Speaker Deck- A Good Presentation Tool for Teachers

June 23, 2015
Speaker Deck is an excellent web tool that allows you to easily share your presentations online. You simply upload your slides as PDF and Speaker Deck turns them into a beautiful online experience. You can then share your generated presentation with others using different options including a unique URL link, social media websites such a Facebook and Twitter, or use the embed code to embed presentations in your website.

Speaker Deck only supports PDF files and allows up to 50 uploads per day and a total of 500 all time. Here is how you can upload your presentation to Speaker Deck:

‘1- Sign into your Speaker Deck account and click Upload at the top of the page. You will be presented with a form to upload a PDF.

2- Click the Select a PDF to Upload button and a file browser will open. Select the PDF you want to upload and then click Ok.

3- When the PDF has finished uploading you will see a "Save the Details" button. Optionally enter a name and description and select a category for the presentation and then click Save the Details’

Check out this example to see the kind of presentations Speaker Deck can help you create.

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Some of The Best Educational Mac Apps for Students

June 23, 2015
For students using Macs in their studies, the collection below embeds some excellent apps that can help you do way more with your Macs. More specifically, these apps will enable you to: record notes and audio notes, keep track of your assignments, convert and edit PDF documents, create to-do lists, break down big projects to small tasks, manage your homework and track deadlines, effectively manage your study time, compose and structure long and lengthy documents, take screenshots and apply different effect to them  and many more.

Relevant : 11 of The Best Mac Apps for Teachers

1- Scrivener

‘Scrivener is a powerful content-generation tool for writers designed for composing and structuring long and difficult documents. While it gives you complete control of the formatting, its focus is on getting you to the end of that awkward first draft. Compose your text in any order and in pieces as large or small as you like. View the components of your draft individually or as a whole. Import and refer to research files such as images and PDFs alongside your writing.’

2- iHomework

‘iHomework is a student's best friend during the busy times of the school year. Keep up-to-date with your school work, grades, to-do's, teacher's information, and almost everything else you need during the school year.’

3- Tyist

‘Typist is a typing tutor, which helps you in learning touch typing.
If you have never taken any lessons in typing before, please be patient.
Typing is not difficult but it does take a lot of practice. Avoid the tendency to look down at your fingers while typing…’

4- Evernote

‘Evernote is the modern workspace that syncs between all of your devices. Work everywhere and stay productive:
• Write notes, checklists, and research
• Organize web articles, docs, and photos
• Discuss your work with others, right within the app
• Present ideas without creating a slide deck’

5- AudioNote- Notepad and Voice Recorder

‘By synchronizing notes and audio, AudioNote automatically indexes your meetings, lectures, interviews, or study sessions. Need to review the discussion about deliverables on your next project? Trying to remember what the professor had to say about a key point? With AudioNote there is no need to waste time searching through the entire recording to find out. Each note acts as a link directly to the point at which it was recorded, taking you instantly to what you want to hear.’

6- Any.do (To-do list, daily task manager & Checklist)

‘From planning an awesome vacation to organizing a big project at work or sharing a shopping list with a loved one - Any.do makes it easy to keep your life organized in one place. Any.do seamlessly syncs between your mobile, desktop, web and tablet so you, and everyone around you, can access it from anywhere.’

7- Pomodoro Timer

‘Pomodoro Timer helps you boost your productivity using the Pomodoro Technique™, one of the most effective time management methods out there. Not only will you get a fully configurable timer that lets you customize every aspect of the technique, but you will also enjoy a clear and beautiful user interface. ’

8- Record Lectures

‘Record Lectures is a must have app for everyone who is going to school or attends conferences or meetings. Record Lectures allows students and business people to record and file lectures and presentations away into a neatly organized calendar marked by subject (topic).’

9- Snagit

‘{Snag allows you} to capture any image and enhance it with effects or create a quick video of your computer screen. Easily customize any screenshot with effects to fit your needs. You can highlight a given area, or draw attention to a specific point using Snagit’s variety of markup tools. You can also create quick videos by recording your screen and quickly trimming out the parts you don’t need. All of the content you create with Snagit can be easily shared with anyone.’

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Undo Send- An Excellent Gmail Feature for Teachers

June, 2015
‘Undo Send’ is one of the excellent features we previously featured in Top Gmail Features for Teachers. Undo Send allows you to cancel a sent email immediately after it has been sent. What’s new today is that Google has finally made this feature available as a formal setting in Gmail on the web.

