Evernote Clearly for Chrome gets some great new features!

Evernote, one of my favorite web apps (along with Google's many apps), has a great product, Evernote Clearly which is a browser extension for Google Chrome (other browsers will be added soon) that allows you to read online with less distractions. You simply click the extension and it hides all the distractions from blogs and articles, allowing you to read with less distractions and more easily.It use it a lot, especially on sites that I...

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TechForum NY is Friday October 19th - register now

TechForum NY, sponsored by Tech&Learning Magazine, is Friday, October 19th at the Westchester Marriott in Tarrytown, NY (670 White Plains Rd., Tarrytown, NY 10591). Registration and continental breakfast begin at 7 am with the opening keynote starting at 8:15.Join us for a day of learning, sharing, collaboration and more. There will be a keynote address, breakout sessions, and round table sessions where everyone contributes in...

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DEN Virtual Conference Live is Oct 20th - free!

Discovery Education is once again hosting a fall, online, free virtual conference for educators. These are great events and a great way to get some free PD and resources. October 20th, 2012.  9am-4pm ETRegister now!I’m sure at this point you’re wondering what the BIG changes are.  Let me break it down for you.More LIVE: Every session will be live-streamed.  This means that you’ll see full video feeds of every presenter throughout...

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Discovery Education's YouTube Channel - great stuff here for free

Discovery Education, best known for it's Streaming video service and Science TechBooks, also has a great YouTube Channel. Discovery Education's YouTube channel has great resources, including webinars for teachers, and many other videos. They have playlists and tags so that you can better find what you are looking for.The webinars are excellent, with many of them from Steve Dembo, on all kinds of topics including Web 2.0, Social Media, how to use...

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Lifehacker App Packs for Students

 Lifehacker is a great site with tips, information, and resources on pretty much everything, from cooking to travel to technology to education. They have a great resource called the Lifehacker Packs for Students. These are lists, with links, to great apps for students. They are sorted by operating system and then by category. There are some great apps here and it's a great place to find great apps for students all in one place. This is also...

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Prezi interactive presentation tool gets some new features

Prezi, the zooming presentation tool that makes presentations engaging and fun, has added some cool features. Prezi has added 3-D backgrounds for the presentations, which can add some great images to your presentations. Also added are Fade-In Animations like PowerPoint has to slowly reveal your content or only have it come up once you click. Great for posing questions and hiding the answer. The third new feature is screen blackout. Press the...

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Google Maps now has street views of Brazil and Prehispanic Mexican Cities

Google maps is a great resource. I use it for navigation and looking at cool places. Many teachers also use it in their classrooms to show students different places in the world for Geography or History class.Google has added some more Street View images to Google Maps that can be used for virtual field trips. They already have some great imagery of the Amazon and Antarctic, and now they have it for Brazil and Mexico.Brazil includes major cities...

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Welcome Back! Some great resources to get your school year started

Welcome back to school! I hope everyone had a great summer and was able to relax and recharge. Our district starts with teacher professional development and classroom setup this coming Thursday, K-9 start next Tuesday, and 10-12 start Wednesday. The summer has flown by!The beginning of the year is always a little crazy for all teachers. Getting your room setup, implementing new ideas into your lesson plans, getting to know your students, and just...

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Black Menu - access all of your Google apps from here - Chrome ext

I'm a huge user of Google's many apps and services. I use Sites, Blogger, Chrome, Chromebook, Android, Search, Reader, Calendar, Gmail, Tasks, and much more. While I have shortcuts on my new tab page in Chrome and on my Chromebook, I can't fit all of them on one page. iGoogle is also being shutdown so I won't have that either. But, I just found out about a new Chrome browser extension that is even better from Chrome Story. Black Menu.Black Menu is...

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Google Cloud Print - great tool with great features

Google Cloud Print is a very cool, useful service Google has. Google Cloud Print connects your printers to the web, allowing you to print from any device (smartphone, tablet, Chrome device, PC, or other web-connected devices) without any cables. Heck, you don't even have to be in the same building, or state, for that matter.It is easy to use and has some great features. You can print to cloud-ready printers that don't require a PC or to a printer...

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Science Niblets - The Science Behind Everyday Topics

Science Niblets is a cool site I learned about from my PLN on Twitter today that explores the science of everyday topics.The site has articles that describe and explain scientific topics including natural phenomena, biology, technology, physics, and more all related to things we experience in our daily lives.The articles are geared towards the general public and are short and easy to understand. They provide a great way for students to learn more...

