Sylvan Technology Leadership Blog

http://world.time.com/timelapse

Take a look at geographic locations and see how they have changed in 30 years!

https://www.fastfig.com/pad/

“FastFig takes a powerful math engine and pairs it with a proprietary, patent-pending UI that intelligently determines if a user is typing math or text and formats it accordingly. Collaborative tools allow any users to save their notes on any device, share them with other users around the world, and print or export easily. FastFig is the lead consumer product ofFigLabs, Inc., and was funded by the prestigious DreamIt Ventures as part of their inaugural Austin program in 2013. We’ve been featured in stories by outlets like Business Insider andTechnically Philly.”

http://www.thegoodproject.org/

From the Harvard Graduate School of Education, The Good Project is a large scale effort to identify individuals and institutions that exemplify good work – work that is excellent in quality, socially responsible, and meaningful to its practitioners – and to determine how best to increase the incidence of good work in our society.

http://educationgalaxy.com/features

“Education Galaxy was created to allow great teachers to collaborate with content items that will allow them to help prepare students for state test while mastering specific skills. Millions of educators across the United States currently spend billions each year on educational content that can be suspect on quality. We do this because we currently do not have a way to share the things we are doing in our classrooms easily with others. This site is designed to start that collaboration process to allow teachers to share content questions and provide a delivery system for teachers to assess students by standard.

Quite simply, we are passionate about education and passionate about providing highly effective and affordable tools to teachers.”

http://www.safeshare.tv/

Tired of the distracting advertisements surounding your Youtube videos you share with students? This little utility will eliminate them and provide you a clean interface for sharing Youtube videos.

http://typingclub.com/

A free touch typing tool for students. This is also available in the Chrome Web Store and the price is right, Free!

http://www.soometa.com/

Soometa allows you to combine multimedia resources (Youtube, images, text…) and build curriculum content which includes interactive feedback from students.

http://www.icivics.org/

iCivics prepares young Americans to become knowledgeable, engaged 21st century citizens by creating free and innovative educational materials.

https://collegeabacus.com/

A nice tool to share with parents related to the cost of college for their children. Provides a clear picture of the what the expenses are, currently, for prospective colleges.

http://www.essaytagger.com/

http://www.whatsoproudlywehail.org/

“Created under the notion that “developing robust American citizens is a matter of the heart as well as the mind,” the curriculum is largely centered around classic American short stories and intended for inquiry-based learning environments.”

http://boomwriter.com/Home/Schools

Students use technology to write stories collaboratively, discuss their work, vote on work  until ultimately you end up with a published book.

In Bloom’s Taxonomy of cognition, the highest levels of thinking and learning are “Creating” and “Evaluating.” BoomWriter guides students to do both… and have fun in the process!

The educational benefits of BoomWriter are seemingly endless.

BoomWriter can serve as an incredibly helpful tool for any balanced literacy program, and teachers already using the program instantly recognize the levels of investment and engagement demonstrated by their students.

Teachers also have the option of providing instruction for students in the form of “Guiding Notes” prior to the creation of each new chapter.

BoomWriter is standards-based and can be used for “in action” practice of specific genres (from Science Fiction to Drama), and even for test preparation: collaboratively creating a top-scoring essay.

http://thekidshouldseethis.com/

This site is dedicated to sharing videos that were not originally intended for children/students, but that could be useful in the classroom or for instructional purposes.

http://creately.com/

Create graphic organizers using this web based application.

(Available in the Chrome Web Store)

Create infographics with Easelly!

http://www.easel.ly/

http://infogr.am/

A web based tool for creating eye catching infographics.

http://create.visual.ly/
Visually is a one-stop shop for the creation of data visualizations and infographics, bringing together Marketing Gurus, Data Nerds and Design Junkies based on shared interests. Visually Marketplace introduces ecommerce and project management into the Visually platform, making it easier than ever for buyers and sellers of infographics to get them made, distributed, liked, commented on, and shared.

https://schoolforge.net/

SchoolForge’s mission is to unify independent organizations that advocate, use, and develop open educational resources. We advocate the use of open texts and lessons, open curricula, free software and open source in education. Thanks. Now take me to the free educational software!

*Might be useful when trying to correlate curriculum to CCSS…

http://ge.tt/

Gett allows you to easily upload and share electronic files.

http://www.grouptweet.com/

Grouptweet allows any number of contributors to Tweet from a group account safely and securely.  Tweets can be moderated and scheduled.

http://tagboard.com/

Tagboard allows you to search Twitter via a Twitter hashtag.

http://www.classwith.us/

ClassWithUs is a free tool for teachers for integrating email and sms messaging into their communication strategies.

https://coggle.it

Coggle is an interesting tool for creating digital documents. They can be shared, collaborated on, and exported to other tools.

Get the full skinny on their blog, http://bloggle.coggle.it/

http://www.buncee.com/

Buncee is a cloud based multimedia creation tool.

http://turinggame.sciencemuseum.org.uk/

An exhibit of the Science Museum covering the history Enigma System through a serices of challenges.

More about the Science Museum – The Science Museum was founded in 1857 as part of the South Kensington Museum, and gained independence in 1909. Today the Museum is world renowned for its historic collections, awe-inspiring galleries and inspirational exhibitions

http://memofon.com/

Memofon is a text based mind mapping tool.

Check out the Google Presentation to get more information: https://docs.google.com/a/sylvan.k12.ca.us/presentation/d/1KPmnLdXPBAmouvZxmht3pnJXmexiQD499-PuONaxiyY/edit#slide=id.p

http://drop.notch.net/

Drop is a minimal, additive, typing game created by the creator of MineCraft. (requires the Unity plugin)

https://www.obaverse.net/welcome/

Oba is an online learning management system developed by the University of Oregon and provides a way for teachers to create online courses for students.

http://www.anestuary.com/

An Estuary is a start up focusing on professional development for educators. This group may be one to check back in on later in the summer.

http://cropp.me/

Cropp.me is a uber cool and easy-to-use online tool for auto-cropping.
Finds the most “interesting” region in an image and suggest the right cropping for it based on the size you need. it can also be used to auto-crop multiple images at a time.

https://www.edx.org/

“EdX is a not-for-profit enterprise of its founding partners Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that features learning designed specifically for interactive study via the web.”

http://mymetryx.com/

Mymetrex is a tool that allows teachers to create formative assessments for their classrooms. It is described as a tool that will replace the teacher’s clipboard.

http://www.totsplash.com/

Web based tool for creating mindmaps. This tool works similarly to Prezi.

http://www.gliffy.com/

We shared Gliffy years ago, but it continues to make improvements. Those looking for a web based tool to make diagrams may want to revisit the app.