I absolutely LOVE using online educational games with my students because, if they’re fun enough, the kids end up learning something without even realizing it.  I’ve talked about quizlet and scatter, but my new favorite site for online educational games is called classtools.net.

This site was created by Russel Tarr, the head of history at the International School of Toulouse in France.  It’s completely free, you don’t even have to create an account!  And he’ll let you store your games on his site as well as save them as html files.  As long as you access the site at least every 12 months, your games will never be deleted.

With this site you create your own set list and then five different games are created for the students to review vocabulary or grammar points.  What makes this so fantastic is the games are really fun and addictive.  There’s a space invaders type of game and there’s another game that looks like an old nintendo game (like a Donkey Kong or Mario Bros).

There are only two bad things about this site:

1. My students now want to play these games all the time.

2. I can’t get past level 7 on the space invaders game but my students can and boy is that frustrating

]]> http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/let%e2%80%99s-play/feed/ 0 http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/fantastic-french-site/ http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/fantastic-french-site/#comments Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:45:03 +0000 WordPress Admin http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/fantastic-french-site/

I’ve been using this site for years and it’s one of the best sites for French teachers I’ve ever seen.  There are hot potatoes activities, links to French music videos, links to java games, an interactive novel, webzines, and much more.  I highly recommend all French teachers check out this site as I’m sure there’s something you’d find that would work in your class.  Happy surfing!

]]> http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/fantastic-french-site/feed/ 0 http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/empty-orchestra/ http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/empty-orchestra/#comments Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:44:55 +0000 WordPress Admin http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/empty-orchestra/

Did you know that Karoake translates as ‘empty orchestra’?  Fun fact for the day.

I do have a reason for bringing this up.  There’s a free karaoke maker you can download and use in your class (or in your basement with a bunch of your equally tone-deaf friends).  It’s called AV Video Karaoke Maker.  Now I’m not going to lie to you, there’s a bit of a learning curve with this application.  Also you can’t use it with a mac.  It can be frustrating to use at first, especially when you have to match the timing of the words with the music, but the end product is worth it.  The kids enjoy it and are more likely to sing along with a song when it’s presented in this format.

I’ve personally used it to make a simple ABC karaoke video as well as a more complicated song about weather in French to Rihanna’s umbrella.  Once you’ve made a couple of videos it becomes less stressful and more fun to use.  Feel free to share any videos you create with this tool!

]]> http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/empty-orchestra/feed/ 0 http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/excuses-excuses/ http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/excuses-excuses/#comments Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:44:23 +0000 WordPress Admin http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/excuses-excuses/

Here are Scott McNealy’s top ten reasons why students in the digital era did not turn in their homework, enjoy!

10. Tech support for my PC was offshored
9. Had to delete it to make room for iTunes
8. Still hand-writing it, productivity suite license too expensive
7. I emailed it… didn’t you get it?
6. Couldn’t afford HP ink cartridge
5. T%k t% lng 2 QWERTY – txt 2 U instead? Translation: “Took too long to type on regular keyboard, can I text it to you instead?”
4. “Cut and Paste” keys were worn out
3. Plan on “open sourcing” from kid next to me
2. Busy writing the “I Love You Too” virus
1. The dog chewed-up my laptop

]]> http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/excuses-excuses/feed/ 0 http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/blogger%e2%80%99s-delight/ http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/blogger%e2%80%99s-delight/#comments Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:44:09 +0000 WordPress Admin http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/blogger%e2%80%99s-delight/

Yo yo yo we’re kickin’ it old school today.  This rad application has been around for a long time but that doesn’t mean educators should toss it aside because it’s still h-o-t.  Hot Potatoes actually…

Hot Potatoes is freeware that educators can use to create games and other review tools.  Just visit their site and download the free software right onto your computer and start using the 6 applications that come with it.  As it says on the site, Hot Potatoes “enables you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises”.

My personal favorite thing to do with Hot Potatoes is creating cloze activities with the gap-fill option.  I’ve used this to create basic grammar drills and I’ve also used it for cloze song activities.  I take lyrics from French songs and then create blanks with drop-down menus for students to complete.  Once again, this is a fun tool that becomes even better when you throw in an interactive whiteboard.

Here’s a link to another teacher who has used this tool in a very impressive way, mostly with music.

]]> http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/blogger%e2%80%99s-delight/feed/ 0 http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/get-animated/ http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/get-animated/#comments Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:43:59 +0000 WordPress Admin http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/get-animated/

I know, I know, online animation sites have been around for a while now.  But I wanted to share this one with you because out of all the ones I’ve used (and I’ve used quite a few) this one is by far my favorite.

Go!Animate is a free online animation creation site.  You simply register for your free account and start creating your own custom animations.  I like this site because it’s easy to use (students have no problems with it) and it still has enough neat little features to keep the students’ interest.  You can make the animated characters move around, put the heads of people you have pictures of and put them on the Go!Animate figures, and use your own backgrounds.

I’ve found that animations work well with TPRS, for those of you who might be fans of that.  It’s also fun to let students create their own animations, and their easy to grade because you can access them online at your leisure.

If you’d like to see one of my examples, follow the link below:

GoAnimate.com: Une eleve francaise a MHS by mmesilvestri

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com.

]]> http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/get-animated/feed/ 0 http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/me-gusta-la-musica/ http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/me-gusta-la-musica/#comments Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:43:53 +0000 WordPress Admin http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/me-gusta-la-musica/

Hola!  So why did I title this entry as “I like music”?  One reason is because it is the only thing I ever learned to say in Spanish.  The other is because this post features a youtube music video created by a high school Spanish class.  It’s a great video to show when teaching reflexive verbs.  It’s also a great idea for any language teachers who are looking for a way to incorporate movie making into their curriculum.  I’m sure the students who made this video will never forgot how to conjugate Spanish reflexive verbs, and no doubt they had a great time filming it.  Enjoy!

]]> http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/me-gusta-la-musica/feed/ 0 http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/the-other-side-of-the-argument/ http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/the-other-side-of-the-argument/#comments Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:43:38 +0000 WordPress Admin http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/the-other-side-of-the-argument/

If you’re even reading this blog you most likely disagree with the title of this book and the information inside.  One of the main arguments the author, Mark Bauerlein, makes is that the increased use of technology as a learning tool in school is dumbing down our kids.  I think it’s important to read what both sides of the argument, especially since Professor Bauerlein uses data and not just empty diatribes to defend his argument.  It’s also important to read what’s out there so you can at least be ready to counter these types of arguments put forth by some technophobes today.  So I recommend you take a look at this book and see what the other side is saying.  Or at least take a look at this article from USA Today to get the gist of it.

]]> http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/the-other-side-of-the-argument/feed/ 0 http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/have-you-ever-seen%e2%80%a6/ http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/have-you-ever-seen%e2%80%a6/#comments Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:43:24 +0000 WordPress Admin http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/have-you-ever-seen%e2%80%a6/

Once in a while I find an interesting or funny video on YouTube that I can actually use in class.  This time I lucked out and found a whole series of great videos that my students always beg me to watch in class.  The series is called, ‘avez-vous deja vu’.   Here’s one that can be understood even by non-francophones.  Enjoy!

