3 Very Good Apps for Annotating Images

May , 2017
Bring your images to life with these useful iPad apps. Using these apps will enable you to annotate your photos the way you want. You can highlight text in an image, add shapes and text, take notes and many more. In the case of Thinglink, you can add a layer of interactivity to your images by linking parts of your visual to videos, notes or music from YouTube.

1- ThingLink 

‘ThingLink  is one of the best web tools you can use to annotate images and videos and create media rich visuals to share with your students in class. ThingLink enables you to add different layers of interactivity to your content. There are actually over 70 call to action tags to layer your content with including; web links. text, video, image, audio, maps and many more. The process to add Rich Media Tags to your content is ‘as simple as copying the URL into the Link field of the ThingLink tag editor.’’

2- Annotable

Annotable is another good iPad app for annotating images. Some of its features include: ‘All the expected common tools: rectangles, ovals, arrows, lines and texts; fully customizable: colors, sizes, outlines, fonts; stylishly obscure private information with Blur and Pixelation; you can even mark text on screenshots of apps like Notes, Twitter, and Safari. It feels like magic, and can really save the day when you want to share a web page screenshot with some words highlighted but forgot to select the words when you took the screenshot.’

3- Paper by Fifty Three

‘Paper is the best way to capture and connect your notes, photos, and sketches. Create checklists, spotlight details in photos, and sketch diagrams with unbeatable speed and ease — Paper is like a wall of sticky notes for everything that inspires you. Paper’s unique visual notes are designed to help you get your point across quickly and precisely. Paper also lets you share your ideas any way you want to, including as professionally-formatted PDFs, Keynote and Powerpoint presentations.’

An Excellent Interactive Visual for History Teachers

May 26, 2017
Map of Contemporaries is an excellent interactive visual that chronicles the history of the world through the lifespans of famous people. It provides a biographical  account of different historical figures and through them an overview of the major events that marked their era. As a history teacher, you may want to use this interactive map with your students to teach them about famous historical personalities and highlight major contemporary events. Use the navigational menu on the right-hand side to narrow down your search. You can search for famous people by content area (e.g., arts, music, religion, science…etc) and by place of birth. Once you locate the individual you are searching for click on its name to access a Wikipedia page with more details on it.

Map of Contemporaries is 'inspired by Wait But Why's blog post about Horizontal History — the idea of taking a "horizontal" slice of time and tracing the lifetimes of all the famous people living at that time. It certainly gives you a fresh perspective on some particular era (a feel of that time, so to say), unlike the conventional “vertical” approach of learning who came after whom and what happened after what .The timeline uses the data set from Pantheon, which is a project from the Macro Connections group at The MIT Media Lab. They provide an excellent list of 15,343 historical figures each marked with a Historical Popularity Index (HPI) that helps us to show the most famous people at the top of the timeline.'

10 Great Collaborative Whiteboard Tools for Teachers

May 26, 2017
Collaboration and team work are at the centre of meaningful learning experiences both inside and outside classroom walls. Luckily technology provides us with various tools and applications that support and enhance collaborative realtime work.  In today's post, we are sharing with you 6 good web-based whiteboard platforms you can use with your students and peers to collaborate and coordinate your work in realtime.

1- Jamboard

‘This Google’s latest collaborative tool. Jamboard is designed specifically to enhance realtime collaboration and brainstorming among teams across the globe. It is basically  ‘a collaborative, digital whiteboard that makes it easy for your team to share ideas in real-time and create without boundaries’.’

2- Web Whiteboard

‘A Web Whiteboard is touch-friendly online whiteboard app that lets you use your computer, tablet or smartphone to easily draw sketches, collaborate with others and share them with the world.’

3- Mural

Mural is another great collaborative tool that allows users to: ‘Use sticky notes to jot down ideas as fast as you can, either by drawing or typing. Use images, links and videos to support your ideas.Be up to date with what your team is doing. You’ll always know who did what and when.’

4- Realtime Board

‘Use the infinite online whiteboard, a design thinking toolkit and real time collaboration
features created with teams in mind. Organize your teamwork in a simple and visual way —
from research and brainstorming to visualization and review.’

