Tools and Resources relating to: Critical Thinking

  • XR Access: Virtual, Augmented, & Mixed Reality for People with Disabilities - XR Access is a research consortium dedicated to fostering and leading a community that prioritizes creating, sharing, and learning about XR and accessibility endeavors. Their mission is to adapt current technologies and envision future technologies that put accessibility first while sharing informative resources to bring awareness to the lack of accessibility in the XR field. On their site, you will find a plethora of projects, research, and resources related to their goals, as well as information about upcoming events hosted by the organization.   XR Access: Virtual, Augmented, & Mixed Reality for People with Disabilities
  • Creator+ Add-on Package for Brightspace (D2L) - The Creator+ Addon Package for Brightspace (D2L) is an eLearning Authoring Tool for creating high-impact course activities. Creating interactive course content doesn’t have to be hard. This add-on to the Brightspace D2L Learning Management System (LMS) allows the creation of instructionally sound interactive content. Save Time With Ready-Made Templates Increase Engagement by Inserting Elements Add Multimedia Elements With the Capture App Maintain Design Consistency With the Content Styler Creator+ helps you deliver engaging and interactive course activities including ready-made content templates, practice exercises, interactive elements, and easy-to-capture video recordings. Build impactful courses with less time and friction. Ready-made templates are easy to implement with any D2L course content. Note: Free access to Creator+ is only available for 30 days. It is necessary to acquire the add-on as a part of a Brightspace D2L institutional package. Even though the Creator+ add-on is not available ...
  • DLFteach Toolkit (Volume 2): Lesson Plans on Immersive Technology - The DLF Digital Library Pedagogy group (aka #DLFteach) is a grassroots community of practice within the Digital Library Federation that empowers digital library practitioners to see themselves as teachers and equip them to engage learners in how digital library technologies shape knowledge infrastructures. This resource is a great guide for educators working with Extended Reality technologies.   DLFteach Toolkit Website
  • Unreal Engine - Unreal engine is a game engine that uses real-time 3D computer graphics and was developed by Epic Games. The software allows people to create games using assets created in Unreal itself and imported from 3D modeling platforms such as Blender or Maya. The software has a small learning curve, however, there are many tutorials available. Tutorials are not included with this listing because the software is frequently updated, making some tutorials inaccurate after a few months.   Unreal Engine
  • Asana - Asana is project management software that allows you to keep track of various projects and tasks. Customization options allow you to personalize the experience to your preferences. There are different layouts for viewing tasks, keeping track of lists, and managing calendars (including social media). Asana allows you to add members to your "team" allowing multiple people to collaborate. One interesting thing to note is that if you sign up for Asana using an email that is known to be associated with a college or university (using a .edu email), you will be able to add multiple projects to your profile, something you cannot do with a standard email profile.   Asana
  • World History Encyclopedia - World History Encyclopedia is a non-profit organization publishing the world's most read history encyclopedia. Its mission is to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. Every submission is carefully reviewed by its editorial team prior to publication. The free encyclopedia offers a wide range of articles, maps, videos, audio material, a media library, and teaching resources on a wide range of historical subjects.   World History Encyclopedia
  • QRCode Monkey - QRCode Monkey is a free online QR code generator. It allows customized colors, logos, shapes, and designs. The high-resolution images can be generated in multiple file types (.png, .svg, .pdf, and .eps) and can be used on the web or for commercial and print purposes.   QRCode Monkey
  • TechBoomers - Explore the basics when it comes to navigating the internet. Access over 100 free website and app courses along with thousands of useful articles with the Tips and Tricks you need to take your tech skills to the next level.   TechBoomers
  • Qualtrics - Qualtrics is web-based software that allows the user to create surveys and generate reports. Qualtrics enables you to do using a variety of distribution means.   Qualtrics Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • Survey Monkey - Surveymonkey is an online survey site that simplifies the survey process considerably. In the survey design phase, Surveymonkey offers 17 formats for asking questions (multiple choice, true false, open-ended, etc).   Survey Monkey Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • Pear Deck - Pear Deck is an interactive presentation and lesson delivery tool that can be used via the web or as an add-on or integration with a variety of other programs. Pear Deck is a Google Slides add-on designed to help teachers create engaging slide show-style content for the classroom and for remote learning. Since this is Google-integrated, it allows teachers to create or edit presentations right there from within their own Google account.   Pear Deck
  • Nearpod - Real-time insights into student understanding through interactive lessons, interactive videos, gamification, and activities — all in a single platform.   Nearpod
  • Jamboard - Jamboard is G Suite’s digital whiteboard that offers a rich collaborative experience for teams and classrooms. Watch your creativity unfold: you can create a Jam, edit it from your device, and share it with others. Everybody can collaborate on the Jam anytime, anywhere. For businesses and schools that use Jamboard hardware, you can use your phone or tablet to join or open a Jam on a nearby board. * Draw with various pens and colors to bring your ideas to life.   Jamboard
  • 16 Business Simulation Games for Entrepreneurs - Looking for a game where you can build skills useful in real-world situations? Or perhaps you’re already an ace at resource management games and you want to showcase your aptitude in a fun and relaxing video game. Business simulators have been entertaining players for decades, and they serve as a great way to spend time while learning to succeed in real life.   16 Business Simulation Games for Entrepreneurs
  • Become a Business Tycoon - Build your own company from the ground up.  Find and exploit gaps in the market and compete against other players.   Become a Business Tycoon
  • Wall Street Survivor - Free stock market simulator and free stock courses to learn how to invest in the stock market. Learn about the Stock Market and trading with real-time stock simulations. Participate in competitions for prizes.   Wall Street Survivor
  • How the Market Works - Learn how the Stock Market works. Receive a virtual $100,000 to learn how the markets work and practice trading. Create your own custom stock market contest for your class. The site provides teacher resources and lesson plans.   How the Market Works
  • Harvard Business Catalog – Case Studies, Simulations, and More - Harvard Business Publishing Education partners with educators and students around the world to deliver best-in-class learning experiences that develop leaders who are ready for a changing world. A robust catalog of learning materials, including cases, simulations, articles, videos, and online courses. Pedagogical support, teaching advice, and curriculum guidance is also available to help educators create dynamic, inclusive, and powerful learning moments that students will remember long after they leave the classroom. Thousands of case studies in a wide variety of learning topics are also included in this robust catalog. Simulations place students right in the mix of realistic business scenarios where they must apply the concepts they’ve learned to make decisions under pressure.   Harvard Business Catalog - Case Studies, Simulations, and More
  • Digital Skills Library - This Digital Skills Library is a collection of resources, tutorials, lessons, etc. which has been built by educators through EdTech Maker Space events focused on content curation of digital skills activities. Through hundreds of hours of service, volunteer contributors have helped to compile nearly 2,000 learning activities that support digital skills development.   Digital Skills Library
  • Escape Rooms: How to create a digital escape game – Florida State College at Jacksonville - This LibGuide offers useful background and setup information on using digital escape room games in an educational setting. Where to begin creating your first escape game is a personal preference. Some people start with a template, while others like to start from scratch. Either way, you will need to decide on a few necessary components. This guide has a few tips to help you get started.  You can also work with FSCJ Librarians to create a game for your class.    Escape Rooms: How to create a digital escape room - Florida State College at Jacksonville
  • Digital Escape Rooms – Lafayette College - This resource describes digital escape rooms for collaborative learning and steps for implementation. Escape rooms can be a fun, exciting way to unlock a mystery in a collaborative manner. In physical escape rooms teams work together to solve various clues and unlock codes so that they can essentially escape the room. Escape rooms can be engaging active learning activities that allow students to review course concepts with their peers during class. Escape rooms can translate well into virtual, synchronous settings by building them in a tool such as Google Forms and assigning students to specific groups or breakout rooms to solve the clues.   Digital Escape Rooms - Lafayette College
  • Active Learning Immersive Scenario Games in Teaching & Learning: Escape Rooms – College of Charleston - Escape rooms represent the lion's share of these types of games that are currently being deployed in education, corporate training, and libraries.  An escape room is part theater, part team-building exercise, and all about solving puzzles and interpreting clues within the context of a theme or subject area. “The most literal definition of an escape room is a game which requires players to escape from imprisonment by exploiting their surroundings.”1 Educational escape rooms or games have applied this concept to engage students within a particular subject matter. The educational escape room concept is basically an organized form of problem-based learning that uses aspects of the curriculum within the context of an engaging scenario or theme. The format of most educational escape rooms takes the form of students trying to get into a series of locked boxes rather than necessarily trying ...
