The good news is that, with the technology available today, there is a plethora of tools available to provide numerous options for every learner. Because most of the emerging tools are free of monetary cost, because they are readily available to anyone with a computer and an internet connection, and because they are easy to use, there is no excuse for teachers who do not use these tools or make them available to the learners they support.

Flypaper is a versatile presentation tool with an infinite range of potential uses by learners and teachers–to engage, represent, and express. Flypaper is easy to learn and use. It is a downloadable program for the PC, so it can be used off line when an internet connection is unavailable. Still, you can easily share your work online in the Flypaper “community”, or embed it wherever else you want to. Flypaper has made it easy to turn your presentation into a flash file, and you can even upload it directly to Youtube from within the application.

In a Flypaper presentation, you can include virtually anything you choose–text, graphics, audio, video, action buttons, hyperlinks, etc. I particularly like the fact that it is convenient for the presenter to add voice narration. A presentation may be a single page, or it may contain multiple “chapters” with as many pages as you want.

Flypaper encourages you to download “models” created by other users, and to use these models as templates for your own work. Flypaper offers tutorials for new users, as well as user forums. There is also a well organized 114 page user manual in pdf format.

I’ve embedded an example of a Flypaper presentation here that merely hints at the potential of the application.

Animoto Education Program It was love at first sight when I discovered Animoto late last summer, and I’ve had a great deal of fun with it since. I wrote about Animoto back in October, and then in January. The free version of Animoto allows 30-second videos, but after making only a few 30-second creations, I willingly put down the $30 for an “All Access Pass” that allows me to put together and download an unlimited number of “full-length” videos for a period of a year.

Now, teachers are being offered the All Access Pass free of charge, along with the same pass for each class member.

Animoto is an application that allows you to use digital photos to create videos easily and quickly. The shots are “animated” according to the accompanying music that is selected. You can choose from a variety of music tracks built into the program, or you can upload your own sound track. (By uploading your own track, you have the option of including spoken narration.) Finally, if you aren’t satisfied with your movie, you can “re-mix” and create a new and different version with the click of a button.

The potential classroom uses of Animot0 are limited only the imaginations of learners and teachers. Please take a look at Voices of the World, a project where schools from around the world have worked together and used Animoto to share their national anthems. You can also check out an Animoto example, created in the UK by Doug Belshaw to stimulate interest in a secondary school history course.

As an itinerant, I don’t have my own class to work with; but I do present at, or participate in, numerous workshops for adult educators. Sometimes it’s fun to put together an Animoto video to share before the workshop is over. The first embedded example below is from a Linda Burkhart workshop in Vancouver in January. The second example illustrates a personal use of Animoto–to package and share family memories. This one was of a special day we spent recently with our son and grandchildren.

Powered By ReadTheWords.com

Loyal subscribers will notice that it’s been a while since my last post. I’m probably more sorry about that than you are. That’s because there is just so much that I’d like to write about! Sometimes, there are neither enough minutes in an hour, nor enough hours in a day. I’m back with one of those resources that has really grabbed my attention because of the potential it offers to all learners. Thanks once again to Molly, everyone’s favourite Demo Girl, for sharing it and for demonstrating what it can do.

Twiddla bills itself as a free “web-based playground” that requires no set up. Twiddla is indeed an online tool that offers a real time collaborative white board where people can work together to accomplish a variety of tasks with all manner of digital media. I think there’s also potential to use Twiddla as a presentation tool, as a study aid, and for creative expression.

For collaboration, Twiddla offers a whiteboard that can be shared by multiple users, as well as built-in audio and/or text chat that allows people to communicate conveniently while working together. In addition to putting whatever you want on the virtual whiteboard to brainstorm, or to create an effective presentation, you have the opportunity to bring web pages into Twiddla and to mark them up. It seems to me that marking up web pages is a terrific study aid for the learner or teacher who is doing or sharing online research.

Twiddla’s user interface is straightforward and extremely easy to use. Molly’s screencast at DemoGirl.com shares some additional features and does an excellent job of showing how it all works. I’ve embedded that here for your convenience. If you want to see a larger version of the screencast, you can do just that by going directly to DemoGirl.com.

Freebyte’s Guide to Free Graphics Software offers an extensive collection of links to sites where free graphics-related software is available. This is free software for download and installation on your computer. (The site does not link to online applications.) The majority of programs listed run in Windows, but there are some for Mac and Linux.

The list of programs is organized helpfully by category, as illustrated in the screenshots below. The quality of the listed titles I am already familiar with is generally high, so I expect it will be worthwhile to explore more of the software listed here.

SEN Teacher “…provides cost-free teaching & learning resources for students with special needs and learning disabilities.” That’s how this major repository of special ed resources sums itself up. (SEN is the acronym from the UK that stands for Special Education Needs.)

SEN Teacher offers a substantial collection of “printable” downloads. There are links to websites that provide information about a wide range of disabilities. There is also significant list of websites that offer free online resources. Jane especially appreciated finding links to Tinsnips and Ispeek here.

Finally, there are numerous links to freeware download sites. The free software listed here includes programs to help develop basic mouse and other computer skills, programs to practice switch use, programs that support curriculum, and much more. There are even a few programs by SEN Teacher itself (eg. 1-5 Counting, 3D Shape Venn, Buried 3D Shape, Girl Face Matching)

The screenshots below show the free programs listed by SEN Teacher and the helpful way in which these are organized on the site.

