That Darn Economy

The recession has definitely started to hit the Internet as evidenced by the closing of several online tools recently. In the past week or so I have gotten e-mails from Circa Vie (timeline tool), Looky Book (online picture books) and Flowgram (slide presentations and tutorial creator) all saying basically the same thing. Due to a lack of money and an inability to generate revenue, they are closing their virtual doors. This is not surprising but always disappointing to see especially when it impacts great resources like these. This is definitely a reminder that "free" usually doesn't mean forever unless a source of funding can be established so we can never become too tied to a particular tool. Thankfully, there are other options out there that offer similar services and options. You can check out some of those tools by exploring the links below.

Timeline Tools

• Dipity allows you to include images, videos and text in your timeline. You are also able to embed your finished timeline and share authorship with others so that they can add events to is as well.
• AllofMe markets itself as a tool you can use to create a personal timeline of your life but there's no reason you couldn't use it to create timelines for a variety of other purposes as well.

Storybook Sites

• BookPALS Storyline has a variety of popular children's books read by different actors that students can listen to. It's a great way to provide students with a chance to be read to by many different people.
• SillyBooks allows children to upload their own writing to this site and read stories uploaded by other students as well. Each month a student story is selected and then turned into an animated movie and featured on the site.
• Big Universe allows students to create their own online picture books as well as explore books that have been created by other users. You can embed your finished products in different websites and blogs once you are finished.
• Tikatok is another tool that allows you to write, publish and embed your on book online. You can also order a print copy of your book for a price.

Slideshow Tutorials

• Voice Thread allows you to upload entire Power Point presentations, add audio or text-based comments to your slides and even "doodle" on the different slides. Students can view the slides and add their own comments if you want them to.
• Slideshare is a simple presentation tool that you can upload an entire PowerPoint presentation to for online viewing. You can also upload an MP3 with narration for your presentation if you want to add audio.
• Vcasmo is an online tool that has many different features that can be used to create a multimedia rich presentation. You can include video, music, links and much more to enhance your presentation.
  

Wildlife Filmmaker

National Geographic has a great new tool called the Wildlife Filmmaker. This web-based tool allows you to use video from the National Geographic library of footage to create your own movies. The video clips don't have any sound and are fairly short but the library includes a nice range of animals. You can enhance your video by selecting sound effects of different animals as well as a musical background. There is also a feature that allows you to add basic captions to each clip and you can even add multiple captions to the same clip if so desired. Students don't need accounts, and therefore don't need e-mail addresses, to use this tool. It is free and works on both the Mac and PC since it is web-based.

This is what the editing interface looks like. It operates largely by drag and drop so students would be able to start using it without too much instruction. Finished movies can be shared by directly e-mailing them to someone or through a retrieval code that is generated when you save your movie. You can share this retrieval code with anyone you want to view your video. It's important to note that this retrieval code only takes you back to the completed video and doesn't allow you to continue editing your video. In fact, it doesn't appear that there is anyway to save a partially completed video and then come back to it again at a later time so students would have to have their video completely planned out and be able to finish it in one sitting.

You can preview the sounds and music by double clicking on the individual selections. However, I couldn't find a way to preview the video clips. In order to watch each clip I had to first drag it into the timeline and then view it there. This isn't a huge issue but it would take students a bit longer to sort through the clips and find the ones they wanted to use so it's something to be aware of. There is a nice selection of video clips and sound effects but don't assume that just because there is a video clip of an African Civet that there will be a corresponding sound clip of that same animal. Again, this may not be a significant issue but one I thought was worth mentioning.

I hope I don't sound too negative about this tool. If you are looking for an easy to use video editing application that allows your students to incorporate high-quality footage (without having to worry about file storage or copyright issues) then Wildlife Filmmaker is definitely worth checking out. I would love to see more tools of this kind come online in the future.

Shidonni

If you have, or work with, kids that are in the 6-10 year old range than you probably already know about WebKinz and the virtual world associated with these furry little critters. If your not familiar with this ingenious marketing ploy it basically consists of the kids buying a stuffed animal that comes with a code they can use to register it in the WebKinz virtual world where the owner (your child) can then earn WebKinz money by playing games and doing different jobs. This money can be spent on buying a house for the virtual pet (the online representation of the stuffed animal they bought) as well as other highly necessary items like a four-wheeler (what pink bunny can survive without one) clothes, jewelry and a wide range of furniture.