  • DigitalLearn.org - DigitalLearn.org contains a collection of digital skills tutorials on topics such as how to use a search engine, how to get started on a computer, an introduction to email, online safety, video conferencing, Microsoft Word and Excel, and others. These courses are created by the Public Library Association and are available completely free to everyone! The courses are broken down well and information is presented clearly and at a pace appropriate for digital novices. The topics are taught through storytelling using real-world, practical scenarios. There are also interactive practice activities to reinforce learning. Most courses are either new, or newly updated.   DigitalLearn.org
  • Escapp - Escapp is a web platform for managing educational escape rooms and provides many feature-rich options. Watch the presentation video. Here's an article from IEEE Access about Escapp: Escapp: A Web Platform for Conducting Educational Escape Rooms.   Escapp
  • Educational Game-based Learning – Zotero Resource Library - This collection of game and gamification resources is very extensive. It has been developed and shared by Josh Yavelberg - Chief Executive Officer / Chief Solutions Architect, Flying Cloud Solutions, LLC. Zotero is a free tool that helps to create and share scholarly resources.   Educational Game-based Learning - Zotero Resource Library    
  • Spot-the-Troll Quiz - The Spot-The-Troll quiz is an educational tool created by Clemson University Media Forensics Hub to help the public learn to spot the markers of inauthenticity in social media accounts. Can you spot a troll?   Spot-the-Troll Quiz
  • Vevox Polling and Q&A platform - Engage with your online audience through Vevox's live polling and Q&A to make hybrid meetings and classes inclusive.   Vevox Polling and Q&A platform
  • Piazza - Piazza is a free online gathering place where students can ask, answer, and explore 24/7, under the guidance of their instructors.   Piazza Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • BCcampus - Search for quality Open Educational Resources (OER), including open textbooks, offered in a variety of digital formats; the first step in adopting open educational resources. Search by subject and download them to your computer. BCcampus
  • Good Calculators – Free Online Calculators - Good Calculators is a website that hosts an amalgamation of different calculators for all of your needs. This website provides a variety of online calculators, such as math and statistics, engineering, and conversion calculators.   Good Calculators - Free Online Calculators
  • Guide to Digital Security & Privacy – Consumer Reports - Consumer Reports believes digital innovation brings many benefits to consumers. But that innovation also carries new threats to personal privacy and data security. In our nationally representative CR Consumer Voices Survey, 65 percent of Americans told us they are either slightly or not at all confident that their personal data is private and not distributed without their knowledge. To help you navigate the complexities, this guide highlights risks, solutions—and easy-to-follow tips to protect you and your family.\   Guide to Digital Security & Privacy - Consumer Reports
  • NASA Citizen Science Project - NASA has many numbers of projects that require the collaboration of the citizens to solve the various problems lying under the various projects. The projects comprise the various types of participation depends on the given problem. Some projects require only analytical skills and you can collaborate on those projects by just sitting at your home, whereas some projects require your experimental skill through some outdoor activities. The projects are categorized under the various topics given below: 1.) Universe – Planet hunting, Planet patrol, Backyard planet detection, etc. 2.) Solar system – Astronomical search, Targeting asteroids, Detecting stardust, Detecting disks, etc. 3.) Space experiment – Going beyond earth 4.) Sun – Sungrazer project, Aurorasourus, etc. 5.) Earth – Floating forest, Landslide reporter, Community snow observation, etc. In most of the projects, you just require to join the project and collaborate with the other participants in the project by following some instructions and help the community to achieve the aim ...
  • Genial.ly - Genial.ly is an online tool that can be used to create still, animated, or interactive visuals, such as posters, infographics, quizzes, and presentations. This content can be used to enhance websites/blogs or as a communication tool (i.e. to make presentations, infographics, reports, posters, guides, and also interactive branching scenarios. You don’t need to be a programmer or designer to create stunning digital projects that are visual, interactive, and engaging.   Genial.ly
  • Venngage - Venngage is an online tool for creating infographics, reports, and data visualizations. Infographics make complex, important, or technical information easy to digest. Pick from hundreds of charts, maps, icons, and import data directly from your spreadsheets into numerous chart styles and infographic templates. This blog post titled, "Venngage: 7 Ways eLearning Infographics Make Education Easier," details the reasons why infographics can make learning for students more interesting, involving, and visual.   Venngage
  • Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) - Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high-quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. All DOAJ services are free of charge including being indexed. All data is freely available. Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
  • eMathHelp – Online Math Resource for All - This site is created to help people learn math. Includes algebra, calculus, differential equation calculators, and notes with many examples. The site is designed for high school and college students, teachers, parents, and people who want to refresh their knowledge in math. Study notes, a variety of calculators, games, and unit converters are available to get help, do homework, prepare for a test, or just refresh your memory about math-related concepts.   eMathHelp - Online Math Resource for All
  • Checkology | The News Literacy Project - Checkology® Virtual Classroom can help educators, students, and anyone learn how to tell the difference between fact and fiction. Checkology | The News Literacy Project
  • Critical Media Literacy Library Guide – UCLA Libraries - This guide has many free resources to help learn skills to become a critical media literacy consumer and is created and maintained by the  University of California Libraries. Critical Media Literacy Library Guide - UCLA Libraries  
  • Physics Girl - Physics Girl is a YouTube channel created by Dianna Cowern about physics, astronomy, and science-related topics. The show features fun DIY demos, unusual and cutting-edge research, space, and expert interviews! Physics Girl
  • Microsoft 365: Here’s how to get it for free - This blog post by c|net explains how anyone can use Microsoft's Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps without spending any money.   Microsoft 365: Here's how to get it for free
  • ComPair - ComPAIR is a peer assessment and feedback application in which students first answer an assignment and then compare and respond to pairs of peer answers. For each pair, students pick the answer they think better meets instructor-set criteria (e.g., “Which is better articulated?”, “Which is more accurate?”) and write feedback to each peer. The above paragraph is attributed to the University of British Columbia.   ComPair
  • Aropä - Aropä is an online peer-review system designed to support peer review and peer grading. It was developed by Helen Purchase and John Hamer of the University of Glasgow and is available for worldwide use for free. Aropä can be scaled to accommodate any size group with the flexibility to create smaller sub-groups or communities of practice   Aropä
  • Taquette - Taguette is a free an opensource text tagging tool for qualitative data analysis and qualitative research.   Taguette
  • Physics This Week - Physics This Week contains a number of physics tutorials that focus on topics that students often have the most difficulty with. This information is being shared to help learners over these bumps. This information is organized by topic and typically includes a mathematics refresher, a review of the important equations, and a few sample problems to help you master the material each week.   Physics This Week
  • Curriki - Curriki is an online, free, open education service. Curriki is a platform to develop and deliver open educational resources that also contain interactive activities. Curricula and instructional materials that are built using Curriki Studio are then made available to learners via the Curriki website. The majority of the resources on the Curriki site fall under a Creative Commons license. Educational materials are provided by the Curriki community and are peer-reviewed for quality and adherence to standards.   Curriki
  • UB Libraries’ Authority Research Guide - This Research Guide will help you better understand authority in the context of research and information and provide you with methods of evaluating an information source to determine its authority. Authority, generally, represents the right to give orders, make decisions or have control over something. In information, a source that is authoritative contains credible, reliable evidence and conclusions typically from some sort of expert in that area. In truth, it is a rather complex aspect of information to assess. UB Libraries' Authority Research Guide
  • UB Libraries’ Applied Digital Literacy Coursera MOOC Specialization - This Coursera MOOC Specialization is intended for anyone seeking to develop online, internet researching skills along with advanced knowledge of multimedia for the creation of digital objects such as presentations, infographics, posters, commercials, podcasts, and movies. Through these three courses, learners will cover how to identify their information need, understand which tools to use when fulfilling that need, employ advanced search techniques and tools in various type of information platforms (databases, websites, government repositories, and libraries to name a few), and how to organize the information they find using open data management tools like Endnote and Zotero. In addition, learners explore not only finding and ethically using multimedia but also how to create visually compelling digital artifacts for their personal and professional use. All of these skills will prepare them to conduct effective research (business, academic, and personal) and present ...
