The Edge of Education

High Def Teacher: Top Websites for Teachers

The Mr. Smith — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 04:39:33 +0000

High Def Teacher: Top Websites for Teachers.

From site: High Def Teacher is a collaborative resource dedicated to identifying the best digital resources the web has to offer.

How to Use HDT: The website is organized around the website entries and star rankings. Items are arranged by subject area. In addition, the website front page includes a list with the top 10 overall and the top 3 in each subject area. For each website, you can provide a star ranking and provide comments for the site. The top navigation bar includes a “Submit a Link” button to allow you to suggest a site that we have not yet listed.In addition, High Def Teacher has its own set of forums for more discussion of the websites and any other topic. These are accessed by clicking the “Forums” link in the top navigation bar.
Who We Are: HDT was created by Adam Steiner, a technology integration specialist for the Natick Public Schools. Adam has over ten years experience as a middle and high school teacher in social studies and instructional technology. Through his experience he has developed a wealth of strategies for using technology to invigorate the traditional classroom experience. Adam is currently working to help prepare the Natick faculty and staff for the 1 to 1 computing environment to be launched in 2012. Mr. Steiner has a BA from the University of Chicago as well as a MAT from Tufts Univerisity and a M.Ed. in Instructional Technology from Framingham State College.

CNN Student News: A Great Way to Get Students into the News

The Mr. Smith — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:24:02 +0000

CNN Student News is a great way to get students involved in current events. With all the information at our finger tips and the wealth of knowledge available, students should be guided where to find useful information on the internet. Today with the massive overflow of information students receive, it is often hard for them to know where to find reliable information. That is where CNN Student News comes into play. CNN Student News has setup a wonderful site for students to use as well as being full of resources so teachers can incorporate it into the classroom.

Classroom Uses

CNN Student News works well with students around grades 3-8. It breaks down current events, as well as explains important background knowledge in quick segments. For example, when reporting the arrest of a high ranking Taliban official, the news team

reviewed who the Taliban were and why it was a significant news event.

Not only does CNN Student News review past situations, but they also develop discussion and comprehension questions for further use within the classroom. This provides instant feedback for the teacher as to the students complete understanding of the news report. There are also interactive maps, assignments, and other resources for teachers to use within the website. Overall, it is definitely worth the visit to check it out!

DonorsChoose.org: Help Teachers Fund Classroom Projects

The Mr. Smith — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:22:39 +0000

DonorsChoose.org is one of those sites you can hear about soon enough. All teachers spend a plethora of cash out of their own pockets, and would spend more if they had the chance. All teachers have those projects they wish they could do, but can’t due to funding. Donors Choose is a site to help bring those projects and ideas to life. Donors Choose has partnered with companies such as Barnes & Noble and Sonic in order to help teachers fund classroom projects. Teachers are allowed to place projects on the site for people to donate, and all that is asked in return is a thank you note from both teacher and students, as well as photos of the project in action. To make this step even easier, Donors Choose sends the self address enveloped when the project materials are delivered, with a disposal camera to take the pictures! Once you have a project funded, and return the thank you packet, your allowed to submit another project!

Image via Wikipedia

Classroom Use

Donors Choose makes it painless to seek funds for classroom projects. From class book sets for novel studies, to digital cameras for video and podcasting, many different projects find funding. They have integration with both Facebook and Twitter for easy social sharing, as well as a teacher page hosted on Donors Choose (find mine here). Also, students get involved and take ownership when they write the thank you packets and work in the photos of the project taking place.

Read It Later: The Perfect Tool to Collect Articles You Intend to Read

The Mr. Smith — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:21:00 +0000

Ever found that interesting article you just wish you had the time to read? You bookmark it, intending to read it when you get home, or perhaps you email it to yourself. Then in the jammed pack email inbox, or loaded browser bookmarks, it sort of gets lost. In comes Read It Later. Read It Later is a sort of bookmarking service that allows you to save interesting articles so when you finally have the chance to take it in, it can be easily located.

Read It Later is not the only service of its kind. Instapaper is another similar service, however I found the services available, as well as the asthetics of Read It Later make it a much more user friendly service. Read It Later integrates with Facebook and Twitter, as well as email. It has both iPhone & iPad versions, which integrate with the same services as well. While Instapaper has similar integration tools, the one feature Read It Later has that sets it apart is called Digest (which is available for a one time $5 upgrade fee). Digest is a feature which groups your articles in categories, and then allows users to quickly browse through saved articles. Photos and videos are shown in thumbnail view, which makes it much easier to find that specific article. If you have many articles in a specific categories, you can jump to the category tab in order to view all articles for the given section.