At this point you may be wondering why I'm spending so much time talking about WebKinz since it would be a stretch to call it an example of educational technology. Well, stick with me here. The reason is because Shidonni is a lot like WebKinz except you don't have to buy a stuffed animal and you get to create (draw) your animal yourself. Not only can you draw your animal but you can animate it and have it run or fly all over the place. You can also create a world for your animal to live in and then feed it and take care of it. In fact, you can create multiple worlds and multiple animals so students could use this tool to learn more about the different types of animals by creating relevant habitats and populating them with their animals. You can also share your animals with other users if you like. I am going to suggest using this in my daughters' classrooms (they are in first and third grade) as they learn about the classification of animals. It does require a log in so you would need to create accounts for kids but that's easy enough to do. They have a basic introductory video you can watch to learn more about the range of features within this tool.

Glogster

I first learned about Glogster a while ago but didn't share it because it is one of those sites with a great tool but also a lot of user generated content that would not be appropriate for k-12 students to see or read. Thankfully, like so many other Web 2.0 tools, Glogster has come out with an education version of their tool that filters through the content more effectively and provides a safer learning environment for students.

So what does Glogster allow you to do? Basically, you can create your own online "poster" using images, text, video clips and audio files. They refer to these creations as "glogs", which I'm guessing is a take-off on blogs (maybe graphical blogs?) but that's just a guess. In a sense, a glog is like a single webpage but I think it also helps to imagine it as an electronic or online multimedia poster. There is a social networking element to this site in that users can create a profile and share their creations with others. I've included a sample glog below to give you an idea of what one of these might look like. Glogster has all the capabilities that you would expect as far as being able to embed your finished product and share it with others. The possibilities are endless with this and it would be very easy to incorporate into an existing website or Wiki.

Tribbit

I have used Tribbit before but I was reminded of it today when my daughter's 3rd grade teacher asked me for an idea on how the class could create something for a classmate's father who is serving in Iraq. Tribbit is a basic (free, of course) tool that you can use to create a tribute to someone as a way to say thank you or otherwise honor them. They describe themselves as "the online card that everyone signs." You can pick out a layout and add a picture and description to your Tribbit. Then you can invite others to leave text or audio comments, photos and other embedded files for the person you are paying tribute to. You can make the Tribbit private and only available to the people you invite, or you can leave it public. You also have the option to put a deadline on your Tribbit at which point people will no longer be able to contribute to it. Once your Tribbit is created, you can send a link to the person you are honoring so that they get to see all the nice things people are saying about them. I have included the demo video they provide on the site so that you can get a better idea of what is possible with this tool.

Flowgram

I recently read about Flowgram on one of the many blogs I follow and have put it to use for an online class I teach. Flowgram is a tutorial application that allows you to share and highlight websites, photos, videos and static text documents. You can add audio comments and callouts as well in order to draw attention to certain content or provide guidance. In addition, you can highlight text and add sticky note type comments to each element you add. The tutorials are interactive in that if you are sharing a webpage the user can scroll around the page as they listen to your audio comments and even click on different links on the page. Check out the Flowgram I created for my class below.



You may also want to watch the introduction video on the Flowgram homepage to learn more about this cool tool.

Blabberize

I have been a delinquent blogger but a full-scale kitchen remodeling project has kept me occupied for the past month. The plumber is here as I type and I hope to have running water in the kitchen sink by the end of the day. Enough about my remodeling tales of misery...let's get on to Blabberize.

Blabberize is one of those tools that could be categorized as mostly made for fun but with some educational potential. The concept is very basic. You pick a picture of a person, animal, robot or any other organism with a mouth, record a message and then Blabberize makes the mouth move in your picture to say your recorded message. It's similar to Voki but you are able to upload a picture of yourself rather than just creating an animated avatar. They don't have an education only version yet so you can run in to some less than appropriate content on the site so beware. I have included a sample that hits home and seemed perfect for a blog about educational technology.

PhotoShow

PhotoShow is a wicked easy (I can't believe I just used the phrase "wicked easy") tool to use to create customized slideshows in virtually no time at all. You will most likely spend more time selecting your photos and waiting for them to upload then you will in actually making your slideshow. You can pick from dozens of themes for your show, add captions to each picture and select background music from their huge collection of songs without concerns about copyright infringement. Check out the quick little show I created of my daughter's trip to the farm this past school year.

This slideshow took me about 5 minutes to create and that was largely because I kept wanting to check out the different options, themes and features. You have a couple different options for output format including embedding it as I have done, sharing a link, as long as you set the slideshow as public, purchasing your show on a DVD (at $30 a pop this doesn't seem to be a great bargain) or even broadcasting it on Public Access cable TV where available. You can purchase a version of PhotoShow for Windows that has even more features including the ability to add video but if you are just interested in working with photos and don't have a great need to be able to export your shows the free web-based version is quite adequate.

iCue

NBC has introduced a new online resource for teachers and students called iCue. Notice how everyone is trying to cash in on the whole iPod revolution by making sure to put an "i" in front of whatever they create? I heard there is even a state out west called iDaho. Where will this stop? Any way, back to iCue.

