Wednesday, 23 September 2020

Government of India Advisory on COVID - 19



 ADVISORY FOR PSYCHOSOCIAL SUPPORT & MENTAL HEALTH 

PROMOTION OF UNIVERSITY/COLLEGE STUDENTS 

DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND BEYOND


Read more


COVID _19 

Fitness Tools

Tuesday, 22 September 2020

Books in Electronic Format





 

E-books


DOAB

DOAB is a digital directory of peer-reviewed Open Access books and Open Access book publishers. The primary aim of DOAB is to increase discoverability of Open Access books. The directory is open to all publishers of academic, peer-reviewed books that are published Open Access and that meet academic standards. 30,006 Academic peer-reviewed books from 393 publishers

 

Free e-Books Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is an online library of free eBooks. Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related content today.

 

Free e-books.net

Discover the rising stars of the writing world, you can find best books such as Fiction, Non-Fiction, Romance, Sci-Fi, Self Help, Business.

 

Openstax

We publish high-quality, peer-reviewed, openly licensed college textbooks that are absolutely free online and low cost in print.

 

Bookboon

Free textbooks are written by professors from the world’s top universities, all on one easy-to-use online ebook platform. You can 1000+ free textbooks.

 

Open Textbook Library                                                                                                

Open textbooks are textbooks that have been funded, published, and licensed to be freely used, adapted, and distributed. These books have been reviewed by faculty from a variety of colleges and universities to assess their quality. These books can be downloaded for no cost, or printed at low cost. All textbooks are either used at multiple higher education institutions; or affiliated with an institution, scholarly society, or professional organization. Currently, it is having 792 textbooks, with more being added all the time.

 

BookFi

Bookfi is one of the most popular Multi-lingual online libraries in the world. It has more than 22,30,000 books. We aim to increase the number of books and quality of service. Bookfi is a non-profit project and exists due to your support. Thereby this project is completely free with uninterrupted access to literature.

 

Hathi Trust

Founded in 2008, HathiTrust is a not-for-profit collaborative of academic and research libraries preserving 17+ million digitized items. HathiTrust offers reading access to the fullest extent allowable by U.S. copyright law, computational access to the entire corpus for scholarly research, and other emerging services based on the combined collection.

 

Z-Library

Here you can always find the relevant information on the available domains for your region. We strongly recommend creating an account in our library so the system can automatically match the available domain for you. 5,324,279 books, 77,518,212 articles.

How to cite your references













 

Open Educational Courses and Resources

 Open Educational Courses

    SWAYAM is a programme initiated by the Government of India and designed to achieve the three cardinal principles of Education Policy viz., access, equity and quality. The objective of this effort is to take the best teaching-learning resources to all, including the most disadvantaged. SWAYAM seeks to bridge the digital divide for students who have hitherto remained untouched by the digital revolution and have not been able to join the mainstream of the knowledge economy.


    edX is the trusted platform for education and learning. Founded by Harvard and MIT, edX is home to more than 20 million learners, the majority of top-ranked universities in the world and industry-leading companies. As a global non-profit edX is transforming traditional education, removing the barriers of cost, location and access. Fulfilling the demand for people to learn on their own terms, edX is reimagining the possibilities of education, providing the highest-quality, stackable learning experiences including the groundbreaking MicroMasters programs. 


    Every course on Coursera is taught by top instructors from world-class universities and companies, so you can learn something new anytime, anywhere. Hundreds of free courses give you access to on-demand video lectures, homework exercises, and community discussion forums. Paid courses provide additional quizzes and projects as well as a shareable Course Certificate upon completion.

     OLI provides dozens of college-level courses and a platform that enables research and experimentation with any aspect of the learning experience. OLI is a leader in higher education's innovation of online learning. Now OLI aims to improve education at every level, everywhere.




    By connecting students all over the world to the best instructors, Udemy is helping individuals reach their goals and pursue their dreams. Udemy is the leading global marketplace for teaching and learning, connecting millions of student to the skills they need to succeed. 


 Free Online Digital Resources for Teaching, Learning and Research


Digital Education Tools For Teachers And Students

In the new era of learning, technology plays a fundamental role in the processes of teaching children and adolescents. Here are 11 tools that facilitate communication between teachers and students, among other things.

 

Free Tools To Create Infographics For Teachers 

1.      amCharts Visual Editor This editor allows you to use amCharts as a web service. This means that all you need to do is to configure the chart and paste the generated HTML code to your HTML page.

2.      ChartsBinCreate your own interactive map. It's free for now.

3.      DipityCreate an interactive, visually engaging timeline in minutes. Use dynamic visualization tools to display photos, videos, news and blogs in chronological order.

4.      Easel.lyCreate and share visual ideas online. Vhemes are visual themes. Drag and drop a vheme onto your canvas for easy creation of your visual idea!

5.      GapminderGapminder is used in classrooms around the world to build a fact-based world view.

6.      GliffyGliffy.com is a free web-based diagram editor. Create and share flowcharts, network diagrams, floor plans, user interface designs and other drawings online.

7.      Google Chart ToolsProvides several tools for making data more comprehensible. Special URLs can be used to embed graph and chart images in users' own web.

8.      Hohli Charts Online Charts Builder

9.      infogr.am Create infographics and interactive online charts. It's free and super-easy! Follow other users and discover amazing data stories!

10.  Inkscape An Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.

11.  Lucidchart With Lucidchart you can create flowcharts, org charts, mind maps, concept maps and many types of helpful visual communication. Lucidchart is completely free for students and teachers (no strings attached).

12.  PiktochartPiktochart- Make Information Beautiful. Create infographics. Engaging presentation app.

13.  PixlrWelcome to the most popular online photo editor in the world!

14.  Stat PlanetStatPlanet (formerly StatPlanet Map Maker) is free, award-winning software for creating interactive maps which are fully customizable. In addition to maps, the software also has the option of including interactive graphs and charts to create feature-rich infographics.

15.  Tableau PublicTableau Public is a free tool that brings data to life. Easy to use. Spectacularly powerful. Data In. Brilliance Out.

16.  VenngageVenngage is built for people who work with data. From analysts who want to communicate their data better, to the executives who want to understand insights faster and everyone else who uses data to make their decisions, Venngage has been made to make insights easier.

17.  visual.lyLike infographics and data visualization? Visual.ly is the world's largest community of infographics and data visualization. Come explore, share, and create.

18.  What About Me?Create an infographic of your digital life and become inspired by the people you know, the things you see, and the experiences you have online.

19.  WordleWordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

Free Text To Speech Tools For Teachers

1.      AnnouncifyListen to your web. After Announcify conquered Android™ phones, it's now here to announcify your life at Google Chrome. Announcify reads out loud every website you want. For example, if you're too tired but still need to study one more Wikipedia entry, Announcify can help your tired eyes relax.

2.      BalabolkaBalabolka is a Text-To-Speech (TTS) program. All computer voices installed on your system are available to Balabolka. The on-screen text can be saved as a WAV, MP3, MP4, OGG or WMA file. The program can read the clipboard content, view the text from AZW, CHM, DjVu, DOC, EPUB, FB2, HTML, LIT, MOBI, ODT, PRC, PDF and RTF files, customize font and background color, control reading from the system tray or by the global hotkeys.

3.      Chrome SpeakChrome Speak (App Version), select the text and right-click to speak with offline tts engine, TTS (text to speech). Chrome speak provides native support for speech on Windows (using SAPI 5), Mac OS X, and Chrome OS, using speech synthesis capabilities provided by the operating system. On all platforms, the user can install extensions that register themselves as alternative speech engines.

4.      DSpeechDSpeech is a TTS (Text To Speech) program with functionality of ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) integrated. It is able to read aloud the written text and choose the sentences to be pronounced based upon the vocal answers of the user. It is specifically designed to quickly and directly provide the functions and improved practical usefulness that are requested by this kind of program. In the meantime, the evasiveness and resource consumption is minimal.

5.      FoxVoxFoxVox will speak any text you highlight in a web page. FoxVox can also create audiobooks in mp3, ogg, and wav formats. You can now easily turn your blogs and articles into podcasts.

6.      Free Natural ReaderIt can convert any written text such as Microsoft Word, webpages, PDF files, and E-mails into spoken words.

7.      OdiogoOdiogo's media-shifting technology expands the reach of your content: It transforms news sites and blog posts into high fidelity, near human quality audio files ready to download and play anywhere, anytime, on any device.

8.      PediaPhonLearning during jogging and driving! E-learning and m-learning with MP3 players and mobile phones! A podcast and a winamp play list will be generated too. MP3 files, play lists and podcast automatically generated from Wikipedia! Let your computer read out the Wikipedia for you!

9.      PowerTalkPowerTalk is a free program that automatically speaks any presentation or slide show running in Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows. You just download and install PowerTalk and while you open and run the presentation as usual it speaks the text on your slides. The advantage over other generic 'Text To Speech' programs is that PowerTalk is able to speak text as it appears and can also speak hidden text attached to images.

10.  QR voiceQR Code allows users to converts text-to-speech, generates QR Code for speech URL and Simplifies share text-to-speech files.

11.  Select and SpeakSelect and Speak uses iSpeech's human sounding text to speech (TTS) to let you select text from almost any website and make it talk.

12.  SpeakingFoxConverts text to audible speech on Mac OS X.

13.  SpeakIt!Select text you want to read and listen to it. SpeakIt converts text into speech so you no longer need to read. SpeakIt reads selected text using Text-to-Speech technology with language auto-detection. It can read text in more than 50 languages.

14.  SpokenTextSpokenText lets you easily convert text into speech. Record (English, French, Spanish or German) PDF, Word, plain text, PowerPoint files, and web pages, and convert them to speech automatically. Download your recordings as .mp3 or .m4b (Audio Book) files (in English, French, Spanish and German) of any text content on your computer or mobile phone.

15.  Text to VoiceTTS gives Firefox the power of speech. Select text, click the button on the bottom right of Firefox window and this add-on speaks the selected text for you. Isn't it brilliant? Audio is downloadable.

16.  text2speechFree online text to speech converter. Just enter your text, select one of the voices and download the resulting mp3 file to your computer. This service is free and you are allowed to use the speech files for any purpose, including commercial uses.

17.  VokiVoki is a FREE service that lets you create customized avatars, add voice to your Voki avatars, post your Voki to any blog, website, or profile, and take advantage of Voki's learning resources.

18.  vozMeVozme is an online text to speech program that lets you type-in any English or Spanish text and then play it as an audio stream.

19.  WordTalkA free Windows text-to-speech plugin for Microsoft Word. It will speak the text of the document and will highlight it as it goes. It contains a talking dictionary and a text-to-mp3 converter.

Free Digital Storytelling Tools For Teachers

1.  Animoto Unlimited Videos For Educators. Enhance your digital classroom with Animoto, an ideal tool for creating videos and presentations. It takes just minutes to create a video which can bring your lessons to life. Educators can apply for a free Animoto Plus account for use in the classroom. Its powerful features can be used to create stunning presentations incorporating images, video clips, music and text.

2.  BubblrBubblr is a tool to create comic strips using photos from flickr.com Begin searching images and add bubble to them.

3.  Capzles All of your media, your life, your stories together like never before. Create rich multimedia experiences with videos, photos, music, blogs and documents.

