Online Goodies (7) - Scribd

Need access to your files anywhere, anytime? Then store them online using Scribd, which not only allows for the storage of files but also encourages public sharing of the documents. Scribd's stated aim is to "create the world's largest open library of documents". The files can be viewed in a web browser using Scribd's custom flash document viewer. Interestingly, the original file can be downloaded in a variety of different formats (pdf, word, txt or mp3).

This text document called 'Wiki as a Teaching Tool' includes an audio file on the page.

Files may be uploaded individually or in bulk. You can decide to keep the documents private or share them with the world! You can also create and join different groups and like other social networking sites, Scribd also lets you add friends.

MediaFire is a free file hosting service which allows anyone to share files and images. There is, currently, no limit on the number of files stored.

I am also using an account on Box (1GB storage). When I signed up it was completely free, but I notice now that they are charging for all of their accounts. The entry level Plus Plan allows 2GB of storage (50MB per file limit) for $25 per year. It will be interesting to see how long mine remains free!

Update: 25/8/08: Automatic convertion to mp3 at Scribd does not seem to be available any longer.

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Technorati Tags: flash, online storage, scribd, social networking, wiki

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Visual Search Engines

KartOO is a metasearch engine, which presents its results in the form of an interactive map. You must type in your keyword/s in order to start the search.

About 15 results are shown on each map. You can refine your search by selecting items from the suggested topics (shown on the map and listed beside it) or by typing in further keywords.

Quintura presents a visual tag cloud that you can navigate and easily refine in order to find information. The resulting links are shown on the right hand side of the screen.

The tag cloud continually changes as you move your mouse over each tag in the list.

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Technorati Tags: kartoo, quintura, search engine, tag cloud, visual

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Create your own Online Presence

If you want to create a traditional website presence on the Internet, then look no further than Edublogs. Although designed as a blogging platform, this site also allows you to create a 'static' first page, which gives the look and feel of a traditional website.  You can then add as many other pages as you wish.

Netvibes, Protopage and Pageflakes all allow you to create your own personalised website by using widgets. All of these sites let you to create multiple 'tabs' so you can build up a whole set of web pages.

You can choose to make your pages either private (for your eyes only) or public (for anyone to see). The public feature is currently not available in Netvibes but will become available shortly.

Before deciding which one to use it is advisable to try them all out and see which one suits you best. For more information, Graham Wegner gives a personal review of Netvibes, Protopage, Pageflakes and Webwag.

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Technorati Tags: edublogs, netvibes, pageflakes, protopage, startpage, website, webwag, widget

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Encyclopedia of Life coming soon....

This promises to be a marvelous multimedia educational resource. The Encyclopedia of Life is a website that intends to "transform the science of biology, and inspire a new generation of scientists, by aggregating all known data about every living species".

Contributions will be taken from scientists and amateurs alike - in true Web2.0 fashion! Check out the inspirational promotion video on the website.

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Technorati Tags: encyclopedia, multimedia, video

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Online Goodies (6) - Technorati

Technorati is a search engine for social media.

According to Jeff Koo at Technorati: "Technorati is the recognized authority on what's happening on the World Live Web, right now. The Live Web is the dynamic and always-updating portion of the Web. We search, surface, and organize blogs and the other forms of independent, user-generated content (photos, videos, voting, etc.) increasingly referred to as 'citizen media.' "

The Favorites and Watchlist sections are useful features. In Favorites you can keep a track of all the blogs that you want to read. The Watchlist allows you to set up searches, for interesting social media, using tags and URLs.

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Technorati Tags: citizen media, social media

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Download Online Videos

There is a simple workaround for providing content from blocked video sharing websites such as YouTube, although it does involve a bit of extra effort and planning.

KeepVid and Vixy are two sites that enable you to download online videos from a variety of video sharing websites. Simply enter the video's URL and download the file. Another example is the VideoDownloader site.

The Vixy site also enables you to convert the video into different formats depending on how you are going to use it. For example you can covert it to a mov file and burn it to a CD.  It could also be converted to the mp4 format, transferred to an iPod and then played through a TV for whole class viewing (that's if you have the iPod!).