  • ChemCollective Resources (by Carnegie Mellon University) - The ChemCollective is a collection of virtual labs, scenario-based learning activities, tutorials, and concept tests. Teachers can use our content for pre-labs, for alternatives to textbook homework, and for in-class activities for individuals or teams. Students can review and learn chemistry concepts using our virtual labs, simulations, and tutorials. The ChemCollective is organized by a group of faculty and staff at Carnegie Mellon who are interested in using, assessing, and creating engaging online activities for chemistry education.   ChemCollective Resources (by Carnegie Mellon University)
  • Screen Mirroring A Phone, IPad Or Laptop To TV: How To Push Your Phone To The Big Screen - Practically everyone has a screen in their pockets at all times, however, looking at photos and videos on a phone’s relatively small display is not the best for viewing. Even watching videos, YouTube, and other content on a computer or laptop screen is not optimal. There are plenty of different ways you can mirror these screens onto most modern televisions. This article shares a number of ways to display from a phone, laptop, or computer onto a larger TV monitor.   Screen Mirroring A Phone, IPad Or Laptop To TV: How To Push Your Phone To The Big Screen  
  • Turning Technologies - Interactive software to conduct polling questions. A native PowerPoint integration is available and in many cases, an institution can integrate the polling software within its campus Learning and Management System (i.e., Blackboard, Canvas). Interactive questions can be pre-programmed within presentation slides, asked on-the-fly, and delivered as self-paced assessments. The software is free for instructors but students need a subscription to access the platform. Costs can be less than $1 per month if a multi-year subscription is purchased.   Turning Technologies
  • GCF LearnFree.org – Internet Safety Course - Staying safe online is essential in today's world. Use these Internet safety tips to keep yourself and your loved ones protected. This site shares a number of Google search strategies and tips created by the Goodwill Community Foundation (GFC) Global to get you started on your quest to find new things to learn about.  This link connects you with a brief tutorial on searching better with Google. Exploring the site will bring you to multiple resources. For example: Internet safety is the focus @ Internet Safety - GCFLearnFree.org The dashboard presents many topical choices beyond searching @ https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/search-better-2018/ A YouTube Playlist of the videos in this course is also available. Topics include: Creating Strong Passwords Spam and Phishing How to Avoid Malware Understanding Browser Tracking Social Media Privacy Basics What To Do if Your Computer Gets a Virus   GCF LearnFree.org - Internet Safety Course Keywords: digital literacy, lifelong learning
  • Search Tips: Getting Started - Learn how to find and use library materials at UB and across SUNY. We now have a single, unified system that gives you the ability to search databases, UB library collections, and all SUNY campus library catalogs, all in one place, all at one time.   Search Tips: Getting Started  
  • Research Skills Tutorial - This is a self-paced, non-credit course that covers research skills, critical thinking, media and internet literacy, and understanding the complexities of the modern information environment (including libraries.)   Research Skills Tutorial   Keywords: Advanced Searching
  • Insight Maker | Simulation and Modeling - Insight Maker is a free tool to create simulations and modeling in your browser that lets you express your thoughts using rich pictures and causal loop diagrams. It then lets you turn these diagrams into powerful simulation models. Insight Maker integrates three general modeling approaches – System Dynamics, Agent-Based Modeling, and imperative programming. Insight Maker   Keywords: chart, graph
  • newtFire {DH} - The newtFire site serves as an incubator of learning and research collaboration between scholars and students in the Digital Humanities from multiple institutions, and is the project development site of Elisa Beshero-Bondar, Program Chair of Digital Media, Arts, and Technology (DIGIT) at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College. This site contains numerous tutorials and exercises well suited for working within the digital humanities, computer science, and beyond. Current tutorials include: Git and GitHub | HTML | JavaScript | Network Analysis | Project Preparation | Python | QGIS | Regular Expressions | Relax NG | Schematron | SVG | TEI | XML | XPath | XQuery | XSLT   newtFire {DH}
  • World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) - The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops international standards for the Web: HTML, CSS, and many more. The W3C is an international community where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards. Led by Web inventor and Director Tim Berners-Lee and CEO Jeffrey Jaffe, W3C's mission is to lead the Web to its full potential. The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) develops standards and support materials to help understand and implement accessibility to make websites, applications, and other digital creations more accessible and usable to everyone. -- from W3C website   World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
  • Creating an Online Community, Class or Conference – Quick Tech Guide - This guide is an editable Google Doc that has a wide collection of resources to assist you to create an online community, class or conference. "Are you creating an online course, event or conference? If you’re not a programmer, and if you don’t have a lot of money to spend, this guide will get you started. Read it from top to bottom to get a step-by-step guide to what you can do to set up your course or event. Then check the links to find free or cheap and easy tools that will get the job done for you." The document was initially created and conceived by Stephen Downes, a Canadian philosopher and commentator in the fields of online learning and new media.   Creating an Online Community, Class or Conference - Quick Tech Guide
  • Microsoft Digital Literacy Course - Learn how to effectively use devices, software, and the internet to collaborate with others and discover, use, and create information. The Microsoft Digital Literacy course is for anyone with basic reading skills who want to learn the fundamentals of using digital technologies. The course is at a reading level like that of most newspapers around the world. Learners who complete the course will understand basic computing concepts and skills. After completing each module, learners will receive a Digital Literacy Certificate of Completion that they can download and save. Microsoft Digital Literacy Course
  • Perusall - Perusall is a platform that allows someone to annotate readings and engage the reading material in a style akin to social media posting. Full comments can be added, users can “like” comments, use hashtags, link URLs to comments, and even use emoticons. -- adapted from Etools: Using Perusall in the Classroom Celeste C Wells, Boston College. Start annotation threads by highlighting text, asking a question, or posting a comment. Replies and comments can also be added to have conversations directly within a document.   Perusall   Keywords: Annotation, collaborative document editing, close reading
  • PlantNet – Pl@ntNet - PlantNet is a participatory science project that enables scientists from all over the world to better understand plant biodiversity and to study the best ways to preserve it. Identify, explore, and share your observations of wild plants · Pl@ntNet is a tool to help to identify plants with pictures.   Pl@ntNet
  • Energy 3D - Energy3D is a simulation-based engineering tool for designing green buildings and power stations that harness renewable energy to achieve sustainable development. Users can quickly sketch up a realistic-looking structure or import one from an existing CAD file, superimpose it on a map image (e.g., Google Maps or lot maps), and then evaluate its energy performance for any given day and location.   Energy3D  
  • dotstorming - Dotstorming allows people to easily collaborate on a topic and come to decisions as a group. It uses dot voting which is a quick and simple method for prioritizing a list of options. It creates a sense of engagement and allows participants to see the decision process in action and understand how the final choice was made. dotstorming
  • Stanford d.school - Everyone has the capacity to be creative. The Stanford d.school is a place where people develop problem-solving skills using methods from across the field of design. Resources on this site include toolkits to guide learners through design challenges. Stanford d.school Stanford d.school - Resources How to Design an Education Escape Room    
  • Wikipedia List of Fact-checking Websites - In this age of misinformation, the internet and mass movement of data on the internet and plethora of data has made is more difficult to know what is true and what is not. People nowadays are looking for instant gratification and quick response and reaction. Fact-checking has become an extremely viable tool.   List of fact-checking websites
  • ResearchGate - ResearchGate is a collaboration tool you can use to connect with other researchers. You can learn about new research and post your new research by following and being followed by other researchers in your field. It a good way to know about recent publications and who is working in your field. You can also ask questions and experts can post answers to questions.   ResearchGate
  • Spy Dialer - Spy Dialer is a reverse phone number lookup tool. This tool will help you to know who you are getting phone calls and allow you to choose whether you want to receive a call or simply ignore it. Spy Dialer
  • Stellarium Mobile Sky Map - Stellarium is a planetarium mobile app used to see the star when you look up in the sky. It uses the GPS location to track down the exact position and movement of the star, planets, comets, satellites, and more just by pointing it in the sky. This app is rated as one of the best astronomical applications because of its easy access and minimalist user interface for children and adults. This application can be easily used by pointing your device in the sky and by scrolling up and down, you can explore a catalog of 600,000 stars and other dark bodies in the night sky. Stellarium is available for both iOS and Android devices you can easily download it from the App Store or Play store.   Stellarium Mobile Sky Map
  • VERO - Vero is a social media platform and mobile app company. Vero markets itself as a social network free from advertisements. Vero Members are a creative bunch and like nothing more than discovering new stories, people, causes, and projects to get behind.   Vero  
  • Edureka - Edureka is an online training provider that helps professionals learn trending technologies for career growth. Learn top trending courses like Big Data, Hadoop, RPA, Cloud, DevOps & More. Expert Educators. Flexible Batch Timings. 24/7 Lifetime Support. Instructor-led Classes. No Cost EMI Option. Edureka - E-Learning Platform
  • Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) - Open Broadcaster Software is free and open-source software for video recording and live streaming. As of 2016, the software is now referred to as OBS Studio. There are versions of OBS Studio available for Microsoft Windows, Mac, and Linux. OBS is useful to create videos and add effects with webcam, screen, and audio capture. It is also one of the best tools for streaming live your meeting, events, conferences on Facebook, YouTube, etc. It also makes OBS easier to use, especially for those new to the world of live-streaming. Anyone involved in live streaming needs to use a live video encoder. Encoding can be done at the software or hardware level. Software encoders like OBS Studio provide the most versatility and are used by the majority of professional broadcasters.   Open Broadcaster Software
  • Ideament - Ideament is a great app if you need to brainstorm new ideas as it helps you organize the ideas. It is perfect for creating diagrams, mind maps, concept maps, or flow charts and is good at converting them to a text outline, just like Idea Sketch. The app’s cloud-friendly features allow you to save or share your ideas.   Ideament   Keywords: mindmaps
  • F.A.I.L. University: Fearless Adventures In Learning - FUN FREE Online Learning Tools   TRY ONE BEFORE YOU MAKE ONE! Escape this Breakout Room as/after you watch this 6 min. Gamification Intro!  (Answer KEY) See the FREE learning game-making tools below.  (Students can play your games without creating an account.) Want help?  Get FREE online gamification lessons at F.A.I.L. University   Hyperlinked Site Examples Help Center Tips Google Forms (with EquatIO add-on for STEM subjects) Google Form Escape Room Escape Room Instructions Learning Center Create a Google account Create a Google Form quiz Wisc-Online Baseball, Spin to Win... Contact, FAQ Save questions in Google Doc ProProfs Brain Games Crossword, Brain Teaser... Help Desk Save questions in Google Doc Purpose Games Image Quiz, Slide Quiz... Help Center Free, with ads Super Teacher Tools Jeopardy, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?... Help Desk Google registration Class Tools Pac Man, Asteroids, Pong... Contact, FAQ Save Q’s in Google Doc, ads Quizlet Match, Gravity, Live... Help Center Google registration, with ads   FUN FREE online gamification lessons for teachers at F.A.I.L. University Questions?  Email Jeremy at info@FailU.org   F.A.I.L. University: Fearless Adventures ...
