I found this today and wrote a quick post on the advantages of great video converters--especially if they are free! Aiseesoft is VERY fast.

Amplify’d from jeffthomastech.com

Giveaway of the Day – Aiseesoft Total Video Converter 6.1

The Giveaway of the Day today is another video converter and it is a great one– Aiseesoft Total Video Converter.  I wish I had it yesterday because I did some conversions of Flip video to Apple TV.  Aiseesoft Total Video Converter converted my rather large Flip files 3 times faster!  Instead of yesterday’s 71 minutes, this piece of software could have done the job in 24 minutes.

Aiseesoft Total Video Converter usually retails for $35.00 but today you can get it for free at Giveaway of the Day.  Follow the link and download the software.  It comes in a zip file–unzip it and be sure to read the accompanying text file that tells you how to register for free.  It must be installed today and today only!  Enjoy!

See more at jeffthomastech.com

Here are a few of my favorites from the 16 movies mentioned in this post. I probably could add a few more--one that comes to mind is the best golf movie ever: "The Greatest Game Ever Played"

Amplify’d from www.popcrunch.com

16 Feelgood Movies That Don’t Treat You Like A Moron

14. Lost in Translation

13. Rudy

11. Billy Elliot

7. School of Rock

1. The Princess Bride

See more at www.popcrunch.com

Some great information here!

Amplify’d from shine.yahoo.com

8 Clever Solutions for Cleaning Windows

1. "My windows always streak after washing"

Use a window-washing squeegee with a smooth, soft rubber edge. Washing windows is a tiresome chore, but it’s even worse when your labors leave streaks on the windows

2. "My blinds are dust magnets!"

Use an antistatic spray.

3. "There’s mildew on my window frames"

Wash with a bleach-detergent solution

4. "My outside windowsills get dirty so quickly

Apply a coat of floor wax

5. "My shades are filthy"

Dust or wash the shades.

6. "My windows get dirty too fast"

Change your heating and cooling system's filter.

7. "Secondhand smoke is killing my windows"

Wash it with ammonia solution.

8. "My screens are filthy"

Remove and wash.Read more at shine.yahoo.com

Just a small taste of my weekly edition of Treasure Chest! I scour the web for the best educational technology resources each week and post them every Sunday!

Amplify’d from jeffthomastech.com

Treasure Chest-100′s of Resources, Ideas & Videos for EdTech!

Here is this week’s edition of Treasure Chest–the best resources and information from the past week on the web!

Tools

Işıl Boy: 50 Tools and Tricks to Revolutionize Your Note-taking–Great tools, especially if you are an MA student!

Powerful Sound Recording Tool- Audio Recorder–Audio Recorder is a powerful and useful sound recording freeware app for Windows. With this app, you can record sound from microphone, line-in, streaming audio

10 Ways to Get More From Google Voice | Maximum PC–If you have any interest at all in turning your normal mobile communications into a supercharged environment boosted by the best of what the Web and a mobile network could possibly offer… it’s time to go Google Voice.

How to Teach with Tech Tools–In Western Civilization class at The John Carroll School, freshmen grab plastic chairs from a stack against the wall, gather around the room in different areas and jump online with their tablet PCs.

Using Creative Commons Images from Flickr–Flickr is an excellent place to find images that are available under a Creative Commons License but it won’t let you properly attribute CC work.  Here’s how!

The Complete Guide to Watching Video on the iPad–With the iPad’s large screen and light weight, it makes it the ideal device for watching movies and TV shows lying in bed, on the go, or pretty much anywhere you want to. That said, Apple’s embargo on flash makes it difficult to find a lot of content to stream online.

40 iPad Apps That Librarians Love–Whether you’re looking to get creative or organize your life, nearly every librarian will find these iPad apps fun and useful.

60 Educational Game Sites That You’ve Probably Never Seen « Tech:-)Happy–These aren’t in order of greatness – they all have their own specific applications for education. A few of these appear on my Sites for Kids (and Teachers) page.

25 Safe, Fun & Educational Virtual Worlds for Toddlers, Kids, and Tweens | eLearning Gurus–Parents may be concerned about the safety and security of their children online, so here are 25 safe places for kids to play online.

Facebook Instant–Browse the Facebook Instantly like never before !!. Search in your friends’ posts, status, comments and much more… Visit to try it out: (No registration required, Just type and search)

An Overview of Windows Live Essentials 2011–This article will give an overview of what’s there to explore in this latest edition of Live Essentials and how to install the programs

Screenshot Tour: Evernote 4 for Windows Make Taking Notes a Pleasure – How-To Geek–Evernote 4 for Windows is finally here, bringing with it a much needed UI refresh and an amazing speed boost.  Let’s look at how Evernote has improved and now makes it easier than ever to save all of your memories.

Ideas for a Flip Camera Video Scavenger Hunt « Moving at the Speed of Creativity–Monday in class, we brainstormed ideas (using an Etherpad shared document) for a video scavenger hunt. Based on the input and suggestions of students, I created the following activitywhich provides several options for students working in partner teams.

See more at jeffthomastech.com

I am wondering how many teachers will actually watch these videos or dismiss them without a thought. Many teachers have their students provide feedback about their course at school via a survey. I have never found these to be particularly useful. Instead, what students really think about your school can really assist in changing the atomosphere.

