Omnivorous Surfer

There are many reasons you might want access to a timer on your computer. For one thing, it can be good for students learning to budget their time to be able to gauge the amount of time left to complete their task. Also there may be times when people need to take a break or simply stop what they are doing. I myself often need to have an audible or visual reminder to stop and move on to the next task or leave for an appointment. Fortunately, there are many options, both downloadable and online, which could meet your needs. This post will present three of these options; a Google search will provide you with a long list of sites if you wish to pursue this further.

ORZESZEK. Kim Komando (komando.com) this morning shared Orzeszek Timer, FREE downloadable software. Nothing could be simpler than this little timer. A small window opens for you to enter the length of time, in a variety of formats as explained on the Orzeszek website:

5 – 5 minutes

2.5 – 2 minutes 30 seconds

1d 5h 3m 25s – 1 day 5 hours 3 minutes 25 seconds

1.05:03:25 – 1 day 5 hours 3 minutes 25 seconds

1 5 3 25 – 1 day 5 hours 3 minutes 25 seconds

01/01/2011 – until midnight on 1 January 2011

01/01/2011 5:00 PM< – until 5:00 pm on 1 January 2011

To change the sound (no notification, loud, normal, or quiet) or change other options (e.g., change size, close when done, loop timer), simply right-click on the window and choose from a drop-down menu. You can also customize sounds by adding .wav files to the Sounds folder.


TIME ME. TimeMe provides a variety of QuickTime timers, both downloadable and online. Its display is much simpler than that of Online Stopwatch, so might be preferable in some instances.

One of TimeMe's timers is digital Alarm Clock. As an additional function, it can be displayed simply as a digital clock. Its appearance is the same as the Stopwatch.

PROTECT YOUR VISION. This timer is a little different. It is used on an individual's computer to remind the user to rest his/her eyes from looking at the monitor.

According to protectyourvision.org, "Around 70% people in developed countries experience eye discomfort and vision problems when viewing a computer screen for more than 2 hour daily. The level of discomfort appears to increase with the amount of computer use.
The most common symptoms of CVS [Computer Vision Syndrome] are:

eyestrain

headaches

blurred vision

dry, irritated eyes

double vision

difficulty refocusing the eyes

neck and shoulder pain"

Perhaps some might find useful a LiveBinder of video sources I compiled for a workshop I did earlier this year. 

CC Licensed photo by Clint Gardner

I'm always on the lookout for good listings of websites, and this one via Twitter was a real gem of a find! It brought to my attention another blog to follow: The Innovative Educator: Way out of the box!

The sites included on the 100 Video Sites Every Educator Should Bookmark post are categorized by Educational Video Collections
General Video Collections
Teacher Education (my personal favorite, Teacher Training Videos, is included here)
Lesson Planning
Science, Math and Technology
History, Arts and Social Science
Video Tools
Network and Program Videos
Free Movies and Clips (free is good!)
How- Tos
Government Organizations.

If this listing doesn't appeal to you, you ought to take a look at the blog anyway. There's some pretty great stuff there!

I've gotten so many good tips from MakeUseOf that it's one of my favorite sites; they find and review a lot of things I simply don't have time to look for.

They also have currently 38 free downloadable guides in PDF format on such varied topics as iTunes, iPhone, Linux, Photoshop, digital photography, online shopping, building a gaming PC, Twitter, creating professional documents in Microsoft Word, Twitter, and the Internet Guide for the Movie Addict. There's really something for almost everyone.

You might be interested in these other posts about resources I've learned of from MakeUseOf: Creative Commons, Semantic Search Engines, Functional Screensavers (PC and Mac), SAT Test Prep,

50 Sites in 60 Minutes ver. 2 will introduce you to 50 online tools to use in the classroom or for personal use. Sites included are appropriate for a variety of age levels. Tools are for audio, charts and graphs, digital art, digital storytelling, and several miscellaneous applications. Each slide includes a link to the site as well as a link a review of the site by David Kapular on his blog, Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero.

If you're interested in finding new web tools, you may want to follow his blog.

This slideshare presentation is a good example of the great finds I receive in my e-mailbox as a member of Diigo's Web Tools for Educators group. (Read my post on Diigo here.) If you'd like to see what great web tools others find, just create a FREE Diigo bookmarking account and join the Web Tools for Educators group.

