Context Menu Search - Right-Click to Search in Chrome

Context Menu Search is a Google Chrome extension that allows you to highlight words on a webpage then right-click to search for those words on more than three dozen popular search engines and reference sites. When you have Context Menu Search installed, just highlight, right-click, then select the search engine that you want to use. To see Context Menu Search in action, watch the short Tekzilla video below.



Applications for Education
Context Menu Search could be a handy tool for students to use when they're reading online. When they come to a word or phrase with which they are not familiar, they can quickly search for the meaning by using Context Menu Search. Ambiently is a similar tool that I've reviewed before that works on multiple browsers.

Chill - Organize and Share Your Favorite Videos

Chill is a free service for creating and sharing collections of your favorite videos from YouTube, Vimeo, VEVO, and Hulu. Chill is kind of like Pinterest for videos. Using Chill you can add videos with your comments to categories that you create. Your videos appear like sticky notes on a wall. Chill allows you to follow other Chill users to discover and share new videos.

Applications for Education
For teachers looking for new video content to use in their classroom, Chill could be a place to find that content. Or if you're just looking for a better way to organize the videos that you find online, Chill could be the solution for you.

Career Thoughts - Career Advice for Students

Deciding what to do after high school or college can be a daunting task for students. Career Thoughts is a site that aims to help students make informed career decisions. On Career Thoughts students can find career profiles that outline what a person in a particular career field actually does, the education requirements for that field, salary ranges, and employment prospects. The Career Thoughts YouTube channel provides even more information through video profiles of careers. Students who are ready to start applying for jobs will find plenty of resume writing, job hunting, and interviewing tips on Career Thoughts too.

Here's a video from the Career Thoughts YouTube channel.


Applications for Education
Students often think that they have an idea of what jobs are available in a particular field, but they may not have a good grasp on what is required to work in that field. Career Thoughts could be a good place for students to investigate and educate themselves on various career options.

Microsoft Translator Bookmarklet

The Microsoft Translator Bookmarklet is a simple little tool for translating the content on any webpage. To use the Microsoft Translator Bookmarklet just specify the language that you want content to be translated into then install the bookmarklet. Then whenever you're viewing a webpage you can click on the browser bookmarklet to translate the page. Installing the bookmarklet is a simple drag and drop process.

Applications for Education
I'm not sure how accurate the translations provided by Microsoft Translator are, but if it's not accurate that provides a learning opportunity. You could ask students to correct errors in translation.

Video - How to Download Blogger and Edublogs Posts

If you and or your students have more than a handful of posts on a blog, you should be in the habit of periodically downloading copies of those posts to have in a portable offline file. Watch the short video below to find out why and to find out how to do this on Edublogs and Blogger.



For annotated screenshots of the processes outlined in the video, please click here or here.