]]> http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/have-you-ever-seen%e2%80%a6/feed/ 0 http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/do-you-want-to-play-a-game/ http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/do-you-want-to-play-a-game/#comments Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:43:14 +0000 WordPress Admin http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/do-you-want-to-play-a-game/

For my first real post I knew I had to share my current favorite tool.  It’s fun, useful, and so easy to use.   It’s a site called Quizlet and it’s a great resource for teachers and students to review vocabulary from any subject.  It allows you to create online flashcards, practice tests, and two different games students can use to review the material.

All you have to do is sign up for a free account and then you can start uploading vocabulary lists that you’ve already created right onto the site.  Quizlet will create 5 different applications with your lists and you can share them with your students.  Your students have the option to set up a free account or they can use your materials as a guest.  If they set up an account, Quizlet will keep track of what words they still need help with based on their performance on the tests and games on the site.

I’m not going to go through all 5 applications, you can browse that for yourself, but I do want to talk about my two favorites.

First the online flashcards.  These work really well for those of you who like to play the game, ‘around the world’.  If you have an interactive whiteboard it’s especially fun because you can tap the flashcards to reveal the answers.  There’s also an option to print out the flashcards, so students can practice on their own at home if they don’t have access to a computer.

There’s also a game called Scatter.  Quizlet puts some of the words and translations (or definitions) on a screen, then students have to drag the words over their translations.  Once the word is on top of the correct translations, they both disappear.  It’s a timed race so the faster you make the matches the higher your score is.  Once again, this is a great game to play with an interactive whiteboard, that way the whole class is playing together.

My students absolutely love this.  And I noticed that their vocabulary quiz grade went up whenever we used this site in class.  I highly recommend you give it a try.  And if you use the texbook series ‘Bon Voyage’ feel free to search for my sets and use them in your class.

]]> http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2010/01/14/do-you-want-to-play-a-game/feed/ 0 http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2009/11/04/vaesp-improving-instruction-and-community-relations-through-blogging/ http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/2009/11/04/vaesp-improving-instruction-and-community-relations-through-blogging/#comments Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:46:24 +0000 Michael George - Instructional Technologist http://blogit.cityschools.com/mgeorge/?p=572 Improving Instruction and Community Relations Through Blogging

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Handout

Daryl Chesley – Director of Instruction

Michael George – Instructional Technologist

Why administrators should blog Part 1 / Part 2

Example Pages -

Promote Instruction

Supervisory Level

http://blogit.cityschools.com/learningforall/

http://blogs.glnd.k12.va.us/teachers/eguidry/

http://twitter.com/ponaxprincipal

http://blogs.glnd.k12.va.us/teachers/tdeweerd/

Teacher Level

http://blogit.cityschools.com/sschwartz/

http://msilvestri.wordpress.com/

http://blogit.cityschools.com/lues125/

http://blogit.cityschools.com/kmilai/

Community Relations

Supervisory Level

http://blogit.cityschools.com/jmhs/

http://www.glnd.k12.va.us/index/news/

http://blogit.cityschools.com/fcpsannouncements/

http://blogs.glnd.k12.va.us/teachers/jfinnell/

Teacher Level

http://blogit.cityschools.com/8thgrade/

http://blogit.cityschools.com/nationalhonorsociety/

http://blogs.glnd.k12.va.us/teachers/hwilckens/

Other resources -

School 2.0 eTool kit http://etoolkit.org/etoolkit/

http://mu.wordpress.org/

http://edublogs.org/

http://www.wampserver.com/en/

http://blogit.cityschools.com/support/

http://www.slide.com

Upload images and create your animated slide show.

Summer09

promethean_intro

Tai’s_Inspire_Training

Short_How_To

Toolbarfinal

All_About_Actions_-_Christian_Coda_20090519113838

ActivInspireJeopardy

activstudiojeopardy727

Algebra_Tiles

area

american_revolutionary_war

Resources

http://prometheanlearning.com – online courses on everything Promethean

http://www.prometheanplanet.com/ – Pre-made lessons, guides and tips & tricks

http://www.prometheanworld.com/ -

http://flowingdata.com/

FlowingData explores how designers, statisticians, and computer scientists are using data to understand ourselves better – mainly through data visualization. Money spent, reps at the gym, time you waste, and personal information you enter online are all forms of data. How can we understand these data flows? Data visualization lets non-experts make sense of it all.

Educators

Here are Twitter’s professors, teachers, and other educators.

1. @therefore: Read @therefore’s tweets to learn about emergent communications and new media.
2. @mweller: @martinweller is an Open University professor.
3. @drkent: Check out @drkent to learn about classical composition.
4. @ProfCarol: Carol Dickson-Carr is a part time economics professor.
5. @levarburton: LeVar Burton of Reading Rainbow is an actor, director, and educator.
6. @lessig: @lessig offers a look into the posts of a Canadian law professor.
7. @hermida: You can learn about integrated journalism and new narrative styles from Alfred Hermida.
8. @vargasl: Learn about marketing communications from Lauren Vargas.
9. @coolcatteacher: Vicki Davis is a classroom pioneer.
10. @jonbecker: Jonathan Becker discusses technology and educational leadership.
11. @hmason: Hilary Mason can teach you about computer science and new media.
12. @BarbaraNixon: From @BarbaraNixon, you’ll learn about public relations.
13. @tp_da: Thomas Pliel is a public relations educator at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences.
14. @paulawhite: Paula White tweets about gifted resources, Apple, STAR, and more.
15. @Justale: Alessandra Tussi twitters about teleworking, marketing, and productivity.
16. @metromediaqueen: Tricia Thomas’ Twitter feed is all about Photoshop, arts, graphic design, and video production.
17. @patrickstrother: You’ll learn about advertising and public relations from Patrick Strother.
18. @paulbradshaw: Paul Bradshaw tweets about web design and online journalism.
19. @courosa: Alex Couros teaches educational technology at University of Regina.
20. @stevekatz: Check out Steve Katz to learn about educational technology.
21. @elemitrt: Tina Coffey discusses resources for instructional technology.
22. @berniedodge: Bernie Dodge offers information about educational technology.
23. @jmilles: James Milles is a professor of law at SUNY University at Buffalo Law School.
24. @doctorious: From Matthew Gilbert, you’ll learn about English, IT, and business communication.
25. @billgx: Check out Bill Genereux to learn about digital media and computers.
26. @jayrosen_nyu: Jay Rosen is a journalism educator at NYU.
27. @lauranicosia: Laura Nicoia’ is the Director of English Education at Montclair State University.

Libraries & Librarians

These Twitter streams represent librarians and important libraries.

1. @librarycongress: Find out what’s going on at the Library of Congress from @librarycongress.
2. @jessamyn: Jessamyn West is a rural librarian geek.
3. @yalsa: From @yalsa, you’ll learn what’s happening with the Young Adult Library Services Association.
4. @pfanderson: P.F. Anderson is an emerging technologies librarian.
5. @Librarian: Check out @Librarian to look at libraries in a different way.
6. @sljournal: The School Library Journal will tell you about news and book reviews for children’s and young adult reading material.
7. @heyjudeonline: Check out Judy O’Connell to learn about library and information services.
8. @glambert: Greg Lambert is a law librarian in Houston.
9. @LibraryJournal: @LibraryJournal offers library news, book reviews, and more.
10. @LJBookReview: From @LJBookReview, you’ll find book news and book reviews from Library Journal.
11. @kenleyneufield: You can learn about the social web from this community college librarian.