Undo Send was first released in 2009 and since then it remained in Gmail Labs which is Gmail’s experimental lab that tests features to be added to Gmail official setting. Initially, Undo Send came with only 5 seconds interval time from the time you hit the send button till you decide whether you want to delay it or not. With this new update, Gmail now lets you choose between 5, 10, 20, or 30 seconds for cancellation period.

To activate this feature, head over to Gmail, click on  setting and scroll down till you find ‘Undo Send’ then tick ‘enable undo send’ and select your cancellation period.

Courtesy of Mashable

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11 of The Best Mac Apps for Teachers

June 22, 2015
Mac is undoubtedly a power piece of gadgetry to use in your teaching. Mac education app store is packed full of great apps ideal for classroom inclusion. We have spent sometime sifting through the piles of apps there and curated for you this initial list. More selections are to be posted in the few coming days.

As you can see below, the apps span different disciplines and are geared towards helping teachers become more productive.  Some of the things you can do with these apps include: taking notes, creating mind maps, taking and annotating snapshots, design iBooks textbooks and e-books, create and manage to-do lists and tasks, make beautiful multimedia timelines, make your own flashcards, and many more.

1- Timeline 3D

Timeline 3D is the simplest way to create beautiful multimedia timelines. Present historical events with Timeline 3D to reveal connections and clarify relationships. Make timeline charts of world history, family trees, fictional stories or business deadlines. Timelines help you understand and present history with new perspective!

2- Pages

Create gorgeous documents in minutes with the all-new Pages for Mac word processor — featuring a stunning new design, new writing tools, and improved performance. Start with an Apple-designed template or create your own design using fonts, styles, and tools from the intelligent Format Panel. Easily add images, movies, charts, and more.

3- Wunderlist: To-Do List & Tasks

Wunderlist helps millions of people around the world capture their ideas, things to do and places to see. Whether you’re sharing a grocery list with a loved one, working on a project, or planning a vacation, Wunderlist makes it easy to share your lists and collaborate with everyone in your life. Wunderlist instantly syncs between your phone, tablet and computer, so you can access your lists from anywhere.

4- Flashcard Hero Free

Make your own flash cards and take the pressure out of test preparation. Flashcard Hero keeps track of what facts you already know so you can focus on what you don’t know and save a lot of time.

5- iBooks Author

Now anyone can create stunning iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books, and more for iPad and Mac. Start with one of the Apple-designed templates that feature a wide variety of page layouts. Add your own text and images with drag-and-drop ease. Use Multi-Touch widgets to include interactive photo galleries, movies, Keynote presentations, 3D objects, and more.

6- Skitch- Snap. Mark up. Share

See something that sparks an idea? Use Skitch to snap it, mark it up, and send it on in an instant. Your bold ideas stand out even brighter with Skitch.

7- Notability

Students, teachers, and business professionals use Notability daily to take notes, sketch ideas, annotate PDFs, mark-up photos, record lectures, provide audio feedback and more. It is uniquely designed for each device to provide the best note taking experience at school, at home, and at work. And with iCloud, your notes are always up to date.

10- Zoho Writer

Zoho Writer is a powerful word processor for the Mac. Create beautiful documents with several writing tools with great flexibility and ease. Create a document from scratch or import an existing document and start typing away with several font and formatting options.

11- SimpleMind

SimpleMind is an easy-to-use Mind Mapping tool that turns your Mac into a brainstorming, idea collection and thought structuring device. It connects to the similar SimpleMind for iPhone/iPad app.

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4 Excellent Graphing Calculators for Math Teachers and Students

June 22, 2015
Looking for some very good graphing calculators to use with students in class? The suggested tools below are definitely a must have. These are some of the most recommended apps by math teachers. The apps are web-based and work across different platforms. Check them out and share with us what you think of them.

1- Scientific Calculator

Scientific Calulator is a powerful, programmable, scientific calculator.Some of its features include: Supports variables, constants, and custom functions; Save scripts online so you can access them anywhere or in a local library; Complex numbers, arbitrary precision integers, and exact fractions; Algebraic pretty-printed display; Full functional programming language; Supports matrix and vector operations; Calculation history lets you refer to previous results.

2- GeoGebra

GeoGebra (www.geogebra.org) is free dynamic mathematics software for all levels of education that brings together geometry, algebra, spreadsheets, graphing, statistics and calculus in one easy-to-use package. Interactive learning, teaching and evaluation resources created with GeoGebra can be shared and used by everyone at tube.geogebra.org.
3- Desmos Graphing Calculator

Explore math with Desmos! Plot functions, create tables, add sliders, animate your graphs, and more -- all for free.

4- Graph.tk

Graph.tk is an online and open-source graphing utility.It's very easy to use. Use the "+" button to create a new equation. Use "/" for fractions, "^" for exponentials, and "*" for multiplication.

