PowerInbox Check your Social Networks Right from Your Email Account

PowerInbox is a great web tool. It allows its users to check their Facebook, Twitter or Groupon accounts instantly and withouth the need for extra clicks and tabs. Normally when you get a notification from Facebook or Twitter it gets to your inbox in the form of an email that you need to click on to read and then click on the link inside to access the source website from which the emaile was issued. To save yourself some clicks and to avoid opening up new tabs on your browser you need to use PowerInbox.

Poweinbox is easy and free to use. What it actually does is adding up few powerful tools to your inbox. These are smart extensions that are compatible with both Firefox and Chrome. PowerInbox works  with the most famous email servers like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail , and Outlook. Once you get the extensions installed , then whenever you are reading an email from Facebook and  Twitter a box will open up.

For Facebook, you will be able to comment back on posts and for Twitter the box lets you  tweet and follow back.





Now busy educators who have several tabs already opened on their browsers can use PowerInbox to quickly and instantly check their social networking email notifications and respond to them without having to move to extra tabs. This is indeed a handy and practical tool that I recommend for you. Try it out and see.

A List of Some of The Best Websites to Download Free Ebooks

Ebooks are ubiquitous everywhere online. Some are paid and most of them are free. Scholars and students all around the world prefer the electronic formats of books because of many reasons. First off they are, most of the time, free and easily accessible. They are also portable and offer greater mobility options. If you have a smart phone or an e-reader then you can read your ebooks whenever and wherever you want. I personally do most of my readings online. I have a virtual library where I save my downloaded books and each time I finish reading a book I move it to the category labelled ' read '.

I know some educators have never embarked on an online reading experience and some others find it hard to search for and find free versions of ebooks they want to read. To those people I would say , here is my favourite list of websites where you can search for and download ebooks.

Google Books :

This is my number one. It is a product of Google and everything that is produced by Google would always come first in my options. Google Books allows you to look for books by their title. Although most of the results contain books you need to pay for , still you can find some book reviews and documents worth reading. I sometimes buy books using the recommendations from Google Books. There are some great books which cost just 20 to 30 dollars. Isn't that a good deal for feeding your mind with a great book?

Bookboon:

This is also a great website where you can download free ebooks . The ebooks offered by Bookboon are in PDF file format. They are categorized into Textbooks, Business, and Travel Guides.


Google Scholar :

This is  like a search engine but just for documents and textbooks. It provides a search of scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources, including  books, abstracts and articles.






 Free Book Spot :

 This is a free ebook library where users can have access to free downloads of books in more than 90 categories.You can download books without any registration but if you become a member you will have added pluses like being able to add new books and add comments.


Scribd:

 If you still do not know this website then it is one of the most known online document sharing sites which supports Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF and other popular formats. You can download a lot of ebooks here for free. You just need to know how to search for the right items.

Project Gutenberg :

 It offers over 36,000 free ebooks to download to your PC, Kindle, Android, iOS or other portable device. Choose between ePub, Kindle, HTML and simple text formats.






PDFGeni : 

This is a PDF search engine where you can search for PDF ebooks, sheets, forms and documents. Not all the ebboks offered in the results are free.




Planet ebook : 

It offers free classic literature for downloading. All the novels and books here are free to download and share with your friends, students and colleagues.






The eight websites I have mentioned above are my favourite and does not mean that those are the only good ones available online, there are also several  other links where you can search for and download ebooks . 


Here is a google Docs Presentation I made and in which I included these websites you can download and reuse the presentation as you want.




Here is a list of some of them ( I have not reviewed these links ):

1. Online Free Ebooks
2. Know Free
3. Globusz
4. Get Free Ebooks
5. Many Books
6. 4eBooks
7. Ask Sam Ebooks
8. The Online Books Page
9. BookYards
10. SnipFiles
11. BluePortal
12. MemoWare

Disclaimer : whenever you use any of the websites mentioned in this article, you Must respect the copyright of the materials downloaded.

