5 Good iPad Apps to Use with Your Evernote

12:34 AM    

July 3, 2014
Evernote is a powerful productivity tool for organizing and enhancing your workflow. I use Evernote on daily basis to take notes and bookmark websites to read later.Evernote syncing capabilities are great, whatever you do on one device is automatically synced to other devices. You can take a note  on your laptop and access it immediately on your iPad. Evernote is also a must-have tool for researchers.It allows you to share notes and collaborate on projects with colleagues.



There also some good iPad apps to use with Evernote in order to maximize your productivity  and tap into its full potential. Below are some suggestions I want to bring to your attention.

1- Penultimate

Penultimate gives you the convenience and feel of writing on paper with the added power and availability of Evernote. Take notes in class or a meeting, journal your thoughts, or outline your next big idea -- in the office, on the go, or at home.


Cloud Outliner lets you create and share outlines between your Mac, your iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch), and your Evernote account. Outlines make you efficient, naturally organizing your plans, projects and ideas in a clear way. Got a sudden flash of insight? Don't risk forgetting it – just enter it right away on whatever device is closest,


EverWebClipper HD is the easiest way to clip web pages from Safari App to Evernote. Save the actual web page to Evernote - text, links, images and all with a few taps.


EverClip2 is an app that allows you to clip everything to Evernote. Start EverClip and switch to your favorite apps. Copy any texts and images, EverClip will save these clippings in background. When you finish your work, return to EverClip. Edit, annotate and organize clippings freely and send them to Evernote.

Read More

The Best Educational Websites for Teaching and Learning in 2014

12:19 AM    

July 3, 2014
The American Association of School Librarian (AASL) has recently published its 2014 report of the best websites for teaching and learning. As you probably know, every year AASL releases a list of the best educational websites and applications that foster teaching and learning. The criteria AASL uses to select these websites include a set of qualities these  websites should enhance. Among these qualities are " innovation creativity, active participation, and collaboration". Also, websites that make it into AASL annual list are free, web-based, user-friendly, and are geared towards encouraging a sense of exploration and discovery in learners. You can check the list of 2013 and 2012.




Here is a round-up of the best websites for learning and teaching of 2014. Check out the original post for more details on each of these tools.
Media sharing
Digital Storytelling
Manage and organize
Social Networking and Communication
Content Resources
Curriculum Collaboration

Read More

Google Released A New Geography Based Game

11:49 PM    

July 3, 2014
Google has recently released a new game called Smarty Pins which uses Google Maps for its layout. This is basically a game that tests players geography and trivia skills. I have been tinkering with it for sometime today and thought it ideal for classroom use with students.



Players in Smarty Pins are asked a wide variety of geography-based questions to which they have to provide answers by dragging and dropping a pin in Maps. Scores are converted into miles and players are given 1000 miles at the start of the play . With each incorrect answer a number of miles are subtracted from the players' score. The trick is to answer questions as quickly as possible before the number of miles reaches zero.



To start playing Smarty Pins, you first select a category. The categories available are Arts and Culture, Science and Geography, Sports and Games, Entertainment, History and Current Event. Once you select the category, you will then be provided with a question. If you find the question too hard to answer you can get help by using the "take a hint" button. To answer the question you need to drop the pin on the correct location. The final score you reach can be shared with other using social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.


Read More

3 Great Collaborative Whiteboard Tools for Teachers

12:43 AM    

July 2, 2014
Below are some great whiteboard tools for teachers to use in class. These tools allow you to draw, sketch, and type on a web-based whiteboard. Some of them like PixiClip supports screen sharing. These tools can be used for a wide variety of purposes. They can be used for collaborative brainstorming, creating diagrams and illustrations, and designing step by step how-to guides.

1- PixiClip

PixiClip is a great web-based interactive whiteboard with huge potential for educational uses. PixiClip allows you to easily record your screen and share it with others.It provides an online canvas on which you can type, narrate, draw, sketch, and upload images to mark-up. You can record the whole process of your work on the canvas accompanied with your voice
2- Sketchlot

This is a web-based whiteboard tool that does not require any plugin or app installation. Sketchlot is compatible with different computers and tablets. The great thing about Sketchlot is that students do not need to sign up to use it. Teachers can add students to their account.As a teacher whatever drawing, sketch or illustration you create on Sketchlot can be easily shared with students either individually or with the whole group.

3- Realtime Board


This is another whiteboard tool for teachers. It allows you to host collaborative brainstorming sessions online. You can also use it to visually illustrate content using drawings, images, videos and texts. There is also the option to post and mark PDFs and add comments to documents using post-it stickers.

Read More

9 Great Google Alternatives for Academics and Student Researchers

11:41 PM  ,  

June 2, 2014
While Google remains a robust search engine with great capabilities and potential for us in education and academia, sometimes it seems more plausible to use specific and topic-based search engines to look for better search results. In the world of academia where  journal articles and research papers are the mainstay of learning and academic production, it becomes even more pressing to have a handy list of specifically designed search engines to easily search for and access journal articles and academic periodicals and papers. In this regard, I compiled a list of some of the best academic search engines that you can use for this purpose.

