Saturday, February 16, 2008

ImageChef

Just go here and have some fun. Create unique images or icons for your website or course.

Online games

Web games to learn with. K-12 geography, chemistry, vocabulary, animals, history, math, and some quiz games.

Dezignus.com


Icons and other Graphics for FREE: Beautiful vector graphics of all kinds. I jumped right to the royalty-free section, so that's the link I'm providing you. But just have a look at the other beautiful stuff they have to offer!

Miha's utilities - Mihov Freeware

The site has a bunch of great utilities. Here are just two:

Image Resizer: A free utility that can batch resize your images in bmp, gif, and jpg picture formats. You can also convert from one format to another, rotate images, create thumbnails.

Link Checker: Nothing more frustrating than clicking a link that's no longer valid. Don't let your website or course pages get outdated. This free downloadable utility works great.

Free Online Video Editing Sites

ExtremeTech has posted a review of 5 websites that let you edit your videos online for free.
"Some people would be surprised that you can edit photos online without locally installed software, but surely video editing is too resource-intensive to be done over the web, right? Wrong! We review five online services that let you do things like scene transitions, cuts, splices, loops, audio overlays—and they're all free. We tested the following: Cuts, Eyespot, JumpCut, Motionbox, One True Media."

Splashup

Edit your images online for free.
"Splashup, formerly Fauxto, is a powerful editing tool and photo manager. With all 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. Splashup runs in all browsers, integrates seamlessly with top photosharing sites, and even has its own file format so you can save your work in progress."

Performance Learning Systems

(My link above is to the teacher resources section of the website, but please explore their many professional development courses too.)
"The mission of Performance Learning Systems, Inc. is to enhance education through the development of educational services. These services, designed to increase the effectiveness of educators and others who support excellence in education, include: seminars, Graduate courses, Consulting services, Quality instructional materials."

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

The Reluctant Online Professor

"...when I was asked to put my course online, I felt quite unprepared ... I started the experience with great reluctance and trepidation. Much to my surprise, I finished it jubilantly. It turned out to be one of the best classes I have ever taught."
Cynthia Corritore, Ph.D., describes the process in detail: creating her course (design, content, 9 main components of the course, web tools used, etc), the outcome, and lessons learned. A refreshing example to read, especially for others in a similar position, but also for experienced online instructors.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Wiktionary


A multilingual wiki-style dictionary. "...includes a thesaurus, a rhyme guide, phrase books, language statistics, extensive appendices. ...not only the definition of a word, but also enough information to really understand it. ...etymologies, pronunciations, quotations, synonyms, antonyms, translations..."

Free Online MIT Course Materials for High School

MIT OpenCourseWare ~ Highlights for High School: Free Online MIT Course Materials for High School. By now most educators know that MIT has opened its courses to public access. Now they've added content for high school teachers/students. Check out their resources for the maths/sciences (calculus, biology, physics), their hands-on learning labs (chemistry, physics). Explore their section on writing: essays, technical writing, rhetoric, short stories, web design.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Moodlerooms

Want to try out Moodle but you need a server/host location? Check out this company. They offer hosting for individuals as well as organizations. They also offer user training, moodle customizations, and more.
"Moodlerooms’ values are all about community, collaboration and communication in the interest of lifelong learning. We seek to build, facilitate and be part of a community of like-minded educators endeavoring to extend and enrich the learning experiences of their students. We also seek to foster a community of educators who understand that teaching is a collaborative thing. We believe teachers and students learn more when they share knowledge with each other, challenge each other, and inspire each other."