Productivity Tools | Collaboration Tools

Productivity Tools

Miscellaneous

Portable Applications You can carry them around in your thumbdrive, or launch them from a cloud drive. They don't need to be installed and yet, allows you to commandeer any computer with your choice of applications.

Quickscreenshare It allows you to share another computer’s screen over the internet so you can see the another computer’s display on your screen. When this happens, both users can see both mouse cursors so they can talk about what can be seen.
Furthermore, if the user showing their screen give permission to a trusted colleague, the other computer can control the mouse and keyboard of the other to fix problems. This can be cancelled at any time.

ScreenLeap Share your computer screen in seconds. No downloads or account setup. Share with multiple computers at once.

Szoter is a free online tool for annotating images that are stored on your computer. You can also use Szoter to capture and annotate screenshots.

Appear.in is a free video conferencing service.. Appear.in allows you to create a video conference room without registering for any kind of account. Your Appear.in video conference room can accommodate up to eight people.
To create your room just go to Appear.in, pick a room name, and grant Appear.in access to your webcam. Appear.in will give you a URL for your conference room. Share that URL with the people that you want to join you in your video conference. If you want to save your room to re-use on multiple occasions, you can enter your email address and choose a password to lock and save your room.

Free OCR Scanning You can use this service to extract text from any image you supply. This service is free, no registration necessary. You also do not need your email address

CopyPasteCharacter Wesbsite Lets you easily copy and paste many common special characters that are not available on your keyboard. Characters copied to the clipboard when selected.

Zoom.it creates a display of your images in a format that allows you to zoom in, zoom out, and scroll around a large image. 45 minutes free

Appear.in is a free video conferencing service that allows you to create a video conference room without registering for any kind of account. Your Appear.in video conference room can accommodate up to eight people. To create your room just go to Appear.in, pick a room name, and grant Appear.in access to your webcam. Appear.in will give you a URL for your conference room. Share that URL with the people that you want to join you in your video conference. If you want to save your room to re-use on multiple occasions, you can enter your email address and choose a password to lock and save your room. Locking your Appear.in room prevents people from using it when you're not in it. Appear.in does not require the installation of anything. It will work in Chrome, Firefox, and Opera.

Google+ Hangouts. A Google+ Hangout on Air will automatically record your presentation and save it in your YouTube account

Hello Sign. Hello Sign is a free service that allow you to digitally sign documents. Hello Sign can be used on your computer, on your iPhone, and on your iPad.

Screen Capture Tools

Screencasting - programs that allow you to capture what is on your screen to create tutorials with your narrations. Overview presentation | tutorials

Snipping Tool : Windows computers come with this basic screencasting tool. Do a search for it if you do not readily see it. Simple to use

Quicktime Player: built into Macs. Basic screencasting. Trim edit tool. Cannot annotate. Instructions

Apple offers step-by-step directions for recording a screencast through Quicktime. video

Gadwin PrintScreen Allows much more flexibility with the Print Screen button at the top of your keyboard. You can choose to save the screen directly to a specific folder. You can also choose to save just a window, or a specific area of the screen. You can also select the type of image you want to save.

Similar to Gadwin
Snaplr, is available for Windows and Mac. With Snaplr installed you can capture all or part of your screen. Snaplr's annotation tools include text boxes, highlighting, and free-hand drawing tools. When you've finished creating your annotated screen capture you can save it as a PNG file or attach it to an email message in Outlook.
Snaggy a try. Snaggy is a web-based tool for drawing on, annotating, and sharing screen captures. To draw or write on your screen capture just paste your screen capture image into Snaggy. Snaggy offers tools for highlighting a section of your screen capture, typing on it, and drawing free-hand on your image. You can also use Snaggy to crop your image. When you're ready to share your screen capture, Snaggy assigns is a custom url that you can Tweet, email, or post anywhere you like. Snaggy lets you save your edited screen captures to your computer too.

ScreenToaster is a completely web based application that allows you to record what is happening on your computer screen at any given time. ScreenToaster allows you to record audio to accompany your screencasts. You can also enable your webcam to record through ScreenToaster. With ScreenToaster you can choose to record all of your screen or just a portion of your screen. When your recording is complete you can save your screencast to your computer, upload it to ScreenToaster, or upload it to YouTube.

Jing is a free screen capture/casting program that will capture up to 5 minutes of screen activity. It stores the files on their server for your access. Jing is free, easy and quite useful for those times that you want to show someone how to do something instead of creating written directions.

Screen-o-matic Online screen recorder (similar to Screentoaster)for one-click recording on Windows, Mac, or Linux for free. Quick Screen Share is a free screen sharing service from the makers of Screencast-o-matic. To use Quick Screen Cast just go to their website, select share your screen, and enter your name. Quick Screen Share will then provide you with a URL to share with the person with whom you are screen sharing. When that person opens the link you he or she will be able to see your screen. Quick Screen Share doesn't require you to install anything (assuming you have Java installed) or require you to register for the service.

Six Tools to share your screen with others

PixiClip is a slick tool tool for creating, narrating, and sharing drawings. PixiClip provides a whiteboard space on which you can draw, upload images to mark-up, and type. While adding elements to your PixiClip whiteboard you can talk and or record a video of yourself talking. In fact, you can't use the whiteboard without at least recording your voice at the same time. Recordings can be shared via social media and or embedded into your blog posts. PixiClip does not require you to create an account in order to use the service. However, if you want to save your recording to re-visit and edit you will need to create an account. Accounts are free and take less than thirty seconds to create.

Screencastify is a simple video screen capture software for Chrome. Good for Chromebooks also. It is able to record all screen activity inside a tab, including audio. Just press record and the content of your tab is recorded. So you can easily create a screencast for video tutorials, record presentations etc.

Awesome Screenshot Awesome Screenshot lets you to Capture the whole page or any portion, annotate screenshot, blur sensitive info, one-click upload to share.

MonoSnop for Chrome

Capture full screen, just part of the screen, or a selected window
Highlight important details with pen, text, arrows and shapes
Hide private information with our blur tool
Open snapshots in your favorite external editor
Drop images on the Monosnap icon to upload them to the cloud
Upload your snapshot to our storage in one click
Or save it to your local folder and copy it to clipboard

Snaggy is a Chrome extension that you can use to capture screenshots within your browser.The app allows you to annotate and customize your screenshots the way you want. Snagit is also integrated with Google Drive so you can save your screenshots directly to your Drive.

Lightshot Lightshot works right from your Chrone browser. Some of the features it offers to its users include: cropping any part of the page, editing and annotating screenshots using arrows, boxes, circles, and text, saving your screenshots on your hard drive or uploading them to the cloud

Puush is a free tool that lets you share screenshots and files. Use keyboard shortcuts provided to quickly capture any portion of your screen or upload any file.It can store up to 200 MB of files for free

Three Ways to Create Screencasts on Chromebooks

LightShot This is a screen capture extension that works on Chrome. Besides being able to take a screenshot of a webpage or part of a webpage, LightShot lets you also takes screenshots from videos and share them with others.

Webpage Screenshot is a Chrome extension that you can use to capture all or part of webpage. You can draw and type on screenshots you make with Webpage Screenshot. One feature of Webpage Screenshot that is quite helpful is the option to capture the entire content of webpage even if it doesn't appear in your current view of the webapge.

ShowMe it is a free iPad app for creating and sharing whiteboard-style lessons on your iPad. To support teachers, the Show Me website has a gallery of lessons developed and shared by teachers. Click here to download the app from iTunes. Watch Show Me's promotional video

Deekit More sophisticated templates than Pixiclips, support

Bounce is a neat application that not only allows you to make annotated screen captures of websites but also allows you to instantly share those screen captures with others. To use Bounce go to their website then type in the url of any website you like and click "Bounce." Bounce will then create an image of that website on which you can draw boxes and annotate those boxes. When you're done creating notes, Bounce will provide you with a unique url for your screen captures that you can share with others. If you create a account (optional) you and other Bounce users can annotate the same screen capture

Monosnap is a screen capture tool. Once installed you can use Monosnap to capture a portion or all of your screen. After capturing your screen you can draw on your image, type on it, or highlight portions of the screen capture image. You can save your screen captures on your computer or upload them to a free Monosnap account.

TipTutorial Find or create tutorials with screenshots

Skitch for Mac and iOS is an excellent app that I've used for creating annotated screenshots for quite a while. In fact, I used it to create the screenshots in A Short Guide to Using Google Drive on Your iPad. Recently, Skitch for Mac and iOS received some updates that make annotating PDFs easier and better than ever before.
Skitch now allows you to import and annotated single and multiple page PDFs. New stickers and call-outs have been added to Skitch as well. If you're an Evernote Premium account holder you'll have access to even more features including an annotations summary page.

Educreations app create online tutorials and save as videos. Students can also create tutorials. Also search for other participants tutorials.

Cosketch whiteboard that you can draw on and save as an image, embed code, a link and more

ShowMeWhatsWrong Generate a help URL so friends and family can send you instant screen recordings to help trouble shoot computer issues.

Explain and Send is a free Chrome extension that I have just installed in my browser. The extension allows me to quickly select all or a portion of my screen, draw on it, type on it, and share it. The extension installs in seconds and if you have synchronization enabled (click here to learn how) it will be available to you on all of the computers that you use. After you have created your screen capture you can share it via email, Twitter, or Facebook.

