Grade Keeper

Springpad : teachers' free notes organizer web2.0 tool

A great functionality to improve twitter in education

Springpad : teachers' free notes organizer web2.0 tool

A great functionality to improve twitter in education

Sunday, February 27, 2011

21st century search engines teachers must be aware of part 4

This is the fourth part in a series of posts devoted to Educative search engines. The aim behind these series is to provide educators and teachers with the necessary web2.0 tools to help them with the 21^st century teaching . If you haven’t had a look at the previous parts , then here is a brief synopsis together with the links to refer you back to them

Part One

Part two

Part Three

1- RefSeek

RefSeek is still in beta version . It is an academic search engine designed for students and researchers . Its search results depends basically on :

Documents
Webpages
Books , encyclopedia …etc .

2- Search Cloud

Search Cloud is a very interesting search engine . It is my favorite among them all .Simply type in your key word and click on any cloud link around . The more commonly used sites become larger and more prominently displayed . You can edit the search engines that appears around the search bar , and change the background and many other things .
Learn more by reading How Search Clod Works

3- Searxh Motive

Search Motive is a human powered search engine. Results are provided by humans and not by crawlers . These results come from the most popular social networking and user-submitted content sites including Twitter, Diggy , Hulu , Flickr , Youtube , and many more .

4- Slidefinder

Slidefinder is a search engine that is specialized towards Microsoft PowerPoint presentations and only indexes presentation . “ Slidefinder is the best way to find inspiration to your new slides . Nowhere else will you find a tool that helps you search for slides with some ease as Slidefinder .
Some features of Slidefinder include :

Search for slides only
Download presentations
Save previous searches

21st century search engines teachers must be aware of part 3

This is the third post in a series of posts covering the most important search engines we , as educators, need to know about and use .In today’s post I will be talking about :Lavva , LeapFish, Oamos, Quintura . If you still haven’t read part one and two then here is a synopsis of what I covered in them , click on any title to refer you back to the post.

Part One

Part two

1- Lavva

Lavva is a nice search engine with eye-catching visual features . It probably looks like a mixture of Wikipedia and Google . Lavva “ hopes to turn search into an interactive platform where every user can contribute to the richness of the experience and have the ability to influence content.” It has some interactive features like :

Easy browsing
Interactive thumbnails
Users can contribute to the knowledge building.

2- Leapfish

Leapfish is a very interesting search engine . It integrates sophisticated search technologies to enhance search results…..or as Leapfish put it “ we’ve created the first multi dimensional information aggregator and search portal in the world.”

Leapfish breaks down results into :
Web results
Blog results
Images/ news/ shopping and answers.

leapfish search engine tutorial

To learn more about it visit their FAQ page.

3- Oamos

Oamos is really a cool and fun search engine . It allows you to type in a search term and Oamos will provide multi-media images and music at the background for the term.

4- Quintura

Quintura is a search engine that resembles Wordle . It acts like a tag cloud or a mind map mixed together .” you can find the information you need by simply clicking the words in the cloud . When you point to a word , new words will appear to make your query more specific and help you receive results more relevant to context you search .

To learn more about Quintura visit their FAQ page .

Read The 21st century search engines teachers must be aware of part 4

You might also like :

Springpad : teachers' free notes organizer web2.0 tool

A great functionality to improve twitter in education

Springpad : teachers' free notes organizer web2.0 tool

A great functionality to improve twitter in education

21st century search engines teachers must be aware of part 2

This is a follow up post to the 21st century search engines teacher must be aware of part 1 in which I talked about three search engines namely : Bing , Biographicon, and Cyclo.ps .In today’s post , I will be talking about another four search engines that are very important as far as education is concerned .
1- Forestle
Forestle is a very nice search engine .It is not so much different from other search engines we have seen so far except that it promotes a very good cause which is that of the safeguard of the rain forst.
Here is a snapshot oh a the search result I got for the key word web2.0

2- Goofram

Goofram is a new mush-up that combines Google and Wolfram Alpha to provide a unique search service. Although it takes a bit longer to search Goofram because of the complicated calculations Alpha performs whenever a search query is launched , its results are very refined and to the point .
3- Got

Got is a mush-p of Google blogs and Twitter . It is powered by Google and is very useful in staying updated about Twitter and search engine results .

4- Hakia

Hakia is a semantic search technology engine . To bring you close to what semantic search engines mean , here are ten points explaining the main features of such engines :

Handling morphological variations
Handling generalization
Handling concept matching
Knowledge matching
Natural language queries and questions
Ability to point to uninterrupted paragraph and the most relevant sentences
Ability to enter queries freely , no special formats like quotes or Boolean operators
Ability to operate without relying on statistics , user behavior , and other artificial means .
Ability to detect its own performance

To read the details of those points let me refer you back to : What is semantic search ?

Read The 21st century search engines teachers must be aware of part 3 .

You might alo like :

Springpad : teachers' free notes organizer web2.0 tool

A great functionality to improve twitter in education

Springpad : teachers' free notes organizer web2.0 tool

A great functionality to improve twitter in education

Saturday, February 26, 2011

The 21st century search engines educators must be aware of part1

Up to now , almost all of my posts have been around web2.0 tools and their applications in education . There are still many more to come on a daily basis .But would you please , my dear readers, excuse me to walk you through a series of posts ( probably 7 or 8 ) talking about the most important search engines educators, teachers and even students should be using . Being wholeheartedly convinced that the 21^st century methodology in both teaching and learning has been radically transformed opening the door for a wider use of technology in the classroom , I try as hard as possible to help those who are still struggling to grab and comprehend and therefore apply the newest technologies into education . We can never live up to the 21^st century expectations in the sphere of education if we do not really change our habits and accompany technology throughout the teaching/learning process . In this regard , Search engines are very important elements in the educational technology . They are just as important as the web2.0 tools I have been talking about here . To help you sift out the best search engines available online to use in your work and with your students , I have prepared a series of posts covering several educative search engines that experts in education consider as EXTREMLY useful for educators in general. The posts are linked in such a way to facilitate your navigation .

