Thursday, February 25, 2010

Scribble Maps

http://www.scribblemaps.com/

Scribble Maps is the quick and easy way to rapidly make and share maps!
Scribble Maps

With Scribble Maps you can:

- Draw shapes and Scribble!
- Pace Markers and text
- Create a Custom Widget
- Save as KML/GPX
- Send maps to friends

Whether it is planning a vacation, or plotting a hiking trail, Scribble Maps can help you out!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Tools for Organizing Web Research

iCyte is a fantastic browser extension available for Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 7 and 8. iCyte gives you the ability to highlight and save sections of websites for later reference. When you save an item in iCyte an archive of the website is saved in your iCyte account. To organize your findings, you can create folders within your iCyte account.

Memonic is a relatively new tool for curating collections of information from the web. Memonic's key function is to give users the power to clip sections of websites and build them into a personal collection. Along with the clipping of information, users can add commentary to each item they place into their personal accounts. For example, if I clipped a paragraph from iLearnTechnology I could also add some notes for myself about that paragraph.

There are a couple of ways to add content to the folders within a Memonic account. The easiest way add content to a Memonic account is to use the Memonic bookmarklet for Firefox. After the bookmarklet is installed, users can click it at anytime while they're browsing the web to add content to their Memonic folders. Alternatively, users can add content by typing the url of a desired page into the Memonic "web clipper" that is present within every Memonic user's account page

Lumifi is a collaborative research tool. With Lumifi students and teachers can collaboratively share, evaluate, and organize information found online and off-line. What makes Lumifi different from other online collaboration tools is the ability to upload documents then extract only the relevant information to share with others. Often while researching a topic students only need part of a document or web page, Lumifi gives users the option to weed through peripherals and get right to the information they need.

Wet Mount is a website designed to organize findings from the Internet. The organization process is based on a simple number-line concept. When users find information (text, image, or video) that information is placed in a chart. As more information is found the chart can be reorganized to accommodate more information and place it based on relevance to the original search terms. Watch a screencast here.

Zoho offers a suite of collaborative tools that in many ways are similar to the Google Docs suite. Zoho Notebook is an excellent tool to introduce to your students at the beginning of the school year. Students can use Zoho Notebook to keep track of the web resources that they find while researching a topic. One of the selling points of Zoho Notebook over similar services is that your students can log-in using a Zoho ID, Google ID, or Yahoo ID.

Reframe It is a handy browser extension for Firefox and Internet Explorer. Reframe It is best described as social bookmarking (like Delicious) meets team white boarding (think Twiddla). The social bookmarking aspect of Reframe It is bookmarking and sharing links. The white boarding aspect of Reframe It is the ability to frame or crop a section of page and comment on it. The comments appear in a side margin so that you can continue to look at the web page.

Webnotes is a service that makes it easy to highlight, annotate, and organize your web research. WebNotes has free and paid versions of its service. The free version allows you to highlight, annotate, and organize the information that you find on websites. The paid version allows you to highlight, annotate, and organize information from PDFs as well as websites. There are two options for installing WebNotes. WebNotes can be installed by downloading the full toolbar. The other option for installing WebNotes is to use the install bookmarklet that when clicked displays the toolbar on the webpage that you're viewing.

Creately - Draw, Share and Export diagrams

Create fast, professional looking diagrams with Creately's large library of objects and easy start templates. Now you can draw anything easily.


Built for Collaboration
Collaborate with your team and clients with easy sharing, publishing and post-it style comments. Multi version support means you never lose your work.


Online & Secure
A fully interactive interface that works right in your browser along with industry standard encryption and redundant backups. No downloads or installs necessary.


Powerful Features
Advanced features like Contextual Toolbars, 1-Click Create-n-Connect button, Magic Connectors and linkable diagrams make diagramming a pleasure.

Voice Thread

http://voicethread.com

VoiceThread is an interactive tool that allows for the sharing of group conversations and discussions on a browser-based web application, without the use of software.

Basically, VoiceThread is a multimedia slide show that can hold images, documents and videos. People can leave comments and collaborate by leaving messages with voice, text, or audio and video file. Users can even "doodle" with basic drawing tools at the same time they comment. All VoiceThread files can be embedded to show and receive comments on other websites and exported to MP3 players. You can add discussions to classroom websites, blogs or other educational media.

VoiceThread is great for students to collaborate on group projects. It supports dozens of standard file formats as well as PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. One account can have many identities, so a whole classroom can come together on a project. Each participant can give their separate perspective on a subject. VoiceThread is also a great way for students to collaborate with different solutions for the same problem.