4.  Cartoonist Cartoonists is an online tool to create cartoons or personal digital stories, consisting of professional backgrounds, characters, props, images and text. With Cartoonist, you can create multimedia stories. You can use the tool to create comic strips or more personal digital narratives.

5.  Comic Master Comic Master allow you to create your own short graphic novel. With Comic Master you can decide how you want the page or your graphic novel to look, to add backgrounds, choose characters and props to appear in your scenes, to add dialogue and captions, and much more

6.  Domo animate Import your pictures, select a nice song to accompany the slideshow and you are done! Your pictures will be the hero of your own personalized Domo adventure. You can create your own Domo adventures in minutes with their easy-to-use animation studio.

7.  Generator Generator is a creative studio space, a space where you can explore the moving image, be inspired, create your own moving image works and share your creations with the Generator community.Gain a deeper understanding of the context of these inspiring stories through their Education Themes section. Try the Storyboard Generator and either choose a script or build your own storyboard and share it with your friends.

8.  MakeBeliefsComix At MakeBeliefsComix you can create your own comic strip with an easy and fun way. You have to choose a character and emotion. Then you have to add talk or thought balloons and start your character talking. You can add other characters and more conversation. Also, you can add colored backgrounds, objects and panel prompts to keep your viewers interested. Least but not last, you can continue to edit and make more changes, and when you are done you can print or email your comic!

9.  MapSkip The purpose of MapSkip.com is to create a weave of stories about the places in our lives. Users are invited to create a free account and to mark up places in Google Maps with their own stories and photos. Users can browse each other's stories and can rate and discuss them. MapSkip is free to use and free of ads.

10.  PicLits PicLits.com is a creative writing site that matches beautiful images with carefully selected keywords in order to inspire you. The object is to put the right words in the right place and the right order to capture the essence, story, and meaning of the picture.

11.  Pixton Pixton empowers the world to communicate graphically with comics. Pixton introduces the world to Click-n-Drag Comics™, a revolutionary new patented technology that gives anyone the power to create amazing comics on the web. From fully posable characters to dynamic panels, props, and speech bubbles, every aspect of a comic can be controlled in an intuitive click-n-drag motion. Pixton is free for fun but has paid version for Schools and Businesses.

12.  Slidestory Combine sharing pictures and narration and what do you get? Slidestory! Slidestory is a new, exciting and FREE way to make presentations and share them on the Internet.

13.  Smilebox Smilebox lets you quickly and easily create slideshows, invitations, greetings, collages, scrapbooks and photo albums right on your computer. To get started, download and install the Smilebox application. Then simply, select the photos you want to use, choose a template add comments and music and voila, you've made a Smilebox! With more than 1000 customizable templates to choose from, you'll find inspiration around every corner.

14.  Smories.com Smories are original stories for kids, read by kids. The idea behind Smories is to publishes stories for kids read by kids. Also, you will find a lot of stories in various subjects submitted by teachers and authors.

15.  Storybird Storybird lets anyone make visual stories in seconds. They curate artwork from illustrators and animators around the world and inspire writers of any age to turn those images into fresh stories.

16.  Zimmer Twins The Zimmer Twins is a site devoted to kids and creative storytelling. Since 2005, the Zimmer Twins has invited children to create and share their own animated stories. It is free for Kids & Families to join, make and watch a movie and paid for Educators and Schools.

17.  ZooBurst ZooBurst is a digital storytelling tool that lets anyone easily create his or her own 3D pop-up books. Using ZooBurst, storytellers of any age can create their own rich worlds in which their stories can come to life. ZooBurst books “live” online and can be experienced on your desktop or laptop computer, or on your iPad via the free ZooBurst mobile app. Authors can arrange characters and props within a 3D world that can be customized using uploaded artwork or items found in a built-in database of over 10,000 free images and materials. Basic accounts are 100% free and let you get started using ZooBurst right away.Free apps for digital storytelling

18.  Puppet Pals Create your own unique shows with animation and audio in real time! Simply pick out your actors and backdrops, drag them on to the stage, and tap record. Your movements and audio will be recorded in real time for playback later.This app is as fun as your own creativity. Act out a story of Pirates on the high seas, fight as scary monsters, or play the part of a Wild West bandit on the loose. You can even combine any characters however you want!

19.  ShowMe Interactive Whiteboard Turn your iPad into your personal interactive whiteboard! ShowMe allows you to record voice-over whiteboard tutorials and share them online. It’s an amazingly simple app that anyone can use, no matter how young or old!

20.  Sock Puppets Sock Puppets lets you create your own lip-synched videos and share them on Facebook and YouTube. Add Puppets, props, scenery, and backgrounds and start creating. Hit the record button and the puppets automatically lip-synch to your voice.

21.  Toontastic: FREE Toontastic is a storytelling and creative learning tool that enables kids to draw, animate, and share their own cartoons with friends and family around the world through simple and fun imaginative play! With over 2 million cartoons created in over 150 countries, parents and teachers rave about the app... and kids can't stop creating!

 

15 Free Podcast Tools For Teachers

1.  Ardour Ardour is a free, fully-featured digital audio workstation, similar to other software like ProTools, Nuendo, Sonar and Logic, and capable of replacing analog or digital tape systems. Available for Mac OS X, Linux.

2.  AudacityAudacity is free, open source, cross-platform software for recording and editing sounds. Audacity is available for Windows, Mac, GNU/Linux and other operating systems.

3.  BlogAmpBlogamp is a web-based audiocasting solution that combines a rich media on-demand experience with podcasting. Blogamp's robust administration utility and content manager allows site owners and bloggers the ability to customize the on demand presentation as well as utilize the many add-on features depending on who the target audience is.

4.  EasypodcastEasypodcast is a GUI tool for easy podcast publication. Easypodcast is multi-language (english and spanish) and cross-platform: tested on Windows and Linux (kde). This is possible thanks to wxPython.

5.  EvocaCreate and Share Digital Voice Recordings Using mobile, landline, Skype & smartphones, tablets and computers.

6.  HuffDufferCreate your own podcast. Find links to audio files on the Web. Huffduff the links—add them to your podcast. Subscribe to podcasts of other found sounds.

7.  MP3myMP3 RecorderSaves any audio you hear on your computer straight to mp3 or wav.

8.  OdiogoOdiogo's media-shifting technology expands the reach of your content: It transforms news sites and blog posts into high fidelity, near human quality audio files ready to download and play anywhere, anytime, on any device.

9.  PodbeanPodbean.com is an easy and powerful way to start podcasting. Easy to publish your podcast in 3 steps. No tech to learn. Powerful promoting tools, iTunes Preview, Statistics. Wonderful income chances with ads, paid subscriptions.

10.  PodOmaticRecord video and audio podcasts. Receive in-line calls from listeners.

11.  SoundCloudShare Your Sounds. Capture a voice, moment or music in seconds or upload audio you’ve already created. Everyone has sounds to share. Now you can share yours. Publish to social networks or embed your sounds on your site.

12.  StudioRackStudioRack is a modular live audio and video production system for the Windows O.S., intended for the more demanding podcaster, audio and video producers, DJ’s, radio stations, tv stations etc.

13.  TalkShoeCreate, schedule and run a live show. Integrate the recording on your website.

14.  VozMeConvert text to MP3.

15.  YAKiToMe!Uses the world’s best text to speech (TTS) software.  Upload documents, cut and paste text or link to feeds. Text reader converts text to speech automatically.

 

 

Free Survey, Polls, and Quizzes Tools For Teachers

1.  addpollThe easiest way to create polls, surveys and html forms... on the web. Find out why we're the greatest online survey and poll software in the world with integrated form builder.

2.  AnswerGardenAnswerGarden is a new minimalistic feedback tool. Use it as a tool for online brainstorming or embed it on your website or blog as a poll or guestbook.

3.  Boo rooCreate online polls in minutes with our free polling tool. Use our comprehensive poll builder in order to create beautiful polling solutions in your browser, for free.

4.  DoculiciousEasily create embeddable web forms that generate PDF documents.

5.  FluidSurveysOnline Survey Software & Form Tools at their best! Create forms & questionnaires with the best online survey software. Get started in seconds!

6.  Forms on the FlyAmazing online forms made simple. Quickly create quizzes, tests, surveys, diagnostics & assessments for your website.

7.  formsiteOur Drag & Drop editor, combined with over 40 question types, enables you to easily create almost any type of form or survey. Once you begin collecting results, we provide the functionality to email, analyze, share, and download your data.

8.  FormspringFormspring is the place where you can share your perspective on anything. Members express their point of view and personality through engaging conversations and interact with friends, followers, and people they just find cool.

9.  FoSpaceThe ability to publish self-calculating order forms, online surveys, contact forms, employment applications, rental applications or any type of online form imaginable, without having to hire a programmer, has finally been realized.

10.  Freeonlinesurveys.comCreate your own Free Online Survey. Over 1 million users!

11.  GFXPOLL.comThe best website to create free graphical polls for your website, forum or even email.

12.  Google Forms (part of Google Drive)Collect RSVPs, run a survey, or quickly create a team roster with a simple online form. Then check out the results, neatly organized in a spreadsheet.

13.  Kwik SurveysKwik Surveys makes your job easy. Design surveys,forms, polls and feedback forms. It's free!

14.  MySurveyLabProfessional online surveys. Fastest online survey tool on the market. Beautiful yet simple color themes.

15.  Orbeon FormsOrbeon Forms is your solution to build and deploy web forms. It handles complex forms typical of the enterprise or government, implements the W3C XForms standard, and is available in a free open source Community Edition, as well as a commercially supported Professional Edition.

16.  PollDaddyThe most powerful and easy-to-use survey software around. Create stunning surveys, polls, and quizzes in minutes. Collect responses via your website, e-mail, iPad, Facebook, and Twitter. Generate and share easy-to-read reports.

17.  PollhostIn a hurry? Create a free poll as a guest at Pollcode.com ... No need to sign up, quick free and easy!

18.  ScattervoxScattervox is a new kind of poll! When you create a poll, you ask users to show how they feel about different people, places, or things by plotting them on a two-dimensional graph. It's like an interactive infographic!

19.  SISsurveyCreate free online surveys and polls using SiS Survey. With SiS Survey you can now create surveys and polls for your website, blog and social network profiles.

20.  SonarIf you need to feel the pulse of your community, or to get feedback on anything, SonarHQ is the easy and cost-effective way to get answers to your questions. The smarter, faster and easier way to create surveys.

21.  SurveyMonkeySurveyMonkey is the world's most popular online survey tool. It's easier than ever to send free surveys, polls, questionnaires, customer feedback and market research. Plus get access to survey questions and professional templates.

22.  Surveys EngineSurveys Engine is lightwheight online surveys server software. This tool enables you create various surveys and questionaires, from small and simple to large and complex. Surveys are hosted in our site so you and survey respondents don't need any software or server, just Internet browser.

23.  SurvsCreate online surveys with simplicity and elegance. Survs lets you create, distribute, and analyze online surveys and questionnaires with a friendly interface and powerful features. Survs gives you everything you need to gather feedback.

24.  Vizzual FormsVizzualforms is a web based service that will let you create forms and surveys, publish them online and see the results!