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A Wonderful App for Remotely Controlling Your Presentations

June 22, 2015
Slides from de Mobo is a very good app that allows you to remotely control your presentations using your iOS or Android device. Slides works best with presentations on Google Drive, Prezi, Slideshare, Scribd, Speakerdeck and Issuu. To be able to use the app, you will need to have both your phone and your computer under the same WiFi network.

The way Slides works is pretty basic: Download the app ( for Android or iOS ) to your phone and once installed you open it up. Under the setting menu, click on ‘connect to computer’, an alphanumerical  code will be generated for you. Head over to demobo.com/slides and type the code in the input box after which a connection between the phone and computer will be established. A visual illustration of this process is provided in the video below.

Slides app also includes a timer as well as a variety of transitions to select from. Other features provided by the app include: Fullscreen note viewer by tap/holding note (single tap to exit); YouTube playback by tapping YouTube thumbnail; and more transitions and animations. Watch the video below to learn more about Slides.

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Here Are Some of The Best Augmented Reality Apps for Android Users

June 21, 2015
Augmented reality is a relatively new technology with some promising potential for education. The basic premise behind augmented reality is the extension of the physical world to include components of the virtual world.There are actually several iPad apps that teachers can use to improve students learning through the concept of augmented reality, check out this post to see some examples. For Android users, we have compiled the list below featuring some very good augmented reality apps to try out.

1- Aurasma

Aurasma is the industry-leading augmented reality app that’s changing the way millions of people see and interact with the world. In fact, it’s the only mobile app that lets you create and share your own augmented reality experiences!

2- Layar

Scan print materials enhanced with Layar to view rich digital experiences right on top! Then be amazed as extra digital content appears, allowing you to interact with your world in a whole new way!

3- Google Goggles

Search by taking a picture: point your mobile phone camera at a painting, a famous landmark, a barcode or QR code, a product, or a popular image. If Goggles finds it in its database, it will provide you with useful information. Goggles can read text in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Turkish, and translate it into other languages.

4- Field Trip

Field Trip is your guide to the cool, hidden, and unique things in the world around you. Field Trip runs in the background on your phone. When you get close to something interesting, it pops up a card with details about the location. No click is required. If you have a headset or bluetooth connected, it can even read the info to you.

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DocHub- A Powerful Google Drive Tool for Signing and Annotating PDFs and Docs

June 21, 2015
DocHub is anther excellent Google Drive tool for filling, editing, and signing PDFs. Compared with similar tools out there in Chrome web store, DocHub is way easier and simpler to handle. You can use it for a variety of purposes including: signing PDFs, highlighting text, inserting images, commenting and adding pages to PDFs and many more.

DocHub's signing features are really cool. You can easily sign and save any document. You can even import signature from phone and send documents to others to sign. DocHub is compatible with  all PDFs, Open Office and Microsoft Office Documents:  (PDF, DOC, PPT, XLS, TXT, DOCX, PPTX and many more…).

As for the sharing options, DocHub allows you to email your documents or share them via social networking websites. You can choose whether you want your docs to be public or private. It also supports collaboration and lets you  collaborate with others on a doc.

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Sidenotes- A Great Tool for Annotating Videos and Webpages

June 21, 2015
Sidetones is an excellent web tool for annotating web pages. It allows you to add notes to any web page without having to switch tabs or use a third party platform. With a simple click, a new sidebar will open up next to the page you are browsing where you can add and edit your notes.

Sidenotes is also integrated with Dropbox so you can access your notes on the cloud. All the notes you create are automatically synced with your Dropbox account. More importantly,  the notes are saved with a generated URL linking back to the original source page where the note was initially added.

Sidetones works on all kinds of browsers and is a great tool to use for curating and annotating educational content to use in your lessons or to share with your students. It is also ideal for flipped classrooms and for creating explanatory tutorials. The only thing lacking in this app is integration with Google Drive. Other than that the app is absolutely convenient.

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5 Great Tools for Video Conferencing and Organizing Online Meetings

June 20, 2015
The power of video conferencing tools lies  in their ability to engage audience through the use of visuals, interactive features and synchronous communication. The most popular free tools in this regard are Google Hangout and Skype. Both of these applications are easy to use and offer a variety of decent features for hosting online meetings and organizing seminars. However, if you are looking for some advanced alternatives, you should definitely consider the tools below. These are premium softwares that schools , universities, and individuals can use to conduct formal online conferences, webinars, and seminars. From document upload to sharing slides and web co-browsing these tools offer a plethora of powerful functionalities  ideal for e-conferencing.

