Monday, April 6, 2009

A few of my favourite web 2.0 things...

Just fancied collating some of the free web 2.0 goodness I've liked over the last year or so, and which are particularly useful if you're working in education... so here they are...

Writing tools

Google Docs – good for online document storage, collaborative writing, off-site backup

Evernote - note-taking facility available via mobile, online and offline with synchronization available between any installation / version

Scribd - share documents which are automatically converted so they can be downloaded as Word, Adobe pdf or .txt files / can be embedded in HTML pages

Wordle
– useful for analysis of a topic or issue by simply uploading the text you want to look at

Zoho - full suite of tools from Office-type word processors to note-taking and project management tools. Free option available on most tools.

Blogging / RSS / Collaboration

Blogger - good, free blogging service from Google

Delicious - one of the original social bookmarking sites. Straightforward to use!

Diigo - great social bookmarking tool with added annotation, communities and discussion. Can also automatically post your links to Delicious if you've already got a Delicious account you don't want to lose.

DimDim - free web conferencing / web-hosted online, open-source meeting tool

Drop.io - instantly create collaborative working spaces, private, no account necessary, shareable outputs, easy to use.

Google Reader - full-featured RSS aggregator with good integration into other Google services

WordPress - another blog service, but is slightly more 'professional' looking and the ability to view stats on blog postings is also useful

WetPaint - free wiki with plenty of templates and features


Video / audio

Jing - web-based screencasting tool, create screen captures, narrated video etc.

quietube - view or share YouTube videos without distracting comments and other YouTube branding

ScreenToaster – create and record video to create screencasts or tutorials

SlideShare - useful for hosting PowerPoint slides to share / embed, also good for linking in MP3 files to easily create a slidecast

Xtranormal - create 3D videos by selecting characters and inputting the script. Sharable video output.

YouTube - video sharing site with lots of creative commons licenced resources / facility for comment / closed captioning


Social Networking

Facebook - major social networking site, useful for both personal and business networks / use of groups for students etc

LinkedIn - similar to Facebook, but with a more professional feel

Twitter – microblogging tool, useful for concise communication, resource-sharing, networking, discussion, current affairs / breaking news


Diagramming

Exploratree - from Futurelab this is an online ideas tool, a little like mindmapping but with other types of 'thinking' diagram templates available

Gliffy - creates flow charts, organisational charts, plans etc in the style of Microsoft Visio and can support collaborative working

MindMeister - mindmapping tool, allows users to create up to 6 mindmaps for free and export in various formats including jpg, rtf etc

ProjectDraw - CAD-like online drawing tool

Skrbl - free, shareable online collaborative whiteboard.


Image editing

Flickr - online photo sharing (plus tagging, commenting and annotating) and photography-related discussion forums / community

Picnik - online image editing with links to popular image-hosting sites such as Flickr, Picasa Web Albums, Facebook etc


Miscellaneous / Utilities

Box.net - online file storage service

Doodle - meeting scheduling tool

DownForEveryoneOrJustMe - does what it says! Put in a URL to check whether or not a site is down or it's just you having problems.

How Do I? - search Google for tutorials on any subject

Media Convert - convert files from one format to another using this free tool

Read The Words - create MP3 audio files from text input with a variety of voices and speeds to select


This list is a work in progress, so watch this space (i.e. I'm sure I've forgotten some of the ones I really like and I may sneak back to edit them later!) :o)

8 comments:

  1. Bit of a cheat posting such a big list :-)
    Why not play Desert Island Apps, and just pick 8?
    "And if the waves were to was to the shore, which one would you save?"

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pick 8... okay...

    Google Docs
    Twitter
    MindMeister
    Flickr
    Google Reader
    Blogger
    Wordle
    Diigo

    The one I get most use from overall? Probably Google Reader. It keeps my brain ticking along and is a fantastic way of aggregating, bookmarking, note-taking and sharing resources.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cool list,

    What abt an online radio station Last.fm to relax while working

    you should also check out DeskAway for task management it has a free plan, kinda like Zoho

    ReplyDelete
  4. Online radio - yeah... last.fm is good! I quite like blip.fm for its ease of use too.

    DeskAway - not heard of... but off to take a pic!

    ReplyDelete
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