Welcome POI course members! I greatly appreciate your commitment to learning more about distance education. Listed below are just a few of the many great Web 2.0 tools available. Hopefully you will find something useful. If I can be of further assistance to you please do not hesitate to contact me. -Kelly
Publishing
Blogger – a Web-based blogging platform owned by Google. Users can create and customize their own blogs using a drag-and-drop editor, and have them hosted for free on Google's massive server arrays.
Wordpress – a free blogging platform available to everyone. WordPress has two components, one is a free, Web-based blog-hosting service called WordPress.com. The other is WordPress.org, which provides users with software to run a more feature-rich version of the blogging tool on their own servers.
Edublogs - specifically designed for use by educators. Easy to use.
Tumblr - This “micro-blogging” site upgraded their service this year. It’s a great place for students to easily post a whole lot of their work. Students can have individual or group “Tumblrs.”
Twitter – a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Described as the telegraph system of Web 2.0.
Drupal - a powerful publishing and content management system. Users can add all sorts of content to Web pages through a system of modules.
Zunal - offers an easy way for teachers (and students) to create webquests. webhunts, etc.
Tikatok – users can create online books containing text and images (many images available within the application itself). Books can be made from scratch, or via the pre-built frames that contain “prompts” to help the story-writer along. In addition, authors can invite others to collaborate online in the development of the project.
Mystudiyo - online quiz and test maker.
easy to use, you can include multimedia, and others can add questions (that are moderated before they appear).
CLEAR – Michigan State University’s repository for Web 2.0 tools related to language acquisition. Multiple application links on this page…audio to video, media-rich interactive worksheet creation, podcast generator, etc. Many useful apps all linked on the home page.
Productivity
Basecamp – project management tool wherein groups can come together and work on large or small projects, sharing the same collaborative space.
IWantSandy – an automated e-mail assistant. You simply add "her" as an e-mail contact to get started. Sending Sandy an e-mail with a small message will have the system scan what you wrote and convert into an e-mail reminder or calendar appointment that will be sent back to you at whatever time you note. Designed to work with the popular microblogging service Twitter, letting users remotely set reminders.
GoogleDocs – a free, Web-based collaborative office suite. Users can make and share documents and spreadsheets with anyone who has a Google account. What makes the service really interesting is that multiple users can be concurrently working on the same document.
Zoho – a multitude of productivity applications are housed here. Much like GoogleDocs.
RememberTheMilk – makes your to-do items and reminders available in Gmail, via SMS, the iPhone, Windows Mobile devices, Skype, and popular IM clients.
30Boxes – an online calendaring tool. Instead of clicking on dates and times to enter appointments, you can type in its single entry box something such as, "Lunch, noon Friday with Frank," and it will create the appointment based on that.
Gliffy – a “can’t miss” for virtually any type of diagram creation (flow chart, floor plans, SWOT analyses, etc.).
Communication
Pbwiki – self-described as being the world’s fastest, easiest and free wiki creation platform. Lots of features available! One of today’s most widely used wiki creators.
SelfCast - anyone with a webcam can broadcast through this tool. Great presentation option.
Skype - calling, video presentation tool, can be set up on mobile phones. There is pricing on some package options, while others free. Skype to Skype audio and video unlimited usage for FREE…conference calls with up to 25 members.
MeBeam - much like Skype with the exception of not having to register prior to use.
Facebook - a popular social networking service. Originally offered to college students, it later opened up its doors to anyone with an e-mail address. Facebook gives users a place to make and explore personal profiles and interact with friends.
Friendster – a popular social network and one of the first sites to offer user profiles and the capability to network with others.
Myspace – one of the most well-recognized, highly-trafficked social networks in the world. The service originally started as a social network for music enthusiasts and as a place where bands could promote their upcoming concerts or albums. The main draw to the service is its customizable user profiles.
Bebo – another music-centric social networking application.
LiveJournal – lets users set up a simple, no frills blog with very little technical know-how required.
Bookmarking
Sitemark - a great tool for users to apply categorization skills
Trailfire – Users create “trails” to guide others to important websites via “trail markers”. Images can be uploaded for each marker and annotations can be made on the web pages themselves providing precision surfing.
Delicious – hugely popular social bookmarking application.
Fleck - Fleck let’s you take any webpage and create virtual post-it notes to “paste” on them.
Multimedia Creation/Sharing
Myjugaad.in - Create slideshows of web pages and post/share the link created.
Wix - fairly easy site that lets you use Flash to create a website or content that you would like to embed into a website or a blog.
Moblyng - With this multimedia presentation tool, multiple users can work on the same slideshow.
RockYou - Much like Moblyng, but doesn’t require registration.
OneTrueMedia - a very easy way to create slideshows on the Web, and add text, music and images
VoiceThread - With this oh-so-unique application users can upload pictures and create an audio narrative to go along with them. In addition, audio comments can be left by visitors. VoiceThread also provides a great deal to teachers by allowing them to get their premium services for free.
Youtube – the mecca for video uploaders
Jumpcut - This tool enables users to upload video as well as create a movie to share.
Edublogs.tv - Here users can upload videos, such as educationally useful ones from YouTube, and then Edublogs.TV works its magic enabling schools access to content that might otherwise fall prey to the firewall monster.
The Digital Vaults - National Archives entry portal, allowing users access to digitzed primary source documentation never before available online. Enables users to create their own movies, posters, and what it calls “Pathway Challenges” to challenge others to find connections between a series of images, documents, etc.
Flickr – photo editing and organization with integration into many popular blogging platforms.
Picasa – offers photo editing and organization. Much like Flickr, but perhaps a bit more search friendly for those not registered within the site itself.
Bookr – easiest tool to create online photoshow
280slides - especially nice feature that lets you search for images and videos off the web right inside the slide-show creation process.
Xtimeline – easily create and share timelines with pictures and videos.
Wayfaring - another interactive, collaborative timeline creator.
ZeeMaps - This Map making tool lets you insert images in addition to writing.
Search
Middlespot - a combination Search Engine and a little bit of a social bookmarking application. After you enter your search term and click “enter,” your search results appear both as images and short text blurbs. The unique tool offered by Middlespot is called a “workpad.” You can drag-and-drop the webpages you want onto your workpad, give it a title and description, and then Middlespot will give your workpad its own url that you can post on a blog or online journal, or email to someone else.
Wikipedia – a free online encyclopedia. Instead of being authored by a select group of editors, Wikipedia can be edited by anyone anywhere, and at any time. Wikipedia is available in a large number of languages and has entries on nearly everything.
Wikia – a little bit like Wikipedia, but actually a white-paper service that lets site owners add wiki elements to their sites and brand them to match.
Searchme - queries return visuals of web pages that are quickly clicked through. Not tiny visuals, either…very appealing time-saver for surfing. Dial-ups need not apply!
oSkope – visual search assistant that allows users to browse and organize items in an intuitive manner.
Miscellaneous Mentionables
BookGlutton - This tool allows members of groups to read and contribute to discussions on various readings. Innumerable literary-related possibilities…
Fo.reca.st – a free online polling application that lets you easily add sound, images, or video to your polls/surveys. Has a variety of ways to see your results and many different formats to show your survey.
Footnote - allows students to access thousands of primary source documents and photos. Also offers a community where users can collaborate on research projects.