5- DEEKIT

DEEKIT is a collaborative whiteboard that enables you to ‘ work faster and better by collaborating in real-time. Seamlessly collaborate in meetings and discuss ideas with stakeholders. You can draw, write or add notes and images or any other content to your whiteboards to collaborate…’

6- Twiddla

‘Mark up websites, graphics, and photos, or start brainstorming on a blank canvas. Browse the web with your friends or make that conference call more productive than ever. No plug-ins, downloads, or firewall voodoo - it's all here, ready to go when you are. Browser-agnostic, user-friendly.’

7- GroupBoard

‘Groupboard is a free online whiteboard app that can be easily embedded into your website. It works on any web browser including iPhone, iPad and Android with no downloads or plugins required. Used by online tutors, schools and universities worldwide. More than 600,000 Groupboards created!’

8- ZiteBoard

‘Ziteboard is a zoomable online whiteboard with realtime collaboration and simple teamworking to visualize your ideas, enhance your meetings, improve your tutoring sessions and design together.’

9- ConceptBoard

‘A flexible canvas that expands as you add content. Create and share as many boards as you need. Capture ideas, brainstorm, create moodboards, plan initiatives, and map out strategies.’

10- Limnu

‘Limnu is a collaborative online whiteboard made to be fast and simple enough to use for online meetings and video conferences. With Limnu, you can draw, plan, and think at the same time with other people. Make as many boards as you want, as big as you want, see your boards from anywhere, and all your work is automatically archived.’

Sources:
http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2016/10/google-introduced-new-collaborative.html
https://getvoip.com/blog/2016/09/14/online-whiteboard-collaboration/
https://www.producthunt.com/

8 Good Android Science Apps for Elementary Students

May 25, 2017
For those of you using Android with their students in class, here is a collection of science apps curated specifically for elementary students. Using these apps, young learners will get to explore and learn about different science topics in fun, engaging and challenging ways.  For iPad science apps for elementary, check out this page instead. Enjoy



1- Khan Academy
‘Khan Academy allows you to learn almost anything for free.You can learn anything – for free: Over 10,000 videos and explanations at your fingertips in math, science, economics, history, and much, much more’

2- Explorium: Space for Kids Free
‘Put on an astronaut helmet, board a spaceship and set off on an exciting journey with Explorium - Space for Kids. Learn amusing astronomical facts, test your wit in challenging mini-games, and collect all your courage to become a real space hero! ’

3- Toca Lab
‘Welcome to Toca Lab! Explore the colorful and electrifying world of science and meet all 118 of the elements from the periodic table. ’

4- Science Lab for Kids
‘Check out our free Science lab experiments, full of fascinating home science experiments that are a great way for kids to enjoy the world of Science labs.’

5- Scientific Experiments
‘ Scientific experiments, is an ideal opportunity for your children to learn the laws of science, in an easy and simple way, all free and a great complement to their education and school work or school application. ’

6- iTooch 4th Grade Science
‘With more than 1,543 activities, iTooch 4th Grade Science is a fun way of practicing and learning Science for fourth graders.’

7- Love Science
‘Kids Love Science series of stories are written for children of ages 3-10, with the aim entertaining these youngsters while introducing them to significant achievements in the history of science, exploration and adventure.’

8- Kids Science Experiments
‘Kids Science Experiments application has more than 50 kids experiments with requirement of experiments, method for performing experiments and logic or happening of experiments.’

12 Good Windows Apps for Teachers

May 25, 2017
Today we spent sometime sifting through Windows app store and curated for you the list below. This is a collection of some great educational apps for teachers using Windows in their instruction. Some of the things you can do with these apps include: create ebooks, access over 6000 videos covering different K-12 topics, design game-based activities and quizzes to share with students, learn any language for free, capture and organize your notes across various devices, create and share interactive screencasts and many more.



1- Book Creator
‘Book Creator is the simple way to make your own beautiful ebooks, right on your PC or Tablet.
With over 10 million ebooks created so far, Book Creator is ideal for making all kinds of books, including children's picture books, photo books, comic books, journals, textbooks and more.’

2- Khan Academy
‘Our Windows app is the best way to view Khan Academy’s complete library of over 6000 videos on your Windows device. We cover a massive number of topics, including K-12 math, science topics such as biology, chemistry, and physics, and even the humanities with tutorials on finance and history.’

3- Kahoot! Create
‘Create and host a fun learning game for any subject, any age, for free. Kahoot! is a free game-based platform that makes learning awesome. It brings fun into the classroom where anyone can play, unleash their secret classroom superpowers and celebrate together.’

