Looking back: My Top Five Picks of the Year

"It's the most wonderful time of the year."

So, yesterday was my last day of school here in Guatemala, and I'm getting ready for some well-deserved family time back in Canada. In that spirit, I thought I would take a look back to some of the absolute best tools and websites that I have investigated in the last school year.

But wait (you may be saying to yourself) isn't this just a thinly-veiled excuse not to write something new this week?

Sue me, I'm on vacation. I'll be checking in on TIE sporadically over the summer, then look for big changes on the blog pages as the first day of school approaches!

Those of you that are on holiday already, or are approaching the end of the school year: enjoy it, you deserve a break!

5. Gapminder World and the Adventures of Hans Rosling

I love the whole concept of Gapminder: promoting social change by helping people to understand the world's problems with highly effective data analysis and dynamic graphs and presentations. For teachers of economics, statistics, history or world issues, Gapminder is an exciting resource for your classroom.

My Original Blog Post (Feb 15, 2011)
Here is Hans Rosling's Profile on Ted, with links to his influencia...

4. Good Magazine

Good Magazine is a big favorite of mine. I originally reviewed their awesome infographic section: Transparency, but they also host some of the best writing on progressive education anywhere. Read it.

My Original Blog Post (March 2, 2011)
Good Magazine: Education

3. Games For Change

I originally blogged about Games For Change at the beginning of May. In the intervening couple of months, I have had the chance to demo many of the games highlighted on the site, and I have grown to respect their work even more. Game design for teaching, learning, and promoting social change is an area in its infancy. Check out what is happening on the ground floor.

My Original Blog Post (May 2, 2011)

2. Stuff made by Google:

I don't care that they are an evil, information-sucking, multinational conglomerate. As long as they keep making such cool stuff, offering it up to the public for free, and supporting educators, I will forgive them. This year my school transitioned to a Google Apps based system, with good results. Google Docs has been a revelation to many educators. Google Earth and Google Maps are classroom mainstays already, and I've helped teachers do amazing things this year with Google Sketchup and the new Google Body Browser. What can you say? Top marks.

Blog post: Turning Google Forms Into Self Marking Quizzes (June 7, 2011)
Update: Google Body Browser is Fully Functional (April 11, 2011)
Blog post: Google Body: Google Labs Does it Again! (Jan. 6, 2011)

1. Dipity:

Number 1 on my list is a service that I personally use all the time, at school and for personal stuff too. Dipity allows you to create interactive, dynamic timelines out of just about anything: images, videos, Delicious links, blog posts, or practically anything else you can wrap an RSS feed around. Easy to use, and great for any type of classroom project.

I use it to publish my TIE blog posts on my Wiki, my website, and Facebook, for my non-TIE friends and colleagues to read.