1-Adobe Connect

Adobe Connect web conferencing software offers immersive online meeting experiences from small group collaboration to large scale webinars. All the benefits of Adobe Connect Meetings are included with Adobe Connect Webinars and Adobe Connect Learning.

2- Blackboard Collaborate

Blackboard is another excellent online conferencing software. It supports a modern workplace with two-way VoIP, multi-point video, built-in phone conferencing, interactive whiteboard, desktop sharing, and more. Some of the features it provides include:

• Users can connect to a conferencing session anytime with an intuitive UI and through VoIP or built-in phone conferencing.
• Enable users to join any web conference from an iPhone, iPad, or Android device for a fully-featured collaborative experience.
• Provide presence and instant messaging tools so colleagues can see who's online and available for collaboration and mentoring.
• Add podcasts, voice presentations, and recorded feedback to make asynchronous training sessions livelier and more engaging.

3- Anymeeting

AnyMeeting offers free and low-cost web conferencing, video conferencing, conference call and webinar services . Using Anymeeting you can meet up with up to 200 participants, create custom registration forms, send email invitations to your participants, hold private or public webinars, share anything on your screen, upload and share PowerPoint and PDFs and many more.

4- GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting enables you to host online meetings and video conferences. Some of its features include: share screens with others, your attendees can also help and and present their screens, recording and share your meetings, and many more.

5- Meeting Burner

Meeting Burner allows you to host your next webinar or meeting for up to 10 people absolutely free with a fully featured MeetingBurner account. Some of its features include:instant screensharing, audio teleconferencing, streaming host video, in-meeting chat, meeting recording and many more.

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Here is A Great App to Explore The Human Body in 4D

June 19, 2015
Anatomy 4D is an excellent iPad app for science teachers and students. It provides an interactive 4D experience of the human anatomy using augmented reality technology.

Anatomy 4D offers an easy to use 3-dimensional learning environment ideal for classroom use. Students can utilize the app to virtually explore the human body and learn more about the functionality of each organ. The visual and interactive features of the app make the task of learning about human anatomy super engaging.

Here is how to get started using Anatomy 4D:
First, open the app and head over to ‘target library’ and email, print or save any set of images you are interested in. After that, you simply  point your device at the target from the “Viewer” and watch the 4D Experience come to life.

Here some of the features provided by Anatomy 4D:

•  Learn about and explore the human body and heart in intricate detail
• Highlight various organ systems individually, so for instance, you can focus on just the skeletal, muscular, or respiratory system
• Change the view back and forth between a male and female body
• Zoom in to experience each organ or body part in-depth
• Use new image targets including the new heart target (this new app release still supports the original image target)
• Get inspired about human anatomy!

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4 Excellent Productivity Apps Gone Free Today

June 19, 2015
Below are 4 excellent productivity apps that have gone free today. The offer is valid for a limited period of time and at least here in Canada and the US. Some of the things you can do with these apps include: create and manage to-do lists and checklists, track your projects and speed up your daily workflow, capture ideas, take notes and many more.

1- Work.JOT- Timesheet & Task List Management

'Work.JOT is easy to master and provides Amazing interface to manage Tasks & log Timesheet entries; so just JOT, Manage, Analyze, Report and make ‘Everyday Productive’. The app makes it easy to track your projects across various clients, Keep a log of cost incurred across projects and much more. Create monthly Timesheet & Task reports in PDF format.'

2- Pasteasy

‘Pasteasy  is a productivity app that simplifies and speeds up your daily workflow, saving you valuable time. It enables you to privately share the clipboard between your devices, so you can simply copy and paste to easily move content.’

3- Pocke Lists- Checklists & Reminders

‘Pocket Lists is a beautifully designed universal app for managing checklists and to-do lists, focusing on important tasks, and collaborating on checklists with your friends. The app excels as both an everyday to-do list organizer with sophisticated reminder functionality, and as a checklist app for groceries, travel packing, Christmas lists, and more.’

4- Ideaz- Keep Your Ideas in One Place

‘You know that you have an amazing idea, so you run as fast as you can to your mobile, open the nearest note app, writing your idea ,and the next week you can't remember what was your 'one billion dollar' idea, and where you've wrote it... For people like you IDEAZ app was made!’

Courtesy of Apps Gone Free

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3 Must Watch TED Talks on The Power of Life Long Learning

June 19, 2015
Learning is , as educational philosopher Maxin Green argues, the hope that lights up the other end of the tunnel. Through learning, we get to discover and better understand our inner worlds as well as the world around us. As a life-long journey, learning is an eternal endeavour, a passion that lives with us from cradle to grave.