4- Duolingo
‘With Duolingo, you learn a language completely for free. You have fun while you learn, leveling up and competing with friends.’

5- OneNote
‘OneNote is your digital notebook for capturing and organizing everything across your devices. Jot down your ideas, keep track of classroom and meeting notes, clip from the web, or make a to-do list, as well as draw and sketch your ideas.’

6- WolframAlpha
‘Across thousands of domains--with more continually added--Wolfram|Alpha uses its vast collection of algorithms and data to compute answers and generate reports for you.
This app gives you access to the full power of the Wolfram|Alpha computational knowledge engine.’

7- Read&Write for Microsoft Edge
‘Read&Write for Microsoft Edge™ offers a range of powerful support tools to help students gain confidence with reading, writing, studying and research.’

8- GeoGebra
‘GeoGebra is free dynamic mathematics software for all levels of education that brings together geometry, algebra, spreadsheets, graphing, statistics and calculus in one easy-to-use package. Interactive learning, teaching and evaluation resources created with GeoGebra can be shared and used by everyone at tube.geogebra.org.’

9- Socrative
‘Educators can initiate formative assessments through quizzes, quick question polls, exit tickets and space races all with their Socrative Windows app. Socrative will instantly grade, aggregate and provide graphs of results to help you identify opportunities for further instruction. Save time and visualize student understanding when it matters, now!’

10- FlashQuiz
‘FlashQuiz lets you have fun while studying. Enjoy creating your own flash cards with images, sound or even your own drawings! You can keep your flashcards for yourself or easily share them with anyone you like. FlashQuiz lets you keep track of which cards you know and which ones you don't, and replay the ones you get wrong, helping you learn.’

11- Edmodo
‘Edmodo takes learning beyond the classroom by providing a free, safe place for teachers and students to connect and collaborate—anytime, anywhere.’

12- Explain Everything
‘Explain Everything™ brings together an interactive screencasting whiteboard and a content Discover portal and community for Windows Devices.’

6 Great Tools for Creating Classroom Newspapers

May 25, 2017
Creating classroom newspapers is a great way for teachers to engage students in a wide variety of literacy activities. Students can use their writing skills to demonstrate their learning, share stories, and collaborate with their peers to produce meaningful reading content.  There are several web tools you can use with your students to create class newspapers, the list below features some of our favourite titles that we reviewed in the past. We have also included two important  resources where you can access and download pre-designed newspaper templates. Have a look and share with us your feedback.

1- Newspaper Story Format by ReadWriteThink

‘Your students will find completing their newspaper article a snap by first filling out this useful handout that helps them identify each key element of an authentic newspaper article.’

2- Printing Press

 Printing Press, from ReadWriteThink, is one of the most popular web tools for creating classroom newspapers, informational brochures and flyers to use in your instruction. It has been designed specifically for K-12 students to help them unleash their creative writing and engage in multimodal literacy activities.Printing Press is very simple and easy to use. It provides several pre-made templates with multiple lay-outs to choose from. There are templates for creating newspapers, brochures, flyers, sign, and posters.You simply choose the template that works for you, type in your text and add images. When you are done, you can share your final product in PDF or .rwt format through email or you can save and print a copy. There is also a basic planning sheet that comes with this web tool to  ‘help students gather ideas before working on this interactive tool.’

3- Lucidpress

Luidpress offers a wide variety of pre-made templates to use for creating newsletters, flyers, brochures, reports, posters, digital banners, presentations and many more. You can easily drag and drop your content to create your visuals. You can also integrate different types of multimedia materials including images, videos, and text right from your Google Drive or other third party platforms such as Dropbox, Flickr, and YouTube. Lucidpress supports real time collaboration allowing you to work with your peers on the same project. You can interact with your collaborators through chat and comments with the ability to track or reverse the edits with revision history. And when your visual is ready, you have different sharing options: you may want to publish it online via a generated link or download it for printing in PNG, JPG, or PDF format.

4- Canva

Canva provides a Flyer section where you can have access to a plethora of ready-made  templates to choose from. Using Canva’s drag and drop interface, you can insert your photos, text and customize your input the way you like. Once done, you can print or download your flyers to share with others. Canva is also available as an iPad app.