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CollateBox - Simplest way to organize & share spreadsheets

CollateBox is a free online (beta) service, by invite (request one on their site) that allows you to organize and collaborate on spreadsheet data. Copy and paste existing data from a spreadsheet into Collatebox, set filters, hide columns, set up views for different people and then update it. One of the big features that set it apart is that you can limit what data each person sees and customize their views, all while keeping the master data updated.This...

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If This Then That - Put together “recipes” to automate actions online

If This Then That is a very cool site I learned about last Friday at EdCampCT. It allows you to create "recipes" that will automate actions online for you. For example, you could have one that will automatically download a photo that you were tagged in on Facebook to your Dropbox account.It's easy to use with step-by-step instructions and plenty of pre-made recipes that you can use. Twitter, Facebook, Evernote, email are all "channels" that can be...

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What Can You Do With Google? Lots of things.

What Can You Do With Google is a nice infographic from GCFLearnFree that provides a nice summary of some of the tools and apps that Google has and what you can do with them. The web page also has an interactive with more details and information.This is a great summary of some of the things you can do with Google's many products. Check it out.Here's some more great ways to use Google's many apps and resources in education.GCFLearnFree is a program...

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Adobe Educator's Choice Awards - honoring innovative educators - apply now

Adobe Education Exchange is a great resource for educators, with resources, lesson ideas, lesson plans, and a place to collaborate with other educators. The 2012 Educator's Choice Awards is an awards program for educators. Any educator can enter. You submit your innovative teaching and learning materials and you could win some really nice prizes. Submit  your projects, lesson plans, curricula, tutorials, and more. Educators will rate...

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Google Docs and Evernote - when and why I use each one

 This past Friday I attended EdcampCT and had a great time learning, sharing, and meeting new people. I facilitated a discussion about Evernote and one of the questions I got was "why not just use Google Docs for notetaking?" I went on to explain all the features of Evernote but wanted to expand on it a bit.Evernote is my way of organizing lesson plans, lesson resources, notes, web clippings, and more. I can share my notes with others, like...

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Sikorsky STEM Challenge - real world engineering for high school students

I was an engineer for 10 years before deciding to become an educator and work to help other students become engineers and scientists. I was an Aerospace engineer and worked for companies like Pratt & Whitney and Sikorsky Aircraft.Sikorsky Aircraft, a leader in helicopters around the world, is headquartered in Stratford, CT, where I live, and has a huge office and plant in Bridgeport, CT where I teach. Their helicopters, like the Blackhawk and...

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Evernote - my adventure this year using it with my students

Evernote is one of my favorite tools and resources. I use it for lesson plans, research, collecting resources, clipping things from the web, organizing materials and much more. Evernote and Google Apps get 90% of what I need to do done.I just won a very cool contest Evernote hosted for educators. Along with 9 other teachers, I won a year of Evernote premium for me and all of my students, along with training and support to implement it with my class.I...

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Interesting idea - Chromebook + Nexus 7 instead of just an iPad

At EdcampCT this past week, I was chatting with Greg McVerry (@jgmac1106) about devices, 1-1 and BYOD and he made an interesting comment. Instead of a school purchasing an iPad and keyboard for all the students, what about a Chromebook and Nexus 7 for each student?I like this idea for a lot of reasons. An iPad starts at $500 and then add the case for $50 and keyboard for around $50 and you are at $600 for one device. Then add in any apps that are...

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EdCampCT Reflections and Resources

EdcampCT 2012 was held this past Friday at the Ethel Walker School in Simsbury, CT. Hats off to the planning/hosting team for another great event. And, of course, hats off to the food service team for the awesome lunch and those incredible homemade potato chips!For those who don't know, Edcamp is a great series of free, unconferences for educators. The Edcamp model is unique in that attendees set the agenda the morning of the conference and the sessions...

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Label 59 - free web based presentations and demos

Label 59 is a free, web app that lets you annotate photos with interactive labels. It's easy to use and actually pretty fun.It's easy to use. Add your photo, add the markers for your labels, add some features, add actions for each marker and then publish it.When you are done and publish your work, you get a direct link to share with people. You can also download a Zip folder with all the related files in the premium plan.This is a great resource...

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Microsoft Store visit - very impressed

I recently visited a brick-and-mortar Microsoft Store. My wife and I were in the Danbury, CT area and decided to head over to the Danbury Fair Mall and go to LL Bean and, of course, I had to check out a tech store, so we went to the new Microsoft Store.I was impressed by the fact that it was large, bright and open. There were plenty of customers and store employees. The store employees all had t-shirts on with different things like "Ask me about...

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