Vodburner Record Skype video calls

Screener Simple to use Embed code available

Watch this short video where a writing teacher provides feedback on student writing, an academic essay. How could this be done with a mini lesson?

Webpage Screenshot A Chrome extension that you can use to capture all or part of webpage. You can draw and type on screenshots you make. One feature of Webpage Screenshot that is quite helpful is the option to capture the entire content of webpage even if it doesn't appear in your current view of the webapge..

GoView Screen capture program to create screencasts. Includes editing options.

DuckLink Free screen capture tool -- allows you to screen capture a whole website no matter the length...no more cutting and pasting.

Wetoku. is an interview tool that automatically records it to play it back. You can embed it and share it with others. It allows you to almost instantly record and embed video in blog posts such as this one. Although the sound and video quality are not yet stellar, we're very impressed with the concept. This is the kind of thing that would make remote, instant video journalism possible. Click a link, speak with another webcam user, end the recording, and you are presented with an embed code the second the recording is over. Read, watch, and get registration code info at the end of the post! When you embed the recording, the videos of both participants appear side by side.

Feedback

Answer Garden
A minimalistic feedback tool. Teachers and students can use it as a tool for online brainstorming or embed it on their classroom blog or personal website as a poll or guestbook. It is an easy way to brainstorm with a class all at the same time and creates interesting word clouds from these brainstorming sessions.

Understoodit web app for quickly gauging your students' understanding of information that you have shared with them. Just open your account and open the simple poll of "understand" or "confused." Students can vote using any internet-connected device. Students can vote whenever you have the poll open. They can vote multiple times too. So if they are confused at the beginning of class, but understand ten minutes later they can change their votes.

VideoANT - Fun way to watch a YouTube video and then annotate it as it plays along.

Socrative is a system that uses cell phones and or laptops (user's choice) for gathering feedback from students. You can post as many questions as you like in a variety of formats. The video offers a nice overview of the Socrative system.

Urtak polling service that can be used on any blog or website. The polls you create can have multiple questions, but they must be "yes or no" questions. But Urtak isn't that limited because visitors to your poll also have the option of writing in their own questions. Urtak polls can be embedded into your blog or you can direct people to your poll by sharing the unique url Urtak assigns to your poll

PowerLeague Create your own online leagues or use existing ones. Power League is a versatile resource that lets you ask tough questions, stimulates debate and creates a visual league table based on votes gathered across your group. Start your own league and get voting ...

ImageQuiz is a new service that allows you to create quizzes based on any images that you own or find online. When people take your quizzes on ImageQuiz they answer your questions by clicking on the part of the picture that answers each question. For example, if you uploaded a picture of a map you could write questions that ask users to click on states, cities, or countries.

Metta (formerly known as Soo Meta) is a new digital presentation tool that allows you to combine videos from YouTube, pictures from the web or from your desktop, text, and voice recordings to create a presentation. You can also pull-in content from Pinterest and Twitter to use in your final presentation. Metta also allows you to insert a quiz into your projects. This means that people viewing your Metta projects can watch a short video clip then answer questions about it before moving onto the next part of the presentation.

Three Alternatives to Clicker Response Systems

Using clicker systems is one of many ways that technology can be used to gather anonymous feedback from students in a classroom. One of the problems associated with those systems is the cost of acquiring them. Here are three alternatives to purchasing clicker systems for your school while still gathering anonymous feedback from students.

Soap Box Enables teachers to gather instant feedback from students through their cell phones, tablets, or laptops. Soap Box offers nine useful functions for teachers and students. The video offers an overview of all of the features. The "confusion barometer" allows students to state their status as either "I get it" or "I'm confused." Two other features are the "smart filter" and the "profanity filter." The smart filter searches for similar questions in the backchannel to avoid duplicates. The profanity filter blocks inappropriate language from being posted in the backchannel.

Poll Everywhere is a service that allows you to collect responses from an audience via text messaging. The free plan for K-12 educators provides selection of features and quantity of responses that is adequate for almost any classroom. One of the neat ways to display feedback gathered through Poll Everywhere is in word clouds. The word cloud feature integrates with Wordle, Tagxedo, and Tagul. Video Overview

Blubbr quiz creation service. Using Blubbr you can create interactive quizzes that are based on YouTube clips. The structure of the quizzes has a viewer watch a short clip then answer a multiple choice question about the clip. Viewers know right away if they chose the correct answer or not. To create a quiz on Blubbr start by entering a topic for your quiz. After entering your topic enter a search for a video about that topic. Blubbr will generate a list of videos that you can select from to use in your quiz. When you find a video that works for you, trim the clip to a length that you like then write out your question and answer choices. Click here to try a short Blubbr quiz about the human heart.

Mentimeter Mentimeter allows you to use mobile phones or tablets to vote on any question you specify. This is how it works:

Clue is a fun and an interesting way to test people (or you) about what they remember on your site. You just enter the link of the site that you want to test, share the test with people via Twitter, Facebook or other social networking services. People who take the test , look at the web page for a few seconds and write what they remember.

Kwik Surveys gives you the option to mix and match eleven different types of questions. You can administer your survey by posting it on a blog, website, or discussion forum. You can also email your survey to the people you want to take it. If you choose the email option, you can track who has taken your survey and restrict respondents to taking the survey only once.

Pollograph This survey tool has a lot of the same easy survey features that other have BUT you can embed pictures and video!

SurveyMonkey Online Survey creator. Ten questions for free version extra tutorial

MicroPoll Features three types of questions

Google Docs Forms Offers wide variety of questions types including text answers. Good analytical tools to evaluate results

Web Page Tools

Joliprint
A free service that converts online articles into a printer-friendly, reader-friendly format. The easiest way to use Joliprint is to add their bookmarklet to your browser's toolbar. Once installed click the Joliprint bookmarklet whenever you're reading an article that you want to print and Joliprint will generate a PDF of that article without the sidebar content from that blog or website. If you don't want to install the Joliprint bookmarklet you can simply copy a url and paste it into the conversion box on Joliprint.

News 360 A free news aggregation service that you can customize for your interests. You can read your personalized news feed on your phone, tablet, or computer. Select the types of stories that you're interested in reading. News 360 will use that information to serve up the stories that are most likely to appeal to you. You can create multiple interest channels.

Markup lets you draw on any webpage with a variety of tools to express your thoughts, make a point or just simply edit. Try Markup now by choosing a shape below. Then grab and drop on your bookmarks bar to use any time. Yes, no downloading needed.

Three Ways to Mark-up Webpages and Share Them

Shared Copy. Shared Copy is a tool for bookmarking, annotating, and sharing webpages. Using Shared Copy you can save a page, draw on it, add comments to it in text boxes, and highlight parts of the page. If you others to look at your comments on the page, Shared Copy offers many ways to do that through social networks and through email.

Add sticky notes to just about any webpage. Note Anywhere. This evening I tried a similar tool called OurStickys. Both perform the same core function of letting you add sticky notes to the webpages that you're viewing. OurStickys is slightly different because it offers a few more customization options and offers a log-in option for using your sticky notes on multiple computers.

Kami is an online tool that lets teachers and students collaborate on documents on a web browser. Good for, Desktops. Chromebook or BYOD (bring-your-own-device) classrooms. Students can use Kami to open up documents on a web browser with a simple drag and drop. They can annotate documents by underlining, highlighting and adding notes to each page. And merge documents. It’s also good for students to interact with documents straight from their web browser. Kami has the ability to collaborate and annotate with peers.

Scrible is a free service offering a nice set of tools for highlighting, annotating, and bookmarking webpages. Scrible offers browser bookmarklets for Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer. With the Scrible bookmarklet installed, anytime you're on a page just click the bookmarklet to launch a menu of bookmarking tools. The Scrible tool set includes highlighters, sticky notes, and font change tools. When you annotate and bookmark a page in Scrible it is saved as it appeared to you when you were done altering it. You can share your bookmarked pages with others. Students can get a free Scrible account that has double the storage capacity of the standard free account.

Sidenotes is an excellent web tool for annotating web pages. It allows you to add notes to any web page without having to switch tabs or use a third party platform. With a simple click, a new sidebar will open up next to the page you are browsing where you can add and edit your notes.

Speakpipe Easy to set up app on you web site or blog for people to leave you a voice messafe. No phone necessary.

LikeHack is super easy and powerful tool. It Aggregates your Facebook, Twitter and blogs and filters and highlights what really matters. It delivers top stories via web app, e-mail, etc. It also provides personal search engine for all your content, and full text search of all links you saw, liked, shared or tweeted with connected accounts.

ProConIt

Allow for students to look at the opposite views of a subject
Created polls and forum
Encourage discussion
Get feedback

Explain a Website 0.99 This app acts as an internet browser and allows you to record your actions and voice as you navigate a website. You can write all over the screen, discuss features of the website, and save your recording to your iPads Camera Roll. Check out the clip uploaded onto YouTube that gives a quick introduction.

