Online Stopwatch and Timer

Teachers are frequently looking for a way to keep track of time.  Online stopwatch is a free and easy online tool that can be projected onto a screen or just utilized on your computer.  Whether you want a stopwatch, or a countdown clock, this is an outstanding site to visit.  It can be used in many ways,, provides multiple different formats, and because it is web-based, can be accessed on many different devices.  I know teachers that have used it for timing standardized assessments, timing speeches, and for many other activities.  If you want to keep track of time, this is for you.  Give it a try, it is one bookmark you'll want to save.  Check out the chart below for other ways this free tool can be used.

Online Graphing Calculator

I recently ran across a graphing calculator online.  It is very easy to navigate and allows the user to share the graphs they create.  It is a product of Desmos.  Within a couple of days, they had upgraded to a product that allows the user to create an account to save and share the graphs that they create, abettercalculator.  This is awesome.  Here is what the website looks like.

Along the left side, you get to enter equations, points, etc.  It has a keypad, so you can choose numbers, letters, functions, etc.  These are all browser based, which makes it very easy to navigate on an Interactive White Board.  I think teachers will love this.

As I mentioned before, a logged-in user can save graphs into a folder, share the link to the graph, or save an image of the graph in .png format.  It even allows the user to tweet out the result of the graph.

Another great feature is the customizable settings of the graph.  You have control over the x-axis, y-axis, scales, etc.  You can even use pi as a label.  Nice for trigonometry.  Give the page a try.  It is probably a page you'll come back to frequently.

Teachers Getting Started

For teachers that are just getting started utilizing technology, there are a couple of things to do at the beginning that will help facilitate the process.  There are a lot of free online tools for teachers to use, but most require an email address to register your information.  I would suggest that you spend a half hour and create two email accounts outside of your school address, so you can easily become a user of these online resources.  The two emails that I would recommend creating are free and easy to setup, and they are Google Mail and Yahoo Mail.

I would recommend creating a free gmail account.  It is not necessary, but I have found it to be quite useful to have a gmail account.  First of all, I use it to log into my google applications.  I also use it to log into Blogger, so I can blog and tell you about all these wonderful tools.  Gmail is also rarely blocked by email filtering systems, so you emails sent to and from this account will likely get through to the receiver.  Google will then have your information, so when you add different applications to your repertoire, you will be able to log in and be able to work.

I mentioned that gmail is not necessary for use of the Google tools.  You can create a google login using any email address, but since the process is so easy, I would recommend getting a gmail account.  I do not spend a lot of time checking my google email since I do get most of my traffic through other accounts.

The other email account I would create is a free Yahoo email account.  Yahoo has some nice features on their website and being a member of Yahoo will allow you to customize your homepage as well as many other things.  The main reason that I created this account was so that I could join Flickr.  Flickr is the site that I use to upload photos and share photos.  I requires a Yahoo ID, so creating it early will be helpful.

I think that creating these accounts when you first get started, will allow you to be thoughtful and consistent when choosing your login names, passwords, and email addresses.  The more consistent you can be with your online presence, the easier it will be for people to find you, follow you, communicate with you, and share with you.  My feeling is that people need to embrace that fact that these online tools are here, and learn quickly what they can do to help facilitate growth.  It takes some work (or what I like to refer as "play time") to figure out, but the benefits are great.  Plus, you don't have to spend a lot of money for special programs.

I will try share information in the future about Google, Yahoo, and Flickr.  I just wanted to suggest that there is some simple work you can do help facilitate your successful use of the tools.  Spend a half hour getting your accounts and passwords set up.  It will help you with your work in the future.

Join Diigo - Social Bookmarking That's Great for Teachers

I recently joined diigo - www.diigo.com - as a social bookmarking site that is an alternative to delicious.com. I became interested in diigo when I found out that they had an educator access to their site, that allows educators to create groups for their students to share bookmarks. I am always looking for ways to allow teachers and students to collaborate on their work. This looks like an outstanding way for online research and resources to be compiled and shared. I found out about the free teacher accounts at diigo from Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers.

I signed up for both my personal account and then the free upgrade for teachers. As I was going through this process, I learned that you may want to do this in a meaningful way. You may want to create an account for yourself, that you don't mind putting out to the public. You may want to create an account that is your teacher account, with a different username, that you will share with your students. You may want to keep your personal bookmarks private from your students and the teacher account will give the students access into that account. That is just something to think about. Users do have the ability to keep collected information private.

Once you have gone through the process of creating the teacher account, you will have access to a teacher console in diigo. That is where you will be able to create groups of students that will be able to share links and information. You will be able to create specific logins for students - using an e-mail address or just a name. This is quite nice for younger students that don't have e-mail accounts, yet. You can also import that information using a spreadsheet - if you have a large class.

I believe diigo will allow teachers and students to work electronically, see each others research, and analyze the sources, without having to print out large amounts of material. It will also aid in the citing of sources, as we teach students to document their research. Diigo will be an online tool that I try to work with and share a lot this fall, when I get back to school.