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Third Party Tools for Teaching  and Learning

Page history last edited by Diann Maurer 1 mo ago

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Considerations for Teaching and Learning with Third-Party Tools:

The web is rich with tools that can be used by students and instructors to create, write, and share materials. This page is designed to provide you with some introductory ideas and information about how web-based tools may be used for teaching and learning.

 

What is the purpose of using this tool?

How will this tool help me or my students achieve a learning objective?

How will the addition of this tool enchance the learning experience/

How will I teach this tool?

What mangement considerations are there to consider?

 

Social Networking/Social Bookmarking Mobile Learning Collaboration and Communication Document/File Sharing
Media Sharing Presentation Virtual World and Gaming Providing Feedback for this page

 

Social Networking/Social Bookmarking 

Tools Description Fees Examples Instructions
Ning "Easily create, customize and grow a Ning Network around a unique interest or passion in minutes, and for free." Free

Link to a short video about use of Ning for an activist project.

Link to Ning's help page.

 

Edublogs Free blog creation/search  tool for everyone in education, from students to administrators" Free

Link to a sample blog.

Link to Edublog help search page.

Facebook Most students already utilize Facebook daily.  Why not use it as a course organization and collaboration tool? Free

Link to TWU's Facebook page for off campus students.

Link to Facebook's help page.

Digg Digg is a social bookmarking tool, which allows users to gather resources (such as news articles) from all over the web and discuss them. Free  

Link to Digg's FAQ page.

 

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Mobile Learning

Tools Description Fees Examples Instructions
Audacity Free audio editing/recording software, used to record and edit voice presentations, such as podcasts. Free  

Link to Audacity's wiki tutorials page.

Facebook Most students already utilize Facebook daily.  Why not use it as a course organization and collaboration tool? Free

Link to TWU's Facebook page for off campus students.

 

Link to Facebook's help page.

 

 

 

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Collaboration and Communication 

Tools Description Fees Examples Instructions
Animoto This tool allows users to mix images, audio, and information slides to create unique presentations.

Free in basic version.

Link to pricing guide.

 

Link to Animoto examples created by students and educators.

Link to Animoto FAQ page.
Glogster Glogster allows users to mix audio, video, images, and text to create digital posters for printing or embedding. Free

Link to a sample glog.

Link to instructions page.

Toondoo Spaces Toondoo Spaces allows users to "publish, share and discuss your comic strips with your group members in a secure and private environment!" Link to pricing guide.

Link to a Toondoo comic book.

Link to Toondoo help site.

Voki "Voki is a free service that allows you to create personalized speaking avatars and use them on your blog, profile, and in email messages." Free

Link to One A Day's Take a Stand tool, utilizing Voki.

 
VoiceThread VoiceThread is a "a tool for having conversations around media.... A VoiceThread can securely capture an hold an entire group discussion on one simple page."

Link to pricing guide.

Link to a sample instructor VoiceThread.

Link to introductory/instructional VoiceThread.

WikiSpaces WikiSpaces offers an easy way to collaborate and share information, documents, images, and other files.  WikiSpaces can also be used to build and manage eportfolios.

Free in Basic version.

Link to pricing guide.

Link to a Columbia University video of a panel discussion on the use of wikis and WikiSpaces.

Link to a 2 minute introductory video.

The page also offers a menu of more in depth tutorials.

PBWorks PBWorks is the wiki tool used to create this page!  Like WikiSpaces, PBWorks makes collaboration and document sharing easy for students and instructo

Free in basic version.

Link to pricing guide.

Link to Louisiana Delta Community College case study on the use of wikis.

Link to PBWorks help and tutorial page.

MediaWiki Totally free wiki creation software. Free  

Link to MediaWiki's user manual.

Drop.io "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."

Upload up to 100 MB free.  Link to pricing guide.

Link to a drop created by a TWU instructor. Link to a Drop.io demo video.
ZohoShow "The online tool for making powerful presentations.Zoho Show's pre-built themes, clipart and shapes coupled with features like drag-and-drop makes it an easy application to use."

Free in Basic version.

Link to pricing guide.

Link to sample presentation.