News

You can learn a lot from current events-stay on top of everything with these Twitter feeds.

1. @BreakingNewsOn: Follow BNO News on Twitter, and you’ll learn about news as soon as it happens.
2. @educationweek: Follow @educationweek to get American education news.
3. @cnnbrk: By following @cnnbrk, you’ll get the latest in breaking news.
4. @CNETNews: Check out CNETNews for a steady stream of tech updates.
5. @giraffes: @giraffes offers updates on anything and everything to do with giraffes.
6. @nprnews: On @nprnews, you’ll find the top news stories from NPR.
7. @weather: Check out @weather to get the latest weather news.
8. @CDCemergency: Learn about emergency preparedness from @CDCemergency.
9. @SkyNews: Find breaking global news out of London from @SkyNews.
10. @EcoInteractive: The Eco Preservation Society will help you learn about wildlife conservation and reforestation.
11. @BBCeducation: On @BBCeducation, you’ll get details about news and education in the UK.
12. @space: You’ll find space and science news from @space.
13. @EducationInfo: Education Info offers what’s new in the education and job sectors.
14. @bbcbreaking: BBC Breaking news offers the latest developments from the UK.
15. @edu_tweets: @edu_tweets finds and posts interesting educational links.
16. @nytimes: Get loads of the latest news from @nytimes.
17. @whonews: You can learn about new developments from the World Health Organization from WHO News.
18. @science: Follow @science to get the latest in science news.
19. @foxnews: On Fox News, you’ll get a direct line to the latest happenings around the world.
20. @EarthquakeNews: This Twitter feed from the USGS Earthquake Center will keep you up to date on earthquake happenings around the world.
21. @googlenews: You can find breaking news stories and updates from Google news on @googlenews.

Museums & Facilities

Museums are great educational sources, even when they are on Twitter.

1. @Smithsonian: The Smithsonian Institution is the world’s largest museum complex.
2. @lifeandscience: The Museum Life+Science encourages followers to be curious and ask questions about the world.
3. @NASA: Check out @NASA to get news from NASA.
4. @StarEcoStation: The STAR EcoStation is an award winning non-profit environmental education and exotic wildlife rescue center.
5. @mysticseaport: Mystic Seaport is the nation’s leading maritime museum.
6. @jodrellbank: Jodrell Bank is home of the world’s third-largest steerable radio telescope and the MERLIN National Facility.
7. @sciencemuseum: The Science Museum brings science to life and life to science.
8. @DesignMuseum: If you’re into contemporary design, be sure to check out @DesignMuseum.
9. @philamuseum: The Philadelphia Museum of Art is one of the largest art museums in the United States.
10. @whitneymuseum: The Whitney Museum has one of the world’s foremost collections of contemporary American art.
11. @asianartmuseum: The Asian Art Museum is the largest museum in the western world devoted to Asian art.
12. @TheMuseum: The Childrens Museum of Ontario shares fun facts and imagination tweets.
13. @BigCatRescue: Through @BigCatRescue, you can learn about ending the breeding, trade, use, and abuse of big cats.
14. @V_and_A: This museum in London is one of the world’s greatest museums of art and design.
15. @houstonzoo: Find out what’s happening at the Houston Zoo from @houstonzoo.
16. @mediamuseum: The National Media Museum is devoted to film, photography, TV, radio, and the web.
17. @Exploratorium: The Exploratorium museum will fulfill your curiosity.
18. @TheWomensMuseum: The Women’s Museum offers history of heroines and stories from 1500 to present day.
19. @cincyartmuseum: The Cincinatti Art Museum has a huge and diverse collection of art.
20. @brooklynmuseum: The Brooklyn Museum is one of the oldest and largest museums in the country.
21. @hmns: The Houston Museum of Natural Science offers tweets that focus on science news and more.
22. @henryartgallery: The Henry Art Gallery is Seattle’s oldest art museum with the newest ideas.
23. @cmhouston: The Children’s Museum of Houston is a Playground for Your Mind.

Learning Resources

Follow these Twitter users to learn about medicine, marketing, and more.

1. @AllergyNotes: Ves Dimov, MD offers information about allergies on this Twitter feed.
2. @BJMendelson: Brandon Mendelson shares information about cancer.
3. @DrJennifer: Dr. Jennifer Howard is a licensed psychotherapist.
4. @dannynic: Read Danny Nicholson’s tweets to learn about Whiteboard.
5. @SwampSchool: Marc Seelinger shares information about wetlands, environment, real estate, and green issues.
6. @dianadell: Diana Dell shares learning games and more on her Twitter feed.
7. @GrammarBlog: Learn about grammar with a dash of humor from @GrammarBlog.
8. @designmeme: Check out @designmeme to learn about media studies.
9. @chrisbrogan: Follow Chris Brogan to learn about social media, new marketing, and education.
10. @SlideMagnet: From @SlideMagnet, you can learn about public speaking and presentation.
11. @BernardHarris: Dr. Bernard Harris is a former astronaut working to change US education.
12. @eduguru: @eduguru will teach you about web development and marketing for education.
13. @TEDTalks: @TEDTalks shares ideas worth spreading.
14. pbsteachers: You can find grade school learning and teaching resources from @pbsteachers.
15. @_enlightenment: Enlightenment Media is an online degree enlightenment education blog.
16. @LearnHub: @LearnHub shares lots of great links for education.
17. @MarketingProfs: Read Ann Hadley’s Twitter feed to get updated about marketing education.
18. @GrammarGirl: Mignon Fogarty wrote a NYT bestseller about grammar.
19. @donorschoose: Through Donors Choose, you can help provide public school funding.

http://www.bachelorsdegreeonline.com/blog/2009/twitteredu-100-excellent-educational-twitter-feeds/

Shared via AddThis

Answer … Well, watch the video and see.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

http://ccmixter.org/

ccMixter is a community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want.

Remixers If you’re into sampling, remixing and mash-ups grab the sample packs and a cappellas for download and you can upload your version back into ccMixter, for others to enjoy and re-sample. All legal.

Video makers, podcasters and music lovers If you’re into music, browse this site to hear some of the great remixes people have built from sampling music on this site, all licensed for use under Creative Commons license.

http://scratch.mit.edu/

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web.

Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create and share Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.

Scratch is available free of charge: go to Download.
Currently available for Mac OSX and Windows (see system requirements)

To access Scratch resources in languages from around the world, see Languages.

To find more about the ideas underlying Scratch, visit our page for Educators.

http://www.freesound.org/

The Freesound Project is a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds. Freesound focusses only on sound, not songs. This is what sets freesound apart from other splendid libraries like ccMixter. New to this site? Read the What is Freesound page to learn more!

http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/

Screencast-O-Matic is the original free and easy way to create a video recording of your screen (aka screencast) and upload it for free hosting all from your browser with no install!

