Apr 05
This could be the game changer for Blackboard.
If they can replicate this interface for the regular web browser, students would love it.
TerriblyClever does it again!
Mar 24
About Wix:
Wix is a drag and drop tool for creating high quality Flash websites, with no need for any Flash expertise. A large catalog of graphic-rich templates are provided, ready to be edited. You simply click on an area of the page and a context specific editor appears. Depending on the type of content, you make your changes in the browser, preview, and save. Wix has a free service, and premium, depending on your website needs. Wix recently received $10 million in Series C funding to continue their development.
About Yola:
Yola, rebranded from Synthasite, markets to small-businesses and non-profits looking for a quick way to publish a website. Yola provides customizable templates to get started, and a multitude of add-ons to spice up your site. They provide a free and premium service.
Who needs Dreamweaver?
Mar 22
From the Aviary website:
Aviary is a suite of creative tools. There are currently six editors including image and audio editors.
Our applications run on your browser and allow you to store and access your work from any computer. With Aviary there is no expensive software to buy or maintain.
Use Aviary to create, modify and share your work- from graphic designs to audio files- easily and effectively.
Aviary integrates seamlessly with Google Apps to let your users share and edit documents directly from the Google Docs interface.
Free design tools and templates to create, modify and share images, logos, presentations, audio tracks, podcasts & more. Teams can collaborate on multimedia projects. Works directly in Google Docs.
- Create Logos, Slides, Business Cards & Letterhead
- Retouch photos, Make Web Templates & Banner Ads
- Develop Podcasts, Remix Audio & More
Three clicks was all it took to install it on my domain. One concern is that it is Flash-based, and Google has been moving away from Flash tools. Google may be positioning itself to acquire Aviary and make it a part of the Apps Suite. Take that Microsoft!
Mar 21
Knoodle is a service that provides online lesson modules created by people from around the world. The lessons are video-based, with supplemental materials available for download. It is free to sign up, and many of the lessons are free.
Subjects range from Arts and Entertainment to Travel, covering such topics as foreign language, mathematics, golf tips, and photography.
If you have some expertise you would like to share, Knoodle has a user-friendly interface for you to post your lessons on their site. You can also charge for users to view your lessons, and make a little money in the process.
Mar 16
In a national survey that reveals K-12 students’ use of technology at home and at school, students overwhelmingly agreed that access to digital media tools and the ability to collaborate with peers both inside and outside of school can greatly enhance education.
“Speak Up 2009: Creating Our Future: Students Speak Up about their Vision for 21st Century Schools,” the latest education technology survey from the nonprofit group Project Tomorrow, identifies the emergence of “free agent learners”—students who increasingly take learning into their own hands and use technology to create personalized learning experiences.
The article points to three elements needed in the classroom:
- Social-based learning: Students want to leverage emerging communications and collaboration tools to create and personalize networks of experts to inform their education experience.
- Untethered learning: Students envision technology-enabled learning experiences that transcend the classroom walls and are not limited by resource constraints, traditional funding streams, geography, community assets, or even teacher knowledge or skills.
- Digitally-rich learning: Students see the use of relevancy-based digital tools, content, and resources as a key to driving learning productivity, and not just about engaging students in learning.
I would argue this report is applicable to the Higher Ed community as well. I have lost count how many times this type of information bubbles up from the K-12 environment, only to catch universities off guard by the expectation of their students.
Nov 18
Purdue is piloting their home-grown tool, Hotseat, which:
“creates a collaborative classroom, allowing students to provide near real-time feedback during class and enabling professors to adjust the course content and improve the learning experience. Students can post messages to Hotseat using their Facebook or Twitter accounts, sending text messages, or logging in to the Hotseat Web site.”
It is built so that it can accommodate the latest social tool students use. Expected full campus rollout next year.
http://www.itap.purdue.edu/tlt/hotseat/
I like this approach, since it is not being marketed as a “facebook killer”, but a way to harness the power of these type of sites for the classroom.
Contacting them to see if this will be available to other schools.
Sep 21
I featured Aviary a while back, when the company released its FREE photo editing suite. Aviary is back with an audio editor to rival Audacity of GarageBand, named Myna. Myna gives you the tools necessary to create audio tracks for all of your needs. A large library of pre-recorded tracks are included to get you up and going in no time.
The user interface is logical, with Aviary’s signature cursor controls to easily tweak the tracks.
Give it a try!
Aug 26
Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC), has posted the following for their upcoming online conference:
FETC Fall ’09 Virtual Conference & Expo is coming to you live on Thursday, October 22, 2009. This FREE 100% online educational event gives you the opportunity to participate in highly informative virtual sessions from the convenience of your office, visit the Virtual Expo Hall and chat with real live exhibitors, and preview and evaluate the latest hardware and software available today.
This extraordinary online educational event delivers valuable presentations and unlimited networking opportunities straight to your desktop — all at NO CHARGE!
Attend this 100% online event to enjoy:
- A dynamic exchange of best practices and tips for success
- Expert speakers sharing their views in an effective, interactive way
- A virtual networking lounge to reconnect with colleagues and make new contacts
- Real-time access to other participants through instant messaging
- Technology product and service demonstrations in our virtual exhibit hall
- Free content downloads and presentations to go
- And much more!
Attend as many sessions as you like, visit the virtual exhibit hall at any time and network when it’s convenient for you.
Aug 25
Campus Technology reports on a free learning solution for university lecture classrooms:
LectureTools is an open source software tool that builds on the idea of classroom response devices but goes far beyond them, allowing students to use their laptop computers, rather than clickers, to answer a wide range and type of poll questions. The software also allows students to ask questions and share responses with the class, take interactive quizzes, and mark up PowerPoint slides.
Aug 11
I was watching “Jim Rome is Burning” the other day, and he was talking about the NFL player who was fined for using Twitter during practice, complaining about the cafeteria food. While feeling little empathy for the multi-millionaire athlete, since I was eating a ham sandwich at the time, I could not figure out why people still use Twitter as it first was intended. Who really wants to get updates about a particular person’s minute-by-minute account of their lives? The “Truman Show” goes digital.
Anyway, Rome mentioned that Twitter may have “Jumped the Shark”, a TV term signifying something has lost its luster, and is hanging on by any means possible. The term was coined based on a “Happy Days” episode in which the whole gang goes to the beach, and Fonzie jumps a shark on water skis. People saw this as the beginning of the end for the series, though it went on for a few more years. As an aside, Rome has a twitter account…
I don’t think Twitter is going away, just the way it is being used now. I have been using Twitter to post from my school headlines blog, on average is two per day. That should be the minimum expectation, with five tweets being the maximum. Instructors can use Twitter as a learning solution to send out class updates, interesting articles to read, etc. Twitter is entering that “trough of disillusionment” on the Gartner hype cycle, and will need an additional push to get the momentum. Count me in to provide that push.
