5 Great Digital Tools for Teachers

Planning for the first month of school can take on average 16 hours of prep, research, practice and refinement for every one hour of actual teaching time.

In the hopes of giving teachers some hours back this month, here are 5 digital tools that teachers can use to lifehack their course planning.



#1 BRAINSTORM IN THE CLOUD:
Always forgetting great coursework planning ideas you have outside of class? Jot your brainstorms on your phone’s Evernote app. Your ideas will be synced to a central location automatically, so you can have all your great ideas in one place.

#2 HAVE A DIGITAL PROJECT HUB
Are you a visual brainstormer? Trello mimics your wall of Post-Its so you can drag and drop course ideas and to-do’s, big questions or due dates for projects. Teachers can also create projects for students, and ask them to add writing tasks, encouraging classroom collaboration.

#3 TEACH VISUALLY
Course Hero has just launched an Infographic Study Series (coursehero.com/lit/): a collection of over 90 classic literature titles in visual form to help students learn efficiently. These easy to read infographics are the perfect bite-sized summaries to incorporate into your English 101 planning. See more information below.



#4 AMP UP YOUR PRESENTATION
Sick of conventional classroom presentations? Prezi’s zooming canvas opens up the classroom to active learning and interactivity, making lessons understandable, memorable and fun. Prezi also offers a free Edu Pro account.

#5 BE A DIGITAL TASK-MASTER
Wunderlist is a to-do list app that allows you to add tasks, set due dates and reminders, and link out to relevant resources.


Related:

Evernote for Education - great ideas and resources for using Evernote

Wunderlist - free and easy to use task manager

More Resources for Getting Organized and some more!

More Presentation Resources

Resources on Prezi

Top 5 Apps for Educational Administrators to Use

My most used/favorite Apps and how I use them

My Favorite Resources for Teachers and Students



Course Hero is an online learning platform that empowers millions of students and educators to succeed.

Course Hero Introduces Literature Infographics

The company announces first-of-its-kind visual learning collection to help students master literature

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- Course Hero, an online learning platform that empowers millions of students and educators to succeed, has developed “Literature Infographics” to help students better understand great works of literature. This visually stunning learning tool includes the key critical literary works that students will need to prepare for the upcoming fall semester. Course Hero developed these unique learning materials to provide students with a visual tool to help understand the key elements of classic literary work.

The series currently includes the following titles:

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney
And many more

The Literature Infographics (coursehero.com/lit/), which currently contain more than 90 titles, are a unique way for students to learn about the characters, themes, authors, and literary devices contained in the works many students will be reading this year.

“As an educator, I see these infographics as a fun, visual way to immediately immerse students in the essential ideas, concepts and literary devices that can facilitate their understanding and appreciation of literature,” said Kathi Duffel who has been a teacher for over 30 years and is an AP English and Journalism Advisor at Bear Creek High School (California). Kathi is also the recipient of the 2015 James Madison Freedom of Information Award by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists.

“We believe our Literature Infographics will help students better understand the complex ideas behind some of these great works of literature by providing a visual, story-driven perspective to the content they are related to ,” said Course Hero Co-founder and CEO Andrew Grauer. “It’s also our hope that educators will find these materials rich, engaging and helpful in addition to the lectures, class notes and other materials that they painstakingly prepare for students in the classroom.”

The Course Hero Literature Infographics are free for students and educators to browse, download, and share with classmates, friends, and colleagues and can be found here.

About Course Hero | Master Your Classes™

Course Hero is an online learning platform that empowers millions of students and educators to succeed. Fueled by a passionate community of students and educators who share their course-specific knowledge and educational resources, Course Hero offers the biggest and best library of study documents, expert tutors, customizable flashcards, and course advice. Course Hero is now used by over 10 million students to supplement their class work with course-specific study materials.

















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Noodle releases list of 32 best free apps for Education

Noodle, a site that provides families with information about schools, tutors, summer camps, study abroad programs, and online learning tools, has just released a list of the 32 best, free apps for education. 

The list covers some apps that I've reviewed before, such as Edmodo, Prezi, Desmos, and Knowledge Graph, but also has some I've never covered. Each listing is set up with "What it is", "Who would love it", "Why it's good", and "Why it's relevant", and "Something you didn't know" providing a quick look at what the app does, the intended audience and how to use it.

The selections were evaluated based on a list of strict criteria, including:
Orientation toward high school or college students
User-friendliness
Design language strength
Ease of use
No-cost options

There are some great apps listed here. Take a look. 

Example of a listing:

Related:

Top 5 Apps for Educational Administrators to Use

My most used/favorite Apps and how I use them

My Favorite Resources for Teachers and Students

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Prezi - the zooming presentation tool - gets mobile presenting features

Prezi is a very cool presentation tool that allows you to create zooming presentations with images, text, video and animations. It has a thriving educational community and is easy to use.

