Web Services & Digital Media brings you . . .

Web Tools and Other Free Software

This site is called a wiki where all invited users can add, revise, delete, and edit the content by clicking on the Edit button at the top of the page. Check out the video - Wikis in Plain English..

As Director of Web Services & Digital Media, I invite you to add to the content of this wiki. If all who use this site agree to add free Web tools to the site with a short write-up as they find them, we will be able to build a very useful resource for all of us. Email csimpson@nvcc.edu for access.

Now what do we mean by the term Web 2.0?  Wikipedia defines Web 2.0 as

"a trend in World Wide Web technology and web design, a second generation of web-based communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies, which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing among users."

These tools have also been called Social Media. They offer a means to connect ideas with others.

What is great about Web tools is that they are free to users and encourage interaction.

Barry Dahl, CIO at Lake Superior College in Culuth, MN, is an excellent resource for those who want to explore free web tools. He makes several presentations each year about Web tools and other free sofware useful in educational technology and elearning. His blogs identify and share new free technologies on a regular basis.

Using Barry Dahl's Barry Dahl dot com site is an excellent way to begin to explore Web tools. This site provides a wealth of information about a wide variety of tools, such as Zoho Writer, flickr, del.icio.us, PBworks, Picnik, Toondoo, iMeem, Blip.tv, and Twitter.

Additionally, Barry has more complete write-ups on

• his blog titled "Top Web Tools " 

   

• his blog titled "Free Web-based Tools" that he maintains and uses for many Web 2.0 workshops that he gives: http://freewebtools.wordpress.com/

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Additional Free Web Tools

Other free tools, applications, websites, and software are available through the Internet.

Some free software and learning resource platforms include:

• Skype - Communications and collaboration tool to be downloaded and installed on your PC to make calls free to others on Skype anywhere in the world.

• Audacity - Cross platform sound editor for creating podcasts and audio files.

• Easy Video Producer - creates videos for the web with ease.

• Gliffy -  Diagraming software to create flow charts, floorplans, and charts.

• Google's Picasa - Means to organize, share, and edit your photos. 

• Google Earth - Places the world's geographic information at your fingertips with satellite imagry, terrain and 3D buildings.

• iGoogle - Creates your own portal page for quick access to many Web 2.0 tools

• iTunes U - Platform for storage of college podcasts; requires iTunes sofware download.

• Jing - Adds visuals to your online conversations.

• Poll Everywhere - A text message polling and audience response system

• Wikipedia - Free encyclopeida in wiki format that anyone can edit.

• Wordle - Generates “word clouds” from text that you provide.

• MERLOT - Collection of multimedia educational resources for learning and online teaching.

Some free sources for social networking

• Blogger/Blogspot - Website development that requires no web editor; website has entries commonly displayed in reverse chronological order with the ability for users to post comments and questions to the content.

• Facebook - Social networking site that allows you to communicate and share with others.

• Flickr - A space where you can share and comment about photos.

• LinkedIn - A career development and sharing resource.

• MySpace - Social networking site that high schoolers us to communicate and share with others.

• Twitter - A service to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

• YouTube - Streaming video sharing site.

Again, you are welcome to add to this list. If you have any questions, contact Cathy Simpson at csimpson@nvcc.edu.