Free and Easy to Use Technology for Your Classes

New Faculty Orientation, October 13, 2006

Blogs

Blogger http://www.blogger.com
Jay Keeton http://gr-soc110-s.blogspot.com/
Sue Miller http://www.ntr150.blogspot.com/
Melissa Grinely http://grinley110.blogspot.com/
WordPress http://wordpress.com/

Videos

Google Video http://video.google.com/ search for education
YouTube http://www.youtube.com/ - no education category but you can store your own videos here
Yahoo Video http://video.search.yahoo.com/ - no education category but you can store your own videos here
Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/teachers/

Podcasts

Audio (examples: Grammar Girls http://grammar.qdnow.com/ Listen Up! http://gpclibraryradio.blogspot.com/ Question Words in Spanish http://www.xplanazine.com/broadcast/clips/radio/july/jul7/jul7.html
Video (examples: http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=hans_rosling&flashEnabled=1 Podcasting and Feeds http://gruntmedia.com/podgrunt_001_view.html

Podcatchers (to subscribe to podcasts)

iTunes http://www.apple.com/itunes/ (can also be used to listen to podcasts and watch vodcasts)
Juice http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/index.php(downloads and organizes your podcast subscriptions and files)

Multimedia resources

Merlot -http://www.merlot.org/
WISC Online - http://www.wisc-online.com/ (need an account but it is free)
WikiMedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Applications/tools that are free and have classroom applications

Back to School with the Class of Web 2.0 http://www.solutionwatch.com/512/back-to-school-with-the-class-of-web-20-part-1/
Google Docs & Spreadsheets- http://docs.google.com/ - online word processor and spreadsheet - new as of Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Calcoolate.com - http://www.calcoolate.com/ online calculator with advanced expression support, mathematic functions, and history for viewing past calculations.
Engrade Online Grade Book - http://www.engrade.com/ For grading and keeping track of attendance, homework calendar
Groupvine - http://www.thegroupvine.com/ tool for students to organize themselves and could be used by students doing group projects
EasyBib - http://www.easybib.com/ a tool that creates bibliographic entries using a web based form
Wizlite - http://wizlite.com/ Allows you to highlight sentences on a web page (like highlighting on paper) and then share with others (good for collaborative projects)
Mayomi - http://www.mayomi.com/ Free mind mapping tool
EditGrid - http://www.editgrid.com/home- free online spreadsheet - good for collaboration
scanR - http://www.scanr.com/ web-based scanner. You can take a picture with a camera phone or digital camera - then send it to scanR
30 Boxes - http://www.30boxes.com/ - a very easy to use online calendar tool
myGraph - http://www.mxgraph.com/pages/en/index.html - web-based flowcharting and graphic tool - could be good for engineering or computer science students
Competitious - http://competitio.us/ a tool for keeping track of competetors - could be used by students in business classes
Wink http://www.debugmode.com/wink/ - free software for narrated screen capture movies
YackPack http://www.yackpack.com/ - to record, share, and store audio messages

Miscellaneous resources

Learning Styles at http://www.vark-learn.com/english/index.asp - students can discover their preferred method of receiving information along with study and test taking tips
YouSendIt at http://www.yousendit.com - a way to distribute large files to students - send a file to their server, add addresses for distribution, students receive an email link to download. Example from Mike Steffancin http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&batch_id=Qmw4p6lJBIc=
Educational Technology that works Marzano and Web 2.0 http://ed421.com/edtech/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=4&Itemid=26
Master List of Tools http://ed421.com/edtech/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=25
Rubistar http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php - a free rubric maker