5- Newspaper templates from Lucidpress

The popular Lucidpress platform has this library featuring a number of excellent free templates to use for a variety of educational (as well as business) purposes. Templates are already pre-designed and you don’t have to do any formatting, you simply plug in your content to get the look you are looking for in a matter of few clicks

6- Newspaper templates from Google Docs
Using these templates will enable you to create beautiful newspapers without having to worry about the technical part in the process. Templates come with pre-designed layouts, different columns, fonts, colours etc. You only need to tweak them a little bit and use your own content to make these newspapers uniquely yours. To use any of these templates, make sure you are logged in to your Google account, click on the title of the template then on ‘use this template’. A copy of the template will open in your Docs where you can start editing and customizing it the way you want.

10 Powerful Apps to Enhance Students Writing Style

May 24, 2017
Below is a collection of some powerful apps to help you enhance your writing style. They provide you with a distraction-free environment where you can focus more on the writing task.  Some of these apps offer other interesting features that include giving you instant feedback on your writing style, proofreading services, spelling check, and many more. We invite you to check them out and share with us your feedback. Enjoy


1- Flowstate
‘The world is a hive of distractions, multi-tasking, and cultural ADD. Many sit down to write and watch hours vanish with nothing to show but a trail of browser tabs. Flowstate is a response to the amphetaminic digital age. It frees the writer to turn on, tune in, and open up.’

2- Danger Text 
'Danger Text is a text creation motivational tool that laughs in the face of writers block and procrastination. It is the perfect tool for rapidly writing—and sharing—your stories and ideas.'

3- Refly Editor
‘Refly is an AI-powered smart editor for authors, bloggers, and content marketers. A smart editor that helps proofread your content as you write. We use modern Machine Learning techniques to identify grammar mistakes. A powerful spell checker helps avoid embarrassing mistakes. A goal tracking tool helps develop a habit and stay on the course.’

4- Expresso
‘Expresso is a little tool to edit texts and improve your writing style. It will teach you to express yourself through writing more efficiently and help make your texts more readable, precise, and engaging.’

5- Writefull 
‘Writefull is an app that gives feedback on your writing by checking your text against databases of correct language. You can use Writefull in any writing tool - from MS Word to Gmail. Simply select a piece of text, hit the short-key to activate Writefull.’

6- Rough Draft
‘Ever write your first draft on a notepad? Writing on paper, you let go and just get your idea out. You don't get caught up perfecting the words too early. Rough Draft is like writing with pen and paper, so you can't delete words, only cross them out. Each "edit" reminds you that you're writing a rough draft.’

7- Paragraphs
‘Paragraphs lets you focus on what you do best: write. No distracting menus, no complicated formatting options. It's just you and whatever you feel like writing.’

8- Ulysses
‘Ulysses is your one-stop writing environment on iOS. Whether you’re a novelist, a journalist, a student or a blogger – if you love to write and write a lot, Ulysses gives you a uniquely streamlined toolset, covering every phase of the writing process.’

9- iA Writer
‘iA Writer is designed to provide the best digital writing experience: Keep your hands on the keyboard and your mind in the text.’

10- Scrivener 
‘Scrivener banishes page fright by allowing you to compose your text in any order, in sections as large or small as you like. Got a great idea but don’t know where it fits? Write when inspiration strikes and find its place later. Grow your manuscript organically, idea by idea.’

Courtesy of Product Hunt

7 New EdTech Tools for Teachers

May 24 , 2017
This month's New EdTech Tools post features 6 interesting applications we are publishing here for the first time.  Some of the things you can do with these tools include: interactively explore math concepts such as Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus; learn English through stories; record and share video notes, and many more.

1-  GxWeb

GxWeb is a free, browser-based app for interactively exploring concepts, modeling problems and discovering solutions in areas of math study from Algebra and Geometry through Calculus.

2- Deep English

Join Over 400,000 Learners Around the World. Speak Quickly and Understand Native Speakers. Learn English with interesting stories. Get fluent by listening a lot and speaking a lot With free lessons and a free email course

3- Why So Scientists Do What Scientists Do

‘A site developed to help non-scientists, or students embarking on a career in science, to understand "the scientific mind-set.’

4- VideoNotebooks

This app allows you to take notes while watching a video. Notes are organized in notebooks, and each notebook corresponds to one video.The app also allows tagging individual notes to be able to retrieve a specific subset of notes across all notebooks later. Notebooks can be also tagged for better organization.