Classroom Use

I find that I use Read It Later as a PLN (personal learning network) manager of sorts. I find that I subscribe to many RSS feeds, many teachers on Twitter who share wonderful sites, and recieve many websites from colleagues via email. This is where Read It Later comes in handy. Whenever I see something I want to look at deeper, I instantly save it to Read It Later. It is very useful in cases, such at school, where I don’t have the time to really sit down and read an article. Read It Later has abookmarklet for easy article saving, both a Chrome and Firefox plugin, and an easy send it to plugin for Google Reader.

7 Reasons Why I Use Google Chrome Over Firefox (and Internet Explorer)

The Mr. Smith — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:03:55 +0000

Mozilla Firefox is becoming a household name. While it still may not hold the market share of internet browsers, a title still owned by Internet Explorer, many people are beginning to install it on their home and work computers. I was one of the early Firefox users over 5 years ago when it was still in its initial release. Today, Firefox can be found on nearly every computer, even if its not used. However, the new kid on th block has taken some of Firefox’s thunder. Google Chrome has only been out for a couple of years now, yet it is already taking a market share, and it seems to be coming from the expense of Firefox (not more leaving Internet Explorer.) So why are people leaving Firefox for Chrome? Here are just a few reasons why I am one of those who have left Firefox for Chrome:

1. Google Chrome is faster: Speed tests have proven that Google Chrome is faster than Mozilla Firefox. In fact many tests have claimed Chrome is the fastest overall browser out there (see Lifehackers Speed Tests and overall winners).

2. Google Chrome’s Omnibar: While this is a simple feature, it is one I love. The omnibar in Chrome is essentially the address bar and search bar combined. Chrome, much like Firefox, can search through browser bookmarks and history as you type in the address bar, but the one thing Firefox cannot do is provide search results in that same bar. Also, searching has always been what Google does best. What if you prefer Bing? Believe it or not, Chrome will let you change your default search engine from Google, even to its rival engine Bing.

3. Adobe Flash is built into Chrome: Again, Flash built into the latest Chrome builds is a simple feature, but it’s one that makes life so much easier. Flash is updated by itself. It does not have to be installed, and if it crashes, only the page fails, not the entire browser. One of the pet peeves I always had with Firefox was the fact installing Flash to work with the browser. With Chrome it’s a non-issue since it is built in.

4. Chrome handles extensions better: Firefox’s biggest strength is its wide variety of extensions. This allows Firefox users to customize the browser however they want. If they are a social butterfly, they can install loads of Facebook & Twitter extensions. If they are a college professor, there are plenty of research tools available as add-ons. Chrome realized this from the start, and very early on in their development, welcomed the extension community. In fact, Chrome has some extensions that are far better than the Firefox versions (take the Google Voice extension for example). However, for the most part many extensions Firefox version is stronger than its Chrome cousins since the development has been in place longer. So why does Chrome handle extensions better? Because if one extension doesn’t work, then the one extension can be disabled instead of crippling and slowing down the browser. In fact, you can install, disable, and remove extensions in Chrome without restarting the browser. This makes life far easier to explore and experiment with add-ons you may not mess with on Firefox.

5. Chrome has many builds and versions for the brave souls to the safety users: Chrome comes in 4 versions: 1) Stable which is not updated often but the most reliable. 2) The beta which is updated monthly but not as reliable. 3) The dev channel which is updated at least once a week, but is not reliable and contains bugs. 4) The Canary build which is updated almost daily, but with lots of bugs. This means if you just can’t wait for the rumored new features out there, and you’re willing to deal with bugs, just change your version (or what Chrome calls channels) to the Dev or Canary build. If you want to see detailed differences of the versions, or install a specific version, you can visit here.

6. Chrome has Extension Sync: Extension sync is still in its infancy in Chrome. Currently all versions have extension sync except the stable channel. However, Google itself admits the extension sync is far from perfect. Extension sync does not sync uninstalled or disabled extesnions, only if you add a new one. Also, sometimes I have had instances of only half of my extensions syncing. The reason this is a strength in my opinion is because Chrome is at leasting making an attempt and offering it to users. Firefox has yet to do this, even though it has been requested since extensions were introduced.

7. Chrome has a cleaner design: The simplicity of Chrome’s design helps put the focus of the browser where it should be: on the internet content. While I love Firefox’s themes, it can be distracting. There is just something comforting knowing all my tools and needs are right in the open, in only one tab menu. For those who have seen Firefox 4 beta, it is beginning to shift to a Chrome like design, but there are still bugs in it.

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The Mr. Smith — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 15:40:27 +0000

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