In Plain English

Don’t know the difference between a blog and a wiki? Have no idea what RSS is? A group called Commoncraft does some fun little videos to describe technology topics in really simple ways. Here’s their video on wikis:

Other Topics include:
RSS in Plain English
Blogs in Plain English
Podcasting in Plain English
Social Bookmarking in Plain English
Social Media in Plain English

Handy Resources

The following is a list of online resources to explore. Maybe pick out three that you would like to use with a class next year. I think all of these are free! And all work on mac and pc. Feel free to add to the list!

Animoto -  a web application that, with the click of a button, produces videos using images and music that you select. The resulting video has the emotional impact of a movie trailer and the visual energy of a music video.
Bubbleshare – lets you create your own photo albums. You can also add fun clipart, audio and video captions to your albums. Select frames for your photos from over 20 themes. Print stunning photo books, calendars and more!
Creative Commons – This is the place to look for images, videos, graphics, and audio that students might want to use in projects. Here’s a great little comic strip that explains how Creative Commons works.
Gcast- lets you create your own podcast right from your cell phone.
Google Docs – lets you create and store documents (word processing, spreadsheets, powerpoints…) on line. Also allows others to view and edit your documents.
Google Earth – lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings and even explore galaxies in the Sky. You can explore rich geographical content, save your toured places and share with others. View a few Lessons and Activities.
Hulu – really no educational value here, but you can find LOTS of TV shows (current and past) to watch online for free!
iTunes – has a large library of podcasts and videos of educational value. There are many foreign language resources to check out. iTunes U has just started posting K-12 classes. There are some excellent science  podcasts and videos put out by Paradise Valley.
Kstudio – download this application to resize a bunch of photos at once.
Newsmap -  I think this site is fascinating (especially for social studies teachers and students), but hard to describe, but I’ll try. Think of it as a visual representation of current news stories, indicating the popularity of the story among internet users. You can view this information not just in the United States, but in other countries like India, Spain, andd Australia. Information is also color coded by topic.
Ning – a social network that you can set up on any topic. You could create a classroom ning or you could explore and join many of the already established nings. Two of the best education nings are Classroom 2.0 and Nings in Education.
Resize2mail – lets you resize an individual photo for emailing.
Skype – an application you can download that allows you to use your computer to call other people who have skype for FREE. You can also do video calls if your computer has a webcam.
Slideshare – allows you to share powerpoint presentations over the internet.
Toondo – lets you create your own comic strips.
Voicethread – is an online media album that can hold essentially any type of media (images, documents and videos) and allows people to make comments in 5 different ways – using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam) – and share them with anyone they wish. Check out this project by 3rd graders.
Wikispaces – is an excellent tool for collaboration. It lets you create simple web pages that groups, friends, and families can edit together.
Zamzar – is an online file conversion tool. If you need to have a certain kind of file (document, sound, or video) in a different format, you can probably convert it here.