Posts Tagged ‘tools’
40 applications in 40 minutes
Friday, October 30th, 2009
40 apps in 40 minutes
For the latest Norfolk e-learning forum I decided that we should run a session on open source and free software tools. There are so many well known open source and free tools in use such as Moodle and WordPress that setting up the session was a challenge.
I settled on 40 applications in 40 minutes. A whirlwind tour of 40 of our favourite free applications that would hopefully offer something for everyone! I had a list of personal favourites that I needed to add to and spent a few afternoons searching the web for some new additions. After only a few hours I was amazed and the sheer number of free apps and also the quality of the apps. One of the first new apps I found was the awesome highlighter, a brilliant website that lets you mark up and highlight a website – allowing you to copy & paste, save the link and share with colleagues. A really simple idea with so many applications, you can use it in the classroom, presentations theatre or during development meetings.
40 in 40 was pretty fast paced and there wasn’t much time to look at anything in detail other than a couple of videos that I created in xtranormal and animoto to show what was possible.
The response to the session has been great with several people adding their own applications to the list and more commenting that they didn’t realise how many of these apps were available on the internet.
During the session I worked on the basis that if you didn’t like an app or wouldn’t find it useful there was another coming in less than a minute! We published the list on the real projects website alongside our other resources.
My top 3 are
There are so many ways in which you can use the applications and it was great to listen in on some of the discussions afterwards. I’ve seen xtranormal used an an online icebreaker, animation software, for product demonstrations, adverts and for teaching! The awesome highlighter can be used by the web designer and client or the teacher in class.
As I come across more I’ll add them to the list!
e-learning top tools for 2009
Monday, June 29th, 2009
I thought that I would share with you my top ten tools for 2009. These are the tools that I find really useful, I might not use them every day but they really help out week by week! I’ve linked out to all the websites so you can go and find out more about them for yourself.
A great piece of software for rapidly developing virtual environments, simulations and game based learning. Our games designers are building learning objects in days!
You’ll need an iphone but this software lets you update your account when on the move as well as getting your own twitter feed. Get the Pro version to update multiple accounts.
We’ve been using Basecamp since it first came out and we still love it! Great for using with clients and it keeps things nice and easy.
Open Source - used by many, lots of commercial support if you need it and a great user community.
Time tracking software, links with Basecamp and it has an iphone app. Easy to use and brilliant for time management on projects.
Can be used for a range of uses including blogs and websites. There is a wide range of plugins available to support your development work. It is also very easy to set up!
A wide range of videos for download from the BBC on a range of subjects and topics.
Online meetings and much more. Very useful for working with clients, showing work and minimising travel. NCSL have made great use of web-ex over the past year.
A great web app where you can generate world clouds from the text that you provide. Paste in text, rss url or del.ico.us username.
A whole host of brilliant lectures on a range of subjects, well supported by an iphone app. There are some inspirational lectures available for you to view.