This document provides a summary of a professional development presentation on various technology tools for teachers. It includes 52 entries with short descriptions and links for tools like screencasting, social bookmarking, URL shorteners, Creative Commons, and more. The tools covered include ways to flip the classroom, backup and share files, create online polls and games, and access educational resources.

1. Joshua Harnwell Assistant Head of Mathematics HarnwellJ@knox.nsw.edu.au The Tech Toolbox for Teachers Knox Grammar School Term 4 Professional Development

2. Screencasting 2 Monday, 10 October 2011 Screencasting is recording a video of your computer screen, while you are working on it. It can also record sound. http://www.screenr.com/ (online) http://www.camstudio.org/ (software) http://www.techsmith.com/jing/ (free/paid) Flipping the classroom example

3. Bookmarking 3 Monday, 10 October 2011 Online Social Bookmarking lets you easily store bookmarks in one place (backed up), search them and share them with others. http://www.delicious.com/ http://www.diigo.com/ https://bookmarks.google.com/ Store your links, so that you can find them again Share links with colleagues Get your class to share links with each other

4. URL Shorteners 4 Monday, 10 October 2011 Changes a long link into a short one http://bitly.com/ http://tinyurl.com/ http://goo.gl/ You can write a very short url on the board to share it with students.

5. Creative Commons 5 Monday, 10 October 2011 http://www.creativecommons.org/ Tell people if they are allowed to use your work. Much better than ‘copyright’

6. Youtube Videos 6 Monday, 10 October 2011 Like to show a Youtube video without all the advertising and junk! (Potentially inappropriate) http://tinyurl.com/knoscars2010 http://viewpure.com/ http://zamzar.com/ or http://saveyoutube.com/ or use an addon for your browser If you are relying on a Youtube clip and the internet drops out, having a backup copy can be very helpful

7. Youtube Videos 7 Monday, 10 October 2011 Edit Youtube videos – trim and join. Action scene from 2:04 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lixBRjOJlM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osOdPyvYqIQ http://www.tubechop.com/ http://www.dragontape.com/ Show students just the part of a youtube clip that you want – or give them one link (for home) with multiple youtube videos.

8. Laptop running slowly? Go and get it reimaged by IT. OR… Get everything off your desktop (this is all loaded into RAM) Use CCleaner (piriform.com/download) Removes temp files and cleans up uninstalled programs Check Start > startup 8 Monday, 10 October 2011

9. Creative Commons Images 9 Monday, 10 October 2011 Use images in class worksheets / powerpoint slides or to show your class the legal way! http://www.flickr.com/ http://www.google.com/ http://pics4learning.com/ http://search.creativecommons.org/ http://discover.odai.yale.edu/ydc/ Images are fantastic to get students thinking and engage them in content. Example.

10. Backup Online 10 Monday, 10 October 2011 Save your files ‘in the cloud’ so that hard disk failure won’t mean that you lose everything! Dropbox = 2 GB Google Drive coming soon! Sugarsync = 5 GB http://tinyurl.com/jhsugarsync Windows Live Skydrive= 25 GB (max 50Mb files) We encourage our students to back up their work, but do we do the same?

11. Reading Lists 11 Monday, 10 October 2011 An easy way to store links to website to read later. You may only want to look at these once. http://instapaper.com/ http://readitlater.com/ Apple’s iCloud Solution When looking through RSS feeds / Blogs / other links, if you don’t have time to assess the resources but think it may be useful, then ‘readitlater’

12. Social: Facebook, Twitter and G+ 12 Monday, 10 October 2011 These three applications let you follow/friend someone. The can be used ‘socially’ and ‘professionally’ http://www.facebook.com/ http://www.twitter.com/ http://plus.google.com/ You can use these applications to: Communicate information to students Link with other educators and find resources

13. Social: Professional 13 Monday, 10 October 2011 Register an online relationship with colleagues http://www.yammer.com/ http://www.linkedIn.com/ Yammer – share links to the Knox network. If you ‘friend’ someone on LinkedIn, you are explicitly recommending that person.

14. Backup local 14 Monday, 10 October 2011 Save your files locally to an external hard drive http://Crashplan.com (also paid online storage 10Gb $25) U Drive Home Network Drive – Seagate GoFlex Home We encourage our students to back up their work, but do we do the same?