Rewordify is a free site that was developed by a special education teacher and former computer programmer for the purpose of helping students read complex passages. At its most basic level Rewordify takes a complex passage and rephrases it in simpler terms.video

Tildee is a service for creating multimedia tutorials on anything you want to teach. I tried the service a couple of years ago. This evening I revisited it to see the new updates to Tildee. Tildee still publishes your tutorials as webpages with individual URLs. Tildee provides a template and platform for sharing tutorials with others. Your tutorials can include any combination of text, screen captures, Google Maps, and videos. A powerful feature is the option to drag and drop sections of your tutorials into order. Let's say that just before publishing your tutorial you realize that you forgot to include a step. Just write out that step then drag it into the proper spot in your tutorial.

Widgetbox A good source for widgets to embed in wikis, blogs and Web pages.

MoresiteLike a website that can help you to find similar websites to your favorite websites that you visit every day. It is likely you will find a website where you will visit every day.

Closr.it - zoomable widget for very large images

Side by Side An iPad app that splits the viewing a browsers viewing screen. A user can control how big/small a screen is by sliding a cursor around. This is very handy when wanting to look at two different sites on the web at once. Also, there is Dropbox support as well, so a user can browse the web in window and a file in the other.
I recommend checking out Side by Side by clicking here!!

Demofuse.com - Users can create interactive website tours in minutes with Demofuse. The tour includes cursor movements and other activities related with a website visit.

SideVibe is basically a browser extension (wouldn't work in Google Chrome though) that enables teachers to comment on a web pages and ask students questions about the content on web pages. To use SideVibe you have to have the SideVibe extension installed, but your students do not because you're essentially just sharing your screen image with them when you ask them questions or share your comments. video FREE

Snapify is a handy little Chrome extension that allows you to highlight any word or phrase on a webpage and quickly find definitions, videos, Tweets, and webpages about that word or phrase.

FlyInside.com – Instantly create, preview, edit, and publish your tours to the web from anywhere there’s a web connection.

JogtheWeb - A site that allows you to create your own guide for Web sites with your comments.

Thinglink is a neat tool for creating interactive images. Create rollover hot spots on an image where you may add addition text or Web links. Media from Google Maps, YouTube, Vimeo, and Flickr can all be included in your Thinglink images. 26+ Ways to Use Thinglink in the Classroom.

Create an Interactive Mind Map with Thinglink

Dio turn your photos into interactive experiences to share. Just upload a picture, then tag it with interactive hotspots to add photos, text, and videos. You can even create an interactive album by linking to other images.

Stipple is a new service (still in an invite-only beta) that allows you to create interactive images. Using Stipple you can upload an image and tag it with pinmarks. Within each pinmark you can include videos, links, text, audio files, and more images. Stipple also gives you the option to track where your images are viewed and shared by others. The video

ImageSpike is a another service for creating interactive images similar to ThingLink ImageSpike allows you to upload an image, place pin marks on it, put text and links into those pin marks, and share your new interactive images. When someone views your interactive image he or she can click on the pin marks to read the text that you entered or click on the links that you included.
One drawback to ImageSpike is that you do have to enter an email address to get the embed code for your interactive image.

Clean Print is a free browser add-on for Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Safari (including Safari on the iPad). The purpose of Clean Print is to help you save ink and paper when printing articles from the Internet. Clean Print allows you to remove images and advertisements from pages before printing and article. Clean Print also gives you the option to increase or decrease font size before printing an article. Learn more about Clean Print in the video below.

Calameo is a web publishing tool that will allow teachers and students to upload any type of document (PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and then see it as a page-turning Web page that they can share via Email, embedding on their school or student site, or even Tweet it out or add it to an RSS. Easy to use and very useful.

Mapbiquity – Mapbiquity is a simple and free to use website that lets you add maps to your Website in a few easy steps.

Alefo is a website that allows the user to take "snapshots" of any other website and add them to their own personal homepage. It lets you create widgets from anywhere which is a huge plus for classroom teachers. You can take the best parts of websites and build a personal hub of these clips for your colleagues or students.

Print Friendly cleans and formats web pages for perfect print experience. PrintFriendly removes Ads, Navigation and web page junk, so you save paper and ink when you print. It's free and easy to use. Perfect to use at home, the office, or whenever you need to print a web page.
Print What You Like This tool allows you to print any part of the web page you are reading. It is very easy to use and has a cool bookmarklet that you can install on your browser to make printing web content much more easier than ever before. video

Nuke Anything is a Firefox add-on that could be handy the next time you choose to print a webpage. With Nuke Anything installed in your browser you can right-click on any element of a webpage and remove it before printing that page. When you right click on an element a red outline will appear so that you can be certain you're not removing something that you didn't intend to remove.

Adout - Just add a URL and it will remove the advertisements on the page...Might be helpful for those students who are easily distracted by ads

10 Ways to build free Websites

Print what you like - Lets users edit the

Walkme is an interesting site that allows users to create walk-throughs of their site. This is done by installing a plugin and then going through your site and adding text/content to where you want the user to "get help". For the end user the walk-throughs are done via a speech bubble interface. Also, there is a nice way to track walk-through data via analytics.

Catch -Catch allows a user to capture anything on a site, such as text, audio or photos, and share with others. Ideal for those with mobile devices.

Fleck Allows you to write notes on any web page and then share them with your friends and colleagues or save them for yourself. You can use the search box on fleck.com or you can add the fleck bookmarklet to your web browser and then whenever you are on a web page you want to write notes on, just click it and you can get busy.

Screen Draw With this Firefox add-on installed you can type on and or draw

Sni.ps This is a widget that lets you grab ANYTHING from the web. The creators also make a great point that it brings the attributes for source and shows that you copied...thus crediting it properly.

MWSnap MWSnap is a small yet powerful Windows program for snapping (capturing) images from selected parts of the screen. It is capable of capturing the whole desktop, a highlighted window, an active menu, a control, or a fixed or free rectangular part of the screen.

Dragnifier Windows download to magnify a specific section

Clipmarks Clip and save just the stuff you want from any web page. Create your personal online collection of clipmarks. Tag them with keywords, add your own comments and share them with friends. Search the Public Clipmarks to see what's being clipped and who is clipping it.

Instapaper: Save interesting web pages for reading later

Scribd A useful Web 2.0 online application which allows you to upload a file in common formats (i.e. PPT, DOC, TXT, XLS, etc.) and an Adobe Flash Paper version is created in a player. You can easily embed the player and the content on your own Web page or blog, you can have the item viewed and even read-aloud right from Scribd's site, or you can download the uploaded file in PDF, TXT, and even the read-aloud file in MP3 format for putting on an audio device.

Clueapp Easy way to find out what people remember from your website

Hypothes

Open platform to encourage discussion of web content
Annotate web pages via highlighting or notes.
Can set to “Only Me,” otherwise they are public and comments will be received.
Coming soon?? Hypothes.is for EDU

Roohit Web highlighter. no registration

Awesome Highlighter By placing it on your FireFoxtoolbar, it highlights key notes in web pages, extract notes, create a short url, share or save. Awesome Highlighter can be used as a web note taking or reading comprehension tool.

Marker.to is a Chrome and Firefox extension that allows you highlight text on a webpage and share that highlighted section with others.

LetterPop A free service that helps you create and send newsletters. You can drag and drop templates into place, add text, and publish your newsletters to the web.

Conduit Mobile - This is ideal for bloggers, web designers, or schools in a one-to-one environment who are looking to create a great-looking mobile app for free or share news/homework in a mobile environment.

Sign Now - add your actual signature to documents online

My Live Signature add signature to digital docs and Web pages

Hello Sign to record your signature by using your mouse or by importing a picture of your signature. Then whenever you need to sign a document just upload it to Hello Sign and apply your stored signature. You can email your newly signed document directly from Hello Sign.

Converters

Download Videos and more: Online-Convert Download Videos and more:

Online-Convert This free online file converter lets you convert media easy and fast from one format to another. For example, if you want to download a Youtube video, change docs to pdf, create e-books and more. Be aware that the actual conversion program for each option is at the bottom of the screen once you upload the url or file. At the top are the for payment downloads.

SaveVideo.Me - Great way to save any number of different video formats.
SaveYouTube - Excellent way to save YouTube videos.

Sage Thumbs. With Sage Thumbs installed on your Windows-based computer you can right click on an image to quickly resize it or convert it to another format.

DocsPal is a free online file converter that supports all kind of documents, audios, videos, images, e-books. You can also view your documents directly on your browser.

Zamzar file converter

Tools for Adding Narration to Powerpoint, Videos, Documents and Photos

BrainShark Add narrations with microphone to Powerpoints, videos, docs, and photos to upload online free. Click here for video tutorials

Zipcast is a new service from Slideshare for conducting online presentations. Using Zipcast you can share your slides, talk to your audience through a webcam, respond to your audience, and have your audience interact with each other in realtime on one page. The best part is you can do all of this without having to download anything. video overview

Vaestro Use your Web site to talk to others, host interactive podcasts or audio blog

Slidepoint Website Slidepoint lets you create and deliver online presentations that do not require the Adobe Flash player to operate, and therefore work on any desktop or mobile device that supports html, css and javascript.

Vodburner Website Vodburner lets you record Skype video calls. Create MP4 or WMV files. Edit the video using the built in Post-Production Console. Choose any combination and order of cameras for Group Video Calls. Trim portions of the call, balance the volume and add text captions/pictures/music/transitions to the final production.