1- Bing

Bing is Microsoft new search engine . It has been released around 2009 and is still in beta version . It is a search engine that finds and organizes the answers you need so you can make faster and more informed decisions . Some of the features Bing provides include :

AutoSuggest
Instant Answer
Best Match
Related Searches
Deep Links
Quick View
Smart Video Preview
Infinite Scroll
Quick Tabs

To learn more abt this great search engine visit their FAQ page

2- Biographicon

Biographicon is a site where you can search for a biography on anyone . It also allows its users to create their own biographies and edit them whenever they want . A simple and easy registration is all what you need to do to benefit from all their services .

3-Cyclo.ps

Cyclo.ps is “an easy to use royalty free stock photo search engine , making it a one-stop shop for all your stock photography needs .”
Cyclo.ps allows its users to control which browsers it searches through . You can also open a free account and collect and tag all your images . It is really a cool application that is worth trying .

4-Kngine

Kngine is “ web3.0 search engine ( i.e. Revolutionary Semantics Search Engine and Question/ Answer Engine ) designed to provide customized meaningful search results such as :semantic information about the keyword / cpncept , Answer the user’s questions, list of things , Discover the relations between the keywords and links such as : movies , subtitles , photos, price at sale stores, user reviews , and influenced story “. As defined by Kngine themselves .

To learn more a

Read The 21st century search engines teachers must be aware of part 2 .

Friday, February 25, 2011

Edutube in Education

Edutube is another resourceful site for educators . It has a collection of high quality educational videos. Edutube is mainly an educational video search platform which was launched in April 2008 . The aim behind the creation of this website is “ to organize the best free online educational videos , and make them easy for you to find , watch and download “. Edutube is more or less similar to SchoolTube in that they both focus on educational videos. If you haven’t heard about SchoolTube yet , then this is your opportunity to learn about it in SchoolTube in Education .

Some features of Edutube

Edutube has some very interesting features that might help you in your professional development in general . Among these features I can site :

It is free, simple to use and easy to navigate
It hosts the best educative videos based on criteria such as rank , popularity and educational value

Videos are searchable according to education- relevant search criteria
Edutube is community-based and anyone can contribute and share
It has a unique system for organizing and tagging videos
Edutube allows you to start your own group on a particular theme and edit your own submissions.
You can download your videos and watch them offline

How can I get started using Edutube ?

First go to Edutube main page and if you want to be able to upload your videos to edutube and create your own group then you need to sign up . If you just want to look for videos to download you don’t need to register .
To find a specific video you need to :

Use the search box at the top left corner of the Edutube website
Use the sitemap in the top menu to find videos based on category , duration , language…..etc
Use the advanced search options to narrow down your search and specify your criteria. To do so , click on “ search options” .

To learn more about Edutube read their FAQ page .

Application of Edutube in Education

I personally think that edutube is one of the important resource that educators should have recourse to . You can use it to start your own group in which you invite your students and keep them updated with the educative videos you deem important in their learning . You can also use it to enrich your classroom teaching with some educative media to break the classroom monotony and enhance students comprehension .
Edutube can also be a very important element in your professional development . Join groups of mutual interest and discuss with other educators and benefit from each other’s expertise .
That’s it about Edutube in Education

You might alo like :

Springpad : teachers' free notes organizer web2.0 tool

A great functionality to improve twitter in education

Springpad : teachers' free notes organizer web2.0 tool

A great functionality to improve twitter in education

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Google Shared Spaces in education

I have always been a great fan of Google and never stopped exploring the endless possibilities it offers to educators . In this regard , I have come across a very useful application called Google Shared Spaces . A shared space lets you “ share a collaborative gadget with whoever you want and chat with them at the same time .“

Here are some other google services that you might also like to read :

How can I get started using Google Shared Spaces ?

Firs go to Google Shared Spaces main page and click on log in . You need to sign in using any of the supported login providers which are Google, Twitter, and Yahoo.
Now that you are signed in you can start creating your space. As you can see , there are many gadgets out there you can browse different categories like games , polls, to find the gadget you want .
After choosing a gadget , you will be directed to your newly created gadget space where you can ping the url to a friend or use the email / buzz/ tweet buttons to share it .

Here are some gadgets that we can use in education

1- Wave Tube

This service allows you to watch a video , add comments, and see other people watching it. You can use this gadget with your students. Upload a video and have them watch and comment on it ; you can also do a group discussion with them using the chat box on the right side of that page

2- Yes/ No/ May be Gadget

You can use this tool to organize question polls in your classrooms and have your students answer and add comments ( use the code snippet as example )

3- Concept Draw Mind Wave

This is a cool gadget to help you achieve a real-time collaborative mind mapping and brainstorming with your students

4- Listy

Use this tool to create to do lists , you can include the students in the participation of this list , after you are done , you can share, print or share it

5- Magnetic Fridge Poetry

This works pretty good with scrambled text activities . Add your text and let students drag and drop the words wherever they want .

These are just some samples of the gadgets I think you might benefit from in your classroom . Google still has many more to offer for educators and I will be posting about other google applications from time to time .
If you stay updated and receive my posts right into your inbox , subscribe to my newsletter or join my facebook fan page .
That’s it about Google Shared Spaces in Education .

You might also like :

Springpad : teachers' free notes organizer web2.0 tool

A great functionality to improve twitter in education

Springpad : teachers' free notes organizer web2.0 tool

A great functionality to improve twitter in education