10 Excellent Social Bookmarking Tools for Teachers February, 2014 Social bookmarking is a new concept that has seen the light with the emergence of bookmarking services like the ones I cited below.Semantically speaking, ' social bookmarking' is made up of the the term " social " which is related to society and general interactions between people, and the verb " to bookmark " (used here as a gerund ending in ing) which has to do with recording and/or saving content for both later use and quick access. Weaving the semantic reference of the two words results in social bookmarking as we know it today : a collaborative and collective saving and sharing of web content.' Below are some of the best social bookmarking websites I would recommend to teachers and students. Have a look and let us know what you think of them on our Facebook page. 1- Diigo This is my favourite tool for socialbookmarking. 2- Livebinders This is another powerful tool for saving and organizing your bookmarks. 3- Scoop.it 4- Pinterest 5- Edshelf 7- Educlipper
25 Ways to Ask Your Kids 'So How Was School Today?' Without Asking Them 'So How Was School Today?' | liZ Evans This year, Simon is in fourth grade and Grace is in first grade, and I find myself asking them every day after school, "So how was school today?" And every day I get an answer like "fine" or "good," which doesn't tell me a whole lot. Or at least get a full sentence. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. So far, my favorite answers have come from questions 12, 15 and 21. And the answers we get are sometimes really surprising. As my kids get older, I know I am going to have to work harder and harder to stay engaged with them -- but I know it's going to be worth the work. This post originally appeared on Simple Simon and Company. Like Us On Facebook | Follow Us On Twitter | Contact HuffPost Parents Also on HuffPost: Alamy By the afternoon, I can get pretty frazzled. 1.
Avatar -embodied 3D persona with speech skills. Ready to create your own Avatar? Avatars are commonly known as computer (animated) characters representing a real life person, concept or artificial entity. Quite often this term is used to address human-like online assistants representing organizations, commercial firms and brands. These virtual assistants are able to answer questions and perform tasks through conversational dialogs with humans. Typical usage Avatars are the visual representations of real or artificial intelligence in the virtual world. It is hard to draw a line between intelligent avatars which have conversational AI skills and act dynamically, and on the other hand static unintelligent avatars which are just a snapshot taken at a certain point in time. The technology for creating avatars is evolving at a high rate, especially our ability to reproduce human beings. One of the events demonstrating innovations in speech technology is SpeechTEK Europe, which focuses on speech technologies, speech biometrics and voice user interaction design. Background .
50 Little-Known Ways Google Docs Can Help In Education Google Docs is such an incredible tool for college students, offering collaboration, portability, ease of use, and widespread acceptance. But there are so many options, both hidden and obvious, that there’s a good chance you’re not using Google Docs to its fullest capability. We’ve discovered 50+ great tips for getting the most out of Google Docs as a student , with awesome ideas and tricks for collaboration, sharing, and staying productive. Access your documents from anywhere : Whether you’re in your dorm room or the school library, you can access your Google Docs. Take advantage of this to make it easy to do your work on-the-go. Use Docs reference tools : Take advantage of the Define option to use Docs’ built in dictionary, as well as a thesaurus and an encyclopedia available for use right in your document.
The Best Resources On Differentiating Instruction My colleague Katie Hull-Sypnieski is leading a February 1st Education Week Webinar on differentiating instruction, and I would strongly encourage people to participate. Katie’s the best teacher I’ve ever seen…. In addition, Katie and I have co-authored a piece for Education Week Teacher on the topic that will be appearing there soon (it’s appeared: The Five By Five Approach To Differentiation Success), and an upcoming post in my blog there will be talking about it, too (that two part series has also appeared). I also did a second two-part series in Ed Week on differentiation. Also, check out The Best “Fair Isn’t Equal” Visualizations. Given all that, a “The Best…” post was inevitable, and here it is. Here are my choices for The Best Resources On Differentiating Instruction: The Best Places To Get The “Same” Text Written For Different “Levels” Busting Myths about Differentiated Instruction is by Rick Wormeli. Reconcilable Differences? Deciding to Teach Them All is by Carol Ann Tomlinson.
