Grade Keeper

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Topmarks ; Free Educational resources

Topmarks is a great resource site for educators . It features the best educational resources online . It looks like Discovery education with some slight differences in the layout .Topmarks is a UK site where you can browse for educative materials , activities and many more . You can navigate the site by selecting your subject and age group or use their own search bar . The information is organized in such a way to allow teachers and students to easily find what they are looking for .
Topmarks is one of the sites that educators need to be using in their professional development journey . They can look for ready made materials to include in their classrooms .

The major tabs in Topmarks

when you head over to Topmarks main page you can navigate ;
the classroom tab

this is where you can find excellent resources for interactive whiteboards

Games

this is where you can find excellent educative games for your students
Parents

here you can read articles designed specifically for parents
Visit Topmarks to learn more about what it offers to educators .
That’s it about Topmarks ; Free Educational resources.

Write Comics ; Free Comic Strips Generator

Write Comics is a good web2.0 tool for creating comics . It resembles Strip Generator , the tool I have covered before in a poste entitled Strip Generator the easiest way to create comic strips . Write Comics is easy to use and does not require any registration . I love this handy tool because students find it very simple and funny . Creating educative comics is very important in teaching abstract concepts or communicative functions .

Some features of Write Comics

Here is a list of the most important features that Write Comics offer to its users

It is free
It is simple to use
It does not need any sign up
It has a user friendly interface
It allows you to create your own customized comics
You can add and edit backgrounds and themes
You can attach dialogue boxes to your strips
You can save your strips to your hard disk but not share them online which is the only pitfall of this website

How can I get started using Write Comics ?

Head over to Write Comics

Chose a background
Select the characters you want to include
Add speech bubbles
add more frames till you complete your story
save it to your local hard drive

That’s it about Write Comics ; Free Comic Strips Generator

Convert to Cartoon ; turn your pictures into cartoons

Convert to Cartoon is a cool website to use with your students . It converts your photos and images to cartoons . It resembles Be Funky , the tool I have covered in a poste entitled Be Funky ; Create Amazing Classroom Photos . Convert to Cartoon is very simple to use and does not require a sign up . Students love cartoons and teaching using cartonic materials is quite engaging and motivating for our kids . Now you can let your students use their own pictures and turn them into cartoons to create dialogues and storytelling lines . I have tried the website and found it very interesting .

Some features of Convert to Cartoon

Here are the main features that Convert to Cartoon offers to its users

It is free

It does not require a sign up

It allows you to turn your own pictures into cartoons

You can either upload your pictures from your desktop or from a URL

You can download your cartoonized pictures and use them somewhere else

It offers awesome editing tools like ;

water effect

Mirror effect

My picture with

My picture on

How can I get started using Convert to Cartoon

Head over to Convert to Cartoon main page
choose whether to download your picture from disk or URL
Click on Cartoonize it now
Here is a snapshot of cartoonized pictures made by users of Convert to Caroon

You can check Host-d oddcast , a tool which turns your pictures into 3d avatar .You will like it for sure.
That’s it about Convert to Cartoon ; turn your pictures into cartoons.

A to Z Teacher Stuff ; Improve your teaching practices

A to Z Teacher Stuff is a great website designed specifically for teachers . It offers several services to educators some are free and others are paid for . The purpose is to help teachers find online resources more quickly and easily .

Some services A to Z Teacher Stuff offers to its users

Here is all the features that A to Z Teacher Stuff offers to its users ;

Lesson plans
Themes
Teacher Tools
Teacher Store Instant Downloads
More sites
Printables and Worksheets
Articles
Discount Teaching Supplies

I hope you liked A to Z Teacher Stuff and that you would give it a shot . The site is very important when it comes to Teachers professional development and when looking for materials to include in your lessons .
That’s it about A to Z Teacher Stuff ; Improve your teaching practices .
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Google Search Tutorials Part1

This is one of the most important posts I have ever published here .It is about Google Search Tips . I have recently attended a conference in Halifax , Canada about emerging technologies and Google Search techniques and given the importance of Google in education I can not wait but share with you some important tips about how to use Google search effectively . I know every one us uses Google almost on a daily basis to search the net but do we really know the techniques to harness this engine and use it in advanced way other then just typing phrases and sentences into the search box and hitting I am lucky ?

We are educators and we have a big responsibility towards what and how we teach .Part of this responsibility is the sound integration of technology into education .The backbone of this technology is search engines and the king search engine for scholars and internet users ,in general, and according to the latest websites rank statistics is Google . Ask your students if they know Google and the answer will definitely be positive .Do they know how to search it to get exactly what they look for in the least time possible , the answer is definitely negative . We are in a fast paced digital age . The information is available everywhere with a tremendous ease than ever before . Sometimes we and our students feel like we are lost and drowned in this ocean of untamed knowledge and are desperate for help .How many times have you tried to look for a specific information using Google search box then you end up sailing in links that have nothing to do with your search query .You loose time and energy and sometimes you would even quit the search for irrelevant results .

This is exactly the reason why I am devoting a series of posts about Google search tips . The purpose is to help you search Google effectively and get the specific information with the minimum time possible . I am quite sure that by the end of these tutorials you will feel a great improvement and will definitely change the way you handle Google for the better . So lets start these series by this post that covers a bunch of video tutorials about Google . watch for the coming posts to learn more, this post alone is not enough . stay tuned
Please I would refer you for the source of these videos which is http://google.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/ .

What are the tips that are covered here ?

The following are some important features that you MUST know about Google Search to refine your queries and make them to the point

Real Time Search Tutorial

How Personalized search works

Searching phrases and sites

Find and read patents

Find Related Websites

Include synonyms in your search

15 second search tip ; Weather

15 second search tip ; Local Business

15 second search tip ; dictionary

15 second search tip ; Time

Real Time Search Tutorial

How Personalised search works

Searching phrases and sites

Find and read patents

Find Related Websites

Include synonyms in your search

15 second search tip ; Weather

15 second search tip ; Local Business

15 second search tip ; dictionary

15 second search tip ; Time

That’s it about Google Search Tutorials Part1
I will be soon posting another articles with more search tips so that by the end of these posts you will have a solid background to help you using Google in the right way .
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Friday, April 22, 2011

Tagul . Free Word Cloud Generator

Tagul is a free word cloud generator . It is one of my favorite web2.0 tools .What makes Tagul specific is the fact that words in Tagul clouds can be linked to word in Google search .When you click on any word you will be directed to a Google result page . Tagul clouds are created from text that is copied into your account and not only that you can also create word cloud from any URL that you specify .

Some features of Tagul

here is what Tagul offers to its users

It is free
It requires a sign up
It is very simple to use
It links words in clouds to Google result pages
It supports transparent background color
It has new forms for cloud creation
It provides a full features API
It allows you to share your word cloud via a generated embed code

How can I get started using Tagul ?

Head over to Tagul main page and sign up for free
Watch this tutorial to learn more

Word It Out ; create free word clouds

Word It Out is another word cloud generator . It functions more or less like Tagul , the tool I have covered in an earlier post . Word It Out is free and has many important features that make it worth using in education with our students .

Some features of Word It Out

Here are the main features that Word It Out offer to its users ;

It is free
It does not require any sign up
It lets you create word clouds from sentences, documents, web addresses or tables
it lets you filter your text and decide which words to include in it
It offer awesome layout and you can customize your colors,fonts and sizes
you can share your word clouds with others
you can embed them in your blog, wiki or webpage
you can also download your own copy as an image file

How can I get started using Word It Out ?

Log on to Word It Out main page
Click on create button on top
enter your text and click on word it out
That’s it about Word It Out ; create free word clouds