The Upside of New Technology (in a Down Economy): Free web tools offer great options for students and educators.
Posted by annamarkowitz
March 12, 2009, 2:05 pm
If dialogue is one intended outcome of the most recent stimulus bill then it has achieved at least one milestone. Technology is one among several categories of the stimulus that are triggering a robust conversation for educators, students, and the myriad programs infused throughout the public education system working to support the two. In addition to debates about how much funding is needed to bring students and teachers up to speed, there's the ever-present concern about how to prioritize available funding in ways that will truly help catalyze progress. If you're reading this, you are likely well aware that infrastructure is still a major issue - especially for our country's underserved districts. Professional development to build tech-minded skills and strategies for educators and administrators is still in dire need. And the research and design of appropriate and effective tools - both hard and software - needs significant attention as the field preps to spend its part of the overall package.
Amid all of the heightened concern around technology and learning, there's one extremely relevant affordance of our technological evolution that goes too often ignored. When asked to create a post for LinkEd, one that considered the rough economy, it seemed like a terrific opportunity to accentuate the positive. In these budget-strapped times, the most convenient truth is that the web offers more FREE and practical tools for creative educators than ever before. Though, at MOUSE, we know how busy educators are, and even for those whose role is dedicated to the coordination and infusion of technologies across the learning experience, the process of exploring and culling great web-based instructional tools can be cumbersome.
At MOUSE, our commitment is to providing great youth development programming that utilizes tech-rich environments to engage and inspire young people and help them, as they build their skills and senses as leaders, to offer needed supports to the environments in which they learn. One of the many great benefits of this commitment is that the MOUSE program team is constantly at work to find and use the kinds of tools that help to that end. And so, without further ado, MOUSE offers its own small contribution that, while perhaps not stimulating the economy, we do hope it will stimulate your thinking about all that's possible when great digital tools are made widely available to creative educators and youth. Having polled our staff, here's the roundup of some of our favorite FREE web-based tools to battle the down economy.
Edit, Share, or Remix Media:
Flickr - photo sharing: http://www.flickr.com
SchoolTube - school-friendly online video portal: http://www.schooltube.com
Youth Media Exchange - youth-led media for social change: http://www.ymex.org
Gimp - creative photo and image editing: http://www.gimp.org
Photoshop Express - creative photo and image editing: https://www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html
Audacity - edit audio files: http://audacity.sourceforge.net
Create a Wiki or an Online Social Network:
WikiSpaces - collaborative wiki space: http://www.wikispaces.com
PBWiki - collaborative wiki space: http://pbwiki.com
Ning - create your own web-based social network: http://www.ning.com
Journal or Publish with a Blog:
Blogspot: https://www.blogger.com/start
Wordpress: http://wordpress.org
ScreenCasting and Document Collaboration:
Jing - free 5-minute screencasts made easy: http://www.jingproject.com
VoiceThread - collaborate to build ideas around multimedia documents: http://voicethread.com
Demonstrate and Share Your Research:
Delicious - store and network your bookmarks online: http://delicious.com
VooDoo Pad - create mixed media documents: http://flyingmeat.com/voodoopad
Store and Share Files:
Drop Box - 2Gigs of free storage: http://www.getdropbox.com
drop io: http://drop.io
Search and Collaborate on fun Tech-Related Projects & Activity Ideas:
Make: http://makezine.com
Instructables: http://www.instructables.com
Access all the possibilities of Cloud Computing with Google Apps:
email: create your google user ID at www.google.com
web-based documents: create your google user ID at www.google.com
websites: create your google user ID at www.google.com
Learn more about MOUSE at www.mouse.org, or check out our student site at www.mousesquad.org.
By Marc Lesser
Education Director
MOUSE