5- Check 123

‘Enjoy more than 20,000 Curated Videos from all over the World in the Web's first social video encyclopedia!All of Check123’s videos are validated by professional experts in different fields, and prioritized by quality - helping you find the best possible answer to your search!’

6- Infomusic

‘Informusic is the all-in-one music history resource for students, professors, and classical music lovers. Browse through biographies, program notes, sheet music, audio examples, and interactive timelines that contextualize musical events with art, history, politics, war, and more!’

7- Your Family on Google
'Share entertainment and stay connected with the ones you love. Create a family group with up to six family members and get the most out of Google, together.'

8 Excellent Web Tools for Creating Educational Video Tutorials

May 23, 2017
For those of you asking about video lesson tools, below is a collection we published a few months ago featuring some of our favourite tools in this regard.  You can use these tools  to  create instructional videos and tutorials in a simple and easy way without the need for an advanced technology knowledge. All of these tools are web based, no software download is required.

1- YouTube Video Editor

YouTube Video Editor embeds all the hacks you need to create stunning video lessons. You can use it to trim videos, add hyperlinks, add illustrative text, add audio tracks and several other multimedia materials. To be able to use YouTube Video Editor, you need to be logged in to your channel via your current Google account. Check out this guide to learn more about what you can do with YouTube Video Editor.

2- Snagit

‘Snagit gives you a simple way to create and edit screenshots or record videos to show a complex process, give detailed feedback, or share important information with the people who need it most…Capture an image or video of what you see on your computer screen. Record Skype calls or Google Hangouts with audio. Instead of traveling on site, capture meetings and interviews that you can watch and review later.’

3- Camtasia

This is another great tool to use to record a video of your screen. Camtasia has an advanced video editor that lets you create professionally looking videos: you can add animations, music, transitions, backgrounds,or even import your camera footage and turn it into an instruction video. 

4- Explain Everything

For those of you using Chromebook in their instruction, Explain Everything is an excellent tool to use to create video lessons. It offers you an interactive screen casting whiteboard to create slides, draw in any color, add text , audio files, images and videos to design stunning video tutorials.

5- Playposit

Playpoist (former Educannon) is another wonderful tool to use to create video lessons. It allows you to add a wide variety of question types to your videos. Each of these questions will be time-linked to a specific moment in the video so students will stay engaged as the video progresses. You can ‘add tables, images, audio clips, links, and even embed coded.’

6- EDpuzzle

‘If you use videos in the classroom, EDpuzzle is a must have. Take any video from YouTube, Khan Academy, Learn Zillion, etc. make it perfect for your classroom and more engaging for your students. Make any video a true lesson by making it to the point, personal and effective, plus get all the data about your students so you know if they truly understand the lesson.’

7- VideoAnt 

'VideoAnt is a web-based video annotation tool for mobile and desktop devices. Use VideoAnt to add annotations, or comments, to web-hosted videos. VideoAnt-annotated videos are called “Ants”.'

8-  Screencast-O-Matic

Screencast-O-Matic  is a free and easy to use screen recording too. With one click you can start recording your screen and right from your browser on Windows, Mac, Linux and does not require any software installation. 

An Interesting Infographic on How to Use Popular Latin Phrases in APA Style

May 23, 2017
There are a number of popular latin verbs student researchers use in their papers such as etc., e.g., cf.,  and many more. However, these abbreviated forms have their own rules when it comes to formatting them in APA style. The visual below, which we created based on the official guidelines of the American Psychological Association, shows you how to properly use some of these latin abbreviations in APA style.  We invite you to check it out and keep a copy of this visual handy for the next research paper.

Related: Class poster on how to cite online sources in APA style
 

12 Great Social Studies Apps for Elementary Students

May 22, 2017
This is the seventh post is a series of posts covering educational iPad apps to use with elementary students. We are trying to build a repository of good apps elementary students and teachers can easily  access and use in their learning and instruction. To learn more about the previous posts we have published so far check out this section. Today's collection features a number of useful apps to use with young learners when teaching social studies. These apps, which we curated from iTunes App Collections, cover 3 main themes: Geography, History and World Cultures. Check them out and share with us your feedback.

Links to the apps are under the visual.


1- Kids Planet Discovery
‘Kids Planet Discovery sends kids off on virtual adventures around Planet Earth, giving them the chance to learn about cultures, animals, music, dress, geography, and more.’

