Text to speech site that accepts typed text, uploaded Word and .pdf files and creates an audio with a talking avatar. You can then download as mp3, podcast, email. Free account is limited to 30 second recordings but special teacher package is available.
Excellent online timeliner recommended by iLearn website. See her July 22 2008 review for comments about using Capzles in the classroom to keep a log of your students' reading progress through the year! This timeliner has an extremely attractive interface and is easy to use. You have to upload photos, videos, and audio files that you want to use. You can add short captions and descriptions easily to those files. The descriptions box looks small but expands as you add more text. Once you're out of edit mode a person clicking on the picture sees the whole block of text. If you want to create a longer text entry, you can blog directly on the timeline. It's unfortunate that you can't create a blog entry and have a picture, too, as the text graphic is kind of plain. Very slick feature grabs the date from your uploaded photos and adds them to the correct place on the timeline. Ideal for classroom use if kids don't spend too much time fiddling with the themes options. The only problem for classroom use is that you can't embed live links which is necessary for linking to sources used or other important sites. Or maybe I just didn't figure it out.
Amazing site presented by the Coquitlam team at the UDL conference. Into the Book focuses on eight reading comprehension strategies for grades 1-4. Kids area has interactive activities for each strategy, teacher area features teacher guides, lesson plans, posters, video and audio clips, downloads, and more.
This free sound editor works on Mac and Windows; you need the LAME add-on to export mp3 in Windows. I have used this program for several years to change tempos and edit dance music.
On Jamendo, artists allow anyone to share and download music. This is probably not a good place for kids to browse but handy for finding copyright free soundtracks for your projects.
Listen to work documents, homework, PowerPoint presentations, emails, RSS feeds, blogs and novels while you relax, commute or exercise. Proofread, learn a new language, multi-task, and use YAKiToMe! for entertainment. YAKiToMe! speaks multiple languages (English, Spanish, French, German, ...) with both male and female voices using the world's best text to speech (TTS) synthesis technologies.