Microsoft Academic Search

Microsoft has a new beta service out. It's called Microsoft Academic Search. It is still in beta which basically means that it is still a work in progress, but there seems to be a lot of potential. It is still fairly functional in its current state.

As of this posting, they have roughly 27 million publications to search through. It appears that Microsoft Academic Search is a search engine geared specifically towards searching through academic publications. It appears to offer similar functionality to the Google Scholar, but it's also broken down into various categories.


Here is the URL to the new service: http://academic.research.microsoft.com.

Should I get a Stylus for my iPad or tablet?

Sometimes your finger is too large for doing any type of fine detail input. In those instances, a stylus is the best route to go. Targus makes a very affordable stylus.

Should you get one? It all depends upon whether or not you feel your hand isn't giving you the precision that you would like when working with your tablet. There are certain scenarios and apps that are better suited towards the usage of a stylus. Hand writing or note taking could make such an accessory essential.

A stylus is also great for creative apps like Sketchbook Express for the iPad. Sketchbook Express is a great program for doing illustrations. It has alot of functionality and the free version is pretty powerful, but there is also a pay version that includes additional features.

Blended Learning Toolkit

The University of Central Florida, along with a consortium of other schools, has just recently unveiled a toolkit for helping faculty members and instructional technologists to develop online courses.
The toolkit focuses specifically on the area of blended courses, or courses that have both face-to-face and online components.

The best part about it . . . it's absolutely free to use. They posted it using a creative commons license.

Need Extra Mobility for your iPad Classroom? Get a Cart.

Bretford PowerSync Cart for iPad.

Carrying one iPad around is easy, but what if you have to do that same thing with 30 of them? If you find yourself in this situation and you need of an easy way to carry 30 iPads, Apple along with Bretford, offers a solution that may be of interest.



The solution is the Bretford PowerSync Cart for iPad. The cart is not necessarily cheap at $2,599.95, but it does do more than just allow you to wheel around 30 iPads.

The cart includes the following features:

• Charge, sync, store, and secure up to 30 iPad Wi-Fi or iPad Wi-Fi + 3G devices
• Courtesy outlet perfect for accompanying MacBook, Mac mini, or AirPort Base Station.
• Ships fully assembled, including 30 charge & sync cables, ready to go.

Use your Kindle's Text to Audio Feature to Listen to Documents on the Road

One of the greatest, and seldom used, features of the Kindle is its ability to convert text to audio using the Text-to-Speech feature. This feature allows you to listen to the text of supported file formats (this feature can be toggled on and off by pressing the shift + sym keys). This only works on certain books published in the Kindle store, but it can also be used on files that you send to your Kindle email account.

This is how it works. When you setup a Kindle account, you get a special Kindle email account (usually something like username@kindle.com). Any documents that you send to this email account with the subject "Convert" will be converted to the native Kindle format. As long as it is a file that Kindle can recognize, you will then be able to listen to the text using a Kindle device.

It's great to use this feature if you want to multitask. On your next commute, you can take advantage of this feature by listening to any documents that you may need to catch up on.

Start using Blackboard's Latest Technology: CourseSites

If you are interested in using, or at least testing out, the latest version of Blackboard, try creating a CourseSites account.

CourseSites allows you to use the latest version of Blackboard completely free to create up to 5 courses. These 5 courses offer you the full features of Blackboard for your students.

CourseLab- a Free e-Learning authoring tool worth checking out . . .

CourseLab is a pretty robust authoring tool when it comes to creating learning content. The free version provides you with an authoring tool with a lot of bells and whistles. In fact, you can create entire course modules using this tool all by itself.

The catch comes if you have content created in say PowerPoint, you will need to spend additional money to allow for the ability to import PowerPoint into CourseLab. The cost, in comparison to some other authoring tools, is relatively minimal. You can get the PowerPoint add-on license for $99.

In addition to the PowerPoint add-on, there is also a screen capture license that can be added for $99. WebSoft Ltd., the developers of CourseLab, also provide additional templates for a mere $9.

In conclusion, the standalone product is worth checking out. It is hard to beat free. If the product is found to be useful, the additional investment for the add-ons appears to make sense.