Eclectic Technology

Are you looking for resources that provide "copyright friendly" images, audio and video for your learners? This post, by Richard Byrne, provides six resources. Each one provides access to materials that are in the public domain.

* The Moving Image Archive. This is part of the Internet Archive and includes over 1.7 million clips.

* The Public Domain Review is a project of the Open Knowledge Foundation and provides access to images, books, films, audio recording and essays.

* The Free Music Archive (FMA) provides access to free music. This collection is curated and provides a range of genres.

* Sound Gator provides free sound effects. Do you need the sound of a horn honking, or whipped cream coming out of a can?  This is a great place to go.

* Pixabay and the Morgue File are both great places to search for images. The Morgue File is a collection of photos, and Pixabay provides high-resolution images in the public domain.

Byrne provides additional details on each of these six resources in the post. Click through to learn more.

Richard Byrne has created 1o charts that provide options for popular ed tech tools. Having published these on his blog within a series of posts, he has not gathered them  into one Google Drive folder. You will find charts that cover the following tools (quoted from his post):

• Alternatives to Google Image Search
• Backchannel and informal assessment tools
• Building classroom websites
• Building classroom blogs
• Creating multimedia textbooks
• Creating multimedia quizzes
• Audio editing tools
• Multimedia timeline tools
• Mind-mapping tools
• Mobile video creation apps

This is a great resource. Quickly find four or more options to explore. If you want additional information on the tools do a quick search on his blog to find more detailed reviews.

If you or your students use Google Docs they can quickly generate a word cloud when their document has 100 or more words. Richard Byrne provides clear instructions in this post as well as suggestions on how your students might use the word cloud to help them revise, to find words the may have over used and more!

The tools covered in this post by Richard Byrne are:

* eduCanon

* Teachem

* VideoNotes

* Blubbr

* Zaption

* EdPuzzle

* Blendspace

You will find a video tutorial both eduCanon and Blendspace. Bryne describes each tool in detail in his post, making it easier for you to choose which ones will meet your needs.

Padlet has recently added a new layout option and Richard Byrne provides a step-by-step guide on how to use Padet as well as  "ideas and directions for using Socrative and TodaysMeet."

Padlet has been available for quite a few years (and was first known as Wallwisher) and works on a variety of platforms. It may be used collaboratively and Byrne suggests using it as an exit ticket.

Socrative is a student response system and TodaysMeet is a  backchannel chat room.

The good news is that Socrative will remain free! According to this post by Richard Byrne MasteryConnect. At this point MasteryConnect and Socrative will run independently. In the future Socrative will be merged within MasteryConnect.

Do your students need to practice with grammar and punctuation? Quill provides worksheets for students in Grades 1 - 8 that have spelling and grammar errors. Students have to correct the errors. Quill corrects the papers, showing students what they did correctly, or what needs to be corrected.

Create your own classroom, provide students a code to sign-in, and pick your assignments. Students work at their pace and you can view their work through the dashboard.

As Richard Byrne states in this post "Having the pre-made activities at your disposal and having the opportunity to quickly see how your students did on each activity will free up some of your time."

There is a video that explains the site in more detail, or you may go directly the the website: http://www.quill.org/

Help your student learn the differences between primary and seconary sources by sharing this video by Common Craft. What makes primary resources important? When it is better to use secondary resources? How to they interact with each other? This two minute video will provide an overview that will help your students deepen their understanding. 

If your students have Google accounts you might consider having them use Google Slides to help them organize research. With the tools available for searching next to the slides it is an easy way for them to begin to organize their materials. Richard Byrne has created a video that walks you through what to do.

Richard Byrne has created an eBook that provides step-by-step directions on creating a simple comic using the free version of Storybard That. You will find information on how to create the following projects:

* Project #1 - Crafting Fiction Stories with Comics and Crafting Short Stories with Comics

* Project #2 - Telling True Stories with Comics

* Project #3 - Turning Comic Strips into Movies

* Project #4 - Book Trailer Comics Videos

* Project #5 - Publishing Multimedia eBooks

Storyboard That also has a premium version (which costs money) and this version allows you to create and manage student accounts for your classroom. If you plan on using comics as a tool for students to demonstrate their understanding you will also find screenshots on how to do this in the eBook.