2- Geo Walk
‘Geo Walk is a world fact book about animals, plants, historical events,famous people and inventions. All articles can be explored in a fun way by traveling across the globe and learning where the building is, or where the natural habitat of an animal is, or where a famous person lived.’

3- Barefoot World Atlas
‘Barefoot World Atlas puts the world at your children’s fingertips! With this incredible app, anyone can fly around the magical, interactive 3D globe and discover the rich wonders of our planet. ’

4- Stack the States
‘As you learn state capitals, shapes, geographic locations, flags and more, you can actually touch, move and drop the animated states anywhere on the screen. Carefully build a stack of states that reaches the checkered line to win each level.’

5- World Book
‘This Day in History for iPad is an interactive multimedia calendar that displays historical events for the current day or any selected day, along with related media such as photos, illustrations, music, and speeches.’

6- History Today
‘History Today is an encyclopedia of news stories for what happened on this day in history throughout the US and world.’

7- Britannica Kids: US Presidents
‘Britannica Kids: U.S. Presidents takes young learners on a fun and educational meet-and-greet with the 44 U.S. presidents.’

8- US Geography With Flat Stanley HD
‘Master state geographic locations, capitals, flags, spelling, and see photos from each state. Learning all 50 states has never been this fun! Perfect for kids ages 4-12.’

9- Stack the Countries
‘Stack the Countries® makes learning about the world fun! Watch the countries actually come to life in this colorful and dynamic game!’

10- BrainPOP Jr. Movie of the Week
‘Bring learning to your fingertips™ with the BrainPOP Jr.® Movie of the Week app for the iPad®, iPhone®, and iPod touch®. Get a different animated movie every week and check out related quizzes and educational activities - free!’

11- Social Studies Friendzy
‘Learn Social Studies with our K - 8th grade Social Studies games app! Test your knowledge on the US Presidents, US states and capitals, US government and history, US citizenship and immigration, and so much more! We feature the top 100 students every day!’

12- Thud! Presidents 
‘To win at THUD!, you'll need more than a head stuffed with facts. Each level is a tricky puzzle where you must carefully balance and stack your answers... or it all comes crashing down!’

8 Excellent Google Sheets add-ons for Teachers

May 22, 2017
Here is another of our popular visuals we published few months ago. For those of you who haven't seen it yet, this is a collection of some good Google Sheets add-ons to help you carry on a variety of  educational tasks. These include how to:

• Create graphs and forms and write complex math in your sheets
• Create and modify a planning schedule for project management in a spreadsheet; easily scaffold, manage and assess students projects in Google Drive
• Quickly grade and analyze students assessments, split cells, remove duplicates, clean up data and change case
• Add powerful functionality to quizzes you create via Google Forms
• Send personalized mass emails with Gmail and track email opens.

Here are the links to the add-ons featured in the visual:

• g(Math) for Sheets
• Doctopus
• Flubaroo
• Power Tools
• Yet Another Mail Merger
• Super Quiz
• Mail Merge with Attachments
• ProjectSheet Planning

10 Google Docs Add-ons Teachers Should Know about

May 22, 2017

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, here is a visual we published few months ago featuring some of the best Google Docs add-ons for teachers.  Some of the things you can do with these add-ons include:

• Give and receive feedback using both voice and text comments
• Insert accents for different languages into your Google Doc
• Easily and quickly create educational rubrics
• Create and insert graphs, equations, and math quizzes into your Google Doc
• Use speech recognition to voice type your Google docs
• Access and use a huge library of clipart images to use in your docs
• Automatically create a table of content for easy document navigation
• Create and insert diagrams, flowcharts, and mind maps into your docs
• Add electronic signatures to your docs and share them in PDF format
• Automatically cite sources and generate bibliographies

Here are the links to the add-ons featured in the visual:

• Kaizena
• Easy Accents
• OrangeSlice Teacher Rubric
• g(Math)
• Lucidchart Diagrams
• HelloSign
• EasyBib
• Speech Recognition
• Table of Contents
• Template Gallery

8 Important Tips to Effectively Manage Your Time

May 20, 2017
The Internet and more specifically the social web has radically transformed all sectors of human life from education to doing business. It has opened unprecedented learning opportunities and has facilitated so many facets of our life. While it is almost impossible to outnumber the benefits of this digital revolution but some of its inconveniences are really troublesome. One [pertinent example here is the lack of focus. In his popular classic ‘The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains ’ Nicholas Carr provided a convincing account on how web technologies are rewiring our brains in ways that negatively impact our focus and make us shallow thinkers. ‘The influx of competing messages that we receive whenever we go online’, Carr stated, ‘not only overloads our working memory; it makes it much harder for our frontal lobes to concentrate our attention on any one thing…the more we use the Web, the more we train our brain to be distracted-to process information very quickly and very efficiently but without sustained attention’(p. 194).