  • Rules of (Zoom) Engagement by Ali Green - This document, created by Ali Green who is the CEO and co-founder of Pantera Press, provides tips and best practices to help people to adopt appropriate protocols for team meetings as they move from in-person to phone and video conferencing platforms. Topics addressed include reminders about muting when you are not speaking and when it's helpful to keep your video turned on.  Rules of (Zoom) Engagement
  • Hypothesis - Use Hypothesis to collaboratively annotate, highlight, and tag documents and hold discussions, read socially, organize your research, and take personal notes on webpages, PDFs, and EPUBs. Social reading with collaborative annotation helps people connect to each other and what they’re reading.   Hypothesis   Keywords: collaborative document editing, close reading
  • Toodledo - Toodledo is an incredibly powerful tool to increase your productivity and organize your life. More than just a to-do list, Toodledo provides you with a place to store your notes, outlines, and habits. Access your data on any device or browser. We’ll keep everything up to date with automatic syncing. Toodledo is flexible enough to work with many different productivity styles. You can use the popular GTD methodology, or you can use your own system. You can keep things simple, or you can add as much complexity as you need. Keeping track of your to-do list has never been easier.   Toodledo (info source: https://play.google.com/store/apps )
  • LearningApps - LearningApps.org is a Web 2.0 application, to support learning and teaching processes with small interactive modules. Those modules can be used directly in learning materials, but also for self-studying. The aim is to collect reusable building blocks and make them available to everyone. Blocks (called Apps) include no specific framework or a specific learning scenario. The blocks are therefore not suitable as complete lessons or tasks. Instead, they must be embedded in an appropriate teaching scenario.   LearningApps
  • Kanopy - Kanopy offers thoughtful entertainment free of charge by partnering with public libraries and universities. Individuals affiliated with a library or educational institution can utilize these resources to educate and raise awareness about important issues. It has movies categorized by genre. The user may also use the search feature to find relevant content based on the title or the subject matter.   Kanopy
  • MeisterTask - MeisterTask is an intuitive project and task management tool on the web and mobile. With its powerful collaboration features and flexible, Kanban-style project boards, MeisterTask lets you and your team manage projects of all types and sizes. It keeps you up to date on your project progress and it makes sure that you never lose focus on your to-dos and on your important deadlines.   MeisterTask
  • Medium - Medium is a publishing platform with a social twist. The platform has 120 million readers that are able to directly follow the publisher or the writer they want and read their articles. The platform encourages writers from all over the world to become a member and publish on its platform. The social aspect of the platform makes it easy for readers to follow the writers. The more followers you have, more widely your work will get published. The writers can also choose to publish freely or for a fee. This management is done by the Medium platform that has either free membership of paid membership with only the paid members able to view materials that demand fees.   Medium
  • PowerNotes - The PowerNotes Chrome extension eliminates the need to copy and paste or employ other poor processes to capture content. PowerNotes users just highlight material they find useful, include an annotation if appropriate, and then categorize the highlight into a topic of their choosing. PowerNotes is designed to unify the steps of reading, gathering, saving, annotating, organizing, outlining, tracking, and citing research into a single, efficient workflow that feeds directly into the writing process.   PowerNotes   Tutorial Video Resources for Using PowerNotes with Assignments
  • Wordle - Wordle is a tool for generating “word clouds” from the text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out or save them to your own desktop.   Wordle   Keywords: wordcloud
  • Testmoz - Testmoz is a tool for creating online tests. It is easy to use and has a free version. You can create a test without logging in. The paid version gives you the opportunity to create a bank of items from which to automatically generated individual tests for each student.   Testmoz Testmoz Introduction Video  
  • Wordwall - Wordwall is a tool that helps you to create better lessons quicker. Wordwall is an easy-to-use tool that lets you create a series of interactive games and activities for students. Find a series of templates that you can freely copy and adapt to your requirements. It has a nice interface and is easy to use. The free version offers a quite large number of games. The monthly price for the full version is not too high. In addition, the tool is available in several languages. Wordwall Wordwall - HOW TO CREATE AN INTERACTIVE QUIZ Create Gamified Interactive Reviews with Wordwall  - An article that shows all 18 interactive games offered in the free version.   Keywords: gamification, flipped learning, quiz, classroom response
  • Mentimeter - With Mentimeter, you can create fun and interactive presentations, polls, brainstorming sessions in meetings, classes, gatherings, conferences, and others with real-time feedback. It is an easy-to-use PowerPoint presentation alternative that lets you engage and interact with your audience in real-time. You set the questions and your audience can give their input via a mobile phone or any other Internet-connected device. You can also link the results to your video-conferencing platforms. This is a fascinating tool to build interactive presentations with an easy-to-use online editor. Add questions, polls, quizzes, slides, images, and more to your presentation to create fun and engaging presentations. You can engage with your audience during the session and they can use their smartphones to connect to the presentation to answer questions. Visualize their responses in real-time to create a fun and interactive experience. To participate in a Menti a poll ...
  • Joplin - Joplin is a free, open-source note taking and to-do application, which can handle a large number of notes organized into notebooks. The notes are searchable, can be copied, tagged, and modified either from the applications directly or from your own text editor. The notes are in Markdown format. The notes can be synchronized with various cloud services including Nextcloud, Dropbox, OneDrive, WebDAV, or the file system (for example with a network directory). When synchronizing the notes, notebooks, tags, and other metadata are saved to plain text files that can be easily inspected, backed up, and moved around. The application is available for Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, and iOS (the terminal app also works on FreeBSD). Joplin App
  • Typology of Free Web-based Learning Technologies - The 2020 Typology of Free Web-based Learning Technologies from the EDUCAUSE research library contains 226 free technologies arranged into 40 types and 15 clusters that educators can use to promote more productive and interactive learning. Brief descriptions, example tools and pedagogical uses are provided for each category. This Typology has been developed by Matt Bower and Jodie Torrington from the Department of Educational Studies at Macquarie University, Australia.   2020 Typology of Free Web-based Learning Technologies 
  • Hoax or Fact - Hoax or Fact is an attempt to spread knowledge and wisdom. To bring out the truths and facts behind all kinds of online rumors and hoax messages. The people, at Hoax or Fact, research, and analysis of various online issues in-depth, so as to put a check on all kinds of online spammers, thus preventing their unfair motives. They thrive to encourage healthy wisdom. Their main goal is to educate Internet users by exposing all kinds of scams, viruses, deceptions, misconceptions, misbeliefs, and unfair hoaxes and rumors. This way, they educate, alert, and save the internet users from unwanted dangers and frauds online. They also provide necessary safety measures and tips to avoid any kind of damage from these online hoax messages.   Hoax or Fact
  • Bitly - Bitly is a link management and URL shortening tool. It can help track how many clicks the shortened link receives, what geographic location the clicks are coming from, and automatically generates QR codes for your Bitly links. In addition, Bitly allows you to track engagement metrics, giving you a clearer picture of how well your content is performing.   Bitly      
  • Online Discussion Boards & Professor’s Presence – 10 Principles & 51 Strategies - This Quick Reference / Best Practice Card for online discussions is adapted from "The Professor’s Manual," by Victoria Nesnick, a Higher Education Faculty Development Consultant. The guide provides research-based guiding principles and strategies to help create and maintain effective presence and interaction between facilitators and participants as related to online discussion board participation. This resource from Dr. Nesnick's collection was made available with her permission.   Online Discussion Boards & Professor’s Presence - 10 Principles & 51 Strategies
  • Yalla - Yalla is the most popular Live Group Voice Talking and Entertaining Community. Voice Chat and play games with people from nearby or all over the world. Meet new friends is never easier: Choose group voice rooms from thousands of live rooms daily, filter rooms by Countries or Topics. 50+ Countries have already been covered, while tons of topics are available to choose from. Party with friends with no distances: Group voice-talk with friends no matter where they are, broadcast your favorite music inside the room, sing karaoke together, and play a range of games directly in group chat. Let's get the party started. Enjoy free live voice chat over 3G, 4G, LTE, or WiFi.   Features: PUBLIC CHAT ROOMS — Browse 1,000's of live chat rooms from nearby or around the world that cover thousands of topics. PRIVATE CONVERSATIONS — Start private one-on-one text and voice conversations with your ...
  • Seeing Isn’t Believing: The Fact Checker’s guide to manipulated video - The Fact Checker's guide to manipulated video is a multimedia module created by Nadine Ajaka, Glenn Kessler, and Elyse Samuels.of the Washington Post. The guide explains the three most common types of manipulated video (missing content, deceptive editing, malicious transformation) and two sub-types of each type. Examples of each type are provided, and at the end of the guide is a form readers can use to tell the authors about videos they believe have been manipulated. Videos in the presentation play without sound, which is helpful for viewing the guide in public and for people with hearing impairments. It is unclear when the guide was first published, but at the time of viewing (April 2020) video examples seemed to be mainly from 2018-2019.  The manipulated videos were usually about political figures, or ideas politicians were trying to promote. The guide may be ...
  • Mural - Mural is a digital workspace for visual collaboration. It enables people and innovative teams to think and collaborate visually to solve important problems. People benefit from MURAL’s speed and ease of use in creating diagrams, which are popular in design thinking and agile methodologies, as well as tools to facilitate more impactful meetings and workshops. Through Mural you can work with people across the room or around the world. It uses sticky notes, shapes, links, images, videos, to create, organize in a list, add flowcharts, diagrams, frameworks, methods, and drawings to activate and align your team. Mural also works with many integrations. You can organize your contents from private rooms and open rooms. Note: This is not a free resource but it does provide a free trial period.   Mural   Below are some guides to help you get familiar with Mural: Navigating the Mural ...