Archivedbook View All your Facebook History in One Page

Archivedbook is a cool web application. It allows it users to view all their Facebook recorded posts, links, comments, and many more all in one page.Using this app you can have access to what you have posted three years ago and remember the links you shared with your friends and colleagues. As educators you can use this app to retrieve the links you have shared with last year class and view the comments you have made on students walls.
Archivedbook has a nostalgic air and believe me once you use it you start reliving all the events you might have forgotten.

Some of the features of Archivedbook ?

Here is a list of some of the best features that Archivedbook offers to its users:

It is free
It is easy to use
It allows you to :

1.  Remember all the messages your friends posted on your wall since you joined Facebook
2.  view of all photos and videos your friends tagged you into
3.  like, comment or delete some old item? Or reading all its comments? Each item features a direct link to its equivalent on Facebook.
4.  check the history of any Facebook Page, even if you are not its administrator.
5.  find your most liked or most commented posts.
6. Get your complete check-in history: places you’ve been or have been tagged in, people tagged with you, and Google Maps preview.

 If you think this app is worth trying then head over to Archivedbook main page and give it a shot.

A Great Infographic on Google Search Tips

Today  I am going to share with you a great infographic that has been making rounds online. It is about Google search tips.Out of my long experience with the literature of Google I can comfortably confirm the usability and practicality of this infographic for students. Teachers need to embed it in their classroom blogs and email it to their students. I am quite sure it can tremendously improve students' virtual search skills.

By the way if you are interested in learning more about how to better use Google for scholarly purposes then I invite you to check this article : Google Search Tips Educators Must Know.



Created by: HackCollege

What The Heck is Cyberlearning All about '' ?

Cyberlearning is another buzz word in the literature of  the 21st education. With the growing integration of technology into education there emerged some new  forms of learning that just decades ago never existed. It is a positive sign that educators are moving with the current and not against it. The type of students we are teaching today is completely different from the one of the 20th century. We are dealing with digital students who depend largely on mobile technology in their everyday life. They are technically called digital natives and their educators are labelled digital immigrants.

Using technology in teaching has almost become a must. It is true that there are differences at the level of  the implementation of technology in the classroom from country to country and even from school to school within the same country but what is conventionally taken for granted is the fact that technology has imposed itself as an important element in education. In the lights of these innovations, a theoretical background has been created to sort of legitimize and better control the use of this technology with learners. New learning theories that  meet `` the technological `` needs of students  have  been subsequently forged. Mobile learning ( also called m-learning ), online learning, distance learning, e-learning, virtual learning, and cyberlearning are but some of these examples.
After I have covered mobile learning in earlier posts entitled :
Mobile Learning The Next Trend in Education
Mobile Technology in Education

 Today I am introducing you to Cyberlearning. I have selected a great short video that clearly explains what cyberlearning is all about. Watch it at least twice and if you can , take a pen and paper and note down the important ideas mentioned in the footage.

A List of some of The Best Free Tools to Create Animated Pictures

Have you ever wondered how to create an animated picture ? If you have here is an answer for you. There are several online  tools  that allow users to create GIF animations from pictures stored on their computers. Here are some of the best free web tools that can help you create animated GIFs

1- Picasion

Picasion is web application that allows its users to :

• Create GIF animations
• Control the speed of animations
• Select the size of the GIFs

2- GifUp

GifUp is another web tool that lets users create animated GIFs and avatars. It is easy to use and has several features such as :

• Upload images from pc, webcam,Flickr, or grab  them directly from a web page
• Use as many images as you want to compose your animations
• Control animation speed settings
• Download and save animations to your website
• Share your GIFs with others or embed them in your website or blog

3- GIFMake

GIFMake  is a simple online GIF maker program that lets its users compose their animated GIFs from regular static images. It offers several features such as :

• You can upload images from your computer or a web address
• Specify the duration of each frame in the animation
• Control how many times to repeat each animation
• download and save animations 

4- MakeAGIF

MakeAGIF is a great image maker that allows users to  created animated GIFs out of images of different sizes and formats. Among its features ;

• No registration is need
• No software to download is required
• Upload images up to 1MB in size
• it has several animation options to apply to your images

5- Gickr

Gickr is a free animated GIFs maker. The tool is very easy to use and has several features such as :

