Smyface - Know Exactly How Your Students Are Feeling

At first Smyface looks like a cute little toy but this is an excellent tool for gauging the mood and feelings of your students in a safe non-threatening way. Smyface is an excellent example of how technology can assist in the pastoral care of your students. It gives a very real voice to a shy or quiet kid but more importantly it gives a voice to those kids that we would consider to be “at risk.”

For many of the students that we teach Smyface may be irrelevant most of the time but for those students who are struggling with their work or do not understand a maths problem this is a safe and easy way for them to let you know how much it is effecting them. All they need to do is pick a face, write how they feel and email it to you. Very simple!

I might run this as a three minute reflection at the beginning of the day and then repeat it again at the end of the day. The beauty of Smyface is the second half of the idea;

Because……

Your students can actually tell you what is wrong without having that conversation that many may not have because they find it embarrassing. This might be even more important for a student that is suffering from bullying, has a really sick parent or grandparent or is in a situation that requires intervention.

This is a fun and engaging tool that might encourage students to open up to a significant adult. It could even be used as a way of introducing the concept of emotions, feelings and empathy - especially with boys. What a good way to illustrate how our actions have an impact on how other people feel. This cute little toy could be the catalyst for a real learning moment.

http://smyface.com/

Great Web 2.0 Multimedia History Project

This post has also been posted at Appsineducation. 

The Mountain Lakes School District invited students and residents to archive their homes’ history. Together they commemoratde their town’s centennial by creating a digital archive of their community’s unique architectural style and revealed the stories behind their Hapgood homes.

Perhaps you have heard the old phrase, “If these wall could talk.” Well, now by using QR Codes, smartphone apps, and websites such as HistoryPin, they will be able to make their walls talk! 

Read the full article here to see the full pages and watch the video tutorials.

http://blogs.mtlakes.org/centennialwalk/

Related Articles:
http://edtechtoolbox.blogspot.com/2011/04/fromelles-project-authentic-e-learning.html

Education Eye

Education Eye allows the user to discover, explore and share new ideas. It maps hundreds of top educational websites, blogs, forums and case studies to provide up to date information about innovative ideas being explored in the education community. The information is then present in a visual format that is itself interactive. Type in your search term and let it find the relevant articles, websites or links. This is a innovative tool from Futurelab and well worth a visit.

How Education Eye works
As an internet and social network mapper, the Eye collects and indexes content from hundreds of websites, blogs, news sites and others. It gives you fast search results to find content relevant to education. We've trained it to filter masses of content to find the stuff that is relevant (so you don't have to). We then index it really cleverly. We contextualise the results and map links between articles to help you discover innovations that you also might be interested in. We check social networks like Delicious and Twitter to see what people are saying about these items to help reinforce how they are indexed, and we even cross-reference every article against each other to help provide context and make sure you find the best quality and relevance. It's complicated, it's really robust and it's doing a lot in the background, but the end result is simple and hopefully really useful.

http://www.educationeye.org.uk/

Catchfree: Compare and Find the Best Web Tools Solutions

This is a very cool website. It asks you what type of tool you are looking for and then present you with five options. These are ranked in user popularity. What I like about this tool is the options. Often someone recommends a Web Tool to me and I find it clumsy or hard to use. The beauty of this website is that I have 4 other options on offer. Surely I can find one that suits the way I work or the way my students learn.

The image above is from the home page. This is sort of cool too because there are tasks here I do everyday day and alway use the same tools for. I am going to make an effort to investigate some of these other tools - if not for me than at least as another option for my students.

 Just check out the options available. This is a very useful tool to add to your arsenal.

http://catchfree.com/

Massively Minecraft

I have been introduced to Minecraft on a number of fronts this month. I have been watching the work of Dean Groom on twitter and on his blog about Massively Minecraft. Dean is a lecturer of Human Development Design at Macquarie University in Sydney Australia. He and a small group of intrepid educators - Bianca Hewes, Jo Kay, Judy O’Connell and Kerry Johnson have created a safe and monitored network for students to play in, discover and learn using the Minecraft platform. By coincidence I also had a 4th year university prac student who was also interested in including the notion of Minecraft into lessons. I have now built some basic structures in Minecraft but am nothing but a novice. I might let the experts explain.

Massively Minecraft is a Guild based learning community for kids aged 4-16 who are interested in developing digital media skills, exploring their creativity and developing online social skills using the video game Minecraft. 

Our guild is a social-enterprise, founded in mid 2011 for parents, teachers, schools and researchers as players in an open world to learn together, using game-theory and our experience of developing process networks in virtual worlds.

To add your kid to the game, we require them to be accompanied by a parent, care giver or teacher. These do not have to play at the same time (all the time), however as a Guild they are expected to support their own children in undertaking the awards and to help other kids in the game when they ask for it. The main skill an adult needs is empathy with kids and their creativity. Generally speaking, all the players want is support and interest. To this end, the game-space is not a babysitting service. If you are not prepared to spend a few hours a week playing with your own and other children towards them achieving success, then this Guild is not for you. 

If however, you do want your kids to be involved in a growing supporting game-community which is focused on social inclusion, diversity, creativity and celebrating the hard work and skills kids are developing around digital-space - or want to know how game's improve learning, then join the Guild.

This is an interesting experiment in the use of Game Based Learning to foster some real love of learning from very young students. I would be interested to see the long term effects of this collaborative exercise and the learning of collaborative skills by the students. I love the notion of accomplishment and motivation in this concept. Drop in and have a look at what they are attempting to achieve.

http://massivelyminecraft.org/

All of this is especially relevant with the announcement of mobile Minecraft in the last couple of days. This new Minecraft Pocket edition will mean lot more students can be assessing this platform on their mobile devices.

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79qYTToOcL8&feature=player_embedded.

130 Tools in 160 minutes

This is an excellent collection of Web 2.0 Tools. Collated by Steven M. Cohen, this a library weblog dedicated to resources for keeping current and professional development. He has a list here of 130 fantastic tools that he believes all librarians and teachers need to know about. Check out his site at Library Stuff

http://www.librarystuff.net/

Top 100 Tools For Learning 2011

Great list produced every year from C4LPT - Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies.

Here are the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2011. This the 5th Annual Survey of Learning Tools finalised on 13 November 2011. This year’s list is compiled from the Top 10 Tools lists of 531 learning professionals worldwide – from education, training and workplace learning.

KEY:
Previous years rankings shown in grey | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007
F = free, P = paid for, D = download, O = online

Top 30

1. Twitter - micro-sharing site   |  1 |  1 | 11 | 43=    F O 
2. YouTube - video-sharing tool | 2 |  3 | 18 | 22=   F O 
3. Google Docs – collaboration suite (incl Google Forms) |  3 | 5 | 7 | 14    F O 
4. Skype - instant messaging/VoIP tool  |  6 |  11= | 4 | 3=    F/P D  
5. WordPress - blogging tool  | 8 | 6 | 5 | 6=6=    F O/D
6. Dropbox - file synching software   | 13 | 71= | – | -   F/P O/D
7. Prezi - presentation software  | 12 | 28 |  - |  -   F O
8. Moodle - course management system  |  10 | 14= | 9 | 12=    F/D
9. Slideshare - presentation sharing site  | 5 | 7 | 20 | 31   F O
10. (Edu)Glogster - interactive poster tool  | 25 | 55= | – | -  F O
11. Wikipedia - collaborative encyclopaedia  | 16 | 17 | 13 | 26=  F O
12. Blogger/Blogspot - blogging tool  | 14 | 14= | 10 | 9  F O
13. diigo - social annotation tool  | 15 | 22= | 35= | 72=  F O
14. Facebook - social network   | 9 | 31= |  24 | 17=  F O
15. Google Search - search engine  | 11 | 8 | 6 | 3  F O
16. Google Reader - RSS reader   | 7 | 4 | 3 | 7=  F O
17. Evernote - note-taking tool  | 23 | 27 | – | 16=  F D
18. Jing - screen capture tool   | 17 | 20 | 26= | -  F D
19. PowerPoint - presentation software  |  21 | 13 | 8 | 5  P D
20. Gmail - web-based email service   | 31 | 21 | 14 | 7=  F O
21. LinkedIn - prof social network  | 30 | 38= | 30= | 31=   F O
22. Edmodo - edu social networking site  | 46 | 88 | – | -   F O
23. Wikispaces - wiki tool  | 17 | 29 | 19 | 15   F/P O
24. Delicious - social bookmarking tool  |  4 | 2 | 1 | 2  F O
25. Voicethread - collaborative slideshows  | 19 | 19 | 23 | –   F/P O
26. Google+ - social network  - F O   Highest placed new tool
27. Animoto - videos from images  | 28 | 31= |  - |  -  F O
28. Camtasia- screencasting tool   |  27 | 26 | 26= | 50=  P D
29. Audacity  - sound editor/recorder  | 24 | 9= | 12 | 11  F D
30. TED Talks - inspirational videos   F O  New

31- 65

31. Yammer - private microsharing platform  | 68 | 71= | – |  -  F/P O
32. Google Earth - virtual globe  | 41 | 43= | 40=| 40=  F D
33. Scoopit - curation software – F O  New 
34. PBWorks - wiki tool  | 33 | 34 | 35= | 43=  F/P O
35. Google Apps - branded app suite  | 34 | 38= | 68= | -  F/P O
36. flickr - photo sharing site   |  20 | 18 | 15 | 16   F O
37. Tweetdeck - Twitter client  | 37 | 43= |  - | -  F D
38. Google Maps - online maps  | 58 | 67 | 34 | 36=  F O
39. Wordle - word cloud generator   |  22 | 30 |  - | –   F O
40. Voki- speaking avatar creator  | 75 |  - | – |  -  F O
41. Symbaloo - Internet portal/dashboard  F O  New
42. Word - word processing software  | 60 | 36= | 22 | 10  P D
43. Google Sites - wiki/website tool  | 39= | 71= | 59= | -  F O
44. iPad and apps -   New 
45. Google Chrome  - web browser   | 44 | 55= | – | -  F D
46. Articulate  – e-learning software  | 43 | 24 | 25 | 22=  P D
47. Snagit - screen capture tool   | 42 | 25 | 21 | 26=  P D
48. Adobe Captivate - demo/scenario tools | 38 | 22= | 30= | 17=   P D
49. Vimeo - video sharing site  | 70 | – |  - | -   F O
50. Geogebra - maths software for schools – F D  New 
51. Screenr - screencasting tool  | 58 | 55= | – | –   F O
52. Mindmeister - mindmapping software  | 73= | 55= | 42= | -  P D
53. Picasa -  photo organiser  | 46 | 63 |  - | 57=  F D
54. Wallwisher - online noticeboard  | -  26 |  - |  - |  -  F O
55. iPhone/iPod Touch and apps   | 39 | 31= | 50= | 43=
56. Scribd - document sharing tool  | 54 | 71=| 83= | 50=  F O
57. Ning - private social networking plat form  | 31 | 11= | 16 | 31=  P O
58. eFront - course management system   F/P D/O  New 
59. Adobe Connect - web conferencing tool  | 61 | 41= | 66= | 72=  P O
60. Elluminate/Blackboard Collaborate - web conferencing  | 35 | 43= | 50= | 50=  P O
61. OpenOffice - office suite  | 61 | 71= | 41= | 31=  F D
62. Storybird - collaborative storytelling   | 71 | – | – | -  F O
63. Knol - share what you think  -  F O  New 
64. LiveBinders - 3-ring binder for the web  | 61 | – | – | –  F O
65. Sharepoint - intranet platform   | 75= | 50= | – | -  P D

66-100

In this the bottom 1/3rd of the list, there are a lot of tied places.

66.  iTunes and iTunesU - music/podcast player/site  | 51 | 41= | 28 | 26=  F/P D
67. Mahara - e-portfolio platform  F D    New
68. lino - online stickies  F O  New
69. Outlook - email client  | 95 | 67= | 38= | 17=  P D
69. Posterous - blogging software  | 36 | 55= | – | -  F O
69. Storify - makes stories using social media  F O  New
69. Udutu - collaborative course authoring tool  | 95 | 64= | – | -   F/P O
73. Hootsuite - social media dashboard  | 74= | – | – | –  F D
74. BigBlueButton - web conferencing   F O  New
74. Edublogs - educational blogging tool   | 48 | 49 | 59= | 72=  F O
74. Etherpad + clones - real-time text collab  | 50 | 71= | – | -  F O
74. iGoogle - personalised start page  | 44 | 16 | 17 | 17=  F O
74. iMovie - Video editing software   | 95 | 88= | 66= | -  P D
74. Khan Academy - learning platform   F O  New
74. SurveyMonkey - survey tool   | 48= |  88= | 54= | -  F/P O
81. Excel - spreadsheet software   | – | 50= | 27  P D
82. Google Calendar - online calendar  |  53 | 50= | 29 | 36=  F O
82. Kindle - ebook reader   New
82. Poll Everywhere - instant audience feedback   F/P O/D  New
82. Quizlet - flash card and study games website   F O  New
82. Screencast-0-matic - online screen recorder  F O  New
82. TeacherTube - edu video sharing site | 90 | 64= | 80= | 57=  F O
82. Zotero - collect/manage research  | 57 | – | 66= | 72=  F O
89. Blackboard - course management system  | 68 | – | – | -  P D
90. Android phones and apps   | 85 |  - |  - |  -
90. bubblus - collaborative mind mapping tool  | 89 | 55= | 83= | -  F O
90. Buddypress - social networking software  F D  New
90. Composica - social e-learning authoring system   P D  New
90. Adobe Flash - animation authoring  | 81= | 38= | 38= | 43=  P D
90. Fuze meeting - web conferencing  P O  New
90. Netvibes - personal start page  | 61 | 55= | 37 | 26=  F O
90. Paper.li - daily digest of tweets   F O  New
90. ReadItLater - save pages for later   F O  New
90. Weebly - website/blog software   F O  New
100. OneNote - personal information manager | 85= |  – | 66= | - P D

http://c4lpt.co.uk/top-100-tools-for-learning-2011/