Though it may sound like it, Teacher Challenge is NOT a competition or contest--please read on!

There is a wealth of free tools on the web for educational use. With all the time teaching takes, during the school day and on into the evenings, who can keep up with them, let alone learn to use them? Well, here comes Edublogs, known as a great site for hosting educational blogs, with a great idea.

The goal of Teacher Challenge is providing free professional development for educators. The current challenge presents structured tutorials for free online tools...21 of them at the moment. Each one gives directions to get you up and going with the tool along with tips and suggested ways to use it in the classroom. Take a look at #7--Kerpoof for an example.

Interested in blogging for yourself or your students but don't know quite where or how to start? Previous challenges were "Kick Start Your Blogging" and "Blogging with Students." Links to these are along the side of the Teacher Challenge page.

What about PLNs? The power and connectivity of the Internet makes it an amazing time for building PLNs. That's the topic of the next Teacher Challenge, so subscribe to their RSS feed or keep checking back to the site to see when it starts if you're interested.

Ever need to know that someone actually opened the email message you sent? Most web-based email providers don't have a return receipt feature, and some don't allow you to run messages through a local client like Outlook or Thunderbird. In looking for an easy solution to that problem for #2 son this evening, I found SpyPig.

"SpyPig is a simple email tracking system that sends you a notification by email when the recipient opens your message. It works with virtually all modern email programs: Outlook, Eudora, Yahoo Email, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL Email and many others." Nothing to install, no registration required, and of course, it's FREE.

I checked it out and found that it is simple and it works. Get your message ready first. Then go to SpyPig and enter your email address and the message title. SpyPig will use that to create an image for you to paste somewhere in your message. Don't worry, you don't have to use a picture of a pig...though you could if you wanted to; one of the options is a blank image. I tried it and found that it worked like a charm.

The one requirement that could cause it to fail is that both the sender and receiver must use HTML email, not plain text or rich text format.

Do you just not "get" Twitter? I didn't when I first signed up...didn't use it for months. Now I'm following several people and learning so much and finding so many resources and articles and websites. I've learned that people have found all kinds of uses for it in their classrooms and in their professional lives.

What is Twitter, anyway? How do you get started? What do you do? How do you find people to follow? Do you wonder about these things when you think of Twitter? Well, here's a place to start getting answers.

To get you going, why don't you check out Centre for Learning and Performance Technology's FREE How to Use Twitter for Social Learning? You'll get everything from how to get started to how to find people to follow to ways to use it productively. (While you're there, look around. This is a great site.)

If you want more ideas, check out 31 Interesting Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom (well, it's 31 today, but the count will be increasing!).

Speaking of "Interesting Ways," you might be interested in my earlier post on Tom Barrett's series.

Do you ever use web page screenshots, either via digital delivery or on paper, to assist in teaching or training? I know I do. I utilize both Windows 7 Snipping Tool and Jing, but I think this tool is going to be one I will use frequently because of its additional features and ease of use.

Awesome Screenshot is an extension currently available for Chrome and Safari, with a Firefox version to be released soon (according to the website).

First, Awesome Screenshot will let you capture the entire page (my other tools don't do that), the visible page, or any part of a page. Once captured, you can crop the image if you wish, More importantly, you can add a variety of markings, including text. This is so much easier than what I've been doing! The image below of part of the Awesome Screenshot webpage I created will give you an idea of what it will allow you to do; the red markings (you can change the color) were my additions.


When you have marked anything you want to mark, you can choose to save the image to your computer; instantly share it via Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail; or get a link to the image for sharing yourself.

Students could use this as well as they find things to share while doing research. Find a good diagram, capture it and annotate it or question it. Find an interesting comment, capture it and mark it up.

Thanks to Richard Byrne, Free Technology for Teachers, for his post sharing this. (Don't follow his blog? You should!).

If you don't use one of the supported browsers and you don't always have access to a Mac or a Windows 7 PC, you might like my post on ScreenRip32.

I've been playing with a web tool called embedit. It's only useful if you have a website, but if you do, I'm sure you can think of some practical uses.

Upload any file* or use a link to an existing website to embedit.in for free.You will get the code to embed the document on your blog or other website, as the Aesop's Fable document below. (Don't know what to do with the code? Many blog or wiki hosts give the option of viewing/editing the HTML of your page Do all your other editing, leave a blank line above and below where you want the document and put your cursor in that spot. Switch to the HTML page and paste the code from embedit.in.)



