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 HarnwellAssistant Head of MathematicsHarnwellJ@knox.nsw.edu.auThe Tech Toolbox for TeachersKnox Grammar School Term 4 Professional Development

2. Screencasting2Monday, 10 October 2011Screencasting 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. Bookmarking3Monday, 10 October 2011Online 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 againShare links with colleaguesGet your class to share links with each other

4. URL Shorteners4Monday, 10 October 2011Changes a long link into a short onehttp://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 Commons5Monday, 10 October 2011http://www.creativecommons.org/Tell people if they are allowed to use your work.Much better than ‘copyright’

6. Youtube Videos6Monday, 10 October 2011Like to show a Youtube video without all the advertising and junk! (Potentially inappropriate)http://tinyurl.com/knoscars2010http://viewpure.com/http://zamzar.com/ or http://saveyoutube.com/ or use an addon for your browserIf you are relying on a Youtube clip and the internet drops out, having a backup copy can be very helpful

7. Youtube Videos7Monday, 10 October 2011Edit Youtube videos – trim and join.Action scene from 2:04 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lixBRjOJlMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osOdPyvYqIQhttp://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 programsCheck Start > startup8Monday, 10 October 2011

9. Creative Commons Images9Monday, 10 October 2011Use 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 Online10Monday, 10 October 2011Save 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/jhsugarsyncWindows Live Skydrive= 25 GB (max 50Mb files)We encourage our students to back up their work, but do we do the same?

11. Reading Lists11Monday, 10 October 2011An 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 SolutionWhen 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+12Monday, 10 October 2011These 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 studentsLink with other educators and find resources

13. Social: Professional13Monday, 10 October 2011Register an online relationship with colleagueshttp://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 local14Monday, 10 October 2011Save your files locally to an external hard drivehttp://Crashplan.com (also paid online storage 10Gb $25)U DriveHome Network Drive – Seagate GoFlex HomeWe encourage our students to back up their work, but do we do the same?

15. Presentations15Monday, 10 October 2011PowerPoint has its uses, but there are more creative tools now availablehttp://www.prezi.com/http://ahead.com/Give students the choice of their presentation mediaIf things are not linear, one of these web2.0 tools may be better. Example

16. Online Polls16Monday, 10 October 2011A one question survey – get results instantlyhttp://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. Comics17Monday, 10 October 2011Create 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 ShortcutsSome shortcuts to helpShow Desktop:  + D Moving windows to the left, right or topSwitch Programs: Alt-Tab OR  + TabFilling in forms – tab to the next field (shift tab to go backwards)Lock computer  + LWindows Task Manager: Shift-Ctrl-EscSelect All: Ctrl-A Search (Find)  + FMagnifier:  +/-Shake the toolbar of an application to make everything else hide!Use backspace to go ‘back’ on a website18Monday, 10 October 2011

19. Journals19Monday, 10 October 2011See what current research is saying in your subject areahttp://scholar.google.com/http://library.knox.nsw.edu.au/Encourage your students to use good research practice

20. Class Calendar20Monday, 10 October 2011The 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.au21Monday, 10 October 2011For full instructions, search ‘vpn’ on Scholaris

22. Fakebook22Monday, 10 October 2011Fakebook – create fake facebook pages http://vimeo.com/25366185http://classtools.net/fb/home/pageChoose a historical figure or current celebrity to create a fake facebook page for

23. PDF Files23Monday, 10 October 2011Share files in PDF formathttp://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 list24Monday, 10 October 2011Create a random number or randomly order a listhttp://random.org/If students are doing presentations, randomly order them.

25. HardwareBluetooth mouse!!MonitorLecternEye-fi Card25Monday, 10 October 2011

26. Online Clocks26Monday, 10 October 2011Project a clock or timerhttp://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 Crosswords27Monday, 10 October 2011Easily create these worksheets online to print outhttp://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?28Monday, 10 October 2011Find menus In the office ribbonhttp://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/CL101817133.aspxOr http://tinyurl.com/officemenusIf 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!29Monday, 10 October 2011Recover files and/or old versions of fileshttp://www.piriform.com/recuvaOn a school network drive – Rt click > properties > previous versionsOffice – File > Recent > Recover unsaved document (File > Options > Save)Find an old version of a file, before you made those changes!

