Download over 40,000 free eBook's direct to your Dropbox

Project Gutenberg, to the uninitiated, is the web's oldest site for downloading free ebooks. They offer a collection of over 40,000 ebooks (and growing) which you can either read online or download them on to your computer in various formats.  \

Plenty of classics your and your students will love such as Dracula, Pride & Prejudice and Moby Dick to choose from Gutenberg offers a library on your tablet or computer.

The Gutenberg website has recently added support for Dropbox meaning you can download ebooks directly to your Dropbox account in the cloud. Once you authorize access, it will create a new “gutenberg” folder in your Dropbox and the ebooks will get saved directly in that folder.

This is quite a handy feature, especially for iOS users, as they create a download request in the mobile browser while the full ebook magically appears inside the Dropbox app.

Also, if you are on the Kindle Reader, you can either email these MOBI ebooks to your personal Kindle email address or connect the device over USB and put the files in the Documents folder of Kindle. They do not require conversion.

Sounds like a winner.

How teachers can use twitter to find resources

Twitter is an excellent app for teachers to communicate about topics of interest and find relevant resources. 

It has a great search feature built into it, but if you use it en the same manner as Google you might be a little disappointed.  Today we are going to look at using Twitters search and advanced search function, and also workout the world of Hash tagging.

I am going to use twitter from the browser for this example but all the rules still apply for mobile devices too.

Twitter's search bar is located on the top left of your screen

When using search in twitter it views the phrase Lesson Plans as two individual words.  You might still find what you are after, but if you use quotation marks around your search phrase such as "Lesson Plans" Twitter will search for that exact phrase.

When your results are returned you will see the following screen and we can then refine a little further. by refining the highlighted section.  You can also save this search by clicking the cog on the top right.

Advanced search is one of Twitter's more useful tools and can also be found under the cog.

Advanced Search offers lot's of choices to refine your findings

There are a number of fields within advanced search that will allow you refine exactly what it is you are after and filter out the noise.

As you can see my maths lesson plan seach is really what I am after.

So what is this Hashtag thing?

Hash tags are reference points that people put at the end of their tweets to link them to a common discussion.  For instance if you search the hash tag #teaching these are tweets that people want connected to discussions about teaching.  So people like yourself can continue the discussion and discover them at a later date.

Most Popular Educational Hash Tags

Have a go at searching through some of these more popular educational hash tags to find discussions relevant to your needs.

• #EdTech
• #Education
• #Classroom
• #STEM
• #ContemporaryLearning
• #BlendedLearning
• #EdApp
• #EngChat
• #MathChat
• #HistoryTeacher

I hope this helps and happy searching

Teaching App of the Week: Screen Chomp

Screen Chomp is a very simple to use tool that allows teachers and students to make simple video tutorials on their iPads and upload them to the web to share with others.

It is a great tool for teachers who might wish to explain how to do perform a mathematical equation so that their students can reference it at home.  Students can also respond to the screen casts and share it on social media.

The short video below will give you a far great overview of its potential in the classroom.

There are a number of screen casting solutions on the iPad already, but this is made by TechSmith who dominate the screen casting world on Mac and PC already and this product has all the polish of those products too.

Screen Chomp is a free app that is only available on the iPad currently and can be accessed here.

5 Great reads for teachers

It amazes me how many teachers choose to read books about teaching during their vacation.  Quite frankly, I like to distance myself from work during breaks, but each to their own...

Since returning to work, I have been recommended a number of books by colleagues and readers of Edgalaxy who speak very highly of a few.  I though I would share a few of these with you.

I have just ordered two of these books listed below which look interesting and worth a look, but certainly have not read any of these on the list.  So I'd love to hear some feedback from those those have, 

Even better, if you would like to recommend something please post a comment below.

Amazing free Dinosaur posters for your classroom

Kids of all ages love dinosaurs, and they are a great topic to teach.  There seems to be an unending fascination with these giant creatures which dominated earth for millions of years and then suddenly vanished.