25.  Web Form FactoryWeb Form Factory is an open source web form generator which automatically generates the necessary backend code to tie your form to a database. By generating the backend code for you, WFF saves you time... time you could spend doing more interesting stuff.

26.  Web Online SurveysCreate questionnaires with point and click ease. This is an all in one service designed for people who are not computer experts and have the need to conduct surveys by themselves.

27.  WufooWufoo is a web application that helps anybody build amazing online forms. When you design a form with Wufoo, it automatically builds the database, backend and scripts needed to make collecting and understanding your data easy, fast and fun.

Free Screen Capturing Tools For Teachers 

1.  Aviary Compatible with all modern browsers, including mobile devices which support Javascript and HTML5 or Flash. Customize with our code generator and integrate within minutes! Media creation tools: image editor, audio editor, screen capture.

2.  Clip2NetThis free service allows you to upload desktop area image or files on the web really fast such as Desktop area capture and upload, Video capture and upload, Upload image from Clipboard, Upload text documents and much more.

3.  Faststone Capture A powerful, lightweight, yet full-featured screen capture tool that allows you to easily capture and annotate anything on the screen including windows, objects, menus, full screen, rectangular/freehand regions and even scrolling windows/web pages. It also allows you to record screen activities and sound into video files.

4.  Greenshot A free screenshot tool optimized for productivity. Greenshot is a light-weight screenshot software tool for Windows with key features such as quickly creating screenshots of a selected region, window or fullscreen; capturing of complete (scrolling) web pages from Internet Explorer, easily annotating, highlighting or obfuscating parts of the screenshot and much more.

5.  JingSimple and FREE, Jing is the perfect way to enhance your fast-paced online conversations. Create images and videos of what you see on your computer screen, then share them instantly!

6.  KingKong CaptureCapture onscreen images fast and easy. Quick capture of your desktop, selected areas and objects. Easy printing of screenshots. Automatic saving in various supported graphic file formats are some of the key features of KingKong Capture.

7.  kwout"kwout" is a way you quote a part of a web page as an image with an image map. To use this service, all you need is to add our bookmarklet to your favorite browser. Takes a screenshot, cut out an aread, and then embed it anywhere that you want.

8.  PrtScrScreen capture tool. Accessable through Ptr Scr, Ctrl+Prt Scr, or custom hotkey. Captures full screen, rectangle selection, freehand selection, or active window. Can capture mouse cursor. Supports multiple monitors. Much better than Microsoft's own Snipping Tool.

9.  RumshotRumshot is an application for Windows similar to SnapShooter (Mac OS X) developed by Andrew Powell. Screenshots are a great way to show your desktop setup to friends and colleagues. But why settle for thumbnail of your carefully constructed desktop? Get classy - use Rumshot to automatically generate a themed and stylish screenshot preview!

10.  ScreenDashCapture images from your computer screen with ease. If you can see it on-screen, you can capture it, including web-pages, PDF files, programs, etc.

11.  ScreenhunterAward-winning screen capture solution to capture your screen, print and edit. Also with auto-scroll web pages, auto-capture, webcam and video screen capture.

12.  ScreenpressoScreenpresso captures your screen (screenshots and HD videos) for your training documents, collaborative design work, IT bug reports, and more...

13.  Screenshot CaptorScreenshot Captor is a best-in-class tool for grabbing, manipulating, annotating, and sharing screenshots. It's different from other screenshot utilities in several notable ways such as optimized for taking lots of screenshots with minimal intervention; highly configurable to make it work the way you want it to but stays out of your way in the system tray, excellent multi-monitor support, full set of scanner acquisition tools and scanner image correction, and perfect capture of Windows 7 partial transparency effects.

14.  ScreenSnaprScreenSnapr's aim is to provide a simple and straight-forward approach to image capturing and sharing. Without any of the extra fluff, ScreenSnapr makes sharing images as easy as possible. Press the shortcut and go!

15.  SkitchAnnotate, edit and share your screenshots and images... fast. Download now, it's free! Get your point across with fewer words using annotation, shapes and sketches, so that your ideas become reality faster.

16.  TinyGrab:Social Screenshot sharing. Take a screenshot and share it with your clients or friends in less time than it took you to read this sentence! TinyGrab 2.0 makes simple screenshot sharing social. Taking the critically acclaimed original TinyGrab and building on it. TinyGrab 2.0 adds a tonne of new features and proves on the existing service.

17.  Websnaprwebsnapr lets you capture screenshots of (almost) any web page. Allow your visitors to instantly visualize any web page before clicking. Increase site traffic, click-through rate and site stickiness.

Free Social Bookmarking Tools For Teachers

1.  SymbalooeduOrganize and Share the best of the web with your students. Organize teaching resources all in one place. Encourage student to student communications. Promote innovation while maintaining simplicity in teaching.

2.  PearltreesA place to collect, organize and share everything you like on the web. Add everything you like and organize it naturally. Enrich your collections and collaborate on your favorite topics. Discover millions of pearls to your interests.

3.  19 pencilsDiscover resources for your PreK-12 students from teachers around the world. Save thumbnails of web resources to a class page for easy student access.

4.  A1-WebmarksA1-Webmarks is a free service that combines the convenience of a personal webmark server with the power of social webmarking.

5.  All my favoritesShare your internet bookmarks. AllMyFavorites is free for personal use.

6.  BibSonomyBibSonomy is a system for sharing bookmarks and lists of literature. Why dont you try it yourself? Collect, organise, and share bookmarks and publications.

7.  BookmarkGSave and share interesting sites and articles

8.  BuddymarksBuddyMarks.com has been called "The online personal, group and social bookmarks manager."

9.  DeliciousDiscover, remember, and showcase your passions from around the web.

10.  Diigo Education EditionDiigo is a powerful online research tool and collaborative research platform that integrates several key technologies, including social bookmarking, web annotation, tagging, and group-based collaboration, to enable a whole new process of online knowledge management and participatory learning in the 21st century.

11.  EdshelfReviews & recommendations of tools for education. edshelf is a directory of websites, mobile apps, and desktop programs that are rated & reviewed by parents & educators, for parents & educators. We help you find the right educational tools for your specific needs.

12.  EvernoteRemember everything. Save your ideas, things you like, things you hear, and things you see. Evernote works with nearly every computer, phone and mobile device out there. Search by keyword, tag or even printed and handwritten text inside images.

13.  GivealinkShare your bookmarks with the community and help others navigate the Web. Use the GiveALink visualization tool to visualize and organize your bookmarks.Play the GiveALink games to create social links across the Web.

14.  Historioushistorious saves you time by helping you find webpages you saw before. Bookmark sites with a single click, then find them again by searching for any word in the content of the page!

15.  ikeepbookmarks.comiKeepBookmarks.com allows you to upload, and keep, your bookmarks on the web. You can access them at any time, from any computer... anywhere!

16.  Jog The WebJOG THE WEB is a web-based tool that allows anyone to create a synchronous guide to a series of web sites. Its step by step approach of taking viewers through web sites allowing the author to annotate and ask guiding questions for each page is unique.

17.  Learn FizzFind, organize and share the best free learning on the web.

18.  linkaGoGoThe free Online Favorites manager and Social Bookmarking application. Storing your Bookmarks (also known as Favorites, Anchors, Links or Hotlists) online. Your bookmarks are available on any computer with access to the Internet, protected by a password. So you can access them from everywhere, not only from home, but also from work, when you are visiting friends, when you are traveling etc.

19.  LivebinderCollect your resources. Organize them neatly and easily. Make an impression

20.  NetvibesEverything that matters to you, all in one dashboard. Netvibes is a personalized dashboard publishing platform for the Web and digital life aggregation.

21.  NetvouzNetvouz is a social bookmarking service that allows you to save your favorite links online and access them from any computer, wherever you are.

22.  PinboardSocial Bookmarking for Introverts. Pinboard is a fast, no-nonsense bookmarking site. No ads, no fluff.

23.  PinterestA content sharing service that allows members to "pin" images, videos and other objects to their pinboard.

24.  RedditUser-generated news links. Votes promote stories to the front page.

25.  Save ThisSave links to your favorite web pages from any site. Access your links from any computer or Web enabled wireless device. Organize your saved links into folders that you create. Share your saved links or folders with friends.

26.  SharetivityShare, Save and Search. Your social network enhances your search experience

27.  SmubSmub is the bookmarking, link-sharing & bookmark management tool for smartphones and any PC or Mac.

28.  StumbleuponStumbleUpon is the easiest way to find cool new websites, videos, photos and images from across the Web. We make the best recommendations just for you.

29.  TwoBrainsTwo Brains is an application that approaches the learning process in a different way. The application is built around goals, because in the end that's what you truly care about

30.  Vi.sualize.usBookmark the pictures you like around the web. Enjoy people's favorite images

 

Online Bibliography and Citation Tools For Teachers

1.  CitationGenerator -It's cloud-based, ad-free and quick (and easy) to use!

2.  Citation Machine - FreeCitation machine helps students and professional researchers to properly credit the information that they use. Its primary goal is to make it so easy for student researchers to cite their information sources

3.  Citefast - FreeCite your work at APA, MLA, and Chicago without leaving http://www.citefast.com/ in three easy steps. Your citations will be kept as long as you keep visiting the site. After four days of inactivity your citations will be deleted.

4.  Citelighter - FreeStore, organize, and share your education and research for free. Creating internet-research bibliographies can be infuriating to say the least, so Citelighter grabs all relevant info to create accurate citations for you. Anything we miss you can add yourself, and we'll save your additions for future users.

5.  Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy Citation Wizard - FreeOffer three Citation Styles: APA, CSE, formerly known as CBE, and MLA. All feature specific templates for citing online Journals, Web pages with and without authors, electronic Books and Databases.

6.  Oregon Public Education Citation Maker for MLA - FreeDo you need to cite your sources? You can use this tool to create a Works Cited list of research sources following the MLA and APA standard citation formats.

7.  Recipes4Success - FreeCreating a complete and correctly formatted citation is a challenge for many students, especially documenting sources such as art and music that aren't included in traditional citation formats. Create a citation formatted in either APA or MLA style. Students will still need to completely document the information, but the Citation Maker will format it for them.

8.  RefDot - Chrome Extension - FreeMaking citation easy. Cite and store books or journal references. Add books automatically from amazon book pages. Cite books, journals and sites with this handy little extension.

9.  Zotero - FreeZotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources. It lives right where you do your work—in the web browser itself. Whether you need to create footnotes, endnotes, in-text citations, or bibliographies, Zotero will do all the dirty work for you, leaving you free to focus on your writing. Create citations in Word and OpenOffice without ever leaving your word processor and add references to an email, a Google Doc, or some other editor simply by dragging one or more references out of Zotero.

10.  EndNoteEndNote enables you to move seamlessly through your research process with flexible tools for searching, organizing and sharing your research, creating your bibliography and writing your paper. You'll save hours building and maintaining reference libraries and creating bibliographies. With unique features to maximize your time like automatically finding full text and updating records, EndNote lets you spend less time in the details.

11.  NoodleToolsA powerful, integrated platform for research & literacy. NoodleTools is your instructional partner for differentiated teaching of literacy skills, critical analysis, sound reasoning, and collaborative group research.

