As a Director for the Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE), I am often asked, what are some must-have tools for school administrators? Well, here are my favorites in no particular order.
Dropbox. Online storage is a must for any busy administrator. You no longer need a flash drive when all your documents are stored in the cloud. Plus, if you are not on your computer you can log in from any Internet connected computer and access your documents. Sharing is simple too. You can share one folder with your teachers and another with fellow principals.
Sugarsync. Sugarsync is much like Dropbox with a few exceptions. I use Sugarsync to sync all sub-folders in the My Documents folder. Thus my work computer, home computer, Macbook, and iPad have the same folder, the same structure, and the same documents. All of which are backed up online. Of course folks ask, is there a difference between Dropbox and Sugarsync? The short answer is yes and no. You can find reviews on many websites.
Jing. Do you ever need to capture a webpage and want to share that image? With Jing, you can capture images and videos then share via a web address. Thus that image or video is stored online. You simply share the link and not a big file that may get marked as trash!
links and tech for English Teachers:
contents
2. grammar/writing/research aids
4. helpful things for students
5. useful websites :classroom & lesson planning
6. Shakespeare
7. Google stuff
8. Voices & ideas in tech, digital media & education
9. student assessment through technology
10.Tech, apps, players, hardware
11.internet safety/ digital laws
13. math/science
14. open courses
15. Readings & articles about tomorrow's students & tech
16. vids to watch on tomorrow's students & tech
17. games and filler
Fun stuff kids love:
Free Rice- Have fun, help the world. Q & A, and each right answer procures 10 grains of rice through UN World Hunger program to people in need.
Easybib.com- Free MLA documentation
SAT question of the day. prep for the SAT at the start of every class period.....
Darfur is Dying- a videogame where students become refugees in Darfur and need to escape the Janjaweed
https://www.schoology.com/home.php
Grammar & writing/ examples /MLA & APA research
Give a hoot about OWL- Purdue's online writing lab. I love it. Phenomenal tools and set-up. Great to help with grammar.
Georgia Southern U's grammar worksheets and keys. Y'all come back now, ya'hear?!?
Model Bank- Not where Gisele keeps her money- model essays for students to examine
Graphic organizers for kids. Writing aids in all shapes and sizes and so on...
Mass DOE or DESE student work/scoring - Select a year. There are answers for multiple choices, but the real value comes from open response and long comp. prompt. There are graded responses to model for students. They can examine what's added to make each one better, or give all without scores and have them 'grade' the responses. NH standardized testing and scoring may be different, but it may help with student writing. I really do love this.....
Difference between writing in college and high school- let the students read this
Punctuating title- when to use italics or quotation marks
Writing fun- how true!
Thesis paragraph and body paragraph outlines
Paper writing tips from Academic Cafe
Teacher essentials
Khanacademy- The mission: deliver a world-class education to anyone anywhere, over 2,000 videos and 100 self-paced exercises!
Rubistar- All your rubric making needs done quickly. Although the rubric you want can only be created by you, this can aid in ideas, wording and can save time when you're in a bind. You do not need to sign up.
youtube.com self-explanatory. Cull for material.
Your school block the tube?? keepvids= download vids from youtube in mp4 or flv format. Play same vids at school. Bypass those blocks on webpages.
Teachertube.com- Youtube Lite! Not a fan.... :( so I don't know why it's under essentials.
portaportal- web based bookmarking utility that stores links to favorite websites online; bookmarks are no longer limited to any one machine.
Google online translator- Use it to translate text or entire web pages- How to Use it? Hopeful you'll get it if you watch this video Use ! This is great when teachers have ESL students- find the online version of a book and translate in N1.
Babelfish- een ander programma om tekst uit één taal in een andere te vertalen ( not as many languages as google)
indispensible links and tools for educators. by pbwiki
-- a pleathora of links to useful online aids for teachers, by teachers...
Prezi- presentations online, as the future of PPT may not be PPT. Very Zen.
Class Marker- create online quizzes and tests that are graded instantly
Easytestmake- Website that makes quizzes and tests
Google maps- find the closest pizza place that delivers......
for students' needs
Download clickspeak: This firefox add-on will read whatever text appears on the webpage. Have it read online books/articles.
Hate pop-ups while reading my website? - check this out.
Visuwords- visual vocab???
Interactive elements of a story- Not so far, far away!
How to create an executive summary! Auto-summary of a doc.