Helloslide transforms your slides into a rich audiovisual format, recreating the experience of a live lecture. Simply upload your presentation, type the speech for each slide, and HelloSlide automagically generates the audio.

HelloSlide gives more exposure to your presentations, making them searchable, editable, and available in 20 different languages. Go to the About page for directions

Online Presentations

Meet.fm is a service that allows you to host webinars that can be accessed from any laptop, desktop, or tablet (including iPad) that has a web browser. Meet.fm does not require you to install any special software. When you create your account on Meet.fm you can pick a name and URL for your room. That name and URL can be yours for as long as you like and as many times as you like within the limitations of your account's time limitations. In your Meet.fm meetings you can share your desktop, your webcam, and transfer files to attendees. Watch the video to see how Meet.fm works.

NetClick simplifies the creation of interactive presentations and lets students give feedback from a smartphone, tablet or laptop rather than a clicker.

Presentation.io a service that is designed to help your audience follow along with your presentations. Allows your audience to see your slides on their laptops, iPads, and Android tablets and watch them change when you advance your slides. This ensures that everyone is on the same slide at the same time. Presentation.io includes a backchannel that allows your audience to comment on and ask questions about your slides. To start upload a PPT or PDF to your free account. Presentation.io gives you a URL to distribute to your audience. When you're done with your presentation just click "stop presenting" and the synchronization stops. It allows you to share your presentations for 48 hours then you'll have to upload them again.

Tildee is a free tool to help you create and share instantly and easily tutorials on any subject. With a clear and user friendly interface, you go straight to the point: write your own tutorial. More than that, you will be able to add maps, images and even videos to any step in a tutorial.

Knovio is a new service for delivering presentations online. To use Knovio you upload your slides to the site then use your webcam to record a video of yourself talking about the slides. When you're finished your video and slides will be synchronized and displayed side-by-side. Knovio presentations can be embedded into your blog or website. Knovio is currently in a private beta stage so you do have to register and wait for an invitation to the service.

Zipcast is a new service from Slideshare for conducting online presentations(after trying it out, compare to Knovio, below). Using Zipcast you can share your slides, talk to your audience, respond to your audience, and have your audience interact with each other in realtime on one page. The best part is you can do all of this without having to download anything. video overview

If you're already a Slideshare user, you'll notice that when you're logged-in and looking at one of your presentations there is now a "Zipcast"link at the top of your presentation. Click the Zipcast link to begin giving an online presentation. Using the free version of Zipcast your presentation can be private or public (a small ad is inserted at the bottom of your presentation). The premium version of Zipcast removes ads and allows you to password protect your presentation.

Present.me is a service for recording video and or audio to accompany your slides. Present.me allows you to sync your recorded audio and video to your slides then publish everything as one complete package. Here's how it works; upload a set of slides to your Present.me account, then use your webcam to record a video of yourself talking about those slides. Your video and slides will appear side-by-side when you have finished recording. If you don't want to record a video, you can simply record audio only.

Present Me-Upload your Powerpoints/PDFs then record sound & webcam-Excellent Tool Tutorial

Metta (formerly known as Soo Meta) is a new digital presentation tool that allows you to combine videos from YouTube, pictures from the web or from your desktop, text, and voice recordings to create a presentation. You can also pull-in content from Pinterest and Twitter to use in your final presentation. Metta also allows you to insert a quiz into your projects. This means that people viewing your Metta projects can watch a short video clip then answer questions about it before moving onto the next part of the presentation.

Slideboom Share powerpoint presentations online. Play as movie with audio and links.

Talk Miner is a tool for searching the contents of webinars, webcasts, and video lectures. Talk Miner searches the slides, images, and text within videos to take you to the scenes that match your search query. Watch the video

Dropboxes

Ways to Share Large Files Especially useful for media files
More Cloud-based Options

Dropbox You can get up to 2 GB of storage for free. You can access your Dropbox account from any computer that has Internet access, therefore always having access to important files. You can even get the Dropbox iPhone App as well, so that you can have your files on the go. guide

Videodropper is a free service for sending your favorite YouTube videos to your Dropbox account. When you link your Dropbox account to Videodropper you'll be able send videos your Dropbox for download. With the two services connected you simply copy the url of a video into Videodropper and it will be sent to your Dropbox account and from there you can download the video to your computer.
Wappwolf is a Dropbox client. Wappwolf allows you to upload files to your Dropbox account by dragging and dropping from your desktop. Once you have set all of your Wappwolf options you can have specific synchronization and conversion actions applied to the files that you upload. Some of the automated options that you can apply to your Wappwolf account include syncing to specific folders in you Dropbox account, converting files into various file types or automatically convert your files to ePub for viewing on iPads. You can also use Wappwolf to have image files automatically shared to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.video overview
10 Best Apps for Your Dropbox

Dropbox Cheat Sheet

6 Things You Didn't Know you Can Do with Dropbox

MultCloud is a service that allows you to tie all cloud storage spaces together in one place. MultCloud does more than just provide a single log-in for all of the cloud services that I use. It also allows me to move files between services with a simple drag-and-drop.
By connecting your cloud storage services through MultCloud you create a single dashboard page on which you can view and access the files within all of your cloud storage accounts. To move a file between the services you just select a file from one service and drag it to the other.

An Easy Way to Store and Move Instructional Videos

Drop Canvas just drag and drop files you want to send

Inifinit a beautiful and free peer-to-peer file-sharing application that allows sending unlimited size in just a matter of seconds through a single drag and drop. It aims to enable creatives to be more productive by using a tool that simplify their daily work:

SortMyBox — Organize your Dropbox If you use Dropbox for automating your assessment and grading there are so many wonderful tings you can do with Sortmy box. For example, if you have a "turnin" folder that all students can access, you could sweep the files out of there and put it in a private folder for grading. Or, you could move all picture folders to a certain place. This is a very cool app for organizing dropbox, expecially if you want to consolidate pictures or videos

DropVox - Record Voice Memos to Dropbox for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch on the iTunes App Store If you want to record voice memos to Dropbox, Dropvox will do that for you.

20+ Tools To Supercharge Your Dropbox An article on things you can do with Dropbox. Some of these can save teachers a lot of time.

Google Drive and it combines some of the best elements of Google Docs and Google Plus into one package. In fact, Google Docs is now a part of Google Drive.
When you upload a file to your Google Drive account you can share it with anyone just like you can share any document in your Google Docs account. You can create comment threads for any of the files that you share whether they're document, image, video, or music files. Google Drive does have a nice search feature that I haven't seen elsewhere.5gb of space. video to enable Google Drive

Dropbox Forms: Receive files from your web site to your dropbox! This app creates a form where the data goes to your dropbox. I know that there are a lot of form makers out there, but this one is a great one if Dropbox is your go to app or if you use it to assess.

Download All your Google Drive Data with One Click

Dispatch pull together and organize in one place your files and notes from Google Drive, Evernote, Dropbox, and Box. In Dispatch you can also upload files from your computer and store them in your account. The primary purpose of Dispatch is to provide a place in which you can create a group of collaborators to share files, exchange notes, and plan projects.

Wikisend free upload and send large files

Pastelink Easiest to use dropbox. To share a file with Pastelink just drag it from your desktop to the Pastelink website. Pastelink then generates a URL that you can share through your favorite social networks or through email. You can send files up to 25MB in size without creating an account on Pastelink. If you register for a free account you can send files up to 2GB in size.

BridgeURL an easy way to share a bunch of URLs? Simply list down all the URLs you want to share in the box below (one link per line, including http://) and we will create a single link to share.

Dropmark This is one the easiest way to share files. Just drag and drop files right from your desktop or web browser. Your files will be automatically uploaded to the cloud. You can also Invite colleagues to view and collaborate privately. Share your work with clients and skip e-mail and social media clutter. No sign up required for invited guests.

SkyDrive is now a compelling product, particularly for people into Microsoft’s ecosystem of Office web apps, Windows Phone, and Windows 8, where it’s built into Metro by default.

Just Beam It is a service for quickly and easily sharing files. To use the service drag a file from your desktop to the Just Beam It transfer box. Just Beam It generates an unique url for your file. Give that link to the person or people you want to be able to download your files. Just Beam It supports files up to 2GB.

Class Connect teachers can store all of the digital materials associated with their lesson plans. Teachers can store documents, images, video files, and websites (bookmarks). The tagging system allows you to use custom tags or assign Common Core standards tags from the standards menu. If you choose, you can share your materials with colleagues. There are two ways to search for lesson materials in Class Connect. You can search the shared materials by keyword or search by Common Core standard.

mailinator.com and temp inbox temporary inboxes

Uploader Box (File Dropper is a similar option) is a free service for sharing large files with your friends and colleagues. To use the service just upload a file from your computer, enter your email address, and enter the email addresses of your intended recipients. Once your file is uploaded, Uploader Box will provide you with two urls. One of the urls is for sharing your file and the other is for deleting your file if you decide you no longer want to share it. Handy for sharing files that are too large for attaching to emails. The next time your students complete a large multimedia project they could use Uploader Box to send that file instead of using up the storage in your email inbox.