Are you interested in flipping part of your class and would like to know some tools that would also allow you to add assessments to videos. Richard Byrne has three suggestions and all are free!

*eduCanon - Quoting from the post "eduCanon allows teachers to build flipped lessons using YouTube and Vimeo videos, create questions about the videos, then assign lessons to their students."

*Teachem uses the TED-Ed model. Choose videos that are hosted on YouTube. Add questions and comments. Videos may be public or private.

*Knowmia is a website and iPad app and their website has over 17,000 videos that you may use. You may also create your own. Knowmia has been designed for teachers and students and provides an Assignmen Wizard and is adding additional  features.

If you looking for a tool that allows you to flip a lesson and also include an assessment these three provide a variety of options. Have fun exploring and finding the one that will work best for you.

Thanks to Richard Byrne for sharing a post on a new search engine, Athenir. This visual search engine provides a view that may help learners discover additional search terms, allowing them to more easily find the information they are looking for. His post (linked to by clicking his name above) explains that this is just the beginning with additional items being added over the summer. 

If you have used Carrot2 the visual seen above may be familiar to you. Athenir is using Yahoo as the base for its' searches.

Providing learners access to search engines beyond Google, Bing and Yahoo is important. There are many search engines that are geared to younger students, that are more visual in nature...this list could go on. The visual component of this is colorful and allows learners to view their search in a format that many find helpful.

Richard Byrne has updated his Best of the Web presentation. This version provides over 40 great websites/tools that you may want to check out. You should be able to find more information about each resource on this website also. Below are a few of the tools that may be new to you.

* Kahoot

* Canva

* Lucid Press

* Too Noisy

* JellyCam

There are many more in this post. As you watch the embedded presentation you may click on a link and go directly to the website (which opens in a new window).

Blendspace is joined Wikispaces and TES and now offers their premium services for free to educators! Why use Blendspace?

* It is easy to organize and share materials.

* The format is visual (which appeals to many learners).

* You pick the topic and you pick the materials: videos, links, images, files, etc.

There are additional features and you may use Blendspace to assess and track student progress. You might consider using Blendspace as a component to introduce blended learning into your class.

This post from Richard Byrne also includes a video that teaches you the basics of Blendspace as well as Flipping and Blending the Classroom.

SFS Kids looks like a great site to help students learn about music. They may listen to a variety of styles, learn about instruments found in an orchestra and then put their hand to composing after completing some lessons, learn the skills of a conductor and more. Richard Byrne states that this site would work well with students in elementary and middle school.

Richard Byrne provides a number of links to websites that have great hands-on activities for students to learn science. The sites include:

* Science is Fun - 25 chemistry experiments geared to students in grades 4 - 9

* Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago has activities in twelve topics. You will find experiments for students preK through grade 12.

* Discover the World is from NOAA. A total of 43 experiments which are probably best for grades 4 - 8.

* Squishy Circuits. Learn how to create the "dough" to create these circuits and watch a TedEd to learn more.

There are many ideas to be found in this post and lots of fun for your students to experience while they explore and learn science!

Richard Byrne (of FreeTech4Teachers) has created a new slideshow of his top picks of web tools for 2014. He states "I shared only tools that are new-to-me since last year's NCTIES conference and or have released significant enhancements in the last year."

As always it is worth looking through this lengthy slideshow, which is embedded in the post and also available through Google docs so you may choose to save a copy. He notes that he will continue to add speaker notes to include "more links."

Some of these tools have been mentioned in this Scoop.it but there are quite a few that are new to me that I will be checking out.

Check out these five tools that will help students present their knowledge using different forms of multimedia.

* Metta

* ImageQuiz

* eduCanon

* Kahoot

* Google Forms

For many students these tools will help them create a more authentic product. Click through to the post to learn more about each tool and find short videos to help you with ImageQuiz, Kahoot and eduCanon..

Google has just made it easier to find the 'usage rights' of images. Richard Byrne has assisted by providing us with a quick tutorial that show just what to do, in two steps!