Civics Lessons for ESL Students
EL Civics is full of lessons, activities, and virtual tours designed to help students learn about American civics. EL Civics has lessons that cover the functions of government, important holidays, and US History. There is also a section called life skills that contains lessons to teach personal finance, finding employment, and other skills needed to […]
Proprietary Program Alternatives
Thanks to Mark Spahr for the link to a great list of the Top 50 Proprietary Programs and Their Open Source Alternatives. The list was originally published by Jimmy Atkinson on Web Hosting Database. If you’re looking for something to replace an expensive proprietary program check out the list by clicking here.
Wikimapia – Wikipedia on a Map
Wikimapia is a simple concept and no doubt one that has been used on a variety of mapping programs. The idea is to use Google Maps and add information about all types of locations on the map. Wikimapia wants to “describe the whole world.” They’re not there yet, but you and your students can help. […]
New Zoho Show Features – Including Export to PPT
While I was on vacation, I missed the announcement of some great new features available on Zoho Show. In all there are eight new options on Zoho Show, I’ve highlighted the three most relevant to educational use below. Visit the Zoho Blog for the entire list of enhancements. Presentations created with Zoho Show can now […]
Geosense – Online World Geography Game
Geosense is a fun way to use and improve your knowledge of world geography. Players can play against the computer or challenge another player. Geosense can be played anonymously or you can register and have your scores recorded for you. There are four Geosense maps (US, World, Europe, or advanced) that players can select from. […]
The Most Read Posts
After a five day vacation (camping in the rain) I’m back to civilization. I’m trying to get caught up on nearly 5,000 new items in my RSS reader. While I’m catching up, check out five of the most commonly read blog posts over the last six months. In order by popularity here are the five […]
Summer Professional Development – Part II – Social Bookmarking
Recently at my school all teachers’ laptops had to be collected for re-imaging. A major source of anxiety for many teachers was fear of losing all of the websites they had bookmarked in their browsers. I gave many people directions on how to export their bookmarks as an html file to use and import back […]
Summer Professional Development – Part I – RSS
Today is our last day of school. Every year at this time teachers and students are exhausted and the last thing we want to think about is professional development. So if you’re feeling tired and exhausted and don’t want to think about professional development or the next school year for a week or two, mark […]
A Quick Zoho Writer v. Google Docs Comparison
Zoho Writer and Google Documents are great free services that every teacher and student should at least try, if not use consistently. Google and Zoho are great because student work is automatically saved and can be accessed from any Internet-connected computer regardless of operating system. Both programs perform the same functions so deciding which to […]
Youtube and Music Appreciation
I’m always looking for and listening to ideas about using popular websites as a part of an educational experience. Recently a music teacher shared with me how he is using Youtube as a part of the Music Appreciation course he teaches. Youtube is filled with videos of musical performances of all types. Often users can […]