If you don't want to embed the document, you can get the code to create a link that opens as an overlay over the page:



. . . or a thumbnail that does the same:


You can give the viewer the right to print or download the document.

You have the option of using embedit.in's red pen tool to annotate any page.

This is easiest way I've seen to make worksheets or reading assignments available to students on your website. If I were grading it, I'd give this site an A+ for ease of use and functionality.

Another feature of the embedit.in is Sitewide, which will "automatically convert all links to document on your website to embeds."  I'll let you investigate that on your own if you're interested.

Dr. Jude Rathburn has a good post on embedit which includes some nice shots of the website and how to use it.

* I was unable to find a list of file formats that embedit.in accepts. The file I used was a Star Office document. I have seen an indication that it works with any file formats that Blackboard supports, including images, documents, and presentation slides.

I've posted about this directory before, but Jane Hart of the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies (C4LPT) has just updated it to reflect the many changes that have occurred since the creation of the original list.

The Directory of Learning Tools 2011 lists over 2000 tools for learning in education and the workplace.

If you're looking for a web-based tool, check it out!

Wrds is an online vocabulary testing program that lets you enter your own wordlists. It's more than simple flashcards. Wait till you see what you can do on this site.

If your wordlists are in English, Dutch, Spanish, German, or French (or any pair of these), you can hear the pronunciation of the words. Other languages may be used, but there will be no audio. An online guide is displayed when adding or editing a wordlist to aid in entering foreign symbols.

Create your wordlist and you're ready to test. There you have many options: spelling only (see word briefly, then type it in), multiple choice, reacting (press space when you see the correct answer), puzzle (letters scrambled), consonants only, first letter only, in your mind (look and click to indicate if you were right), test (type the right answer). You can choose to ask all the words only once or keep asking until all answers are correct. Good way to learn and then practice vocabulary.

Wrds keeps a record for each wordlist giving the date, type, percentage, and time of each test. A wordlist is available only to the user who created it or someone with that individual's user name (email address) and password).

CC Licensed photo by Franz Patzig

I've posted a few times about sites to help find Creative Commons licensed media, and I have learned that Google has made a Creative Commons image search available since at least July 2009. Knowing so many students already use Google's image search, I think this would be an easy way to introduce them to being responsible users of others' digital property.

Google Image Search Advanced Search

Voki is a cool site that will have your message spoken by a character you create. There are a variety of characters to choose from, and they can be customized. The message can be spoken from written text, as the example below, using your chosen voice, or you can use a phone or your computer's microphone to record the message. The site is FREE, and lesson plans are available as well. Students would love this!

Click the play button below to hear the message spoken from the text I entered.

Oh, how I do enjoy a cup of tea, especially with a good book on these cold, cloudy days. After reading an email  (the contents of which don't seem to be on her website) from Isabel De Los Rios on the differences between and the health benefits of the different varieties of teas, I found Adagio Teas online. I ordered some samplers and an IngenuiTEA "teapot," I we tried out the pot and the chai tea this evening. Mmmmmm! I like both!



I have always preferred loose tea to bagged tea--much better flavor and no tea dust--and this teapot provides the easiest way I can imagine to deal with loose tea. A reusable filter fits snugly in the bottom of the tea pot. You can boil the water in the microwave in the pot, add the tea, and steep. Then comes the neat part; you set it on top of your cup or pitcher, depending on which size pot you have, and the tea pours out of the bottom, leaving the leaves in the pot. Then dump out the leaves, rinse, and put the pot in the dishwasher! Much better than using the infusers I have tried.

I may have to have both sizes of the IngenuiTEA...and I'll definitely have to order more tea from Adagio!

I received an ereader for Christmas. I had been wanting one but couldn't justify buying one since I could read ebooks on my iPod Touch, so, though it isn't the one for which I had techno-lusted, I do have one and I do like using it. I have learned that many of the books for which I would have to pay from its online bookstore, true also for Amazon and I suspect Barnes and Noble, can be downloaded free from some other source. Of course, sometimes it's a matter of saving $0.89, but I DO enjoy getting things for FREE. Well, also, since I do read a lot, including copyright-free classics, the cost would add up over time. In case anyone is in the same boat, I thought I would share my findings.