  • Splitwise - This application is used to keep track of your shared expenses and balances with housemates, trips, groups, friends, and family.   Splitwise Main features of this application are:- Split Expenses, record debts Equal, unequal splits Calculate total balances Simplify debts Categorize expenses Easy CSV reports Offline mode, cloud sync As per BusinessInsider website: "I never fight with roommates over bills because of this genius expense-splitting app".
  • Google Analytics - Google Analytics is one of the most popular digital analytics software. It is Google’s free web analytics service that allows you to analyze in-depth detail about the visitors on your website which provides valuable insights that can help you to shape the success strategy of your business. Today, almost all the businesses have an online presence through a website. Therefore, it becomes very important for you to learn the inner structure of your site to see whether it is accomplishing its purpose or not. For this, you need to know the details of what people do when they visit your website, how long they stay and what all pages do they visit on your website. Irrespective of whether you are e-commerce website or an informative blog, you would definitely want to understand and study the behavior of your visitors to deliver better results. Google Analytics
  • BigBlueButton - BigBlueButton is an open-source web conferencing system. In addition to various web conferencing services. BigBlueButton supports multiple audio and video sharing, presentations with extended whiteboard capabilities - such as a pointer, zooming and drawing - public and private chat, desktop sharing, integrated VoIP using FreeSWITCH, and support for the presentation of PDF documents and Microsoft Office documents.   BigBlueButton BigBlueButton Wikipedia
  • Open video repositories for college instruction: A guide to the social sciences - Key features of open video repositories are outlined, followed by brief description of specific sites relevant to the social sciences. Although most were created by instructors over the past 10 years to facilitate teaching and learning, significant variations in kind, quality, and number per discipline were discovered. The APA citation for this resource is: Miller, M. V., & CohenMiller, A. S. (2019). Open video repositories for college instruction: A guide to the social sciences. Online Learning Journal, 23(2), 40–66.     Open video repositories for college instruction: A guide to the social sciences
  • NPTEL – A Centre of MOOCs - National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) is a project of MHRD initiated by seven Indian Institutes of Technology (Bombay, Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras, Guwahati and Roorkee) along with the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 2003, to provide quality education to anyone interested in learning from the IITs. The main goal was to create web and video courses in all major branches of engineering and physical sciences at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels and management courses at the postgraduate level. It is cited as the largest online repository in the world of courses in engineering, basic sciences, and selected humanities and social sciences subjects and is the most accessed library of peer-reviewed educational content in the world. Online courses are available on topics relevant to students in all years of higher education along with basic core courses in sciences and ...
  • Khan Academy - Khan Academy is an American non-profit educational organization created in 2008 by Salman Khan with the goal of creating a set of online tools that help educate students. The organization produces short lessons in the form of videos. Its website also includes supplementary practice exercises and materials for educators. All resources are available for free to users of the website and app. Teachers can post their relevant subject quiz to their customized students with the class creating feature enabled as in Google Classroom.    Khan Academy
  • Twine - Twine is an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories. You don't need to write any code to create a simple story with Twine, but you can extend your stories with variables, conditional logic, images, CSS, and JavaScript when you're ready. Twine publishes directly to HTML, so you can post your work nearly anywhere. Anything you create with it is completely free to use any way you like, including for commercial purposes.   Twine What is Twine?  
  • TEAMMATES - TEAMMATES is a free online tool for managing peer evaluations and other feedback paths for educators and students. It aims to provide a powerful peer feedback and peer evaluations mechanism with a very high degree of flexibility. It is provided as a cloud-based service for educators/students and is currently used by hundreds of universities across the world.     TEAMMATES  
  • New to Working Remotely? These Resources Can Help – LinkedIn free training resources - Almost overnight, remote work has become mainstream. Companies around the world are encouraging their employees to work from home to prioritize the health and safety of their workforce and communities amid coronavirus. Working through this rapid change can be hard and we’re moving quickly to help members get information they can trust, stay connected to their community and learn how to be more productive and successful in their jobs.   New to Working Remotely? These Resources Can Help - LinkedIn free training resources
  • Online Science Simulations and Laboratory Resources – POD Network - A wide selection of STEM resources and ideas for lab teaching activities and new virtual lab experiences. Just a few of the subject areas that are included are Biology, Business, Chemistry, Engineering, Medical, Math, Physics, and Psychology. Colleagues at many institutions have gathered these resources and are sharing them back with the larger community. The original creation of this very helpful document is attributed to Kent State University. This list resulted from a crowd-sourced activity led through the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network.   Online Science Simulations and Laboratory Resources   Keywords: STEM, labs
  • SUNY OER Services - SUNY OER Services (SOS) is a shared service organization operating out of the State Uniiversity of New York's (SUNY) Office of Library and Information Services (OLIS) who works directly with all SUNY campuses and faculty to provide assistance and knowledge to support OER adoption and sustained use as a driver of faculty choice and student success. Services include offering a ready-to-adopt OER catalog, facilitating the seamless integration of OER into the LMS, the remixing of OER from various sources, and the offline (print) production of OER. The services and resources offered by SUNY’s OER partners are at no cost to SUNY campuses or faculty. User-friendly technology to support adopting, adapting, and building of OER course content Professional development opportunities, online and on campus Networking across faculty and campuses to advance open educational practices Support in establishing sustainable OER programs Guidance around ...
  • Slido - Slido is a web-based Q&A and Polling platform to engage an audience with live questions and polls. Everybody can ask and vote for the best questions. Question and poll results are updated live on the interactive wall. Ask questions, vote in polls and be a part of the conversation at the event you’re attending. Visit the Slido website or download the Slido app and join an event by simply typing in the event code. No registration is required. Slido is an easy to use Q&A and polling platform.   Slido
  • Teachly - Teachly, developed at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS),  is a platform designed to help educators create a more effective and inclusive classroom to provide insight into teaching to be able to work towards providing an equitable learning space for all.   Teachly
  • Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) - The Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) is a web-based program designed for use in higher education to promote SMARTER Teamwork prepares students to function effectively in teams and supports faculty as they manage their students' group and team experiences. As an instructor, CATME can help you to: Gather information from students and provide feedback to students. Understand their student teams’ processes, team-members’ contributions, and students’ perspectives on their experience. Be aware of problems occurring in their students’ teams. Hold students accountable for contributing to their teams. Use best practices when managing student team experiences. Note: Creating a CATME account and testing the system is free for all users. Otherwise, there is a licensing fee for using this service. Instructors can create and modify surveys for free using CATME's Student Test Files.    Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME)
  • SMORE - Create newsletters, or electronic flyers in seconds for free. Easy-to-use and engaging. Collaborate with your audience even add text, images, video or clickable buttons. Colorful backgrounds and choice of font styles. Professional look achieved quickly. SMORE generates a clickable link that remains with your design. If you need to edit, just re-publish to update. Tool also provides analytics such as how many times your newsletter or flyer were viewed.   SMORE    
  • Breakout EDU - This site is a "sandbox" of examples of digital breakout lessons Breakout EDU games consist of a combination of physical and digital puzzle elements that must be solved in a set amount of time to create escape room type of activities. Players of all ages are challenged to open the locked Breakout EDU box using critical thinking, collaboration and creativity. Breakout games are available in both physical and virtual formats. The site also features a variety of options to create puzzles and other interactive activities.   Breakout EDU
  • What is a Cognitive Tool for Learning? - The idea of a cognitive tool or 'mind tool' was popularized in the 1990s by David Jonassen. It explains that not all educational technologies are beneficial for learning. According to this concept, only educational technologies that help us learn more deeply than before are beneficial. Definition We usually think of an educational technology as a cognitive tool if it supports higher-order cognition. It is contrasted to an educational technology that does not do anything to support higher-order cognition. Examples For example, a calculator might take the full cognitive load of a multiplication task from a student, thereby not supporting cognition but rather making us 'think less'. By contrast, a spreadsheet or mind map may be a tool that helps us think more deeply about a topic. It will help us sort and organize our thoughts so that we can develop theories and deeper understandings ...
