Simple Booklet...Fast & Easy Web Flipbooks

Simple Booklet provides one of the easiest platforms that I have seen for fast web publishing. Why would you want to use it? Well, who wouldn't want to make a fun, and interactive "flipbook" to communicate information?

To get started, just click on Create (creating an account is optional, but it does allow for you to save your booklets for later editing). You will see a screen with a simple toolbar, and a large area that says Click Anywhere to Add Content. It's that easy! When you click you will see a window of options. If you want to change the background just click Background, add text? click Text, and if you need to add a video just click Video. I think you get the idea =) You can even resize your flipbook by dragging from the bottom-right corner. Once you've added content you can click and drag your content around on a slide easily. When you need another page, just click the small page-turn corner that's found to the upper-right of your book (if you need to go back click the one on the left).

When you're finished with your flipbook click the Publish  button to see your options. You can publish it publicly, get a short url (ex. http://midd.me/jUrw), and also get the embeddable code to add your flipbook to your website (see below)!

Scholastic Study Jams...for Math & Science

Scholastic has a site with some pretty cool, and brief, math and science videos. Click on "Math" or "Science" from the menu to view all of the topics for that subject. Click the topic that you want to view to see more options. It's easy to get started just go to http://studyjams.scholastic.com/. I learned about this site from Kelly Tenkley and her iLearn Technology blog.

Quick Notes or To-Do's....Knowcase.com

Ever find yourself in need of jotting down some quick ideas or even needing to create a to-do list (I know...ha ha)?? I know it would be even better if we could find a way to complete our to-do lists immediately...but until we figure that out, at least there's an easy way to keep your list organized. Knowcase.com provides a straightforward, easy-to-use format for creating quick lists. Even better is that you can share these lists with others so that they too can get to to-do-ing =)

To get started, just go to www.knowcase.com and click Start a new page. Yep, it's that easy...and creating an account is even easier. You can just enter your email address and a password (found to the right of your document), that's it. Creating an account will save your list with your account so that when you login to the site in the future you will have your document.

To enter text and items on the site, just use the toolbar buttons found at the top. You can also primarily use your keyboard to make your list or jot down your ideas. Pressing enter will start a new line and tab on your keyboard will indent. If you want to make an item a to-do item (with a handy little checkbox), just click Todo from the toolbar. If you need to move the order of your items around, just click and drag from the left of the items.

You'll find the options for sharing your document at the bottom of the page. If you haven't created an account you have the option of sharing with specific people. Just click on Share and enter your name and the recipients email address. When you're logged in, you will also have the option of making your document viewable and editable by only You or by Everyone. Just click the words next to the images of the eye and pencil to change these options.

Classroom Application
I can see Knowcase being used by teachers for organization or in a class setting used during a brainstorming activity. I also think Knowcase could provide a great platform for students organizing their ideas. When they're done they could just share their list with their teacher via email!

Enjoy!

Weblist...One page of web shortcuts!

weblist.me

Weblist.me is a site designed to put links for multiple websites in one place. Weblist.me puts the web addresses that you enter in an easy-to-use format that would be great for student use.

To get started just go to Weblist and fill in the websites that you want to use. Creating an account for this site is entirely optional. You can just start entering the web addresses that you want to use. Just click the plus sign to add more links.

I did find that the "Add Media" option wasn't always successful for me so I stuck to just using the websites. You'll want to add a name for your weblist, and know that the name you enter here will be used for the site address. Once you click to Create List a window will display with several important addresses. The first address is the one that you want to share with students and others for them to access your weblist. The second address is one that you want to be sure to save so that you have the option of editting your weblist in the future. Once you close the window you will see your completed list. I really like that the sites are tiled so that you get a preview of what's on the webpages.

How does this get even better?? =) Well when you click a link from your weblist page the site will display with a small toolbar at the top. From this toolbar you can click the arrows to move through the different pages from the weblist or just hover over the name of the page to view the other pages in a list.

Classroom Application

Teachers can create weblists for their students to use for research or to introduce a skill or concept. Students can create their own weblists for projects by linking to different webpages and videos. 

Check out the weblist I made http://weblist.me/Onlineclassroomtools-0 for an example and some great classroom tools!

RSS Feeds...What are they and are they useful to me??

RSS feeds have been a part of my life for a while now, so I forget sometimes that others are not aware of the benefit of using them and the time that they can save you. If you're in the habit of checking your favorite sites regularly for new and updated information, then RSS feeds are certainly for you! To take advantage of RSS feeds you need an RSS Aggregator or Reader. I use Google Reader for my RSS feeds because it's online and free. Want to try it out? I think the video below does a good job of explaining the function of Google Reader and how to use it.





More sites than you may realize contain RSS Feeds that you can subscribe to including most all news sites, blogs, and podcast pages. If you see an image on a webpage similar to the one below, then it has an RSS feed  that you can subscribe to.

Usually you can just click the image and select to subscribe to the feed, or copy the address of the page and paste it into your Reader. Take a look at the RSS feed button at the top of this blog to see what I'm talking about...and feel free to subscribe =)

Great Online Timers...

It was brought to my attention that an online timer I had posted about previously was no longer online. That got me looking around for other online timers, and I have found several that serve some different purposes fantastically...

How often have you told your students, "You have 10 minutes to complete this activity.", only to lose track of time thereafter. Luckily, there are many online timers that make it quite simple to track your time. Even better is that many of them put a large display on your computer that you're students can see to monitor their time.

e.ggtimer.com - There's a couple of things I really like about this timer. First, you can actually type in the time you want to use for the timer in the url, for example, e.ggtimer.com/5minutes, would automatically pull up a website with a countdown from 5 minutes. You type in any time amount here, as well as a few other cool things that you learn about on the site's main page.

Online Stopwatch - This site can serve as a stopwatch or a timer. To use the stopwatch click the green arrow stopwatch link. You'll then be taken to a page that will allow you to start the stopwatch. If you need go back to the main page just click the provided "back" link. To use the timer function of the site, click the "Count Down" red arrow. Use the buttons on the screen to set your time, then click the "Set" button. From here you can start the timer.

timer.onlineclock.net/ - This is a simplistic timer that can be shown quite large on your screen. Just use the links in the upper-left to adjust the size. Use the drop-down menu under the timer to set a time. The timer will begin as soon as a time is selected.

ELECT.IO...Election Candidate Information

ELECT.IO provides an easy to understand format for finding out some information about candidates for different positions in our local election. It's easy to use, just go to elect.io (all you have to do is type that in your browser), and then enter your zip code and Find Elections. You'll see a tab for each position that is up for re-election and the number of candidates running for said position. If you click a tab you will most likely see more information about the individual candidates.