Type Fu A Great Chrome App for Learning Fast Typing

June 18, 2015
We have already featured several web tools students and teachers can use to enhance their typing skills. Today we are adding another excellent web based Chrome app to help you learn fast typing. The app is ideal for all age groups and skill levels. Whether you are a beginner or advanced typist, Type Fu will definitely intrigue you.

Type Fu provides a wide range of fun and engaging lessons to get you typing quick. Lessons include simple letters, numbers, words, proverbs and even quotes of renowned historical thinkers. The app also features multiple levels of difficulty and once you figure out your skill level, you can immediately delve in your typing tasks. Type Fu automatically detects when you mastered a skill level and starts providing you with more challenging typing exercise to prepare you for the next level.

Type Fu also lets you visualize your typing progress. You will be able to check the generated charts describing your typing progress and learn how much better you typing speed and accuracy become. Type Fu is not free. It costs $9.99  and educational institutions and companies can buy multiple licenses with 50% discount via the Apple Volume Purchase Program and Google Play for Education Program.

 Follow us on : Twitter, Facebook , Google plus, Pinterest .

Educator-recommended Tools to Help Enhance Your Visuals

June 17, 2015
Sometimes a good visual has a way of capturing one's attention. This can be important in a room full of varied attention spans. Here are some educator-recommended tools to help enhance your visuals.

1- Wixie 

 Create digital stories with text, artwork, and voice recordings.

2- Visme 

 Tell Better Stories and Visualize your Ideas into Awesome Presentations and Infographics. Use it free.

3- Color Combos 

Get help with finding harmonious color combinations.

4- flaticon 

 Find and download free vector-based icons.

5- Patext 

 Write text along the path of any shape or curve you can draw with your finger.

Want more? Check out these shelves of tools.

6- Data Visualisation 

This is curated by educational developer Sue Beckingham.

7- Visual Learning 

This one is curated by classroom teacher Clara Cordero.


By: Mike Lee, Co-founder of edshelf
 Follow us on : Twitter, Facebook , Google plus, Pinterest .

A Step-by-step Guide on How to Create Custom Courses for Your Class Using iTunes U

June, 2015
Today we want to draw your attention to one of the features of iTunes U that is often overlooked by many teachers. It is the ability to create your custom courses for iPad and teach them right in your classroom.  iTunes U is best known  as a provider of courses from leading universities and colleges (e.g Yale, Stanford, MIT Oxford ..etc). It actually has over 800,000 free lectures, videos, books and other resources on thousands of subjects from Algebra to Zoology.

As a teacher you can use iTunes U to create your own courses to share with your students. Your courses can include a variety of materials such as a syllabus, handouts, assignments,, web links, content from other apps such as iBooks, Pages, Number, Keynote and many more. You can also include learning materials from over 750,000 educational resources available on iTunes U. Other things you can do with iTunes U include: Provide every student a course outline, write posts, distribute assignments, upload class materials, easily track participating students, and much more. You can also use your iPad’s camera to capture photos and videos to include in your lesson assignments.

To learn more about how to use iTunes U to create custom courses for your class, Apple has this short guide available for download in PDF format. The guide walks you through the entire process of how to create courses including things such as how to edit and organize course content, add posts, assignments and materials, how to manage enrolment and collaborate with others and many more.

 Follow us on : Twitter, Facebook , Google plus, Pinterest .

A Simple Google Drive Tool for Converting Videos to Different Formats

June 17, 2015
Video Converter is a good web tool and Chrome app that allows you to convert a wide range of media format to  MP4, AVI, MPEG, FLV, 3GP. For teachers, this simple tool does serve the purpose, for those of you looking to convert video files bigger than 1023MB, Video Converter is definitely not an option.

Video Convert is integrated with Google Drive so you can easily upload and convert videos you have saved on your Drive. It is also integrated with other services namely Dropbox and SkyDrive. The process of converting a video is very simple: upload your video file from your computer or other integrated services. You can also use the URL of a video but this last option did not work for us with YouTube videos. After uploading your video, choose the format you want it converted to then click on convert. Depending on your Internet connection, the conversion process can sometimes take a bit longer than expected. Give it  try and see if you like it.

 Follow us on : Twitter, Facebook , Google plus, Pinterest .