 First, you need to know what format(s) your reader accepts and how to transfer to it ebooks that you download to your computer. You may find the same ebook in different formats on different sites, so don't give up easily.

I will mention later a few different sites, but sometimes simply doing a Google search will give you want you want. Let me give you an example. After searching unsuccessfully on a few ebook sites for Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather in epub format and free, I tried this search: "Death Comes for the Archbishop free epub." The result listed first was exactly what I wanted. I really would recommend this method. (You might use the same process to compare prices on newer books still under copyright, though you might have a more difficult time finding the book in a compatible format for your reader.)

There are many sites offering ebooks in different formats as free downloads. These sites are not created equal, as some offer mostly self-published writings, and others offer illegal copies of copyrighted books; I am not interested in these types, so there are no links to them here. I would definitely discourage you from stealing from authors by downloading pirated copies!

Three sites I have used in the past and found useful are:
Project Gutenberg
Feedbooks
Google eBookstore

If you are looking for copyrighted books, you may still be able to compare prices to find a better deal. You could use the same Google search process described above, but here are three digital bookstore sites you might check as well:
eBooks
Kobo
Google eBookstore

Flickr has so many tools. Here's one that's easy and really enhances the viewing experience. Simply copying and pasting the BlackMagic code in a photo's comment provides a link that will open the photo with a black background. If you can copy and paste, you can do this. Check it out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/nosha/3277989393/. This looks like a regular Flickr page, but read to find the code and instructions.

Here's a sample.

I suppose now that Flickr displays an image on a black background when you click on it, this isn't that much help, but it would give you a nice background if you wanted to send someone a link to a specific photo.

Diigo certainly isn't a newcomer, so many may already at least be aware of it. If you have never checked it out, I would heartily recommend that you do so. I, like many others, have been using delicious for some time, though I also had a Diigo account. The talk about Yahoo dropping delicious led me to do some more investigation of Diigo, especially since I was set to do a training on social bookmarking. After learning just how much Diigo has to offer, I have moved all my bookmarks to my personal Diigo account and have just received approval of my application for a Diigo Educator premium account in preparation for the training.

In addition bookmarking, Diigo lets you highlight and annotate web pages so that when you go back to them you don't have to remember what it was you thought was important. You can also share your finds and annotations with a Diigo Group. For example, there is an iPad iPhone and iPod Touch Users Group, and I've found some great information through my weekly email update of group activity. You can even have an ongoing dialog or conversation on a web page using the Comments feature. Diigo users can choose to use either a Diigo toolbar or a browser button to quickly add and annotate sites, or, of course, they can add bookmarks on the Diigo website itself.

Since I'm still exploring it myself, if you want to know more about the Diigo Educator premium account, check the FAQ page. It has all the features you would need, including privacy for students and no requirement of email addresses for adding student accounts.  It would be great for student researching.

While I still use Symbaloo as my go-to, everyday bookmark repository and browser homepage, I now catalog interesting and useful sites I find on Diigo.

PRESENTATIONS ETC
On its Presentations ETC website, the Educational Technology Clearinghouse makes available "free backgrounds, templates, letters, frames, and buttons for school presentations, websites, class newsletters, digital scrapbooking, and student portfolios. Thousands of presentation elements and millions of combinations allow you to customize your school projects, electronic scrapbook, or eportfolio. A friendly license allows teachers and students to use up to 50 items in a single, non-commercial project without further permission."

graphic of samples from the Presentations ETC website

Thanks to Free Technology for Teachers for alerting me to SnipSnip.it! (If you're not reading Free Technology for Teachers or following them on Facebook or Twitter, you're missing out.) SnipSnip.it lets you easily clip a section of a YouTube video for sharing with others. This will be great for teachers, students, or presenters who want to use only a portion of a YouTube video in their projects. Use of the site is FREE and there is no registration required.

All you have to do is to paste the URL of the YouTube video into the provided box on the SnipSnip.it website and press Enter. Play the video to determine and enter the beginning and ending times of the clip you want. You will be give a code to embed the clip on a webpage and a link to view the clip on the SnipSnip site. I extracted a clip from the How to use a Flip YouTube Video Camera YouTube video to include only some basic tips for those taking videos. I have embedded the clip below, and you can view it on the SnipSnip site by clicking here.

cropped with SnipSnip

The resulting video is in the Flash format, which may limit its availability for viewing in some instances.

