Relevant Education Technology Integration Resources

The goal of integration of technology is to use tech so that those using it no longer think of its use, but simply go about learning in an enhanced way because of it.  Providing teachers with "relevant" technology application is very important as that helps us to be on our way to a seamless use of the technology in the classroom and ultimately for learning. The Web 2.0 Guru blog is packed full of resources and the page of this resource is titled "Web 2.0 Resources for Relevant Education Technology Integration".  Cheryl Capozzoli is very knowledge and keeps a very complete and organized list of tools that would be great in classrooms that have a 1:1 environment.  Categories are very helpful in determining ways you can add a digital element but the list is concise and, well, relevant!

Take some time to consider some of the resources you see here.  Celebrate how many you are already using as I certainly found many!

Comic Strips with Google Presentations

Every so often you find a bank of information out on the web and a really creative, knowledgeable person who shares their work openly for the benefit of others and ultimately our students.  I recently ran across a resource that Eric Curts from North Canton County Schools created to support teachers in learning how to use Google Presentations to build Comic Strips.
He has a nice example of a strip that teaches osmosis here.

His learning page was created for a presentation he must have done and can be found here.  His tutorial presentation has a lot of great ideas and suggestions and can be found here.

He does a fantastic job at explaining images, backgrounds and the settings within Presentations.  I think this would be a great idea to model out to kids and perhaps allow kids to work to emulate as a way of learning how to use Presentations. I find kids are much more creative than I and would love to see what they come up with.  If you do decide to tray this out, let me know as I would love to help in the process!

Google Search

Google is just really good at searching!  Ever wonder how they do it?  The following YouTube video from Google explains how the search is done using the running speed of a cheetah.  Great resource to show kids and help them to be a little better at searching.

Great Chrome Shortcuts

In our move to a 1:1 environment using Google Apps for Education, the teachers are all being encouraged to make the switch from other browsers like Internet Explorer or Firefox to Google Chrome.  Saving tome and being efficient are always at the top of my list so I have created a collection of keyboard shortcuts or trick that you might want to try out.  I'd love your feedback on these or others you find yourself using.

Press Shift and click a link. - Will open a link on a page in a new window
Drag a link to a tab. - Will open a link in the tab that you have dragged it to
Drag a link to a blank area on the tab strip. - Will open the link in a new tab
Ctrl+Shift+T - This open the last tab that you have opened.  Actually Chrome remembers your last 10 tabs!
Ctrl+1 through Ctrl+8 - Opens the tab in the spot of the tab strip of the corresponding number you use
Ctrl+Enter - Adds www. and .com to your input in the address bar and open the resulting URL.
Ctrl+F - opens a search/find bar for the page
Ctrl+D - Saves your current webpage as a bookmark.
Ctrl and +, or press Ctrl and scroll your mousewheel up. - Zooms or enlarges everything on the screen
Ctrl and -, or press Ctrl and scroll your mousewheel down. - Zooms out on everything on the screen
Ctrl+0 - Returns everything on the page to normal size