Khan Academy

One of my favorite educational sites is the Khan Academy, which is a non-profit organization that offers free courses to anyone, anywhere, at any time and for no cost whatsoever. Simply perusing their website will show the hundreds of free online courses they offer to the general public, which is an amazing feat in and of itself.

But there is more to the Khan Academy than simply their website and courses; here is a list of some of my favorite 'add-ons' and tips and tricks for the Khan Academy and their great educational content:

• Using Khan content in your own lessons
• How to access Khan Academy if YouTube is blocked in your school
• KhanApp for your iPhone, iPad or Android device
• Self-paced math lessons

Do you have other resources relating to Khan Academy to share? Or do you have examples of how you've used Khan Academy content in your lessons? Please share your thoughts and comments below.

Need help finding lesson plans?

What happens when you have a class first thing tomorrow and you suddenly realize you're not prepared? Being able to quickly find a lesson plan or lesson template online can be a life-saver.

My favorite site to find lesson plans is Awesome Library, which has over 37,000 resources available to teachers. For an example, let's see if we can find a middle school lesson on geometry:

1. Click on Math in the middle of the page
2. Click on Middle-High School Math
3. Click on Geometry
4. You now see a wealth of resources available to you: lesson plans, games, projects, papers and much more.

While you shouldn't rely on sites like Awesome Library to build all of your lesson plans, it is a fantastic resource when you need to supplement your current lesson plans or if you need help in a pinch.

Incredible Tutorial Resource

Think Tutorials is a massive collection of computer tutorials, and should be an essential resource site for educators. Tutorials include everything from how to change settings on your iPhone, how to use software like Microsoft Office and Apple's iWork, as well as internet tools such as blogs and social media.

This is the best tutorial resource site I've found yet online. Does anyone else have similar sites they'd like to share? Please post in the comments below.

New resource: Awesome Screenshot

If you are a Chrome or Safari user, there is a great browser extension available to you called Awesome Screenshot. This tool allows you to grab a quick screenshot and then draw on it, annotate it with instructions or blur out certain parts of the screen.

This new screenshot tool has the potential to be extremely helpful to educators and instructional designers. Watch the video below to see the potential of this great screen capturing tool.

An alternative social network for children aged 8-13

A new social networking site called Everloop has just gone public in beta form, and it aims to be a safe and secure social networking environment for children between the ages of 8 and 13. The goals of the site are to host a secure location for kids to engage with one another without their parents having to worry about their online safety.

One important and interesting aspect of keeping things safe is that Everloop requires credit card verification of all childrens' parents before they can join the network. This seems like a great way to ensure that only children are on the site and to keep away any harmful outsiders.

The site operates much in the same way that Facebook does, and is compliant with The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) which means that the site can be used in schools and educational settings.

Does anyone have experience with Everloop or a similar secure social networking site for children?