Childtopia is a website from Spain that offers a collection of online early learning and primary activities that can be accessed in English, French, Spanish, Catalan and Basque. Chiltopia accurately claims to be a “safe place to play and learn”, with countless online activities and printable worksheets. The screenshot below shows the range of available activities. Helpfully, the name of each category is spoken as you mouse over its button.

I believe that the “Listen and Reading Comprehension” section is especially impressive. Beautifully illustrated stories are read aloud, with each word highlighted as it is read. Each story is accompanied by a set of comprehension questions that are also read aloud. Independent readers, however, have the option of reading the stories and questions to themselves. The “Tales” section offers 7 traditional fairy tales. These are illustrated and read aloud with the text onscreen, but text is not highlighted as it is read.

Apart from having the opportunity to purchase Childtopia’s activities on CD for use when you cannot be online, there is no advertising on this site.  All activities on the CD’s can be used free of charge online.

do2Learn is a website that offers an extensive set of resources designed specifically to support the learning of fundamental skills by individuals with special needs. This site offers products for sale, but it also provides a significant number of helpful teaching and learning resources that can be downloaded free of charge. There are also some free online activities that support learning.

Resources available for download include symbol sets to help learn and communicate about daily living skills, pictures and symbols for creating social stories, visual maps, practice guides for learning to print and write, a variety of step-by-step art activities, as well as sing-along songs and interactive games to help learn basic skills.

Do2Learn provides resources about disabilities for teachers and families. Of special note is the “FASD Toolbox for Teachers”. This is a collection of effective classroom strategies for supporting learners with fetal alcohol syndrome disorder.

Viscosity describes itself as a “modern art generator”. The term generator may give a mistaken impression. While Viscosity allows you to generate a creation with ease, it also provides tools that can be used skillfully to great effect. Skill, of course, requires learning and practice. Full size versions of the art work below can be seen in Viscosity’s gallery. Each of these pieces involved considerable effort and no small measure of skill.

“Desert Rose” by Ahmed and “Arctic Seagul” by LOL

“Revolutions” by fra

Viscosity’s interface has been well designed, and its tools are easy to learn and use. For a great overview and demonstration, I highly recommend Molly McDonald’s 5-minute screencast at DemoGirl.com. Viscosity has made it easy to download your creations in .png format. Once downloaded, you can print a hard copy, convert the file format, and share your work in any way you choose. Each piece of art, of course, has its own URL so that it can be viewed by anyone anywhere.

Mixbook is one of a growing number of online applications that facilitate the creative sharing of digital images. Mixbook is different than most because of its book-like format, and because of its convenient options for including text. With this application, you can create books of up to at least 100 pages. Mixbooks can be created and shared online for free, but with Mixbook you also have the option of purchasing a hard copy of your book. Paper Mixbooks can now be shipped anywhere in the world.

I believe there are many occasions in the “classroom” when it would be powerfully motivating to be working toward the creation of an actual book. I think this might be especially appropriate for collaborative projects involving either entire classes or small groups. For example, a class might like to work together to create a “year in review” book, a special report on a class field trip, or even an anthology of student poetry.

For classroom use, I think it is especially helpful that any Mixbook page may contain images and/or text. Pages may contain only text, only images, or almost any imaginable combination of text and images. This allows for tremendous flexibility in presenting projects of all kinds. The screenshots below show only the first 48 possible page layouts from the nearly 200 that are available.

I have not yet ordered a paper Mixbook, but I have worked on a couple of online Mixbooks. It is a snap to use sets of photos from Flickr to create a Mixbook. Although I was unable to conveniently embed a published Mixbook here on my Edublogs blog, I had no difficulty embedding it on a pbwiki page. [See below for new info on embedding in Edublogs.]

The screenshot below shows the cover of a Mixbook I put together with a set pictures of the Comox Glacier, a defining landmark of the community where I live. If you wish to see the original in Mixbook, click here. If you’d like to see how it came out when embedded on a pbwiki page, click here.

[After I wrote this post, Andrew Laffoon of Mixbook, has posted instructions for embedding Mixbooks on Edublogs. He plans to add the instructions to the Mixbook site.  Hopefully, he'll also be able to streamline the process. For now, click here if you want to know how. It may also be helpful to know that Andrew blogs about Mixbook blogs here.]

FREE online resources and downloadable programs for learners.

Larry Ferlazzo finds and shares more Web 2.0 applications with practical classroom value than anyone else I know. Quite often, when I read one of Larry’s blog posts, I immediately try out something that he has written about. I did that just now, and I want to supplement what he wrote with an illustration of one way the application may be used. As an itinerant consultant, I’m “on the road” and away from home this evening , so I used the application to create and send a card home to my wife. I can envisage countless ways of using this app in the classroom.

Postalz is a service that enables you to create and “send” postcards online. This is a typical Web 2.0 application in that you can share your work in a gallery, send it to friends via email, or embed the creation elsewhere on the web. You also have the option of keeping your work private, and available only to designated friends. Comments and “friends” are facilitated within the Postalz network. Also typical of this sort of application, you need to register and sign up for a free account.

As you create your “postcard”, you can choose from backgrounds, themes, and banners. You can add text, and even include “handwriting”. Or, you can link your Postalz account to your Flickr account to import digital photos as backgrounds for your cards. That’s what I chose to do for the card I just made, and which I’ve embedded below. I used a picture I took from here, on the BC mainland, of the sun setting over Vancouver Island, where my wife is.

This is the sort of application that engages me. It may just engage some of your students who are otherwise less engaged than you’d like.