Friday, December 28, 2012

99+ Edu. Tools Suggested by DNLE-ers "Fall 2012"




One of the assignments that we were asked to do during the Designing a New Learning Environment online course offered by Stanford University was to find some interesting learning environments or education technologies. DNLE-ers shared a variety of tools that they use in their teaching and everyday lives activities. I decided to create a list of them so one can go back and explore them in free time.


1. Collaborize Classroom: It is a free online collaborative platform that provides teachers and students with a private environment where they can participate in online discussions with various kinds of questions giving students chances to comment and vote to each other’s responses, and finally see the results together.
2. Schoology: It is a social networking interface, cloud-based service and learning management system (LMS) for K-12 school and higher education institutions that allows educators to create, manage, and share academic content.
3. CourseSites: It is a free, hosted online course creation and facilitation service that empowers individual K–12 teachers, university instructors and community educators to add a web–based component to their courses, or even host an entire course on the Internet.


4. Ning: It provides a great environment for the students in online courses to interact with each other. Students can use a lot of tools at the same place; blogging, discussing, communicating, sharing ...etc.
5. Google Sites: It is a free tool for creating websites, and wikis in minutes. It can also be a way for student web publishing.
6. RotateContent: is a tool which converts a table of HTML content (any kind of content - text, links, images, embedded video, javascripts) into a javascript which displays the content either based on the data OR at random.


7. Video: Ready-made videos are really helpful to visualize a great variety of contents. But more importantly, video technologies, used as a tool for visualization, are extremely valuable. There are some powerful Open Source tools for video and audio editing available. As to mention XMedia Recode , VirtualDub and Audacity, all are also available as portable versions.
8. Learning Management Systems (LMS): (LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting and delivery of education courses or training programs (Wikipedia). Three types discussed in Marc Schnau's post: MoodleILIAS and eFront.
9. Webinar-Software: Three types of webinars discussed by Marc Schnau: Adobe Connect (commercial, high price), TeamViewer (commercial, free for personal use, favourable price, limited number of simultaneously users),OpenMeetings (Open Source, good integration into different content management systems) and Google+ Hangouts (Free, huge number of simultaneously users).


10. ClassOwl: It is a social academic platform made by students for students. It provides a single platform planner to allow students to follow their classes and student group activities in one place.
11. Edmodo: It provides teachers and students a secure place to connect and collaborate, share content and educational applications, and access homework, grades, class discussions and notifications.
12. Mahara: It is learner centered ePortfolio – a form of Personal Learning Environment. It allows owners to create profile, upload files, create resume, publish journal. It allows networking with groups, friends.


13. Khan Academy: It has over 3500 video clips in its library. Their service is free by using the YouTube video platform. Their topics cover from mathematics, art history, SAT (standard tests), and even venture capital. The videos have black background with color marker drawing on it, and aided with audio explanation in English.
14. JapanesePod101.com: It is one of the many online language learning provided by InnovativeLanguage.com. JapanesePod101.com has over 1700 audio and video lessons on its web site now, and over 200 million user-downloads.
15. Coursera: Is a new MOOC created by professors from Stanford University. Its goal is to bring high quality education from first tier universities around the world to anyone interested to learn.


16. Google Docs/Drive: It offers word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, forms, and drawings, Google Docs provides an easy-to-use, integrated way for teachers and students to work together on projects, reports, and more, and to collect and share information in a secure online environment.
17. Socrative: It is a FREE smart, student response system that empowers teachers to collect data from their students via smart phones, laptops, and tablets. It is a great way for teachers to assess students and collect immediate feedback.


18. Google+ Hangouts (on Air): It is a free service for broadcasting and recording live video with up to 10 participants.
19. Twitter: is an online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as "tweets".
20. Mixxt: It is a hosting platform for your own network (like Wordpress is for blogs and Wikispaces for wikis...). You can setup a whole network with more features and functions you have in this Lab. It exists in an English, a German and a Polish version.


21. TED: It consists of 18-minute talks that include a wide range of topics and speakers from different parts of the world. It is a user-friendly website with a browser where you can look for the desired topics or speakers and no specific technological skills are necessary.
22. Hot Potatoes: It includes five applications that can be used to create different types of interactive exercises such as multiple choice, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill.
23. Voxopop: It enables the creation of talkgroups about a specific topic. It is an easy-to-use website which enables students to improve their speaking and listening skills.