Users first upload images, documents or videos, which are added to the VoiceThread. This is saved and the URL is available for sharing purposes or to be exported. VoiceThread can then be used to start discussions about coursework or assignments.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Dabbleboard - Online White Board

http://www.dabbleboard.com/

Here are the Top 10 Reasons you should use Dabbleboard:
  1. Dabbleboard is easy and fun to use. Unlike other whiteboard applications, Dabbleboard feels as natural to use as a marker on a whiteboard, or a pencil on a sheet of paper. Just draw strokes and Dabbleboard will detect most common shapes. Click anywhere and start typing to enter text. And if you need to modify anything you've already drawn, all the tools are there right next to the selected objects. No more visiting the toolbar a hundred times just to make a quick diagram!
  2. Dabbleboard is fast. Since you don't need to spend time constantly changing tools in the toolbar, you can draw much faster. The natural interface also requires less of your attention, so you can focus on your ideas rather than on the software. Dabbleboard gets out of your way and just lets you draw.
  3. Dabbleboard is flexible. Everything you draw can be moved, resized, deleted, and replicated. Even freehand strokes. And with unlimited Undo and Redo, you'll never have to think twice about trying something new.
  4. Dabbleboard produces pretty drawings. Okay, we admit you don't need your whiteboard drawings to look like works of art. But other applications that make you scribble with the mouse produce messy drawings that your friends or coworkers would have trouble even understanding. Unlike a marker or a pencil, a mouse is difficult to control precisely, so Dabbleboard steps in and cleans up your strokes for you.
  5. Dabbleboard lets you easily reuse previously-made drawings. With drag-and-drop simplicity, you can add drawings to your personal library, and copy something from the library to your current drawing. You can even visit the public library and copy drawings others have made. You'll never have to draw the same thing twice. The more you use it, the more useful Dabbleboard will get.
  6. Dabbleboard allows sharing and real-time collaboration with anyone anywhere in the world. Your friends and coworkers can view and edit your drawings whenever they like. Or you can log in at the same time to brainstorm ideas together.
  7. Dabbleboard works with hardware you already have, including your favorite computer. Unlike some other solutions, there's no need to purchase additional proprietary equipment. You can even use it in a conference room with a projector.
  8. Dabbleboard works with other software you already use. You can upload images made with other applications and embed them into Dabbleboard drawings. And you can download images made with Dabbleboard for use in other applications. Users with Pro accounts can also download SVG files and open the drawings with Microsoft Visio, Adobe Illustrator, and many more applications.
  9. Dabbleboard is secure. Unless you make your drawing public, each drawing can only be viewed by those you've shared it with, and by no one else. We even make sure no one can guess the location of your drawing by using random 160-bit keys. All users log in securely, and users with Pro accounts access everything securely with SSL. Learn more about security & privacy
  10. Dabbleboard is free! We want to help the world think and communicate visually, and we won't let a little money get in our way. We also offer Pro accounts at reasonable prices.

Wordle

http://www.wordle.net/

A tag cloud or word cloud (or weighted list in visual design) is a visual depiction of user-generated tags, or simply the word content of a site, typically used to describe the content of web sites. Tags are usually single words and are normally listed alphabetically, and the importance of a tag is shown with font size or color.[1] Thus, both finding a tag by alphabet and by popularity is possible. The tags are usually hyperlinks that lead to a collection of items that are associated with a tag.

Tagul

http://tagul.com/


What is the difference between Wordle and Tagul?
Wordle is designed to be just a toy. Wordle clouds cannot be used as in the way tag clouds are usually used, like being embedded on a web page and serving as navigation units. Tagul is intended to fulfil that niche. Tagul clouds are not toys and designed to be used on blogs, web pages or any kind of sites as a replacement of ordinary tag clouds. Each tag in Tagul cloud is linked with an URL and is “clickable” that enables visitors to use it for navigation. Also Tagul utilizes widely used flash platform (instead of less common java platform in Wordle) that is light weight (~50kb per cloud vs ~150kb) and stores the clouds on a CDN to deliver clouds to wide audience instanlty. Tagul has some features that Wordle doesn’t, like custom shapes selection and multiply fonts usage in one cloud.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Wallwisher

http://wallwisher.com/

15 ways to use wallwisher


What is wallwisher?
Wallwisher is an Internet application that allows people to express their thoughts on a common topic easily.

What is a wall?
A wall is basically the 'web page' where people actually post messages.

What can I do with Wallwisher?
You can make Pizza by frying 20 grams of Wallwisher in Evian mineral water. Other than that, you can use wallwisher for:
  • Personal note taking
  • To-do lists
  • Party Invitations
  • Feedback Collection
  • Wishing people on occasions, like birthdays, anniversaries
  • Anything that might need input from a lot of people, eg. a Mac Vs PC wall (that'll be a war, not a wall actually).
Advantages of Wallwisher
The advantages of this Web 2.0 tool include:
  • Ease of use by teachers and students
  • Collaboration between students during projects
  • Ability to use this tool from anywhere with Internet access
Using Wallwisher
When a teacher or students creates a wall for posting (called stickies) information, they are allowed to assign the wall its own URL.
Options include:
  • Selecting from 12 color themes
  • Controlling who can post or edit notes
  • Adding videos
  • Adding images
  • Adding comments
  • Adding links to websites
  • Embedding a wall in another website, Wiki, or blog
  • Allowing the relocation of stickies - permanently by those with author access and temporarily by others



    Downloadpedia

    http://downloadpedia.org/

    Downloadpedia is a web-based, free content software encyclopedia project. Downloadpedia is written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world. Its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet.