A lot of talk about QR codes at ISTE. My questions: What are QR codes and why use them? So here is a great article about some unique uses. My favorite use is #2 "Geo-Based Reviews and Tours". Create codes here: QR - Code Generator and scan with your smartphone to access images, websites and text.
New search tricks you might want to try out include:
Mashpedia will search Wikipedia, You Tube, Twitter feed, Digg, and all kinds of social media.
Springfield Library shows many google search tool options which I was not aware of. Great resource once again for students and teachers.
Yolink Education is a free downloadable browser plugin. Use Yolink Education to pull out the research content for students.
Sweet Search is a custom search Engine for Students. The thing I like is that it gives you a list of credible resources and helps students find what is relevant. I think that identifying relevant sources is a huge problem, with all the information available to students. It also highlights key words in results and you do not have to open links to find the ones you want. Helps students with documenting and bibliography. Also, try Sweet Search 4Me - 3-5 library of congress, many primary source documents and credible sites are weighted more heavily.
Next, Google Squared is a search tool that helps you quickly build a collection of facts. I tried a state like Alabama and easily collected the information that students might need for a 5th grade state report. Try any subject.
Keep reading for a "mashup" of excellent tools that may work for you.
Shareaholic, Readability, Instapaper strips away extra "stuff" and leaves nice clean text making websites easier to read. This could be especially helpful for students who are easily distracted. Put it in your toolbar.
For Smartboard users: Smart Express: lets you use notebook files online, create, store, and access them. Try it!
Create a reading list with Read It Later. As you find links on Twitter check the readitlater tool. I just installed it to Firefox and now I can save things to read later and they are all in one place!
How do we empower teachers to real time message with their students? Try Edmodo. This is a tutorial. You can share documents, powerpoints, pictures, videos, websites, grade assignments with comments on homework. Edmodo allows teachers to connect with each other. A new iPhone app was just released. In brief - it's like Facebook for Educators.
Compare and contrast is an excellent skill to teach students especially when comparing research information and sources. Bingle
will perform two searches at once! Ask students to compare and contrast and select the best source.
Here is a Wordle trick: Simply put a tilda (~) between each word of a sentence so that there are no spaces: i.e. They~were~jumpin. Then the sentences stays together when you put it in Wordle.
Is your school using twitter? Paperli converts your twitter stream into a daily newspaper. This would be a great application for schools who are using twitter on their website - like Altara. You quickly have a newsletter style summary of school events. Looks nice too.
. . . and this was just the information from the first day - ISTE Edublogger!