One of the stumbling blocks to having students blog is the necessity of using an individual's email address when accounts are set up. Another is the need to assure the student's safety while online, while a third is that many sites require users to be at least 13. Kidblog addresses all the concerns and, even better, it is FREE.

Kidblog was designed by teachers for teachers, primarily for elementary and middle school use. The teacher has administrative control over her/his class accounts, and students' blogs by default are private, viewable only by their teacher and classmates. If desired, a passworded guest account can be added so parents can view their student's blog posts and comments. Rare for free accounts, there is no advertising! If you're interested in learning more, see the About Kidblog page.

I recently read an excellent blog post, Middle School Blogging: Students Constructing Their Own Knowledge, which shares examples of students' blogs and the reactions of both students and parents to the experience.

This Directory of Learning Tools from the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies offers access to a listing of  "over 2,000 Tools for Learning - for schools, colleges, universities and the workplace." Select your category from among the thirteen listed and you will be presented with an annotated listing of sites presented in a table format so that additional information can be given for each. For example, for Live Tools you can see which offer web conferencing, audio conferencing, video conferencing, screen/application/desktop sharing, remote access/control, live broadcasting, 3D/virtual worlds.

What a wonderful resource for both teachers (there is an Instructional Tools category) and students...as well as the general Internet-using population. I'm going to have fun mining this one!

Youblisher is an interesting site. It takes your PDF document and makes it into a flippable online document. The site requires registration, but it is 100% free.

I tried it out on a simple Word document I've been working on to see how it works. After saving it as a PDF document and uploading it, I was given a link to the publication, code to copy and paste a link to the publication, and code to embed either a small or large cover to serve as a link to the publication. Click on the embedded cover at right to view my document. When on that site, click and drag on a page to turn it.

How cool for students to be able to "publish" their creations in this way!

Brain Nook  is a FREE "virtual world" that offers over 100 educational games for students based on fundamental math and English grammar concepts which are embedded in virtual worlds that the students can unlock and explore. The games are designed to also help students strengthen skills such as reading, reasoning, decision-making, analysis, memorization, dexterity, and computer literacy. Games are based on California State Board of Education standards for grades 1 through 5 (ages 6-10).

While free membership includes access to many areas of BrainNook, including a Parent Report Center where parents can track their child's progress, Premium Members get much wider access.

During account creation, a parent email address must be entered. The parent will receive an email with a link which must be clicked on to activate the account. A chat feature is available, but without free-form entry. Students with a free account may use only menu-based chat, selecting from a list of pre-approved chat phrases. Premium members can use a whitelist chat which allows them to access a preset list of safe words.

BrainNook @ School includes over 200 educational games and offers other features including student reporting.

In an effort to keep some semblance of security, I use different passwords for different sites/programs/types of sites..and I have accounts on a lot of sites! Occasionally I have trouble coming up with the right password for one I access infrequently. Anyone with me? I have found a reasonably secure way to keep access to all those passwords at my fingertips. It's a little free program called KeePass.

Put KeePass and its database on a flash drive and you'll always have it with you. Folders are provided for you which you can rename if needed, and you can add more folders for organization if you wish to.

You use a password, a  key file, or both to access the database. Read KeePass help for further information. Be aware that there is no backdoor to the database. IMPORTANT: If you forget your password, your database is locked and useless. Think about this carefully!

You can read more about other features of KeePass on the download page at ZDNet or on the KeyPass website.

KeePass is considered a Portable App, which means it doesn't have to be installed on a computer, but can be carried and executed from a flash drive (or CD). Other OS posts on portable apps include:
System Nucleus - view, edit, and manage system resources and settings;
PortableApps Suite - a single download for a collection of apps;
Gimp - portable photo editing;
Portable Freeware - characteristics of  a portable application and a link to The Portable Freeware Collection.

I'm beginning to wonder if I couldn't do an entire year of Google tips! The ability to filter search results by reading level was apparently added in early December 2010.

Here are the description and directions from Google support:

The feature is based primarily on statistical models we built with the help of teachers. We paid teachers to classify pages for different reading levels, and then took their classifications to build a statistical model. With this model, we can compare the words on any webpage with the words in the model to classify reading levels. We also use data from Google Scholar, since most of the articles in Scholar are advanced.

Understanding that the classification may not be totally accurate, it still might prove to be a useful start for finding appropriate results for the intended audience.