I didn't sign-up for an account yet but I did sit through the demo, narrated by Tim Russert no less, and it provides a nice overview of the tool. The demo focuses on the presidential campaign for 2008 but this is just one example of the many topics students can learn about with this tool. The main strength of iCue seems to be it's huge library of video clips from the NBC newsroom. Students can access "cue cards" that are video clips pertaining to different topics. The cue cards also have keywords, can be tagged with new keywords and include transcripts and additional information about the featured subject or event. Students can add notes to them, save and categorize them and share them with their network of friends within iCue. In that sense, this is really a social network with a huge collection of topic specific video clips.

There are games for students to play and a forum where they can discuss different issues. The theme of the content is certainly focused on history, politics and current events but it seems like an engaging way to learn about these types of things. Since the site is so dependent on video, many teachers will probably find it necessary to get the site unblocked in order for students to make full use of it.

Apture the Experience

I recently learned of a great new tool called Apture from the Weblogg-Ed blog, a fine blog that I follow regularly. I was intrigued by what I read so I decided to look at Apture myself. At first glance it seemed to be quite similar to Snap Shots, which I use on this Blog and a Wiki I maintain. Like Snap Shots, Apture allows you to link to other content and display that content in thumbnail preview windows. Snap Shots, and other services like it, automatically provides a snap shot (thus the name) of any webpage you may link to on your website or blog. Apture takes this process about 15 steps further. You can link to websites, news articles, images, videos, audio and even files such as PDFs. In addition, you can have multiple content sources linked to a single topic.

As I watched the tutorial video on the Apture site I couldn't help but think about how I consumed content and information as a child. We would read books in a very linear fashion. After all, books don't make much sense if you randomly jump around from page to page and paragraph to paragraph. But the nature of the Internet has blown that idea out of the water and Apture is a perfect example of this because it allows you to access content from so many different sources and in so many different formats. I think this has the potential to provide students with a much richer learning and research experience as readers of information but I also think it has huge potential for them as writers of online content. They can have the experience of weeding through content and deciding what they want to link to in order to augment their text and tell the story they are sharing. It's a lot like writing a traditional research paper where you have to find references to support your claims but instead of just citing relevant quotes you can share a huge array of multimedia content and really bring your writing to life.

The way Apture works is that you write your content first and then go back and add your links afterwards. Of course, it is web-based, multiplatform and free to use so I can't think of a single reason why you shouldn't at least try it out. I have put it to use in this posting so you can start to get a sense of what it can do. The list of topics below is simply to give you an idea of the different kinds of links and media that can be added. I want to add this to my UMD EdTech Wiki but that process is still underway at this point.

• Grand Canyon
• Civil Rights
• Global Warming

Now that I've had a chance to work with Apture a bit I thought I'd add a few more comments about this tool. I found it relatively easy to use but it was necessary to refresh my browser on several occasions when adding links. It is still in Beta so there are probably a few kinks to work out but I enjoyed using it. The other thing I noticed was that when I had Snap Shots and Apture enabled it was almost overload with all the pop-up thumbnail windows flying all over the screen so I just turned off Snap Shots.

Animoto and VoiceThreads Education

Two great online tools have recently unveiled education versions of their respective products. Animoto education edition provides teachers with a classroom code they can give to all their students. The code allows students to sign up for full access for free. Better yet, student videos can be downloaded so that you don't have to rely on an Internet connection when you want to watch the finished products with your class. This is a great service being offered by an awesome video creation tool and I encourage you to check it out. Here is a short Animoto video I created some time ago and included in my initial post back in September of 2007.


Voicethreads has also recently announced an education version of their great product. Their education edition is called Ed.VoiceThread and it allows teachers or schools to sign up for a classroom account, which costs $60 for an entire year. Students get their own accounts only after they are created by a teacher or school administrator. Students are not required to have an e-mail and they can only see content (other VoiceThreads) that are part of the Ed.VoiceThread community. In addition, they can only communicate with individuals from within that same community. This is a ridiculously low price for a great service. If you haven't checked out VoiceThreads yet here is a thread I created with my EDT 511 class at the University of Michigan-Dearborn to demonstrate how my students (all practicing k-12 teachers) might use this tool in their own classrooms.