounts for your students…just register for the EDU
     zone, fill in the number of student accounts or add accounts from your dashboard.

 Each teacher and all his students are connected, and students can leave

    comments on other student Glogs.

 You can see Glogs of your students on their profiles.

HAPPY GLOGGING!!!!

Khan Academy - Educational Videos

Khan Academy is a must-access resource for all parents, teachers and students. With the stated mission of providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere, the Academy supplies a free online collection of more than 2,000 videos on mathematics, science, history, and economics.  There is an APP for Khan Academy from iTunes!  Students with SmartPhones can view these videos on their phone.

The Khan Academy has excellent resources for social studies, and hundreds of math and science videos, including full courses in Algebra I and Biology.

Join Khan Academy content-area groups and uncover thousands of video instructional resources in Social Studies, Math and Science.

Salman Khan is Bill Gates' favorite teacher.

FORTUNE Magazine, August 24, 2010:

http://www.khanacademy.org/press/fortune

Salman Khan is a Bangladeshi American born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana.   Khan holds three degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: a BS in mathematics, a BS in electrical engineering and computer science, and an MS in electrical engineering and computer science. He also holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Each video runs for approximately ten minutes.  Khan eschewed a format that would involve a person standing by a whiteboard, desiring instead to present the content in a way akin to sitting next to someone and working out a problem on a sheet of paper: If you're watching a guy do a problem while thinking out loud, I think people find that more valuable and not as daunting

Great way for students to review or a teacher to introduce a lesson.

See all the sessions:      http://www.khanacademy.org/

Salman Khan, founder of the wildly popular Khan Academy, recently gave a talk at TED.  In his talk he gives examples of how teachers are using Khan Academy to use classroom time more effectively, provide more data to teachers about their students, and provide students with more individualized instruction. Khan concludes his talk with how technology can be used to humanize classrooms and learning worldwide. Watch the video below, I think you'll get some good ideas from it. http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html

DROPBOX - "Cloud Storage for Your Files"

DROPBOX
Have you ever just wanted a place to store your files where you could access them from your school computer, your home computer, your iPhone, etc.?  DROPBOX is your answer!  It is one of those "Cloud Computing" sites.

Watch a short video here to understand how this works.    http://www.dropbox.com/tour

You register at this same site.  AND you will need to download the software.
There is an APP for iPhones -
 Basic Service is Free - You get 2GB of storage for free.
                         If you wish, you may pay for more storage.

I have been using Dropbox for a over a year and it has saved me from trying to find a certain file that I worked on last night at home, but did not save to a FlashDrive or to my school account!  It is "in the clouds!"  When you saving on your computer, Dropbox will be an option, just like any other drive.  I can also save to Dropbox on my iPhone! 

Check it out   ....      http://www.dropbox.com        

          

PREZI - Use INSTEAD of Powerpoint!

 Websites to Use for 21^st Century Skills

 in the Classroom: 

              http://prezi.com

Check the video on the first page,

“What is Prezi?”1 minute video

 

Prezi is a Flash-based app that lets you build amazing, non-linear presentations where you can zoom in and out of a visual map containing words, links, images, videos, etc.  Cost: free and paid plans

     Here is an example of how one student used Prezi:  “30 things about  

            Me”         http://prezi.com/gco-vb9vvvy2  

     Students could create their own “About ME” Prezi projects.

     Also, can be used in similar ways that a Powerpoint has been used.

Cool intro to what Prezi can do: 10 ways to say it with prezi - Prezi is simple: You Write, Zoom, Arrange.Using these simple means, you can express many things - with great impact.Here are some basic examples such as timelines,

http://prezi.com/rhmtbwld0cvy/academy-10-ways-to-say-it-with-prezi

Engaging Your Students with Prezi  

This is a SimpleK12′s 2 Minute EdTech Talk. This episode of 2 Minute EdTech Talk is with Steven Katz, author and Technology Integration Specialist in South Korea.

TWITTER - My Personal Learning Network!

Twitter has become my Personal Learning Network and I hope that it will become yours this year.
The internet has so much information today that we can not hope to know everything!  Can't go to a conference for the latest in education?  Then get the latest trends, classroom help, information on your favorite hobby, or any of your interests are probably Tagged on Twitter.  Just try this amazing PLN for a month and let me know what you think!
Here is a quick tutorial on How to Set Up Your Twitter Account:
http://youtu.be/RO2o7pCaw4o

Here is a Downloadable ebook on Twitter:
  http://manuals.makeuseof.com.s3.amazonaws.com/twitter-guide.pdf

Once you have set up your account, please follow me by typing into Find People:  jenniferjdavis
My Twitter is mainly about using technology in the classroom.  After one month, I will guarantee that you will find at least a dozen tweets you can use!