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.

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.]