Adobe CS Design Premium Suite—The Premium Design Suite combines all of the common tools that web designers use to develop graphics; edit photos; draw custom illustrations; design buttons, tabs, and clip art; generate animated objects; and lay out web pages in a variety of programming languages. A few of the popular applications included are:
Flash—Flash is the premier authoring tool for animation and interactive objects that can be used for a variety of online platforms and small devices.
Photoshop—Photoshop is one of Adobe's original and most popular software programs. It can be used to edit and transform photographs and images. It is a very powerful tool that photographers have trusted for years.
Dreamweaver—Dreamweaver is an industry-leading web-authoring tool that offers both a scripting view (for programmers) and a design view (for web designers and developers).
Instant Message Application: Skype, Yahoo, GoogleTalk
Social Bookmarking Sites: Delicious or Diigo
For more information about how social bookmarking sites work, watch this brief video on the Common Craft Show: Social Bookmarking in Plain English.
Mind Mapping Resources: Spinscape; IHMC Cmap; Webspiration; Bubbl.us; Text2Mindmap; FreeMind
Suggestions for use: Mind mapping websites provide an alternative to proprietary software such as Inspiration® and can be used to create graphic organizers and share them with collaborators.
Collaboration Resources: Google Groups; Google Docs; Elluminate
These resources will allow you to collaborate asynchronously or synchronously so groups can meet and construct artifacts despite the distance between group members. Each of these resources works differently and provides different options. Elluminate allows groups of 3 or fewer to use their webinar program free of charge. Google is always free but does provide simultaneous conferencing interactivity.
Productivity Bundle: OpenOffice Suite
You will need to have, at a minimum, word-processing software such as Microsoft Word. If you do not have productivity software, or if you use a word-processing software that is uncommon, you can download a free suite called OpenOffice that has a very similar layout to Microsoft Office. The software bundle includes a word processor, a spreadsheet application, and a presenter application similar to PowerPoint.
Note: In order to avoid compatibility issues, please save your work as “.doc”, “.docx”, or “.rtf” files.
Blog Sites: blogger.com; classblogmeister.com; Edublogs.org; wordpress.com; teachersfirst.com
For more information about how blogs work, watch this brief video on the Common Craft Show: Blogs in Plain English.
RSS Aggregators: bloglines.com or feedreader.com or reader.google.com
For more information about how RSS aggregators work, watch this brief video on the Common Craft Show: RSS in Plain English.
Course Management Resources:
Free, Web-Hosted Solutions:
Haiku: Haiku LMS; RCampus:RCampus.com Edu 2.0: edu20.org
Free Course Management Software:
Moodle: moodle.org
Moodle software is free and open source. However, finding a website to host your Moodle site is not free. If you have access to a website or web-hosting service through a company, university, or Internet service provider, Moodle is an excellent option to build your course. You can also purchase web space through a variety of vendors for a relatively low fee, which will allow you to install Moodle and host your own site.
Wiki Sites: wikispaces.com; wetpaint.com; pbworks.com
For more information about how a wiki works, watch this brief video on the Common Craft Show: Wikis in Plain English.
Online Gradebooks: Engrade; MyGradeBook; SnapGrades; ThinkWave; TeacherEase; TheGradeNetwork
Online gradebooks provide a web-based application to store grades, list assignments, and provide many other features that help Instructors communicate with and manage their student population.
Share Space Sites: slideshare; authorSTREAM
These websites allow users to upload audio files, presentations, Word documents, and spreadsheets, and store them for free. The files can be accessed by anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. Links are provided to embed files for downloading or presentations to be watched on your own website or blog. This feature is very helpful for educators who want to compile resources in one central location.
Video and Podcasting Resource Sites:
youtube.com; video.yahoo.com; video.google.com; podcastforteachers.org
These free websites allow users to upload video and audio files and to store them for free. They can then be accessed by anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. Links to embed the video in user websites is one of youtube.com's features that is very helpful for educators who want to provide immediate access to videos or podcasts that they create in their own websites.
These are quick and easy websites that allow you to make podcasts with your phone and upload them.
For more information about how a podcast works, watch this brief video on the Common Craft Show: Podcasting in Plain English.
Video/Audio Editing Resources:
Audacity—Free software that can be downloaded and used for recording audio in your computer and editing the audio once you have recorded it.
Jahshaka; Blender—Open source video and audio editing application.
Screencasting and Interactive Learning Object Resources:
Adobe Captivate—This software allows users to create podcasts, screencasts, quizzes, and simulations utilizing the powerful and popular programming language ActionScript, available in Adobe Flash, without needing to know how to write in ActionScript code. A trial version can be downloaded for free, but in order to continue using the software, a license must be purchased.
Adobe Presenter—Rapidly create high-impact Adobe Flash presentations and eLearning courses from PowerPoint. With just a few clicks in PowerPoint, you can transform presentations into engaging Flash multimedia experiences. Easily add narration, animations, interactivity, quizzes, and software simulations to eLearning courses.
Camtasia Studio—This software allows users to create films of desktop activity and record audio to create demonstrations. It also features extensive editing tools. The software requires the user to purchase a license, but the initial download and trial version is free.
CamStudio—This software is a free open-source suite that is very similar to the functions and features of Camtasia Studio. It allows users to capture desktop activity and record audio to make AVI video files that can be streamed or distributed.
Debut Video Capture Software—An easy-to-use video recorder program that captures video files directly on a PC, Debut will record video from any of the following sources: webcam, capture device, or computer screen. This video recording software is provided for free by NCH Software, which offers a suite of other great, free tools for producing multimedia.
For a free, short tutorial on how to create a screencast using CamStudio, click on Screencasting How To: CamStudio.| < Prev | Next > |
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