Graphic Organizers- that about explains it.
Rhymes with Orange? Orangoo allows a better, brighter spell- check. Much better if the google/MS spellcheck doesn’t recognize the context or word.
Assignment Calculator- papers in your rear-view mirror are closer than they appear. This site helps break down how much work needs to be done, and when.
Sites to use/monitor/run in classroom & some with lessonplans
edublogs.com- have your students create blogs, create your own hw teacher page, use it like blackboard
.blogger.com- Same as above
WebEnglishTeacher.com- wonderful resources for so many works and authors- and plenty of them
Ning- Social networking for the classroom
English Companion- on the aforementioned Ning- social networking site for just English teachers.......& ELA.
Ted- Ideas worth spreading.
PBworks formerly Wiki- great for collaboration, offers many users on same page and website. Was my teacher hw page.
The Educator's Reference desk- tons of lessons
World Mythology!!!!- learn about life and what it means to be human.
http://www.josephiacono.com - This man's site has a lot of websites to use, and a lot on enhancing education through technology. Office of educational technology, instructional technology specialist.
Shakespeare
Virtual Tour of the Globe Theater! go back in time and 'walk' through Shakespeare's theater.
Complete works of William Shakespeare- from MIT, which proves nerds have taste......
Try it with these two: Reduced Shakespeare Co. parts I & II- Intro & Romeo and Juliet
Reduced Intro/part I-
Reduced introduction to Shakespeare
Reduced Romeo and Juliet Pt II
The audio doesn't seem to match perfectly, but if you don't have the DVD............
Academic Commons/ Innovate- Journal of Online education!
Google-
Google lit Trips- Follow the paths of characters of stories on Google Earth; see points of interest and the like. Reservations already made for you.
Google docs: A vid- why some teachers like Docs and what's now possible
google docs blog- google's blog about how to manipulate the gdocs.
Googledocs/ add page break/go to page info- how to manipulate that info in your docs
Friends, tech gurus & fellow voices in ELA/ communication skills
Marc Prensky's guide to 21st Century Skills- Prensky is at the vanguard of the 'digital' movement in education.
Communications coach- Vids to aid in how to give a presentation. Usually 3 or four on each technique, watch and then see if you pick the right one.
Educational Origami- this part of the blog is on understanding digital children
Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators offers teacher resources, including categorized lists ... Internet Cataloging-in-Publication Data and Citation Formats
AnEnglishTeacher- One woman's website that offers great resources and ideas
Student activity/assessment
toondoo.com/ easy way to have students make comic strip
MyFakeWall- easily create fake profile pages just for characters in stories. It's free.
Tech, Apps, hardware & players
may facilitate binging vid into class
http://cutmp3.net/-cut mp3 files to save
21st century web 2.0 tools - self explanatory
AppStorm- 15 web alternatives to popular desktop software
Screen Vidshots- download free demo ( 10 days) which captures entire desktop or a window on desktop. Not bad for instructional purposes.
quick list of Ipad resources for the classroom-
Brief video about using the ipad in the classroom
Download clickspeak: This firefox add-on will read whatever text appears on the webpage. Have it read online books/articles.
Hate pop-ups while reading my website? - check this out.
Spellboy- paste text in this spell checker.
Get FLV player- if you need one for school computer
Before You Know It- a language learning site. Flashcards are on it. Some may be for English vocab quizzes.
Mywebpage: Name; assignments; archive.org
Teacher webpages can be so much more than just homework lists.
--Links to helpful things
--parental access to assignments
--eco-friendly
VOCABULARY CARDS
INTERNET SAFETY/ fair use rules, etc
Harvard Digital Media Project home
contains lots about patent law and digital media, copyright, etc.
Fair Use for teachers- Chelmsford’s copyright chart
Netsmartz- internet safety
Wiredsafe- the world's largest Internet safety, help and education resource
The Teacher's Internet Use Guide-
ED.Gov- Teacher's Guide to International Collaboration on the Internet
The Teacher's Guide- Internet safety
Online texts, audios & books
How great is this for making quizzes, searching for certain passages, etc.
LoudLit.Org - Audio of books read out loud along with the text. Sort of goes page by page. Includes all of Huck Finn. No words are censored.
Online books- Brought to you by the u. of Penn.