12.  ReferenceME - Android AppBetter essays, faster! Simply scan the barcode of a book using your mobile phone camera, and ReferenceME will create your bibliography and citations in moments. If there is no barcode you can find the book's ISBN or simply enter the details yourself, and turn them into references in any of the major styles used by universities and libraries. ReferenceME creates Bibliographies and Citations/Footnotes for Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, MHRA, MLA, Oxford and APA.

13.  RefWorksRefWorks -- an online research management, writing and collaboration tool -- is designed to help researchers easily gather, manage, store and share all types of information, as well as generate citations and bibliographies.

 

Free Sticky Notes Tools For Teachers

1.  CorkboardRemember and share what's important to you. Collaborate with others on a single Corkboard. Post and access on your computer or on-the-go. Organize your postings into Corkboards. Share what you post on your Facebook wall and get notified of new comments on your postings.

2.  Hott NotesFree sticky notes reminders for your desktop. A simple, easy-to-use sticky notes software for Windows.

3.  LinoitSticky and Photo sharing for you. A free sticky and canvas service that requires nothing but a Web browser.

4.  ListingsOnline sticky notes. Take notes from your browser. Share and collaborate with others in real-time. Reach your notes from anywhere. Super fast, free and ridiculously easy.

5.  Notepad2A fast and light-weight Notepad-like text editor with syntax highlighting. This program can be run out of the box without installation, and does not touch your system's registry.

6.  PadletPadlet gives you a blank page (a wall) and you put anything you want on it, anywhere. Perhaps the easiest site for children to use. Pose questions, get their answers, and give them feedback - all on the same page.

7.  ScrumblrScrumblr is a web-based simulation of a physical agile sprint board that supports real-time collaboration.

8.  Simple Sticky NotesWhat is Simple Sticky Notes? It's a simple, easy-to-use, absolutely free, fast and efficient note taking software.

9.  SpaazeSpaaze (pronounced "space") offers it's users so called boards. Each board is an infinite space which resembles a virtual cork. On these boards, items can be put. Currently Spaaze offers 7 different items: Labels, Notes, Bookmarks, Images, Files, Videos and HTML. These items can be edited in place, moved via drag and drop and positioned freely on the board. Therefore it's possible to arrange a bunch of items any way you like, which makes it possible to use it for many different use cases.

10.  StickiesStickies is a PC utility. Just like a real sticky piece of paper: Once on screen, stickies will remain where placed until closed, even through reboots. Stickies appearance can be customised; fonts, colours and buttons may be changed, and styles saved. Stickies can be resized and store text or images. Stickies can snap to each other and to the sides of the screen to keep them neatly lined up. Stickies can be attached to a web site, document or folder so they only show when it's on screen, and much more...

11.  StickrWith Stickr you can create streams, subscribe to your friends’ feeds, form and join groups, follow people you like, leave private comments. Stickr feed can be embedded to your homepage or blog, your account can be associated with accounts on other social networking sites.

12.  StickyPadStickyPad is an invaluable, easy-to-use tool that lets you place sticky notes on your desktop. You can type notes to yourself, set meeting and appointment reminders, keep track of a to-do list, and anything else you would do with paper notes.

13.  StixyStixy helps users organize their world on flexible, shareable Web-based bulletin boards called Stixyboards. Unlike most personal productivity or project management software, Stixy doesn’t dictate how users should organize their information. Users can create tasks, appointments, files, photos, notes, and bookmarks on their Stixyboards, organized in whatever way makes sense to them.

Free Photo and Image Editing Tools For Teachers

1.  Aviary A better photo editing solution for web and mobile.

2.  Cacoo Cacoo is a user friendly online drawing tool that allows you to create a variety of diagrams such as site maps, wire frames, UML and network charts. Cacoo can be used free of charge.

3.  Chart ChooserWe've rebuilt our favorite tool for improving Excel and PowerPoint with HTML5 goodness. Use the filters above to find the right chart type for your needs. Then download as Excel or PowerPoint templates and insert your own data.

4.  ChartGizmoWith your free account from ChartGizmo you can now create charts for your website, blog and social network profiles.

5.  ChartToolCharts and graphs are a great tool because they communicate information visually. On Onlinecharttool.com you can design and share your own graphs online and for free.

6.  CoSketchCoSketch is a multi-user online whiteboard designed to give you the ability to quickly visualize and share your ideas as images.

7.  Creately100's of thoughtful features to make creately diagramming quick and natural, its a joy to use.

8.  Creative Docs.netCreative Docs .NET is a vector-based graphic design tool with support for rich text, ideal to quickly write short documents, manuals, posters, illustrations, schemas, plans, flow charts, and much more.

9.  diagram.lyDraw Diagrams Online, free. draw.io is an online diagramming application and github project. It features the full range of visual configuration you expect, as well as web application features such as a full range of export options, a large collection of icons, real-time collaboration and embedded widget sharing.

10.  DoppelMeWith DoppelMe you can create a cool graphical likeness of yourself, your friends, family or any group of people for use as an avatar in forums, instant messenger, blogs and almost anywhere else on the web. It's free and there are no Flash, ActiveX controls, downloads or toolbars needed - just your browser and a few mouse clicks. That's it!

11.  Flash PAINTThis is an online full paint application. Draw online with paint tool. Save on your disk your drawings and send your drawing to the public gallery.

12.  Flowchart.comFlowchart.com is an online multi-user, real-time collaboration flow charts service. It's Flowcharting made easy.

13.  Gickr.comInstantly create Animated GIF online, free, right now! Just upload pictures or grab them from your Flickr.

14.  GlogsterLooking for a new way to express yourself? Mash up music, photos, videos, & more to express what you care about. Your ideas, your emotions, your Glogster. Glogster costs 10 seconds to sign up. That’s it! Everything on Glogster is free & always will be.

15.  GoAnimateMake Amazing Animated Videos! Use our Video Maker to create videos for free.

16.  Google SketchUpIntuitive and fun to use. Re-imagine your living space. Model buildings for Google Earth. Use SketchUp for free.

17.  InkscapeAn Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.

18.  Paint.NETSimple, intuitive, and innovative user interface. Every feature and user interface element was designed to be immediately intuitive and quickly learnable without assistance.

19.  PencilPencil is an animation/drawing software for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. It lets you create traditional hand-drawn animation (cartoon) using both bitmap and vector graphics. Pencil is free and open source.

20.  PhotoPeachOur idea is to help you tell better stories online using photos. With PhotoPeach you can create a rich slideshow in seconds to engage your friends or family. We also support background music, captions, and comments so you can elaborate on your story further.

21.  PicMarkrFree Watermark. Add Custom Watermark with PicMarkr! PicMarkr lets you to add custom watermark (image or text) to your images online and free.

22.  PixlrWelcome to the most popular online photo editor in the world...

23.  ReshadeHere you can resize images maintaining quality, edges and texture. This means Reshade reduces or eliminates most of the usual side-effects of photo enlargement.

24.  Rich Chart LiveCreate for free enjoyable and captivating Flash Charts from your web browser.

25.  Roxio PhotoShowMake Free Photo Slideshow. It's so easy that just about anyone can tell an engaging, one-of-a-kind PhotoShow story in just minutes!

26.  Slidestory Combine sharing pictures and narration and what do you get? Slidestory! Slidestory is a new, exciting and FREE way to make presentations and share them on the Internet.

27.  SplashupSplashup, formerly Fauxto, is a powerful editing tool and photo manager. With the features professionals use and novices want, it's easy to use, works in real-time and allows you to edit many images at once.

28.  SUMO PaintWeb's best image app, hands down! Our editor is full of unique features that let you unleash your creativity.

29.  ToondooWorld's fastest way to create cartoons!

30.  VokiVoki is a FREE service that lets you create customized avatars. Add voice to your Voki avatars. Post your Voki to any blog, website, or profile. Take advantage of Voki's learning resources.

Free Testing and Quizzing Tool For Teachers

1.  ClassMarkerClassMarker's secure, professional web-based testing service is an easy-to-use, customizable online test maker for business, training & educational assessment with tests and quizzes graded instantly - saving hours of paperwork!

2.  ClassToolsCreate free games, quizzes, activities and diagrams in seconds! Host them on your own blog, website or intranet! No signup, no passwords, no charge!

3.  Easy Test MakerEasyTestMaker is a free online test generator to help you create your tests. You can create multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, matching, short answer and true and false questions all on the same test. You can also insert instructions and divide your test into multiple sections.

4.  Hot Potatoes You can choose from the following six types of questions to create your interactive quiz: crossword, multiple-choice, short-answer, gap-fill, matching/ordering and jumbled-sentence.

5.  iQuiz MakeriQuiz Maker is an easy way for you to create custom quizzes for the iQuiz game for the iPod. iQuiz Maker works seamlessly so you can write, create, package your very own quizzes. Download the free application today to begin putting the world to the test.

6.  ProProfs Quiz SchoolCreate Online Tests & Quizzes Easily. Over 100,000 quizzes created. Over 1 million quiz takers.

7.  QuandaryQuandary is an application for creating Web-based Action Mazes. An Action Maze is a kind of interactive case-study; the user is presented with a situation, and a number of choices as to a course of action to deal with it.

8.  QuedocOur quiz software not only plays quizzes, interactive lessons and revision aids; it also helps you create your own learning content and work cooperatively with others in the process of authoring.

9.  Quiz RevolutionMake Free Facebook Quizzes and Free Online Quizzes. Interactive Multimedia Quizzes That Can Be Embedded On Any Site.

10.  YacapacaIf you are a teacher you can use 15,000 quizzes in every subject or you can create quizzes, surveys, tests, eportfolios and more.

11.  FunnelBrainFunnelBrain gives you and your friends a new way to learn. You can form study teams, play games, take quizzes, and show off your intellectual prowess. It's fun, it's free and you'll do better in class.

12.  JeopardyJeopardyLabs allows you to create a customized jeopardy template without PowerPoint. The games you make can be played online from anywhere in the world. Building your own jeopardy template is a piece of cake.

13.  EdgamesUse games to enhance your classroom teaching! On this site you will find more than just one or two games, we have categories of games for all types of classrooms.

14.  QuizSlidesThe easy way to create stylish, interactive online test!

15.  What2LearnThe fun and effective way to learn. Play some of our thousands of revision games and quizzes or make your own. Whether you are revising for examinations and tests such as GCSE and SATs, or simply looking for a powerful and engaging way to develop literacy and understanding, register today and start the learning fun.

 

Free Web Conferencing Tools For Teachers

1.  AnyMeetingAnyMeeting is free with ads. It allows for meetings of up to 200 people, and has essential functionality like screen sharing, VoIP and phone conferencing, meeting recording and it even has a follow-up functionality.

2.  BigBlueButtonBigBlueButton enables universities and colleges to deliver a high-quality learning experience to remote students.

3.  Google+ HangoutWould you like to see, hear, and share information to your online learners. With Google+ Hangouts you can have a video group chat for up to 10 people for free! It is a powerful tool much better than a Web Chat.

4.  ManagemeetManageMeet.com is a online service that enables teams to collaborate on tomorrows solutions in real-time. Share knowledge, collect ideas, analyze and decide.

5.  Meetin.GsUnlimited meetings with 6 participants/meeting, material exchange, agenda & notes, 5MB size limit per file, and Skype integration.It’s also a great place to edit documents together with a group and anyone can mail-in notes and other materials via email.