Prezi has just announced Mobile Presenting. With this, you can deliver and watch the presentations in real time. It is currently only available on iOS and web (ie laptops), but I'd imagine the feature will come to Android soon.

Your audience (students) can follow along on their own device and stay in sync with where you are in the presentation. You can share with up to 30 people at a time and it is as simple as selecting "present remotely" and sharing the link it generates.

I use Prezi for certain presentations. I like it because I can be more creative than with PowerPoint or Google Slides for some things.

TotSplash - organize and present ideas

TotSplash is a new site that combines online mind mapping and "Prezi-like" presentations.

Users can focus on organizing their thoughts and ideas and then the app transforms them into a "Prezi-like" presentation. You can share and embed your TotSplashes also.

There is a free version with no login required.

It's easy to use and could be a great alternative for students and teachers.

Prezi Interactive Presentation Tool gets a new interface

Prezi, the zooming presentation editor, has a new version of it's interface. Prezi is a nice alternative to things like PowerPoint for making presentations. Instead of slides, you create presentations using any thing as the basis, from a word to an image. You can change how the presentation moves from part to part and integrate video directly into the presentation.

The new interface is cleaner and standardized and looks more similar to other apps. It is easy to use and easy to find commands and features. The new design also allows for continued expansion and addition of features.






The web version of Prezi is free and you can download your presentation to your computer for offline access. The pro account adds more features and a desktop app.


Related:

PreziU - educational community for Prezi in education

Prezi interactive presentation tool gets some new features

Prezi, the zooming presentation tool that makes presentations engaging and fun, has added some cool features. 

Prezi has added 3-D backgrounds for the presentations, which can add some great images to your presentations. Also added are Fade-In Animations like PowerPoint has to slowly reveal your content or only have it come up once you click. Great for posing questions and hiding the answer. The third new feature is screen blackout. Press the "B" key during your presentation and black out your screen. This is a great feature when you want to get your audience/class's attention without any distractions. 

Prezi is a great alternative to PowerPoints and can make a presentation more engaging and interactive. It lets you easily embed videos and other media and the zooming actions make it more interesting. Like any presentation tool though, the content comes first. 

Related:

PreziU - educational community for Prezi in education

Ahead - create zooming multimedia presentations

 

Ahead is a new site that is similar to Prezi. You can use Ahead to create presentations using multimedia resources and zooming and panning effects across the screen.

It is web based and uses Flash. The free version gives you 300MB of storage, public only presentations, and unlimited "spaces" (presentations).

It is another resource that you can use to create interesting and engaging presentations. There are some great tutorials on the site, and lots of examples you can look at.

Related:

Prezi - the zooming presentation editor

PreziU - educational community for Prezi in education

Qwiki - search results as a multimedia presentation
Popplet - online presentation, mindmapping, and bulletin board

Google Docs Presentations

Sliderocket - online presentation software

PreziU - educational community for Prezi in education

Prezi, the zooming presentation tool that makes presentations engaging and fun, has announced PreziU, an educational community where educators can share best practices for using Prezi in education.

PreziU is a "community site where teachers and students can talk, share and learn how to use Prezi in education". There are articles, tips, Prezi's by other educators, and forums to discuss using Prezi in education.

If you use Prezi, or want to, check out PreziU - http://edu.prezi.com/

Great Prezi for students (and teachers) on future-proofing an education

I just found a great Prezi on Edudemic's site called "How To Future-Proof Your Education." The Prezi was created by Maria Andersen and explains how while content and technology change, the key skills around them stay the same. They skills include learning, explaining, analyzing, solving problems, and communications. If students have these skills, they can adapt to the changing future.

This is a great Prezi for educators to look at to get ideas for skills they should be teaching their students and it's a great Prezi to share with high school and college students.

Prezi - the zooming presentation editor

I've been using Prezi for a while now, using it for classroom presentations and presentations at conferences. 

I found Prezi very easy to use and fun. You can easily create a presentation from scratch, adding text, images, video, links and more. It is very easy to modify them all also with just a click. You can also import slides from a PowerPoint file. The presentations are very dynamic and you can really make them more visually engaging and interesting than PowerPoint or Keynote. It also moves people away from those dreaded bullet points. 

The site also has great help resources, including videos, a help site, and more. There is a community of users on Twitter, Facebook, and the Prezi forum also. 

You can get free accounts for educators or the public. There are limits, but they haven't affected my use at all.

You can create your Prezi's and present them online, or download them for offline use. You can also use Prezi desktop software (with a paid account) to create Prezi's offline.

There is even Prezi Meeting, where you can edit and show Prezi's with up to 9 other users. Work collaboratively on a Prezi or use it as an online meeting platform. 