Amplify’d from dangerouslyirrelevant.org

Videos – I hate my teacher

Do you know what your students are saying at home about your school? Is this something that educators should care about or just ignore?

WARNING: Language often is not safe for work or young children.

See more at dangerouslyirrelevant.org

It's amazing how true most of thee graphs are when describing the behavior of Twitter and how it's used/viewed. Enjoy!

Amplify’d from www.11points.com

11 Funny Graphs About Twitter

Who's Big On Twitter?

The Most Played Out Jokes About Twitter

The Best Thing About Celebrities Being On Twitter Is...

Twitter Follower-Following Scatter Plot

The Conan O'Brien Paradox

Things You Do On Twitter That Annoy Your Friends

If I Click On a Trending Topic, What Will I See?

Use of the Word "Your" on Twitter

Reaction to a Celebrity Death, Twitter vs. Mainstream

What Happens When You Introduce Someone 55+ To Twitter

Who's Making Money Off Twitter

See more at www.11points.com

I'm familiar with 6 out of the 7 choices given here by Mashable. To my surprise they have listed EDU 2.0 first! Why am I surprised? EDU 2.0 has been around for a while but has not received near the attention of other sites. It has great features, great security and it's free! If you have not tried EDU 2.0, you should give it a try!

Amplify’d from mashable.com

7 Fantastic Free Social Media Tools for Teachers

Even when people say they want to incorporate social media, they don’t always know the best ways to do so. It’s especially daunting when those efforts can affect the education of your students.

1. EDU 2.0

EDU 2.0 is a lot like online course management systems Blackboard and Moodle, but with a couple of distinct advantages. First, teachers can share their lesson plans, quizzes, videos, experiments and other resources in a shared library that currently hosts more than 15,000 pieces of content. Second, a community section allows teachers and students to network and collaborate with other members who share the same educational interests. And third, everything is hosted in the cloud for free.

2. SymbalooEDU

The popular visual organizing and sharing tool Symbaloo launched its “EDU” version last month. According to the company, 50,000 teachers are already using Symbaloo to organize classroom resources. The new EDU version comes with academic subject-specific resource pages or “webmixes” and top tools like TeacherTube, Slideshare, Google () Docs, Flickr () and more are fully embeddable. Teachers with a “Free Plus” account can add their school logo and customize the links. The site also allows students to easily share their Symbaloo pages and projects with classmates.

3. Collaborize Classroom

This app gives teachers four discussion format choices. Students can either agree or disagree with a statement, answer a multiple choice question, post responses, or have the choice between adding a new response or voting for someone else’s response. Teachers can add photos or videos to their prompts and all of the discussions take place on one class page.

4. Edublogs

Common uses for blogs in classrooms include group projects, reflection journals, school newspapers, class web pages and parent newsletters. But, as evidenced by the winners of the 2009 Edublog awards, there are plenty of other creative options for integrating the blogs into curriculum.

5. Kidsblog

Kidsblog is a bit more specific than Edublogs. There are fewer options to adjust the appearance of the main page, and it’s hard to use the platform for anything other than as a system for managing individual class blogs. The homepage serves as a catalog of student blogs on the right with a recent post feed on the left.

6. Edmodo

Edmodo looks and functions much like Facebook (). But unlike Facebook, it’s a controlled environment that teachers can effectively leverage to encourage class engagement. The platform allows teachers and students to share ideas, files and assignments on a communal wall. Teachers can organize different groups of students and monitor them from the same dashboard. Once they’ve organized classes, they can post assignments to the wall and grade them online. They can then archive the class groups and begin new ones.

7. TeacherTube and SchoolTube and YouTube

As the name implies, TeacherTube is YouTube () for teachers. It’s a great resource for lesson ideas but videos can also be used during class to supplement a lecture. For instance, you can let Mrs. Burk rap about perimeters if you like her idea but lack the rhyming skills to pull it off yourself. This site also has a crowdsourced stock of documents, audio and photos that can be added to your lesson plans. Unfortunately, every video is preceded by an ad. Read more at mashable.com

Without a doubt, my Number 1 is Brian's Song. As long as were being honest here--don't even want to think about watching Born Free.

Amplify’d from holykaw.alltop.com

10 movies to make a man cry

The Pride of the Yankees

Rudy

Saving Private Ryan

Dead Poet’s Society

Brian’s Song

See the full list at BuzzFeed. Read more at holykaw.alltop.com

Another look at creativity or in this case "Where Do Good Ideas Come From?" A very well done video on illustrating Johnson's take on creativity.

Amplify’d from www.openculture.com

Where Do Good Ideas Come From?

Where do good ideas come from? Places that put us together. Places that allow good hunches to collide with other good hunches, sometimes creating big breakthroughs and innovations. During the Enlightenment, this all happened in Parisian salons and coffee houses. Nowadays, it’s happening on the web, in places that defy your ordinary definition of “place.” In four animated minutes, Steven Johnson outlines the argument that he makes more fully in his soon-to-be-published book, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation. The video is the latest from the RSAnimate series. Read more at www.openculture.com