Teacher Training Videos

Teacher Training Videos is a great web site with, yep, you guessed it, teacher training videos. The topics range from PowerPoint, Moodle, Twitter, to Blackboard, Blogger and YouTube. The videos are easy to follow and the site has a huge amount of resources available for teachers.

This is a great way to learn about some new technologies and how to use them from the comfort of your home. And, it's free.

Resources for Students

Here are some great resources for your students. Please share these with them.

TRACKCLASS:

Trackclass is a great, free resource for students. The site allows students to track their classes and assignments, and even will send reminders (email or SMS) for upcoming assignment due dates and test dates. There is also a note taking utility so students can take notes on it if they have a computer in school, or transcribe notes later. You can even attach files to each class and assignment to keep things organized. It is a great way for students to stay organized.

There is also a version for mobile phones and the iPhone, so students can stay organized no matter where they are.

I found it very easy to use, with a great help section. I wish they had this when I was in school! I was even thinking that teachers could use this too.

SHOSHIKU

Shoshiku is another free class organizer, similar to Trackclass. It has a calendar, notes, task list, and reminder system like Trackclass. It is not as full featured, in my opinion, as Trackclass, but it is easy to use and some students may like it better than Trackclass.

DWEEBER

Dweeber is a homework collaboration site that also has tools to help students learn better. It is described as a homework social network. Students sign up, for free, and can add their friends, known as "dweebs" to their network. Students can work on homework together and help each other out. It even as a virtual whiteboard so that they can work together just as if they were in the same room. There is a message center, study sessions, and even a place to post links to web sites that you find helpful in doing your work.

This is a great resource for students who can't get together physically to work on homework or projects.

Share these with your students and please share any others you know of with us.

Free, Virtual Educational Technology Conference

FETC is a great educational technology conference held in Florida. They also run a virtual conference that is very good. The next virtual conference is October 22, 2009, from 10am to 6pm.

The virtual conference is easy to navigate and contains video presentations, discussion forums, vendor sites, and more. It is well worth your time. Everything is also archived for future reference in case you can't do all of it in real time.

There are even drawings for freebies from the vendors.

You can register for it here and get more information. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about educational technology and how it can improve teaching and learning.

New Teacher Survival Central

Discovery Education has a great site for new teachers. The New Teacher Survival Central has lots of great resources for new teachers (and veteran teachers) on technology, parent communication, classroom management, lesson plan resources, and much more.

There are tutorials and training resources that will help new teachers adapt to their new career. The Survival Tool Kit has a best of the web section with links to great web sites for educators.

The site is easy to navigate with great resources. I check in every once and while to see what's new that can help me in my classroom also. The site is great for any educator. Don't forget to check out the rest of Discovery Education's site also.

NSTA Science Teacher Grab Bag

The NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) has a great resource on their web page, called the Science Teacher's Grab Bag. If you filter by cost "free" it comes up with close to 100 free resources for science teachers. You can also filter by different dollar amounts if you have funds to spend on resources. You do not have to be a member to access this site.

In general, NSTA is a great resource for teachers and I always recommend that science teachers join. Your membership gets you access to more resources, discounts on NSTA publications, and includes a subscription to a journal of your choice.

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Google Tutor

A post on another blog reminded me that I wanted to post something about Google Tutor. Google Tutor is not affiliated with Google, but is a great resource about all of Google's products.

The site contains how-to articles, helpful hints and tips, a discussion forum, and more. It is a great resource for people just starting out using Google's tools as well as for Google veterans. You can subscribe to updates via RSS or by email. This is a great way to get notified about new articles and information.

It is not specifically for education, but some of the articles do relate to how to use Google's applications in school. For more specific information about Google for Educators, click HERE.

Google has a lot of great tools and applications and Google Tutor is a great way to learn more about them and expand the usefulness of the applications.