Jane's Pick of the Day

Internet Buttons - help get people online

I’ve just received an email about Internet Buttons, as follows

“Currently, 9.2 million people are digitally excluded in the UK, of which 6.4 million are over the age of 65. Yet 75% of those excluded know someone who could help get them online.

Designed to get this audience onto and into the Internet in the simplest way possible, Internet Buttons aims to contribute to getting 1 million people online by 2012.

At internetbuttons.org users can set up a page of Buttons, which link to sites and services the person their helping might find useful or enjoyable. It removes all the complicated bits of the internet and makes it easy to keep going back to the places they like.

These Buttons are saved on their own personalised URL (e.g. internetbuttons.org/joanmiller), so they can be accessed from any computer. They work well as a homepage.

The supporting users can also add a photo and message to the page, reminding the person they are helping to call them if they get stuck. As well as better access to personal support, there is extra help for new users on the site via a permanently available helper bar and guides to using their Buttons.

As their experience and confidence grows, new Buttons can easily be added, either remotely by the original creator or by the new user. Suggestions and guides to new Buttons in the ‘Ready-Made Buttons’ section allows users to explore and expand their use of the internet comfortably and gradually.”

Here’s the introductory video:

Looks interesting? Visit: InternetButtons.org

Sapling Learning, Frequency, Revuuit, College Textbooks & GetMyTablet

I receive lots of emails from individuals as well as  companies who have set up new e- or social learning businesses or produced new (or updated versions of) products/tools for education or workplace learning.  Unfortunately, I am not always able to review them all individually, but today I thought I would briefly mention five different resources that I’ve recently been emailed about:

1. Sapling Learning – an online homework solution for science for higher education and high-school markets
2. Frequency – a real time social video platform to simplify the way people discover, watch and share video online.
3. Revuuit - an online system for streamlining the process of gathering SME feedback.  You simply upload a PowerPoint file, invite people to review it, and wait for their feedback. They can see the slides, the instructor notes, and  each other’s feedback as they enter theirs. At the conclusion, you receive a PDF report of everyone’s feedback by slide, making it easier to make the changes, store the feedback, and distribute the feedback with the new updated PPT file.
4. College Textbooks - a free service, allowing you to easily compare prices of any book among major online bookstores worldwide, and find a price which is 30% – 95% off the market list price
5. GetMyTablet – an application that creates a chalkboard on your computer, and allows anyone to write onto it, in realtime.  You can also put architect plans, biology diagrams, etc on the whiteboard, and write on top of it,  and teach remotely.

C4LPT blog

Skype in the classroom is a free online directory for teachers everywhere who want to use Skype to bring education to life.

Skype in the classroom brings together a community of people and information to save teachers time and help them make the most of Skype and the international teaching community.

Teachers create a profile that sets out their interests, specialities and location. They can then browse through the community to look for teachers who can offer them help, or whom they might be able to help. Once teachers find someone they’d like to connect with, they can add that person as a Skype contact, or share Skype-related teaching resources.

Skype in the Classroom

WhatsApp – cross platform mobile messenger

This week I’m in Johannesburg with a client.  Here in South Africa mobile technology and smartphones are very important

I’ve just been introduced to  a new cross-platform mobile messaging app which allows you to exchange messages without having to pay for SMS. WhatsApp Messenger is available for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Nokia – which means that these phones can all message each other!   In addition to basic messaging  WhatsApp Messenger users can send each other unlimited images, video and audio media messages.

I’ve just downloaded it for my iPhone to try it out!

WhatsApp

(Thanks Rob and Hannes)

Learning Tools Directory 2011

I’ve just spent the last few days overhauling the Learning  Tools Directory.  Over the last year there has been quite a lot of change one way or another in terms of tools.

Some tools have disappeared or died (eg gnolia), others have been acquired (eg Dimdim), some have changed their name (eg twine to evri), and some have changed focus and no longer offer what they once did.

In terms of pricing, others have changed their pricing models, with some now only providing a “lite” version for free with pricing plans for more functionality, whereas others are offering free, open source versions – notably a couple of the LMS vendors.

Others have gone from strength to strength, building on their functionality and sophistication. Many have become much more social, e.g. with links to Twitter, Facebook or using their own social features.

