Tom Daccord @ edtechteacher.org

EdTechTeacher blog 01/29/2012

• Hands on With iBooks Author — The Digital Shift

  Apple unveiled its new interactive ebook creation tool today at a special education event at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Called iBooks Author, the app is free to download from the Apple App Store, but only works on Mac OS X. Much like Apple’s productivity suite iWorks, the new authoring tool offers a number of templates that help get you started with creating the layout of her/his e-book. These six templates offer different fonts and layout styles—Contemporary, Modern Type, and Craft, for example.

  tags: epub ipads iauthor ibooks

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EdTechTeacher blog 01/28/2012

• Creating ePub files with Pages

  To learn more about using the ePub format and get a better feel for how a Pages document might appear as a book in iBooks, it’s a good idea to download the “ePub Best Practices” sample document. After reading the guidelines and instructions within the document, you can use it as a template to create your own document. You can also import the styles from the sample document into a new document you create. 

  Download the “ePub Best Practices” sample document at the following web address:

  tags: epub pages ipads ibooks

• sigil - A WYSIWYG ebook editor. - Google Project Hosting

  Sigil is a multi-platform WYSIWYG ebook editor. It is designed to edit books in ePub format.

  tags: epub ebook editor opensource sigil iPad

• Holding out for an ePub hero | Computerworld India

  Against my better judgment, I let myself get swept up by the wave of e-publishing rumors in the days leading up to Apple’s education-themed announcement. Apple could do it, I thought to myself. The company had both the resources to build a great tool, and the reasons to do so.

  The application Apple did release, iBooks Author, is impressive in some ways. It’s free. Textbook publishers, teachers, comic artists, and others seeking an easy way to make rich, fixed-format iPad books should be thrilled. As Macworld editorial director Jason Snell points out, it will save a lot of people from having to create a dedicated app just to serve beautiful versions of their content.

  But there are perhaps just as many caveats and concerns with Apple’s new application. The iBooks Author end user licensing agreement is vague and worrisome. Like every program that came before iBooks Author, you can’t edit ePubs directly; unlike programs such as Scrivener, Pages, and InDesign, however, this app’s only purpose is to make books. And to top it all off, it won’t even export the open ePub format Apple has long championed; instead, it makes proprietary .ibooks files.

  tags: epub iPads

• Education To The Farthest Reaches - FaR Learning Design: January Winner

  My vote for this month’s “FaR (Farthest Reaches) Learning Design” winner is Gooru Learning out of Palo Alto. Just this past week they overhauled their “Free Resources Curation” tool by adding personalized study road maps and social learning features to better fit the needs of the individual as early as 5th grade up through high school.

  tags: gooru blog

• Teachers 'flip' their lectures, homework to reach more students - The York Daily Record

  Henning is one of several York County educators who have adopted the "flipped classroom" model of teaching.
  It essentially means swapping what's traditionally done at home and in class. Content that would have been covered by lecture in class is

  From the left, Chase Taylor and Allie Smith discuss a physics problem projected on a screen with teacher Derrick Henning last month at Spring Grove Area High School. In the "flipped classroom," students do what would traditionally be "homework" in the classroom and may watch a lecture via video stream at home. (Daily Record/Sunday News -- Paul Kuehnel)
  covered by video at home. Problems that would have been assigned as homework are done in class with the teacher there to help.
  The concept has grown popular recently. While it's now increasing as a teaching technique in kindergarten through grade 12, partly because of more access to technology, the idea has been around for some time in higher education, said Francis Eberle, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association.

  tags: flip

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EdTechTeacher blog 01/24/2012

• ISTE 2012 Leadership Conference

  ISTE's leadership conference has been created especially for school system leaders who are ready to engage in education transformation using the leadership tools and skills of the digital age. Our ultimate goal is for real educators to connect, discuss real issues, and discover real solutions.

  tags: iste leadership conference

• Google @ Ravenscroft

  chromebooks

  tags: chromebooks google ravenscroft

• NYSCATE

  DIGITAL WAVE CONFERENCE 2012 June 1, 2012   Digital Wave Conference   Erie 1 BOCES Education Campus   355 Harlem Road   West Seneca, NY   To submit a presentation proposal, please use the link posted below. The deadline date to submit a proposal is February 15, 2012

  tags: conference boces digitalwave nyscate

• Teach 24/7 » Blog Archive » Tales from the Flipped ~ Part 2: The Evaluation

  tags: flip blog

• Education Week: New Details Surface About Common Assessments

  Documents issued by the two groups of states that are designing the tests show that they seek to harness the power of computers in new ways and assess skills that multiple-choice tests cannot. Those plans are very fluid, however, since several years of design, dialogue, revision, piloting, and reworking lie ahead before the assessments are ready in 2014-15. But early documents offer glimpses of the groups' thinking.

  tags: assessment commoncore

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EdTechTeacher blog 01/22/2012