24. Skype: It is a software application that allows users to make voice or video calls over the Internet.
25. Mybrainshark: With Brainshark’s cloud-based software, you can easily transform static content such as PowerPoint® documents into voice-enriched video presentations that can be accessed anytime, on-demand...and tracked so you can measure the effectiveness of your communications.
26. Plinky: Each week Plinky provides a prompt – a question or a challenge- and you have to type in your answer. Prompts can be as simple as: What did you do yesterday” to more thoughtful questions like “What is your secret superpower?”


27. Blogging Sites: WordpressBloggerEdublogsPosterous, etc. All of these blogging sites offer free accounts as well as paid ones.
28. Wikis Sites: There are some sites that offer free wiki spaces for educators. These are pbworkswikispaces,wetpaint, etc. The wikimatrix site can help you to choose the wiki that is most appropriate to their needs.
29. MentorMob: It allows users to create playlists of subject-related video, articles and to create quizzes related to the content.


30. YouTube: It is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, view and share videos.
31. Mind Meister: It is an online mind mapping software.
32. Interactive Books (Coloring Books): It is a very effective tool to memorize difficult subjects as in medical field. In these subjects, you have to memorize tons and tons of information in detail. These books help students a lot in the learning process including them through the book activities.


33. Discovery Education: It is an online tool that allows teachers to create crossword puzzles.


34. CmapTools: It is a free software that allows the creation of knowledge maps structured network, without proposing typologies of links and knowledge. It allows you to attach documents in various formats (video, text, image, etc.).
35. Diigo: (Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff) is a social site for sharing bookmarks (links) and annotations ("social bookmarking service").


36. Schools/Universities: It enabled millions to become literate and acquire skills to participate productively in society. Many brilliant minds of the last two centuries were the product of this system.
37. Virtual learning environment (VLE): Wikipedia describes VLE as a web-based education system that uses web 2.0 tools and content management system.


38. Facebook: It is a social networking service that allows users to communicate and share.
39. Smartboard: is an alternative to the traditional chalkboard/whiteboard that combines a projector with a large input device to mimic a touchscreen and the functionality of a traditional whiteboard.


40. RSS Feed: With the advent of RSS, users can collect and present articles from news sources, magazines, and blogs to be display through RSS aggregators or news readers (Downes, 2007).
41. NetVibes: It is a useful tool that will allow you to bring resources together.
42. Del.icio.us: It is a useful bookmarking tool that allows users to collect and share links related to a topic.


43. Koulu: Koulu (i.e. ‘School’) is a festival for peer-learning. What if everyone you knew came to one place to teach something they know well? At once, you might have the chance to learn anything from illustration to arranging block parties, public speaking or reducing your carbon footprint. What would you teach?
44. The Public School: is a school with no curriculum. It is not accredited, it does not give out degrees, and it has no affiliation with the public school system. It is a framework that supports auto-didactic activities, operating under the assumption that everything is in everything.
45. YKON Game: The YKON Game is based on a simple thought experiment: Imagine that the world is brought to a complete halt. Everything stops. No more business as usual. With the world being frozen, you and your fellow players can tinker with the world as you please. What will you change? How do you convince others to go along with your changes? And what about the consequences? In short: The YKON Game is a workshop, party and therapy session in one.


46. Venture Lab: It is one of the primary platforms used by Stanford University to offer free online courses. Venture Lab's philosophy is to make online courses more fun and engaging by making them more experiential, interactive, and collaborative.
47. U21Global: It is the institution of choice for students who want to learn for themselves, for the world and for the future.
48. Univ. of Nottingham: It is a public research university. Click here if you want to learn more about it.


49. PebblePad: It is an e-Portfolio system that allows individuals to develop detailed showcases of their work. PebblePad is much more than an eportfolio. It is a Personal Learning Space being used in learning contexts as diverse as schools, colleges, universities and professional bodies; by learners, teachers and assessors; for Personal Development Planning, Continuing Professional Development, and Learning, Teaching and Assessment.
50. SH!FT: It allows users to build powerful and interactive courses quickly and easily while offering outstanding savings in cost and time to market.
51. Jing: It is a free screen capture/video capture tool.


