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21Classes.com January 30, 2008

Posted by Jim in : Blogging, Service , add a comment

This free service gives you a class web portal and blogs for each of your students. It’s easy to set up and customize the class home page. It’s also easy to register students. You can do it or set the site so that students can sign up. The free version gives you space for 50 students. Each student has a blog and can customize their own blog. Each student gets 2 Mb of space. You can send email to students, but the free site does not  provide email accounts. You have to use other email services. Blogs can be private to the class.

http://www.21classes.com/

Screencast-o-matic.com April 1, 2007

Posted by Jim in : Presentation , add a comment

Screencast-o-matic

Screencast-O-Matic is the free and easy way to create a video recording of your screen (aka screencast) and upload it for free hosting all from your browser with no install!

This free service does essentially what Camtasia or SnapZ Pro does. You can record your voice as you do something on the computer and record whatever activity you do. You can store the screencast on their server for free or you can download the recording as a Quicktime movie. Here’s a sample recording I did about using Tumblr.com.

Tumblr.com April 1, 2007

Posted by Jim in : Blogging , add a comment

Tumblr

Tumblelogs are like blogs with less fuss. Tumblr is your friendly and free tool for creating tumblelogs.

This is the easiest, fastest way to set up and use a blog. Here’s a sample blog I created using Tumblr. You could use it as a clipping service to keep track of the things you find on the net. Instructors could use it for announcements or weekly To-Do Lists. Students could use it for journals or to gather and share resources.

Ecto February 6, 2007

Posted by Jim in : Blogging , add a comment

I’m trying out Ecto which is an offline blog editor (an application for Mac OSX which cost $17.95). I’m not sure how this actually works. I just noticed that it does have spell checking as you type. Misspelled words are red underlined.
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Free Software for Students January 15, 2007

Posted by Jim in : Service , add a comment

This website has collected a wealth of open source software (Mac and Win) for students including word processing, media production, blogging, and more.

SoftwareFor.org: Home of Software for Starving Students

Software for Starving Students is a free collection of programs organized for students (but available to anyone). We’ve gathered a list of best-in-class programs onto one CD (one disc for OS X, one for Windows), including a fully-featured office suite, a cutting-edge web browser, multi-media packages, academic tools, utilities and more.

Odeo – Record, Store, and Share Audio January 9, 2007

Posted by Jim in : Audio , add a comment

My favorite free audio service is Odeo.com. You can record directly to their site using a Flash recorder and you can create your own channel (podcasts). Better yet you can link people to a record page so they can leave you a voicemail message. They also provide you with a very nice player widget which you can embed in your blog or web page.

Download MP3 file (6.8 Mb, 64 kbps, 22khz, stereo).

See ODEO recording.

Toufee Presentation Service January 5, 2007

Posted by Jim in : Pictures, Presentation, Service , add a comment

Toufee is a free presentation service that uses Flash to create stunning slideshows. I particularly like their text to speach capability. They give you a variety of voices to choose from. Check out my sample.

Performancing January 5, 2007

Posted by Jim in : Blogging, Extentions , 2 comments

Performancing is a Firefox extention that adds a blog editor and publisher to the browser. You can use it while browsing to compose and publish a blog post. Its Category feature works with the new blogger Labels. This is a very useful tool for blog publishing. Features include:

I use it when I make a discovery while browsing to post to this blog.

iPhotoToGallery January 5, 2007

Posted by Jim in : Extentions, Pictures , add a comment

This extention to iPhoto adds the ability to upload images to a Photo Gallery on your web server. If you use iPhoto on your Mac to organize your photo collection, you’ll want this extention. It lets you upload multiple images and your iPhoto keywords and titles are used in Photo Gallery. Image files can be set to automatically resize to a preset size before they are uploaded.

Talkr – Text to Speech January 5, 2007

Posted by Jim in : Audio, Blogging , add a comment

Talkr adds text to speech for each post of your blog. There is only one female voice available, but it sounds pretty natural.