This is an example of a video that, I think, would be well worth the effort of downloading and using.

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Technorati Tags: ipod, keepvid, video, vixy, youtube

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Online Goodies (5) - VodPod

Vodpod is a social bookmarking site for videos. It allows you to create your own collection of videos from many different sites on the Internet. You can also add videos from your own computer. Once included, the videos can be organised into different categories. Tags can be added for easy reference.

Vodpod provides a browser bookmark allowing you to easily add videos with just one click. It also provides two widgets that can be used on your own blog or website. So far, I have had no problem adding videos from YouTube, TeacherTube, 5min.com and GoogleVideo. Have not had any success with BlipTV yet!

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Technorati Tags: bliptv, social bookmarking, teachertube, video, widget, youtube

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Image & Video Capture Tool

Jing allows you to capture screen images, record video of what you do or see and to upload immediately to the Internet. You may also save the files directly to your hard disk. The uploading is currently being provided free of charge by Screencast - you must have an account with them to use this feature. This is likely to change in the near future.

The .NET 3 framework must also be installed on your computer before you can use Jing.

This tool could prove very useful in an E-learning online environment where students are in contact with tutors as Tony Dunckel, the Jing Project Manager explains:

“Think of Jing as a supplement to all your chat discussions, email threads, forum posts and blog entries. It sits nicely on your desktop, ready to capture and share your stuff at a moment’s notice. Simply select an area of your screen, capture it as an image or record it as a video, and then click Share. Jing conveniently places a URL to your content on your clipboard ready for you to paste the URL into any of your conversations.”

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Technorati Tags: elearning, jing, screencast

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Online Goodies (4) - Scrapblog

Scrapblog will appeal to all those visually gifted bloggers who subscribe to the theory that 'a picture paints a thousand words'. A true multimedia treasure, Scrapblog allows you to combine text, photos, video and audio to create multimedia scrapbooks. As with all websharing sites there are many excellent examples on view providing ample inspiration - should you need it!

This site provides a relatively easy way to produce stunning educational multimedia content. Although audio can be added as a backing track, individual audio files cannot be added to the different pages - unlike the video files. But, it seems the video files can only be added from YouTube.

Once published, your completed scrapbook can be viewed online as a slideshow. The scrapbook may also be posted to Facebook or Flickr and then downloaded from there.

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Technorati Tags: audio, facebook, flickr, multimedia, photo, scrapblog, video, youtube

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Online Goodies (3) - Flickr

Flickr is definitely the 'mother of all' photo sharing websites with as many as 1,475 photos being uploaded per minute!

Essentially, Flickr allows you to upload and share your photos online. Once uploaded the photos can be easily organised into groups or 'sets' and tagged for easy retrieval. Notes can also be added to various parts of the photo, which can be quite useful for educational purposes.

Unfortunately, Flickr is currently blocked on our educational network which makes it impossible to use in the classroom. We are not alone in this as the following cartoon highlights the case for unblocking social networking sites!

By coolcatteacher | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

There are, however, many other photo sharing websites available for use until such time as Flickr is allowed. Details and a list can be found on Wikipedia.

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Technorati Tags: flickr, photo, wikipedia

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Online Goodies (2) - Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website, which means it is designed to allow you to store and share bookmarks on the web, instead of inside your browser on one machine only.

Del.icio.us boasts many features including bundling your tags, adding networks, searching and viewing popular rated sites for specific tags. Click on the attached image to see how this works!



Del.icio.us Features, originally uploaded by pdonaghy.

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Technorati Tags: del.icio.us, social bookmarking

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Online Goodies (1) - Edublogs

This series will cover some very useful FREE online tools and resources. No better place to start than with Edublogs itself - the host of this blog! This is a fantastic resource which is being continually updated and improved upon. Edublogs 2.0 has just been released! It is easy and fun to use.

There is a wide selection of templates available as well as many widgets. The absence of advertising leads to a very professional look. I would highly recommend it for any new educational bloggers!

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Technorati Tags: blog, edublogs, widget

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