Keep your kids busy with 'free learning games'

Mainly video games are played to have fun 'either they are played at PCs, hand held or play station type gaming devices. As a parent or teacher we discourage our kids to play offline or online video games as these activities kill a large amount of time and when kids are addict to these games, usually their studies are affected. This post is mainly about useful links and resources about educational or learning games. These links offer free leaning games so you only need to check the links, bookmark your favorite ones and let your child have fun while learning.

* Browser-based, Free Learning Games: '36 Learning Games to Change the World'

* Educational Games at 'Nobel Prize organization' site. These games and simulations, based on Nobel Prize-awarded achievements, will teach and inspire you while you're having FUN!

Top 10 most visited educational games are:

* 1. The Laser Challenge Game
* 2. The Blood Typing Game
* 3. The Pavlov's Dog Game
* 4. The DNA - the Double Helix Game
* 5. The Lord of the Flies Game
* 6. The Electrocardiogram Game
* 7. The Control of the Cell Cycle Game
* 8. The Peace Doves Game
* 9. The Immune System Game
* 10. The Split Brain Experiments Game

* 'Educational Games Research' is a blog which discusses the research based studies concerning instructional video games.

John Rice is an educator, author and speaker specializing in educational technology and instructional gaming. He serves as technology director for a school district in Texas and is a doctoral student in educational computing at University of North Texas. Among the several published articles and conference papers he has written, many have dealt with the subject of educational video games. The topic remains his primary research interest.

Top posts are:
* The Top 10 Most Influential Educational Video Games from the 1980s
* 10 Great Sites for Finding Free Educational Games
* The Top 10 Free Educational Video Games
* Educational Uses for the Nintendo DS
* Latest Nielsen Findings Show Interesting Video Game Statistics


* '88 Free EduGames to Spice Up Your Course!'

'Zaid Learn' - An educational blog

Zaid Learn is a learning blog which is created by 'Zaid Ali Alsagoff' from Malaysia, who is from education field and an 'e-Learning Researcher'.

More about Zaid in his own words:

'I am an e-learning manager and researcher. I have done research in several key e-learning areas, including educational gaming, role-play simulation, virtual classrooms, learning (content) management systems, e-learning standards, instructional design and courseware development. In addition, I have two (2) years experience in courseware development (as an ID), and an educational background in Psychology and IT management. My strengths include creative and critical thinking, content development, instructional design, system analysis (and visualization), analytical thinking, writing e-learning proposals, conducting workshops, giving presentations, interpersonal communication and pro-activeness.'

His career and interests are reflected at his blogs posts. Blog is about 3 years old but quality of articles and research proves that it has got google page rank 5. I personally found many links and resources at his blog. There are many articles about other resources as well.

Helping you learn 'Mission to learn'

Mission to learn is another educational blog. You can read articles on a wide range of learning resources, insights about what it means to be a lifelong learner on the social Web, and news about topics like open education, serious games, brain science, and more.

Blog posts are really informative and valuable

35+ Free Online Business Education Sites
26 Learning Games to Change the World
More Than 100 Free Places to Learn Online - And Counting
More Than 50 Web Widgets for Your Learning Mix

Another post 'Is Your Brain in a Box?' is very unique on 'learning and brain plasticity' topic which might be interesting for the teachers who want to know more about the brain and learning.

* Mission to Learn Blog - Postings 2-3 times per week on new learning resources, news, and insights about learning.

* Radio Free Learning - An occasional (aiming for one to two times per month) podcast in which I interview thinkers and doers in the world of lifelong learning. Subscribe to the Radio Free Learning Podcast via RSS or with iTunes.

You can also explore each of the channels to get a better feel for what they offer. Check our the Free Learning Monitor archives, listen to some of the recent Radio Free Learning podcasts.

Best way to get informed about the updated post is to subscribe to the blog newsletter. You would receive a monthly digest of free and low-cost online courses, tutorials, videos, podcasts, games, and blogs.

