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YAKiToMe! is a free, text-to-speech application that allows you to podcast any electronic text to yourself. All types of files, from Office products to RSS feeds, can be used and downloaded to your MP3 player and listened to while you commute, relax, exercise, or just for fun. Both male and female voices are used in numerous languages. What a great way to empower auditory learners.

WiZIQ or Wiz – IQ is a free online collaborative workspace and virtual classroom environment.

Similar to some of our other posts, this is an online environment with a virtual workspace that allows you to invite in users and share an interactive whiteboard experience: pdf, word, powerpoint, and images.  You can also search their repository for information.

One additional item that is of some interest is that they have a area where you can upload test questions.  Yes, online tests – built by users and shared into this environment.  You just pick from the list provided or search a topic and the system gives you tests questions in a multiple choice format.

So here is another free tool in my quest to find more free online workspaces for collaboration and information sharing between students and teachers or teachers and teachers. 

Did you ever wonder how you could fix your internet connection when it goes down?  Well this child seems to have figured it out.

Watch the short video to figure out how it is done. 

http://tinyurl.com/68n5tp

There are four different types of data in Google Moon:

• Visible – A mosaic of composite imagery prepared by the USGS.
• Elevation – A lunar terrain map  color-coded by altitude, so you can use the color key at the lower left to estimate elevations.
• Apollo – A collection of placemarks that tell the story of the Apollo missions that landed on the moon. This includes stories, quotes, images, panoramas, audio clips, and links to videos of the astronauts’ adventures on the lunar surface.
• Charts – A collection of geological and topographic charts of various regions of the moon.

Read more about Google Moon from the LEARN NC Instructify blog.

Thumblicio.us is a web2.0 tool that displays thumbnails of the most popular del.icio.us sites.  Visually you can then browse screenshots of new and interesting sites from del.icio.us before clicking on a hyperlink.

Visit my del.icio.us bookmarks at http://del.icio.us/adhodges.

I found this site through a blog today. 

Palbee allows up to 9 people to simultaneously work in an interactive online environment with video, chat and whiteboard capabilities.  Oh and not to forget the recording and sharing features of the output.   This product is similar to Yugma but with its own twist.

So go out and take a look at this site to see what it has.   You can take the content and embed it into your own webpage after you have recorded your session.  You can upload photos, graphics and powerpoints which can then be added to the whiteboard area and changed, modified or drawn over. 

This is a free online service which has you to create a username and password.  All of your attendees will need to create a username as well to join in your session.  But here is a good thing.. you can LOCK down the session so that only you, the owner, and the people you invite can participate.  No looky-loos.  You can also set it as a widget on your browser.

Looks interesting to me and I am going to play with it some more to figure out what other types of things I can do with it.

Facebook is a social utility Web 2.0 tool that connects you with the people around you. It is free and anyone can join.  As a member of the cast of Jekyll and Hyde at the Winston-Salem Little Theatre, I have started using Facebook to view other cast members photos of the play. Instead of burning photos taken during the play to a CD and then making a copy for everyone in the cast, members post their Jekyll photos on Facebook.  I have even posted previous play photos to share and am really fast becoming addicted to this Web 2.0 tool.

Looking forward to testing and using either Dropbox or Shoebox by Plum with Facebook to collect favorite things from anywhere on the web.

I heard about Community Walk and Voicethread at the NCaect conference in Concord, NC.  Community walk works in conjunction with Google Maps.  You can embed your images and Google Maps images to tell a geographical story.  Voicethread gives multiple users the opportunity to record their descriptions of the images and add it to the Community Walk presentation. 

Any one of these tools are very useful all by themselves, but combined can offer an awesome project or presentation for our students.

Mary Naber at Piney Grove Elementary School shared a wonderful website.  Storyline Online (http://storylineonline.net/) offers 21 videos of well known actors reading popular children’s books.  Activity guides provide information about the book, information about the reader, and suggestions for engaging students in follow-up discussions and projects.

Check out this resource.