This collection of 13 Dinosaur Posters will really enhance any learning space at home or school, and help you and your students better understand Dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures.

These Posters are all high resolution PDF images that can be scaled to meet any practical printing size and provide facts, images and information about the following 12 dinosaurs.

• Megalosaurus
• Pteranadon
• Tyrannosaurus
• Triceratops
• Brachiosaurus
• Stegosaurus
• Ankylosaurus
• Diplodocus
• Allosaurus
• Plesiosauria
• Velociraptor
• Archaeopteryx

I hope you enjoy these posters and put them to great use.  Click here to download them.

Office 2013 - What is the difference?

Yesterday Microsoft rolled out their latest version of Office.  Office 2013.  - I have been using this for a while now and put simply, I still see this as the most complete productivity suite available on any platform by a very long margin.

But it is not free - far from it.  Microsoft is trying to convince the average user to subscribe to their suite of tools for $100 USD per year that allows you to install it on 5 devices.  Not to bad, but not Google docs free.

Is it worth the upgrade from the already very capable office 2010?  Make your own mind up, take a look at CNET's review below.

Two great tools for successful student assessment

As many students are about to head back to school, now is a great chance for you as a teacher to take stock of how you are assessing your students to see if it can be done more effectively. 

Even though midyear and end of year reports are probably not at the forefront of thinking at the minute, if you are proactive now you can adopt a couple of simple tech based assessment tools that will save you many painstaking hours when reports do come around.

Here are two very simple solutions that will help you better manage your data based and anecdotal assessment.  Both are free and can be set up within a matter of minutes.

The Class Tracker allows you see everything at a glance

A Class tracker is a very simple spreadsheet that is made up of columns in which you can enter your students names, test results, homework submitted, books read and so on.  This is completely flexible and you can cater it to meet you class needs.  Simply add and remove columns as desired.

The beauty of a class tracker lies in its simplicity.  It allows you to see your class at a single spreadsheet that you can then use to sort students into ability groups or follow up events or items that are unfulfilled.

You can download an editable Class Tracker template here in which you can enter your own students and begin tracking your own class data right now.  Simply add and remove columns to meet your needs, but if you want to take this tool to the next level you can use the sort filters to instantly rank student performance in a specific area.

There is a video below that explains how to sort student information and use the sort feature in Excel.

For more of an anecdotal solution to recording student performance I cannot recommend using Evernote enough.  It allows you to record text, images and video when conferencing or assessing your students work.

I have the Evernote app up and running on my iPad frequently in the classroom when I am conferencing with students or wrapping up a session.

Evernote really does allow you commit anything to memory

If you use your wording effectively in Evernote you can actually write your report statements right then and there as you are seeing things unfold in real time. 

This has got to have far greater value than trying to dig up memories from scratched notes from something that happened two months prior to writing your reports.

So for instance, when you are watching Little Johnny do his class science presentation science on dinosaurs don’t just pull out a piece of paper and write the fact that Johnny did a presentation on dinosaurs, pull out your iPad, Tablet, Phone, Computer or whatever and write in a report comment in Evervnote then and there such as…

“Jonathon explained in detail how the ice age caused the demise of the dinosaurs during his class presentation.  He could clearly articulate the effect the ice age had on the food chain and how cold blooded reptiles need a warm climate to survive.”

This statement says a great deal more about student understanding from a live perspective and can be applied to nearly all areas of the curriculum. Furthermore; you can even take a video, or photo of the presentation as authentic assessment to reflect upon with the student.

It is obvious to see that if you adopt an Evernote approach to anecdotal assessment that this would save you hours come report writing time.  Everything in Evernote is synced to the cloud and can be accessed on any computer or mobile device.

So there are two simple assessment tools you can begin using at any time that will greatly inform your own teaching and understanding of student performance.

It would be great to hear of any other useful assessment tools you are using in the comments section below.

Thanks

Kevin

Printable 5 W's tool for Students

Use this tool help students determine the Who? What? Where? When? How? and Why?

Click here to download