Get free subscription of their newsletter: 'free learning monitor'

Get in touch with your community at - 'twitter for teachers'

'twitter' is the name of new micro blogging way of getting in contact with each other. This social community site has broken the many records of other social networking sites. I have also realized the power and effectiveness of 'twitter' and after joining it I noticed that I can get in touch with other online bloggers or people having same interests and moreover it is the best way to know 'what you are doing?' in few lines. You just scan your profile page and read or go to the tweets or links which you have bookmarked or followed.

Many teachers have their accounts at 'twitter' and if you are interested to get connected to them, simply go to 'twellow' and search of 'teachers' or similar category. 'twellow' is the yellow pages of 'twitter'. You can edit your profile for 'twitter' with the help of 'twellow'.

Link to my page at 'twellow'

Second best place to find the educators or educational stuff is to sign in for 'twitter for teachers'.

Link to the site: http://twitter4teachers.pbwiki.com/

This wiki was created to easily help educators find other educators on Twitter that have the same interests as them (that teach in the same content area).

Check out the list of educators on the pages linked there and add your Twitter name to the appropriate list too. You can browse through the subject or area if you need to look for other educators.

Create your own free web site for educational purpose

You can get free blog around the net very easily but some of us don't like or not comfortable with the blogging platform and need to set up a site for educational purposes.

There is a difference between web site and blog which is that at web sites you can keep the data unchanged but blogs need you to write or update on regular basis.

Recently I read a post at 'freetech 4 teachers' about 8 ways to build web site, which I am going to share with this blog reader because it is a very useful link for educators who want to create a web site for their school, class or for themselves.

* 8 ways to build web sites for free

Related posts:

* Links for teachers to start educational blogs

* Free Micro-Blogging Site For Teachers and Students

Frugal crafts links for kids

At home we can guide our kids to recycle the trash or unused stuff to make crafts. Making crafts or art projects with recycle products or cheap stuff is called 'frugal crafts' and as a parent or teacher I am very happy to recycle the stuff around the storage or cheap available material. This posts would help kids find the sites which offer frugal crafts for them.

In school art teachers can teach kids to make crafts with the stuff which is easily available around us and it costs almost nothing. For example they can make pinwheels out of construction paper, pencils and stick pins. Kids can create flowers using tissue paper and pipe.

Useful links:

* Frugal Crafts and Recipes for Kids

* Frugal Crafts For Kids at 'Frugal mommy living.info.'

* 'thrifty Thursday- frugal crafts for kids'

* 10 Fun and Frugal Gift Ideas

Get Computer training tutorial for free

Every city or town offers some institutions or schools/colleges where you can enroll to learn about computers but many of us prefer to get online training or sign up for it. There are millions of online universities, institutions or training centers offering online computer training courses or tutorials. More people are now interested in online learning as it saves time and hassle of going places.

This post is about an online tutorial which you can get easily by signing up free. You get the free tutorial tips newsletter at your inbox. This tutorial is easy to follow and best thing is that you are getting it free of cost.

180 Technology Tips offers 15 hours of free computer training in 180 easy to follow 5 minute lessons. This isn't a boring 15 hour lecture. This is the kind of relevant and uncomplicated computer training everyone needs.

The main categories you can expect the tutorials/tips are:

Microsoft Windows Operating System Tips, Microsoft PowerPoint Tips, Internet Tips, Microsoft Excel Tips, Computer Hardware Tips, Microsoft Word Tips, MS Outlook Email Tip, Additional Resources

'Sign up' 80TechTips.com collects the absolute minimum of information to email you the daily tech tips.

List of 100 most innovative blogs for educators

Blogs are a rich source of information and educators are integrating IT knowledge with their teaching resulting in great benefits. It is difficult to find education related blogs as search engines don't provide very specific results in terms of quality. Most of the online resources or sites offer useful stuff but mostly those sites are selling software or other educational stuff, and you are forced to see banners or ads as well. But if you keep a bookmark record of quality search engines, sites and blogs related to education stuff, you can save a lot of time.

I found this list of '100 Most Inspiring and Innovative Blogs for Educators' at 'Online University Reviews' a site which offers online university reviews, rating and rankings of online universities.

From preschool to graduate education, these 100 blogs are a great starting point for educators looking for inspiration and innovation.

Link : '100 Most Inspiring and Innovative Blogs for Educators'