Forget Box is a service for sharing large files and collections of files with just a click or two. Forget Box is a not a web app, you do have to install the free Forget Box software on your desktop. With Forget Box installed, right-click on the file(s) you want to share, select a contact from your address book, and send off the file. Your recipient will receive an email with a link to download the file(s) you've shared. Forget Box doesn't have any stated file size limitations.

Box.com has become more useful by adding a new feature that allows you to create and edit PowerPoint, Word, and Excel files within your Box account. Box is also supporting the use of Google Drive to create documents and spreadsheets through your Box account.

Notetaking

Shelfster a research and writing tool. The purpose of Shelfster is to help you bookmark and annotate websites and documents that you find while researching a topic. You can organize your findings into Shelfster projects. Within each of your projects you can create documents by dragging and dropping links and texts into your documents from your list of saved links. Of course, you can also type in your documents and edit things that you dragged from your project library to your documents. Documents can be saved in your online account, downloaded, and printed

Evernote- Create text, photo and audio notes that auto-synchronize your notes to your Mac or PC. Makes text within snapshots searchable. Add, sync, access, and share files (PDF, Word, Excel, PPT, and more) among the different versions of Evernote. Free version available on iPhone, iPod, Android, and Blackberry. **For preparing your next presentation! Try sketching out your presentation and gathering research with this app! Evernote for Schools is a micro site on the Evernote page that has useful resources to help educators and students use Evernote more effectively as an education tool. It has a collection of resources including education-related case studies, videos, and a discussion forum for connecting and sharing tips and ideas for using Evernote in a school setting. Users Guide

Evernote Clearly is a browser extension available for Firefox and for Chrome. Clearly can strips the sidebar content from any webpage that you're viewing. You can send the cleaned-up version directly to your Evernote

instaGrok is a type of search engine that finds educational content and retrieves it in multiple formats, including web pages, images, videos and even forums. It filters out non-educational content and profanity, uses crowd sourcing to rate the quality of each search result, displays search results according to grade level difficulty, provides source notes, visualizes concepts in an interactive concept map, updates the concept map as you refine your topic. It also allows curation and tracking of your websites, concepts, student activities, and can generate multiple-choice questions from the search results. Students can use it to create editable research journals ("groks") and the groks will be populated with websites visited and the concepts covered. Teachers can review the students' groks and add comments.

FruitNotes. This online notebook offers a great way to keep and organize notes, store photos, and share with others. You can even send notes via your phone.

Embedding

Embedit - The document sharing and embedding application, Embedit.in, makes uploading a document and embedding it on a classroom blog or web site exceedingly easy. Can create thumbnails to click on to access documents.

Powerpoints

Free downloadbale Powerpoints Many subject areas including foreign languages, science topics, social studies, and language arts

Powerpoint Games

Multimedia Quizzes

QuizRevolution Make multimedia quizzes. You can include video, images and audio files. There are two options for answer format, multiple choice and open ended response. If students register for an account , you can monitor their results.
ImageQuiz is a new service that allows you to create quizzes based on any images that you own or find online. When people take your quizzes on ImageQuiz they answer your questions by clicking on the part of the picture that answers each question. For example, if you uploaded a picture of a map you could write questions that ask users to click on states, cities, or countries.

Audio

Sound Cloud - An innovative site for creating, recording, and sharing audio/sounds for free. This is an ideal way to share, embed, and document lessons and lectures.
The feature of SoundCloud that makes it worth using instead of just embedding a recording from another service is that listeners can tie their comments to an exact moment in a SoundCloud recording. This means that if something twelve seconds into the recording triggers a thought in a students’ mind she can tie that comment to that exact moment. SoundCloud is available as an Android app, as an iOS app, and as a web app.

Find That File is a search engine designed to help you locate documents and media files according to file type.

Audacity - free download software

Online audio editing

Collaboration Tools

"The ant is a collectively intelligent and individually stupid animal;

man is the opposite.”
Karl Von Frisch

Collaborative Spaces

Student Web 2.0 Collaboration Rubric a rubric to measure the depth and breadth of collaboration and communication by students when they are using a collaborative tool

Quick Screen Share is a free screen sharing service from the makers of Screencast-o-matic. To use Quick Screen Cast just go to their website, select share your screen, and enter your name. Quick Screen Share will then provide you with a URL to share with the person with whom you are screen sharing. When that person opens the link you he or she will be able to see your screen. Quick Screen Share doesn't require you to install anything (assuming you have Java installed) or require you to register for the service.

SimplyCircle is a free service that is designed to help elementary school teachers organize communication to the parents of their students. Through SimplyCircle you can create an online community for parents of students in your classroom. You can use SimplyCircle to send messages, organize tasks for parent-volunteers, and post updates about things happening in your classroom and in your school. Parents don't have to sign into SimplyCircle daily because you can choose to send a daily digest of updates to their email addresses. New features included an integrated calendar that teachers can use to plan and organize events for multiple groups in one place. SimplyCircle added a one-click volunteer sign-up function. The volunteer function includes the option to send reminders and details about volunteer responsibilities. And you can now send individual messages to parents instead of just group messages.

Corsizio is an online registration and payment platform that makes it simple for teachers to manage an unlimited number of registrations and events (and collect feedback). With this tool students and families can easily register for special events through secure registration forms and provide feedback. It enables you to customize the registration forms and payment options when setting up special events for your school. This includes the ability to offer credit card payments, offline payments, early-bird payments and deposits.Schools using Corsizio have the ability to offer add-ons (like art supplies or meals), multi-price categories, and discount coupon codes. Users can view statistics in real-time to monitor the number of attendees and revenue generated.https://www.corsizio.com/

Flipgrid - app - Create grids of questions or topics using text or video and share your questions with whomever you like. Your audience then responds with recorded videos.
web site

BridgeURL an easy way to share a bunch of URLs? Simply list down all the URLs you want to share in the box below (one link per line, including http://) and we will create a single link to share.

appear.in - Create a video conferencing room for up to 8 people via this website or mobile app.IOS and Android

Piiig Talk - Use your mobile device like a walkie talkie with this family-friendly iOS app.

Slack allows you to create channels where you can communicate and collaborate with your colleagues. For instance, you can create a channel for a topic you are researching or for a project you are working on . After inviting your collaborators, you will be able to hold synchronous discussions, share materials and resources and view what everybody else is doing.

Montage for Teams is designed to help teams start collaborating and working together in a more productive and effective way. You will be able to instantly connect via chat and video calls, share documents, share screens and collaborate like never before using one tool…all for FREE.Montage for Teams facilitates a fast-paced exchange of ideas and an ability to keep things moving, be it a video call, quick message to the group, sending a document for review or sharing what’s on your screen.

Screenhero allows users to share their screens w/ others. However, what makes this so sweet is the ability to both have control over the screen which makes it not just a one-way portal. This is ideal for collaborating or trying to troubleshoot any type of problem.

7 Ways to send send group text messages to parents and students

GroupMap

Create your own digital graphic organizers easily. Capture student response and give feedback on the group's response.

ClassDojo ( http://classdojo.com ) is a popular tool for creating records of students' behaviors like staying on task, being prepared for class, and general attendance in class. You can also add custom behavior categories to track in your ClassDojo account. ClassDojo also provides a free messenger service ( https://classdojo.com/messenger/ ) . ClassDojo Messenger can be used to send messages to parents on an individual basis and on a whole group basis. ClassDojo uses the term "Direct Messaging" to refer to sending messages to individuals and the term "Broadcast Messaging" to refer to sending messages to all parents in a group. ClassDojo Messenger hides the personal contact information of the teacher and the of the parents. Parents have to opt-in to receive messages from the teacher.

FormSwift is a tool to help you quickly and easily create, edit, sign, and collaborate on documents and forms. As a member, you can choose from our library of more than 500 document templates and forms or upload your own documents and use FormSwift’s tools to edit them.’

Slack

Made by a cofounder of Flickr, this popular team communication tool can be used by groups of any size.

GroupMe

Host free group chats over your phone using this mobile app.

Prism – measures the wisdom of the crowd in reference to a particular reading. This powerful tools allows the teacher to provide students s selected reading on their device. While reading, and reflecting on the text of the reading, students are able to highlight the text in different colors representing their thoughts and understanding. In this process, teacher and students are able to view the entire groups thinking process in relationship to the reading and their understanding. It is a wonderful tool allowing a teacher to gauge understanding while also facilitating high level discussion. It really has the ability to bring group thinking and collaboration to a whole new level.

Sendboo is the next-generation instant messaging app featuring real-time translation, allowing you to communicate with anyone you want around the world, without worrying about language barriers and without having to use separate translators.

Framebench is a cloud based platform that enables users to come together and view visual assets(images & videos) in perfect sync, mark and annotate over them, change color composition in real time while chatting over the inbuilt voice channel. All these changes are then available for rest of the team to be viewed at a later time.

Voxer Talk to anyone in the world with live voice, text, photos and location sharing from your smartphone or desktop. Everything is saved, so you never miss a message.

SignUp Genius is a free and easy way to create and organize online sign-up forms for all kinds of group activities. SignUp Genius creates a simple webpage on which people can sign-up for activities that you've specified. You can make your sign-up sheet public or private. Once you've created your sign-up list visitors to your list can sign-up for the activities you've specified. You can monitor the sign-up list as it is filled and visitors can quickly see which slots are already taken.

