Larry Ferlazzo是国际上最勤奋的博客之一,也是在技术支持的语言学习领域非常具有影响力的博客写手。他总是系统地不厌其烦地梳理着最有代表性的网络资源,将其发布给读者。他的博客文章一直给予Johnnie诸多的启发。
他在自己最近的一篇博客文章中,罗列了到目前为止2011年最佳WEB2.0教育应用。整体看来,这些东西对我们都特别特别有用,这里辑录,与读者诸君共享。
下面列举的是Larry Ferlazzo挑选出来的,这些是他认为到2011年到目前为止最好的Web2.0应用。Johnnie在这里只是就每个应用的功能进行最最简单地标注,并保留了他的博客原文中的详细介绍,以方便读者进一步了解。
educaplay looks like a great free (as far as I can tell, at least) tool where you can easily create a ton of different kinds of educational interactives that you can link to or embed in your site. These include Riddles, Crosswords, Wordsearch Puzzle, Fill in the texts, Dialogues, Dictations, Jumbled Word, Jumbled Sentence, Matching, Quizzes, and Maps. For at least some of the them, including dictation, it provides the ability to record audio. 这个是一个免费的非常实用的教学工具集合,用户可以将利用这些工具生成的材料镶嵌到自己的博客或网站中去。
tildee lets you very easily create a simple step-by-step tutorial for just about anything. You can add text, maps, videos and photos (unfortunately, though, you can only upload photos — not grab them from the Web). And you don’t even have to register for the service. 这是一个教程生成工具,你可以用它制作各种内容的一步一步学习的教程,可以在上面添加文本、地图、视频和照片。
Web Doc is a new sorta’ blogging platform that makes it super simple to write individual “docs.” I especially like its ability to search the Web for images within your “doc” and just post it into what you’re writing. It also lets you add a speech bubble to the photo. It has tons more features, including providing an embed code. One of its neatest features is the ability to for people to create their own “Web Doc” as a comment. The problem for classroom use, however, is that it doesn’t appear to allow moderation for comments. So, I think for most teachers, the best option for now (until they add that feature) is to use one of their other nice features — the ability to disable comments. However, since they are embeddable, it would certainly be easy enough to embed it in a post on an Edublog, for example, and just have people leave comments there.
AOL has recently begun AV By AIM, a super-simple video chat room. You just go to the site, say you want to start a chat, and you’re given a unique url that you can use to invite up to four people to join. No registration is required.
Instablogg is a super-easy, super-fast way for students, teachers or anybody to create a webpage, and it doesn’t require registration.
Swayable lets you create a simple survey that can include two photos (you can either upload them or grab them from the Web) and a question.
Caffein:可以让你轻松地创建一个多至15人的视频聊天室。
Jux looks like a great way to create nice-looking websites. It’s free and has a “drag-and-drop” interface, plus you can grab images off the web.
Magisto is a new Animoto-like service that lets you upload several short videos and it then somehow “recognizes” the most important parts and turns it into a magically-produced one minute video. It’s still invitation-only, but I got one seconds after I requested one.
Wordlings lets you create word clouds in various shapes, which you can then embed (or get a link to it).
PhotoCollect lets multiple people upload images to the same account — perfect for field trips.
Fakebook is the newest tool over at the excellent ClassTools site (Russel Tarr is the creative genius behind the site). Teachers and students can use it to:
– chart the career of a historical character
– create a timeline of important events
– outline the main plot of a book, play or film
and so on!
Broadcastr is a new site that lets you record audio for up to three minutes and then “attach” it to a map location. It also gives you the url address of your recording. This could be a great resource for English Language Learners and all students. They could write, and then record, reflections from a field trip, describe their home countries, talk about something that happened in a particular place in a work of fiction, and then attach it to that geographical location. In addition to being there for an “authentic audience” (someone other than their teacher and classmates), the link to the recording can be posted on a student/teacher blog or website.
GeoTrio lets you create a virtual tour of just about anyplace on a map. You type in addresses or locations and easily create multiple “stops” that show the Google Street View snapshots of the area. You can also upload your own images. But that’s not all. What really makes GeoTrio stand out is the ability to easily make an audio recording for each stop on the map.
Little Bird Tales lets you easily make slideshows where you can add text and, more importantly for English Language Learners, provide an audio narration. On nice touch is that you can virtually paint/draw artwork in addition to uploading images (unfortunately, the site doesn’t have the ability to grab photos off the web by url addresses). It’s free to use, but I’m unclear on if there will be an eventual cost to use the site. It appears to have an upper limit on the number of shows you can produce.