Image from wordle.net

(the good stuff)

Keynote Presentation (swf)-

(the legal stuff)

(the extra stuff)

Other resources

Video treament

Top 10 video Tips

student_video_guide

student_proposal_form

storyboard_6_template

movie-guidebook

videoaesthetic

videolighting

Audio Resources

http://www.freesound.org/

http://ccmixter.org/

http://freeplaymusic.com

http://www.musopen.com/

Copyright Resources

http://creativecommons.org/

http://www.copyright.gov/

(the question and answer stuff)

http://www.gapminder.org/

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Gapminder is a non-profit venture promoting sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of statistics and other information about social, economic and environmental development at local, national and global levels.  We are a modern “museum” that helps making the world understandable, using the Internet.

While in DC—be an advocate!

There’s still time to sign up for a great event to showcase your support for Ed Tech issues—and get a behind-the-scenes look at what happens on Capitol Hill!

But hurry, registration for the Capitol Hill Visits closes on June 12! Register via the NECC registration form on the Special Events section. ($25 fee required.)

Other registration notes

- Online conference registration closes June 17.
- Onsite registration at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center begins June 27.

Share your blog with other NECC enthusiasts!

Sign up to be on our list of NECC Bloggers to share your insights, questions, and excitement about NECC. Just fill out our short form and voilà, you’ll be placed on our Google Doc. Blogging with other NECC enthusiasts is a valuable resource—last year we had nearly 80 submissions!

And don’t forget about the NECC Ning and ISTE Connects, two other great ways to get connected pre-NECC!

Sign up for more than one BYOL

If you’re a fan of the Bring Your Own Laptop (BYOL) lab sessions, you’re in luck! You may now register for more than one BYOL session (per person) per day. If you’re already registered, simply reaccess your registration and choose additional sessions: www.iste.org/necc/registration.

BYOL session highlight: School 2.0 Exploration

Explore ways you can infuse the 500+ technology resources from the School 2.0 website into your school transformation project now! The event is Monday, 6/29, from 11:00 am to noon and requires that you bring a laptop. There is no fee; however, registration is required. Find more information and a link to register here.

Invite a friend to DC

Use our Invite a Friend link to encourage your friends and colleagues to meet you at NECC in DC! It’s a great conference and city to share with others…the more the merrier!

Jog the Web – Websites

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http://screencastle.com/
ScreenCastle is a one click screencast recorder and hoster. You can record and share a screencast directly from your browser without the need to install software or register anywhere.

VideoSpin is a new offering from Pinnacle that allows you to create and edit videos and output them to a variety of formats. Pinnacle is known for putting together high quality video editing software (typically, most of us are introduced to their products when we purchase a video or digital camera and a Pinnacle application is bundled with the product), so seeing a free program from them is great news.

While Windows includes a very adept application for video editing (Windows Movie Maker), sometimes you just need some additional perks that WMM can’t offer.

The layout of VideoSpin is pretty much identical to most other video applications out there such as Adobe Premiere and Windows Movie Maker: Timeline window at the bottom, preview window in the upper right-hand corner, video clips in the upper left-hand corner…it is a very familiar interface – so, getting used to the VideoSpin interface is not a problem.

Probably the feature that sets VideoSpin apart is the ability to easily upload your finished videos to YouTube (flash output is supported) and Yahoo Video (100Mb and/or 10 minute limit). This is the perfect application for anyone who is getting into sharing their videos online.

Just like Premiere and Movie Maker, you can add transition effects, additional audio and subtitles (which look really good!).

May 2009

flip guide

PARIS — A globe-spanning UN digital library seeking to display and explain the wealth of all human cultures has gone into operation on the Internet, serving up mankind’s accumulated knowledge in seven languages for students around the world.

James Billington, the librarian of Congress who launched the project four years ago, said the ambition was to make available on an easy-to-navigate site, free for scholars and other curious people anywhere, a collection of primary documents and authoritative explanations from the planet’s leading libraries.

The site, www.wdl.org, has put up the Japanese work that is considered the first novel in history, for instance, along with the Aztecs’ first mention of the Christ child in the New World and the works of ancient Arab scholars piercing the mysteries of algebra, each entry flanked by learned commentary. “There are many one-of-a-kind documents,” Billington said in an interview.

The World Digital Library, which was officially inaugurated Tuesday at the Paris headquarters of UNESCO, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, has started small, with about 1,200 documents and their explanations from scholars in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian. But it is designed to accommodate an unlimited number of such texts, charts and illustrations from as many countries and libraries as want to contribute.

“There is no limit,” Billington said. “Everybody is welcome.”

The main target is children, he added, building on the success among young people of the U.S. National Digital Library Program, which has been in operation at the Library of Congress since the mid-1990s.

http://www.wdl.org/en/

By Edward Cody |  The Washington Post

A conversation about integrating student cell phones into classroom curricula.

Image from wordle.net

Making Instructional Vodcasts – TW104

(the good stuff)

Keynote Presentation (swf)-

(the legal stuff)

(the extra stuff)

Other resources not used in the workshop (but useful)

Top 10 video Tips

student_video_guide

student_proposal_form

storyboard_6_template

movie-guidebook

videoaesthetic

videolighting

(the creative stuff)

vste-vodcast-nov2009

vste_2009

more coming —

(the question and answer stuff)

http://www.ustream.tv/

LIVE, INTERACTIVE BROADCASTING

Experience live video. In just minutes, you can broadcast and chat online with a global audience. Completely free, all it takes is a camera and Internet connection.

March/April 2009

Poll Everywhere replaces expensive proprietary audience response hardware with standard web technology. It’s the easiest way to gather live responses in any venue: conferences, presentations, classrooms, radio, tv, print — anywhere. It can help you to raise money by letting people pledge via text messaging. Its simplicity and flexibility are earning rave reviews.

Poll Everywhere can be used in: audience choice awards, opinion polling, and very large group brainstorming activities. Customers have also found many creative uses: conduct quick comprehension checks in training, replace expensive classroom clickers, collect donation pledges, power silent auctions, let large audiences submit questions and feedback to a presenter, and even as an anonymous way to collect answers to sensitive questions.

http://qik.com/

Qik enables you to share your moments live with your friends, family and the world—right from your mobile phone!
Add a new dimension to your online presence with streaming video. Become a reporter—get the scoop with backstage interviews with celebrities and experts Even better, Qik lets you share the results live on any website. Qik also gives you the power to broadcast to partner sites like Mogulus, Justin.tv, Twitter and Pownce.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/245

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/

• Conference website:

• http://www.etlc08.org/home.cfm

• Engaging Education using Web 2.0 Tools

• Presentation -
• Engaging Education using Web 2.0 Tools Keynote SWF file
• Jog the Web sites link – (updated)

Michael George

Instructional Technologist

Fredericksburg City Public Schools

2300 Washington Avenue, Fredericksburg, VA 22401
(540) 372-1100 x2411
www.cityschools.com
Passport2Web20.com

http://www.mindmeister.com/

Get creating and sharing mind maps online. Access your maps anytime and from anywhere and brainstorm with friends and colleagues in real time, just using a web browser.

http://www.connect.microsoft.com/content/content.aspx?ContentID=6415&SiteID=94

Microsoft SharedView is a fast, easy way to share documents and screen views with small groups of friends or coworkers; anytime, anywhere. Use SharedView to put your heads together and collaborate – create, convey, and communicate…across physical boundaries, through firewalls, and down to the smallest details.

http://www.debugmode.com/wink/

Wink is a Tutorial and Presentation creation software, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel etc). Using Wink you can capture screenshots, add explanations boxes, buttons, titles etc and generate a highly effective tutorial for your users.

