Crocodoc

Crocodoc is a site I just learned about from Larry Ferlazzo's wonderful blog. This is a place where people can upload their data and then have users collaborate on it via a unique URL. This is done by annotating/highlighting, etc.

Give Crocodoc a try by clicking here.

Stat Planet

Stat Planet is an excellent site for mapping/visualizing data, that I found out about from Richard Byrne. It's a nice resource for students (sociology, economics etc) because it is based on different cultural themes and is completely interactive.

Below is a pic on worldwide teacher data...




I highly recommend giving Stat Planet a try by clicking here.

Magic Studio

Magic Studio is a terrific multi-media site for educators. It is a place where users can create, view, upload their data which could include: videos, audio, time lines, quizzes, etc.

Another nice feature of MS is that everything is done in a drag/drop user interface which makes it very easy for a person to use. It feels a little bit like Voice Thread in that regard. Add to that a very nice tutorial and you have the recipe for a really nice tool to use in the classroom.

The only feature I see missing is an educational instance which would allow teachers to create student accounts and have everything being moderated before it gets posted online.

Give Magic Studio a try by clicking here.



Thanks to The Educational Technology Blog for their excellent review.

Flixtime

Flixtime is a site I just learned about from the award winning blog, Free Technology 4 Teachers. This is a site similar to Animoto that it lets you create amazing slide shows.

There is a lot to like about Flixtime such as: their cool graphics, excellent song selection, and the ability to control transitions in your show.

I highly recommend giving Flixtime a try by clicking here.

Below is my example (ignore the watermark)...

SortFix

SortFix is a search engine designed to refine a user search results by editing searching data. For example, I did a search on my name which returned specific results, which I could then alter to refine my search even more.

Below is my example...



Give SF a try by clicking here.

Thanks to Richard Byrne for the tip!!!

Bubbabrain

Bubbabrain is a very nice site for K-12 for interactive whiteboards. I highly recommend checking this out as all flash style card games are based on grade level and subject.

Give Bubbabrain a try by clicking here.

I'd like to thank The Education Technology blog for the tip!!

VisualCV

VisualCV is a great site for creating an online resume/digital portfolio. While there are a bunch of services out there like this, none of them are any easier/better looking to use.

There are some perks to getting the paid version such as customizing your URL, creating a badge w/ a photo, etc. but the free version is more the enough to create a professional looking piece of work.

View my example by clicking here.



I highly recommend checking out VisualCV by clicking here.

I highly highly recommend checking out Shelly Terrell's example which is second to none, by clicking here.

Web 3.0

I've posted before on Web 3.0 and evolution of the internet before, but after reading a great article on the matter I decided to give another post.

Most resources say that the next phase of the web will be the, semantic web. That the web will learn as you browse (kinda like TiVo would) and offer a more customized browsing experience. For example, if you wanted grab a bite to eat and catch a movie, you can in "theory" do it all in one search using meta data known as ontologies. This is a system which is based on tagging and take a lot of work. However, it's this data that a computer can use to determine relationships between one and another.


Eyeplorer is a search engine which uses a Web 3.0 engine. Give it a try by clicking here.

I highly recommend checking out this article for a fascinating read.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on where you think the web is going!!!

Story Jumper

Story Jumper is an excellent new site for creating either online stories or actual hard cover copies of your book. The user interface is very simple to use and it reminds me a lot of My Story Maker. All a person has to do is select a scene (blank if you don't want to use a template) add their characters, objects, text and then publish their book.

If a person would like to get a copy of their book they can do that too starting at $24.99.

I highly recommend checking out Story Jumper by clicking here.

For another excellent review check out Larry Ferlazzo's site.

TV Ark

Tv Ark is a site I just learned about from the wonderful blog, Zarco English. This is an online tv museum intended to preserve the history of the video medium. This is an online tv museum intended to preserve the history of the video medium.

or straight from their site... "The site is intended as a tribute to the work of television presentation and graphics, and to preserve a slice of our social history. TVARK is above all an educational resource. It is popular at home and abroad, used by teachers and students in schools and colleges."

I definitely think this is a valuable resource and something I would loved to have when I when doing my

digital media club.

Give Tv Ark a try by clicking here.

Google Buzz

Google Buzz is a new service by Google which is getting a lot of "buzz" over the internet. (I know, I know, stop w/ the jokes.) Anyway, after watching the video and trying it out myself I must say that I'm quite impressed. It reminds of a cross between Facebook and Twitter w/ Google Wave mixed in. Plus, Google Buzz is already integrated into gMail a user doesn't have to do anything.

So, what does Google Buzz do? It allows people to follow their Google Contacts easily and see what their posts are, similar to Twitter. Also, a person can choose to like a post (a la Facebook), upload/view photos/video right in the window (a la Wave), etc etc.

I highly recommend checking out the video below...

Give Google Buzz a try by clicking here.

YouTube: Safety Mode

YouTube safety mode is finally here. This should make it feasible for school to districts to "lock down" YouTube at the browser level. It even filters out comments which is ideal when in a school setting!!

Below is a Video of safety mode in action...



Click here for more info.

Edmodo

Edmodo is one of the most popular blogging solutions for students. I've mentioned it before and thought this was a great video to see Edmodo in action, click the link below...

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/video?id=7268097

Click here for more info.

GoT

GoT is a site I just learned about from Alex Fransisco's excellent blog, Zarco English. This is a mash-up of Google Blogs and Twitter and is a really nice search engine to use when searching for whats new in technology.

Give GoT a try by clicking here.

Papershow

Papershow is a new interactive presentation kit that will be debuting on a Mac later this week at the MacExpo. The $200 kit comes w/ a blue tooth pen, USB, and special paper. After watching the video (which I highly recommend) it is kind of like having your very own teleprompter attached your visual presentations.

