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The site provides a free service as well as one that can be purchased. For the purpose of classroom or workshop use, the free version is all that is required. By signing up, if the user has a Google account this process is only a matter of linking the two, the user creates a name and password, and can begin creating. There are samples provided and a help center if needed. This site provides the presenter or teacher with speedy feedback to help monitor the lessons. Easy to use and fun, even for students.

o SurveyMonkey is a useful site for creating surveys and polls. Responses can be instantly shown in a graph to generate discussion. For pre-training specifically it can allow teacher to get background information on learners, and to get an understanding of what students may or may not know. Identifying gaps in pre-training can help better gear a lesson towards the audience's needs. Thus, from the beginning, this tool can help learners make sense of what they know, and what they need help with to fully comprehend. Presenting pictures to foster generative learning is crucial according to Mayer (2009), and SurveyMonkey can provide data in various graphic formats to help learners visualize and solidify a mental picture of data. o SurveyMonkey provides many features in the free version. Other than customized urls, analysis, and major reports, all else that is needed for polling and surveying can be found in the free version.

This is a free mind mapping site that is very easy to use. It uses colors and branches effectively. As a graphic organizer tool, I would recommend it to anyone looking for a free site.

Great Free Mind Mapping site.

This is a free online Mind Map creator which would be very good for a Pre-Training demonstration, to allow the learners to see what the instructor has planned for the workshop.

This site allows users to simply enter a word to find the meaning and related associations. The site provides a visual definition that can be accessed by teachers ad students. The site is free and does not require membership, making it an asset to the public education environment. I selected this site to use as a pre-training activity to have participants enter a word related to collaboration within the classroom and then share with the group the results. The participants will share (collaborate) the similarities and differences and how these relate to the classroom environment currently being reinforced and how this may change after the workshop.

This is site has a great podcast that can help in pre-training to get your participants to thinking outside the box concerning technology and education in today's world.

This is my second choice for a Pre-training activity. This leads us into our subject matter, but still allows us to use basic computer skills to navigate. I like this site because it is simple and nothing has to be downloaded in order for the students to explore. It is very kid friendly and not quite as technical for third graders as some of the other sites I visited. Cynthia

This is an overview of APA. The use of this site is a basic overview. It will give the participants a chance to look at the basics prior to the presentation. It will also show the participants the basic of research style. This can help them with the basic concepts of what are needed for a research paper. This site also has links to even more basic tutorials and help sheets on APA style. There are no interactive quizzes. This is a good site for pre-training as well as retraining.

Blockposters is a free online tool that will accept .jpg or .gif images up to 1 MB in size, allow for poster sizing, and return a .pdf file containing the image rendered across multiple pages. Simply print the file and assemble the pages for an instant poster-sized rendition of an image, graphic organizer, instruction page, or just about anything else. This is a tool I have been looking to find for some time! While I have tried replicating the functionality of this online tool using various desktop tools, the ease of use of Blockposters is amazing and the fact that a .pdf file is returned for easy downloading and printing is a welcome surprise. This tool could easily be used for pre-training by enlarging for print most graphic organizers, mind maps, and other types of assistive instructional material that facilitates essential cognitive processing tasks. By printing a graphic organizer in large format and posting in front of a class, students can easily refer to the diagram as needed while using their computers directly in front of them. Posting a large scale printout also eliminates students having to shuffle through miscellaneous printouts on their desktops while operating their computers. Handouts of the graphic organizer could be provided, but the timing of providing the handout could be strategically incorporated into the presentation / workshop to eliminate extraneous materials during the discovery and learning phases.

Assignment#3: Sliderocket has a free "light" option and a paying option to create and post presentations which can incorporate animation and video. The presentation can be posted and accessed online. The option also offers a collaboration and interaction option.

Slide Rocket allows the user to create new PowerPoint style presentation or to import presentations from PowerPoint. These presentations can be shared and the site keeps track of how many users are viewing the presentation and how it is being shared. Because it allows the user to use existing presentations, it also eliminates the need for a single computer to be able to edit the presentation.

Using SlideRocket gives users the advantage of importing simple presentations and creating animated slideshows. SlideRocket offers professional level tools unavailable thorough other presentation websites. By starting with simple concepts and linking them together between slides, workshop participants get a clear pre-training introduction to difficult production content.

I am using Pro Profs Flashcard Maker to introduce the concept and terminology of wikis during the pre-training section of my workshop. This will allow learners to process the essential information that will be needed in order to achieve the instructional goal. I like this activity for pre-training because it is "frontloading" the learning event with essential information. These flashcards are created online and can be embed them into my wiki. Its simplicity and multifunctional use make in an attractive tool for any teacher.

JayCut is a free online video editor that provides some basic video editing features, but is likely able to meet the needs of most educational technologists and instructional designers. The site is fairly straight forward but can interface with a variety of files and can combine audio, video, and text in an online editor. Files can be uploaded or they can be captured via microphone and/or webcam. The options included in this online application are rather impressive. The site could be used for presentations or pre-training. Students may benefit from the use of JayCut as it can facilitate the organization of materials to support essential and generative cognitive processing. By organizing text, images, and sound in a coherent manner and in a manner that upholds signaling, and spatial and temporal contiguity, students may be more inclined to organize in their own mind relationships between new material and that which is stored in working memory.

Wordle is a great site for creating pre-training activities that will inspire participants to learn. The activities will be used for essential learning because it givse participants a starting point for learning. I would use this site because it catches the learning attention while provide meaningful learning.

ProProfs is another website to use for pretraining. ProProfs has a free trial but is fairly inexpensive for educators.ProProfs allows you to embedd your quizzes. Again pre-training activates prior knowledge and allows the learner to prepare himself for what is to come. Pro Profs also has a flashcard maker as well as a game maker, both of which you can embed in websites.

Quibblo is a website that allows the user to create quizzes, surveys, polls, and stories. It is free and easy to set up. Quizzes can be shared by email or embedded into blogs, facebook, twitter, myspace, and wikis. Pre-training allows prior knowledge to move into the working memory of the individual. This stimulates essential learning by anticipating the concepts that are coming as well as accessing prior knowledge.

Collaborative brainstorming site that can be used for pre-training (asking questions, planning projects, reflecting, etc.) or assessment. Wallwisher is in the generative level of cognitive processing, because participants are challenged to apply and synthesize what is learned. The site is useful for many reasons. It can include multimedia elements, such as images or embedded videos. It is extremely easy to set up and create. It can also be embedded into other sites, where users can add content without visiting the home page.

This website contains templates that could be used to create pre-training game activities for the Student Response Systems. By engaging participants in a game using the clickers, this will help inform the presenter the level of understanding and knowledge the participants have of the technology being used.