Free Resources from the Net for EVERY Learner » Online Resources

WatchKnow – Videos for ALL Learners

Paul Hamilton — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 22:11:00 +0000

Quintessential UDL Resource

In Teaching Every Student, David Rose and Anne Meyer observe that “…a person who appears learning disabled in a print-bound, text-based environment may look extraordinarily skilled in a graphics or video-based environment.” There are indeed learners for whom video is especially helpful, but I believe that all learners benefit tremendously from access to video. That’s why, in a universally designed learning environment video is made freely available to everyone.

With all the online video that is readily available on almost any subject imaginable, it is a truly wonderful time to be a learner! TechCrunch reported recently that there are now nearly 17 billion video clips online. The challenge, therefore, lies in finding the most useful and highest quality video. WatchKnow does a great deal to help meet this challenge; and it is a resource that should be familiar to anyone who wants to foster a UDL learning environment.

WatchKnow has indexed and organized 18,485 online educational videos as of today. Site organizers aim to increase that total to 50,000 by the end of 2010. All videos have been organized by category and sub-category. For example, the 2,490 videos listed under mathematics have been sub-divided into 15 categories that range from “Number Sense” to “Calculus” and “Math in the Real World”.

WatchKnow has been organized as a Web 2.0 community where input is welcome from all. Users are encouraged to add videos. Since WatchKnow is funded by a foundation, however, teachers and librarians have been hired to edit the directory. Each video is accompanied by a description, age level information and rating. Access to videos does not require registration, but you must register if you wish to add videos to the collection.

Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, is the executive director of WatchKnow. He offers an overview of WatchKnow in the video below.

PDFMYURL.COM — Turn web pages into PDF’s

Paul Hamilton — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:34:11 +0000

Judy O’Connell pointed us to a truly valuable tool on heyjude the other day.

PDFMYURL can be an invaluable tool for anyone doing research online. As its name suggests, this application turns web pages into pdf files. This can be especially helpful in situations where web content is required when a person cannot be online. Or, when someone wants to embed a web page on a wiki or blog.

Web pages can be turned into pdf files with virtual printers such as PDFCreator, but I think it’s slicker and quicker to use PDFMYURL, especially with the available bookmarklet that can be added to the browser’s Bookmarks Toolbar.

With the help of embedit.in, I’ve embedded an eSchool News article that I first turned into a pdf file with PDFMYURL.

AudioOwl — for Free High Quality Audio Books

Paul Hamilton — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 17:34:17 +0000

Richard Byrne has just written about an excellent source of free audio books. I could just direct readers to Richard’s post, but I want this resource to be filed here on my blog. I have noticed that new visitors sometimes spend an extended period of time combing through the blog looking for resources that may be of value to them.

This week, Richard directed his readers to my blog. This is an opportunity for me to do the same for Richard’s Free Technology for Teachers. Richard is a prolific blogger, normally putting up several posts a day. He typically introduces a resource and then discusses potential educational applications for it. Free Technology for Teachers has more than earned its three Edublog Awards, and I highly recommend subscribing to it!

AudioOwl offers an extensive collection of high quality public domain audio books. I believe that books in audio format are of tremendous value to all learners, not just learners with vision challenges!

The books on AudioOwl are helpfully organized by genre, including children and teen/young adult. You can browse by genre, or search the entire site by author, title, or key words. A selected book can be “previewed” before deciding to download it. In other words, you can listen to the reader.

AudioOwl offers two download options. A book can be added to iTunes as a podcast. Or, the book can be downloaded in a zipped folder that contains an MP3 file for each chapter, for use with any MP3 player. It is worth noting that some of these files are quite large and require considerable download time.

I mentioned the high quality of the audio books from AudioOwl, and it really is excellent. I previewed samples from a variety of genres, and in every instance the quality of both the reading and the recording was top notch. This should come as no surprise because AudioOwl is making use of recordings from LibriVox, where each book is read by a volunteer. You can read more about LibriVox HERE, in a post I wrote in September of 2007.

Clicking on the thumbnails below will show you the user interfaces of AudioOwl and you can see some of the many available features, including audio books in multiple languages, links to other resources about the work, and a brief summary of each book. Readers/listeners are encouraged to review and rate the audio books on AudioOwl.

WebAnywhere – because the web is for everyone!

Paul Hamilton — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 03:19:10 +0000

“The goal of the WebInsight Project is to learn what impedes access to the web and develop technology to improve access.” It is some of this technology that I’m writing about today.

WebAnywhere from WebInsight is a web based screen reader that offers blind people access to the internet from any computer with a sound card. This is a screen reader that provides access only to the internet, but it means that a blind user does not have to be at his or her own computer in order to go online. WebAnywhere is open source software, and it is free to use.

As a light-dependent blogger, I’m not really competent to evaluate a screen reader for blind internet users. So, I’ll embed a video that does a terrific job of presenting WebAnywhere.

Toolkit4Blogwalker – Great Resource

Paul Hamilton — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:03:24 +0000

Thanks to a link shared by Julie Lindsay this weekend, I discovered a fabulous wiki that I want to share here. This is a rich Web 2.0 resource wiki that is so well organized and extensive it deserves to be widely known by anyone who supports learning anywhere.

Toolkit4Blogwalker, as the name of the wiki suggests, is a toolkit of Web 2.0 resources that has been put together by and for “Blogwalker”. Although her name doesn’t seem to appear anywhere on the wiki, it wasn’t difficult to discover that Blogwalker is really Gail Desler, whose blog is also known as BlogWalker.

Gail’s wiki consists of the following 8 sections:

Blogs * Copyright & Fair Use * Filmmaking

Glogster * Google Docs * Podcasts

Voice Thread * Wikis

Under each of these main headings, there is a helpful Table of Contents that lists sub headings. In my view, this organization on top of the quantity and quality of the linked and embedded resources suggests that Toolkit4Blogwalker is well worth bookmarking!

