Links

On this page are some useful links that relate to the topics you have may have explored on this website. For your convenience they have been listed in categories.

Discussion Tools | Collaboration Tools | Photo Tools | Video Tools | Social Tools | Virtual Tools | Voice Tools | Goal Setting | Rubrics | Storyboarding | Copyrights | Instructional Designer Resources


Discussion Tools

Google Groups
Google groups lets Google members set up discussion groups and invite people to the groups.

Online, real-time conferencing tools:

 

Collaboration Tools

Wikiversity
A community engaged in learning resources, learning projects, and reasearch for pre-school to University.

 

Photo

For a more thorough review of these sites, go to the Photo/Video page

  • Flickr.com
    A basic account with Flickr is free.
  • Picasa
    Organize and share your pictures as web albums.
  • Picaboo.com
    Picaboo focuses on customers wanting to create memory books.
  • Shutterfly.com
    Shutterfly offers free unlimited storage of photos.
  • Snapfish
    Free and unlimited online storing and sharing.

Video

For a more thorough review of these sites, go to the Photo/Video page

  • Filmsforlearning.org
    Filmsforlearning allows for a free community membership.
  • Metacafe.com
    Metacafe focuses on entertainment with videos averaging 90 seconds.
  • YouTube.com
    A free membership allows for members to upload videos to this popular site for display on the web, through mobile devices, and blogs.
  • Shozu.com
    Initial free account.
  • TeacherTube.com
    Member may upload videos, and attach instructional files to go with them.
  • Video.google.com
    Allow for free upload of AVI, MPEG, Quicktime, Real, and Windows media files.

 

Social Tools

For a more thorough review of these sites, go to the social tools page

Facebook.com (offsite link)
With a free community membership, Facebook allows members to connect with friends and interact online. Facebook is popular with college age people. It allows upload of unlimited number of photos, video and link sharing, getting to know new people, and learn about them. How to use Facebook in the classroom.

LinkedIn.com (offsite link)
Free community membership. LinkedIn allows professionals to connect with one another. Network for jobs, find old classmates, join groups within your area of professional interest; corporate, professional, networking, alumni, non-profit and more.

MySpace.com

Twitter.com (offsite link)
Twitter allows people to stay connected. It is a free microblog that allows user to communicate using up to 140 characters. Delivery and receiving of text messages can be restricted to specified users or be fully public. Updates can be received through several channels such as RSS, SMS, email, Facebook, or twitterific.
What is Twitter video?

shozu.com
See description under video above.

Blogger.com
Blogger is owned by Google and allows for free accounts on blogspot.com to share thoughts on the Web. It allows for free upload and incorporation of photos or you can create picasa photo albums. Videos can also be uploaded or linked. Uploaded videos are hosted on Google.video. Accounts can be changed to real URLs. Blogger also allows for mobile and email access to the blog, private blogs and lots of third party applications.

Wordpress.com
Wordpress is very much like blogger (see above) but allows for customized implementation of customized design backgrounds without a fee.

Edublog.org
Edublog provides a list of other places to host blogs for students.

Article: Avoiding 5 Most Common Mistakes in Using Blogs With Students.

 

Virtual Tools

For a more thorough review of these and other virtual sites, go to the virtual tools page

 

Voice Tools

Audacity
Free for download audio editing software with many uses. Create MP3 files with ease.

Skype - Video or voice chat for free.

DimDim - Video Conferencing for up to 20 people for free.

Audio File Formats
Introduction to audio file formats (online article)

 

Storyboarding

cMapTool
cMapTool allows educators a free knowledge modeling tool that can be used to create org charts and simple storyboards. Files can be stored locally or on the web and shared with others.

 

Instructional Design Resources

Blogs

Digital Learning Environment blogs (Eric Gardner, Jim McDermott, Jim Vanides, Mark Payton)

Techlearning Blog (Ryan Bretag)

Web 2 Reference - BusinessWeek's blog for what's new within Web 2.0

Organizations and eNews

TxDLA - Texas Distance Learning Association

ITSE - International Society for Technology in Education

CIT - Center for Instructional Technology

 

Online Newsletters

T.H.E. Journal - Technology Horizons in Education

Campus Technology - Offers several free E-newsletters covering web 2.0, IT trends, campus security, Smart Classroom and more.

E-School News - Several free e-newsletters available: eCampus, eSchool News Today, eSchool Tools, etc.

Weekly Innovations - by Innovative Educators. This is a Social site for people interested in Instructional design. Collaboratively created using web 2.0 technology.

 

Survey Creation

Surveymonkey

Wufoo

 

CSS Style Sheet templates

Freecsstemplates.org (provided me with this template which I modified)