• Looking Forward: Tools for Social Studies Teachers in 2012 | POV Films Blog | PBS

  tools for social studies teachers

  tags: tools history socialstudies kulowiec sschat

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EdTechTeacher blog 01/15/2012

• mathfuture - Karismath

  "During the event, Shad Moarif, the founder of Karismath, will lead brainstorming about mathematical videos and dynamic mathematics in general."

  tags: math karismath

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EdTechTeacher blog 01/05/2012

• Year 2011 Events � What would you Remember 2011 for? Vote Now

  tags: maps geography

• Open Source Physics Simulations by lookang

  tags: physics simulations Singapore

• Innovation Design In Education - ASIDE: About the Authors

  tags: history design

• Appsfire selection Appsfire Appmix

  tags: apps

• Monitor: More than just digital quilting | The Economist

  "Technology and society: The “maker” movement could change how science is taught and boost innovation. It may even herald a new industrial revolution"

  tags: economist science

• The best American wall map: David Imus’ “The Essential Geography of the United States of America” - Slate Magazine

  tags: geography maps

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EdTechTeacher blog 01/03/2012

• Fill Your New Kindle, iPad, iPhone with Free eBooks, Movies, Audio Books, Courses & More | Open Culture

  tags: ipad iphone apps

• Hamlet Graphic Novel

  tags: issuu kulowiec

• Best of the Web 2011

  tags: tools issuu byrne

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EdTechTeacher blog 12/28/2011

• TeacherIMH, Hurrah for History teachers!

  "Click the link above to view a great video from the BBC about how the teaching of History has changed (in Britain) over the past few years. "

  tags: history UK

• Lifehacker Faceoff: The Best Digital Digests for iPad and iPhone

  "The crop of iOS apps dedicated to bringing you a curated, customizable, and attractive stream of content is one way to combat the information overload. Much more than simple RSS readers, these digital digest apps cull stories from across the web and your social networks and wrap them into an iPad friendly and design-forward package. Here's a look at the best options."

  tags: apps iPads iphone

• Investing in Innovation Fund (i3)

  "The press release announcing the i3 program's highest-rated applicants is located at http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases."

  tags: i3 grants doe

• 40 Incredible Blogs That Are Changing Education | Edudemic

  "From blogs about education technology to ones answering questions from parents… there are lots to add to your preferred RSS reader. Each of these blogs was nominated for an Edublogs ‘Group Blog’ award for being the best new blog of the year."

  tags: blog edudemic edublogs

• Building Your Own Textbook | Edutopia

  "Textbooks are a multi-billion dollar industry -- an estimated $3.5 billion for the K-12 market alone. But the growing availability of digital content and open educational resources (OER) is giving schools the opportunity to bypass some of the traditional expenses of textbook purchasing. It's also giving teachers the opportunities to build their own textbooks. "

  tags: textbooks digitaltextbooks edutopia OER epub

• 7 Clever Google Tricks Worth Knowing

  "Below I have compiled a list of 7 clever Google tricks that I believe everyone should be aware of. Together I think they represent the apex of the grand possibilities associated with Google search manipulation tricks and hacks. Although there are many others out there, these 7 tricks are my all-time favorite. "

  tags: google search

• 7 Deadly Sins of Creativity

  "Now, it’s to be expected that there will be ups and downs in our levels of creativity. Some days we’ll be full of new ideas, and other days our brains will feel a bit dull. Although this phenomenon is natural, oftentimes our poor personal choices perpetuate our inability to think creatively, and we end up having more dull days than creative ones. The vast majority of these poor choices fall into one of seven categories. I call them the seven deadly sins of creativity."

  tags: Creativity

• Steve Bresnick's Blog | EdTechie, teacher and Graduate Student at Harvard Graduate School of Education, with a concentration in Technology, Innovation and Education.

  "Steve Bresnick's Blog EdTechie, teacher and Graduate Student at Harvard Graduate School of Education, with a concentration in Technology, Innovation and Education."

  tags: bresnick blog harvard tie

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EdTechTeacher blog 12/20/2011

• South Shore Innovation: Innovation

  "South Shore Innovation is focused on developing a stronger innovation and startup community on the South Shore of Boston. This includes hosting innovation round tables, educational and learning activities, showcase events, and anything else we can think of that will promote innovation and support startups and an entrepreneurial culture in the area. A corollary to our mission is to connect innovation and entrepreneurial centers throughout the Boston area and Massachusetts. We highly value Science, Technology, Education, the Arts and anything else innovative, whether for-profit or non-profit. We promote and support small and growing business success. "

  tags: innovation southshore

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EdTechTeacher blog 12/16/2011

• Using Facebook to Teach - YouTube

  "Bullis School teacher Sara Romeyn talks about using Facebook as a teaching tool in her AP U.S. History Class."

  tags: facebook history ap

• Best of 2011: Staff Favorites | Edutopia

  "We look back on 2011 and spotlight our favorite articles, videos, blogs, and discussions. "

  tags: edutopia

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