•     Make free animated GIFs
•     Upload images from a web address , or computer
•    You can use up to 10 picture in an animation
•    It is free and does not require any registration
•   It generates a link for you to share your animations with others

6- GifSoup

GifSoup is a free video to GIF converter. It allows its users to :

•  Convert Youtube videos into animated GIFs very easily and with just few clicks
•  Download animated GIFs into your computer
• It offers a ten second limit on video lenght
• It has a wide library of animated GIFs created by others

I hope you liked the tools. If you have any additions to the list share it with us below.

a Look into The Future with Microsoft Technology

Today I want to share with you a great video made by Microsoft Office. This video is about how Microsoft looks at the future and how technology will change the way we live.I just cant believe the extent to which this technology will take humanity. There are tremendous transformations going on in every facet of our life due to the evolving technology and part of these transformations are clearly displayed in this video. Enjoy it



I have first seen this video in this awesome   arabic blog .

Google vs Facebook Details about their Privacy and Security Settings

There is a growing buzz nowadays about internet security. Most of us , in differing degrees, have trusted some websites with some personal data. Facebook and Google are the top two  websites with millions of accounts. I personally trust Google over Facebook and feel more secure that my data are within Google' accounts. Everything is possible and nothing is one hundred percent  secure online and as you can see in the inforgraphic below, Google has been a victim of a hacker attack . Hackers tried to get access to Gmail accounts of some users but Google was prudent enough and successfully stopped the attack.

Below is an infographic that I want you to read. It is about the different ways Google and Facebook handle privacy and security. You can share the infographic with your students and colleagues.


Infographic by Veracode Application Security

Listbrew Easily Make Lists, Take Notes, and Stay Productive

Listbrew is a great website. It, as its name suggests, allows its users to create different lists about what they want to keep track of. Many people ( I am one of them ) live on lists, a list of grocery shopping, a list of to-do things at school, a list of upcoming events , a list of interesting tv shows to watch..etc. They just feel like they can not control their everyday life without containing it in a stream of lists.

Arranging lists and organizing them into different categories  means that one is serious about what he/she is doing. This is even perfect for us in education. Our time table is full most of the time and unless we keep reminding ourselves about what is coming up we would very easily miss many important things. Listbrew can help you make lists of whatever you want and you can even  add notes to them. Since Listbrew is web based then you can access your lists from anywhere with an internet connection.
If you think that Listbrew can be of any good to you then head over to its main page and sign up. The service is all free and only requires a quick registration. Once logged in you can then start noting down your lists.

Understand 9/11 Videos You Might Have Missed

Understand 9/11 is a website that provides reports about the tragedy that befell the Twin Centre and Pentagon on the 11th of September 2011. I know I should have published this earlier so that teachers planning to talk about these terrorist attacks with their students will be empowered with a plethora of videos and news footages all shedding light from different angles on these catastrophic events. I am sorry I just learnt about this web site  but better late then never.

Understand 9/ 11 archives several reports about this event. The reports are categorized according to their date and the TV channels on which they were broadcast. To start watching any report just click on the report thumbnail to obtain an extended view. The view contains image thumbnails from the same television report. Click on any report thumbnail and the footage will automatically start playing.

I hope this website will help you find materials to consider for future coverage of these tragic events.

KiTL URL Shorten Many URLs Into One Link

KiTL URL is a great web tool. It allows its users to shorten several URLs into one link. We all use shortening applications to squeeze out our links to share in social websites but the problem occurs when you want to share many links. It would take you some time just going back and forth working on every single link alone. Now you can type all your links into KiTL URL and all will be shortened into one short URL.

" Not only are you provided with a single short URL that links to all your added URLs, but you also get alternative versions of the URL and sharing buttons to directly share the shortened URL on social networks" By Make Use Of.

When you share the shortened URL with others , they will be able to see how many pages the shortened  URL links and shift the pages using the top tool bar that appears.

If you want to shorten just one single URL KiTL URL can also let you do that. You can both use batch-shortening service or just individual shortening one.

What are The Easiest Languages to Learn ?

Learning a new language has always been a hard task to do. It takes a lot of time and effort to master the intricacies of that target language you aim at. Some people are linguistically gifted and can speak more than five languages like the famous singer Celien Dion, but this is not the case with everybody else.