1- Academia.edu

This is one of my favourite search engines for academic papers. Academia.edu  is a place to share and follow research. You can use it to search for papers submitted by other scholars or you can share your own papers. Academia.edu is also a community of academic researchers where you can create your profile and follow others who share similar research interests.

2- Google Scholar

Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research.

 Related : 9 Tips Every Teacher Should Know about Google Scholar

3- JURN

JURN is another wonderful search engine to use to search for millions of free academic articles, chapters, and theses across multiple disciplines ( Arts, History, Humanities, Business, Economics, Ecology, Science and more). JURN is also a directory of over 3000 free arts and humanities journals that you can easily search from one single platform.

4- RefSeek

RefSeek is a web search engine for students and researchers that aims to make academic information easily accessible to everyone. RefSeek searches more than one billion documents, including web pages, books, encyclopedias, journals, and newspapers.

5- HighBeam

HighBeam Research is a premium information service built for students, instructors, researchers, professionals, and others looking to gain deep knowledge on subjects of interest. HighBeam provides access to thousands of credible, professional, published sources

6- Springer

Springer is a powerful academic platform that provides researchers with access to millions of scientific documents from a wide variety of journals, books, series, protocols and reference works.

7- BASE


BASE is a voluminous search engine especially for academic open access web resources. BASE is operated by Bielefeld University Library. As a search engine, BASE facilitates effective and targeted searches and retrieves high quality, academically relevant results.The sources which are included in BASE are intellectually selected and reviewed.

8- List of academic databases and search engines


This page contains a representative list of major databases and search engines useful in an academic setting for finding and accessing articles in academic journals, repositories, archives, or other collections of scientific and other articles.

9- ERIC

The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) is another great search engine that academics can use to search for scientific papers.You can use ERIC to search for peer reviewed papers or use its advanced search tips to refine your search and target specific journals and papers.

Read More

Useful iPad Apps and Activities to Teach Social Studies

5:04 PM    

July1, 2014
"Practical iPad Uses in The Classroom" is a series of posts I started a few weeks ago in which I share with teachers some practical examples of tasks and activities involving the use of iPad in class. If you have missed the previous posts then check them out here and here.

Today I am sharing with you a great presentation created by Karlaholt. In this slideshow, Karlaholt features  three example activities of how to use iPad apps to help you with teaching social studies .



Activity 1
Based on the communities students have studied ( Peru, Tunisia, Ukraine and india) students are asked to create a slideshow presentation using Haiku Deck app. In this presentations students are to highlight the impact of geography and culture on the quality of life within communities. Slide 3 in the slideshow below has a visual guide on how students can use Haiku Deck to create presentations.

For more apps to use on this activity check out this resource:

Activity 2
In this activity students are asked to create  an illustrative postcard of the community they want to visit. The poscard should include a short description and an explanation of traditions and cultural customs of that community.
The app suggested for this activity is  Photocard Lite. Directions on how to use this app are included in slide 4.

For more apps to use on this activity check out this resource:
5 Good iPad Apps for Creating Classroom Posters

Activity 3
In this activity, students are asked to created animated images to compare and contrast the contributing factors to quality of life between the communities mentioned in the previous tasks. The app suggested for this activity is Videolicious. Slide 7 includes visual directions on how students can use this app.

For more apps to use on this activity check out these resources:



Read More

An Excellent New Feature for Google Docs

3:45 PM    

July 1, 2014
A few days ago Google released a few interesting updates to its Drive applications. One important update that I want to share with you today is called "Suggested Edits". This new feature is great for collaborative work on Google Docs. Before, when you share a Google document with your collaborators and grant them the editing rights they can edit anything in it. But with "Suggested Edits" you, as the owner of the document, can control this editing process by allowing collaborators to make only suggestions which you can either accept or reject. This new feature is not available on Google Docs for mobile.

Here is how you can enable "Suggested Edits" in your Google Docs :

1- Open the document.
2- In the top-right corner, make sure you are in Suggesting mode


3-To suggest an edit to existing text, highlight the text you want to change and type the suggested edit. To suggest adding new text, just type the new text. Your suggestions will appear in a new color and any text you suggest deleting or replacing will be crossed out.



Owners of the documents will receive an email with your suggestions and be able to accept or reject them.

Accept or reject suggested edit in your document

If someone has suggested an edit to a document you own, you can decide to accept or reject it.
1- Open the document.
2- Click the comment where the suggestion has been made.
3- Click Accept or Reject in the top-right of the comment:
  • Accept the proposed change so that the suggested text is added directly to your document.
  • Reject the proposed change so that the suggested text is deleted.
You can see all of the suggested edits that have been accepted or rejected in your document by clicking Comments in the top-right corner of the document.

Allow others to suggest edits in a document

When you share a document with someone, you can allow them to make comments and suggest edits without making direct changes to the document by giving them "Can comment" permissions.

1- Open the file you want to share.
2- Click Share in the top-right corner.
3- Add the email addresses for the people you want to share with in the text box.
4- Click the drop-down menu next to the text box and select "Can comment".
5- Click Done.

People who have permission to edit the document can also suggest edits by switching from Editing to Suggesting mode in the top-right corner of a document.

Read More