SendHub is a simple, fast, web and mobile communication tool that provides businesses, and organizations, with a call and messaging solution to reach small and large groups of people.

GroupTing is a service that makes it easy to organize group events. The purpose of GroupTing is to enable you and your event attendees to keep track of who is attending your event and what they are bringing to it. For example, if I'm planning a classroom party and I need parents to contribute cups, beverages, snacks, plates and napkins, when I send out my invitations I can request that people bring one or more of those items. GroupTing allows me to specify how many of each item is needed and who has volunteered to bring the requested items.

Volunteer Spot is a scheduling service that teachers, coaches, and others and use to coordinate volunteers. Volunteer Spot gives you the ability to post calendars and sign-up sheets online. When potential volunteers visitor your calendar they can see the days and times at which volunteers are needed. When the quota for volunteers for a particular time or day is reached, Volunteer Spot won't allow any more sign-ups.

123 Free Online Education Forms Create online education forms as easy as 1-2-3. Our web form builder allows you to collect applications, evaluate students & accept tuition fee payments.

Cel.ly creates safe mobile social networks for schools. Features include group texting with moderation, multiple-choice polls, reminders and web alerts. Access on both Android and IOS devices.

Twiducate is a new web application that says it was designed by teachers. It provides a private social network where teachers and students can communicate, with messages not visible unless users register and sign-in. I could see this being useful for classes of younger learners where teachers or schools are concerned about their web content being public.

Groupiful task management / project management tools market. On Groupiful you can create groups of up to ten members with whom you share task lists, project files, and calendars. Of course, Groupiful contains a messaging system that you can use to exchange notes with and send reminders to group members. Groupiful groups can be private or public. As the creator of a group you can give people permission to post messages for the group or restrict them to only viewing the contents of the task lists and project materials.

Hypothes

Open platform to encourage discussion of web content
Annotate web pages via highlighting or notes.
Can set to “Only Me,” otherwise they are public and comments will be received.
Coming soon?? Hypothes.is for EDU

Edcanvas makes it easy for teachers to organize and share educational materials in a visually pleasing format. The "canvas" part of Edcanvas is where you arrange videos, links, images, and files around any topic of your choosing. Edcanvas has built-in search tools so that you do not have to leave your Edcanvas account in order to locate resources. When you share a canvas of materials with your students they can give the materials a thumbs-up to show that they understand the materials or they can ask questions about the materials. You can also see if your students actually looked at all of the materials that you have shared with them. You can now create multiple choice quizzes for your students to take while viewing the materials you have shared with them. Watch the videos below to learn how to create quizzes in Edcanvas. video on creating quizzes | video on reviewing quiz results

Wikispaces Classroom is a free offering from Wikispaces. From the first look you'll notice that Wikispaces Classroom is quite different from the old Wikispaces format. Wikispaces Classroom simplifies the layout of pages to put only the tools students need in order to edit a page on display and hides the tools students don't need. On the management side of things Wikispaces Classroom is arranged to make it easy for teachers to quickly manage projects, alter settings, and see reports on students' use of the wiki.

BuzzMob. lets parents and teachers connect on a private network that requires authorization before a user can see updates. Ease of use is another advantage of the new collaboration method, says Vose, who points out that not all mobile phones displayed her classroom website correctly. Similar to Twitter or Facebook on the public social networking side, BuzzMob allows you to make quick updates on the fly.

Doodle - Planning a team meeting? This handy tool lets individuals with busy schedules select the most optimal date and time for everyone.

Class Messenger ( https://my.classmessenger.com/signup ) is a service that offers free iPhone and Android apps that teachers can use to send messages to parents and students on a group or individual basis. Class Messenger allows you to send text and picture messages. Students and their parents can reply to your messages without seeing your personal phone number. Likewise, you don't see personal phone numbers of your students. Class Messenger categorizes messages within the app. There are categories for homework assignments, general reminders, surveys, and volunteer requests. One of the aspects of Class Messenger that I appreciate is that when you register for an account on Class Messenger there are demo classes already made for you to use to explore the app. The demo classes eliminate the worry of accidentally sending messages before you completely understand how the app works.

Realtime Board is a free tool for hosting online, collaborative brainstorming sessions. Realtime Board provides a blank grid on which you can type, draw, and post pictures. You can connect elements on your boards through a simple linking tool. The boards that you create on Realtime Board can be shared publicly or privately. To help you communicate with your collaborators Realtime Board has a chat function built into every board.

Common Core Implementation Center of ePals gives teachers access to a broad range of online communication and collaboration tools, along with rigorous learning resources designed to facilitate authentic, project-based learning, as specified by Common Core State Standards.
Resources available include customizable, project-based lessons and activities based on time available, subject focus and grade level from both teachers and respected content providers (e.g., National Geographic, Smithsonian, Cobblestone & Cricket magazines). Classrooms can partner in safe, digital workspaces controlled by the teacher to collaborate on activities and projects with other schools and classrooms.

Chrome Remote Desktop App you can grant access to your computer to another person who also has the Chrome Remote Desktop App installed. If you want to share your desktop just click "share now" and Chrome Remote Desktop will generate an access code to give to the person who will access your computer.

Adobe Form Central. create pdf’s that are actually web forms that can be filled out directly on the pdf. Forms Central has a huge bank of templates that you can start with including a section just for education. But the best…the ability to create your own custom pdf form! Design items include text fields, date fields, email fields, single choice, multiple choice, drop down menu, single check box, rating scale, file attachments, formatted text, images, and page or section breaks. When you have finished with the form you can set the form up to automatically email recipients, redirect them to a new url, or include a confirmation message. You can even collect payments through PayPal When you are ready to distribute your form you can email the link, embed the form or share on Twitter. From within form central, you can view responses and save to Excel or as a PDF. You can even sort responses from within Forms Central.

EduClipper The purpose of EduClipper is to give educators a place to pin resources that they can share with other teachers and share with their students. Yes, it's a bit Pinterest-like, but it's visual bookmarking capabilities focus on discovering and sharing educational materials. But eduClipper is much more than a visual bookmarking service. You can add PowerPoint, PDF, and image files to your boards. You can also add links to videos to your boards. You can play the videos without leaving your eduClipper board. And those of us who have Google Drive embedded into our professional lives will be happy to know that we can add Google Drive files to our eduClipper boards. video overview

Screen Leap To share your screen using Screen Leap just visit the site, click "share your screen," enable the Java applet, and send the sharing code to the person you want to view your screen. The person receiving your invitation code will be able to see your screen when you have Screen Leap activated. Free

Scribblar Quick easy collaborative site with numerous features.

DecideAlready Makes it simple for groups to come to a decision about anything.

Harnu To discover news, videos, and music and select a country. Harnu will then give you a list of news stories, videos, or music from your chosen country. Harnu has the potential to be a good way to find teachers in other parts of the world and connect with them for globally collaborative classroom projects. Or you could just use Harnu to find news stories coming out of the countries that your students are studying.

MeBeam, you can instantly video conference with your friends.There is no need to download anything, and there is no signup or login needed.

MarQueed is a tool for organizing collections of images, sharing those collections, and discussing the images in those collections. The basic idea of MarQueed is to provide tools for highlighting elements of pictures and drawings for others to see. You can upload an image to MarQueed then draw on it or attach a text box to it. For example, if I had an image of a cell I could upload it to MarQueed then label parts of it for my students to see.

Hall.com is a new service for quickly creating and hosting online collaboration spaces. On Hall.com you can create your own space, quiet appropriately called Halls, in which you and your teammates chat, take notes, and manage to-do lists together. In your Hall you can also post polls and surveys to gather feedback from your group.

Live Minutes web conferencing website for everyone holding a online meeting or lesson. You can use Skype video to communicate in real time within the
application or opt for writing to other contributors in text. It has a real
time collaborative whiteboard where users can draw and write ideas. You can upload and show PowerPoints, PDFs, Word documents, images, maps and even videos as a group. You can make a room instantly without signing up to the site. Just share the room link with others to get started. You can preupload files get other benefits if you complete the free sign up.

Any Meeting is a nice service for hosting and recording live webinars without installing any special software. When using Any Meeting as a webinar host you can share your screen, use your webcam, and use text chat all at the same time. As the webinar host you can invite others to talk to the group using their webcams. You can have up to six webcams active in a webinar at any one time. You can record all or part of your webinar for free too.

Live Minutes collaborative platform that facilitates video conferencing. The great thing about this tool is that it include live collaboration features similar to those found on Google Docs. Users can, besides live video chatting, work on documents in real time, edit to-do-lists, and annotate images.

Real-time Collaboration Apps for the iPad real-time collaboration apps to enhance instruction. The most popular of these include the whiteboard apps, most of which work when connected to the same wireless network

Socrative for iPad

Socrative is an app that turns any device into part of a student response system. Not sure why I haven't written about before as it has won all kinds of awards. If you have BYOD or iPad or any type of 1:1 technology, Socrative is a must use so you don't have to buy a separate response system.