Top 3 Android Presentation Apps for Teachers

June 16, 2015
When it comes to Android presentation apps the options we have are very limited compared to iOS apps for the same category. Apps such as Haiku Deck, Story Desk and many others are not yet available in Google Play store.  There are however some good alternatives to consider for your Android. The list below features what we think are the best 3 presentation apps for Android users:

1- Google Slides

Google Slides allows you to create, edit, and collaborate with others on presentations right on your Android-operated device.  Some of the things you can do with Google Slides include: create new presentations from scratch or edit those you created on the web; share presentations and work together with others in the same presentation at the same time; open, edit, and save Microsoft PowerPoint files; Add and rearrange slides, format text and shapes, and more.

2- Microsoft Office Mobile

‘Microsoft Office Mobile is the official Office companion optimized for your Android phone. You can access, view and edit your Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint documents from virtually anywhere. Documents look like the originals, thanks to support for charts, animations, SmartArt graphics and shapes. When you make quick edits or add comments to a document, the formatting and content remain intact.’

3- Prezi

‘Prezi’s Android app lets you view and show all your prezis whenever and wherever you want, even remotely. Present live to your colleagues across town or across the world, or follow along with their presentations, no matter where you happen to be. Some of the features provided by Prezi include: Access and view your entire online prezi collection; Practice and rehearse any presentation, wherever you are; Watch and present prezis remotely;  Easily share your prezis via email or any chat app and many more.’

 Follow us on : Twitter, Facebook , Google plus, Pinterest .

3 Interesting Tools for Creating Maps with Students

June 16, 2015
Today we are introducing you to some good web tools to use for creating maps with students.  These are new tools that we are featuring here for the first time. Using these tools students will be able to create custom maps, draw on maps, insert text and custom images to their maps, place markers, and many more.

1- ZeeMaps

This is a great tool for creating interactive maps. It provides unlimited markers per map and has 3 level access control for each map: viewer, member and admin. ZeeMaps also allow you to add video, photo or audio with your markers. Other features provided by this tool include:highlight countries, states, cities, zip codes, counties, or hand-draw region; Customize marker icons with your own images; PDF or PNG map images for presentations or brochures;Manage your map entries with powerful editing grid…

2- Click2Map

Click2Map is another web application that enable you to easily create maps and add points of interest to any geographic location of your choosing. Click2Map allows you to import data, geocode multiple addresses perform batch updates, display directions, customize your own database. When done working on your map, you can download and use it on your own website or blog.

3- Scribble Maps

Scribble Maps lets you create and customize your maps the way you want. You can embed images, add text and markers, create custom widgets and share your final product with your colleagues and friends. Pro version of Scribble Maps has the added features of publishing your maps with no ads.

 Follow us on : Twitter, Facebook , Google plus, Pinterest .

3 Good Text to Speech Tools for Struggling Readers

June 16, 2015
We have received a few requests over the last couple of weeks to share our recommendations for text to speech tools designed specifically for struggling readers.While all text to voice converters can be used by both struggling and non struggling readers, the tools listed below are reputed for being effective with kids with reading disorders.  Natural Reader is not free but it does  offer a free trial period to test the application and decide if it works for you.

1- Natural Reader

‘NaturalReader is a Text to Speech software with natural sounding voices. This easy to use software can convert any written text such as MS Word, Webpage, PDF files, and Emails into spoken words. NaturalReader can also convert any written text into audio files such as MP3 or WAV for your CD player or iPod. NaturalReader has many other functions, such as OCR. OCR function works with your scanner to convert printed characters into digital text and it is up to 99% accurate. This allows you to listen to your printed file or edit it in a word-processing program.’

2- Read & Write for Google

‘Read&Write for Google™ offers a range of powerful support tools to help students gain confidence with reading and writing, including:Hear words, passages, or whole documents read aloud with easy-to-follow dual color highlighting; See the meaning of words explained with text and picture dictionaries; Hear text translated into other languages and many more’.

3- SpeakIt

‘SpeakIt reads selected text using Text-to-Speech technology with language auto-detection. It can read text in more than 50 languages. Here is how it works:

• First select the text you want it to read.
• Then click the icon to start listening.
• When it is ready to read, the number of sentences is shown on the icon.
• To stop listening at any time click pause ‘

Follow us on : Twitter, Facebook , Google plus, Pinterest .