Cool Tools & Ed Tech

Today, Ning is about to deliver some of that functionality to their 700,000 social network creators with Ning Apps, giving them more than 90 new toys - think apps like Qik, Twitter, Ustream, Box.net,  Tokbox, WordPress, Mailchimp, and PollDaddy - that they can use to enhance their individual networks.

VocabGrabber analyzes any text you're interested in, generating lists of the most useful vocabulary words and showing you how those words are used in context. Just copy text from a document and paste it into the box, and then click on the "Grab Vocabulary!" button. VocabGrabber will automatically create a list of vocabulary from your text, which you can then sort, filter, and save.

Say you're an investor and you want to see how two companies are faring against each other on the market. You could type in "IBM versus Apple" and Wolfram|Alpha will generate graphs and tables to compare the stocks over time. It also give you the Web-based sources used to generate the data, so you know where the numbers are coming from. The site also solves equations and shows the steps it took to do so, which will be of interest to high school students and math majors. Not into number crunching? If you live near the coast, you could type in "tides in ____" and find charts of tidal and lunar information. You could also graph that against other cities, which would be cool if you're a surfer. The site is also interesting for academic queries. Type in "Internet users in Africa" and you'll get the total number of Web users there - 51 million - as well as lists of the number of users by country plus graphs of this information. If you're in the fisheries business, or if you're an environmentalist, you could type in "fish produced in Italy versus France" to get an idea of how that sector is faring. The answer includes specifics, like how much of the fish crop was farmed versus what was captured. Such data could be used to argue policy points or to debate whether or not certain industries are sustainable.

Makes a page more printer friendly without a lot of extras or miscellaneous stuff on the page.

Multiple fun learning activities and games to keep kids up to speed over the summer

YouTubeSnips is a free tool that lets you download HD videos off Youtube! You can also download the video in mobile 3GP format, MP4 format, and FLV format. Simply pick one of the 3 input formats bellow:

The easiest Free Website Builder ever!

FirstClass is both a powerful content management system and a fully functional web server.  With RWD, Site Managers can quickly and easily set up and manage website layout and content. Web pages are part of a centralized command and control system that presents a consistent look and feel while still enabling non-technical users to create and contribute content. For those tasked with the design of the website, RWD provides an excellent level of control over the geography and layout of all pages, including extensive graphical and web object support, enabling webmasters and designers to easily support the organization's visual brand. RWD surrounds standard FirstClass web pages with a feature rich 'wrapper' that contains a number of highly configurable objects that enhance the web page. Knowledge of HTML is not required, and no other web development software needs to be purchased to develop a framework for professional looking web sites.

One powerful use of computers is to sift through large amounts of data to find the patterns hidden within them. Take a list of countries, for example, and look for relationships between the dominant religion and birthrate; between GNP and literacy; between government type and continent. In this assignment, you'll identify a standard that could be met by such exploration, use an online database (or create your own), and describe how you would implement it with learners. This assignment can be done individually or by a pair.

Pencil is an animation/drawing software for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. It lets you create traditional hand-drawn animation (cartoon) using both bitmap and vector graphics. Pencil is free and open source.

drop.io has dead simple rich web-presentation functionality. no registration, no downloads, no installs. You can upload your presentation files (documents, pictures, video, audio, and more) and be giving your demo or walkthrough in seconds. With a free conference call line and rich chat functionality, you have just what you need.

The Flip UltraHD camcorder combines Flip Video's signature shoot-and-share simplicity with the power of vivid, vibrant HD video. With 120 minutes of record time, you'll never miss another minute again. And because of UltraHD's pocket-sized portability, you'll truly be able to capture HD video anytime, anywhere.

Great for any meeting

What is AniThings? Anithings is a brand new children's creativity tool. It enables animated stories to be created simply and quickly, allowing children's creativity to run wild.

Publish full articles without needing a blog or site. There's no setup or login. Just write your text and Write4net will publish it using your Twitter account. That's it. So easy. And free!

Google Wave is a new model for communication and collaboration on the web, coming later this year.