Thanks to Kirsty Lowdon for her presentation at the OCR Annual A L Media Studies Conference 2014
Audio tools
Create and upload your own
podcast or find a variety of free podcasts.
Video tools
WeVideo is an
online video editing program that you can use collaboratively with others. It
is easy to add effects, music and narration to a personal or group project.
WeVideo also takes the hassle out of sharing by providing options for popular
social media sites.
If you want to
include a YouTube video that isn’t entirely appropriate or relevant, use Tubechop to cut out all of the
excess and only keep what you want to show.
Organisation tools
Google Calendar is great
for planning lessons, exams and keeping track of assignment due dates. It’s
fast, intuitive, and only requires a Google account. It also has the ability to
sync with some smart phones.
Remember the Milk is a free
online to-do list and task manager. It’s cool because you can use it from a
number of different platforms including Gmail, Twitter, iPad, iPhone, Android,
and more.
A lot of students have a hard
time giving class presentations, but Cueprompter
helps to relieve some of the nerves. Copy and paste your script into
the box and it displays just like a real teleprompter. Plus, it’s free to use.
Photo storage
Photobucket is a
popular website that can be used to store and share your images and videos for
free. It’s a handy tool for transferring files between your home and work
computer.
Like Photobucket, Flickr is another free image
hosting service that allows you to access your files from any computer with an
internet connection.
MediaFire is a free
file and image hosting website. It is nice because you can upload and download
your documents from any computer with an internet connection and only you have
access to them.
Sharing tools
SlideShare is one of
the most popular ways to upload and share PowerPoint presentations and other
documents. Again, this is a great tool for transferring documents between your
home and school computer without having to carry around a flash drive.
Scribd is a web
2.0 document sharing site where you can upload, store and embed various types
of files. It’s another popular option for moving files between your home and
school computer.
Enjoy 10GB of free file
storage at 4shared. Since
everything is stored in the cloud, you can access it from any computer with an
internet connection.
AuthorSTREAM is
another one of many websites that allow you to upload a PowerPoint presentation
and access it from any computer with an internet connection. It’s nice because
you can select the privacy settings you want for your PowerPoint.
Writeboard allows
you to create sharable, web-based text documents that let you save and view
every version of your content. It can be used as an individual or
collaboratively which makes it perfect for group assignments.
Mindmapping/Brainstorm/timelines/graphs tools
As one of the largest and
most popular flashcard creation websites around, Quizlet allows students and teachers to customize their own
“sets” of flashcards. You can manage access to the flashcards you create and
share them with other students.
With Dipity, you can find, create and embed interactive
timelines. The best part is that you can add photos to customize the look of
each timeline. This website is very useful for providing you
with a visual representation of a sequence of events.
Timetoast
is a great way to share the past, or even the future...
Creating a timeline
takes minutes, it's as simple as can be.
You can use Gliffy to create attractive and
professional graphic organizers like Venn diagrams and flow charts.
Unfortunately, to receive full access to their services, you have to pay for
it. However, you can sign up for a free 30 day trial.
Use Bubbl.us to create colorful online mind maps. It’s great for
class discussions and brainstorming sessions
Use Create-a-Graph to make attractive graphs for free. Choose
from bar, line, area, pie and simple XY coordinate graphs.
Mindomo is
an online mind mapping tool. You can collaborate in
real-time with others and share/embed what you’ve created. You get 3 free
mind maps.
Tricider is
great
for online brainstorming and voting, and can be used to gather feedback
from other students on class projects and awards. You can even embed and
share your
topic which makes it easy to get responses.
Tagxedo is an great word cloud creation tool. You can turn customized text, websites,
blogs, twitter accounts and more into stunning designs based on the frequency
of words found in the medium. There are numerous designs and color schemes to
choose from that can be saved to your computer or shared.
Wordle.Create
beautiful word clouds from text that you provide. Like Tagxedo, it gives
prominence towords that appear most frequently. You can save, print and share
your creation.
Filming the screen tools
Screencast-O-Matic is an
online screen recorder with a one-click recording feature. You can use it from
your browser on either a Windows or Mac computer.
Screencast is another
media storage website. With a free account, you get 2GB of storage and 2GB of
bandwidth a month. You keep the rights to everything you upload and you can
determine the privacy settings for each file. From there, Screencast makes it
easy to share and embed your media. Screencast also works seamlessly with
TechSmith’s screen recording Camtasia software.
Screenr is one of
the best instant screencast tools available. It’s free and you can record on
your PC or Mac, play it anywhere—even on your iPhone—and there’s nothing to
download (as long as you have JAVA installed on your computer).
