Cool Tools

By Mike Johnson • October 28th, 2011

Freemake Video Converter makes it easy to convert your video files to a variety of formats. It’s a completely free program with no ads or hidden costs.
Converting video files can be done in three simple steps:

Drag your video file into the program
Click on the format you want
Click the convert button

You can convert videos to [...]

One of the most common drawbacks schools reported when looking at iPads was not being able to use it to take Accelerated Reader tests. Because Accelerated Reader used Flash there was no viable way for the iPad to display the site with ease. Now with the release of the AR app all that has changed. [...]

One of the new innovations we are seeing in instructional technology is the trend towards flipped instruction. The basic concept of flipped instruction is students do what we now consider classwork at home. When they return to school, they do what is traditionally considered homework. The big question that runs through everyone’s mind is “How [...]

Jeff Rhodus, Elsanor eMINTS teacher, had been discussing with his sixth-grade class the recent natural disasters in Japan.
Students wanted to know how the U.S. is helping the recovery efforts.  ”We could ask my dad,” offered one student, 12-year-old student. “He’s stationed there.”
And so began the effort to set up a video teleconference March 25 between Tech. Sgt. Jason [...]

One of the most exciting projects that I have been working with this year has the potential to revolutionize how we deliver remediation and instruction  in our classrooms. Two of our School Improvement Facilitators have working on creating math remediation and instruction videos  for students who are having trouble understanding concepts that are tested on [...]

Picnik.com – Upload your image and then edit it: resize, recolor, adjust lighting, add stamps, add borders, add text, fix red-eye, etc.
Rsizr.com – Seam carving technology – This site will analyze rows of pixels in your image to keep the parts that are richer in detail.  It’s hard to explain so you’ll just have to [...]

One of the coolest features of SMART Notebook and Promethean ActivStudio/Inspire is the ability to add multimedia. I see a lot of teachers add clips from places like United Steaming without much issue, but when it comes to just adding sounds I rarely see anyone using multimedia features. The main reason is the difficulty in [...]

I have been looking at different types of graphic organizers lately. I have decided that most everything for me falls in to two groups. Shape type organizers like you would find in Inspiration and mind maps. Most people are familiar with Inspiration style. You build shapes with words in them and then connect them in [...]

You ever have that program that you use so much that you just assume that everyone has it and must be using it as much as you do? Well IE Spell is that program for me. As many of you who know me can attest to, I can’t spell. Word processors with spell check have [...]