I have been a language teacher for more than 8 years and I know exactly what learners go through to start speaking some of the English they have been taught for  several weeks. The truth is that  languages differ, their grammar, syntax, phonology, and linguistics are not the same. There are some languages that are said to be easy to learn and others are hard to grasp. Below is an infographic that classifies languages according to the degree of their difficulty. If you liked it make sure you share it with your colleagues and students.


Via: Voxy Blog

Grockit Great Social Interaction around YouTube Videos

Grockit is  a great web tool for educators. It allows its users to create different tasks around YouTube videos. We all know the importance of YouTube as a huge source of multimedia clips that teachers can easily share and embed in their lesson planning. I have covered several tools about YouTube in  a special section called YouTube Tools but I have not seen as much important a tool as this one under study now.

Grockit is very easy to use and has a user friendly interface. It lets its users search for a YouTube video and once found, they can then both watch the video and use the right side panel to write their questions or comments. They can then share this page using a generated URL with their students or colleagues.

Grockit allows for greater interaction around youtube videos. Students can use it to review video materials and add their questions or time them to specific points in the video. I think that teachers need to try this tool and see by themselves how practically useful it is.

Check  This  Example to see what Grockit can do. The example is provided by Nik , you can also read his detailed post about Grockit in  Nik' Quick Shout Blog.

Useful Tips for The 21st Century Teachers

 Here is what I have prepared for you for this weekend.  I have three short videos that I want you to watch attentively. The videos are really great and can help new teachers a lot. Old teachers who have developed bad habits over the years will also find them useful. The videos are about teaching tips and techniques.

The first one talks about the bad teaching habits some teachers do when delivering their lessons. These habits are clearly displayed and solutions to fix them were also proposed.

                                                   Breaking Teaching Habits Video

 The second video is about error correction. You can see and compare yourself to those teachers and how they correct their students errors. If you think your error correction technique needs improvement then this is your opportunity to do so.

                                                            Error Correction Video

The last video is about a bunch of teaching tips you need to keep in your mind. You can jot these tips down and have a look at them from time to time and always ask yourself if your teaching incorporates these tips or not.

                                                   Five Great Teaching Techniques

I have also published an exhaustive list of teaching tips teachers of the 21st century need to abide by. You can check The 21st Century Teaching Tips.
I hope you enjoyed the videos. Any suggestions or comments are highly welcomed.

Black-Text Turn Pictures into Text Images

Black-Text is a cool photo editing application. It allows its users to turn any image into a readable text-laden photo within seconds. I am adding this tool to the list I have been compiling here about the Best Free Photo Editing Tools. The reason why my posts often cover photo editing tool here is to give educators the chance to discover great ways they can innovatively use pictures in their classrooms. We all know the importance of visual media in education and to go online and start googling for such tools  would take you some time, That is why this blog and many other ones out there on the net , are trying to aggregate the best free tools and deliver them in a ready to take posts.

Black-Text is free and has a handy editing board where you can carry out many actions like changing the style, colour, text fonts and many more.

How can I get started using Black-Text ?

Just head over to Black-Text main page and upload a photo you want to convert and then enter the text you want to go with it. This text can be just a few sentences , quotes or even long paragraph. Black-Text then turns your image into a desaturated image with your text placed on it. Users can also resize image size, font type, text colour and background colour. When done with the customization then you can either save the image or print it.

A List of Some of The Best Photo Editing Tools

Photos and images are great multimedia tools to incorporate into your classroom teaching. Students attention and  curiosity are easily arisen when graphic content is involved. So to help you prepare teaching visual aids to include in your classroom, Here is a set of useful and free photo editing tools that you can use very easily. With these tools you can add your personal touch to your photos and make them even more engaging. Click on any link to read more about the photo editing tool .

Convert to Cartoon: editing This is a great photo editing tool that allows its users to turn their photos into cartoons.

Anmish : This tools allows its users to add funny effects to their photos.

Picnik  : This is a great photo editing tool. It allows its users to apply several awesome effects on their images using a wide range of editing tools.

