Webtools: no registration needed for students

Very often we would like to use a tool quickly, but are put off by a registration process.  Here you can find a neat list of tools indexed in 18 categories which do not require registration. Ready, set, explore!

QR Codes
Surveys and Polls
Online Whiteboards/Corkboards
PDF Tools
Charts
Word Clouds
Maps
Schedule
Reference (dictionary/thesaurus/concordance/corpus/citation)
Calculators/Converters
Documents (webpages/text/paste/view)
Annotation
Stories (create/read)
Chat/Conferencing
Presentation
Audio
Screencapture (image/video)
Video (view/edit/create)

U.S. Department of Education Releases 2016 National Education Technology Plan

Details are outlined here.

“The plan calls for schools and districts to:

  • Redesign teacher preparation programs to shift from a single technology course to thoughtful use of technology throughout a teacher’s preparation and minimum standards for higher education instructors’ tech proficiency.
  • Set an expectation of equitable access to technology and connectivity inside and outside of school regardless of students’ backgrounds.
  • Adopt high-quality openly licensed educational materials in place of staid, traditional textbooks.
  • Implement universal design principles for accessibility across all educational institutions and include these principles within teacher preparation programs.
  • Improve technology-based assessments to allow for embedded delivery within instruction and making near real-time feedback for educators possible.
  • Establish a robust technology infrastructure that meets current connectivity goals and can be augmented to meet future demand.”

A psychologist’s guide to understanding the teenage brain

“If being a teenager is hard, teaching them is harder”. This guide might help you understanding more about teenagers and how they operate and help them navigating through life more successfully. Basically, teenagers take more risks, struggle to get enough sleep, have less self-control, peer=pressure vulnerable, and have trouble reading emotions. More here.

2016 Top 10 IT Issues and Strategic Technologies

According to Susan Grajek, EDUCAUSE’s vice president for data, research and analytics, these are the top 10 (the full report is available at EDUCAUSE website):

The top 10 IT issues of 2016 are:

  1. Information Security
  2. Optimizing Educational Technology
  3. Student Success Technologies 
  4. IT Workforce 
  5. Institutional Data Management 
  6. IT Funding Models 
  7. BI and Analytics
  8. Enterprise Application Integrations
  9. IT Organizational Development 
  10. E-Learning and Online Education