Hulu

Hulu

Ok, I know.  You're thinking this isn't educationally related.  Just for fun, huh...  

But wait a minute!  We're talking about educating with technology.  Ever want your students to watch a great movie about history, but couldn't take class time and realize asking them all to rent it was an impossibility?  Have them watch it on Hulu!  Go to the History channel on Hulu and see what all they have available!  It's mind-boggling...

Assign your students some Hulu and see at least a few happy campers!

Prepping for the New School Year

This year I have a new list of things I'm going to try and implement.  I also have a list of things I'm going to try and avoid!

Implement:

1. Touch things 1 time and deal with them adequately!

2. Improve my filing system for hard copies of important documents.

3. Weed through the ridiculous amount of books and part with some of them regardless of my emotional attachment!

4. Stop procrastinating on tasks I hate - by doing them first!

5. Be willing to give up a system, book, project, software, method, etc. that is not working for me before wasting vast amounts of time!

Avoid:

1. Making careless mistakes by rushing too much - ok....baby steps here - be more careful!

2. Use my time more wisely by using GTD strategies that work and simply life.

3. The phone....   Need I say more?

4. The television - at least during the day!

5. People who frustrate me or waste my time on things that don't really matter.

Well, it all sounds great.  The question is.....  Will I do it?  I'm definitely going to try!

Viewzi

Viewzi

A new way to search.  It's not like google or yahoo, but its much more visual and customizable.  

Check out viewzi for your next search!

Blambot

Blambot

Need a unique, comic book style font, for free?  Look no further than Blambot.  They have a huge selection (note - some of them are for fee)!

Privnote

Privnote

Want to feel like you're on Mission Impossible...

Try Privnote

You send a note and self destructs after they read it.  Cool, huh?

Remember the Milk

Remember the Milk

This slick little service allows you track tasks and projects and sync them.  It works well with other apps, especially GMail.  It's still in Beta so expect occasional issues and updates.  It's a handy little app for quickly entering or retrieving a to do list.  

Some of the things you can use it for include google calendars, you can twitter a message to it, email it, voice mail, etc.

iGTD for mac

iGTD 

Need an app for project and task management.  Here's a nifty one for mac users.  The interface is simple and easy to use.  The best news - its FREE!

Schoolhouse 2.0 for Mac

Schoolhouse 2.0 for Mac

This is a great organizer program for students (and applicable for teachers too).  It is only for mac, but its a well-done program and it's FREE!

Kaltura

Kaltura

I haven't really had time to play with this much yet, but with classes getting ready to start I thought I'd go ahead and post it.

Kaltura offers collaborative video editing online for free.  I can think of a million uses for this service.  Since I haven't gotten to play with it (and work with others) I'm not sure of the ease of use, but the idea is brilliant.  

How to Make It All Work Together

This year I've come across so many tools that will make teaching easier, but now I have to whittle it down to best choices.  This is the struggle.  Which tools will help the most, with the smallest learning curve for the students and parents?

I think the ones I will use the most this year are:

Twitter (a great way to get info to a group quickly)

Jott (a way to remind myself anywhere of something I'm likely to forget!)

Skitch (a great way to mark graphics up on anything quickly)

Evernote (for organizing notes with searchable text)

Since I have a website already, I don't need drop.io as much, but I think I'll still have some use for it