The internet archive: offers the wayback machine to see what webpages looked like on certain dates; it also contains online copies of many booksAlso ; texts, lectures, podcasts, classes; Software Archive to preserve & offer access to rare, "difficult to find, legally downloadable software titles and background information on those titles"; hundred of free university courses; plenty of old commercials, informercials and such
Americanrhetoric.com - Links to free speeches, for the sake of free speech.
The Great Gatsby- online. Hope copyright doesn't 'prohibit' this site.
Catcher in the Rye- actually most of SAlinger's works, scroll down to Catcher.
A Brave New World it really is when you can read it online.
To kill a Mockingbird- At the bottom of the text on this page there is a small link to 'show full text'
Some Multicultural texts- a mixture of Canadian and Italian.
Siddhartha- On the path towards full awakening, if you find yourself with two million minutes.........
Complete works of William Shakespeare from MIT
Complete works of William Shakespeare part II
Reading of Macbeth- along with a few others
Math, Science & Astrology
Solar System Jigsaw Puzzle
Illumination- interactive tools to facilitate exploration of math concept
Open Courses- as we're still students, too
American Novel since 1945- Yale Professor Amy Hungerford
Ted- Ideas worth spreading. Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world
Institutions online resources for teachers
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's summer institute - 52 lesson plans involving music
New York Times Daily Lesson plan archive
Literary Criticism- from Internet Public Library
Understanding the Aesthetics of Realism in the 19th century- May help some students if they need to understand genre and style
Literary periods and their characteristics chart- Organized Plainly for students to see
Perspectives in American Lit- This is just to early 20th century, linked to more of them.
Stanford's copyright and fair use primer- from webenglishteacher.com.
Things to read
National Educational Technology Plan 2010
edorigami.wikispaces.com /Understanding Digital Children Discussion about tomorrow's student today.
http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/report-announcement Mizuko Ito & U Cal Berkley study on digital media
digital youth WhitePaper- This paper found at above link
http://www.itofisher.com/mito/ - Ito's weblog on "International literature review on new media practices."
http://baywood.metapress.com/link.asp?target=contribution&id=C14827150109446Q- Database article
profs compete for-students attention
marcprensky.com- A leader in education and technology. His website.
marcprensky.com/writing - same as site above. Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants and other provocative articles
http://www.chiariglione.org/oldfiles/manifesto/definition.htm
innovateonline.info (may require sign-up) Journal of online learning
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
web.mit.edu/comm-forum/mit6/papers/Carlacio.pdf - (opens PDF- "Teaching Digital Literacy Digitally: A Collaborative Approach. Media in Transition 6: stone and papyrus, storage and transmission") Title says it all.
Vids to watch-
An anthropological introduction to YouTube- Mike Wesch
Constance Yowell, Digital Media Education & Culture , John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Mizuko Ito on Why Time Spent Online Is Important for Teen Development
Web 2.0- The Machine is us/ing us
A Portal to Media Literacy"-- Very long, about 1 hr- During his presentation, the Kansas State University professor breaks down his attempts to integrate Facebook, Netvibes, Diigo, Google Apps, Jott, Twitter, and other emerging technologies to create an education portal of the future. "("University of MAnitiba- Information Services and Technology - Michael Wesch and the Future of Education." University of Manitoba. University of Manitoba, 2009. Web. 02 July 2009. <http://umanitoba.ca/ist/production/streaming/podcast_wesch.html>. )
Top ten reasons to blog in classroom- ( 4-5 minutes)
Power of Blogging to make writers of students- ( 2 minutes)
Cooperative learning- student generated 2 minutes
Fun classroom games & fillers
SAT- Shakespeare Aptitude Tests. Name the play, speaker, Help Hamlet Duel.... Pretty fun, but maybe beyond H.S. students
PBS's In Search of Shakespeare games... What to write..................
A sort of hangman with a Shakespeare focus------
*Wordies on the web- brain teaser word play
*Word picture puzzles which are like wordies
Famous First lines...........You get the idea. Many are probably not too famous..........
**Lord of the Flies game from nobelprize.org
Another Flies game- Need to know the book, a sort of follow the adventure
Parts of Speech games for students. Quia.com
Figurative Language games- once again on Quia
Prepositional Phrases can be so much fun to review in just the right context. Quia.
Logic
Propositional Logic- The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Teaching Logic- Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies - Department of Theology and Religious Studies - University of Leeds
Logic textbook- Logical arguments, etc.