30. Outlook TipsWhen sending a message: Options > Delay DeliveryOptions > Use Voting ButtonsRequest delivery receipt / request read receiptCalendarUse as your daily planner?MeetingsInvite Attendees (also tungle.me)Tasks use for a record of phone conversationsDo you use Google Calendar > get Google Calendar sync30Monday, 10 October 2011

31. How to copy files31Monday, 10 October 2011Gives you additional options to pause / restart copying and movinghttp://www.codesector.com/teracopy.phpOr http://tinyurl.com/teracopydownloadIf 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 Photographs32Monday, 10 October 2011You 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 online33Monday, 10 October 2011Dustbin Game Matching pairs gamesPost It! (label a diagram) WordshootTimeLine Flashcardshttp://www.classtools.net/A good way to provide an introduction and/or conclusion to a topic.Example

34. Copy part of a picture34Monday, 10 October 2011Copy parts of images or parts of your screen.Microsoft Office > Insert Screen Shot > Screen ClippingSnipping ToolModify difficult diagramsAnd make the background transparent

35. Google Docs35Monday, 10 October 2011Use google docs to collaborate for documents or spreadsheetshttp://www.offisync.com/http://tinyurl.com/googlecloudconnectI check homework, using my iPhone and then use OffiSync to open the Google Spreadsheet in Excel

36. Microsoft WordUse Styles to save on formatting later..\..\Knox\Year 9\Coordinate Geometry - Graphing Straight Lines\Coordinate Geometry (2011).docxUse ‘colours’ in powerpointGo to Insert > Symbol to find the Character Map. E.g. FN-Alt-0176 = °36Monday, 10 October 2011

37. Convert PDF Files to Word Documents37Monday, 10 October 2011Convert PDF documents, with diagrams, into word documents to edit.http://www.pdftoword.com/Example

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

39. Brainteasers39Monday, 10 October 2011Brainteasers and optical illusionshttp://www.braingle.comExampleIf you have 5 minutes to fill, have a set of resources ready to go!

40. Online Surveys40Monday, 10 October 2011Quickly allow students to respond to survey questions and tabulate dataScholaris – in a Virtual Classroomhttp://www.surveymonkey.com/Google Form http://docs.google.com/End of year teacher survey.Review a topic.

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

42. Share documents42Monday, 10 October 2011Allow multiple people to edit the same document or share documents.Scholaris or Z drivehttp://slideshare.net/Google Docs Dropbox public folderStudents can collaborate on files or you can upload files for colleagues from other schools

43. Send big files43Monday, 10 October 2011Upload 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)44Monday, 10 October 2011SplashTop: Control your computer from your iPhoneTaskTask/iReminders Sync tasks to ExchangeGoogle 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 TipsData to ColumnsConditional Format..\..\Knox\2011 Administration\Professional Development\Term 4 Day 1 Presentation\example.xlsx45Monday, 10 October 2011

46. Wolfram Alpha46Monday, 10 October 2011How many hairs are on a human head?Solve 2x+10=15http://wolframalpha.com/Students can investigate a topic, taking difficult mathematics out of the equation – and explaining how to do it!

47. Windows Live47Monday, 10 October 2011The online environment for Microsoft allows you to link in with a number of servicesPhoto Gallery (similar to Picasa)http://www.youtube.com/user/WindowsVideos#p/u/18/dmRAlFQOA4gMovie MakerStudents can edit photos and videos in their creative expression very easily.

48. BBC Schools48Monday, 10 October 2011This site contains a great variety of lesson plans and worksheets for teachers and also games and activities for studentshttp://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/Students can use this for additional revision

49. Wiki49Monday, 10 October 2011A website that can be edited by a group of peopleScholarishttp://pbworks.com/http://wikispaces.com/Create a site for your students to interact and build a knowledge base. Like a mini ‘wikipedia’.

50. AudioBoo50Monday, 10 October 2011Record a short clip (up to 5 min) and email a linkhttp://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 gameshttp://Sharendipity.comhttp://Purposegames.comhttp://What2learn.comhttp://Yoyogames.comhttp://Jeopardylabs.comhttp://Proprofs.com/games51Monday, 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/52Monday, 10 October 2011