Virtual Dice for your Interctive Whiteboard

Whether you require 6, 8, 10 or 12 sided dice as individuals or multiples this great online dice simulator will greatly enhance your next maths session.  It works great on interactive white boards and are not plastered with advertising.  Take a look at it here.

Web Summarizer: Every Teacher Needs to see this

This web tool is a little frightening to be quite honest.  Put Simply the summarizer takes large chunks of text and summarizes them into shorter pieces of text that from my sandpit time spent on it works with scary efficiency.  It is a plagiarists and lazy / smart students dream machine.  Either way it is worth a look.  Access it here.

The Ultimte lesson Plan Search Engine

Don't forget to use our lesson plan search engine to find your next teaching resource.  None of it is commercial and we have actually visited and verified the sites that the results come from.  If you would like to recommend some great teaching resource sites for us to include in the search engine we'd love to hear from you.  Access the lesson plan search engine here.

25 Great Free technologies for Teachers and Students

Thanks to educational Portal for todays Article.  In today's economic climate, paying for technology isn't prudent, and for some students, it isn't even an option. Fortunately, there are plenty of freebies on the web that can help with document creation, research, writing, storage, collaboration, studying and more. Here are 25 free web apps and software programs that may be useful to students.

Teaching & Classroom Resources @ www.theteachinglab.com

Document Creation

• Zoho Office - Zoho Office is an amazing suite of web-based productivity and collaboration tools. The suite includes free email, a word processor, a spreadsheet tool, a presentation creator and more.
• OpenOffice - The OpenOffice suite of tools can do all of the same things as the pricey Microsoft Office--for free.
• Adobe Buzzword - This free Adobe product is an online word processor that works just like a desktop processor--perfect for students who write academic papers and reports.
• Google Docs - Students can store, share, collaborate, and edit documents online with this free Google app.
• Primo Online - Primo Online is a free online creation service that allows users to create free PDF files. Primo supports a wide range of file types.

Research and Writing

• Schoolr - This meta search engine combines other academic search engines to make research faster and more efficient for students.
• Diigo - Diigo is an awesome tool for student researchers. It allows you to highlight and annotate specific portions of web pages. Highlighted info can be shared with other people and accessed from any PC or phone with an Internet connection.
• Ajax-Spell - This free spell checker makes it easy for students to catch misspellings in their writing.
• WordWeb - Designed for Windows users, this one-click thesaurus/dictionary works off-line but can also be used to look up words and information online. The free version of WordWeb can define a word in almost any program and provide information about the word's root, pronunciation and synonyms.
• BibMe - BibMe allows students to cite sources and create bibliographies in a snap. This free bibliography maker auto-fills info for you in MLA, APA, Chicago or Turabian formats.

Click here to access the complete list.

Everything you wanted to know about graphic organizers

Graphic.org is a free resource for teachers and students that will give you some insights on which graphic organizers to use for specific activities and how you can use them in the classroom.  The site is a little heavy on advertising but there is some valuable content tucked away for you to use.  Take a look at it here.

2 Online Cloze Generators Worth Trying

We all know that cloze activities can be a little boring at times.  But just like learning the alphabet and times tables they are a useful learning process that can be of great use at times.

I found a couple of good cloze generators online that you might like to incorporate into your next lesson and tailor the content exactly to your needs.

Cloze Test is exactly what it states and allows you to make simple cloze tests online in minutes.  Very easy to work out but a little limited on features.

The Oxford University Press Cloze maker is a little bit heavier on the features and has templates to suit specific age groups and purposes.

Take a look at both of these and let me know if you use any other useful cloze generators.

Thousands of Free Audio Books

bookshouldbefree.com is a brilliant resource for high school and tertiary students and teachers that need to read a classic text but can't really justify the hours of sitting associated with sitting and reading.  Simply download your free audio book in a variety of formats and listen to it on the bus or at the gym.

There are hundreds of classics such as Moby Dick, Jane Austen, Pinocchio and Sherlock Holmes as well as a large collection of modern texts across all genres including children's stories which might be great for teachers who wish to put on an audio book in the classroom.

This site is a real winner and you can take a look and a listen to it here.

AudioExpert - Free & Simple online audio editor

AudioExpert is a free and simple online audio editor, file converter and sound recorder. All the standard functionality of an audio editor provides you with an easy way to create a ringtone for your cell phone. You will find AudioExpert useful also as a powerful audio file converter which will allow you to modify the file format of your files, their bit rate, frequency, etc. If your computer is equipped with a camera and microphone, you can use AudioExpert to record your sounds.

Main Features:

• Make use of it to analyse audio files and extract detailed information about the format.
  
  
• Cut or crop audio files in just a few clicks.
  
  
• Merge multiple files into a single audio track.
  
  
• Convert files between all of the popular audio formats (WAV, MP3, OGG, M4A, AAC, FLAC, AU, AMR, WMA, MKA).
  
  
• Record audio off a microphone or another sound device and save it directly to WAV, MP3, WMA, OGG, etc.
  
  
• Convert multiple files at once by means of batch processing.

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