52. Ted-Ed: It is an extension of TED’s mission of spreading great ideas. You will find a lot of educational videos. You can browse them by series, subject, YouTube or recent activity. This platform also allows users to take any useful educational video, and easily create a customized lesson around the video.
53. Knowmia: It offers a video lesson platform for high school teachers and students.


54. Makaton It is a language program designed to provide a means of communication to individuals who cannot communicate efficiently by speaking.(cognitive impairments, autism, down’s syndrome ,specific language impairment ,multisensory impairment ,acquired neurological disorders).The Makaton language program is a learning environment to teach language and literacy skills ,through instruction involving a combination of speech ,signs and graphic symbols.


55. MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW): It is is a free publication of MIT course materials that reflects almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT.
56. National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS): It is the world's largest open learning environment for high school grades. It offers subjects over a broad range not generally available in regular schools.
57. GuruKula: It is an ancient, residential learning environment in which a guru (teacher) takes on the responsibility of imparting education to a group of children of ages between 6 and 16 years, from diverse economic backgrounds. In stead of confined classrooms, classes are held in shaded areas of the natural landscape.


58. LearnBop: It is a new technology platform for delivering educational content. Expert teachers can create content in this system by invitation. The content is delivered to anyone with an internet connection. Format of the content is a set of questions to check the conceptual understanding of a given subject.
59. MyDrona: It is a free educational portal for K-10. It uses web-mining to collate a lot of high quality learning material openly available on the web. It automatically categorized content is filtered manually by experienced teachers and pedagogy experts. Delivery is done both on-line and also off-line (micro-SD card) for specific academic year's syllabus.
60. Personify: Personify Live extracts a live image of you from your surroundings and puts you right in front of your content, using web conference apps you use every day. Whether you are using GoToMeeting, Webex, Skype, Microsoft Lync or almost any other online collaboration tool, Personify Live makes you a part of the content you present.


61. Multimedia Whiteboard: It is a highly constructivist multimedia teaching tool which helps teachers to meet students’ needs in terms of contents, strategies and meanings (for more about it, see this resource).


62. PhET: It provides fun, interactive, research-based simulations of physical phenomena for free. To help students visually comprehend concepts, PhET simulations animate what is invisible to the eye through the use of graphics and intuitive controls such as click-and-drag manipulation, sliders and radio buttons. It is available in many languages.
63. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS): It is a non-profit American public broadcasting television network in the United States. Providing high quality video about different arguments, as history, technology, science etc.. Furthermore PBS is not only a broadcasting TV, but also provide others features as an online professional development, a classrooms resources for teacher of different media type (audio, video, article, interactive activity, lesson plan,..).


64. Libraries: Libraries are environments and spaces in which patrons can interact with an information professional and information to help enhance learning and retention.
65. Mobile Learning (M-learning): learning with portable technologies including but not limited to handheld computers, MP3 players, notebooks, mobile phones and tablets. M-learning focuses on the mobility of the learner, interacting with portable technologies, and learning that reflects a focus on how society and its institutions can accommodate and support an increasingly mobile population (Wikipedia).
66. Google Course Builder: It's the newest release in open source online course delivery technology. It's free, and easily integrated with Google products; Google drive, Google hangouts and Google+.


67. PowToon: It is the brand new Do-It-Yourself animated presentation tool that helps users to create animations-based videos that can be used as explanatory videos or presentations.


68. TelEduc: It is a distance learning environment for courses through the Internet.
69. Geekie: It is the first adaptive learning platform in Brazil that personalizes education according to the individual characteristics of each student. It is a available in Portuguese.


70. VoiceThread: It is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in 5 ways; using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). You can share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too.
71. IWitness: It is an online application that gives educators and students access to search, watch, and learn from more than 1,000 video testimonies of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses.


72. Clicker: It is a simple remote-like device that allows for polling of students to gather immediate feedback in response to multiple choice questions posed by an instructor (Deal, 2007).
73. Probewares such as the Vernier LabQuest 2 and Pasco’s SPARK interface are examples of devices used in scientific experimentation with the use of probes or sensors connected to the device, allowing the user to take data and analyze the data in real time.
74. SCALE-UP or the TEAL project: It is a studio-like classroom setting which divides large classrooms into tables of smaller groups (7-10 students) with instructors circulating and engaging in “Socratic-like dialogues” (NC State).


