New Additions to the Digital Backpack #edchat #edtech

I spent some time today updating the Digital Backpack. Here are the new additions (some new tools, other ones have been around a while but I am just now getting around to adding them):

• - Google Custom Search of Ning Sites
• - Generates graffiti style text
• - make your digital photos look like Polaroid™-style images
• - Make your own beatbox music online
• - free online utility to grab and validate all the links from a web page
• - make free calls to telephones from your web browser (no downloads)
• - video search engine that searches across multiple video hosting sites
• - experimental tag-based video search engine
• - test your website on multiple browsers from one site.
• - make still pictures talk with comical moving mouths.
• - Free wiki host. Allows you to create web pages that anyone with a password can quickly and easily edit. Great for community knowledge construction and information gathering.
• - Post Tweets to your Twitter account via a phone call (voice).
  - Capture your Tweets in a PDF ebook.
  - Twitter visualization tool that lets you see how people on Twitter are connected
• - publish rss feeds to your Twitter account
• - Twitter search engine.
• - Twitter Analytics
• - Flash based image editor that looks and feels like a slimmed down version of Adobe Photoshop.
• - Great collection of tools that includes an audio editor, video editor, cartoon creator, and mindmapping tool.
• - Simple web publishing tool: copy and paste content then click publish
• - Simple web-based animation creation tool.
• - Simple web-based animation creation tool.
  
• - Create an RSS widget for your website, wiki, or profile.
• - combine multiple RSS feeds into one
• - Online Spreadsheet Calculator
• - real-time text collaboration (Etherpad replacement)
• -Sound Search Engine
• - Upload photos and add goofy stuff to them.
• - free audiobook podcasts
• - Location-based text messaging service (sends texts to your friends only if they are within a certain area)
• - flash-based mindmapping and flowchart maker
• - Videos for kids to learn from organized by subject
• - Search engine that looks where other engines don't including popular research databases.
• - URL shortening service that also allows you to upload and distribute files
• - Turn lengthy URLs into short ones
• - Turn lengthy URLs into short ones
• - similar image search
• - Merges multiple versions of the same document and shows you where differences exist.

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If you know of any free online tools that should be in the Digital Backpack please let me know by making a comment on this post.

Vuvox

I have been playing with a presentation program called Vuvox today. Vuvox is a web app that lets you create unconventional presentations. The one I chose was called a "collage" but it can best be described as a a scrolling panoramic image. Vuvox nicely integrates multimedia and lets you make objects in your presentation links to other media or websites. One of the best qualities of Vuvox is it forces you to think visually about your presentation. It is nearly impossible to create a boring bulleted slideshow with this tool. I may be using this tool for one of my TIES Conference presentations this year. Below is my working draft for a session titled, iTeach Mobile: Exploring Mobile Technologies for Learning, Instruction and Professional Development that I will be presenting with three of my Goodhue Public Schools colleagues. Enjoy the teaser:

Digital Backpack Updates

It has been a while since I last updated my "Digital Backpack." I know a lot of people use this tool and it is starting to burst at the seems with links to tools. So, I thought I would just highlight what I added last night:

• - Send files to fax machines for free.
• - Online application that lets you create your own animated gif files.
• - Upload a photo and this tool will render it like a David Hockney collage.
• -simple online tool for making animated GIF files.
• - Online audio editor.
• - It's a simple service to convert the web pages to PDF files. No need to install applications on your computer. It's free and without registration!
• - free online file converter
• - Free online file converter
• - converts text messages into proper English.
• - Send and receive free text messages from your computer to others cell phones.
• - Free online whiteboard.
• - Broadcast video live online from your mobile phone.
• - Free video hosting for schools. (like YouTube but specifically for student projects.)
• - Like YouTube but for school lectures.
• - Interesting YouTube Search Engine
• - Semantic Video Search Engine
• - Online application that lets you build your own 3D games.
• - Neat site that is kind of like a mashup between Google Earth and Twitter.
• - Convert an RSS feed to a PDF newsletter.
• - Combine multiple RSS feeds into one.
• - combine multiple RSS feeds into one.
• -PDF search engine
• - Chop a section out of a YouTube video.