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This is a 120 page guide to using digital storytelling tools in your classroom. The guide offers clear directions for using tools like Audacity, Google Maps, Photo Story, VoiceThread, and other digital media creation tools. Silvia's directions are aided by clearly annotated screenshots of each digital storytelling tool. It also provides a good explanation of digital storytelling in general and the benefits of using digital storytelling in your classroom. You can download the ebook for free on Lulu. You can also purchase a paperback copy of the book for $8.50.

Recording what is happening on your screen can be a pretty useful tool for teachers who want to create video tutorials or presentations for their classrooms. Many teachers are using screencasting tools but before you delve into what you're going to do with your screencast, you need to take a few moments to learn about the tools that are available to do the actual recording. They range from free to fairly expensive ($299) and offer a variety of functionality from simple recording to quite complex video editing. $ are examined here

SCAMPER is a strategy that can be used to assist students to generate new or alternative ideas. It is a tool to support creative, divergent thinking. SCAMPER is an acronym for: substitute, combine, adapt, modify/magnify/minify, put to other uses, eliminate, reverse/rearrange. What is its purpose? SCAMPER is a thinking tool that helps students to ask questions about a concept, text, or idea that require them to think beyond the obvious. It can help develop critical thinking skills and creativity and is a useful cooperative learning tool and a great stimulus for role play. In this post from Litemind, Lucciano " ....... presents a complete SCAMPER primer, along with two free creativity-boosting resources: a downloadable reference mind map and an online tool that generates random questions to get you out of a rut whenever you need." In this very comprehensive post Luciano note only explains the terminology associated with SCAMPER but also lists suggested questions as well as "Trigger Words".

"reate drawings and documents on your tablet. You can create using free-hand drawing tools, using typing tools, or a combination of the two tool sets. Your drawings and documents can be sent to and synced with other users so that they can comment and edit your drawings and documents."

"There are many free online tools to help their students create and learn through digital storytelling. Many of these online tools have free apps available on i-devices and Android devices. Through digital storytelling we motivate our learners to apply, contextualize, visualize, and personalize the knowledge they learn. In the post there are some great free apps, tools, and resources that will help begin creating digital stories with learners. The slide presentation embedded will explain the process and provide you with tips on managing a digital storytelling project." This is a great resource for any teacher thinking about undertaking digital storytelling with their students.

 A lot of sites mentioned. Organised under headings: Writing Prompts and Starters; Grammar; Reading & Writing; Poetry; Literature; Shakespeare; Spelling; Vocabulary English as a Second Language (ESL); Other ELA Resources; Blogging & Website Creation; Citation; Web 2.0 Tools - Material Creation; Web 2.0 Tools - File Sharing, Hosting, Viewing and Collaborating; Web 2.0 Tools - Gathering Feedback/Creating Quizzes; Web 2.0 Tools - Document Annotation; Free eBooks and Audio Books

"In the context of a growing emphasis on eLearning, most commonly facilitated by enterprise-scale Learning Management System and a range of institutionally managed and supported communication and collaboration software tools, and in an environment of increasing emphasis on intellectual property rights management and quality assurance, how do universities (and other educational institutions) respond to the use of free, open-access tools in common use by their students? What are the potential educational uses of such tools? What are the current practices of use of these tools within educational institutions? What are the issues, risks and hidden costs? What are the advantages and benefits?"

Cloud Canvas is a free online image editing and image creation tool. Cloud Canvas fits in a niche somewhere between a simple drawing tool and a full-blown image editor like Aviary. If all you need is a tool for drawing simple pictures and diagrams, Cloud Canvas has you covered

Fortunately there are a number of free tools that do these things and they are available for use on any technology platform as they require nothing more than access to the internet. Recently Eric Sheninger used a set of these tools to give his audience at the Hawker Brownlow Conference on Thinking and Learning in Melbourne a voice.

Thos tool offers a free service for checking small documents and a free service for checking documents against each other. Doc Cop also offers a fee based service that will check large documents and do a more comprehensive check than that offered for free.

A Free Learning Tool for Every Learning Problem?

Why spend money on expensive multimedia tools when you can use comparable alternatives for free? They may not be an exact replacement, but how can you argue with the price?

The four tools mentioned are free and available for smartphones, tablets and laptop/desktop computers.This means that anyone can use them to create or complete work or connect with others. These are dynamic and comprehensive tools that can improve teaching and learning in the classroom. The tools discussed are: Edmodo, Curriculet, ClassDojo and Khan Academy.

This tool is another presentation tool for educators. It works in such a way that it instantly transforms your layouts into a zooming presentation. Has both free and "pro" options.

Microsoft has some great Teacher Guides available. The guides have teaching tips and step-by-step instructions on a variety of topics and tools and technologies. The guides are all free and downloadable in PDF form. Topics include: Critical Thinking in web searches, Windows Movie Maker, Free tools from Microsoft, Digital Storytelling, Microsoft Office, web apps, OneNote, Bing and Mathematics, and Accessibility in the Classroom. The guides are easy to use and read and a great resource

Article by By Dirk Singer about free tools that are not for measurement, but instead evaluation. They will give you some form of meaningful data to use in reports

This page from Guide To Arts School.com is a very concise summary of what they consider the 11 best free photo editing programs. The page has links to the downloads for each app as well as links to tutorials for each application. In addition to the 11 download apps here are briefer links to their top five online tools.

No longer limited to freehand logos, graphic design is a booming field. From website design, to publications, presentations, and much more, graphic designers are in demand in just about every field imaginable.With so much demand, graphic designers can get caught up on the supply end. Don't lose out on an opportunity or job because you aren't equipped to handle it Use the below 70 awesome open source tools for graphic designers to get a leg up, expand your resume, and much more. Best of all, the price to put all of them to use is completely free.

Very interesting and useful view on the use and risks of using free online tools in schools. Main points are that how do we know that what students do and keep online will be retained? Need to have an option to get the stuff out of the tool and keep it in a safe place. The comments also open the way to further investigate this - particularly from Karl Fisch.

Post about a video from Dr. Wesley Fryer walks you through how to create multiple track podcasts using free tools including Audacity and AudioBoo.