Example

http://www.wordle.net/

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Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

http://pbskids.org/go/

A safe place for kids to explore and play hundreds of fun educational games with their favorite PBS KIDS characters.

Ok so it may just be exciting for me.  I guess next I need to come up with a logo.

http://www.e-tutor.com/et2/graphing/

Advanced web-based graphing calculator allowing students to enter one or more equations and view them with position/intersection indicators and zooming functionality.  Enter functions of x using a standard mathematical format. You can enter more than one function by separating functions with a semicolon.

No Programming Skills Required! Creating games is a snap with easy-to-use tools from The Sims Carnival. Join the fun now!

http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/

Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. You can:

• Download the files to your Mp3 player and listen on the go,
• Listen to the Mp3 files on your computer,
• View the text on a webpage and read along as you listen,
• Print out the stories and poems to make your own book.

There are four ways to get started with Lit2Go:

1. Browse by Author. You can pick your stories by the author’s last name.
2. Browse by Title. You can pick your stories by title.
3. Search Database. You can search the collection by title, author, keywords or reading level.
   An abstract, citation, playing time, and word count are given for each of the passages. Many of the passages also have a related reading strategy identified. Each reading passage can also be downloaded as a PDF and printed for use as a read-along or as supplemental reading material for your classroom.
4. Launch iTunes. If you have iTunes software installed on your computer, you can download many of the selections directly into your iTunes library. The free iTunes application for either Macintosh or Windows computers may be downloaded directly from Apple, Inc.

http://www.dimdim.com/

With no software to download or install, Dimdim forever democratizes web- based live meetings. In seconds – right from your browser – you easily host or attend web meetings complete with audio and video conferencing, screen and application sharing. After experiencing the freedom and ease of Dimdim Web Meetings, you’ll wonder why you ever used expensive and difficult alternatives.

Free Web Meeting, Free Web Conferencing, Meetup, Open Source, Net Meeting, eLearning, web conference, Unified Collaboration, Online Meetings, .

http://www.zamzar.com/

It allows you to convert documents, images, videos and music files and share them with friends.

www.musopen.com

Musopen is an online music library of copyright free music (public domain music). We want to give the world access to music, without the legal hassles so common today. There is a great deal of music that has expired copyrights, but almost no recordings of this music is in the public domain. We aim to record or obtain recordings that have no copyrights so that our visitors may listen, re-use, or in any way enjoy music. Put simply, our mission is to set music free.
Musopen is a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity.

http://www.yourchildlearns.com/owlmouse.htm 

Help your child learn with games, software and educational activities from Owl & Mouse Educational Software.   Early reading software—phonics software, alphabet games, and Dolch sight words in a fairy tale story.  All of it FREE!  Free online USA maps, world maps, map of Europe, map puzzles of the US, Europe, Africa, Asia, and many more.  You can build your own castle and coat of arms—free downloads.

Imagine you know all about ducks (or elephants, or anything in fact) and you have discovered a lot of cool information on the web you now want to share with all the other duck-addicts. The thing is that this information is spread out on plenty of different sites. You could of course put up your own site or blog and draw the list of the links to all the interesting pages you found. You’d put a comment for each page and give the URL. Your visitors would then browse your page and follow each link and need to come back each time on your page to find the next URL… So it would be a load of backwards and forwards… but I suppose we are used to that.  Now with a track you can do a lot better.

So tracks boil down to simplifying the web and building paths to share with others.
Tracks can be used

• by anybody who wants to share a list of pages (some use it for instance on youtube to build a track of related videos)
• by anybody who goes every day on the same sites (he can now simply jog from one page to the next).
• by websites to show their visitors around (for first time visitors or to show all the new products etc…)
• by websites to lead their visitors on other websites whilst holding their hand: once the tour is over the visitor is back on the initial website
• by trainers who want to use the web “material”
• by anybody who wants to lead the web…

http://www.jingproject.com/

Think of Jing as a supplement to all your chat discussions, email threads, forum posts and blog entries. It sits nicely on your desktop, ready to capture and share your stuff at a moment’s notice. Simply select an area of your screen, capture it as an image or record it as a video, and then click Share. Jing conveniently places a URL to your content which you can paste into any of your conversations.

http://goanimate.com/ 

About the site -

We are a bunch of guys who love animation and want to share our passion with the world! The problem is that animation requires very specific skills. Animators need to learn Flash or other advanced software before being able to create anything. They also need to know how to draw. That’s why we created GoAnimate, a platform that allows people to express themselves through animation without having to learn to draw or install any software.

What is iTALC?

iTALC is a use- and powerful didactical tool for teachers. It lets you view and control other computers in your network in several ways. It supports Linux and Windows 2000/XP (Vista support will come) and it even can be used transparently in mixed environments!

In contrast to widely used commercial equivalent software, iTALC is free! This means you do not have to pay for expensive licenses or things like that. Furthermore the source-code is freely available and you’re free in changing the software to fit your needs as long as you respect the terms of iTALC’s license (GPL). Freedom in two ways!

http://italc.sourceforge.net/

Features

iTALC has been designed for usage in school. Therefore it offers a lot of possibilities to teachers, such as
 

• see what’s going on in computer-labs by using overview mode and make snapshots
• remote-control computers to support and help other people
• show a demo (either in fullscreen or in a window) – the teacher’s screen is shown on all student’s computers in realtime
• lock workstations for moving undivided attention to teacher
• send text-messages to students
• powering on/off and rebooting computers per remote
• remote logon and logoff and remote execution of arbitrary commands/scripts
• home-schooling – iTALC’s network-technology is not restricted to a subnet and therefore students at home can join lessons via VPN-connections just by installing iTALC client

With the House and Senate working on their Appropriations bills for FY09, now is the time for you to weigh-in with YOUR Members of Congress about how important education technology funding is to the nation’s academic and economic goals. Please make your voice heard in support of the EETT program.

Please send your letter to the House and Senate asking to save EETT and to fund it at the FY05 level of $496 million.

Every letter generated during this crucial time makes a difference. Even if you already took action a few months ago, please send another letter and spread the word to your friends, family and coworkers. Your voice matters!

http://capwiz.com/edtech/issues/alert/?alertid=11361201&type=CO

Why use bubbl.us?
Because you can:

• Create colorful mind maps online
• Share and work with friends
• Embed your mind map in your blog or website
• Email and print your mind map
• Save your mind map as an image
• And it’s FREE!

TalkShoe is an online service that allows anyone to create, host, join, or listen to live interactive talk shows and discussions. Create and schedule live multi-person conference talks, and invite interested people to join as participants or listeners.

