This session after lunch gave people the opportunity to quickly share new tools. They had 2 minutes to share their idea or tool and then someone else stepped in. Many educators presented, but then the vendors showed up to start sharing their products. I struggle with this, as I would prefer to hear from educators rather than commercials. It seemed that the educators did a pretty good job of keeping to the 2 minute limit. The vendors...not so much! Surprise!
Storybird-Social Tool to create a digital book (Flash Based)
Goofram-Combines Google Search with Wolfram Alpha
QR bar codes-A way to quickly generate them for use in the school or classroom.
G-mail Labs-Lisa Thurmann shared how it can be used to enhance your G-mail experience.
Mashpedia- A real-time Multi-media Social Encyclopedia.
Shareaholic-Scott McLeod shared this as a way to easily share articles and resources.
Readability-McLeod shared this tool for increasing font size quickly and easily with a bookmarklet application similar to Diigolet.
Instapaper-McLeod shared this for getting content
SMART Exchange- A great resource for Smart Board lessons, and Notebook Express a Web based stripped down SMART Notebook app that allows you to create and share SmartNotebook lessons via the Web for free!
YoLink-A free downloadable browser plug-in. Allows you to see abstracts of links on a Web page-Nice for research and 21st Century Skills!
Sweet Search-Search Engine for Students-Google based engine that searches 35,000 evaluated sites of "credible" resources. Combined with YoLink provides a nice tool. Browse the results of a search for specific terms.
Metamark.net-URL shortener
LongURL.org-Get what the shortened URL points to
Letmegooglethatforyou.com-For those with colleagues (or PLN members) who don't want to bother searching themselves!
Readitlater-When you access a link, you can add it to Readitlater and then go back to review.
For Mac users only,
- Mark Wagoner shared Jumpcut, a tool that allows you to keep up to 40 clippings and then retrieve them in order to past how you want
- Textexpander-Allows you to type a short phrase and it will expand it for you.
Edmodo.com-Social Networking tool for teachers and students, includes an iPhone App. New features include URL inclusion, co-teaching, and subgroups. Might be worth looking at for creating student profile pages, or for special projects where you want the students to assume roles.
Let Them Sing It For You- A site that allows you to type in any phrase and hear it sung by famous artists, though mostly one word or syllable at a time. Here's a sample.
Bingle.nu-Allows you to search Bing and Google at the same time.
GoogleSquared-Anything with categories can be searched and a grid with results appears.
Beth Burke shared a Wordle trick by putting a ~ between each word of the sentence. Then the phrase or sentence stays together.
Steve Hargadon, our illustrious organizer very diplomatically pointed out the need to explore rules regarding vendors presenting/advertizing at the smackdown. Good learning moment for all!
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