2009 Top 100 Tools for Learning

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009

View more documents from Jane Hart.

Google in our Cloudy Future - Chrome OS

Google has big plans and wants to move all our "stuff" to the web.
Read the blog post for more background.

Wallwisher - No log in necessary

This is an online notice board. You create a background then add stickies and move them around to gather and organize your ideas. You are issued a URL even before you start, so you can embed the "wall" in another online doc, app, blog, wiki, etc.... Great ice breaker.

Publish it online - Just upload the .pdf

If you can type it - you can publish it online to issuu. Have your students turn their work in here, and be available for all to read. Re-think the tired Powerpoint or any other documents you want to make available. Publish to issuu - link to your own website. Even deliver your school newspaper through issuu.com.

Book Glutton - A Social Reading Event for your classroom

Read with a group, have a conversation about a paragraph, upload your own works, or read from their library. This site has a wealth of possibilities for Language Arts teachers, and many others. This site believes "books are conversations".

drop.io

Create your own shared space, then use a cell phone to add recorded information to this shared space. Add/upload images, files, too. Email directly to your space and also subscribe to receive all other updates from collaborators. Easy.
Simple real-time sharing, collaboration, and presentation.
Use drop.io to privately share your files and collaborate in real time by web, email, phone, mobile, and more. Create each drop in two clicks and share what you want, how you want, with whom you want.

Gapminder puts statistics into dynamic graphical images

Watch as the statistics gathered for hundreds of categories of information from countries around the world change before your eyes. A truly global tool for today's students.

Gapminder is a non-profit venture promoting sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of statistics and other information about social, economic and environmental development at local, national and global levels.

We are a modern “museum” that helps making the world understandable, using the Internet.

Gapminder was founded in Stockholm by Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund and Hans Rosling on February 25, 2005.

Wiffiti is back! Post to the web from your Cell

Send a text message to 87884.
Start the message with @loca2730 and it will post a message to this screen.
Create many screens, each will have a different @loca address. Post from the web or from a cell phone. In the classroom??? Why not?

What Kind of Smart RU?

Take a quick test to see the different intelligences you use and where your strengths lie. Which are the strongest, and which do you use less? Try it with your students and let them discover there's more than one way to learn.

No Future Left Behind

When kids at the Suffern Middle School Tech Club were asked to talk about education and their future, they gave Peggy Sheehy, the SMS media specialist, an earful. Other students heard about the project and joined in. They brainstormed the script and started filming. Listen and learn the bits of wisdom that can be gleaned from the students, if we only dare to ask them.

wiffiti - What if cell phones could write

If you text me - 25622 - and start the message @02420sue, it will post your message on my wiffiti screen which is viewable when I login and view my site. I could project the active site to a screen in a classroom and receive text ideas from students, teachers, etc. Messages are screened by the site. Wiffiti is a start up located in Somerville, MA. Real cool.

Today I noticed my Cluster Map from last year finally had a hit from Africa and South America. 454 hits total for last year. Nice feeling to be so connected, if only this little bit.

jing - a ling

I love jing! I first downloaded it and installed it on my iMac and my Dell laptop because I needed to make training videos for my staff. It was so easy... but I'm using it all the time now as a screen capture for images while using my Dell. Mac has always had an easy screen capture built in, but not so PC. Jing does it and even includes a marquee tool to get just the piece I'm looking for. jing - a ling! I also like how the jing sun is always up in the corner of my screen, too.

Your virtual SMARTBoard

Just heard about this tool on twitter. If have an overhead projector connected to your classroom computer, and a whiteboard as your "chalkboard" you'd be all set for active board activities.
Simple and easy online multi user whiteboard, start skrbl, give out your URL & start working together. Sketch, text, share files, upload pictures all in one common shared space. There are no new tools to learn, nothing to download, nothing to install. Brainstorm on our simple whiteboard to start thinking together, everyone sees the same screen, everybody gets on the same page. More about skrbl here

Did You Know?

The latest version of Carl Fisch's video originally shown August 2006 to the teachers in his Colorado school.

Wordle - Images with Tags

Wordle will create a design using your del.icio.us tag cloud. It will also create a design with any collection of words. This is my cloud. I love how it really tells about the focus of my interests now. Do you see Tim's name in there, too? I'm working on a digital storytelling class now, and will start my VTClass in July and finished up the Virtual Projects class last March. Moodle should be bigger, but then again, I just use it, I don't read about it. All on Web2.0. Nihce.

23 Things - Web 2.0 at its best

The librarians of Macom County have created a fun list of activities that will instantly get educators involved with the best Web 2.0 tools and concepts. They have picked the best; flickr, rss, blogs and wikis. Along the way you record your experiences and challenges and if you complete the 23 tasks in a given amount of time, you get a prize! Yippee. And if you get stuck they suggest you consult the other staff members in your school for help. A wonderful concept. Planning to try it in my school next fall. I might even plan it out as an iGoogle adventure through their list of Web2.0 wonders.

Adobe PhotoShop Express

Adobe is now making it possible to do a quick fix to a photo and also save it online, right in the fix-it shop. Crop, adjust color and lighten images. Also apply simple effects and wipe out red eye. Nice gallery feature, too and direct access to other sharing sites. Wish you could get to flickr... but maybe in time.

PHUN - a new fisicks toi

Just heard about this new physics interactive free downloadable "toy" for experimenting . Picked it up from a twitter post on Saturday morning... Thanks Remote Access and glassbeed.

Finally tried VoiceThread - it's awesome!

I made a tiny voicethread about my favorite April vacation spot.

This is all free, and if a teacher wanted to use it for a project, they would be able to create different users and have their students comment along with the teacher in a class thread. I've made some alias's to show how this works.