Top Tools for Learning

Great summary by Jane Hart of the top 100 (actually 102) best tools for learning for 2011. Best of all, most are free and available online.

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2011

View more presentations from Jane Hart

Slide Shows

Yet another slide show maker you will say!  Kizoa is really easy to use and allows also for simple editing.  You do have to register, but registration is free.  It also had direct import from facebook as well as editing and then you can republish back into facebook (or anywhere else). Lots of special effects, music too.  Burn slides to DVD, post, or just simply email to friends.
Below is a spring slide show created by students of Lincoln School in Oak Park.
[note: I did go into the code and change the size from 640X480 to 320X240]

Kizoa slideshow: Spring Project - Slideshow

Animoto for Education

Teachers can apply for an education account to create unlimited videos.  When approved, you will also receive a code for 50 students to use for 6 months free of charge.



Enjoy this short video of teachers who were part of this year's GVC contest.

Timeline - Flipbook Tool

Dipity is a free online timeline website. It started with three guys who wanted to get a good idea of what all that searching on the Internet was actually yielding; to make research more efficient; to see the big picture of how any subject affected the past or influenced the future. It allows users to bring history to life with video, audio, text... and yes, it's free. You do have to join Dipity in order to create a timeline. Their FAQ page says that soon they will support exporting of the timeline to PDF, which would also make them printable. Free accounts have some restrictions. Premium accounts start at $4.95/month.

Great possibilities also for digital storytelling.

Photo Album Application

A new tool for creating photo albums is jalbum. You can create your albums online or download the application for creating and saving on your computer, to be published where you wish. The jalbum site gives you 30MB of free space. If you want/need more than that you'll have to upgrade and pay for additional space. There are several default 'skins' [album designs] and more are being created daily for free download. If you have questions, check out their FAQs.

Recommended by Aleksandra Blalteberg, who created this album and this album as samples.

App available for: Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and iPhone.

Flash Slides

The flashslide maker is a free tool http://www.flash-slideshow-maker.com/

"You can easily make a dynamic photo gallery for your website, blog, and CD's. It is user friendly and lots of fun."
Marsha Goren

Free download - Windows only. There is a paid version if you do not want the link back to the site, but the link is tasteful and does not take away from the slide show. There are many templates in which you can choose a unique look. Timing can be controlled; music added. All in all, a nice tool.

See an example here; you may need to click the stop icon to read the words.

Slide Shows

There are many slide show programs available on the web. We will here feature two which you can upload to your own server space.

Both require that you download a simple application for creating the slide show.

PhotoOnWeb [Windows 98 / 2000 / XP / Vista]
is a free program by VSO-Software, France (www.vso-software.fr). The software is a useful tool for creating web photo albums meant for Windows operated computers. It supports different photo formats (such as jpg, tiff, raw, gif, bmp, png and dng) and offers several templates (see examples at http://www.photoonweb.com/en/templates.php) to make a photo web gallery in a simple way.

PhotoOnWeb includes a built-in FTP client – to share a web album one can publish it on a free VSO account (first register for free at http://www.photoonweb.com/en/register.php - free space storage limit = 20 Mb) or send it straight onto a personal webpage server.

PhotoOnWeb download page: http://www.photoonweb.com/en/download.php
This cool tool was suggested by Aleksandra Blalteberg. See one of her galleries of Gdansk.

Gallerie - Macintosh OS X only
http://www.myriad-online.com/en/products/galerie.htm
Quick media gallery web pages.
Also download templates.
Here is a sample of a gallery using the Spring template.

Smilebox

Smilebox is a great way to send ecards and/ or slideshows to your partners. Use your own photos. Hundreds of designs for almost any occasion. Music too, or you can add your own. FREE version does have advertising.

Here's a sample of what you can do.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Adding Bling

Bling is good in small doses! Just be sure not to overdo it. Also be aware that when these sites "host" your video or slide show, they can sometimes be busy and make it appear as if there is a bad link, or format that isn't working.

1. RockYou Text effects
   http://www.rockyou.com/fxtext/fxtext-create.php?ref=front
   Sparlkes, bevels, colors, etc. to make banners or headings.
   
   
2. RockYou Photo FX
   http://www.rockyou.com/photofx/create.php?ref=front
   add sparkles, etc to photos.
   
   
3. RockYou Slideshow
   http://www.rockyou.com/slideshow-create.php?source=fpcws
   Create a slide show with your picture and add music
   
   
4. PhotoPeach
   http://photopeach.com/home
   Similar to Rock You in that you have a video like slideshow made from photos