Danny's blog.

Technical Resources:

Standards Toolbox

http://www.standardstoolbox.com/ – Standards toolbox is a free open source piece of software that runs on linux and offers a comprehensive lesson plan generator for teachers to streamline the process of creating a day to day classroom plan. Also has extensions if used by school administrators, and allows you and colleagues to coordinate your work and lessons easily via email and web publishing. A very dynamic and useful tool.

Igoogle

http://www.google.com/ig - Igoogle is a useful resource because it provides an organizational dashboard for teachers. A socials instructor showed it to his department during our 2 week observation and I immediately started using it. It provides quick access to your email, to-do list, calendar, weather, news (personalized), wikipedia and youtube search engines, and any number of other gadgets available (either user created or inhouse google applications). Incredibly powerful and usefule.

Google Reader

http://www.google.com/reader – Google Reader is another google application that offers a powerful organizational structure to educators. It basically harnesses RSS news feeds from almost any topic – history to recipes to current events to morning skate notes from NHL and junior hockey. These feeds can be organized into user selected topics/folders based on content or other criteria, and google reader will ‘file’ every new news story and hold onto them until the user is able to go back and flip through and mark them as read (similiar to email). This provides a busy teacher with a net to catch important and relevant material, literally without missing a thing. For teachers who have busy schedules, the ability to catch resources in a searchable format is unbelivably useful

Prezi.com

http://prezi.com/ – Prezi was described to me by a grade 11 student as ‘powerpoint on crack’. Basically, prezi is an online 3d mental map and presentation software. Rather than linear slide to slide transitions, Prezi allows the user to creat a 3d mind web that can fly concept to concept, zoom in and out for more detail (Depending on the depth of the composed presentation). For students who like to make spatial and visual connections, using Prezi will aid greatly in what they get out of a lesson. Students who enjoy power point will also do fine, as prezi just enhances the power point model.

Google Sites

https://www.google.com/sites – GoogleSites is another google offered service which allows quick web publishing for free with a simple design interface and pain-free user process that allows someone who uses other google products (specifically google docs) to quickly publish and share work. The degree of use an educator can get out of this is based on situation but in a class where a majority of kids have home internet access it can be a great resource for submitting assignments or returning electronically submitted work. Its also a great resource to keep kids up to date on class work and distribute work to students who are, for instance, on vacation or sick and away from school so they dont fall behind.

Google Docs

http://docs.google.com – Google Docs allows teachers to quickly develop, publish, and share course work,assignments, grading etc. You can set up different access to files based on users so you can, for instance, share lesson plans with other faculty while sharing assignment and notes with students. Also transitions into easy use with other google apps.

Koyote Soft

http://koyotesoft.com/ – Koyote soft is a company that offers a free FLV converter. FLV is the video format used by youtube and other free flash based video websites online. Their software allows you to basically download, piece together or cut apart, clips from youtbe and store them on your harddrive. This gives teachers much more power to bring technology into classrooms which may lack solid, reliable internet access by preparing and converting files and bringing them in via laptop or flash drive.

WebQuest

http://webquest.org/ – Webquests are structured internet activities to provide a more indepth searching and information manipulation activity for use in the classroom. Lots of examples, ideas, and lessons available for download and links provided to submit your own.

Rubistar

http://rubistar.4teachers.org/ – Resource to quickly create, alter, store, share and publish rubrics for assignments. Could be used in conjuction with your class to edit the rubric ‘live’ in class as part of a formative assessment strategy. In their own words “Want to make exemplary rubrics in a short amount of time? Try RubiStar out! Registered users can save and edit rubrics online. You can access them from home, school, or on the road. Registration and use of this tool is free”"