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.

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.

FREE online resources and downloadable programs for learners.

Today I’m writing about a website that I’m really excited about. It is the kind of website that I support wholeheartedly, a site that I think everyone should visit! Many thanks to Sharon Peters for mentioning it on Twitter.

Open Source Living is a site that catalogues the best free open source software available today. Programs are listed by category, with a separate page for each category, eg. Web++, Graphics & Photo, Video, Audio, Documents, etc. For each listing, there is a brief description as well as a direct link to the download site.

There isn’t a category at OSLiving specifically for education, but I was pleased to discover programs such as Celestia and Stellarium listed under Entertainment. Under all headings there are programs with educational applications.

Open Source Living has been established by a UK based blogger named Andrew, and it is his intent that it be a community project. Andrew welcomes input via a forum, but his intention is to move the site to a more interactive WordPress platform. I am already familiar with much of the software listed by OS Living, but there are many titles there that I still need to explore. I will also be submitting some suggested educational titles such as Childsplay, Tux Paint and Tux Typing. It is noteworthy that OSLiving will only list software that complies with the Open Source Initiatives guidelines.

On my blog, I share educational resources of all kinds that are free of monetary cost. I believe that open source software is in a very special class of its own. When the code for programs is open, there is always far greater potential for the software to meet the needs of diverse users. In a recent post, I illustrated how this has been working with add ons that make the open source Firefox browser more accessible to individuals with special needs.

FREE online resources and downloadable programs for learners.

There are numerous reasons for learners and educators to create their own websites. In many instances, blogs and wikis are more than adequate, and they offer convenient tools for adding text, graphics, and multi-media content. In this post, I’m discussing a free alternative option for creating and hosting websites.

SynthaSite has assembled a set of online tools so that anyone can create a professional looking website. Since the tools are online, teams can easily work together to create web pages. SynthaSite goes a step further by also offering free hosting. I used SynthaSite to put together and host a 5-page trial website, where I posted a variety of media. (http://digitalstuffbypaul.synthasite.com/) Although there are some significant limitations (eg. no real options for sidebars), my overall impression of SynthaSite was positive.

The Synthasite user interface is straightforward and reasonably intuitive, with lots of dragging and dropping. Still, SynthaSite is probably not intended for the complete neophyte. For example, there are convenient widgets for embedding video from major players such as Youtube or Google Video. On the other hand, to embed video from Animoto, VoiceThread and PhotoShow, I had to paste the embed code into the “html widget”, and I had to figure this out for myself.

As an experiment, I decided to try and replicate my SynthaSite website with Google’s Page Creator. I was somewhat surprised to discover that while the Google alternative may be a little slicker, it is even less user-friendly in some respects. For example, despite the fact that they are part of the Google pantheon, there isn’t a convenient option for embedding Youtube or Google Video on Google Pages. In the end, I didn’t complete my site with Google Pages because it was going to take too long–at least as long as with Synthasite.

There is one additional, and potentially major, bonus with Synthasite. If you wish to use your own server to host your site, it’s easy to download from SynthaSite as a zipped file for that purpose.

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff!

FREE online resources and downloadable programs for learners and their teachers.

It seems that many good things come out of MIT these days. That’s where the people behind Instructables are from, or at least it’s where they got their start. They’ve put together a wonderful resource that I think could be adopted widely by educators who are looking for ways to engage and challenge learners. This resource has the added benefit of helping equip students with essential 21st century skills.

Instructables bills itself as “The World’s Biggest Show & Tell”. It strikes me as an online paradise for people of any age who are interested in inventing, designing, and making things. I see huge potential for engaging countless high school students who are motivated by concrete application of what they study in school. In typical Web 2.0 fashion, Instructables offers a convenient forum for networking and collaborating with others of like mind. They even throw in additional motivation from contests that offer real prizes.

Instructables is built on the concept of posting step-by-step instructions. They provide a platform for putting up a visual image for each step, along with space for accompanying text. “Collaborators” are given the opportunity to comment on each step or on the project as a whole. The community therefore can have input on refining the process and/or the product.

Not surprisingly, Instructables hosts groups and forums. Major categories include: Art; Craft; Food; Games; Home; Life; Offbeat; Ride; Tech. There are currently 3 contests under way, including one called “Mashup” that is offering over $5,000 in prizes. Popular projects include a remote for an iPod, making a safety pin from a paper clip, and a mini airplane that actually flies. That’s the airplane shown below, and the entry in Instructables includes a video that proves it can fly!

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

FREE online resources and downloadable programs for learners and their teachers.

I’ve just arrived home from Closing the Gap. It will take a while to process everything I experienced and learned in Minneapolis. I do know that I was very impressed with Version 4 of Classroom Suite, which was launched at the conference. This new product from Intellitools has incorporated something called “smart scanning”, and this will make a huge difference to learners who use switches for step scanning!

As for free resources, I was introduced to so many great new options that it will take me a long time to put up posts even of the best of the best. I already have a huge backlog of free resources that I want to share. It was a special treat to attend the presentations on free internet resources by Paula Walser from Wisconsin and by Sigudur Jonsson from Iceland. It is definitely hard to keep up with all the terrific stuff that is out there! Today’s post is about Animoto. I’ve been having fun with this since the summer, and I’ve been meaning to write about it since then.

Animoto (online resource) Here’s yet another nifty Web 2.0 opportunity for digital story-telling. This one is a lot of fun and will engage plenty of learners, as well as many of their teachers. With Animoto, you can combine a set of still photos with a music track to create a free 30 second video with considerable dramatic flare. Here’s something I threw together very quickly to play just before our presentation at Closing the Gap. It ends by contrasting the hard working member of our presentation team with the other guy.

You can select from 3 genres of music provided by Animoto (indie rock, electronica, hip hop). The application then blends the music with the way it presents the pictures. Or, you can upload your own music track. If you’re not entirely happy with the way it comes out, you can “re-mix” the video with touch of a button for something completely different. If you wish, you have the option of adding or deleting photos or of changing the order.

Animoto does not offer an option for including voice narration, but there’s nothing to stop you from mixing voice with a music track in Audacity and then uploading that.

Photos can be uploaded from your computer, or imported from online hosts. Animoto has provide quick links for importing pictures from flickr, facebook, smugmug and photobucket.

Of course, Animoto has made it easy to share whatever you create by offering a unique URL for each creation. Sharing work online is often powerfully motivating for the learners we work with. The embed code makes it easy to embed an Animoto video in a blog or on a wiki. There is also a “Post Online” feature which makes it easy to post your video to MySpace, FaceBook or Friendster.

Here’s one of the first Animoto videos I put together. It shows my wife Lynn taking pictures while we were exploring the California coast in August. I called it “Clickin’ with Lynn” and I used a music track provided by Animoto, entitled “Picture in My Head”.

If you wish to make a “full length” video (about 3 and a half minutes), you can do so for $3.00. A one year subscription that allows you to make as many full length videos as you wish costs $30.

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

FREE online resources and downloadable programs for learners and their teachers.

VoiceThread has been my favourite digital story-telling application since it first appeared earlier this year. That’s mainly because it’s so easy to either speak or write about images, and then share it all. This not only makes VoiceThread versatile, it also makes it accessible to individuals who face challenges with writing. The potential uses of VoiceThread by learners and teachers are unlimited.

Now they’ve made VoiceThread even better! This week, the VoiceThread team has introduced a “Pro” version that they are making available to K-12 educators free of charge. (While a powerful free version will continue to be available, at less than $2.50/month the Pro features are a bargain for anyone who is not an educator!)

I haven’t yet had a chance to try them all out, but here are just some of the new Pro features:

• the animated “Doodler” offers the ability to draw on an image while commenting;
• multiple identities for one registered user–excellent for classes or groups of students;
• expanded media uploading options–jpg, gif, bmp, png, ppt, pps, pdf, doc, xls, also directly from Flickr or Facebook;
• comment moderation;
• easier sharing and embedding options;
• enhanced ability to enlarge and project VoiceThreads on a large screen.

You need to go to VoiceThread and see for yourself, but I’ve embedded a couple of threads below that I think illustrate at least a little of VoiceThread’s potential–one done by a grade 5 class and the other from grade 1.

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

FREE online resources and downloadable programs for learners and their teachers.

The Read/Write Web offers educators powerful tools that I believe should not be just optional extras in our schools. Too many of our students simply do not have adequate aptitude for traditional academic skills, and there are other learners who will never be engaged if we just keep doing what we’ve always done. I don’t think I’m overstating the case when I say that Web 2.0 tools provide practical keys to success for some of our learners. So, here’s a free opportunity to learn how we as educators can expand our boundaries so that we better meet the needs of all our students.

K12 Online Conference–Again (online resource) I believe this conference is such a terrific opportunity that I decided to do a reminder post about it. The pre-conference Keynote Address by David Warlick is scheduled for 5:00 am (on the Pacific Coast) tomorrow (Monday). That means it will be available to us any time after that. It’s entitled “Inventing New Boundaries”, and it’s bound to whet our appetites for the 40 sessions which are scheduled between Oct. 15th and 26th.

I’ve just gone back and sat through the keynote David delivered for the inaugural K12 Online Conference in 2006. That’s what has left me feeling inspired about this year’s conference.

I doubt if I could describe it any better than Will Richardson did in a post this morning, so I’ll just quote him here. (If you don’t already read Will’s blog on “learning with the read/write web”, it is definitely worth checking out.)

“Breaking free of traditional conferences, the upcoming K-12 Online Conference: Playing with Boundaries (October 15-19th & October 22-26th) provides educators with an engaging, ongoing learning experience without time constraints. The K12 Online Conference is a unique professional development opportunity for teachers to engage with ideas and technologies that are having a real impact on 21st century classrooms.

The entire conference will be delivered as downloadable digital media via the Internet with over 40 sessions presented in four strands: Classroom 2.0, New Tools, Professional Learning Networks, and Obstacles to Opportunities. The conference launches with a keynote address on October 8th from respected blogger and author David Warlick and concludes with a global 24 hour live event, As Night Falls.

For more information, please visit http://www.k12onlineconference.org.”

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

FREE online resources and downloadable programs for learners and their teachers.

Today I’m featuring a remarkable resource that has been made available to the world by a school in Courtenay, British Columbia. This online library is a tribute to the vision, talent and effort of Stewart Savard, the school’s librarian. It so happens that Courtenay is where I live, and it’s an honour to know Stew, and to get to work with him on occasion.

Courtenay Middle School Library (online resource) The growing collection of digital resources housed on this Vancouver Island middle school’s website is truly remarkable. In addition to some resources that you can download, there’s an extensive and well organized catalogue of links to some of the very best online resources available anywhere.

There is much of value here to middle school learners and their teachers everywhere. By virtue of the multiple ways that users can access material on the site, and because of way the library identifies the reading level of the material, the library is built firmly on UDL principles. (UDL= Universal Design for Learning)

Downhill skiing has provided the model for rating the degree of reading challenge for each catelogued item, as illustrated below:

Material is organized by unit under main subject headings and sub-headings. For example, under Social Studies, there are four main sub-headings: History; Current Events; Geography; Research Topics. Under History, you then find the following units: Ancient China; Ancient Egypt; Ancient Greece; Early Humans; Indian Empires; Mesopotamia; Middle Ages; Mongol Empire; Renaissance; Roman Empire. For each of these units, resources are organized under a helpful Table of Contents.

There’s a terrific Free Audio Book collection, with links to audio files of recorded human readers. There’s also a collection of novels available for “Assisted Reading“. The latter includes text files that can be downloaded for use with e-text reading software, as well as some KESI files that open in Kurzweil 3000. KESI files are available to download for some of the material catalogued under other subject headings as well.

There is much more at Courtenay Middle School’s online library, but no description I offer would do it justice. It needs to be explored and used to be fully appreciated.