75. Lumosity: It is a server which claims that it is able to improve your memory and cognitive skills. Drawing on the latest research from neuroscience, it uses short games/tasks, so-called brain training programs, to advance your mental capacity to learn.
76. Rosetta Stone: It is an interactive software created for learning a language. It is based on a method which tries to imitate the process of learning a mother tongue without allowing the user to use his/her mother tongue. This makes learning as a process more natural and it also avoids using grammar explanations and memorizing long lists of words.
77. Memrise: is a new learning platform which claims to help you memorize new items, such as new words in different language, capital cities, flags, ... etc. It is based on learning new words through mnemonics, and it is ideal for learning vocabulary lists.


78. Udemy: It is an online learning platform that allows instructors to host courses (Wikipedia). For more about this great tool, please see this video.
79. Lynda.com: It is a software training & tutorial video library. This website's online courses help users learn critical skills.
80. O’Reilly School of Technology: It is an online school in Information Technology.


81. Poll Everywhere: It creates stylish real-time experiences for events using mobile devices.


82. IXL: It is a Web-based educational tool that makes practicing math fun. Students can take on challenges that help them master the skills necessary to perform up to their country's objectives. With unlimited math problems and over 2,000 topics, students never get bored!


83. Campfire: It is a web-based group chat tool that lets you set up password-protected chat rooms in just seconds. Invite a client, colleague, or vendor to chat, collaborate, and make decisions. Link to a room on your intranet for internal communications
84. Trello: It is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what's being worked on, who's working on what, and where something is in a process.
85. Sync.in: It is a web based word processor for people to collaborate in real-time. When multiple people edit the same document simultaneously, any changes are instantly reflected on everyone's screen. The result is a new and productive way to collaborate with text documents, useful for meeting notes, brainstorming, project planning, training, and more.


86. TakingITGlobal: It is a global community empowering students to understand and act on global challenges. Reaches over 5 million users each year across 13 languages, and provides a wide array of resources, educational games, and capacity-building opportunities for young, aspiring social innovators.


87. Blackboard: It allows teachers to manage classes online.
88. Wikipedia: It is a free, online encyclopedia developed by volunteer contributors from around the globe.


89. Cmap Tools: It is a free mind mapping software. This application helps you to design any type of relational charts, concept maps and other types of diagrams.
90. Compendium LD: It is a software tool for designing learning activities using a flexible visual interface. It is being developed as a tool to support lecturers, teachers and others involved in education to help them articulate their ideas and map out the design or learning sequence.
91. Gliffy: It is a web-based diagram editor. It allows users to create and share flowcharts, network diagrams, floor plans, user interface designs and other drawings online.


92. EpiCollect. It provides a web application for the generation of forms and freely hosted project websites (using Google's AppEngine) for many kinds of mobile data collection projects.
93. Green Maps: It creates adaptable map-making processes, accessible tools and universal icons that allow local Green Map teams to identify and share information about the green living sites and natural, cultural and social resources in their communities. It also promotes international collaboration with a global network of Mapmakers who share ideas and contribute valuable insights for the Green Map movement from a variety of cultural perspectives.


94. Video Conferencing: It is the conduct of a video conference (also known as a video conference or video teleconference) by a set of telecommunication technologies which allow two or more locations to communicate by simultaneous two-way video and audio transmissions.


95. Twylah: It brings your brand message into focus, extends the life of your tweets, and helps you get discovered beyond Twitter.
96. Infogr: It is a great online tool for creating engaging and dynamic information graphics.
97. Learni.st: is an online platform that lets users curate and present online content or resources in easily accessible web sites. Learni.st is also a resource that teachers can use to present access and present web content to students that has been curated by others.


98. BBC: It is an on-line service offers learning opportunities such as language courses, revision exercises for school students and teachers.


99. Becomig SelfDirected: It offers 21 activities that aim at helping individuals to use Self-Directed Learning in their life.


100. ShowMe: It is an open online learning community where anyone can learn and teach any topic. Our iPad app lets you easily create and share video lessons.


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