  • Directory of Learning & Performance Tools – Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies - This searchable Directory has been compiled by Jane Hart. The directory contains over 1,000 entries categorised into 35 headings. This directory compliments the website that shares the Top Tools for Learning compiled from an annual survey sent out through the Centre.   Directory of Learning & Performance Tools – Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies
  • Survey Anyplace - Free online survey tool for students and teachers. Also build quizzes, assessments, and calculators. There are plenty of survey tools out there. But to really make the most out of those tools, you’ll need a paying version. Not with Survey Anyplace, students and teachers are offered a professional license.   Survey Anyplace
  • Siteimprove Accessibility Checker - The Siteimprove Accessibility Checker is your tool to evaluate any web page for accessibility issues at any given time. It provides intuitive, visual feedback about your content by highlighting detected issues right on the page and gives you: an immediate overview of your page’s accessibility issues clear explanations of how they affect your users plus specific recommendations on how to fix them All analysis is done entirely within the Chrome browser, allowing secure evaluation of password-protected or non-public pages, multi-step forms, and dynamic content.   Siteimprove Accessibility Checker
  • Internet Search Engines: How to Find What You Want on the World Wide Web: Web Search – University at Buffalo Libraries Research Guide - University at Buffalo librarians have evaluated Web directories and search engines and selected the most useful ones out of hundreds for you to help you locate whatever it is that you are looking for. The search tools are organized into the following categories: Web Search Web Directories Multi-Search Current News Search Find People Search Metasites Social Search Engines Internet Search Engines: How to Find What You Want on the World Wide Web: Web Search - University at Buffalo Libraries Research Guide
  • Knight Lab - Northwestern University Knight Lab is a community of designers, developers, students, and educators working on experiments designed to push journalism into new spaces. The Lab provides an open, collaborative environment for interdisciplinary exploration and conversation, where students and professionals learn together and from one another. Products from Knight Lab include easy to create timelines, StoryMaps, and a tool to juxtapose and compare images.   Northwestern University Knight Lab
  • Miro – Collaboration without Constraints - Miro (formerly RealtimeBoard) is a visual collaboration platform allowing product managers, designers, developers, and marketers to create, collaborate, and centralize communication across the company on a single online whiteboard. Miro’s marketplace has integrations with over 50 apps allowing users to connect their favorite software. Popular integrations include Microsoft, Atlassian, and Slack. Miro claims to be compatible with virtually any modern device, be it a desktop, tablet, mobile, or whatever. Several pre-built templates are available in the free platform, including brainstorming, quizzes, mind maps, and whiteboards. Miro - Collaboration without Constraints   Keywords: concept maps, mindmaps, wordclouds
  • Atom – coding made easy for brand new Mac users - Hello fellow Mac coders! Atom is a free and easy to download application that allows coders to change and organize files easily. Once downloaded, any folder can be dragged and all the files will be ready to be used. Highly recommended if you're coding on any kind of Mac, since coding on Terminal can be troubling without proper help. Most help that's being given is by Windows users. Atom breaks the barrier between the two and if a Mac user needs any additional help, a windows user should be able to help through the use of atom. Give it a shot.   Atom.io
  • 7 Things You Should Know About Digital Literacies – EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) - The concept of digital literacy encompasses a range of skills and knowledge necessary to evaluate, use, and create digital information in various forms. Digital literacies include data literacy, information literacy, visual literacy, media literacy, and metaliteracy, as well as related capacities for assessing social and ethical issues in our digital world. Administrators, faculty members, librarians, instructional designers, and others have a pivotal role to play in helping students understand how information is shaped and shared today across the digital landscape. The 7 Things You Should Know About... series from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) provides concise information on emerging learning technologies. Each brief focuses on a single technology and describes what it is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning. Use these briefs for a no-jargon, quick overview of a topic and share them with time-pressed colleagues.   7 Things You Should Know About ...
  • Trello - Trello is an online tool for managing professional projects and personal tasks. Use Trello boards, lists, and cards to organize and prioritize projects and to-do lists. This task management app gives you a visual overview of what is being worked on and who is working on it. Trello is a web-based Kanban-style list-making application, useful in managing and maintaining task using different columns and move the task in between them. Columns are further divided into the to-do, in progress, done, and pending tasks. This tool can be used for personal and business purposes including project management, software project management, school bulletin boards, lesson planning, accounting, web design, gaming, and law office case management. This tool is very useful in the project management settings and since it is an interactive easy to use for the team to be efficiently used in the team environment.   Trello   Keywords: ...
  • CUNY Accessibility Toolkit for Open Educational Resources (OER) - This guide was created by the City University of New York (CUNY) to assist Librarians, faculty, staff & OER developers create accessible content and accessible Open Educational Resources (OER). On this guide you will find information on: Creating Accessible Content: Platforms: Evaluating your OER site: VPATs: Voluntary Product Accessibility Template   CUNY Accessibility Toolkit for Open Educational Resources (OER)
  • Paywall: The Business of Scholarship - This full-length (1 hr.) documentary focuses on the need for open access to research and science, questions the rationale behind the $25.2 billion a year that flows into for-profit academic publishers, examines the 35-40% profit margin associated with the top academic publisher Elsevier and looks at how that profit margin is often greater than some of the most profitable tech companies like Apple, Facebook and Google. This film is free to view both in personal and public venues with a CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons license.   Paywall: The Business of Scholarship   Keywords: Creative Commons, Copyright, Open Educational Resource (OER)
  • Remix Project – improving media literacy across the curriculum - The goal of the Remix Project is to improve media literacy across the curriculum so that all students are better prepared for the media-rich world of the twenty-first century. The Remix Project is a collaborative effort of the Hesburgh Libraries and the Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning from the University at Notre Dame. The Remix platform supports the creation of media as part of college coursework. Remix provides resources for students and faculty. The website provides step-by-step instructions for assignments, along with links to tutorials and other resources. The projects fall under four categories: Audio, Image, Video, and Data, with projects, such as infographic, scientific research posters, and public service announcements.   Remix project   Keywords: tutorials, lesson plans, audio, podcasts, video photos,
  • Visual Learning Center by Visme - The resource to help you become a better visual communicator. The site contains a wide array of resources visual learners and presenters. These resources will help you become a better presenter, communicator, and storyteller by creating better presentations and infographics.   Visual Learning Center by Visme   Keywords: visual learning, digital literacy, blogs and wikis, visualize information, presentation
  • Project Noah | Networked Organisms And Habitats - Project Noah is "a global citizen science platform to discover, share, and identify wildlife. It is a software tool that that nature lovers can use to explore and document local wildlife and share with others. It also provides a common technology platform for research groups, teachers and students interested in wildlife.   Project Noah | Networked Organisms And Habitats   Keywords: Wildlife    
  • 7 Things You Should Know About Open Textbook Publishing – EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) - With the ever rising cost of education, the textbook price is also rising. The open educational resources model has surfaced as a response to this problem and to meet the increasing demand of high-quality learning materials. Open textbooks can be offered by commercial publishers or found in open repositories. Open resources can promote active learning through student interaction with the text, particularly when they contribute to authorship. Although open textbooks face questions about the accuracy and reliability of their content, they allow higher education instructors to design content for their courses on an as-needed basis, choosing from an array of books, articles, videos, audio recordings, and readings. This EDUCAUSE resource provides concise information about OERs. The 7 Things You Should Know About... series from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) provides concise information on emerging learning technologies. Each brief focuses on a single technology and ...
  • Digital Note Taking Strategies That Deepen Student Thinking - In a world of competition and exhilaration, success comes to those who are actively organized. A vital tool to aide students in today's digital era where as much of learning happens online as it does in an in-person classroom is a proper note taking strategy. KQED Inc. describes how digital note taking strategies can enhance students' thinking ability and thus, assist them to achieve success.     Digital Note Taking Strategies That Deepen Student Thinking     Keywords: organization, note taking, digital notes, efficiency  
  • Mathway - Mathway is a problem solving tool, providing algorithms that will solve many algebraic problems. It is available on most cell phone and personal computer platforms. Using this tool, the instructor can create scenarios in which the learner can solve more realistic problems than normally included in many first year college math texts. A common complaint from students is 'when will I ever use this skill after I finish this course'. This tool is a means by which a student can help solve these more complex problems without the drudgery of manual methods. Mathway
  • SOL*R Repository - SOL*R is a repository service provided by BCcampus that allows educators to access free online learning resources. SOL*R includes learning resources from a wide variety of disciplines and subject areas. Resources range from open textbooks, individual learning activities, and tools, all the way to full programs.   SOL*R Repository
  • Open Culture - Open Culture brings together high-quality cultural & educational media for the worldwide lifelong learning community. Web 2.0 has given us great amounts of intelligent audio and video. It's all free. It's all enriching. But it's also scattered across the web, and not easy to find. Our whole mission is to centralize this content, curate it, and give you access to this high-quality content whenever and wherever you want it.   Open Culture 
  • Mason OER Metafinder - The Mason OER Metafinder searches seventeen targets in real-time, instantly returning the top several hundred or so relevant hits from each site. Searches include open textbooks, libraries, museums and organizations from around the world.   Mason OER Metafinder
  • Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) - Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a search tool for open educational resources (OER). OASIS currently searches open content from 52 different sources and contains 155,375 records. Use OASIS to discover quality, free open textbooks, courseware and more. OASIS was developed by the SUNY Geneseo Milne Library, in consultation with SUNY OER Services.   Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS)
  • Creative Commons - CreativeCommons.org is the official site for Creative Commons, which is an American non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses, known as Creative Commons licenses, free of charge to the public. Use the tools found on Creative Commons tools to share your work. Free, easy-to-use copyright licenses offer a simple, standardized way to give your permission to share and use your creative work. Adopt one of the various CC licenses to share your work according to the conditions of your choice. Creative Commons Licenses dictate whether a resource can be revised and remixed, as well as whether or not commercial entities can use it. The two most “open” licenses are CC By and CC BY– SA because they allow for revisions and remixes along ...
  • Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship - Mike Ribble identified Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship that comprise a digital citizen and he explains each on his website. The updated Digital Citizenship definition is "the continuously developing norms of appropriate, responsible, and empowered technology use."   Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship   Keywords: Digital literacy, Digital Fluency
  • SUNY OER Services – Embracing Open Pedagogy - Open Pedagogy is a commitment to learner-driven education AND a process to shape teaching approaches and use tools for learning that enable the learners to contribute by creating and sharing learning content.   SUNY OER Services - Embracing Open Pedagogy
  • Accessible Course Design - This site helps instructors and instructional designers implement strategies for accessible course design. The goal is to provide information that is easily understandable to individuals who are not necessarily technology-oriented and may not know much about working with people with disabilities. The tips on this website have been written to accommodate students who are deaf or hard of hearing, use screen readers for those with vision impairment, have learning or other disabilities, or are color blind. Many of these tips also improve learning for all students, which is called Universal Design. According to the creator of this post, "this site was created to help instructors and instructional designers implement strategies for accessible course design. The goal is to provide information that is easily understandable to individuals who are not necessarily technology-oriented and may not know much about working with people with disabilities." One ...