GoSoapBox GoSoapBox is used during class to break down participation barriers, keeping students engaged, and giving teachers insight into student comprehension that was never before possible. Students and teachers join a GoSoapBox event through their laptops, smartphones, or tablets, and interact during class. GoSoapBox is anonymous among students, so teachers will hear questions and opinions that they never would have otherwise.

SendHub creating another line for your phone for free. This is great for education as it allows teachers to send texts to groups of students, parents, etc for free from any online device. It is a call and messaging solution to reach small and large groups of people. Their simple interface lets users place & accept calls, as well as send group messages to everyone, from anywhere. SendHub was founded for teachers,

BigMarker - an easy-to-use, no-cost, Web conferencing system where teachers can offer entire classes, supplementary lessons, tutor sessions or office hours

Skype in the Classroom - Designed for education, this site brings teachers, projects and resources together from all around the world. This is a free site designed for video conferencing and global learning.

Airtime Similar to Google+ Hangout's and is a great way to "live" video chat. Chatting with people over the web. Both people participate in the chat and can share live experiences such as watching the same YouTube video, etc. A unique feature is the ability to search for people based on similar interest and then start video chatting right away.

Synchtube - Create a public or private room where users can view the same video and chat in real time.

Edmodo, in a nutshell it is a microblogging system designed specifically for teachers and students. Using Edmodo teachers can create a microblogging network for their classes. Edmodo allows teachers to create a group specifically for their students and exclude those not invited to the group. Edmodo provides teachers with a place to post assignment reminders, build an event calendar, and post messages to the group. Just as with any good microblogging service users can share links, videos, and images.
15 Things Teachers can do with Edmondo

A Handy Guide to Everything Teachers Need to Know about Edmodo

Edmodo Cheat Sheet

How to Add Free Apps to Your Edmodo Group

Chalkup is a powerful tool for changing the way you teach and interact with students. This online platform lets teachers take their classes to the next level by providing a way for teachers to engage their students. Classes of students can collaborate on shared files to complete projects and study in groups. Both teachers and students can track upcoming assignments and participate in discussions on course material. New feature that you’ll want to check out – rubrics that make it simple to assess and grade student projects and assignments

Together Learn, the app provides the chance for multiple people, in different places, to watch the same video in real time while at the same time having live video / audio chats while at the same time using a live shared chalkboard. The app lets you fast-forward, rewind, skip chapters, and pause a wide variety of videos while it lets you video conference.

Teachem is a service that allows you to create lessons based on video. On Teachem teachers can build courses that are composed of a series of videos hosted on YouTube. Teachers can write questions and comments in "flashcards" that are tied to specific parts of each video and display next to each video. Students can take notes while watching the videos using the Teachem SmartNote system.

Whiteboards

Stoodle is an online whiteboard service supported in part by the CK-12 Foundation. Through Stoodle you can quickly create a collaborative whiteboard space. On your whiteboard you can type, draw, and upload images. You can connect Stoodle to your computer's microphone and talk your collaborators while drawing, typing, or sharing images. Does not require you to create an account. video tutorial

Cosketch whiteboard that you can draw on and save as an image, embed code, a link and more

NoteBookCast is a free whiteboard tool that will work in the web browser on a laptop, iPad, Android tablet, and Windows tablet. NoteBookCast is a collaborative whiteboard tool. You can invite others to join your whiteboard by entering the code assigned to your whiteboard. You can chat while drawing on NoteBookCast whiteboards. video tutorial

Web Whiteboard makes it easy to include a whiteboard in your Google+ Hangout. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how easy it is to use Web Whiteboard in a Google+ Hangout.

FlockDraw is a simple service that allows people to quickly and easily collaborate on the creation of a drawing. To use FlockDraw simply visit the site, click the "start drawing" button, and start drawing. To invite other people to draw with you, just send them the url assigned to your drawing board. Anyone who visits the url after the drawing has started will see all of the drawing motions they missed unfold in front of them. You can embed your FlockDraw drawings into a website.

PenPal Schools fosters global awareness and cultural understanding, practice reading and writing skills, promote a sense of digital literacy, and gain better social and emotional learning (SEL) skills. Teachers also can assess student learning in multiple ways; they have the ability to see what students are writing to their pen pals, as well as to assess their work on projects and assignments using the teacher dashboard and provided rubrics

PixiClip for creating, narrating, and sharing drawings. Not for collaborating but creating video recordings that you can save and share. PixiClip provides a whiteboard space on which you can draw, upload images to mark-up, and type. While adding elements to your PixiClip whiteboard you can talk and or record a video of yourself talking. In fact, you can't use the whiteboard without at least recording your voice at the same time. Recordings can be shared via social media and or embedded into your blog posts. PixiClip does not require you to create an account in order to use the service. However, if you want to save your recording to re-visit and edit you will need to create an account. Accounts are free and take less than thirty seconds to create.

Realtime Board is a tool for hosting online, collaborative brainstorming sessions. The service allows to work with any information and visual content on one board individually or with the team. You can work with images, videos, PDF-files, write notes and comment everything, use colorful post-it stickers and work with files from your Google Drive. Recently, Realtime Board added a free education version.

Slack realtime messaging and collaboration tool. You can use it to organize all your team communication in one single place. Slack allows you to create channels where you can communicate and collaborate with your colleagues. For instance, you can create a channel for a topic you are researching or for a project you are working on . After inviting your collaborators, you will be able to hold synchronous discussions, share materials and resources and view what everybody else is doing. Channels can be public or private. In private channels only designated members can join and see what’s going on in the channel. And instead of sending emails, you can use Slack's direct messaging feature to reach a colleague directly and privately.

Collaborize A unique way for your community’s members to connect and interact online so that they can identify, refine and react to important questions and ideas. It is an easy-to-use web-based solution designed to harness the creativity of group members with an engaging and rewarding user experience. Collaborize™ provides you with quick access to structured real-time ideas and feedback that you can use to make the best decisions for your group, organization or team.

MiddleSpot is a unique website that gives users another, unlimited way to compile things found online.

Meetings.io doesn't require users to register at all which could make it a great alternative to Google+ Hangouts. Meetings.io allows you to have up to five people in a room. You can start using Meetings.io by simply clicking on the blue "Get a Meeting Room" button. When you click that button Meetings.io will create your room and assign it a URL to share with the people you want to video conference with. Once the room is created just allow Meetings.io to access your webcam and you're in business.

Remind (formerly Remind 101) is a great free messaging service that allows teachers to send messages to students and parents from different devices (computer, iOS phones, and Android phones).Recently, Remind released some new features that make it possible for teachers to communicate with students and parents not only through text messages but also via short audio messages. Teachers can now record a 15 seconds voice message and send it over either on an individual basis or on a group basis. Similar to ClassDojo, both your phone number and your students' are disguised so no one will get be able to see it.All That Teachers Need to Know about Remind (101)

Speek is a site that simplifies the process of conference calls. No longer doe a person need a phone # and a pin. W/ Speek a person just names a unique URL and then shares that w/ others to join a conference call.

Zoom offers Cloud Video Conferencing Experience that unifies HD video conferencing, mobility and web meetings together as a free cloud service. It is available for Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android, and works with room systems.

Knotebooks
Create, customize and share science lessons made up of video, text and image
Forums.com There are plenty of services on the web that you can use to create your own private or public discussion forum. But Forums.com takes the prize for easiest name and url to remember. Once you've registered on Forums.com creating your forum is a straight-forward, two minute process. To create a forum just sign-in and click "start a forum." From there you can start a conversation, which Forums.com calls "Gabs." You can also post events, pages, and files. In your forum management tab you can choose to make your forum private or public. Also in the management tab is the option to grab an embed code to place your forum's gab stream in your website or blog.

Notaland Casual Collaboration. Mash your ideas and media together with friends in a dynamic whiteboard wiki. Using photos, videos, and other web content you can instantly create brainstorms, presentations, scrapbooks, and enjoy an interactive chat with more than 50 friends..

Voxopop talkgroups are an engaging and easy-to-use way to help students develop their speaking skills. They're a bit like message boards, but use voice rather than text and a have a specialised user interface. No longer confined to a physical classroom, teachers and students of oral skills can interact from home, or even from opposite sides of the planet!

TypeWithMe An alternative to Google Docs. This a tool that allows students to use it without a log-in, but allows them to identify themselves when entering to make it easier for you to see the contributions by all; all revisions are kept and the text is highlighted with a different color for each contributor

Creating Social Networking Sites

Wall FM is a service that anyone can use to create a social network. Some of Wall FM's key features are message boards, customizable user profiles, private messaging between community members, and Facebook connect integration.

Jabbster is a free service that allows families and groups to create private online communication networks. Within your private network you can host discussion boards, share photos, post an event calendar,

Mammoth is a bookmarking tool that seems to offer the key aspects of Evernote mixed with Tumblr. At its core Mammoth allows you to bookmark websites and save files onto boards in your account. You can add notes to each of the links and files that you add to your boards. Mammoth boards can be private or public. Public boards are organized in a linear fashion similar to that found in default Tumblr themes.

Livebinders Live Binders is a neat service that allows you to create online binders of webpages, images, and documents.