Image and video comment tools
VoiceThread’s group
conversations are stored and shared in one place, from anywhere in the world.
It allows you to create multimedia slideshows with images, videos and
documents. Others can view the slides and then leave text, audio or video
comments.
Blabberize is a fun
web 2.0 tool that allows you to upload a picture (of a person or animal),
select its mouth, and make it talk by adding an audio file.
Image editing tools
Create your own comic strip for free. You can
write in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Latin. After
you’re done creating, you can print your customized comic or email it to
yourself.
Pixlr is a free
online photo editing tool. It’s like PhotoShop, but much more affordable!
PicMonkey makes creative tools for photo editing and graphic design.
Presentation tools
Prezi is a really neat
cloud-based presentation program that allows you to zoom in and out. If you
don’t mind your slides being public, you can sign up for a free account with
100MB of storage.
Use Animoto to easily create presentations and videos with your
own images and music, or choose from a library of stock files. Teachers can
apply for a free Animoto Plus account.
Use Diigo to highlight text and images on webpages that you’ve
found and then access them at a later date from your Diigo account. You can
also create sticky notes if you need to write additional comments. When you
return to the website, all of the annotations you made are still there.
Glogster is a social network that allows
users to create free interactive posters, or Glogs. A "Glog", short
for "graphics blog", is an interactive multimedia image. It looks
like a poster, but readers can interact with the content.
ZooBurst is a digital storytelling
tool that lets anyone easily create his or her own 3D pop-up books.
Scrapbook tools
Padlet (formerly
WallWisher) is basically an online message board where you post “Sticky Notes.”
You can make one for yourself to help you remember important events and dates,
or create one for a class. You can even choose to approve each sticky note
before it is created so that you can monitor what’s being said.
Scrapblog is an online,
flash-based multimedia scrapbook editor. It allows you to quickly combine your
images, audio, and video into ‘scrapblogs’.
Feedback tools
Poll Everywhere is an
inexpensive and quick alternative for clicker response systems. Create your
first poll in 30 seconds without having to sign up. Students simply text
their answer to a predetermined number and, voila! Poll Everywhere is free if
your class size is fewer than 40 students.
Managing blogs
With Edublogs, you can create and manage your own teacher blog as
well as student blogs. You can customize designs and include videos, images and
podcasts. Best of all, it’s safe and secure.
1. Padlet: this app allows you to put together a 'wall' of stuff. It looks a bit like Pinterest but is probably best used as a way of everyone in class putting up their ideas on a whiteboard, so it becomes like a 'live team wall' for sharing ideas and work done. Here's an example from a lower school english lesson:
Apps and tools you may not know... With thanks to Pete Fraser Pete's Media Blog HERE
Thanks to my friends @NYPotamitis and @dave_w_harrison, who use some of these tools on their diploma course and are able to recommend them for media projects. Some you may know, some you may use already, some you may find just do the same thing as other apps you use, but they are all free and online and relatively easy to use.1. Padlet: this app allows you to put together a 'wall' of stuff. It looks a bit like Pinterest but is probably best used as a way of everyone in class putting up their ideas on a whiteboard, so it becomes like a 'live team wall' for sharing ideas and work done. Here's an example from a lower school english lesson:
2. Trello: this is effectively a
'digital to do list' and is ideal for long term group projects like
coursework. You can organise things into three columns, for example,
with 'to do', 'doing' and 'done' and gradually tasks shift to the third
column, giving a sense of completion. Here's one from a diploma project:
3. Piktochart is an
excellent tool for making infographics, which can look pretty good and
express your information in really clear, visual terms. When you login,
it even has fellow members online to help you with problems! Here's one
on computer programming:
4. Simplebooklet
allows you to create attractive booklets from otherwise dull material
and stick them online. It is a bit like templates for desktop
publishing, but can certainly liven up your material:
If you click on the image above, you can go into any of the booklets and
see what is possible. It would be a good way of producing a summary of
your research and planning work from your blog, for example.
5. Pixlr is a cut-down online picture
editing tool. It doesn't do as much as Photoshop, but it is free and
accessible anywhere. Give it a try.
6. Animoto: You may be familiar with
this video editor, but if not, give it a try. It allows you to make up
to 30 second videos out of stills, so is ideal for presenting bits of
research as slightly more sophisticated slideshows.
Christina's video above shows her storyboard.
7. Finally, Kickstarter- why
not think about using it in combination with some of these apps and
tools to make your project that little more 'real'? really helps you to
get to grips with issues of audience and institution!
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