  • WiseMapping - WiseMapping is a web-based mind mapping tool. This tool allows users to create mind maps, share it on a web page, blog, and in social media posts. WiseMapping Keywords: Mindmap, concept map
  • Edulai for employability skills development - Edulai is an Educational Technology software that offers the possibility to university students and teachers to access freely available learning materials for improving 8 key employability skills such as critical thinking, communication, team-work, leadership, problem-solving, interculturalism, digital technology, and English language. Edulai makes use of artificial intelligence and has a dynamic library that suggests different content according to the level you have developed a specific skill. Edulai also allows you to add resources to your library space if you find some new useful material!   Edulai  
  • True Key By McAfee - True Key is the easier, safer way to unlock your digital world. It’s an application you can download on all your devices, to remove the hassle of passwords. Get started by logging in to the True Key app using unique factors such as your fingerprint or a device you own. From there, the app works quietly in the background to make your current passwords stronger, remembering them, and instantly logging you in – so you don’t have to. The True Key app offers customizable security so you can log in with one factor for fast access, or combine multiple factors together for added security – you decide. To log in to your favorite sites with True Key, click the site you want to access. True Key automatically fills in your login details to provide access.   True Key   Keyword: security
  • StoryMap - StoryMap, by Knight Lab, can be used to tell a highlight of a particular image or historical map (its tagline is "maps that tell stories"). Users can guide viewers through a series of zoomed-in highlights to a particular image or map, highlight areas of interest in the image. Each item that's designated can feature text, images, audio, or video. One example is Arya's Journey, for you Game of Thrones fans. You can view Arya's journey from the book series on a historical map.   StoryMap
  • Thinglink - Thinglink can annotate images with text, audio, or video. You can then share your annotated media in a website, LMS, or present online. Educators can use ThingLink for free. Sharing the content you create with your students can be done from your free account. Allowing students to create content requires a paid teacher account.   Thinglink   Keywords: interactive poster Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • PixStori - PixStori™ is an app to record stories about your smartphone photos. It links voice and still images in a multimedia PixStori that can be instantly shared on social media, uploaded into searchable cloud collections of family or group memories, and collected as crowdsourced field data for organizations and businesses. It is Oral History meets Instagram. PixStori is a very useful app to combine pictures with audio. This is a great tool where we can take pictures with your phone and add audio to explain the picture, or even music and environment ambiance sounds related to it. This is a very easy alternative to recording videos and to create mementos of moments or voice note for poster/academic/class presentations. Every picture has a story to tell. Now you can tell that story in your own voice and share it now and for the future. ...
  • 7 Excellent Tools for Creating Interactive Video Quizzes - Design quizzes to integrate with video. Some of these tools also let you annotate video content. Import video clips and add a variety of interactive features (e.g., quizzes, comments, links, etc.). 7 Excellent Tools for Creating Interactive Video Quizzes   Keywords: video, quiz
  • Helping Apps for Practitioners and Educators (HAPPE) - Helping Apps for Practitioners and Educators, HAPPE, is a monthly blog series of the University at Buffalo School of Social Work.  The goal of the series is to connect practitioners and educators in the Helping Professions with mobile apps they may find useful in practice or in their pursuit of life-long learning.  We believe digital literacies are important skills for the new millennium. This series aims to educate and inspire Helpers to appropriately integrate technology into their professional lives.   Happe   Keywords: mental health, counseling, mobile apps
  • Equity Maps - Equity Maps is an iPad app to trace and assess interaction, performance, and involvement in class or group discussions. Chart & record the interactions to graphically illustrate levels of participation. Use in class discussions to encourage equitable dialogue, promote wider collaboration. Questions this app can help you address include: Is everyone sharing air-time? Is someone with many ideas a little too quiet? Is there someone who can't keep quiet? Is the teacher doing most of the talking?   Equity Maps   Keywords: diversity, inclusion, gender equity
  • Four Moves & A Habit (infographic) - Michael Caulfield, Washington State University Vancouver, leads the American Association of State Colleges and Universities"s Digital Polarization Initiative ("DigiPo"). The work is framed by his "Four Moves & A Habit" strategy from his OER Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers. Caulfield's work is important, and this infographic of Four Moves & A Habit, provide an exceptional resource for anyone who is trying to teach or practice digital literacy.   Four Moves & A Habit
  • Answer Garden - A tool that can be used for real-time classroom brainstorming or online homework. Can be used in the classroom, for professional development, creativity and more. Results can be displayed in a visual Wordcloud format with the most often used responses showing in relatively larger text-size. AnswerGarden   Keywords: response, polling, wordcloud, audience response, classroom response
  • Excelsior Online Writing Lab (OWL) - This open education resource (OER) is designed to assist with reading and writing at the college level. The Excelsior Online Writing Lab (OWL) provides multimedia support to students preparing for college-level writing, as well as students making the transition out of introductory-level writing courses. The Online Reading Comprehension Lab (ORC) is the, first of its kind, online reading resource, which offers an abundance of support materials designed to help students develop college-level reading skills. The OWL site is OER and CC licensed and hundreds of activities are available that can be directly embedded in your own blog or course site.   Excelsior Online Writing Lab (OWL)   This 60-minute webinar about the Excelsior Online Writing Lab (OWL) about Writing in the Disciplines was presented by Dr. Francesco (Frank) Crocco, Director of the Online Writing Lab at Excelsior College.   Keywords: writing, reading, OER  
  • Quizlet - Create your own study materials or choose from millions created by other Quizlet users. Quizlet has a number of powerful interactive learning tools, such as: - Creating flashcards - Memory games - Race against the clock Matching games - Listen to automatic pronunciations in 18 languages - Enhance studying with images and audio Quizlet Live is also available and is a collaborative learning game for the classroom to allow teams of students to work together, racing to learn the material in a Quizlet study set.   Quizlet   Keywords: games, gamification, quiz, language
  • NewsPrism - Newsprism offers links to a wide range of newspapers, commentary, and opinion sites.  The site arranges news and opinion content from Left/Liberal to Center to Right/Conservative enabling readers and researchers to explore differing perspectives, understand arguments from another perspective, and challenge their own ideas.   NewsPrism  
  • Public Domain Review – Collections - This site contains curated collections of images, books, audio and movies, illuminating the curiosities and wonders of a wide range of online archives.   Public Domain Review - Collections   Keywords: Creative Commons, copyright
  • OHMS (Oral History Metadata Synchronizer) - The Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries has created a web-based, system called OHMS (Oral History Metadata Synchronizer) to inexpensively and efficiently enhance access to oral history online. OHMS provides users word-level search capability and a time-correlated transcript or indexed interview connecting the textual search term to the corresponding moment in the recorded interview online.   OHMS (Oral History Metadata Synchronizer)   Keywords: video, oral history, metadata, transcript
  • SurfSafe - Defend the internet. Bring the world to the Internet without false news. If you see something that is false, report it! Supercharge your browser to catch fake news! SurfSafe is protecting users from misleading, photoshopped, and fake news throughout the Internet. The extension marks the level of safety of an image or article on the corners. Never again will you be misled by photoshopped images scattered throughout the Internet. You can also decide which organizations to base the truth off of. Add the extension to Chrome for free!   SurfSafe
  • Universal Design for Learning (UDL) from the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) - Universal design for learning (UDL) is a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. It is described by the National Center for UDL as, "a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone--not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs." In designing a course with UDL in mind, an instructor wants to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to learn.   Universal design for learning (UDL) - CAST   Keywords: UDL, accessibility
  • VideoAnt - VideoAnt is a web-based video annotation tool for mobile and desktop devices. Use VideoAnt to add annotations, or comments, to web-hosted videos. VideoAnt-annotated videos are called “Ants”. VideoAnt   Keywords: peer review, video annotation
  • Freshdesk Help Desk Software - A cloud-based help desk software which helps build relationships with their customers. Freshdesk is an intuitive, easy-to-use helpdesk software that enables efficient businesses processes for better customer experiences. Although a help desk system may fall slightly outside the realm of EmTechMOOC scope, there may be times where a free version of a help desk system could be useful for personal and educational uses.   Freshdesk   Keywords: business
  • RealtimeBoard - A simple whiteboard platform for cross-functional team collaboration. Data, images, spreadsheets, tasks, graphics, videos and more. The Realtime Board combines all of these parts in one place to allow teams or the entire organization to collaborate with each other. There are plenty of collaboration possibilities. Agile & Lean, Action plan, Strategy & Management, Kanban board, Meeting organizer, User story mapping, Gantt chart, Milestone chart, Retrospective, Product Management, Business model canvas, Persona, Product backlog, Six thinking hats, Random words, Empathy map, Timeline, Mindmap, UX & Design, Sitemap, Affinity diagram, Ideation, Wireframing, Lean UX. The image below visually shows just a few of the examples of how this tool can help to visually organize your ideas and processes. RealtimeBoard    Keywords: whiteboard
  • OER Community Course Experience - The OER Community Course Experience is created by the State University of New York (SUNY) OER Services. The SUNY OER Community Courses introduce you to the fundamental principles and effective practices related to Open Educational Resources. Throughout the learning space, you have the opportunity to explore and discuss methods and approaches to finding, adopting, customizing, integrating, creating, publishing, and licensing OER. In this course, participants have opportunities to connect in conversation with peers, and work with OER advocates from the SUNY community who can help you along your learning journey.   OER Community Course Experience   Keywords: Open Educational Resources, OER, tutorial  
  • Notability - This note-taking app helps to combine handwriting, photos and typing in a single note to bring projects to life. Use a wide range of note-taking and sketching tools to capture every detail. You can even add and annotate PDFs. It’s the perfect place to create and organize work, school, and life's information! Experiment with different tools to create beautiful, hand-crafted notes and sketches. Continue to scale, rotate, and recolor your ideas and sketches until your notes are just how you want them. Once you're done, organize your notes with ease so you always know where to find what matters most. Zoom in on the specifics, or explore the big picture by combining sketches, outlines, and type. Now you are ready to share your notes with colleagues or study partners through Google Drive, AirDrop, Email and Dropbox. Stay organized and up-to-date wherever ...
