Play and Learn 06/07/2010
 
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Maria Andersen has created a great looking one stop resource for finding educational games to support learning. Simply click on the subject area of your choice, and you can choose from several sub categories. Each contains a link to another site that is intended to make learning fun. Try it for yourself and see what you can find. Everything from Astronomy to Music is covered so you should have no trouble finding something that is relevant to your class. Play and Learn was last modified 5 days ago, so hopefully it will be updated on a regular basis to provide some year round resources for teachers to use.
 
 
Well, my school is out for the summer, so I finally got around to giving this blog the makeover I had always promised it. If you are reading this on an RSS feed, then you may not notice the difference, but other visitors will hopefully appreciate the change. Everything is still pretty much where it always was, but the new color scheme and header was something I had thought about for a while.

Speaking of things that I had been meaning to do for a while, I was asked to be a guest writer for the Canadian blog, Kiwi Commons last month. You can check out the article here if you are interested. They wanted a teacher's perspective on the changing nature of technology in the classroom, so that is what they got! If you have not visited Kiwi Commons before, your should go and check out their internet safety resources for parents and teachers.
 
Nitro PDF Reader 05/30/2010
 
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Although not strictly a classroom tool, you cannot fail to be impressed by the features on offer from the free Nitro PDF Reader. No longer do you need to worry about online conversion tools, or spend your time wishing you could edit a PDF, as this handy tool does all that for you, and more. Highlight and cross out text, stamp your signature, add text and sticky notes, and convert almost any file to PDF. This is a genuinely useful utility, so I thought that I would pass this on to anyone who works a lot with PDFs, which, lets face it, is most of us these days!
 
Maths Zone 05/27/2010
 
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Enter the Maths Zone and find a whole catalog of useful links to Math activities and teaching tools that you can use in your classroom. It is sorted in two ways - by grade level and by math objective. For non-UK readers, KS1/KS2 is Elementary school age, while KS3/4 is middle/high school aged students. There are literally hundreds of great resources here for teaching and getting extra practice on Math. Ignore Maths Zone at your peril!
 
Topmarks 05/27/2010
 
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Topmarks is a UK site that offers a great selection of educational games and whiteboard resources. Each section is aimed at children aged 5-14 and there are a lot of great activities here. They are sub divided by category, and would be great to use with students. For more top educational game sites, check out my recent article The Top 10 Educational Game Sites for Children Online.
 
 
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I saw this on The Whiteboard Blog, and really liked it, so I felt compelled to post it here too! This Math Manipulative tool is great for interactive whiteboards or LCD projectors as a teaching tool for Math. Select from a variety of commonly used manipulatives like base ten blocks, scales, geoboards, and more. The sheer versatility of this tool means that teachers of all age groups could benefit from using this online tool while teaching Math. No longer do you need wonder about where all the tens blocks went, or worry about whether or not you have all the right pieces for your tangram puzzles, (if anyone really knows that anyway).
 
 
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KidRex is another kid friendly search engine that does its best to filter out the undesirable side of the internet for young users. Based on Google's safe search technology KidRex is honest enough to admit it is not 100% foolproof, but in my tests it did a good job of filtering out the obvious requests that you would not like students searching for at school. KidRex even encourage children to send them pictures, (via a parent), that they can use on their front page. Click here to find more search engines for students.
 
 
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While looking for some more educational games sites for my class, I was happy to find Sheppard Software, and their great collection of free educational online games. With games that cover Math, Language, Geography and History, and difficulty levels that span from preschool to college level, you can be sure that you will find something here that will appeal to your students. Many games are even free for teachers to download and use for school, homeschooling and tutoring. It has been CNN's site of the week, and may just prove to be a new favorite for you too.
 
 
Here are a couple of articles for you closet gamers. The first is SMART Board Math Games, a collection of my current favorite math games to use on the SMART Board. Many will also be good for other brands of interactive whiteboard, as some are internet links, so check them out of you are looking for some more inspiration for Math lessons. The second article is Online Games for Gifted Children. This collection of games is for your gifted and talented children and includes logic and thinking games to help feed their natural curiosity.
 
 
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TechVert has a list of 9 iPad alternatives that you should take a look at if you are considering bypassing netbooks and switching to tablets at school. Some you will have heard of, but others maybe not. Unfortunately, prices are not included but if  like me, you are thinking that the iPad would be good if only it had more RAM, a webcam, more USB sockets and Flash support, then you should definitely look at what else is available, because there is more than one option for you on this list.