Start off the school year right with great tech tools and toys for students and teachers
Bradley was on GlobalTV this morning talking about back to school tech for students and teachers. We’re not just talking about gadgets here, but also great web-based services and tools to help you study, learn, and research for your classes.
Bradley talked about some great apps and services here is the list (plus my two cents about them too):
- Evernote–Remember Everything. | Evernote Corporation. I have been using this app for a long time. For taking notes there are few better apps. Evernote works on Macs, PCs, iPhone, BlackBerries, and the Web. Evernote lets you not only take notes during class, but you can also record videos and put other media into Evernote. Teachers and students can share public-private folders for notes, homework, and research. I use Evernote to gather things from the web with a web clipper then have these things available for the team. Similar to to Evernote is Pear Note: Pear Note – Note Taking Utility for Mac – Useful Fruit Software. Unlike Evernote, which has free and pay versions, Pear Note is pay only and Mac only. Pear Note, however, is cool because it can sync what you type with what you record through the microphone!
- GradeMate–GradeMate | Free Online Student Organizer. Looks like an interesting web service (I haven’t used it myself).
- TeacherTube–TeacherTube – Teach the World | Teacher Videos | Lesson Plan Videos | Student Video Lessons | Online Teacher Made Videos | TeacherTube.com. This is a YouTube alternative for teachers. A little more focused. More education, fewer skateboarding dogs.
A lot of these resources can be found on the timely back to school post on Mashable–Back to School: 15 Essential Web Tools for Students–one of my favourite sites for keeping up on all that is geeky. This brings me to Bradley’s suggestion of Google Reader. Google Reader is a really good RSS reader, but a mite geeky I think. I’d suggest starting with something like Netvibes or Pageflakes for a web-based tool. If you prefer a “real” application I suggest FeedDemon (Win) or NetNewsWire (Mac) from NewsGator. If you’re confused about what this Arr Ess Ess thing is watch this video from a couple friends of mine–RSS in plain english.
Being a a teacher myself, I think leveraging all kinds of different tools to learn is absolutely key to learning. I am one of those visual learners so my world changed when I discovered mind mapping. I wish I had it back in the day.
What are your favourite tools for teachers, students, or both that help the whole learning/teaching thing? Leave your comments below!