The 3 TED talks we selected for you today sheds more light on the power of life long learning and its transformative impact on our lives and the lives of those around us. We invite you to give them a watch and share with us what you think of them. Enjoy

1- The life-long learner by Ben Dunlap

'Wofford College president Ben Dunlap tells the story of Sandor Teszler, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor who taught him about passionate living and lifelong learning.'

2- Essentials for Lifelong Learning Danny Stillion

'Danny Stillion describes a lifestyle of lifelong learning as a factor of curiosity, empathy, and passion. Stillion believes that future design solutions must simultaneously reinforce and be sustained by these three elements.'

3- Smash Fear, learn anything by Tim Ferriss

'From the EG conference: Productivity guru Tim Ferriss' fun, encouraging anecdotes show how one simple question — "What's the worst that could happen?" — is all you need to learn to do anything.'

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Aid Education with Historic Newspapers

June 19, 2015
Britain is commemorating the centenary of the start of World War One. That's 100 years since the
start of the First World War.

Starting in 2014 and lasting until 2018, the First World War Centenary is the birthday of WW1. From
exhibitions and concerts to a movie and football match, a whole gamut of events will take place to celebrate the anniversary.

World War One is remembered, primarily because it was the first war fought on a continent wide
scale, from 1914 to 1918, and resulted in the League of Nations. If you’re looking to teach students about the significance of the First World War, why not do so with educational pack?

To explain further, the UK’s largest private archive of old newspapers, Historic Newspapers, stock
more than seven million genuine original newspapers in their ever-growing collection.
Looking after the world’s biggest private archive of original newspapers means Historic Newspapers
are exceptionally passionate about history. It’s for this reason they decided to select interesting and
important coverage from significant historical dates – all in the name of learning – with a view to
teach others about the past, as it was reported at the time.

Best of all, they’re offering these teaching packs completely free of charge – all of which are
available to schools, universities, libraries and accredited education establishments – to help
students discover the cause and consequence of historical events. 

A newspaper book is a wonderful way to teach children about World War One, as each newspaper is
filled with stories from eyewitnesses who were present at the time, making it a pleasurable way to
aid learning and engage a pupil’s interest and imagination. The World War One newspaper book can
be used to discuss the changing nature of conflict, the cooperation between countries, the shift of
alliances and the lasting impact of the war on national, ethnic, cultural and religious issues.
A newspaper offers teachers the chance to encourage chronological understanding, evoke a sense of
period and provides a framework to discuss today’s events in a historical context.

The World War I Pack contains a book of compiled newspaper coverage, including Battle of Loos,
Gallipoli Withdrawal, London Air Raid and War is Over. The other two education packs available
contain complete newspaper reprints on World War II and Major Events.

By Thomas Walker

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The Best Teacher Apps for Learning Speed Reading

June 19, 2015
Speed reading is a skill developed through purposeful practice. You can be a voracious reader with hundreds of read books under your belt and still not be a speed reader.  However, speed reading should never come at the expense of your comprehension and although it might sound hard at the start but it does get better and better with practice. There are several iPad apps you can use yourself or with your students to teach them the art of speed reading. We have handpicked for you this selection featuring what we think are some of the best apps out there.

1- Rapid Reader

‘Using Spritz, Rapid will quickly flash one word at a time at any of 40 different speeds. This eliminates the need for your eyes to scan the text in order to read efficiently. Spritz provides a reticle at the ideal position in a word to allow your mind to comprehend each word despite seeing it for only a fraction of a second. Read up to 1000 words per minute while maintaining or improving your current comprehension. ’

2- Acceleread Speed Reading Trainer

‘Acceleread will train you to become a faster, more effective reader. Acceleread's Guided Course is uniquely generated based on your current reading level and desired performance goals. This personalized program is precisely calibrated to dramatically increase your reading speed in as little as 10 days!’

3- Sprint

‘Sprint is a multi-tabbed web browser that let's you Spritz or listen to a web page with a single tap. You don't need to highlight the text, just find a page you want to read and tap the read button, Sprint does the rest.’

4- QuickReader

‘QuickReader uses the same proven speed reading technique taught to millions of people all around the world. And learning it is easy. You simply read along as QuickReader guides you through the text, automatically training you to read faster. Want to go quicker? With a couple of taps the guide speeds up… and soon you’re reading twice as fast as before.’

5- ReadQuick

‘ ReadQuick helps you read faster than ever before. Designed for iOS 7, this app helps you speed read your way through your Pocket, Instapaper and Readability reading lists. Watch your comprehension sky rocket in just one day.’

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