It's easy to get started and there are a ton of Prezi's that you can look at as inspiration. 

You can make your Prezi's private, public (viewable by everyone) and public with the ability to copy. 

Prezi is fun, easy to use, and create's some great presentations. Try it out. 

Example of one of my early Prezi's (overview shot): (done with minimal experience with Prezi)

Here's the link to the actual Prezi: Google for Educators 

Spicynodes - visualize and organize information and resources

Spicynodes is a visualization service that allows you to create nodes of information, links, text, photos, and other media and then link the nodes together in a way that makes sense. It can be used for mind maps, organizational charts, and even lesson plans. 

There is a free version and I found it easy to use and set up. I liken it to a combination of Prezi and a mindmap. It's not a presentation, but it could be. It's not a mindmap, but it could be. It is a very versatile tool that can be very useful for educators and students. 

Popplet - online presentation, mindmapping, and bulletin board

Popplet is a unique combination of presentation tool, mindmapping, and online bulletin board. It is easy to use and a fun way to create. You simply create a new, free account, and then get started building your Popplet.


You create a new Popplet and then click on the screen to create a new Popple. A popple can hold text, images, video, and even Google Maps. You can use it as a bulletin board, using popple's as the notes or flyers. For mindmapping, you create a popple and type your content and then select one of the circles on the side to create a link to a new popple. You can also edit and create or delete links later. 


You can also use it as a presentation tool. Each popple can be used as a "Slide" and you can change the order using the presentation menu. The application will zoom in on each popple in the order you selected (similar to Prezi).


You can share and collaborate on Popplet also. 


Popplet is a fun, easy way to create mindmaps, online bulletin boards, and presentations. Try it out.

Living in the Cloud - I'm ready for Chrome OS -Update

Chrome OS is all the rage right now in the tech circles. Google has released a very early version to certain people installed on their CR-48 laptop. Chrome OS basically takes everything to the web and, for all intents and purposes, turns an OS into a browser, and doesn't do much on the actual device. To be able to take advantage of this, you have to have a lot of your resources as web apps or web sites.

I'm hoping to be one of the lucky ones to get a CR-48 to test out and evaluate. I'm pretty well set in the cloud as it is now. The only thing I'm still using on the computer is PowerPoint. But, I'm moving most of my presentations to either Google Docs or Prezi.

Chrome Web Browser (currently running 9.0.597.19 beta)

1. Home email - my home email, through my cable internet service is web mail.
2. School email - web mail, through Microsoft Exchange
3. Gmail - secondary email and used for my Google accounts - love the fact that it keeps multiple email replies together in a conversation.
4. School student data system - attendance, information, gradebook - all web based (PowerSchool)
5. Evernote - notes, lesson plans, and so much more - web based
6. Blogger - web based blogging platform - this blog and my class blogs
7. Google Sites - class website and reference web site with links, resources, and files
8. iGoogle with Google Reader, Google Bookmarks, Google Notebook, Google Calendar, Google Tasks, Google Contacts...all web based.
9. Picasa - online photo storage
10. Google Chrome extensions and web apps:

1. Tweetdeck web app
2. Clip to Evernote
3. Aviary screen capture and edit
4. Google URL shortner
5. Bookmark to Diigo
6. Chromey calculator

11. Online scientific calculator

12. Dropbox - cloud file storage and sync to access my files

13. Google Docs - online office suite - uploading my PowerPoint files and videos to Docs and YouTube

14. Aviary - online graphics, photo and detailing suite.

15. Prezi - very cool, online, presentation program

That's just the main things I use on a daily basis. I really don't need to access a hard drive or have local storage of apps/software or files to be able to do my work. It also means I have access to all of my stuff no matter where I am: home, school, at a different computer in the district, or even on my Palm Pre+. I can access everything from anywhere. 

What I really like about Chrome OS is that it would be perfect for education. (I wrote about that here). 

What about you? Can you live in the cloud and still get things done?

UPDATE: Very interesting. I got home on Friday (the day I originally wrote this post) and UPS shows up with a Google Chrome OS CR-48 notebook for me. I will be posting a review this week, so stay tuned. So far, I really like it. 

Related Links and Posts
Technology I use on a daily Basis
Chrome OS homepage
Cloud File Storage, Backup and Sync
Backing up your Cloud/Web based Data
Operating Systems and Web Based Apps

Prezi - The zooming presentation editor

I had learned about Prezi over the summer, but never got a chance to work with it until this week. Today I finished my first presentation. It is a presentation I am doing for a professional development session next week at my school on Google Applications and some other free things for teachers.

I found Prezi very easy to use and once I started playing with it a little, I started having fun with it. I'm going to continue to explore more features in it, including automatic timing of each part, frames, grouping, and more.

Try it out as a nice alternative to just using PowerPoint.