Users are able to create 60-second videos with the available free account. Users may upload images, videos, and music to create their product. Videos may be shared via Facebook, YouTube, email, Twitter, and various other ways. This site is easy to use and free.
This site is a great resource to post presentations (PowerPoints, Word documents, PDF...) which may be too large to share on a blog or in an email. I n my workshop, participants may access videos, presentations and files with ease, as well as create their own log in to post their own findings and creations.
Upload a powerpoint presentation to view online. Links remain active. You can even view Scribd as a book. Scribd can also be Uploaded to YouTube. Easy to use. Provides the text from the presentation in an outline format. Easy to use.
Frobee.com allows users to upload images, arrange them, set transition and timing options, add captions, and save the presentation as a Flash (swf) file for immediate download. The site does not provide hosting of the presentation, but the simplified interface and quick generation of output are outstanding features that help this online tool stand apart from the rest. By using Frobee.com, pictures or diagrams could be sequenced and displayed in a particular sequence to demonstrate a concept that unfolds across time or to demonstrate a specific process and the steps required to reach the end state from the beginning state. This type of media and demonstration could assist learners during essential and generative cognitive load.
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.
Spaaze is a free online tool that offers a virtual endless desktop onto which a variety of information containers can be placed. Virtual hotspots can be created for quick maneuvering to critical locations. Also, documents, images, and videos can be linked to or uploaded directly, depending on the type of or degree of service being utilized (free, pay as you go, or subscription). While this is a form of graphic organizer, it does not utilize links between content objects. Rather, like objects are simply placed next to each other somewhere on the virtual desktop. Such items could be considered grouped or arranged in such a manner that would mimic the organization found in most graphic organizers or mind maps. The tool could be useful for students to organize information in a free-form format, which could help foster their organizational skills and develop essential cognitive processing skills. In sum, the tool could be useful for a variety of applications and needs and offers a drag-and-drop method of storage and organization; which could take on unique characteristics per the preferences of each user.
YouTube is an online tool for uploading and sharing video on any given topic. With a max limit of 15 minutes, users can view directly via the application or link videos to other social networking sites
Virtual Dub
http://www.virtualdub.org/
Virtual Dub is a free downloadable online movie editing software for PC users that allows the manipulation and revision of avi files, jpeg and bmp files, and mp3 files. It is a website that allows you to quickly and easily design short videos to present to students or to create personal slideshows set to music. Either way Virtual Dub provides an opportunity to educators to take presentations past PowerPoint and to the next level of engaging video presentations. For the students of today we know and understand the importance of presenting our learners with the fast paced and visually stimulating graphics that they have been raised with.
I chose to incorporate Virtual Dub because it is a free resource that is very effective that produces high quality presentations with an easy to use format. Another feature of Virtual Dub that I really appreciate and use frequently is the batch operation feature. This feature allows me to upload many photos or files all at once. Virtual Dub also allows users to edit their photos with advanced filters such as blur reduction, sharpen, emboss and many other features giving the final presentation a more clean cut and professional look.
Xtimeline
www.xtimeline.com
The second website that I have chosen to share for authentic assessment activities is Xtimeline. Xtimeline is an online timeline creator that allows users to plot dates, events, plot details and other linear occurrences. Xtimeline is a great tool for authentic assessments because the students create the timeline from scratch and build on their timeline as they continue to work on it. Xtimeline also provides access to previously created timelines for research and background purposes.
Xtimeline is capable of creating advanced, organized and visually advanced timelines for free. I especially appreciate the fact that Xtimeline lets members (membership is free) upload pictures to add to the timeline making them much more appealing and interesting to look at. I like Xtimeline because it helps me to observe the linear thinking process of my students. I have used Xtimeline for plot diagramming lessons as well as biography mapping. Xtimeline is a resource that I believe social studies teachers would find extremely useful and purposeful in their classrooms. I also like the physical set up of Xtimeline the tabs, categories and search engine make using this site easy for any user no matter their experience.
High quality audio and video screencast product. Great for presenting essential learning concepts.
Explanation of choice: Free online screencast tool and unlike other, no download is required.