15. Presentations 15 Monday, 10 October 2011 PowerPoint has its uses, but there are more creative tools now available http://www.prezi.com/ http://ahead.com/ Give students the choice of their presentation media If things are not linear, one of these web2.0 tools may be better. Example

16. Online Polls 16 Monday, 10 October 2011 A one question survey – get results instantly http://www.pollmo.com/http://polldaddy.com/ http://flisti.com/http://micropoll.com/ http://obsurvey.com (allows open-ended response) Use as a Student Response Network (multiple choice of whether students understand)

17. Comics 17 Monday, 10 October 2011 Create a cartoon / comic strip. Drag and drop the speech bubbles, people and scenes. http://www.bitstrips.com/ Create a cartoon yourself for a topic, or get students to present their work in cartoon form.

18. Windows Shortcuts Some shortcuts to help Show Desktop:  + D Moving windows to the left, right or top Switch Programs: Alt-Tab OR  + Tab Filling in forms – tab to the next field (shift tab to go backwards) Lock computer  + L Windows Task Manager: Shift-Ctrl-Esc Select All: Ctrl-A Search (Find)  + F Magnifier:  +/- Shake the toolbar of an application to make everything else hide! Use backspace to go ‘back’ on a website 18 Monday, 10 October 2011

19. Journals 19 Monday, 10 October 2011 See what current research is saying in your subject area http://scholar.google.com/ http://library.knox.nsw.edu.au/ Encourage your students to use good research practice

20. Class Calendar 20 Monday, 10 October 2011 The idea is to use recycling paper to print calendars on. http://www.re-print.me/ Print one for each class and put it up on the wall. The teacher (or a student) can write the homework each day.

21. Want to access network drives from home? Use Dialup… VPN into school to access your network drive vpn.knox.nsw.edu.au 21 Monday, 10 October 2011 For full instructions, search ‘vpn’ on Scholaris

22. Fakebook 22 Monday, 10 October 2011 Fakebook – create fake facebook pages http://vimeo.com/25366185 http://classtools.net/fb/home/page Choose a historical figure or current celebrity to create a fake facebook page for

23. PDF Files 23 Monday, 10 October 2011 Share files in PDF format http://www.pdfcreator.com/ (creates a ‘printer’) Files > Save As in Word / Excel / etc. If you want to share files, make sure that those viewing it can see what you want! Also, if you email files to Print Room then make sure it gets printed correctly.

24. Randomly select from a list 24 Monday, 10 October 2011 Create a random number or randomly order a list http://random.org/ If students are doing presentations, randomly order them.

25. Hardware Bluetooth mouse!! Monitor Lectern Eye-fi Card 25 Monday, 10 October 2011

26. Online Clocks 26 Monday, 10 October 2011 Project a clock or timer http://www.online-stopwatch.com/full-screen-stopwatch/ http://onlineclock.net/ If you have timed activites (or assessment tasks) it can be helpful to project onto the screen. You can even use multiple monitors (Fn F5)

27. Find-a-words and Crosswords 27 Monday, 10 October 2011 Easily create these worksheets online to print out http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/crossword/ www.discoveryeducation.com/puzzlemaker/ Review / Summarise a topic in a find-a-word or crossword

28. Office 2007/2010 confusing? 28 Monday, 10 October 2011 Find menus In the office ribbon http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/CL101817133.aspx Or http://tinyurl.com/officemenus If you can’t find what you’re looking for, but it used to be under ‘insert’ then use this office menu finder

29. Oops! I deleted a file! 29 Monday, 10 October 2011 Recover files and/or old versions of files http://www.piriform.com/recuva On a school network drive – Rt click > properties > previous versions Office – File > Recent > Recover unsaved document (File > Options > Save) Find an old version of a file, before you made those changes!

30. Outlook Tips When sending a message: Options > Delay Delivery Options > Use Voting Buttons Request delivery receipt / request read receipt Calendar Use as your daily planner? Meetings Invite Attendees (also tungle.me) Tasks use for a record of phone conversations Do you use Google Calendar > get Google Calendar sync 30 Monday, 10 October 2011

31. How to copy files 31 Monday, 10 October 2011 Gives you additional options to pause / restart copying and moving http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php Or http://tinyurl.com/teracopydownload If you computer crashes or you lose network connection whilst copying lots of files, you don’t know what has and hasn’t copied, unless you use teracopy.

32. Clear Aerial Photographs 32 Monday, 10 October 2011 You need to register for free. You can see very clear images (better than google maps or earth) http://www.nearmap.com/ See how an area changes over time / seasons. It’s fun!