15 Options for Creating Screen Capture Images and Videos - Including on Chromebooks For the next few days I'm taking some time off to relax, play with my dogs, and ski with friends. Rather than leave the blog dormant for a few days, I'm re-running some of the most popular posts of the year. TechSmith Snagit is a screen capture tool from the producers of the popular screencasting tools Jing and Camtasia. Vessenger, producers of a group messaging system, offers a free program for capturing and annotating images on your computer screen. Using the print screen key on your PC or "command+shift+4" on your Mac are easy ways to create a screen capture. Monosnap is a free screen capture tool for Mac and Windows. Szoter is a free online tool for annotating images that are stored on your computer. Explain and Send is a free Chrome extension that I have just installed in my browser. Pixlr offers a large set of image creation and editing tools. Screenr is a very simple, easy-to-use tool for creating screencast videos. Capturing and Annotating Your iPad's Screen
The Happiness Project Popplet and Pizza So how does a pizza and attacking multi-syllabic words go together you are wondering? You don't eat a whole pizza at once, in one bite and if you don't know a long word (multi-syllabic word) you don't try to read the whole thing at once. You break it down (slice it up like a pizza) and read it (eat it) bite by bite! It's gotta be in kid language so they get it! :) My groups in grades 1-3 need a lot of practice with breaking words into syllables to try to read them. The kids are interested in anything done on the iPads, of course. With this app, you can create as many Popplets, or boxes, as you need. My first grade groups needed to go back and do some more work on story events. Students did a quick sketch in each box to represent what they would write about on their B-M-E page. I can see we will be using Popplet a lot!
Sing-along Songs One of the most fun group participation activities for family and friends is to engage in sing-along songs. The essence of a sing-along song is that it has a simple enough melody and memorable lyrics for everyone to easily learn. Many of these popular songs have been around for over a century and are taught to children as part of their grade school music education. She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain Not many songs over a century old are still as popular as "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain," which originated in the late nineteenth century by an unknown composer. What A Wonderful World The song "What A Wonderful World" was first popularized in 1967 by Louis Armstrong and in 1999 was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame. Louis Armstrong enjoyed one of the longest recoding careers of any singer in history. Don't Worry, Be Happy One of the biggest and more memorable hits of the 1980s was "Don't Worry, Be Happy," recorded by Bobby McFerrin.
Advanced English Grammar pypchat - home Making Predictions As a young reader, your child is learning to make predictions while reading. "What do you think will happen next?" "Who do you think drank Sara's lemonade?" These types of questions we ask children as they're reading help them learn to monitor their understanding of the story while thinking ahead to the next part. Scientists, just like readers, make predictions all the time. Below are two simple ways you can encourage your child to put her prediction skills to work as a scientist: Play favorites What is our family's favorite flavor of ice-cream? First, have your child predict or guess the answer to the question. Good guess! Estimation is often very similar to a prediction. Here are some estimation questions that require your child to make a prediction: How many noodles will it take to fill up this jar? We predict your child will have great fun with these activities!
Multicultural Kid Blogs | Dedicated to raising world citizens, through arts, activities, crafts, food, language, and love.Multicultural Kid Blogs | Dedicated to raising world citizens, through arts, activities, crafts, food, language, and love. Somebody’s House | Katrina Germein Posted at 1:31 pm by Katrina Germein, on May 11, 2014 Happy and fun, Somebody’s House is a lively rhyming tale that embraces unusual friendships and quirky families. Perfect for Early Childhood, Somebody’s House will be read on Play School in 2014. Vibrant illustrations by Anthea Stead. Classroom ideas & colouring sheet from Walker Books. Artwork by Anthea Stead Like this: Like Loading... Author: Katrina Germein Australian Children's Author www.katrinagermein.com