Help your students become better searchers

Web search can be a remarkable tool for students, and a bit of instruction in how to search for academic sources will help your students become critical thinkers and independent learners.

With the materials on Google's guide to search for students, you can help your students become skilled searchers- whether they're just starting out with search, or ready for more advanced training.

It is a great resource for both students and teachers as it celarly outlines how to find lesson plans and teaching resources.

Access it here.

How To Download Any YouTube Song Or Video With Dirpy

I Found this on the excellent GroovyPost.com

Do you have a favorite YouTube song or video that you’d like to download?  Certainly you wouldn’t be alone if you do, and Dirpy might be able to solve that problem for you.  Dirpy is a free online service that will provide a downloadable link for nearly any YouTube video.  If bit-torrents are blocked at your location or just plain sound risky, Dirpy might be a great way to find the music you are looking for.  The beauty about  simplicity is its ease of use being that Dirpy is a web application and requires nothing be installed and works on most internet browsers.

Step 1

Find the YouTube video (or song within the video) that you want to download and then Copy the URL in the address bar.

Note that some videos such as those hosted with Vevo may not be available for download.

Click here to read the complete article at Groovy Post

Some great Audacity Tutorials for Teachers and Students

Audacity has been around for a long time and has for right or wrong been considered a very poor cousin to Garageband.  Regardless of how it compares to other products Audacity is still a great tool for teachers and students and it is completely free.  I came across these great tutorials that are primarily focused at creating podcasts but can be applied to any aspect of Audacity.  Your students would be more than capable of following them with ease and they are a great starting point for staff who have little experience with Podcasting or Audacity.  Check them out here.

Getting Started with Posterous in your Classroom

What is it?:  Posterous is a great resource for those that want to have a web presence to upload information to share with the world without the hassle of running a full blown site or being worried about web programming or anything complex. As a teacher if you just want a simple web presence you can send your students and parents to for quick and simple information then this is ideal.

Essentially this is how Posterous works - Got a useful document, song saved as an MP3 or even a web link you want to share with anyone.  Simply email it to post@posterous.com and it will be uploaded to your posterous web space. for example.  www.yourname.posterous.com.  Any file type can be uploaded to Posterous.  It takes all of 2 minutes to register but you can even skip this step if you are keen.

How Can I use this in the classroom?:  Post your weekly homework tasks up here.  If you have made a podcast simply email it Posterous and it will play straight from the browser or you can download it.  If you have a blog of your own you can automatically get your feed added to your posterous space.  Anyhow Posterous is really worth a look and I am sure you can find a purpose or it in your own classroom.

For a complete getting started breakdown on Posterous click here.  Posterous itself is available here.