33. Create Games online 33 Monday, 10 October 2011 Dustbin Game Matching pairs games Post It! (label a diagram) Wordshoot TimeLine Flashcards http://www.classtools.net/ A good way to provide an introduction and/or conclusion to a topic. Example

34. Copy part of a picture 34 Monday, 10 October 2011 Copy parts of images or parts of your screen. Microsoft Office > Insert Screen Shot > Screen Clipping Snipping Tool Modify difficult diagrams And make the background transparent

35. Google Docs 35 Monday, 10 October 2011 Use google docs to collaborate for documents or spreadsheets http://www.offisync.com/ http://tinyurl.com/googlecloudconnect I check homework, using my iPhone and then use OffiSync to open the Google Spreadsheet in Excel

36. Microsoft Word Use Styles to save on formatting later ...noxear 9oordinate Geometry - Graphing Straight Linesoordinate Geometry (2011).docx Use ‘colours’ in powerpoint Go to Insert > Symbol to find the Character Map. E.g. FN-Alt-0176 = ° 36 Monday, 10 October 2011

37. Convert PDF Files to Word Documents 37 Monday, 10 October 2011 Convert PDF documents, with diagrams, into word documents to edit. http://www.pdftoword.com/ Example

38. Parents want to help their son with homework? 38 Monday, 10 October 2011 DEC (Dept of Ed and Communities) has developed a site to help parents know what students are doing in schools http://www.schoolatoz.nsw.edu.au/ There are some quick factsheets which student may find helpful when revising. Example.

39. Brainteasers 39 Monday, 10 October 2011 Brainteasers and optical illusions http://www.braingle.comExample If you have 5 minutes to fill, have a set of resources ready to go!

40. Online Surveys 40 Monday, 10 October 2011 Quickly allow students to respond to survey questions and tabulate data Scholaris – in a Virtual Classroom http://www.surveymonkey.com/ Google Form http://docs.google.com/ End of year teacher survey. Review a topic.

41. Interesting ideas… 41 Monday, 10 October 2011 Connect with other educators from around the world to see the creative innovative ideas that they are using iTunes: iTunes U and Podcasts http://reader.google.com/ & Twitter It’s a stream – you don’t have to read everything! For more info… see Andrew Jeppesen’s workshop on PLNs.

42. Share documents 42 Monday, 10 October 2011 Allow multiple people to edit the same document or share documents. Scholaris or Z drive http://slideshare.net/ Google Docs Dropbox public folder Students can collaborate on files or you can upload files for colleagues from other schools

43. Send big files 43 Monday, 10 October 2011 Upload a file to an internet site for others to download. Great for files > 10 MB. http://www.uploaderbox.com/ For files up to 1 GB.

44. iPhone Apps (or equivalent andriod apps) 44 Monday, 10 October 2011 SplashTop: Control your computer from your iPhone TaskTask/iReminders Sync tasks to Exchange Google Docs / http://www.splashtop.com/ http://tasktaskapp.com/ Connect to a home computer to do something? Control your laptop from on the screen from your phone? Have tasks wherever you go!

45. Excel Tips Data to Columns Conditional Format ...nox011 Administrationrofessional Developmenterm 4 Day 1 Presentationxample.xlsx 45 Monday, 10 October 2011

46. Wolfram Alpha 46 Monday, 10 October 2011 How many hairs are on a human head? Solve 2x+10=15 http://wolframalpha.com/ Students can investigate a topic, taking difficult mathematics out of the equation – and explaining how to do it!

47. Windows Live 47 Monday, 10 October 2011 The online environment for Microsoft allows you to link in with a number of services Photo Gallery (similar to Picasa) http://www.youtube.com/user/WindowsVideos#p/u/18/dmRAlFQOA4g Movie Maker Students can edit photos and videos in their creative expression very easily.

48. BBC Schools 48 Monday, 10 October 2011 This site contains a great variety of lesson plans and worksheets for teachers and also games and activities for students http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ Students can use this for additional revision

49. Wiki 49 Monday, 10 October 2011 A website that can be edited by a group of people Scholaris http://pbworks.com/ http://wikispaces.com/ Create a site for your students to interact and build a knowledge base. Like a mini ‘wikipedia’.

50. AudioBoo 50 Monday, 10 October 2011 Record a short clip (up to 5 min) and email a link http://audioboo.fm/ Students could respond verbally for homework in 5 minutes. An Oral task that can be marked and listened to over time.

51. Build your own games http://Sharendipity.com http://Purposegames.com http://What2learn.com http://Yoyogames.com http://Jeopardylabs.com http://Proprofs.com/games 51 Monday, 10 October 2011

52. Hopefully you can take one or two ideas from this presentation. It is available on my blog: http://www.maths.net.au/ 52 Monday, 10 October 2011