TalkShoe Features

• Create group podcasts with up-to 250 active participants and unlimited number of listeners.
• Participants can join via telephone, Skype, or directly from the TalkShoe website.
• Request-to talk queuing.
• Who is talking indications.
• Record live episodes and store them on Talkshoe.
• Integrated chat room for live text messaging.
• Use TalkShoe widget to embed podcasts to your blog or website (displays recorded, upcoming and live episodes).
• Browse recorded shows by categories (News, Music, Business, Comedy) and type (live, recorded).
• Explore more features and details here.

Tiny URL is easier to post on blogs or forums. Email it without wrapping or breaking. Simplify links to your website. Mask an affiliate link. Create personal or unique addresses using a keyword. Tiny.cc turns a ridiculously long URL into a tiny URL… short, meaningful and permanent.

Features

• Make email friendly URLs
• Customize your links with keywords
• Perfect for posts, blogs, social networks
• Real-time traffic statistics for each tiny link
• Ideal tool for webmasters, newsletter publishers and researchers
• Preview to determine credibility of destination pages before you click.

Phun is a Master of Science Thesis by Computing Science student Emil Ernerfeldt for supervisor Kenneth Bodin at VRLab, Umeå University, Sweden. The solver is based on work by Claude Lacoursière

Phun is meant to be a playground where people can be creative. It can also be used as an educational tool to learn about physics concepts such as restitution and friction.

Phun was coded in C++ using OpenGL, GLEW, SDL (for window management), SDL_image (for reading images) and boost, including boost_filesystem. Everything was coded by Emil Ernerfeldt, including the physics engine and user interface.

Watch the Video!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H5g9VS0ENM

SlideShare is the world’s largest community for sharing presentations.

- Individuals & organizations upload presentations to share their ideas, connect with others, and generate leads for their businesses.
- Anyone can find presentations on topics that interest them. They can tag, download, or embed presentations into their own blogs & websites.

SlideShare is the best way to get your slides out there on the web, so your ideas can be found and shared by a wide audience. Do you want to get the word out about your product or service? Do you want your slides to reach people who could not make it to your talk? Are you a teacher looking to share your lesson plans? It only takes a moment – start uploading now, and let your slides do the talking!

Some of the things you can do on SlideShare

- Embed slideshows into your own blog or website.
- Share slideshows publicly or privately. There are several ways to share privately.
- Synch audio to your slides.
- Market your your event on slideshare.
- Join groups to connect with SlideShare members who share your interests
- Download the original PowerPoint / Pdf file

Add a tag cloud to any site.

Tag Cloud from an RSS Feed
Make a tag cloud from any RSS feed, then add it to your blog or site

Tag Cloud Widget
Turn your favorite RSS feeds into a tag cloud widget for Netvibes, iGoogle, Dashboard, or Opera.

Tag Cloud from Search
Generate a tag cloud based on a search query, using results from Yahoo, Google News, or Del.ico.us.

Tag Cloud from Text
Make a tag cloud from any text

http://keybr.com 

Features

• No registration or sign up is required.
• See typing charts: typing speed, number of errors, top speed, average speed, etc.
• Supported keyboard layouts: US, US (Dvorak), and UK.
• Supported languages: English, German, French, Spanish, and Russian.

Spresent is a free online alternative to Microsoft PowerPoint. Using Spresent you can create and share quality Flash-based presentations online. Dead simple to use and comes with more or less same visual interface.

Feature Overview

• Create PowerPoint-like presentations online (Flash based).
• Add audio files, drawings, add shapes, charts, clip art animations, tables, etc.
• Share created presentations via URL or embed them on your website.
• Compatible with all popular browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari, …).
• Note: Spresent doesn’t provide any import/export features, so all presentations will remain on Spresent.com.

MyBloop is an online file manager and storage service. Here you can upload, store, share and manage all kind of files in a fast and stylish Windows Explorer like interface. In adddition to online storage, it also allows users to organize and stream uploaded music files, watch stored videos remotely, view pictures, and more.

MyBloop Features:

• Upload, store, share and manage files (docs, videos, music, pictures etc.) online.
• Organize files into different folders.
• Music: Organize tracks into playlists and share them with friends.
• Maximum size per file: 1GB.
• Unlimited bandwidth and storage space.
• Blooploader: Desktop client that lets you upload files directly from the computer.
• Embed stored files on other websites or social networking profiles.
• Search through publicly shared files: music and playlists, videos, pictures, programs, and documents.
• Check out top files of the week /month / all time.
• Note: All uploaded files are public and can be viewed by other MyBloop users.

http://www.3d3r.com/bubbles/index.php 

How about running your favorite web applications as any other desktop program? Bubbles is a free Windows client that lets you access web services from within the desktop. Open services like Gmail, Flickr, Google Calendar… and pretty much any web application without launching your browser.

Features

• Launch favorite web apps with a single click and keep them minimized on the Taskbar.
• Run Web application like any other desktop program.
• Default Bubbles Apps: Gmail, Google Calendar, 30 Boxes, SlimTimes, Yahoo Mail and Flickr.
• Trun any website or service to Bubbles App. It can be Digg, Del.icio.us, your Wordpress blog, anything.
• Set “Bubbled” apps to launch and get minimized to taskbar on Windows start-up.
• Note : At the moment Bubbles available only to Windows users (2K, XP and Vista).

As mentioned above, Bubbles already comes with a number of preconfigured services and all you need to do is enter login details. However apart from bringing these services to your desktop, Bubbles also adds a number of cool features:

• Google calendar notifier: Get instant desktop notifications for upcoming events.
• Gmail / Yahoo email Notifier: Get instant desktop-notifications for new email.
• Flickr Uploader: Upload photos by dragging them on top of Flickr Bubble.
• Quick shortcuts to frequently accessed locations for each app.
   

i-Safe

The March / April issue of the i-EDUCATOR Times is now online and ready for downloading.  Here are a few of the highlights of this month’s issue –

i-EDUCATOR Insider – The New World We Live In – blogging and wikis are entering education and the workplace

Did You Know? –
        Safer Internet Day – Global Internet awareness
        Miss Bimbo –  Is this Web site compromising self image or is it just a game?

New Curriculum –  Now available – the i-©®eaTM curriculum developed in collaboration with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to teach students about patents, trademarks, copyright, and trade secrets.

The Social Studies Classroom – Making the Internet safety connection
           
In Action – Web 2.0 in the Classroom – an educator’s view

Site Spotlight – Get the 411 on educational blogs

Download your i-EDUCATOR Times today and share with your family and friends! 

Contact us at education@isafe.org if you have questions or need assistance.

TagCrowd is a web application for visualizing word frequencies in any user-supplied text by creating what is popularly known as a tag cloud or text cloud.

Today, text clouds are primarily used for navigation and visualization on Web 2.0 sites that employ user-generated metadata (tags) as a categorization scheme.
 

Features and uses

• �
  • as topic summaries for speeches and written works
  • for visual analysis of survey data
  • as brand clouds that let companies see how they are perceived by the world
  • for data mining a text corpus
  • for helping writers and students reflect on their work
  • as name tags for conferences, cocktail parties or wherever new collaborations start
  • as resumes in a single glance
  • as visual poetry

Want to create your own ’safety’ sign for the entrance or toilet door? Maybe for work? Whatever the reason, Sign Builder can help you out. It is a simple online safety sign maker where you can create and customize your own printable safety signs. Choose sign type (Safety, ANSI , HAZMAT , Lockout signs) and use the provided sign builder to generate the sign. Once the sign is ready just save it to your hard drive and print it out.