But as human beings, we are endowed with a distinctive capacity (Carr calls it command) to mindfully control our attention. One way to do this is by being conscious of the way we spend our time. Time management is key to living a thriving and productive lifestyle. In this regard, we are sharing with you this interesting infographic created by the folks in EkLeader featuring a number of useful tips to help you manage your time effectively. Have a look and share with us your feedback.



Courtesy of ElearningInfographics.

Two Good Platforms That Provide Free Science Books

May 20, 2017
We have recently published a list of some useful websites that provide open textbooks teachers and students can use to access a wide variety of textbooks covering various school subjects. In this post we are adding two more resources but these are exclusive to science teachers and students. These are websites that provide free scientific books and textbooks which you can either read online or download in PDF format. Check them out and share with us your feedback. Enjoy

1- Free Science

‘FreeScience.info is an initiative to substitute real libraries with  a virtual one, where it will be possible download all books, in a printable format, mainly PDF. This initiative is motivated by the fact that copyright time on scientific books is finished. In fact many branches of mathematics and/or physics ,  see for instance the electromagnetism, are old and so there is no more reason to  continue to pay copyright on books that treat arguments older than fifty years.’

2- Science Books Online 

‘Science Books Online is a directory of free science texts, e-books, monographs, lecture notes, and other science related documents. All texts are available for free access, authorized by their respective authors or publishers -- no pirated books here!’

6 Good Websites that Provide Open Digital Textbooks for Teachers

May 20, 2017
In response to a couple of requests we received from our readers here in EdTech and Mlearning, we went ahead and curated for you the collection below. This is a list featuring some popular platforms that provide open digital textbooks. Textbooks are arranged into different categories and content areas. Some of the textbooks are available for free download in various formats others can only be read online. There are also platforms where you can pay a reasonable fee to buy or rent new or used textbooks. These include: Amazon Textbooks, Chegg, and Google Play.




1- OER Commons
Open Education Resources (OER) Commons is a platform that provides open access to a wide variety of open educational resources that are either in the public domain or are licensed under Creative Commons.  These resources include things such as :’ full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.’

2- Bookboon 
‘Bookboon has published more than 1,000 free textbooks for students. These textbooks can be downloaded in PDF format without prior registration.’

3- Wikibooks
Wikibooks offers an open content textbooks collection that anyone can edit. It has over 2000 books and other educational materilas that can be browsed by subject, complettion status or reading level.

4- Open Textbook Library
‘The Open Textbook Library provides a growing catalog of free, peer-reviewed, and openly-licensed textbooks. Explore the library's books to see if an open textbook fits your course's, and students', needs.’

5- MERLOT
‘MERLOT has one of the largest known collections of open textbooks in the world, with thousands catalogued by topic, audience, level, license, peer review, etc., many with comments, in bookmark collections, and user ratings.  MERLOT community members can take advantage of this resource in a variety of ways.’

6- TextBookGo
‘TextBookGo.com is your number one source for free etextbooks. We bring you free digital textbooks from all sources and for all courses! We offer free etextbooks for many subject categories and for all tablet and digital textbook viewing devices.’

Free Language Textbooks for Teachers

May 19, 2017
Language Textbooks Resources is a collection of excellent materials to help learners develop their language skills. It features a wide variety of guides, textbooks, books, courses, and many other resources students can use to learn new languages. From learning the basics of Arabic to mastering the grammar of Spanish, this collection is absolutely a must have resource for language teachers.

Language Textbooks Resources are provided by OER Commons . For those of you not familiar with OER, this is, as we stated in a previous review,  a platform that provides open access to a wide variety of open educational resources that are either in the public domain or are licensed under Creative Commons.  These resources include things such as :’ full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.Teachers can re-use  and adapt these instructional resources their own teaching situations and according to the learning needs of their students. The site also provides tools to allow educators to contribute their own educational materials .’