AppoLearning

AppoLearning is a resource for teachers looking to learn about the best educational iPad apps available.  Experts on the site evaluate and score apps across grade levels and through multiple categories to make finding an app even easier.  Apps are scored based upon Educational Content, Kid Appeal, Assessment, Features and Design, Value, and Safety and Privacy.  Users can look for apps from early childhood through high school.  If a category is unavailable, users can also request one.

There is an app of the week and a blog that can be followed to learn about other educational technology interests.  Each app provides scores, content information, and a direct link to the app on iTunes.  If you find yourself using an iPad in the classroom a lot and think you could become an expert, the opportunity is also available to do that.

If looking for an iPad app for your classroom, give AppoLearning a try.  

Five Found From My Feedly

With the move from Google Reader to Feedly, here are five resources that were shared this weekend that I thought readers of this blog might be interested in.

1.) 18 Fun Resources to Help Kids with Vocabulary comes from A Media Specialists Guide to the Internet.

2.) How to Determine Reading Level of a Document comes from the U.S. Government Teachers Blog

3.) Come Relax and Learn With Me This Summer is from Free Technology for Teachers and provides information about professional development he is offering this summer.

4.) 10 Current Events Resources is from Edudemic provides resources for teachers looking to integrate several current events.

5.) The National Digital Public Library is set to launch and the Never Ending Search Blog provides you some necessary information for learning about this great resource.  

World Art Day Resources

In case you didn't know, today is World Art Day.  In celebration of Art, I wanted to share some Art resources that you might be interested in utilizing in your classroom or sharing with students.

1.) The Google Art Project - This is a tool that puts thousands of pieces of Art at your fingertips.  A great resource for not only art teachers, but also Social Studies teachers as well.

2.) Art Finder - A place to find and purchase Art from all over the world.

3.) Picasso Head - Create your own version of a Picasso.

4.) The Endless Mural - An interactive and collaborative Art website built in HTML5

5.) DrawSpace - Learn to draw with over 200 free downloadable lessons.  With a profile, users can keep track of progress.

6.) 50 Awesome and Inspiring Blogs for Art Teachers and Top 20 Art Blogs for Educators.

7.) SmartHistory from Khan Academy - The leading open educational resource for Art history.  The content is free and high quality.

8.) ArtLex Dictionary provides definitions for over 3,600 terms used in discussing art and visual culture.  There are also thousands of supporting images, pronunciation notes, and quotations as well.

9.) Artcyclopedia is like a wiki for art.  Tons of information, images, and other resources for art research.

10.) Artist A Day provides visitors with information and resources related to various artist.  A great way for students to visualize various types of art from all kinds of different artists.

11.) Scoot and Doodle is a collaborative drawing environment that uses Google + Hangouts.

12.) Psykopaint allows users to turn images into abstract art and apply shadows to pictures.

13.) My Oats, This is Sand, Jackson Pollock, and Bomomo provide some fun art creation.  

Fliite - Group Mentioning/Messaging App for Twitter

Many educators are taking to Twitter as a method professional learning and also for communicating with students.  One of the issues is that if you wanted to mention several people in a tweet is that those mentions take up your 140 characters.  The other issue is that if you want to send a direct message to Twitter users, you can only send one at a time.  Fliite is a new option that will soon be available for the iPhone that allows users to group message/mention multiple users on Twitter.  Fliite could come on handy for those teachers that utilize Twitter in the classroom.  You can sign up to receive an email notification when it is available, but it seemed promising, so I thought I would share.  You can see the video below for more information.

Five Found In My Feedly

With Google Reader getting ready to be gone for good I have permanently switched the blogs I follow over to Feedly.  I hope to regularly bring you some of the great information shared across the web from other blogs that I follow.  Here are some from this week.

1.) 50 Digital Storytelling Websites and Apps from the Technology Tidbits Blog.  The list is available in alphabetical order which makes it easy to discover sites and apps that you might not be familiar with.

2.) Dealing with Dashboard Decisions - I don't really use them myself, but homepages that mimic a dashboard look are popular for many people.  This post provides a great list of options.  From The Never Ending Search Blog.

3.) The Bammy! Awards - An Award honoring the Education Community from A - Z.  You can find the nominees HERE.

4.) 89 Cool Sites, Apps, and Tools for Teachers from the Cool Cat Teacher Blog has a great list for teachers looking to integrate technology into the classroom.

5.) 21 Reasons to Stop Saying 21st Century Teacher from the Free Technology for Teachers Blog makes a great case for removing this terminology from describing teachers.  I wrote two eBooks called "Tools for the 21st Century Teacher" (1st Edition and 2nd Edition) and looking back, a more proper name probably would have been "Tools for Today's Teachers."  I have to agree with a lot of what Mr. Byrne is saying in this blog post.  We are teachers and this is the 21st century, so naturally we are all 21st century teachers.