Features

• Create your own safety signs.
• Sign types: Safety, ANSI , HAZMAT , Lockout signs.
• Sign builder options: select and customize sign layout, size, color, header, pictogram, etc.
• Also available in Spanish.
• Download and save created signs on your computer.
• No email or registration required.
   

Web-based word processor and spreadsheet (i.e. Excel) application with a bundle of group-focused features: file sharing, document sharing and collaboration, contact management tool, edit/update RSS notifications and more.

Peepel Features:

• Create, Edit, Share and Manage your documents online.
• Import existing documents and spreadsheets into your Peepel account. Supports most of the popular formats (.doc, .odt, .xls, .ods).
• Export documents from your account to your desktop.
• Collaboration: Collaborate on documents with friends or colleagues.
• RSS Alerts: Get notified as soon as one of your shared files is edited.
• File Manager: View and Manage all private/shared files from one place.
• Contact Manager: Manage and Organize contacts (or collaborators).
• Conveniently open and rearrange multiple documents in one browser window.
• WorkSpace Manager: Save current desktop layout (i.e. all opened documents) and easily return to it anytime later.
• Works both in Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers.
• Templates: Choose between ready document templates (resume, letter, business cards, etc.).
• and some more navigation-focused features…

Co-ment Features

• Create, edit, share, collaborate and annotate text documents online.
• Upload existing documents from local hard drive or create new ones.
• Supported document formats: Open Office, Microsoft Word, Rich Text Format, Text docs (txt), etc.
• Annotation: Highlight any text and comment on it.
• Allow others to see and/or comment on the text.
• Different sharing modes: Observer, Commentater, Moderator, Editor, Owner.
• Document History: Review list of all changes and comments.
• Download documents (or export) as PDF, RTF, ODT (Open Office), DOC (M. Word) or TXT.
• You can download either just document or document + comments.
• Powerful text search and comment filtering capabilities.
• Print documents
• Avalable in French and English

Simple online flash card maker. In their own words: “FlashCardDB makes it easy to create, staudy and share flashcards online’

Want to turn some data into a fancy chart? Enter ChartAll, a free online chart creator where you can create highly customizable charts and save them. Store and edit charts online, embed them onto your website and privately share them with anyone you want. When creating a chart you can either enter the data manually or import it from one of the supported applications.

Features

• Create, store and share charts online.
• Import chart data from web address (.htm, .html, .xml,.txt, .mdb, .xls, .dbf, .db, .ten, .tee), HTML tables, Excel, Access, Text, CSV, Microsoft SQL Server / MySQL server, Google Spreadsheets.
• Choose between 15 chart types: pie, bar, line, pie, point, donut etc.
• Export ready charts as PNG, JPEG, GIF, or PDF files.
• Export chart data to XML, Text, HTML and Excel (*.xls).
• Embed charts onto web pages or blogs.
• Collaborate and work on charts with others.
• Customize chart appearance (theme, colors, fonts, sizes, and styles).
• Add notes and comment on charts.
• Keep charts private or share them with others.
• Free, intuitive, and highly customizable.

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 www.mybrochuremaker.com

MyBrochureMaker is an easy web-based brochure maker. Here you can create and print professional looking and eye-catching brochures and flyers in minutes. Whether you want to create an advertising leaflet for some location or promote an upcoming event, MyBrochureMaker can make things easier. On top of that, it’s free. To get started, simply choose the right template and then customize using it some photos and text. Once finished, ready brochures can be instantly printed out.

Feature List

• Create flayers, brochures with or without a mailing panel.
• Customize and style brochures using text, images and different themes such as medical, contractor, fitness, salon/spa, real estate, nature, travel, business, technology, child care etc.
• Style both in and out parts of the cards.
• Save ready brochures on MyBrochureMaker.com or print them our (printing guide included).
• For more specific details go to help page.

http://www.awesomehighlighter.com/

The Awesome Highlighter makes it really easy to highlight certain parts of the webpage and save it for later reference or share it with others. Simply select the text using the mouse cursor, press save and get back the new URL with selected highlights. Post it in an email, forum or blog.

Why you would use it

• To show someone what you think is important
• To save time for the reader

How to use it

• Insert a web page address above and click "highlight page"
• Select text with your mouse on the following page
• click "Done" when you’re finished
• copy the short url into an email, forum or blog

http://windowseat.ca/viscosity/

Viscosity is a modern art generator. It’s a flash tool that lets you create beautiful abstract art and store it on your hard drive. One of the ways to use it is to create abstract wallpapers for your desktop. You can also just get something you like from the gallery.

Features:

• Create abstract drawings online and download them to your PC
• Publish and share drawings on Viscocity.
• Browse, rate and download abstracts created by others.

http://www.twiddla.com/

Live collaboration whiteboard to share, discuss and edit ideas/notes online. Twiddle gives you a private whteboard where you can invite friends or colleagues and use it to brainstorm on new or existing ideas. Draw freehand, insert text notes, add pictures and shapes, etc. Apart from live collaboration, it can be also used as a feedback collector. Just add your work to Twiddla and invite your client to the whiteboard.

Want your blog content read back to you? BlogBoard is a free service that converts regular text feeds to speech. Converted feeds can be accessed and played from any web-enabled PC or mobile phone. There are two ways to add new blogs/feeds to Blogboard: you can either add stuff manually by entering blog URLs or import your existing subscriptions from Google Reader or Bloglines account. Make sure to give it a try below before you go and start adding feeds.

Features

• Convert any RSS-enabled website to speech.
• Add blogs manually or import your subscriptions from Google Reader (or Bloglines) account.
• Mobile users: Access and listen to feeds from iPhone.
• Download feeds and listen to them in iTunes or iPod.
• Publishers: Allow readers to listen to your articles by embedding a BlogBoard player.

http://www.pixton.com/features

Build and share comics strips in no time. The cool thing about Pixton is how easy it is to create a comic here. There is no drawing involved, all comic characters are created by choosing from the preset set of attributes and expressions, i.e. comic hair and skin color, height and girth, body parts etc..

Additional features such as inserting characters, dialog, props, symbols, and backgrounds, colors, flipping, rotating, resizing, zooming, scene cropping, copy and pasting expressions, props, and scenes are also available. Once you’ve created your first strip, you can allow others to expand your comic strip, while leaving the original intact. On the community side, you can share your strips with others, check out strips created by other users, rate and comment on comics.

Features

Build comic strips and invite others to add to them.
Easy to use comic editor with lots of features.
Share your comics with others by publishing them on Pixton.
Embedding: Embed cartoon strips onto your blog or personal web page.
Subscribe to Pixton RSS feeds and get latest Pixton comics delivered to your feedreader.
Subscribe to comics by author or tag of your choice.
Browse comics by Recent, Most Popular, Highest Rated or Random comics.
 

http://feeds.fastbreakmobile.com/

Fastbreak delivers latest updates from your favorite websites to your mobile phone. All you need to do is enter the RSS or ATOM feeds you want it to watch and specify when and how often you want to be notified. Done. As soon as there is a new story you will get it on your phone.