This screen capture program works from the internet, without you having to install it on your computer. It also allows you to download the file, or upload it straight to You Tube. It is better than other options because its quick and easy, and it doesn't need to be installed, which is great for teachers who often face restrictions in installing software on their school computers. This will allow teachers to record a virtual tour of a final Blackboard course.
Users can choose from a Varity of forms to develop content. The tool has the ability to upload documents, which the tool also supports multiple file formats. With a simplified GUI interface, managing the development of the pre-training course should come easy to any user.
Blogger
This site is a good site for creating a blog. Particpants of my course will be required to create a blog. This blog woud be a generative learning assignment becasue particpants are activly involved. This blog allows for uploads of videos and pictures both of which will be required in particpants' final project.
Blogger is a free site and simple to learn and use. Participants will need a Goggle account to have a blogger blog. This blog site has a variety of templates to use in designing their blog.
This site allows you to easy create 30 sec clips from uploaded images and record from your cell phone. I like this site because it allows people to create audio even if they do not have access to audio equipment for their computers. The short clips can easily be shared among classmates.
This website allows you to upload photos and record narration. A great way to explain a vision by more than just a picture but telling exactly how you recall it. This can be used as a storyboard for my participants of my workshop in their pre-training activity.
Short how-to video explaining how to use VoiceThread for Education. This video specifically explains how to upload media to a digital story in VoiceThread.
Myplick is an easy way to upload and share presentations. It is also user friendly and affordable (most all of their membership features are free). It is a newer site, but still looks interesting.
Books are uploaded and shared from this site. It is a great way to assess the learning from the presentation because if they are able to produce a book and share with others, you know they understood the course.
Turns anything you want inot visually stunning tag cloud, words individually sized appropriately to highlight the frequencies of occurrence within the body of text. This was a great site, gave many options to upload from, also had gallery to choose the orientation of your word cloud. My participants can use this as a visual along with their videos they create.
Tagxedo is a site that creates word clouds from user inputs. The site will convert a block of text to a word cloud, which can be transformed into a variety of shapes. Words that occur more frequently appear larger in the cloud. Teachers can use this for pre-training to present key terms. Based on the size of the words, learners can determine the key terms for the content they are learning, as well as important words associated with those key terms. The teacher can manipulate the text to place emphasis on the words of their choice. A feature of Tagxedo that distinguishes it from other sites is the feature that allows the user to upload an image and form the word cloud using she shape of that image. A teacher could use this possibility to further emphasize an important key term or concept. This site can be used for essential learning by providing learners with knowledge of key terms prior to the lesson, freeing important space in working memory for the processing of other information.
* Tagxedo is a great way to make "word clouds" from websites and different social networks in real-time by customizing the font, theme, color, orientation, and shape. Tagxedo is an excellent resource to use when introducing new content material, because of the ability to use Internet web addresses and other media that can be added to the word cloud. * I found Tagxedo to be better than other "word cloud" websites because it is effective at using paragraphs of text to highlight key vocabulary and has many options to create a better-finished product that can be transferred to other mediums.
Phixr is a free online photo editing application that supports popular social media applications such as Facebook and MySpace. Pictures can be uploaded from a computer as well as a cell phone.
The free web application is user-friendly and very interactive. It is comparable to others such as Picasa; however, you don't have to have an account in order to work with your photographs.
Whiteboard is a tool that allows users to collaborate on the creation of documents. One user can create a whiteboard and upload an original piece of text. They can then invite other users to come to that whiteboard to help revise that text. In my workshop in particular, since the assessment activity is the creation of a group lesson plan using one of the Web 2.0 tools I share with them, Whiteboard can be used by participants to collaboratively create the lesson plan.
Twiducate is a safer, more school-friendly version of Twitter. It is used in much the same way as Twitter in terms of status updates and the uploading of pictures and videos, but the content is much more controlled. Twiducate can be used to stay in contact with workshop participants and students, providing them with a forum for asking questions and getting updates on the workshop or class. This site will meet the need to communicate that workshop participants and students have while keeping them from having to deal with the negative content often found on Twitter.
Create online training tools and materials as well as follow-up sessions. This system facilitates sharing courses. You can upload existing presentations.
Automates invites and tracks trainees' progress.
