Omnivorous Surfer

System Nucleus is a FREEWARE utility for viewing, editing and managing system resources and settings.
It makes these types of tasks much easier than remembering the right command, and allows batch processing of tasks such as uninstalling multiple programs or stopping multiple processes. You can get an idea of its functions from the image above (from lifehacker.com), but for more details check the spencerebus website.

To make it even better, you don't have to use an installed version; System Nucleus has a portable version as well.

I will be trying this one out soon on my "old" computer to delete installation data left over from programs previously uninstalled, and I WILL make a system backup before doing so!

I wish I had had this site when I was teaching! I came up with other ways to do some of these activities, but this would have been so nice. FREE is good, too!

At Super Teacher Tools, you can create games such as Jeopardy and Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The site has tools that will create groups, randomly "draw" student names from your class list, or serve as a random lottery numbers generator for a fun way to teach probability. Some fun additions are Flash applications which draw information from the U. S. Census Bureau to show either the current U. S. or world population; both update every 10-30 seconds or so.

There's much more on this site, but these examples will give you an idea of what's waiting for you there.

I received and have used my pretty little red ThumbTacks microphone for the iPod Touch. I like it and will definitely use it. It does a good job recording the user's voice; I tested it at 6, 12, and 18 inches from my mouth with no noticeable difference in volume. I'm not sure how it would do in a classroom and have not had the opportunity to try it in a public setting like that .

It's so small that I just hope I don't lose it! I'm thinking of making a soft case for my iPod with two pockets on the outside: one for the earphones and one for the mic.

The only downside is that with the ThumbTacks plugged in, iTunes and Voice Memos sense that a headset is attached, so there is no audio from the iPod. Interestingly, though, the Talking Tom Cat app allows the use of the mic and still delivers audio via the iPod's speakers. :-)

All in all, I feel this was a good investment to add recording functionality to my iPod!