GrossOut : This photo editing tool allows its users to add  heinous and scary effects such as “crazy eyes, gnawing teeth, eye patches, bat wings, bloody knives and axes, open gash and wounds, masks, and many many more.”

YourOldPic : It  is a great image editing tool. It allows its users to make their pictures look old.


Image Embellisher :   It allows its users to quickly and easily add special effects to their images.

RoundPic : It allows its users to edit their images and turn them into rounded pictures.

Pixlr-o-matic is one of the easiest tools to help you add that personal touch without being a techno geek.

iPiccy : offers a plethora of editing functions that you can use very easily .


Zoom.it:  It allows its users to view and share high resolution imagery.

Bubblesnaps :  is about adding speech bubbles to a picture.

Visualize.us :  It lets you bookmark all your favourite pictures from different websites and share them with your anyone .

PictureTrail: It offers easy ways to organize your pictures and share them with your family , friends or student .

Subit :  It lets you add explanations to your images or create a personalized slideshow.

Image to Video : This tools  allows you to convert jpg images to videos .

Host-d-oddcast : It is a great image editing tool . It allows its users to embed their pictures and cartonize them into 3d avatar .

Black-Text : It  is a cool photo editing application. It allows its users to turn any image into a readable text-laden photo within seconds.

If you have other suggestions that we can add to this list then feel free to share with us in the comment box below.

Language and The Brain: Intricate Relationship

I love infographics and each time I stumble upon a good one I straightforward share it with you here. Today I want you to read the relationship between the brain and the production and interpretation of languages. There are mazing facts there and You can even share the inforgraphic with your students in the classroom.

Via: Voxy Blog

Alarming Facts about Texting on our Lives

Last week on a visit to Mount Saint University in Halifax, Canada, I was so surprised by the huge influence of mobile technology on the lives of students. I would venture and say 90 percent of the  students I saw there all were in some sort interacting with their mobile devices. Some would listen to music, some would play games and the majority were texting.

Texting has really changed the lives of so many people especially in the United States. I have stumbled upon a great inforgraphic that I m sharing with you here and I want you to meticulously go through the stats and facts about Texting, you will definitely be astounded.


Created by: MBA Online

Why Daylight Saving Time

Last Sunday, we had to change the clock here in Canada and take one hour back. Time has also changed in some other countries especially those that are far from the equator. To be honest I hate this time swap and takes me up to two weeks to get used to the new time and reschedule all my things anew. It is not a time change that happens but a system change, in work , nutritional system, sleep system and everything.

I always wish they would stop doing it but there are sound reasons why they are taking these steps every year. Trying to look for these reasons and understand why this happens I stumbled upon some very good videos that explain it all. The worst thing for us in education is to be asked by your students the next day time changes for the reasons why there is such a change. Would you imagine the embarrassment you be in when you ignore these facts. Anyway it is never too late to learn and here are two videos that will explain this phenomenon. You can share these videos with your students , it will be a great idea if you  schedule  two hours session to play these videos in front of your learners and then  organize an open discussion where each one can participate.

Here is the second video

The Three Effective Ways to Search The Web Educators Must Know

Using websites in the classroom is one of the easiest and less stressful ways of integrating technology into teaching. There is a large and constantly expanding collection of resources and learning materials online. The web with its growing repository of information and knowledge has certainly turned into a window on the wider world outside your class, and is of course, a readily available set of authentic material.
Acessing the content of web sites and using it with students in the classroom is not a task with no risks. There are a set of measures and steps to be taken before one can ensure the usability and appropriateness of what to include within a course book.

Several educators underrate the ability to efficiently and quickly search through Internet content and find suitable resources  thinking that it is a simple task that  any internet user can use with such an ease that no prior search knowledge is needed. This is completely wrong and , as a matter of fact, this is one of the most useful skills that both teachers and learners need to urgently acquire.
There are three basic ways of searching on the net, and I will briefly describe them below hoping that by the end of this post you will have grasped some techniques to effectively and quickly search the web and find  content to use in the classroom.

