Waffle Bytes

So this week's Friday's Finds are all about easy survey & polling sites.  And, oh yes, they are all free when used on a small scale. Have a great weekend! Socrative Smart student response system via smartphones, laptops & tablets polltogo Mobile instant feedback site (online polling) Poll Everywhere Instant audience feedback via text message. Doodle Schedule an event or have people select from a list.  Kwik Surveys Another survey tool; it’s free & unlimited.

Here are this week's Five Friday Finds.  Have a great weekend, and as always, feel free to share with others! General Copyright Clarity Slideshare by Renee Hobbs based on her book of the same name.  Some very good information to update your knowledge of copyright and permission to use.  (Like - did you know created items are automatically copyrighted by law?  They no longer have to go through an application process....) ELA   Free Resume Building Tools ( blog) A list of some tools that can be used to create resumes and other content for selling your professional self.  All do require accounts. Mathematics   Bitesize K12 Math Video on converting fractions to decimals Science iBioSeminars A series of online lectures on various Biology topics.  There are teaching tools available with many to help teachers integrate the lectures into their curriculum. Social Studies  History of the World A great in...

Like many others, I was watching the flow of comments from the Apple Education Announcement this morning so I could evaluate the impact on education in general, and the local teachers I work with specifically.  While I'm excited about the potential that textbooks might be finally moving into the 21st century (hmmm....a post for another day), there was another part of the announcement that I am exultant about - the new autonomy of iTunesU.  One of the problems of getting the excellent materials available on iTunesU into K12 classrooms has been overcoming the belief that iTunes is all about music, or for those that know a little bit more that it is all about entertainment (music, movies, and tv shows).  For some reason, people have a parallel in their minds that as App Store equals apps, iTunes Store equals tunes (aka. music).  Working to get it opened in schools that do not know much about it involves LOTS of discussions, which aren't always successful.  Now I...

If you are in the situation where you have multiple iOS devices that you want to be clones (identical in setup and content), there are several ways you can go about setting this up.  Here are the directions for cloning them using iTunes tethering.  The advantage of this is that there are no device limits and it works whether you are using iOS4 OR iOS 5.  The disadvantage is that you physically have to cable the devices to a computer. iTunes Settings You will want to change the following setting in iTunes on the computer that is going to be used to sync multiple iPads with the same image: •        Turn off automatic syncing by checking the box next to “Prevent iPods, iPhones, and iPads from syncing automatically” •        PC: Edit Menu - Preferences; select Devices icon •        Mac: iTunes Menu - Preferences; select Devices icon •      ...

Here are this week's Five Friday Finds.  Happy winter and enjoy the snow :-) General Understanding Copyright Law for Movies An easy to understand explanation of copyright as it applies to using movies in the classroom.  A good refresher... ELA Free English Tests & Exercises Free online tests and exercises for ESL, TOEFL, TOEIC, GRE, SAT and GMAT.  These require flash, but can also be downloaded for local use (Windows only) Mathematics Google Earth Blog - Measuring distance with the Google Earth Ruler Great blog on ways to use Google Earth.  This entry is about a little known feature that can be used to measure distances. Science Games@NOAA Natural Science games located at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration site, part of the US Department of Commerce.  Mousing over the pictures pops up the purpose of each one. Social Studies Seterra Free downloadable geography quiz game for Windows.

Here is this week's Five Friday Finds!  Happy New Year :-) General WatchKnowLearn   Free Educational videos organized by content, filterable by age. ELA Scriveners' Trappings "Aides and resources for writers & teachers or writing." Author provides link to sites that may be valuable for writers; variety of resources including blogs, reviews, resource sites, etc. Mathematics MIT Blossoms "Math and science video lessons for high school classes." Science Zooniverse Online community science projects that anyone can participate in.  Created by the Citizen Science Alliance. Social Studies Newspaper Map “Find & translate 10,000 newspapers worldwide”