Thumbscribes lets you create private groups to collaboratively create a story. That private option makes it stand-out from many other similar sites.
Freedom Share is a super, super-easy way to paste and post text, and use it to create a webpage. Making it even better, you can copy and paste images there, too. You can even create a password to make it editable in the future. It makes things very easy for students to create and share online content.
Convore lets you very easily and quickly set-up either private or public group chats. You can use it real time or not in real time. TechCrunch has a more extensive post on it.
After you register (it’s free and easy to do so) at DropEvent and create an “event,” anyone can upload photos to the identified url address, and they can even email them there. These kinds of sites are great for students to use for uploading photos from field trips or other events.
Scoop.it lets you first identify a topic. Then, it continually finds items on the web related to that topic in a nice interface. Then, with one click, it lets you “scoop it” into your own personalized newspaper (that’s what I’m calling it, not them) which you can then share. It’s an ongoing process.
Projeqt is a very new application — you still need an invite to use it– that lets you create what you could call interactive slideshows. In some ways, I might describe it as a more sophisticated Prezi that’s easier to create and less confusing to watch.
Popplet is a new web app that is like Wallwisher on steroids. You can make an online “bulletin-board” with virtual “post-its” (called “popplets), just like in Wallwisher. And, except for the fact you have to register to use it, Popplet is just as easy and, in some ways, easier to use with a lot more functionality. With Popplet, you search for images and videos on the Web directly within the “popplet” instead of copying and pasting the url address (as you need to do in Wallwisher). You can draw within the “popplet” and it doesn’t appear to have an limit on the number of characters you can use. You can connect the “popplets.” You can also embed the whole thing.
Corkboard Me is sort of Wallwisher-clone that is even simpler to use but has fewer features. You just paste virtual sticky-notes on a virtual bulletin board. One nice feature it has is by pasting the url address of an image link, the image will show up on the sticky note. No registration is necessary.
Posterbee:一个新颖的WEB应用,它主要可以帮助你非常容易地创建你自己的社会性网络。In many ways, I think it’s similar to Posterous’ new “Groups” feature — you can add content to it several ways, including directly or via email. I think Posterbee has a nicer design though. In addition, when you add a link, it just shows you the key content in the link without anything extraneous, including leaving out the ads.
Isle Of Tune:在这里,你可以通过创建一个城市来创建音乐。是的,一个城市的不同部分:家庭、车子、树等等,每一个城市部件就是一个音调,从而创建你自己的音乐。用户无需注册,可以将自己创建的音乐的地址发给朋友共享。不仅如此,城市的不同部件还用英文标识出来,这样学生可以在创建音乐的同时掌握这些词汇。听上去蛮有意思的一个应用。可惜我在校园网无法访问到这个应用。郁闷啊!
Write Comics :是一个超级简单的、无需注册就可以创建comic strips 的工具。 It is a super-simple tool to create comic strips without requiring any registration.
Qrait :一款目前尚未对公众开放的新工具。it is a brand new tool that is not quite open to the general public yet, though I received an invitation two days after requesting one. It describes itself as “A realtime curation platform designed to fulfill the needs of content curators and reduce information overload for the rest of us.” I don’t quite understand what that means, but I do see that it can be used to easily create Internet Scavenger Hunts and Webquests. It lets you create a “molecule” filled with “atoms” (the call each topic a molecule and atoms the different parts of the collection). You can insert a website and notes into each molecule, which will also show a screenshot or even a video. The task for each can also be described. And it’s easy to move the “molecules” around. And, then, best of all, you can embed your whole “molecule” wherever you want, including on a class blog or website.
Imgur:一个超级简单的照片分享网站,你可以用它上传照片或者插入图片的URL地址。尤其是在教室里用用特别方便,因为创建相册非常简单轻松。学生也可以对自己的相册和照片进行分类描述。
Knovio :一个非常实用的工具,你可以上传一个演示文稿,用你的麦克风和摄像头记录你的演讲演示。它是一个免费的应用,目前还没有对公众开放。
Slidestaxx是一个创建在线演示文稿的新工具。其最受欢迎的特点是,它可以方便地从网站上抓去视频、图象和网站,并将其整合到用户自己的演示文稿之中。