So I’ve just rebuilt this year’s Directory – which still lists well over 2,00o tools.  I’ve kept the same structure – with the main 12 categories, but I’ve reorganised the items by sub-category (rather than alphabetically) this time, to make it easier to find tools.  However, as some tools do fall into a number of categories, I’ve also added links across the  Directory to help users find similar, related tools.

Take a look at the 2011 Learning Tools Directory here ...  and if you want to recommend any tool/s, just add them in the Comments of the relevant page/s and I’ll add them in.

Historius - social bookmarking ++

I just read about Historius - a social bookmarking tool - on The Next Web - and thought I would pass on the link. 

Not ANOTHER social bookmarking tool, you are probably thinking!  But the Historius website explains more:

"Do you bookmark most interesting sites and articles? If not, is it because bookmarking a lot is too tedious? If yes, how often do you go back to your bookmarks and how easy is it to find things you're looking for?

historious makes bookmarking much easier by creating your very own, personalized search world. Add sites to historious (you can use our bookmarklet or browser extensions, if you want), and your customized search will be available to search within them. The next time you want to find that interesting article about the economy, just search in historious for "economy" and all the articles about economics you saved will appear. It's as simple as that!"

TheNextWeb's posting about Historius is captioned "the bookmarking tool I’ve been waiting for has finally been built" - so if you have drifted away from bookmarking, maybe this one is worth taking a look

Historius

SearchCredible - educational exploration site

Enter your search query and then select a credible resource. (Note only a few are displayed in the image above)

SearchCredible

(Thanks, Dan Weaver)

Limesurvey

LimeSurvey is an open source survey application - and this year appearing on the emerging Top 100 Tools for Learning 2010 list.

LimeSurvey allows users to quickly create intuitive, powerful, online question-and-answer surveys that can work for tens to thousands of participants without much effort.

The LiveSurvey Manual is focused on " how to install the application, administer the installation, and support the many survey creators, administrators and report generation users likely added"

However, a recent posting on MakeUseOf provides a very useful description of  how to create yourown hosted survey with LimeSurvey.

You can download LimeSurvey at www.limesurvey.org.

For other survey tools, take a look at my list in the Learning Tools Directory- Poll/survey tools are those with a checkmark in the P column

ipadio - phonecast live to the web from any phone

Now with over 200 contributions, the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2010 list is beginning to take shape, although I hope many more people will want to contribute to help build it further.

One tool that has recently popped onto the list is ipadio.   Gordon Wells, a language teacher and developer,  who nominated it for the list, told me more about it. and how he uses it.  He wrote, it is  ..

"as an excellent user-friendly and free tool for genering audio material. I use it in conjunction with Wordpress  (which I would also nomiate) to create media-rich materials incorporating text, audio, and images - sometimes also incorporating YouTube (also nominated!) for video material as an alternative, or in addition to, the audio.

Ipadio is extremely flexible. You can phone in by landline or mobile (the latter meaning you can create materials "on the hoof"), and your basic webpage is created instantaneously.  If you're concerned about sound quality over a telephone line there is also an MP3 upload option.

There are numerous examples here, on my project blog, of Ipadio files embedded into Wordpress posts, using a mobile or landline: guthan.wordpress.com/

Here's an MP3 sample, used for uploading some music, onto my personal blog: gordonwellsuist.wordpress.com/2010/05/08/doubling-up-on-shak-and-sax-musical-bilingualism/

Thanks for the information, Gordon, hope others enjoying take a look.

ipadio

Mobl21 - for educational mobility

What is Mobl21?

"Mobl21 is an easy to use and cost effective platform to deliver educational mobility. Mobl21 is accessible enough for individual teachers and students to adopt, and scalable enough for institutional and enterprise adoption. The unique pedagogy of Mobl21 helps create learning assets that compliment your formal courses, extending the learning opportunity beyond traditional barriers."

What can I do with Mobl21?

• Create learning assets - topical study guides, flash cards and quizzes.
• Manage your content eco-system by making it accessible to designated users and groups.
• Push your content to a desktop widget, social networking sites, iPhone, and iPod touch (more touch points coming soon).

Sign up for free!  You can even experience Mobl21 without signing up or registering.

Mobl21