Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008

Great list of applications and services. I love these, because they boil down much of what I've learned this year from blogs, Twitter, and other places on my network into one neat package.

Of course, this list doesn't include how these should be used. That's what you'll have to hit your network up for :-)

Dan

Top 100 Tools for Learning

Top 100 Tools for Learning

This is a great list of tech tools for teachers. I was familiar with most of these applications (this IS nearly a full time job for me!), but there were also a few absolute gems that I hadn't used previously.

This is certainly worth a look and could prove to be excellent fodder for discussion.

Dan

eXe : eLearning XHTML editor

FrontPage - eXe : eLearning XHTML editor

This is simply the easiest multimedia authoring tool that I've come across. While I can do this coding myself, it takes me forever to do so. I was able to put together a sample in a couple minutes that I exported as an HTML folder, which I uploaded and used in 5 minutes. I exported to a SCORM 1.2 zip, uploaded to Moodle, and launched a SCORM activity in about 5 minutes.

This is insanely easy to use and can really broaden your horizons. My only desire is an export to flash option. This could be just around the corner given the fact that this is an open source project.

I can't say enough good things about this. Try it out.

Dan

Web 2.0 Backpack: Web Apps for Students

Web 2.0 Backpack: Web Apps for Students

As you can probably tell, I'm wading through a lot of postings at Read/Write Web and it looks like I've been missing a ton of great stuff. Here's another.

This is a great list of online applications that can greatly benefit both you and your class.

Dan

Video Editing 2.0: 8 Ways to Remix Online Videos

Video Editing 2.0: 8 Ways to Remix Online Videos

Don't have video editing software? No problem! Here are some online versions that will take you a long way. Not only do the software exist online, but so do your videos. So, your students can easily work on their videos at school and home and not worry about software or transportation of large video files.

Dan

Five Flashcard makers online

Virtual=Real: Five Flashcard makers online

Thanks to Elizabeth Hansen-Smith reporting on a posting by Larry Ferlazzo.

This is a list of online flashcard makers. For many reasons, I would say, "why bother?" It seems that this is just a prime example of needlessly taking the physical and putting it online.

However, like many online services, the benefit is largely in the portability of the "cards". I, for one, have hundreds of Korean flashcards (traditional notecards). The problem is that I couldn't possibly carry these around with me. However, I have a computer connected to the Internet just about everywhere I go. Faced with a little free time, online flashcards would be a great, productive way to fill that time.

Some of these allow sharing (i.e., Web 2.0), which would be beneficial both for sharing your lists and for viewing what others are studying.

Dan

Zamzar - Free online file conversion

If the name isn't fun enough, just check out what you can do here. Zamzar is a conversion service.

These days it always seems that we don't have the right file type when we need it. I have a Word document and need a PDF. I have a MS Video file (.wmv) and need a Quicktime version (.mov). Well, this website will do the conversions for you. Granted a video will take a while to upload to their site, but when you're stuck, you're stuck. This is a great service to use in a pinch.

It's fast and seems reliable. I've converted a few .docs to .pdf so far. I'll have to wait on the video files.

I should add that it will convert files already online. So if you have files, audio, or video online that needs to be converted, this service will do it.

Want to convert YouTube videos? Too bad. You'll have to try something else. This service requires that the URL you supply have a file extension on it, so referring to a database (like with YouTube videos) won't work.

Dan

Comedy Central: Crash Course in Comedy

This is a really cool contest and application. I hope that they keep it around for a while, but it will likely disappear after the contest.

This application uses a technology from Oddcast who create avatars for use in Web pages. The audio can be drive by text (text is converted to speech by the computer), a audio file, recorded by phone, or recorded directly by microphone. You character will then perform this.

I thought that this was really fun and could be used in many ways that have nothing to do with comedy OR you could have students try their hand at humor (a difficult cultural and linguistic task)

I made a very brief example. Click HERE to check it out.

Dan

SuperMemo 2004

This is a neat-looking software reviewed on TESL-EJ (a nice journal with many practical articles for language teachers).

The software seems a little overpriced in today's market, but the features are quite useful. It is basically a flashcard program, but it has a lot of features that you aren't likely to find on the free ones, including support for HTML and multimedia (I don't know if you can embed something from Google Videos or YouTube--that would be nice).

Given the price, I don't think that I'd buy it, but something like this to provide ongoing review of language learning is a good idea. An approach like this is something that we should encourage our learners to do.

Dan

Top Web Apps in Japan

Here's one for you Steve.

Read/Write Web comes through again in its series on top Web apps from countries around the world. This time it's Japan.

This is a great series and it really should be a lesson to all of us (mostly me). We need to contribute to the greater body of knowledge and not just report on what other people are doing.

Co-link

Thanks to Autono Blogger for pointing this one out.

I don't think that I have the time to add this function to my websites right now, but it's really a fascinating approach. Co-link essentially adds a menu to each of your links. That menu lists possible sites to visit. That's nothing special. What's great is that it also allows users to add links to the menu.

Just imagine. You visit a website and they link to a resource that you don't think is very good or you think that they also need to link somewhere else. You can just add a link there.

Now the down side. There doesn't seem to be any controls for managing these links. Let's face it, not everyone out there is looking to add value to your site. It would be nice if there were some tools to mitigate those nasty folks.

A site like Blogger could add this kind of control and use the same interface that they have for comments. Maybe even link moderation, just like they have comment moderation.

Maybe it's more trouble than it's worth, but I still think that it is even more than neat tech, it's a useful tool.