I can really see the benefit of something like this in both the business world and educational field.

Check out the video yourself by clicking here.



For a more in depth review click here.

Citrify

Citrify is a new site for editing photos online. There are a bunch of tools that do this such as Avairy but Citrify is one of the nicest ones around. For example, when a user uploads a photo it opens up a new browser window to edit the photo. There is no distracting images/text in the side windows. Also, there are a lot of nice features that a person can use to modify their image such as: touch-ups, special effects, and stickers.



Give Citrify a try by clicking here.

Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo for the tip.

Pretty Graph

Pretty Graph is a new (beta) site for creating beautiful looking charts. It is very similar to Widgenie or Rich Chart Live, where it is very easy to make excellent looking graphs!!

What makes PG really nice is the ability to choose from different styles of graphs: bar, line, heat, pie, etc. and then either print it out or email it to other users.

Below is an example of a scatter plot graph...



Give Pretty Graph a try by clicking here.

Top 10 Digital Book Creators

Creating digital books has inadvertently become a hobby of mine, so I've decided to compile a list of the top ten digital book creators:

1. Mixbook - far away the best site for creating a digital book to either share w/ others or order for a hard copy. Also, educators can create student accounts for better management.
   
2. Bookrix - one of the best sites for advertising your digital book, very user friendly, and a nice social environment.
3. Panraven - a nice site for creating, sharing, and purchasing your digital book.
4. Bookbuilder - nice educational site for creating digital books, user account must be created.
5. PDF Flash - upload a PDF to create a nice looking flash-based digital book.
6. My Publisher - free software which allows user to create fancy looking photo/digital books.
7. Tabblo - create a user account to make digital books w/ photos.
8. Smilebooks - create beautiful looking storybooks w/ either online/download software.
9. Blurb - great site for making photo books to order.
10. LuLu - create real/ebooks w/ this nice looking site.

Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier

I had the great pleasure of catching an excellent special on PBS on technology and how it influences our lives. It is presented in a smooth and fluid format w/ a history of technology and how it has evolved over the years.



What made this program so intriguing as how it covered both sides of a situation. For example, multi-tasking is a theme brought up and how it is so prevalent in today's society. Schools are going one to one, mobile devices are more and more common, and kids today are born as digital natives. The way people get their information is drastically different then how they did 20 years ago. I like how this documentary covered both the good and the bad of technology. While some studies show that students in a one to one situation do better on test scores. It also shows that people aren't necessarily able to learn/retain information better when multi-tasking.

It's a very interesting topic of conversation. Are students that have a laptop in school able to learn better? Well, I think the answer is yes and no, that it depends on the individual. Yes, students can get to information easier but they will also have more distraction w/ a device that can get online. However, that being said I do think that this is the wave of the future, and more and more one to one environments will be happening.

This program also focused on using technology as a marketing tool for the military as well as how some people have become anti-social as addicted to online gaming.

I highly recommend any person who is interested in technology and it's impact on society to check this out... http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/

WordItOut

WordItOut is a site similar to Wordle for creating word clouds. I first heard about this great site from Zarco English one of the great resource sharing blogs out there. What makes WIO so great is how easy it is to use. All a person has to do is paste text in and click create. Also, the user has the ability to tweak their settings and even embed their cloud into their site.



Give WordItOut a try by clicking here.

Blog Companion: V. III (revised)

Finally, I was able to start revising my digital books w/ new content. V. III now has 13 new reviews as well as being up on Mixbook as well as Bookrix. The reason for this is, I want educators to have the latest content as well as being in any format they so choose.

What's exciting is I am now able to turn these digital books into "real" ones which will be handed out at conferences as well as raffled off online through here.



I hope everyone enjoys this as much as the last one!!!

Vidinotes

Vidinotes is a site I just learned about from the excellent blog, Zarco English. This is a site which lets you comment on uploaded videos (flv. format only) in text/audio, and then create a PDF of those notes.

The reason I like Vidinotes so much is because of how easy it is, and that there is nothing out there quite like this.

Below is a screen shot of "capturing" video to turn into notes....



Give Vidinotes a try by clicking here.

AuthorStream

AuthorStream is a great site to upload/share powerpoint documents. In a way it's similar to slideshare w/ more options. Once a user uploads their slideshow, they can either embed them into their site, make them available for download, link to it directly, or even create their own "room" (think YouTube) to "house" all of their presentations.

This really is a neat site to take your powerpoint presentation to the next level.



Give AuthorStream a try by clicking here.

I highly recommend checking out Shelly Terrell's wonderful blog for more excellent ideas/resources for your classroom!!!

Magnoto

Magnoto is a new (beta) site that is similar to Glogster. It is designed to create an interactive wall/web page. The user interface is fairly simple as you can drag/drop all of your multi-media content wherever you like.

For this to be a real eye-opener for educational, it would need a specific instance such as Glogster. This way teachers could monitor and create user accounts for students. However, that being said due to the simplistic design I recommend giving Magnoto a look.



Give Magnoto a try by clicking here.

IsInVideo

IsInVideo is a site I just read about from Alexandra Fransisco, author of the excellent blog, Zarco English. IIV is a real-time search engine for videos.

Give IsInVideo a try by clicking here.

Results on the term, Web 2.0...

Chatzy

I've never really written about back channel applications before until now. Chatzy is a great free site for creating a safe/secure chat room. This is ideal for an educator looking for a quick easy way to create a quick private room to host a chat. The one feature that I think would be nice is if they made it available to embed your chat into a site.

Give Chatzy a try by clicking here.