6.  MeetingBurnerHost up to 10 webinar attendees for FREE with no ads - forever! Instantly share your screen with anybody. Works with iPhones, iPads, and Android Phones. You’ll also get analytics for your meetings so that you can see how your guests interact with your content.

7.  MikogoScreen sharing has never been so easy! Have an online meeting, give a presentation, or provide remote support with Mikogo. Sign up today and see how simple online meetings can be!

8.  ShowDocumentShowDocument lets you do quick and easy real-time collaboration with others with no software required.

9.  Sync.inSync.in 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.

10.  TokBox Video ChatTokBox makes it easy to add video chat to your site using either the OpenTok API or OpenTok Widgets.

11.  TwiddlaMark up websites, graphics, and photos, or start brainstorming on a blank canvas. Browse the web with your friends or make that conference call more productive than ever. No plug-ins, downloads, or firewall voodoo - it's all here, ready to go when you are. Browser-agnostic, user-friendly.

12.  VyewVyew allows you to meet and share content in real-time or anytime. Upload images, files, documents and videos into a room. Users can access and contribute at anytime.

13.  WebHuddleMeetings can be conducted either in conjunction with an enterprise’s existing teleconferencing service, or utilizing WebHuddle’s optional voice over IP.

14.  YugmaYugma free web conferencing allows anyone, anywhere to instantly share their desktop and ideas online with others. To start hosting your own meetings, sign up today for FREE. Your Yugma Free web conferencing account allows you to invite up to 1 attendees with 30 minutes meeting limitations.

15.  Zoho MeetingGet started with online meetings, start sharing your desktop to anyone, anywhere at any time.

Free Authoring Tools For Teachers

1.  Easygenerator Easygenerator provides cloud-based eLearning authoring software. Easygenerator enables instructional designers and subject matter experts to rapidly create the most engaging courses that have the highest learning impact. Easygenerator is affordable, easy to use, and future proof. Simply create, design and publish your eLearning courses. Used and loved by 5000+ users in more than 120 countries in both enterprises and universities. Easygenerator’s headquarter is located in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

2.  LCDSThe Microsoft Learning Content Development System (LCDS) is a free tool that enables the Microsoft Learning community to create high-quality, interactive, online courses and Microsoft Silverlight Learning Snacks.

3.  SmartBuilderSmartBuilder is the award-winning course authoring tool that enables you to create rich Flash e-learning with an easy-to-use interface.

4.  The Multimedia Learning Object Authoring ToolThe Multimedia Learning Object Authoring Tool enables content experts to easily combine video, audio, images and texts into one synchronized learning object.

5.  authorPOINT  authorPOINT is an authoring tool that allows users to capture presentations and add pre-recorded audio/video, all inside of Microsoft PowerPoint. authorGEN also offers authorPOINT Lite, which converts PowerPoint presentations to Flash.

6.  DipityFrom what we can glean from their website, Dipity is an online timeline creator. Users, known as Dipsters, can create their own content on subjects that are meaningful to them and share them with other users. Dipsters can also integrate social media into their timeline, utilizing real-time updates.

7.  Document Suite 2008Document Suite 2008 is an authoring tool that helps transform documents into online help modules.

8.  IzzuiIzzui is a hybrid social learning application that can be linked with QuickLessons. Izzui uses Facebook as an LMS to track and deliver courses. Izzui also has an e-Commerce capability allowing users to charge and pay for courses that they have created.

9.  JackdawJackdaw produces SCORM 1.2 compliant content that is easily integrated into any LMS. Users can create interactive content either from scratch or with the the help of over 100 templates. Jackdaw also lets users create content that they can then sell on the Open Elms web-store.

10.  LessonWriterFrom what we can gather from their website, LessonWriter is a tool for teachers that allows them to create lessons from any passage. These courses allow teachers to be creative with their lesson plans and also saves them a great deal of time.

11.  MOS SoloMOS Solo offers a way for users to create content on the go without having to rely on a constant Internet connection. Even though they are using an offline content creation tool, they do not lose any of the functionality or power to create their multimedia content.

12.  myUdutuA free online authoring tool with a suite of WSIWYG tools, allowing users to create courses in an approachable environment. Claims to export SCORM 1.2/2004 conformant courses to be used in a 3rd party LMS or integrate into social media sites, such as Facebook.

13.  QuickLessons Authoring ToolQuickLessons was built from the ground up to be a completely SaaS based content authoring tool, requiring the user to only have access to a web-browser. QuickLessons comes equipped with quizzes, games, characters, out-of-the-box animations and other customizable content to allow users to create truly unique and interactive flash-based content to meet their needs. Users can either use QuickLessons for free, publishing their content only to Facebook, or they can buy an individual, corporate or academic account.

14.  ScratchFrom what we can gather from their website, Scratch is a creative tool that helps users create content that is beyond the barriers of traditional page-turners. Scratch users can create interactive stories, animation, music, and art, then share their creations on the web.

15.  xtimelinextimeline is a tool that allows users to create timeline based content for free. Users can also share their timelines with other users, creating a community.

 

Free Annotation Tools For Teachers

1.  Diigo It’s one of the most commonly used free web annotation tools which lets you bookmark and tag web pages. In addition to that, you would also be able to highlight a part of a webpage if you wish to emphasize something and attach sticky notes to it. Its advanced search allows you to rummage through the text of pages you have bookmarked which includes tags, titles, URLs and even your own comments and highlights. One of the best features of Diigo is your ability to comment on other users’ notes which can be set to either public or private.

2.  A.nnotate A.nnotate is not just a free annotation tool but also a collaboration and indexing tool. It can be used to catalogue images and other document formats. It also makes it easier for you to work with a group especially when documents are needed to be sent through email back and forth because of comments of different users. With the use of A.nnotate, you can simply create a single read-only copy of your document and share it with whomever you like so you could all comment on it. Another good thing about it is, it is very easy to use and it works fine in commonly used web browsers without you having to install software or plug ins. You may sign up for a free account which gives you credits for annotating 30 items every month, anything above that will require payment.

3.  Bounce App Bounce app is a very simple free annotation tool that works just as effectively as others in the market. You simply log on to their website, enter the URL of the webpage you’d like to comment on and then click on Grab Screenshot. Voila! You’ll have a screenshot of that webpage and you’re now ready to comment on it by dragging the mouse and creating red boxes (like the one you see below). These red boxes are labelled with another box that contains your name and has a space for your comments. One of the best features of Bounce is that you can share your feedback on either Facebook or Twitter and let your friends see it.

4.  Crocodoc Crocodoc Personal is a free annotation tool used for commenting on documents. Simply log on to their website, upload a PDF file, Office Doc or image, modify it using Crocodoc tools which allow you to highlight, draw or comment on it. When you’re done, click on Share button at the upper right hand corner of the page and send the link to whomever you’d like to share the document with. You may share it through copying the link and sending it through email or IM, or you may even embed it on your blog or website. However, if you would like to store your files or view your upload history, you have to sign up for a Crocodoc account but you need not worry because this app is absolutely for free.

5.  Markup.io Markup allows you to draw on any webpage using built in tools. Simply go to their website, drag the icon located at the lower right hand corner of the page to the bookmark bar of your browser.

 

Free Video Tools For Teachers

1.  Ezvid Ezvid is a 100% free video creation tool that allows you to capture everything that appears on your computer screen. It also allows you to edit your recorded videos by splitting your recordings, inserting text and audio, controlling the speed and even drawing directly on your screen. There’s also a Gaming Mode specially designed for gamers to avoid black screen problems when recording games such as Diablo III and Call of Duty which are full screen games. You can save your edited videos for later use or you may directly upload them on YouTube.

2.  BlueBerry Flashback Express Recorder This recorder just, like other screencast tools, enables you to capture your screen while recording yourself through a webcam.  It introduces quite a long list of features that will let you edit videos like a pro. BB Flashback Express Recorder also has a very easy user interface that allows you to decide what area of your screen you would like to capture and whether to record sound and web activity or not. Another good thing about it is that you can have scheduled recordings so you wouldn’t have to miss online events.  It also includes a player which works like a VCR and allows you to review your recording frame-by-frame.

3.  ScreenrScreenr is a web-based screen recorder. Yes, you read it right. It’s web-based so that means, you wouldn’t have to install it on your computer but it requires Java to run. Screenr allows you to easily capture your screen by logging on to their website, clicking on the record button and keeping it open while you are capturing your screen activity.  Keep in mind that you only have a maximum of 5 minutes per recording. Files are saved on the site. When you’re finished, you’ll be given a link that can be easily shared by email or can be embedded on websites. It’s absolutely free, works on both MAC and PC and will work even on your iPhone.

4.  Rylstim Screen Recorder Rylstim is a very simple and easy to use Screen Recorder which, aside from capturing your screen, also allows you to record events happening on the monitor including right and left clicks. It has a minimalistic and intuitive interface but supports multiple CODECs. You can also customize the video frame rates. Rylstim Screen Recorder works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows

5.  Krut Krut is a screencast tool that works in almost any Operating system and requires Java to run. It’s a very simple program with only 3 basic controls: Record, Snap for still pictures, and the Arrow button used to adjust the borders of your recording area. It’s very minimalist without all those complicated features that other screencast tools offer, but it can be powerful too because of some additional features such as timer-controlled recording. You can also use it for recording streaming video and audio.

6.  CamStudioCamStudio is a pretty straightforward program that lets you record your screen and audio and produce outputs in AVI or SWF format. It enables annotation such as text and call out inserts and even provides you some cursor options such as default, hidden or highlighted, which should be carefully laid out prior to recording. You have some video options too which lets you control compression, frame rates , quality and time lapse but aside from that, you can’t really do much with the video because it doesn’t include editing capabilities.

7.  Webineria Webineria is an open-source easy-to-use screencast tool which lets you capture your screen activity and do “picture-in-picture” video by adding your webcam stream. It provides you 3 frame rate options: 5, 10 and 15 frames per second and outputs can be produced in either AVI or FLV format. It has built in features too that let you adjust the boundaries of your record area, use hotkeys to pause and resume recording. Outputs are saved on the site and can be shared via email links or embedding on websites.

8.  Screen-O-MaticScreencast-O-Matic is a screencast tool which has both web-based and desktop versions. It’s very easy to use and will run so long as you have Java installed on your computer. It has free video hosting and allows you to record your screen or both your screen and webcam. You may also publish your output directly to YouTube. The free versions of Screencast-O-Matic has limited features though. For instance, there’s a 15-minute recording time limit, there’s a small watermark when recording, it doesn’t allow webcam-only recording and it doesn’t allow you to zoom and annotate while recording.

 

 

 

Free PDF Tools For Teachers

1.  Adobe Reader XIAdobe Reader is a trusted high quality tool that allows you to view and print your PDF files. It also lets you interact with PDF content, including multimedia. Other features covered are adding and verifying digital signature, annotating on PDF pages, creating and filling out PDF forms, and printing out these documents.

2.  Doro PDF Writer by CompSoftDoro PDF Writer is very easy to use and is pretty straightforward. It doesn’t have all the other options that other PDF tools have but it works great in printing PDF files. It is installed as a virtual print driver and converts any printable document or image to PDF format. It can be powerful too as it lets you set the author name and even protect it with a password before conversion. Just select it from the program’s setting menu before printing a PDF document and it will launch and provide you the option to change the document’s metadata. On top of those mentioned is the ability to enable and disable copying, pasting and printing functions of the document. It is compatible with XP, Vista, Windows 7 and 8.

3.  BullZip PDF Printer by BioPDFBullZip is another PDF tool that works as a virtual print driver and uses Ghostscript to convert documents. Like Doro, it also allows you to convert printable document or image to PDF format but on top of that, it also lets you add watermarks, merge PDF files and even add protection to your PDF files. It is free for up to 10 users and offers installation of promotional, third party components. You may check the guidelines here.

4.  PDFTK BuilderThis is an open source PDF tool used which allows you to easily reorder or merge selected pages. It is also capable of splitting and rotating pages and adding stamp and encryption to your file. Aside from those mentioned it doesn’t offer too much and even lacks the basic function of watermarking with background text.

5.  PDFill PDF ToolThis is probably one of the most user-friendly free PDF tools that offer you so many features. It provides the most important functions such as merging, splitting, reordering, rotating and cropping pages and even allows you to add headers, footers and watermarks. It also offers additional features such as encrypting and decrypting security options, and deleting, flattening and adding form fields. It requires GhostScript and Java to run.

6.  jPDF Tweak It can be a good choice when you want to get as many features as you can in just one application.  It lets you merge, split, reorder and rotate pages, and add watermarks and encryption too.  You can also digitally sign PDF documents using it. There are features for attaching files to PDF and editing metadata as well. jPDF Tweak requires Java 5, or even higher, to run. It uses iText library to manipulate PDF documents and JGoodies Forms for its GUI.

 

Sites To Download Royalty Free and Creative Commons Music For Teachers

1.  Archive’s audio and MP3 library This library contains over two hundred thousand free digital recordings ranging from alternative news programming, to Grateful Dead concerts, to Old Time Radio shows, to book and poetry readings, to original music uploaded by our users. Many of these audios and MP3s are available for free download.

2.  ArtistServer Free independent music, 11,000 mp3 downloads by more than 10,000 artists.

3.  Audiofarm It´s the best and easiest way to find new and interesting music, audio recordings, people and friends from around the world.

4.  Audionautix All music in this online collection created by Jason Shaw.  Released under Creative Commons license 3.0 You are free to use the music (even for commercial purposes) as long as you credit “Music from - audionautix.com”OR provide a link to this website from yours. Music must be part of some other created works. No further permission is required.

5.  BeatPick Creative Commons licenses allow the use of music for free for non-commercial projects, provided that users credit your name in association with their multimedia projects. Thus, we provide music for free for scholastic and socially involved projects, while we require that governmental funded ones pay a licensing fee. For personal use, we encourage our users to buy the albums/EPs from our site. To obtain the download of the required files, all projects must provide us with their name, e-mail and project description, allowing us to control that they are indeed entitle to such uses.

6.  Brainy Betty Free Sound Clips and Music for Presentations!

7.  Bump Foot Bump Foot is a non-profit netlabel in Japan. There are two main branches. Bump side : techno and house, or based on them. Foot side : ambient, IDM, or etc... other than bump side.You are free: to Share - to copy, distribute and transmit the work, and to Remix - to adapt the work.

8.  CASH MusicCASH Music is a non-profit organization that hosts digital tools for musicians and labels to share their music. The digital tool allows for uploads and downloads of songs and sharing is made easy.

9.  ccMixter Looking for music for a video, school project, game you’re developing, podcast or just for listening in your cubicle or mobile music device? Find exactly the music you’re looking for - podsafe, liberally licensed - using dig.ccMixter Music Discovery tool.

10.  CCTrax All showcased music is available under one of the six Creative Commons licenses. They authorize free music download and enable the artists to promote their music while protecting their rights.

11.  DanoSongs Hi, I'm Dan-O and I post my original music as free MP3 downloads here on DanoSongs.com. You can listen to the songs online or download the tracks. It's also legal to use the music royalty free in your video, game, film, presentation, slideshow or website.

12.  FMA The Free Music Archive is an interactive library of high-quality, legal audio downloads.  The Free Music Archive is directed by WFMU, the most renowned freeform radio station in America.  Radio has always offered the public free access to new music. The Free Music Archive is a continuation of that purpose, designed for the age of the internet.

13.  Freeplay Music Library Freeplay's first product, the Freeplay Music Library, is a comprehensive collection of High End Broadcast production music spanning all the popular musical genres, available for download either on-line or via our Portable Hard Drive.

14.  FreeSFXDownload free sound effects.Stuart Duffield has been creating audio professionally for 18 years. Having worked predominately in the Games Industry, he has produced a wide range of audio for various worldwide clients and numerous high profile projects. Based in the UK, Stuart has a history of synthesising, recording, designing, processing and editing audio of all types. Having worked in-house for a number of major Game Developers, Stuart currently works on a freelance / contract basis. This involves audio design, music composition and voice production in various forms - for Games, Animation, TV and Film.

15.  Freesound Freesound aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, ... released under Creative Commons licenses that allow their reuse.

16.  iBeat Free Beats – Download beats, loops, breaks and samples Free beats, loops, and breaks - iBeat.org iBeat – pushing beats, loops and breaks since 2007. Free under Creative Commons licensing.

17.  Incompetech Incompetech hosts a wide variety of royalty free music. You can browse their selection by genre or feel. "Feel" would include things like: Action, Relaxed, Intense or Humorous; you can select a combination of ‘Feels’ and it will check its database for selection matches. Clips can be played on the website and instantly downloaded as well.

18.  Jamendo370,000 tracks.Free music for all. Enjoy unlimited music, it's completely free and legal.

19.  JewelBeat Free Background Music. Easily search thru over 4,000 free background music and sound effects simply by using keywords. No need to download to preview - just type in keywords, listen immediately then download what you need! Start searching for free background music.

20.  Josh Woodward  Yes, you can freely download, share and use all 180+ of Josh Woodward songs.

21.  Kompoz Kompoz is an online community that prides in collaboration between artists from all over the world. Artists post their clips on the website where anyone can download it and use it for their own productions. They can also add their own instruments or creative mix to the original clip and upload it on the website again.

22.  LifeSounds  LifeSounds works on the integration of music throughout the curriculum. Their desire is to build each individuals’ ability to strengthen their emotional intelligence and to encourage understanding between people.

23.  Musopen Set music FREE. Musopen (www.musopen.org) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit focused on improving access and exposure to music by creating free resources and educational materials. We provide recordings, sheet music, and textbooks to the public for free, without copyright restrictions. Put simply, our mission is to set music free.

24.  Orphan Songs The Orphan Songs website is running by Carl-Otto Johansson. Most of the music here is free to download and use. (Creative Commons).

25.  PacDV This is a small database of free audio clips organised by mood or emotion such as: Warm, Loving, Serious or Lonely.

26.  Partners in Rhyme Royalty free music libraries for you to download and start using right away in your commercial projects. These high quality music tracks will make your projects more effective and sound more professional.

27.  Public Domain 4U Great Historical Music Recordings, Free to Download, Play, and Share. Our musical heritage is our culture. The Past should be appreciated, not neglected. These artists are so unique, they should never be forgotten. This site is designed for your musical edification. This site can not grant any commercial uses of this material.

28.  Purple Planet Free Collection of Royalty Free Music available for download, composed and performed by Geoff Harvey and Chris Martyn Music can be used free of charge for web-based projects e.g. YouTube (see 'Using Our Music' for more info) in exchange for a link to our site. Donations are welcome!

29.  Restorm This is  a platform to sell music to the public. Also, you can download some of their free selection of music just by creating an account.

30.  Royalty Free Music Library Royalty Free Music Library is proud to offer one of the largest offerings of online broadcast-quality royalty free music anywhere on the web. Download royalty free music from 3 of the top royalty free catalogs online:

1.      Royalty Free Music Revolution - The definitive royalty free music catalog with over 1000 songs from some of the top composers in the industry.

2.      Radical Music Library - Royalty free music with cutting edge productions and "indie" attitude. Created by professional composers with a long list of film and television credits.

3.      Mojo Music Library - An offering of top- notch royalty free music with broader coverage on each CD for those who need a bit wider coverage for their budget.

31.  SampleSwap Creative Commons Licensed Electronic Music for Commercial and Non-Commercial Royalty-Free use(Free professional-quality MP3s for DJ'ing, film scores, radio, TV, video games, podcasting, etc.). These pre-cleared songs were uploaded by artists at sampleswap.org under a variety of Creative Commons licenses. Please be sure to read the licensing information for each track carefully before using any of this music.

32.  Sonnyboo 40 completely free pieces of music. For each and every single song below, all you have to do is credit the songwriter - Peter John Ross (www.sonnyboo.com) and the music is your to use for free.

33.  SoundCloud SoundCloud is a website where artists share their new tracks to the world. There is a section under Creative Commons license where you can download other people’s tracks. You can stream the available clips and it takes just a simple click to get the MP3 file without any registration.

34.  Stock Music Boutique Stock Music Boutique library offers high quality royalty-free production music. All tracks have full music clearance ready for instant buy out. Find a track you like and use it forever at no extra cost.

Free Stock Photos Sites For Teachers

1.  PublicDomainPictures.net is a repository for free public domain photos. You can download high quality photos, upload your own pictures, earn money to charity, get exposure and gain popularity and improve your photographic and graphic skills.

2.  FreeImages is not just another clipart graphic site!....  more than 6000 original stock photos all for FREE! Free images is a high quality resource of digital stock photographic images for use by all. All images in their collection are free to use on websites and printed materials.

3.  FreeFoto.com is made up of 132232 images with 182 sections organized into 3630 categories.

4.  Free stock photos, easy to download, easy to browse. Use them for commercial or personal design projects of any kind! Some are even public domain, so you can use those for whatever you want. Whether you're looking for free stock designs for your project, free stock photography for your next big design or something in-between, freestockfor.us is your resource for quick downloads!

5.  FreePixels offers free high resolution stock photos for use in both personal and commercial design projects.

6.  Nearly 100% of their Royalty Free Stock Photos are Free Download. Every image is absolutely free, with some more options to buy individual higher resolutions. They can be used either for private or commercial purposes. In exchange, we only ask you to use the images according to our Licensing.

7.  The SXC (stock.xhng) is a website providing free-to use stock photography and illustrations. The stock.xhng operates as a hybrid of a picture library site and a social networking site; registered users may set up a personal profile, upload their photographic works to share with other users, write a blog and participate in online forums to discuss and critique each others' work.

8.  The 4 Free Photos is an online community of photographers who enjoy taking pictures and decided to share them with the public to use them for free in their private or commercial projects. They  hope you will find the collection of free and public domain images useful.

9.  Morgue File is an easy to use free photo siteFree images for your inspiration, reference and use in your creative work, be it commercial or not!

10.  From Free Digital Photos you can download royalty free photos and illustrations for websites, newspapers, magazines, video and TV productions, iPhone applications, PowerPoint presentations, forums, blogs and school work.

11.  Turbo Photo offers Free stock images from 10 categories (3.4 GB). Stock images are in the public domain.

12.  If you are a designer you can download high resolution RF stock images for free from Dreams Time. If you are a photographer you have the opportunity to achieve a great portfolio exposure by offering free images.

13.  Image * After is a large online free photo collection. You can download and use any image or texture from our site and use it in your own work, either personal or commercial.

14.  In Public Domain Photos you can access 5,000 free photos, 8,000 free cliparts. All photos on this web site are public domain. You may use these images for any purpose, including commercial.

15.  The photos in the Flickr Free Use Photos Group are available for use by anyone. There is no need to give credit or to fear rights infringement. These images are posted by their creators. By posting to this group, you're allowing freedom of use.

16.  Free photos and clip art from Microsoft Office Online

17.  Every Stock Photo is a search engine for free photos. These come from many sources and are license-specific. You can view a photo's license by clicking on the license icon, below and left of photos. Membership is free, without advertising, and allows you to rate, tag, collect and comment on photos.

 

The Most Popular Digital Education Tools For Teachers And Learners

Hundreds of digital education tools have been created with the purpose of giving autonomy to the student, improving the administration of academic processes, encouraging collaboration, and facilitating communication between teachers and learners. Here we present 11 of the most popular.

1. Edmodo

Edmodo is an educational tool that connects teachers and students, and is assimilated into a social network. In this one, teachers can create online collaborative groups, administer and provide educational materials, measure student performance, and communicate with parents, among other functions. Edmodo has more than 34 million users who connect to create a learning process that is more enriching, personalized, and aligned with the opportunities brought by technology and the digital environment.

2. Socrative

Designed by a group of entrepreneurs and engineers passionate about education, Socrative is a system that allows teachers to create exercises or educational games which students can solve using mobile devices, whether smartphones, laptops, or tablets. Teachers can see the results of the activities and, depending on these, modify the subsequent lessons in order to make them more personalized.

3. Projeqt

Projeqt is a tool that allows you to create multimedia presentations, with dynamic slides in which you can embed interactive maps, links, online quizzes, Twitter timelines, and videos, among other options. During a class session, teachers can share with students academic presentations which are visually adapted to different devices.

4. Thinglink

Thinglink allows educators to create interactive images with music, sounds, texts, and photographs. These can be shared on other websites or on social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook. Thinglink offers the possibility for teachers to create learning methodologies that awaken the curiosity of students through interactive content that can expand their knowledge.

5. TED-Ed

TED-Ed is an educational platform that allows creating educational lessons with the collaboration of teachers, students, animators—generally people who want to expand knowledge and good ideas. This website allows democratizing access to information, both for teachers and students. Here, people can have an active participation in the learning process of others.

6. cK-12

cK-12 is a website that seeks to reduce the cost of academic books for the K12 market in the United States and the world. To achieve its objective, this platform has an open source interface that allows creating and distributing educational material through the internet, which can be modified and contain videos, audios, and interactive exercises. It can also be printed and comply with the necessary editorial standards in each region. The books that are created in cK-12 can be adapted to the needs of any teacher or student.

7. ClassDojo

ClassDojo is a tool to improve student behavior: teachers provide their students with instant feedback so that good disposition in class is 'rewarded' with points and students have a more receptive attitude towards the learning process. ClassDojo provides real-time notifications to students, like 'Well Done David!' and '+1', for working collaboratively. The information that is collected about student behavior can be shared later with parents and administrators through the web.

8. eduClipper

This platform allows teachers and students to share and explore references and educational material. In eduClipper, you can collect information found on the internet and then share it with the members of previously created groups, which offers the possibility to manage more effectively the academic content found online, improve research techniques, and have a digital record of what students achieved during the course. Likewise, it provides the opportunity for teachers to organize a virtual class with their students and create a portfolio where all the work carried out is stored.

9. Storybird

Storybird aims to promote writing and reading skills in students through storytelling. In this tool, teachers can create interactive and artistic books online through a simple and easy to use interface. The stories created can be embedded in blogs, sent by email, and printed, among other options. In Storybird, teachers can also create projects with students, give constant feedback, and organize classes and grades.

10. Animoto

Animoto is a digital tool that allows you to create high-quality videos in a short time and from any mobile device, inspiring students and helping improve academic lessons. The Animoto interface is friendly and practical, allowing teachers to create audiovisual content that adapts to educational needs.

11. Kahoot!

Kahoot! is an educational platform that is based on games and questions. Through this tool, teachers can create questionnaires, discussions, or surveys that complement academic lessons. The material is projected in the classroom and questions are answered by students while playing and learning at the same time. Kahoot! promotes game-based learning, which increases student engagement and creates a dynamic, social, and fun educational environment.

Educational Technology Tools Free Educational Technology Tools Free Tools For Teachers K12 Education

 


 

EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY

Free Educational Technology Tools: Discussing 3 Musketeers For Your Ninja Students

What if I tell you that you can make a magical educational potion out of 3 free tools that can make your teaching outstanding? This is possible only by using Edpuzzle to hold students accountable, Google forms to evaluate their performance, and Badging to reward them.

 

Edpuzzle, Badging, And Google Forms: Discussing 3 Free Educational Technology Tools

The world of education keeps morphing, changing and that requires constant adaptation to the new rules of a game including empowering students agency on how they should pave their inner teacher. This will call for a new set of soft skills such as the power of managing your teaching experience and picking up the right tools from hundreds that are available in the wild. While several ways have provided on how to informatively choose the right tool, a simple approach would be based on effectiveness and the manner of using these tools. In this article, I walk you through three tools that have the potential to fulfill some of these learning objectives namely: Edpuzzle, Google Forms, and Badging.

1. Edpuzzle

Edpuzzle is a platform that allows you to share videos with students and also embed pop-in questions while keeping track of your students’ progress through some metrics. However, the most salient hallmark of this platform is the ability to check if students have really watched the videos and hence accountability of both teachers and students will increase.

Edpuzzle can be also integrated with Google Classroom where teachers can import their classes from Google Classroom to Edpuzzle. Edpuzzle is another way of kicking off a strong flipped classroom practice by promoting students self-accountability. This is the first variable of our formula here where Edpuzzle is the founding block since it offers an optimal environment for students to set their journey toward learning agency, thanks to the database of curated videos it has in addition to other videos from a famous platform, such as Ted Ed and so on.

Another feature Edpuzzle has, that I found instrumental, is the ability to add a voice note at a specific time, or mute the entire video and include your own voice comment. This may add that personal touch of a teacher to compensate for the face-to-face interaction.

If you want to go further, you may want to finish the certification courses offered by Edpuzzle in order to get familiar with this utility and to learn some foundational principles related to the flipped classroom.

2. Google Forms

Google with its education section, has provided over the years a set of tools designed for the education world such as Google Classroom, and Google Scholar. It has also offered multifaceted tools that can be used for a wide range of purposes such as Google Forms. This tool is basically an online survey platform that allows users to design questionnaires choosing from a wide range of questions and even offering the possibility of giving respondents the possibility to upload different types of files. Added to that, if you activate the quiz option, Google Forms turns from just collecting responses to collecting and grading responses.

With Google Forms come along some extra functionalities ensured by add-ons that can help effectively the interaction between respondents, responses, and the creator of the form. To mention just a few, Choice Eliminator 2 is an add-on that deletes a choice once it’s selected after you set up how many times a given choice can be selected. I use this add-on when I’m assigning every group of students a book to review because I don’t want all students to choose the same book. Certify'em is another add-on which sends out automatic certificates based on a template and on a conditional passing grade. Another nice add-on that can be used with Google Forms is Timify which sets a duration limit for your quiz once the students click on the link you share with them. This add-on also has other premium features such as the ability to take screenshots of the respondent to increase accountability.

So the second variable of our formula is Google Forms that we will use it to assess the performance of students, and how well they did on Edpuzzle platform.

3. Badging

Badging system is a component of gamification where students are given certain badges upon completing certain tasks in recognition for their progress. This gives students a sense of achievement and pride especially if it’s linked to authentic and meaningful rewards. A lot of educational apps have incorporated this principle to boost the engagement of learners and users as well. Teachers can also harness the power of badging and use it in their favor. Badges showcase students' achievement and progress throughout the course, and if the assessment activities have meaning in the world of students' lives, it can even be a proof of accomplishment to be submitted before potential employers, or even to university for those who want to pursue their academic career further.

Hence, this is the third variable of our formula where we highlight the power of acknowledging students progress through meaningful rewards and clear signposts.

The Formula

We have talked about these three variables of flipped learning with the value of Edpuzzle, an assessment with the value of Google Forms assigned to it, and recognizing students achievement with the value of Badging assigned to it. By that, we reach the result that a meaningful students learning experience (symbolized by "SL") would translate as a steady incrementation in flipped learning content quality (where flipped learning is represented by "FL"), a constant reliable and valid assessment (represented by "AS"), and also an authentic badging system (represented by "BG"). To put it into an algebraic expression, we would reach that equation:

Flipped Learning Formula

Conclusion

In this article, we have seen that Edpuzzle can be a nice platform to deliver your flipped learning adventures with the bunch of features it has, especially, knowing whether students have watched the video or not, and the second tool, which is Google Forms, that we can use to assess students' understanding of flipped learning content. Finally, we touched on the concept of Badging, and how it can turn idle students into fully-energized learners, pushing them to quench their thirst to learn new content, while being able to use it in meaningful real-world situation.

 

 

 

EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY

EdTech: 12 Free Educational Technology Tools To Get Corporate Knowledge Flowing

How can L&D teams find the right solution while also keeping up with their companies' fast-paced, business-driven learning needs? The answer is informal learning, using a broad range of new, tech-driven tools.

 

Free Educational Technology Tools For L&D Professionals

Instead of waiting for one universal tool that fixes everything, edTech should be about getting the most out of a wide range of tools.

A recent survey by Deloitte [1] found that limited budget is the top challenge Learning and Development (L&D) teams face when planning new learning programs (CGS report). To make matters even more difficult, spending on new learning tools and technologies has dropped.

According to the survey, more companies are now eager to replace traditional learning infrastructures with affordable tools that tap into the power of innovative technologies. This forces L&D teams to rethink their current approaches and look for cheaper, lower-maintenance solutions.

Informal Learning Rules The Workplace

The survey found that 85% of L&D managers were interested in creating so-called collaborative learning environments [1]. That means empowering "Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in the workplace community to share their expertise directly with their peers".

This approach clearly reduces spending on high-end learning tools, but how can L&D managers enable Subject Matter Experts to share their expertise quickly so that they keep up with the fast pace of business?

A strong teacher can share knowledge successfully using only their voice and a chalkboard. In L&D terms, it takes knowledge and a platform. Going forward, knowledge-sharing platforms must be accessible, connected, and easy to use. Thanks to new technological innovations, the buying process has become easier than ever for L&D professionals in search of the right tools. The internet is loaded today with choices of free/cheap visual, audio, video, and media tools.

Empower Your Subject Matter Experts With These Intuitive Tools

We are witnessing a boom in new, free, or cost-effective tools with zero learning curve. Take photo editing, for example. Instead of tweaking hundreds of settings in Photoshop to improve a picture, we can now simply apply a preset, which is as easy to use as an Instagram filter. All we need are image templates, which are now readily available online. The same goes for creating learning content: SMEs need a tool that a) offers many templates, b) has zero learning curve for modifying the templates, and c) allows SMEs to integrate media from other zero-learning-curve tools.

