My first post as an iTDi associate, I wrote about an effective strategy that can be used in large classes with some suggested tips and web2.0 tools..more
Barbra asked me to write a post about my three favorite web tools, and it was truly a great start to blogging and a huge opportunity for me! Im deeply thankful for giving me this chance to have my own post on her award winning site.
I wrote about Twitter, Wordle, and Popplet and how can we use them to promote the 21st century skills.
Heres my "Guest Post" :
Tools for the 21st century Teachers
Thank you Barbra, you`ve inspired me to write and share! :-)
No Internet ...no problem at all !
I taught my students several ICT skills without having an Internet connection in my school, and that was for almost five years, ..so all this time I had to search for possible alternatives tech tools, it was kinda hard thing, but I found a lot of good stuff! like websites, free software, flash files of science simulations and some youtube videos , and saved them on CDs as an e-library and a reference for me and many teachers and even for students who don`t have Internet at their homes, most often Ive been using screen capture apps to show my students how to do things online like to create an email account or a blog, or how to search effectively on the web, and sometimes I used my cell-phone to connect to the Internet.
For the most part, Microsoft powerpoint was and still my favorite tech tool, all my lessons were posted on slides with some links to videos or flash files saved in my laptop, I made micro-lessons and virtual tours with it, as well as frontpage, I`ve created a scavenger hunt , an online research module and webquests lessons using it.
Besides powerpoint and frontpage, I also suggest these free applications, which I believe are useful and effective even if you are connected to the internet. can be used for math, science , geography, screencasting, mindmaps,.. the listed below are my favorite ones :
1- Teleport:You can download all or a part of a website to your computer, enabling you to browse the site directly from your hard disk, as if you were really online.
2-Youtube downloader:Allows you to download videos from youtube, facebook, google videos... and convert them to other video formats.
3- Yenka :Provides 3Ds experiemnts and models for mathmatics, science and technology.
4-Periodic Table:An alternative to Ptable with detailed information , images (126) for each element, graphs of important element properties, biographies and much more.
5- E-draw max :A diagramming program, with features that make it perfect not only for professional looking flow diagrams, organizational charts, business diagrams and charts, but also network diagrams, building plans, midmaps, workflows..check it out!
6- 1st screen recorder :The easiest tool for recording a computer screen with voice , and you can choose the format of the recording file.
7- World Wide Telescope:Explore the universe with impressive content from Hubble Space Telescope, NASA`s Spitzer Space Telescope , and other space -based telescopes.its one of my favorites, amazing!.
8- Earth Explorer:Provides a total 3D view of our beautiful planet earth. It also includes location information of 270 countries and regions, boundaries, lakes, rivers, earthquakes.
9- Geo-Gebra : Interactive graphics, algebra and spreadsheet, from elementary school to university level.
10- Xmind: An easy -use mind map, brainstorming tool, I made a youtube video on how to master it in only one minute.
11- StickySorter: Organizing ideas by adding sticky notes, with the ability of sorting it in groups,it can be used in brainstroming session, and affinity diagram method.I made a video about it, but its in Arabic.
12- Microsoft Photo Story: Automatically arranging your pictures and picking animations randomly, with the ability to add sounds.
13-Windows Movie Maker: Create a movie an easy creative way, just simply drag the pictures, sound files and arrange the time line with some text on the pictures on empty slides, and you`re done!.
14- MicrosoftMath 4.0: Graphing calculator with formulas and equations library, a triangle solver, a unit conversion tool,
15- Anki : Making remembering things much easier, because it is a lot of more efficient than traditional study methods, you can either greatly decrease you time spent studying, or greatly increase the amount you learnm more features here.
16- WonderShare Quiz Creator : A powerful quiz maker that lets trainers and educators create professional flash-based quizzes and surveys with multimedia.
17- HotPotatot: Include six applications, enabling you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the world wide.
18- Simple Diagram: Express your thoughts with this small creative application.
19- Rational or Reasonable : A great tool to promote critical thinking.
20- Crocodile simulators: A range of simulators : Crocodile Physics, Crocodile Chemistry, Crocodile Technology and Crocodile ICT, I love this package!
You can also download some flash files and add them to powerpoint, or present them on a datashow, like this amazing site " Absorb " which has more than 1400 science free resources!.
I would love to share some of the great resources my PLN has shared on Twitter! http://kiwicommons.com/index.php?p=9025&tag=embraci...