 
Weebly Free tool for creating websites.  Weebly features a drag and drop editor for easy creation/editing.

Free in basic version.

Link to pricing guide.

Link to sample Weebly website.

Link to Weebly support and help page.

Ediscio Flashcard creation tool. Free

Link to sample set Geometry of flashcards.

Link to Ediscio tutorial page.

Hot Potatoes "The Hot Potatoes suite includes six applications, enabling you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web." Free    

 

 

 

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Document/File Sharing 

Tools Description Fees Examples Instructions
PBWorks PBWorks is the wiki tool used to create this page!  Like WikiSpaces, PBWorks makes collaboration and document sharing easy for students and instructo

Free in basic version.

Link to pricing guide.

Link to Louisiana Delta Community College case study on the use of wikis.

Link to PBWorks help and tutorial page.

 
MediaWiki Totally free wiki creation software.

Free

 

Link to MediaWiki's user manual.

WikiSpaces WikiSpaces offers an easy way to collaborate and share information, documents, images, and other files.  WikiSpaces can also be used to build and manage eportfolios.

Free in Basic version.

Link to pricing guide.

Link to a Columbia University video of a panel discussion on the use of wikis and WikiSpaces.

Link to a 2 minute introductory video.

The page also offers a menu of more in depth tutorials.

 
Drop.io "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."

Upload up to 100 MB free.  Link to pricing guide.

Link to a drop created by a TWU instructor.

Link to a demo video for Drop.io
GoogleDocs This tool from Google is a word processor, as well as presentation and spreadsheet creation/uploading tool. Free

Link to GoogleDocs case study.

Link to GoogleDocs help page.

 

 

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Media Sharing 

Tools Description Fees Examples Instructions
Drop.io "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."

Upload up to 100 MB free.  Link to pricing guide.

Link to a sample drop created by a TWU instructor.

Link to a demo video for Drop.io.
dotSUB Video hosting website. Free

Link to "Buffy vs Edward," a video hosted by dotSub.

 
SchoolTube Educational answer to YouTube.  Create channels and upload videos for sharing/streaming. Free

Link to sample video found on SchoolTube

 

Link to SchoolTube's information page for educators.

SnagFilms Video hosting website. Free

Link to Searching for Angela Shelton, hosted by SnagFilms

 
EduTube "EduTube is an educational video search [tool].... EduTube focuses on organizing existing videos rather than adding new ones." Free

Link to sample video found on EduTube.

Link to EduTube's FAQ page.

 

 

 

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Presentation

Tools Description Fees Examples Instructions
Prezi Unique presentation tool, which allows users to discover/present information in a nonlinear way.

Free in Basic version.

Link to Pricing Guide

 

Link to Prezi demo, done as a Prezi.

Link to instructional Prezi page.

Wordle "Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text."  Simply copy and paste a selection of text, and Wordle automatically creates a "word cloud," which shows the most prominant words. Free

Link to a sample wordle.

Link to Wordle FAQ page.

 

GoogleDocs This tool from Google is a word processor, as well as presentation and spreadsheet creation/uploading tool. Free

Link to GoogleDocs case study.

Link to GoogleDocs help page.

ZohoShow "The online tool for making powerful presentations.Zoho Show's pre-built themes, clipart and shapes coupled with features like drag-and-drop makes it an easy application to use."

Free in Basic version.

Link to pricing guide.

Link to sample presentation.

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SchoolTube Educational answer to YouTube.  Create channels and upload videos for sharing/streaming. Free

Link to sample video found on SchoolTube

 

 

 

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Virtual World and Gaming 

Tools Description Fees Examples Instructions
SecondLife Link to TWU SecondLife information page      
       

 

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Providing Feedback for this Page

We are interested in how you are using third-party tools for teaching and learning and would appreciate your feedback. As you explore and utilize tools for teaching, we encourage you to share your experiences with us by using the comment feature at the end of this page. 

 

When leaving comments, consider including the following information in your post:

  1. What tool did you use?
  2. How easy/difficult was the tool to use?
  3. Would you recommend the tool to faculty?
  4. What were student's reactions to the activity you used the tool for?
  5. Do you have a link to an example you would like to share?

 

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