Grou.ps Create your own social network. You can create forums, mailing lists, share documents, files. and real time chats

Widucate As the name suggests, this is a version of Twitter for education. However, your students are not constrained by 140 characters like Twitter. They can change fonts and embed images, videos and other media. This is all available in a protected, closed off environment with only moderated, invited users. Users can change their avatar and even chat in real time with their classmates.

19 Pencils is a site that provides teachers with a place to share websites, quizzes and video from one central, customizable location. From 19 Pencils you can discover, organize, manage and share content with your students for learning. 19 Pencils is very easy to use. Collect and share websites, create and use ready-made quizzes and track student progress on that online content. Teachers can share one link and students can access all online content for the classroom from one location.

Introduction to Twitter

Tweeter Board Google Form Want to get your student's tweeting without Twitter? Use this amazing Google Form resource is called Tweeter Board, which was developed by Tammy Worcester Tang. This resource is a Google Form that collects data into a Google Spreadsheet. It is a great resource to use the power and engagement of social media without needing to use social media!

BeeclipEDU is a wonderful web 2.0 site for education. This site is designed to allow students to create digital scrapbooks in an online secure way via their educational portal. Educators can manage their classes/students while students create and collaborate on their scrapbooks. They can upload video, images, and more to create an engaged visual project. free version limited to 50 students

Schedule Meetings

SignUp Genius is a free and easy way to create and organize online sign-up forms for all kinds of group activities. SignUp Genius creates a simple webpage on which people can sign-up for activities that you've specified.

Volunteer Spot is a free scheduling service that teachers, coaches, and others and use to coordinate volunteers. Volunteer Spot gives you the ability to post calendars and sign-up sheets online

Doodle - Planning a team meeting? This handy tool lets individuals with busy schedules select the most optimal date and time for everyone.

YouCanBook.Me is a free scheduling tool that integrates with your Google Calendar. YouCanBook.Me allows people to book fixed blocks of time in your calendar. You specify the length of each block of time and the dates and times you are available.

SignApp Now is a very simple tool for creating online sign-up forms. To use it all you need to do is enter a title and description of your event, set a sign-up deadline, enter a contact email address, and press "create."

SignUp Genius easy way to create and organize online sign-up forms for all kinds of group activities. SignUp Genius creates a simple webpage on which people can sign-up for activities that you've specified. You can make your sign-up sheet public or private. Once you've created your sign-up list visitors to your list can sign-up for the activities you've specified.

Doodle tool for scheduling group meetings with the input of all group members. Doodle is essentially a polling platform. To use Doodle you create a meeting title, select a series of dates and times for a possible meeting, then invite people to choose the dates and times that work best for them.

Wiggio is a collaboration tool designed to make scheduling group meetings easier. Wiggio is also intended to be used as a resource for group planning of projects. Some of the excellent features of Wiggio include a group calendar, a mass messaging system that works with cell phones and email, and a group polling system.

Calendly is a tool that integrates with your Google Calendar and makes it easy to create appointment slots with just a click or two. More importantly, people who want to schedule an appointment with you just have to click a time on your calendar and enter their names in order to reserve an appointment. Visitors do not have to have a Google Account to view or enter information into an appointment slot. Visitors who make appointments with you through Calendly can sync the appointment to their own Google Calendars, iCal, or Outlook calendars.

YouCanBook.Me a scheduling tool that integrates with your Google Calendar. YouCanBook.Me allows people to book fixed blocks of time in your calendar. You specify the length of each block of time and the dates and times you are available. Visitors to your calendar click a block and enter their email addresses to reserve a block of your time. When a block of time is reserved you receive an email alert.

Concept Board - An ideal site for creating an interactive whiteboard with many features, such as screen capture, mobility, etc.

Big Marker - A free web conferencing community that is ideal for educators and students. This is a great place to create a private room for collaboration and document sharing.

Watch2gether - Great way to watch YouTube videos with others via a text chat.

Cacoo - Nice site for creating online charts and graphs with a built-in chat feature for collaboration.

7 Tools to Manage Group Projects

Brainstorming

5 Free Tools to Collaborate for Brainstorming Without Registration

Grockit Answers - A site for interacting with educational YouTube videos. This is done by creating a public or private question/answer session around a video.

Dotstorming It is a platform for hosting online brainstorming sessions in which participants vote for and discuss their favorite ideas. I video

Kablink. File sharing and real-time meetings are two of the biggest highlights of this tool.

Letterpop create, publish and share newsletters. Choose from multiple templates, import pictures, edit text & click share to publish your newsletter.

wridea. A great way to keep brainstorming sessions documented and organized, this free tool is a must-have for groups working together.

Synchtube - Create a public or private room where users can view the same video and chat in real time.

interactive.i is a site I just found out about from Free Technology 4 Teachers. This is a fun site for creating a room that others can chat (via text) and draw. It's simple to use and is easy to share w/ others once a room is created via a unique URL.

Synchtube - Create a public or private room where users can view the same video and chat in real time.

VideoNotes is a tool for taking notes while watching videos. VideoNotes allows you to load any YouTube video on the left side of your screen and on the right side of the screen VideoNotes gives you a notepad to type on. VideoNotes integrates with your Google Drive account. By integrating with Google Drive VideoNotes allows you to share your notes and collaborate on your notes just as you can do with a Google Document. A good tool for students to use to take notes, ask questions, and answer questions while watching "flipped" instruction videos.

Grockit Answers - A great teaching tool to create a Q/A session for any YouTube video.

Watch2gether is a neat site through which you can watch YouTube videos and host text chats about them at the same time. It is really quite easy to use Watch2gether. To get started enter a nickname for yourself (it could be your real first name) then search for a video or enter the url of a video that you have previously bookmarked. When you have found the video you want a chat column will be present on the right side of your browser. You can invite others to chat with you by sending them the url assigned to your chat. Together you can watch a video and discuss it.

EDpuzzle - How about turning a video into an interactive lesson? With this free website, add audio notes and quizzes at any point to a video.

Vialogues is a website that is designed to enable users to host conversations around a video. Users can upload videos to Vialogues or use YouTube videos as the centerpieces of their conversations. After you have selected a video from YouTube or uploaded a video of your own, you can post poll questions and add comments that are tied to points in the video. Your Vialogue can be made public or private. Public Vialogue's can be embedded into your blog or website.

Blubbr quiz creation service. Using Blubbr you can create interactive quizzes that are based on YouTube clips. The structure of the quizzes has a viewer watch a short clip then answer a multiple choice question about the clip. Viewers know right away if they chose the correct answer or not. To create a quiz on Blubbr start by entering a topic for your quiz. After entering your topic enter a search for a video about that topic. Blubbr will generate a list of videos that you can select from to use in your quiz. When you find a video that works for you, trim the clip to a length that you like then write out your question and answer choices. Click here to try a short Blubbr quiz about the human heart.

Wiffiti is a service that allows you to receive text messages and display them on a screen. Get feedback from students and display that feedback in a manner similar to sticking Post It notes. You can collect feedback from text messages or from Tweets on the web. You can also collect images that your audience sends to your Wiffiti board.
Wiffiti is kind of like Wallwisher for collecting and posting messages from a variety of devices. Students can quickly share what they know about a topic or ask questions about material from class. You could also use Wiffiti to have your students vote on a question similar voting option in Socrative

Marking up Web Pages and Sharing Them

Bounce is an application that not only allows you to make annotated screen captures of websites but also allows you to instantly share those screen captures with others.

Markup.io is a free service that enables you to quickly draw and write on any webpage. Markup.io operates as a bookmarklet in your browser's bookmarks bar or toolbar. Once you have Markup.io installed just click it anytime you're viewing a webpage to start drawing and commenting on that page. When you're done marking a page you can share it with others by clicking publish. Publishing creates a screen capture of the page with your drawings and comments. That screen capture is assigned its own unique url that you can direct others to.

Online Study Groups

ExamTime is a service that middle school, high school, and college students can use to prepare for tests. On ExamTimes users can create flashcards, mind maps, and practice quizzes to help them study. ExamTime also provides the option to create online groups to share study materials. Groups allow teachers and students to share learning resources to group members and to host discussions.

Think Binder is a website that gives students a place to create online study groups. In each group students can share files, share links, chat, and draw on a collaborative whiteboard. Students can create and join multiple groups. video overview

Google+ is probably the most robust service for high school and college students to use create online study groups. Students can create private communities in which they share resources, have discussions, and they can host Hangouts in which they talk see each other as well as share whiteboard space, share documents, and share presentations.

Using Web 2.0 to Create Interactive Presentations

Three Ways to Create Screencasts on Chromebooks

Three Alternatives to Clicker Response Systems

An Easy Way to Store and Move Instructional Videos

123 Free Online Education Forms Create online education forms as easy as 1-2-3. Our web form builder allows you to collect applications, evaluate students & accept tuition fee payments.

A Complete Introduction to Edmodo

Creating Quizzes in Edmodo

Zoom offers Cloud Video Conferencing Experience that unifies HD video conferencing, mobility and web meetings together as a free cloud service. It is available for Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android, and works with room systems.

Notaland Casual Collaboration. Mash your ideas and media together with friends in a dynamic whiteboard wiki. Using photos, videos, and other web content you can instantly create brainstorms, presentations, scrapbooks, and enjoy an interactive chat with more than 50 friends..