Royalty-free images you can use

Some great sites for getting images legally that you can use for non-commercial use:

~ Wikimedia Commons
~ Getty Images that are royalty free
~ Google Image search box restricted to images that are "free to use or share"

If you want the "mega" listing: public domain image collections ordered by size.

Worthwhile additions to your Web browser

They go by many names: plugins, extensions, add-ons, bookmarklets. Whatever you want to call them, they are extra functions that you can add to your Web browser. The best browsers for adding stuff is Firefox and Chrome; the worst is Internet Explorer. But, even with Internet Explorer, there are ways. While you can certainly go crazy with these add-ons, be warned that they do take up extra resources. So, if you have an old machine and you like having a gazillion tabs open at the same time within your browser, you may want to severely limit your add-ons. Here are the ones I use on a daily basis:

• to make reading Web content easier: Evernote Clearly and Readability
• to capture screenshots (including automatically scrolling a long webpage): Pixlr Grabber
• to create a short URL for a webpage: bitly (if you are wondering why anyone needs this, leave a comment and I'll explain)
• to manage my passwords: LastPass

I also have an auto-syncing cross-browser bookmarks manager since I use a number of personal and work devices daily and want to have a consistent and organized set of bookmarks: Xmarks.


All the ones mentioned here have Firefox and Chrome versions. If you are using Internet Explorer and are looking for an excuse to switch, this post might be your ticket.

Review of "20 Free iPad Apps Educators Can't Live Without!"

Some of you have asked me about this list, which is a free ebook from the people at simplek12.com. Below is my take on the apps.

Good tools I would recommend from this list:

3. Educreations -- allows you to record a lesson. It's good, except that it does not import/export from/to dropbox. See my post on this type of tool: recording-lesson-on-your-ipad. 4. Google Search -- yes. If fact, this app gives you access to all Google Apps (mail, calendar, docs, etc), in addition to search 6. Quick Graph -- graphic calculator.  18. Kindle -- book reader from Amazon. 22. Dragon Dictation -- current best speech recognition technology; works well for some.

These tools I do not know, but I prefer having ideas and task list in the same place as my other information. For me, that place is either Google Docs or Evernote.

8. Lino -- brainstorming 21. Wunderlist -- task list

These apps are content, rather than tools:

2. TED talks -- awesome, on iPad, on your computer, anywhere. 9. NASA app -- looks neat; I have not played with it. 11. History pin -- awesome. 13. Science360  -- looks neat; I have not played with it. 17. Free Books -- good collection of free books. There are many others.

These seem to be geared at earlier grades:

5. Math Quizzer 7. Today in History Lite 10. Puppet Pals 12. Project Noah 14. Toontastic 15. Red Stamp 19. Era of Dino Lite

No knowledge or opinion:

16. Virtuoso Piano 19. Flashcardlet 23. How Stuff Works

Incidentally, the site (simplek12.com) contains good info and the associated blog is worth reading.

Best blogs and resources on iPads in edu

Blog post (1/28/2012) that gives the best resources for teachers:

Getting started with iPads and App sites for Teachers

Best free apps for Android and for iPad

I find that I simply do not have the time to keep an updated list of best apps in various categories. There are plenty of existing reliable venues with such lists. When I look for apps, my first stop is http://www.techsupportalert.com:


- best free Android apps

- best free iPad apps 

Best iPad apps list

http://bit.ly/lvipadapps  -- best free iPad apps, organized by category, from a very reliable site