  Search Engines :

Although there is a variety of search engines, Google is , undisputedly, one of the most well known of them all with billions of indexed web pages in its online database. As you might probably know, a search engine is analogous to a telephone directory , or any other kind of database of stored information. You search for a name or title and the directory gives you back more information about that entry. But with billions of pages to choose from the task gets even much harder to easily and quickly find what you are looking for. So how do you find exactly what you want ?

To answer this question you need to first know what the process of indexing a web page means. When someone first publishes a content into the web , search engines such as google sends out their robots to explore and crawl the content and categorize it. When Google recognizes the existence of such a content it then stores it into its database for a later use, Google uses a very complicated algorithm to carry out all the above mentioned operations and I will not talk about them here because that is not our issue. What Google specifically know about a web page when it indexes it  is its address on the web, its title, when it was last updated and a few keywords associated with the content itself. These keywords are usually provided by the designer of the website and are generally meant to describe what the page talks about. The key to a good and smart searching in Google is the ability to define your keywords accurately.


Among the techniques you can use to refine your search query is the " phrase search technique " which invloves wrapping part of a phrase in inserted commas which will let Google treat those words not as individual entities but will instead look for sentences on the web page which contain those words in that particualr order. Thus, instead of searching for Cheap Flights to Canada , which can search for any or all of these words in any position and order,on a page, try searching for " Cheap Flights to Canada" as part of a phrase you might  expect to find on a web page. This technique is particularly useful when looking for lyrics or specific chunks of a text. The ultimate trick with Google is to try to imagine the web pages you are looking for and then try to visualize the content of these pages which will  help you decide on what key words to use in your search.
To learn more about some other useful tips to effectively search Google, I invite you to read:
Google Search Tutorials Part 1
Use Google to Search and Find Images Easily
Educational Image Search Engine Part1
Educational Image Search Engine Part2




2- Subject Guides:


Not all search engines are keyboard based . Some do not use this algorithm at all. In fact , it is thanks to Google for the introduction of this highly useful technique into web search. With this invention, internet search technology  has been largely revolutionized to the instant that we now talk about instant search, voice search, image search , people search and many more. However as I said earlier not all engines use key word techniques.

 If we look at Yahoo , which existed way before Google, this search engine uses subject guides  and divides its content into subject areas and subdivisions of those areas. So instead of a keyword search from the main page, users browse the section that best reflects their interests and their search. For instance, you want to search for the biography of a certain singer, you have to access the Yahoo directory then click on Entertainment, then Music, then Artists.and finally search for the biographical information you want. This process means that Yahoo will only  search in " Entertainment, Music, Artists rather than in its entire directory.


3- Real Language Search


A real language search such as Ask (www.ask.com) allows users to type simple questions as search queries . This does not mean that Ask will try to analyse and understand the question but rather selects the keywords from the query and construct a search based on them. The final result page a user would get will definitely contain the answer to his/her question at the top ( of course if Ask has been able to find a direct answer ) and links of related websites below that. For instance, if you want to look for a biographical information about someone you better phrase your search query as such: When was xx born ?

 As educators, It is really worth taking the time to explore all the three sites and spend some time simplifying them to your learners. Learners can really benefit from an exposure to all three types as they activate different linguistic and mental processes. Keywords are good for exploring word relationships and lexical areas. Subject searches help define and refine ideas and contexts. Real search can provide useful practice in question formation.

Mobile Learning The next Trend in Education

Mobile learning is the buzz word in education now. No wonder we are living in a digital age that is advancing so quickly and either you keep up with the actual pace or you lag behind and become outdated. Education is just part of this equation, new learning and teaching theories are being forged to cater for the emerging needs of the 21st century instruction. Before, we used to talk about just the integration of technology into education mainly in the form of using internet enabled  computers in the classrooms but now it is time we look for ways to use mobile devices in our teaching and learning. The vast majority of our students and learners have mobile devices of some sort and they spend most of their time interacting with these handheld appliances than you would ever imagine.Could you just imagine the pluses of using these same devices to help our students in their learning ?

This is an open ended question that I will try to answer in my Master thesis this year. But for now let me just share with you a great infographic that I found while I was doing some online research into this topic. The infographic shows clearly how the traditional forms of education are being outdated in an a digitally mobile  connected world.


Via: Voxy Blog