Recently, I was sitting in the back of a room during a technology workshop. The speaker was asking, “How many of you use ____?” Each time I raised my hand. Finally, the lady next to me shoved a notebook and pen at me and said, “What are your 10 favorite tools?” It made me think…this is what we should be sharing in MCCE (along with the support and purchasing questions). So here are my favorite tech tools (available for both mac and pc) in no particular order:
Flock: new social browser - I think I like it better than Firefox!
VoiceThread: web 2.0 story-telling tool (kind of)
Inspiration: concept mapping software
Google….Everything!! …Docs, News Reader, iGoogle, Earth, Timeline, Gmail and more
Blogger: blogging software (Word Press is new to me)
Del.icio.us: social bookmarking - this is flocking amazing! Sorry, inside joke. My username is caskeyd…add me to your network!
iTunes If you think this program is just to play music...think again. You can get audio books, rent movies, watch TV shows....and that is just the entertainment part. Podcasts are free, contain all kinds of educational information, and...you can create your own! That is so cool.
TeacherTube, SchoolTube & YouTube: these video sharing sites will let you expand your bag of tricks and resources. You can find information on pretty much any subject and it is a social site, so you can upload your own videos and share them!Other Tools (Fun & Function):
MooURL: Have a long URL, use this tool to shorten it when you are sharing with friends.
VLC: media player…opens multiple types of video including flash (.flv) and exports to multiple file types. Very handy!
UnPlug: an extension for Firefox that lets you extract media from websites.
VoiceThread: an online story creation tool that is super easy to use
Jooce: a cool website that turns your browser into a desktop environment - use this to share media files.
Skype: Chat software with video capabilities
SlideShare: a website where you can post and share your powerpoint shows.
