Twurdy: Search by Appropriate Readibility Levels

 

Twurdy is a Google powered search tool that displays results at appropriate readability levels. Just enter a search term to get color-coded results which determine how easy the page will be to understand. This is certainly a useful tool to help all learners succeed and also a good tool to add to any teacher's toolkit of resources.

If you think the name of this search engine will be difficult to remember, perhaps knowing that it was derived from a play on words, "Too Wordy?", will help you remember it.

Try Twurdy

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Online Bulletin Board of EdTech Blogs

As a tech facilitator much of my success can be attributed to what I learn through the contacts I've made via my Personal Learning Network. Summer is a great time for educators to begin to build a personal learning network and so I've decided to simultaneously introduce a new tool for collaboration and try an experiment to demonstrate the power of a PLN.

If you have received a personal invitation to view this blog through Twitter, that means your blog has been published on the online bulletin board of Good EdTech Blogs I created using a user-friendly post-it note tool called Lino It. I am asking you to give the tool a try and add your favorite edtech blog to the bulletin board, then send a Tweet to the author with an invitation to contribute and continue the process. If successful, I think this bulletin board will grow rapidly and demonstrate the power of a PLN in addition to creating a great list of resources for those who are just starting to build a PLN. If you just happen to be reading this blog, please join us. You can post your own edtech blog, or your favorite, then do spread the word.

About the tool:
Lino It is a tool for creating a bulletin board of online sticky notes and a good tool for teachers to try this summer for collaborating with team members as you reflect and think about ideas for the upcoming school year. Working on a project? Collecting resources for a unit of study? Why not start with this simple and easy-to-use bulletin board. You can set up an account for free and share your bulletin board with a target group or make it public and share it with the world.


View or contribute to the EdTech Blogs Resources Board:
http://bit.ly/lts4rj

Try Lino It for yourself:
http://linoit.com

Stay tuned to this blog this summer as I continue to focus on ways to help educators develop a personal learning network.

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Google Art Project: Explore World Museums

As the end of the year approaches, teachers are often looking for engaging activities to keep their energetic students on task. Perhaps you might want to consider taking your students on a virtual field trip to explore art museums from around the world.

Google Art Project is an interactive website that uses the same street view technology you've probably seen in Google Maps to allows visitors to virtually explore museums and view hundreds of pieces of art. Even better, visitors can view them at incredible zoom levels to get even closer than you could if you were actually standing in front of the original painting. Visitors can even create and share their own collection of masterpieces.

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The Flipped Classroom

As an instructional tech facilitator my goal is to help teachers progress through the stages of technology adoption to get to the point at which they are using technology as a tool for learning, rather than using it as an add on to supplement traditional learning activities. To do that successfully, teachers must adjust their roles, moving from traditional teacher to learning coach or facilitator. Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams are a couple of innovative teachers who have developed an approach to teaching and learning known as The Flipped Classroom, which certainly supports the idea of teachers as learning coaches. 

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Edublogs Free Tools Challenge

The Free Tools Challenge is a great online professional development opportunity for busy teachers provided by Edublogs. Designed to help participants learn to use free Web 2.0 tools, this 30 day challenge encourages us all to try one new tool each week through challenge activities created by by guest bloggers. I got the opportunity to be a guest blogger for the challenge and the activitiy  I created,  Free Tools Challenge #25: Using Jog the Web in the 24/7 Classroom, was published earlier this week.

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Text Compactor: Simplify and Summarize Text

Text Compactor is a free online tool for summarizing and simplifying text. It is extremely user-friendly and requires no login so it's a perfect tool for students to add to their own toolkits of resources.

Just copy and paste some digital text into the box, use the slider to determine the percentage of text you want to end up with, and view the simplified text.

Use it as a tool to help struggling readers of all ages. Try it at textcompactor.com.

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JogTheWeb for Guided Student Learning

One of the best ways to use JogTheWeb is as a tool to create flexible, guided activities to help all students learn. It's easy to design a Jog for success if you set a goal of providing students with multiple ways to access and acquire information. Design your lessons to include video,  text written at a variety of reading levels, simulations and interactive websites then see if it makes a difference in the success of all students. Take a look at a very simple Jog I created, Let's Explore the Nervous System, to view multiple ways to present information to students.

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Tweet Topic Explorer

If you appreciate a good word cloud you might be eager to learn about a tool that creates a word cluster out of the information people post on Twitter, commonly referred to as tweets.


This word cluster identifies the most frequently used words tweeted and also groups them to show relationships. Although the sample of my tweets below is only an image, you go to the actual website then  click on any word to highlight it in the tweets.

View on Tweet Topic Explorer and try it

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Photosynth - Capture the World in 3D

Photosynth is a cool tool for capturing and viewing the world in 3D. This tool takes a series of photos and weaves them together to create a virtual tour. You and your students can explore the many photosynths already created simply by visiting the website, or create your own by signing up for an account.

Please enjoy this photosynth of the Chicago Skyline.


Try it for yourself at phyosynth.net

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10 Minutes of Tech for Busy Teachers

I used JogTheWeb to create a mixed-bag of quick tech tools for teachers to explore in ten minutes or less. All of the tools in this jog are extremely user-friendly, free and require no login. The tools are simple and versatile enough to assist in the teaching of just about any content to students of all ages. Ten minutes is all it will take to check out one of these tools and add it to your tech toolkit of resources.
10 Minutes of Tech for Busy Teachers

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Jog The Web

Jog The Web is a cool tool that allows users to assemble tidy packages of web content. For teachers it can be a tool for providing students with easy access to guided learning.

The websites within a Jog are live and can be explored right within the page frame, which solves problems related to students getting lost within multiple windows. Even better, Jog authors can annotate pages within the Jog and also create original pages with unique content.

This appears to be a very promising tool for education because it's user-friendly, engaging and interactive.

View Sample: A Jog for teachers, featuring several Web 2.0 tools
Using Glogster to Construct Knowledge

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Why Glog?

Glogster.edu is a cool tool for creating online multi-media posters that supports flexible learning paths. I created this glog to briefly introduce the concept of glogging to students. It includes a video that says it all, a glog of samples created by students and some simple directions to get you started. 

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