EtherPad Clones

Etherpad is a very interesting tool for collaboratively writing on the web without anyone having to register and set up accounts.  It has some wonderful features to make this easy but Google has decided to take it off-line.  But Google has allowed its code to be shared and so there are several clone sites appearing on the web.  Click here to see a list of clone sites.

Mashpedia - The Real-Time Encyclopedia

Here is another gem that Leon shared with me. Mashpedia claims to be a real-time encyclopedia.  What it really is is a meta search tool.

On the front page you can see what are current news items, trending topics, people and brands. And you can see links to the current movies out.

When you enter a search string in the search field what Mashpedia does is searches the following sites with that search string, which is also what is does if you click on any of the links on the front page:

Big Huge Labs (Education Edition)

I have been playing around with Big Huge Labs site for a bit now and it is worth a deeper look.  If you are using digital photography in your teaching and you are looking for some fun things to do with your photos, this site provides an array of tools that you can use. And there is an educational feature that makes it easier to work with your students as they use it.

Brainstorming in the Clouds - Edistorm

Here is a gem I just found and I am eager to use in class and a workshop on Tuesday.  It is called Edistorm.   It is a brainstorming tool that using the metaphor of using different coloured sticky notes on a wall to collect, share, sort and rank ideas.  What I like about it is:

Dropbox.com

I just recently discovered this gem. Dropbox.com is a free (has a free level of use) cloud based file backup and retrieval tool. But it does a lot more:

• You get 2 GB (or 2,000 MB) of storage space to start with.  I only have 10 MB on this Blog site.
  
  

Presentations with Prezi.com

Prezi is a new kind of presentation tool. It is quite different from PowerPoint and slideshow based presentations tools. It allows you to approach preparing and giving presentations in very different way.

What I like about Prezi:

• It is free.

Cloud Computing for Your Classroom

There are many useful cloud computing applications that are emergingthat you can easily use in your classroom to engage your students and supportcollaborative learning. Cloud computing applications are tools that reside totallyon the Web and you can access through any computer with a Web browser andInternet connection. Many of these tools can be used with very little investmentof time to learn and set up -- and, most of them are free. In this session, we willreview several of these resources and how you can employ them to enhance your teaching.

Resources:

• Prezi including links to my three top ten lists.
• Shared Typewith.me document.
• Go2Web20.net- Cloud Computing Applications Index
• Growing list of Free Cloud Computing Teaching Tools that I and others are compiling.
• Click here to sign up for a free Dropbox.com account and get a 250MB Bonus.

If you are using a free cloud computing app in your teaching, share it with us. Post a comment.

Rod Corbett