In almost every aspect of their work, SMEs can now replace previous steep-learning-curve tools with easy-to-use web-based options. Here’s a list of some of the new tools empowering SMEs to create and share learning content:

Free Educational Technology Tools To Kickstart Corporate Knowledge Sharing

Heavyweight tool

Low learning curve solution

Visuals

Photoshop

CanvaPixlrPixTeller

Data

Excel, Tableau

Google Sheets

Design prototypes

Paper prototyping, Adobe Illustrator

InVisionPOP or Sketch

Podcasting, audio broadcasting

Recording Studios, project studios

Anchor

Iconsets, Graphic Design

Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop

Canva

Infographics

Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop

Venngage

Project management

Excel, Gannt

Trello

Video editing

Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro

Animoto

Photography

DLSR Camera's

iPhones, Samsung Phones

Real-life simulations

Video productions

Easygenerator + branchtrack

Sharing knowledge / Courses

Learning Management Systems

Slack

Creating training, courses

Adobe Captivate, Rise

Easygenerator

Which tools do you use? If you have any suggestions, place a comment and we will update this resource list.

If you want the agility to keep on top of dynamic business changes, you cannot waste time getting used to slow, hard-to-use tools. The new generation of tools enhances knowledge-sharing and helps SMEs communicate more effectively. The focus is on converging these tools and disciplines to collaboratively create and curate content.

Capitalize On Available Knowledge Of SMEs And Converge It Using A Selection Of New Educational Technology Tools

Save yourself the hassle and expense of giant learning systems. Now is the time to go lean - in terms of costs, labor, and time.

A Few Tips For Achieving This

·     Shift your thinking from courses to resources.
Resources can be anything from an image to a  PDF, an infographic or a video. These media enable SMEs to share their experience in their own way.

·     Create resources.
Create resources using quick, inexpensive tools like those listed above.

·     Package the resources.

Compile or arrange resources into a series, or let them stand alone. SMEs should be able to decide the order or form that suits the resources best. After all, they know the business better than anyone and can easily speak the learners’ language.

·     Publish and distribute among your peers.

Don't bother with transferring files. Just share a link.

The idea is to kickstart learning, using knowledge that exists in the minds of SMEs and tools that exist online. There's no need to become entangled in meticulous planning or excessive design.

Looking For A Low-Learning-Curve Authoring Tool? Go SaaS.

Like the tools listed above, Easygenerator belongs to the new generation of eLearning tools. It's designed to support the flow of knowledge from SMEs.

Creating Content Using Easygenerator Follows A Three-Step Process:

1.  Determine why you need to share knowledge.
What are your learning objectives

2.  Decide how you want to present this information.
Choose a template or start from scratch. Then write the content, upload documents, and add media. Pep up your content with simple tools like scenarios or hotspot linking.

3.  Add assessments (if desired).
Build a quiz or questionnaire to allow learners to practice their new knowledge.

Sign up for your 14-day free trial of Easygenerator.

 

References:

1. CGS 2017 Enterprise Learning Annual Report

2. 10 Social Media Tools For Learning

3. 12 Design Tools To Make Your eLearning Course Look Good

Educational Technology Tools Free Educational Technology Free Educational Technology Tools Subject Matter Experts

14 Free Educational Technology iPad Apps For Kids

If you are interested in finding educational technology apps for your iPad, have a look at the list below. It consists of 14 Free educational technology applications that will make your iPad, iPod or iPhone device an even more useful educational tool

 

 

Free Educational Technology Applications for Kids

At the following list you will find training games for children and browsers that are completely customizable so you can limit and control your children’s access on the internet. You will also find news updating, and communication applications so you can stay in touch at all times.

1. Best Browser for Kids - free  The #1 rated safe iPad browser with parental controls. You can decide on the level of blocking. Perfect for families and schools that are looking for a safe, fast, reliable browser, with no in-app advertising! You can also support our cause by donating in our in-app purchases. Donations are not mandatory and are hidden from kids behind parental control preferences - which are controlled by you with a password.

2. Digital Passport for Kids - free  Played by over 300,000 kids in schools across the US, Digital Passport is now available on your personal device. The games and videos inside teach kids from 7-11 the essentials for staying safe online not only on laptops and computers but on mobile devices too. On Digital Passport, kids will find their favorite kinds of games and activities like platform games, tools for creating digital mashups, and other fast-paced gobble 'em up games, all geared toward teaching them important lessons about digital life.

3. Disconnect Kids - free  Disconnect Kids is a fun and unique educational app that teaches parents and children about privacy on the internet. Disconnect Kids also actively blocks requests for data about your web-browsing and in-app activity. It’s the first iOS app that stops this personal data from ever leaving your device.

4. Edmodo – free  Edmodo makes a teacher’s daily life easier by providing a safe and easy way for teachers and students to engage and collaborate for free, anytime, anywhere.

5. Engadget Distro - free  Engadget Distro brings the best articles from the Engadget site to your tablet in a rich, magazine-like format. Every week a new edition is hand-crafted by the Engadget team featuring the best reviews and features curated from the website along with a weekly editorial to bring you up to speed on any news you might have missed. Once you have downloaded the application, we encourage you to set Distro offline, grab a comfy seat, and enjoy all the great stuff you might not have had time to enjoy during the week. Immerse yourself in the world of gadget news.

6. Image Searcher – free   Image Searcher is a Google Image searching tool for iPad. Simply type in any keywords you want and you will see the thumbnails of images. You can view the original images, save them to your Photo Albums, email them to your friends, or open the original web pages.

7. LEGO Creationary - free  You love those little LEGO® bricks. Creationary puts a fun new spin on your creations. Build and guess with Creationary and the New Creationary Assistant – fun for the whole family!

8. Lego Instructions - free  LEGO® Instructions is a fan-built application for those who is fond of creating with their Lego pieces. It’s the only app in the Store which presents building instructions in large step-by-step pictures to show parents and kids how to make these items. This app is a handy tool for those who lost or somehow doesn't have their building instruction for building LEGO items. The instructions are clear and easy to follow – almost like the real instructions from the box.

9. Little Bird - free  Little Bird’s Internet Security Adventure, is a book for children produced by AVG for parents to use with their young Pre-School children. The book is designed to help parents initiate conversations about Internet safety in an age-appropriate manner. We hope it will be useful to you in helping your child begin to develop lifelong patterns of safe and secure online activity. The Internet will be a mainstay of your child’s life. Like the majority of us, your child will learn, play, and do their homework using their computers, iPods®, gaming consoles, and mobile phones while connected to the web. We will be with you each step of the way, providing great technology and resources to help educate and keep them safe. Please enjoy this complimentary copy of Little Bird’s Internet Security Adventure, and feel free to share it with others. At AVG we are committed to helping this generation of kids learn, play, and interact safely online.

10. Logo Draw - free  Logo Draw uses aspects of the Logo Programming Language to introduce users to the fundamental concepts of software programming, computer graphics, geometry, and logical thinking.

11. Maily - free   Maily is the safe messaging platform for kids aged 3+ to connect with family and friends. It is fun, easy and safe. Do you have kids aged 3+? Maily has been designed to supervise them. Create your account and add your kids right after. Connect & send messages with your nieces, cousins or other kid friends. For both grownups and kids, Maily provides a colorful and creative messaging platform. You can also add and invite contacts. The more contacts you add, the more fun Maily becomes.

12. Rover (web browser with Flash) – free Rover is an educational app and the only education browser for your iPad designed for teachers and students of all ages. Rover is targeted towards enhancing the K-12 education experience, bringing the best online learning content to your iPad- including access to content ordinarily available on the Apple tablet. We have partnered with major education brands to make sure you have access to leading educational content on the iPad. Transform your classroom into a fun, easy to use, and exciting learning lab! We have specifically designed Rover based on feedback from teachers, IT directors and administrators from schools across the country.

13. SketchBook MobileX - free  Autodesk SketchBook Mobile Express is a professional paint and drawing application designed for the iPhone and iPod Touch. SketchBook Mobile Express offers a set of sketching tools and delivers them through a streamlined and intuitive user interface. Use it to digitally capture your ideas or produce artwork on-the-go. With the same paint engine as the renowned SketchBook Pro software, SketchBook Mobile Express delivers sophisticated brushes and fluid pencils.

14. TinyTap - Moments into Games - free  Turn your moments into games! TinyTap is the first user-generated app market that lets anyone create fun educational games from pictures and creative ideas! TinyTap is a free game creation platform that lets parents, teachers and kids create, share and sell personalized educational games! Creating a game is very simple. All you need to do is add photos or images, record questions, trace the answers and you’re ready to play!

Educational Technology Tools Educational Technology Trends Free Educational Technology Tools Mobile Application

23 Microsoft Free Teaching Tools for Educators

Are you interested in a list of 23 free teaching tools that you can use in your classroom? From helping students learn through interactive 3D experiences to transforming ordinary classroom experiences into immersive education and much more…

23 Microsoft Free Teaching Tools for Educators

 

 

 

Free Educational Technology: 23 Microsoft Free Teaching Tools for Educators

Would you like to engage your students with free classroom tools in an active learning classroom environment? In the following list you will find 23 Free Teaching Tools that you can use to improve students' learning.

1.  Learning Suite by Microsoft
Over 20 of Microsoft's most popular education tools and teacher resources - all in one place!

2.  Flashcards by Microsoft
Build memory and recognition skills with a modern twist on the classic learning tool.

3.  Office 365 for Education
Free email, shared documents, storage and more! Office 365 offers all the tools you and your students need to succeed.

4.  Photosynth
Help students learn through interactive 3D experiences.

5.  Microsoft Mathematics 4.0
Visualize math concepts to promote better understanding.

6.  Kinect for Windows SDK
Transform ordinary classroom experiences into extraordinary immersive education.

7.  Math Worksheet Generator
Create great math worksheets in seconds!

8.  Digital Storytelling Teaching Guide
The ancient tradition of storytelling meets the digital age.

9.  Kodu
Teach programming, problem-solving and collaboration in a creative 'hands-on' environment.

10.  Interactive Classroom
Use classroom polls to improve student learning.

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11.  Microsoft SkyDrive
Easily manage, store and securely share thousands of classroom documents all in one place.

12.  Chemistry Add-in for Word
The simple, easy way to include chemistry information in your Word documents.

13.  Mouse Mischief
A fun way to keep your students' attention and increase participation in the classroom.

14.  Songsmith
Help your students 'find their spark' in the classroom with music.

15.  Accessibility Guide for Educators
Empower all students with accessible technology.

16.  Office Add-in for Moodle
Manage your courses with Moodle and Office documents all in one place.

17.  Microsoft Mathematics Add-in for Word and OneNote
Create, calculate, solve and import mathematical equations in Word and OneNote.

18.  WorldWide Telescope
Explore outer space from your classroom.

19.  Project Tuva
Make physics fun with a new twist on classic lectures.

20.  Ribbon Hero 2
Learning Office is a game – really!

21.  Small Basic
The fun and easy way to learn programming.

22.  Bing: The Getting Started Guide for Educators
Quickly find what you need in a visual, organized way.

23.  Microsoft Digital Literacy Curriculum
Prepare your students for the digital future.