In terms of my own current needs, I especially appreciate Gail’s resources on filmmaking.

Children’s Storybooks Online

Paul Hamilton — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:07:30 +0000

I love the tag line of the site I’m highlighting today: “Illustrated children’s stories for kids of all ages.”

Children’s Storybooks Online is a site that contains 35 beautifully illustrated stories. A few of the stories contain built-in audio that is read expressively by a real live person. All of the stories can be read aloud with CliCk,Speak when opened in Firefox. (Some of the stories may be purchased and downloaded as “talking e-books” , with individually clickable words, for $3.00 or $3.50 each.)

The stories are organized into 3 categories: Books for Young Children; Books for Older Children; Books for Young Adults.

I believe there are indeed many kids of all ages who would enjoy the books available at Children’s Storybooks Online.

Picture2Life

Paul Hamilton — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:10:13 +0000

Larry Ferlazzo recently posted a helpful list of ‘The Best Online Sites for Photo Editing and Photo Effects‘ As Larry indicated, there is now a virtual plethora of these online tools that can be used in the classroom for all manner of creative work. I read Larry’s post just after discovering a tool that wasn’t on his list. I’ve spent a little time experimenting with this new-to-me online photo editor, and I quite like it.

Picture2Life is an online photo editor that offers three sets of functions with an impressive ability to customize within each.

image editing with an extensive range of both basic edits and photo effects
creation of collages from sets of images
creation of animations from sets of images

Photos may be uploaded from your computer or imported from online sites such as Flickr. Because there are so many available editing choices, it takes a little time to become familiar with the user interface. Since it’s all intuitive, it isn’t difficult to figure out.

Uploaded and imported images, as well as edited work is stored in your own “Gallery” on Picture2Life. You can also organize your work into collections. Numerous sharing options are available. The site is set up as a typical social network. Work created on Picture2Life can be downloaded to your computer, or conveniently embedded almost anywhere else on the net. Images created in Picture2Life can even be auto-saved directly to Flickr, Facebook, or just anywhere else you might want.

I’ve embedded the results of my exploration below. I made a simple animation with a set of photos I took of my 6 year old grandson Isaac as he followed instructions to build Lego on Christmas eve. There’s a little basic editing I did on a portrait of myself. The third example is a collage that I put together from some pictures I took at Niagara Falls during the last week of December.

Animation

Basic Editing with Photo Effect

Collage

Webslides on Diigo (online resource)

Paul Hamilton — Sun, 25 May 2008 13:43:20 +0000

Of all the social bookmarking services I’ve looked at, I think I like Diigo best. I particularly like the ability to highlight and annotate shared web pages. I’m not yet using Diigo to full advantage, and this post is not really about Diigo.

I want to point out the visual way you can share lists of websites. In special education, we’ve long known that many people with “special needs” require visual supports in order to learn effectively. I believe, however, that most of us learn better when visual supports are available. So, I’m discussing a tool here that may be of value to almost anyone. It’s definitely worth a look.

Webslides is Diigo’s very slick option for creating and sharing sets of bookmarked websites as interactive slideshows. With Diigo, I can organize my bookmarks into lists. Any list can then be shown as a “webslide” presentation.

Each website on a list is represented by the actual page that has been bookmarked. Seeing the page provides far more information than just seeing the website’s address in a list! The slideshow is interactive in that it can be paused and you can go directly to the website via a live link in the bottom left corner of each “slide”. The slideshow can advance automatically, and you choose how long each slide is viewed. Or, you can move through the slideshow manually, and you can also choose to go back to any previous slide.

Clicking the button below will take you to the slideshow of my list of 55 websites that that I think support science curricula. I would appreciate your comments on this format if you check it out. (If you are reading this post in a Reader, you may not see the button . Please click here instead.)

Slideshows of listed websites can be shared in several convenient ways. Each slideshow has its own URL, and that can be shared. A widget, such as the button I’ve used here, can be embedded on a website, wiki, or blog. Or, the slideshow itself can even be embedded, but I found the slideshow too large to embed effectively on this blog. Embedding the full slideshow worked much better on a wider wiki page.

LearnOutLoud (online resource)

Paul Hamilton — Wed, 21 May 2008 14:12:40 +0000

I really like the name of the website I’m writing about today. It’s a name that points to the reality that there are multiple ways of learning. For many individuals, it is essential to hear text read aloud, but I’m convinced that all learners benefit when multiple means of accessing information are available.

LearnOutLoud is a website that offers an extensive and eclectic collection of well cataloged audio and video that can be convieniently browsed. You can serch the site by author, title, or category. The main site is commercial, and titles are available to purchase by download or on a variety of physical media (CD, DVD, cassette). Online streaming and podcast subscription are other options that are available from LearnOutLoud.

LearnOutLoud also provides access to a large collection of free audio and video resources, and this is not just an afterthought. As much effort appears to be invested in support of free audio and video as in the money-making side of the venture. The free titles available here go way beyond classic literature in the public domain. Again, the collection is extremely well organized and easy to search.

While LearnOutLoud is a website geared toward adult learners, children have not been left out. There is a sister site called KidsLearnOutloud. Here, you can browse resources by age level. Again there is a subsection of free resources for kids.

Animoto for Educators (online resource)

Paul Hamilton — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 16:59:54 +0000

There was terrific news reverberating through the blogosphere yesterday. Ewan McIntosh, Jeff Utecht, and Michelle Eckstein‘ are just three among numerous bloggers who wrote about it. I’d like to add my echo here for the sake of anyone who might miss it elsewhere.

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.