Linkapalooza

Links I've recently gathered, many of them from CUE 2013:

• Why BYOD is a Good Idea (Innovation Excellence)
• Take the Hassle Out of Students Turning in Assignments (Alice Keeler)
• MobyGratis.com - music free for use in non-profit film projects (Moby)
• EdWeb.net - professional networking for educators
• AppsInClass (Palm Springs Unified teachers)
• Advanced Google Hints and Tips (Diane Main)
• Free Tools and Resources (NextVista.org, Rushton Hurley)

Problem Attic - New York Regents Questions Online

I got a marketing email today that seemed too good to be true, from Problem Attic (www.problem-attic.com).  They advertised more than 45000 questions from the New York State Regents Exams from the last 30 years, in an online database that allows teachers to select, arrange, and print questions.  I created an account and played around for a little, and the site seems to be on the level and as advertised.  There are questions from Science, Mathematics, Social Science, and English Language Arts.  The selection interface is slick and easy; you can arrange the questions however you like on a page, either for tests, overheads, or flashcards; you can modify the look of the pages somewhat; and then you download a PDF.  I did not find a way to automatically make different versions of a test, but it is pretty easy to manually scramble the questions and print out a different test.

For years, I've used ExamGen, which is a test bank that is largely (if not completely) based on the Regents Exam questions for science.  The questions are quite good, but the test generator program is terrible.  I put up with it for the sake of the questions.  Problem Attic seems to have solved this, creating a ridiculously easy interface for the same good questions.  I cannot figure out why this site is free; it's worth paying for.  I guess once in a while, marketing emails are actually true.

Set up your account at www.problem-attic.com today.

Free and Fair-Use Photos and Soundtracks

The September/October issue of Learning and Leading with Technology has an article by Keith Ferrell that gives four resources that students can use to find free and fair-use photos:

• Pics4Learning.com
• flickrCC
• FlickrStorm
• Fotopedia

Not everything on these sites is royalty-free, so make sure students are using advanced searches to find noncommercial or Creative Commons images.

The article also references a site (www.soundzabound.com) that students can use to download royalty-free soundtracks.  Try these out the next time your students are putting together a presentation.