Features

Receive alerts on latest stories from news sources and blogs on your mobile phone.
Subscribe to as many sources (RSS feeds) as you want.
Manage and edit subscriptions online.
Set how many times per day you want to be notified. You can also choose to get notified as soon as new stories are published.
Option to filter feed headlines by keyword. If you would like to receive all headlines then leave it blank.
For more information go to service FAQ section.
Fastbreak is a free service and doesn’t charge anything for sending updates. However your mobile carrier probably does, so make sure to check it out. The fastest way to figure this out would be to check how much your carrier charges you for receiving picture messages. If it’s free, so are the Fastbreak alerts.

Feedjit’s live traffic feed shows statistics on your website in real-time. It shows:

• Which city and country your visitors are in
• Which website they arrived from, if any
• Which page they visited on your website
• Which external link they clicked to leave your site, if any

 Libraries exist to preserve society’s cultural artifacts and to provide access to them. If libraries are to continue to foster education and scholarship in this era of digital technology, it’s essential for them to extend those functions into the digital world.

Many early movies were recycled to recover the silver in the film. The Library of Alexandria – an ancient center of learning containing a copy of every book in the world – was eventually burned to the ground. Even now, at the turn of the 21st century, no comprehensive archives of television or radio programs exist.

But without cultural artifacts, civilization has no memory and no mechanism to learn from its successes and failures. And paradoxically, with the explosion of the Internet, we live in what Danny Hillis has referred to as our "digital dark age."

The Internet Archive is working to prevent the Internet – a new medium with major historical significance – and other "born-digital" materials from disappearing into the past. Collaborating with institutions including the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, we are working to preserve a record for generations to come.

Open and free access to literature and other writings has long been considered essential to education and to the maintenance of an open society. Public and philanthropic enterprises have supported it through the ages.

The Internet Archive is opening its collections to researchers, historians, and scholars. The Archive has no vested interest in the discoveries of the users of its collections, nor is it a grant-making organization.

At present, the size of our Web collection is such that using it requires programming skills. However, we are hopeful about the development of tools and methods that will give the general public easy and meaningful access to our collective history. In addition to developing our own collections, we are working to promote the formation of other Internet libraries in the United States and elsewhere

The ultimate TI calculator emulator. Emulates the TI-82, TI-83, TI-83 Plus, TI-85, TI-86, TI-89, TI-92, TI-92 II, and TI-92 Plus. Features a graphical debugger, grayscale, send/receive, black-link, parallel link and much more!

http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/84/8442.html

FREE makes it easier to find teaching and learning resources from the federal government.

More than 1,500 federally supported teaching and learning resources are included from dozens of federal agencies. New sites are added regularly.

Get new resources delivered to you several times a week: sign up for the FREE RSS.

Federal agencies, if you’re looking to involve teachers in developing teaching resources.

FREE was originally conceived in 1997 by a federal working group and launched a year later. It was redesigned and relaunched for the first time in November 2006.

The 2006 redesign was made possible by many, including Jerry Alexandratos, Rob Barthle, Sally Budd, Rob Duckwall, Andrew Miller, Simone Miranda Olson, Cory Lebson, Jennifer Reeves, Chhavi Sharma, Keith Stubbs, Joe Wang, David Zwack, and teachers who reviewed the site.

FREE is maintained by Peter Kickbush and Kirk Winters, Office of Communications and Outreach, with support from the Development Services Team in the Office of the Chief Information Officer, U.S. Department of Education.

FREE is among the most popular K-12 websites maintained by the U.S. Department of Education because of the many great resources being offered by contributing federal agencies.

Gizmoz is all about self-expression. Gizmoz adds an eye-popping new twist to your webpage and personal messaging experience with fascinating, highly emotive animated headz that speak in your own voice, or text messages. Great for any language class or interesting way to present information to students.

sample

 

vconvert.net

Supported websites.

• www.youtube.com
• www.myspace.com
• www.metacafe.com
• www.dailymotion.com
• www.break.com  
• www.blip.tv  
• www.ifilm.com  
• www.bolt.com  
• www.putfile.com  
• www.revver.com  
• www.spikedhumor.com  
• www.lulu.tv  
• www.thatvideosite.com  
• uncutvideo.aol.com  
• www.glumbert.com  
• www.ebaumsworld.com
• www.photobucket.com  
• www.superdeluxe.com  
• www.watchmojo.com  
• www.clippz.com  
• www.zippyvideos.com  
• www.dekhona.com  
• www.clipser.com  

Next time you misplace your cell phone and don’t have anyone nearby to call it, go to WhereisMyCellPhone.com. This little site can ring your phone and help you find it in no time. No registration required, simply enter the phone number and call to ring it. Keep it ringing for as long as you need.

Features

• Find your lost cell phone by calling its number and keep it ringing until it is found.
• Currently available only within United States.
• No registration required

All-in-one style web-based file and unit converter. Quickly convert between:

- measurement units: size, area, distance, time, velocity, mass, etc.
- file formats: documents (.DOC, .PDF, …), images (..JPG, .GIF, …), audio (.MP3, .WAV, .AAC, … ), and video (.WMV, .3GP, .AVI, …) formats.

How does it work ?

1. Enter an email address where you want to receive converted file.
2. Browse and select file you want to convert.
3. Choose the output file format and click convert.
4. Get an email with converted file.

If you want to convert a web video then simply copy and paste video address (ex. some Youtube video) and select desired output format (3GP, iPod….). You can receive converted files by email or download them from YouConvertIt.
 

LearnItLists helps you learn foreign language by teaching you 10 new words every day. To get started, simply complete quick sign up and choose the language you want to learn. That’s about it, from now on widget will show you 10 new words (incl. translations) everyday. At the moment widget can be added only to iGoogle pages, but embed options for blogs, Facebook, MySpace, Orkut and Hi5 are on the way.

Features

• Learn 10 words from a language of your choice every day.
• Currently supports 15 languages : Arabic, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Polish, Norwegian, Italian, Dutch, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Swedish, Filipino, French and German.
• Coming soon: Learn simplified Chinese.
• Follow up on daily words from your iGoogle startpage.
• Coming soon: Add LearnItLists daily words widget to blog or social netwroking profile.
• Widget options: change language, swap the places of words, view translations etc.
   

Want to invite and walkthrough your colleagues through live presentations online? Try Slidelive – a web conferencing and live PowerPoint presentation sharing service. How it works? Simply upload your presentations and invite others to live walkthrough. Once the participants are in, they will be able to follow the slides in their browser as you click through them. It’s free, easy to use and lightweight.

Features

• Upload and store up to five Powerpoint presentations.
• Manage and schedule presentations from your Slidelive account.
• Host live presentations and invite others to join, regardless of their location.
• Share live Powerpoint presentations with up to hundred people simultaneously.
• Attend someone else’s live presentation.
• Keep a history of all prresentations you have seen.
• Resize presentation window to any size you like.
• Share stored presentations with others or keep them private.
• Allow participants to download presentation document to their computers.