Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Cool Tools from School Library Journal

I'm taking some time to read the December 2010 issue of School Library Journal. These are some of the things they highlighted that I plan on checking out or have my students checkout during one of our units.


Richard Byrne, over at Free Technology for Teachers blog, wrote a bit about Twiducate. Social network created by the teacher and similar to Twitter. What a great way to teach kids about online behavior and how to utilize SNS for education. Our students are still at the age where their SN is really more social than educational. You also have a lot of control over the site so I think this might make certain lessons more entertaining as well as educational.


There is also EduPad, which isn't even live yet but I thought would be great to look at. During the virtual ebooks conference a few months ago, one of the speakers mentioned how teachers and librarians need to be the creators as well as the consumers. This might be a great place to start - by creating apps related to our lessons.


On a personal note, I really want the Edifier Soundbar. My old iBook is now my giant iTunes player. (seriously, it cannot handle more than 2 applications at time and those 2 apps are iTunes and Last.fm) So, it would be great if I could have an amplifier.


I'll let you know how it goes.


I did write a lesson on how to use Google Docs - document for my 7th graders so I will have to post about that later after I see how it goes. It might be disaster but I'm hopeful.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Update concerning eduPad's availability: 4 first apps have been published this week on the Apple app store under the iTooch brand, targeting the French market.
4 apps targeting the US market should be published by the end of December or early in January (5th grade, Math & English curriculum).
Teachers interested in joining eduPad's beta testing program are welcomed! To register, simply send an email including your iPad's UDID at: beta [at]eduPad.com
Jérôme (eduPad)

Anna M. said...

Thanks so much Jerome for the update! So there you have it. End of December and early Jan. And you can sign up to be part of the Beta Testing group.