  • Vizia - Engage viewers by integrating quizzes, polls, and Call-To-Actions (CTAs) into videos. Embed your Vizia videos anywhere — blogging platforms, site builders, e-commerce stores, you name it.Ask questions, multi-choice quizzes, and collect feedback through your videos. Turn passive viewers into active participants. Improve your content from feedback. Generate leads from your videos and make them even more shareable. This program is free!   Vizia   Keywords: Flipped Learning, Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access, Quiz, audience response, classroom response
  • Health (Nursing, Medicine, Allied Health): Open Educational Resources for the Health Professions by New York University - The Libraries of New York University's collection of OER materials that are relevant to health professions, such as Nursing, Medicine, Allied Health.   Health (Nursing, Medicine, Allied Health): Open Educational Resources for the Health Professions   Keywords: Lifelong Learning, Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access
  • Gliffy - Gliffy is a collaborative web-based diagram editor that can be used to create mind maps and other visual organizations of information such as; flow charts, org charts, schematic drawings, floor plans, technical drawings, concept maps, and more.   Gliffy   Keywords: Collaboration, Productivity Tools, Visual Design, mindmap
  • Infogram - Infographics (Information graphics) are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge intended to present complex information quickly and clearly. They can improve cognition by utilizing graphics to enhance the human visual system's ability to see patterns and trends. Infographics are a better way to: 1. Tell a compelling data-driven story 2. Make content with data that is easy to understand 3. Grab your viewer’s attention 4. Increase brand awareness and drive traffic with visuals Charts and maps help to: 1. Make data easier to understand and remember 2. Discover unknown facts, outliers, and trends 3. Visualize relationships and patterns quickly 4. Ask better questions and make better decisions   Infogram   Keywords: ePortfolios, Presentations, Social Media
  • Med-Tech Innovation News - This website is the UK and Ireland leading publication for medical design and manufacturing technology and innovation. Their expert editorial team brings together daily news, technical content, analysis, case studies and high-profile interviews with industry experts and thought leaders. Med-Tech Innovation News provides intelligence for professionals involved in the design and production of Class I, II & III medical engineering and manufacturing community with the latest innovations in technology, materials, processes, digital health, and R&D.   Med-Tech Innovation News   Keywords: Blogs, Digital Literacy, Lifelong Learning, Resource Library  
  • Tricider - Tricider is a free Web application that can be used for online classroom collaboration and brainstorming ideas. It allows teachers, students, and colleagues to collaborate together to collect ideas, discuss these ideas to find solutions and vote on the argument they think is the best.   Tricider   How to Use Tricider   Keywords: Collaboration, Productivity Tools, Websites
  • SAMR Model - The SAMR model, developed by Ruben Puentedura, is a theoretical framework for scaffolding technology integration into education. The video below describes SAMR (Substitution - Augmentation - Modification - Redefinition) and introduces you to the model. The Emerging Ed Tech website provides a few Examples of Transforming Lessons Through the SAMR Cycle. This SAMR Wakelet collection created by Nell Eckersley is another great resource to learn more. SAMR Model   (Video length: 2 minutes)   Keywords: 3D, Audio, Collaboration, Mobile Apps
  • Top Hat - Top Hat makes it easy for professors to enhance student comprehension and engagement with this polling-clicker application, secure testing, and next-generation OER. Top Hat does not require the use of a physical clicker, but it instead works from a wide variety of devices including phones, mobile devices, and computers through which educators can utilize to assign textbooks, test, conduct interactive classroom activities, take attendance, administer polls, games and quizzes, and share notes. It also allows faculty to adopt and author interactive textbooks. Note: Students need to purchase a license to participate in Top Hat polls and activities, however, there are no charges for instructors to adopt the service for their classroom.   Top Hat   4 Ways to Bring Gamification to Your Classroom - A quick discussion that introduce the bringing in of games to the classroom alongside utilizing "badges" to indicate success.         Keywords: Gamification, Productivity Tools, audience ...
  • Open Attribution Builder - Open Attribution Builder is a tool to help you build attributions for Open Educational Resources (OER) and other items you find that have Creative Commons licensing. Fill out a form and the app automatically generates an attribution for you. This website is created by the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges.   Open Attribution Builder   Keywords: Digital Literacy, Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access
  • ALISON - Alison is a free online site that offers courses from the world’s leading experts. Join 12 million learners in distance learning courses which contribute to the lifelong learning, share information and knowledge, and exchange ideas.   ALISON   Keywords: Collaboration, Lifelong Learning, Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access, Presentations, Resource Library, Video
  • SLACK - Team collaboration and communication. Some of the built-in features of Slack include messaging, file sharing, Project management, to-do lists, and more. The features of Slack are extendible through integrations and bots, which add the functionality of pulling reports, starting phone calls, filing tickets, calendaring, polling, and many advanced other options.   Slack   Keywords: Collaboration, Productivity Tools, audience response, classroom response Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • PhET Interactive Simulations for Active Learning in STEM -   PHET Interactive Simulations can be used to supplement Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography, and Mathematics courses. The site is created by the University of Colorado with the aim of enhancing learning and motivating students through playful discovery activities that support many optional languages package. Founded in 2002 by Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman, the PhET Interactive Simulations project at the University of Colorado Boulder creates free interactive math and science simulations. PhET sims are based on extensive education research and engage students in an intuitive, game-like environment where students learn through exploration and discovery.   PhET Interactive Simulations for Active Learning in STEM   Here is a complete catalog of PHET Interactive Presentations.   " Science means constantly walking a tightrope between blind faith and curiosity; between expertise and creativity; between bias and openness; between experience and epiphany; between ambition and passion; and between arrogance and conviction - ...
  • H5P Interactive Content Creator - Hello HTML5! Goodbye flash! You can create, share and re-use interactive content in your browser or integrated right into your LMS! Create Richer HTML5 Content in Existing Publishing Platforms. Share Content Seamlessly Across Any H5P Capable Site. Reuse and modify Content in Your Browser at Any Time. Explore over 40 different types of interactive content including presentations, timelines,  games & quizzes. See a few examples of H5P or visit their website for complete and detailed information.   h5p.org   Keywords: Flipped Learning, Gamification, Media, Photos & Images, Presentations, Productivity Tools, Publishing, Quiz, Recording, Screencast, Simulations, Video
  • TED Talks - TED Talks: ideas worth spreading include talks from speakers from a variety of backgrounds who provide thought-provoking presentations about a wide variety of topics. The short TED Talk videos average 10 to 18 minutes. This is a powerful tool for life long learning. The talks are given by people from all walks of life who share insights about a wide variety of topics.   TED Talks   5 Benefits Of Watching Ted Talks   Keywords: Lifelong Learning, Video  
  • Digital Public Library of America - "The Digital Public Library of America empowers people to learn, grow, and contribute to a diverse and better-functioning society. DPLA connects people to the riches held within America’s libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions. All of the materials found through DPLA—photographs, books, maps, news footage, oral histories, personal letters, museum objects, artwork, government documents, and so much more—are free and immediately available in digital format. The cultural institutions participating in DPLA represent the richness and diversity of America itself, from the smallest local history museum to our nation’s largest cultural institutions."   Digital Public Library of America   Keywords: Lifelong Learning, Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access
  • Business Balls – Free Online Learning and Development Website - Business Balls is a free ethical learning and development resource for people and organizations. It is one of the most mind-boggling collections of free management training materials that you'll find on the Internet. New features include badges, learning plans linked to accredited competency frameworks, wikis (for collaborative content development), fresh content from international thought leaders and academics, and dynamic quizzes (to complement Quizballs.com). The concept began last century as an experimental online collection of learning and development ideas. The website is now used by about a million people each month. The philosophy of the website is intended to be ethical, practical, innovative, compassionate, and enjoyable.   BusinessBalls   Make sure to also visit the Self-awareness Section   Below is an example of Critical Thinking Types according to "Howard Gardner - Theory of Learning that called 'Multiple Intelligence Theory' in the learning process to perceive information".    Keywords: Digital Footprint/Identity, Digital Literacy, ...
  • WorldCat - Search for library items from throughout the world. "Find what you want in a library near you with WorldCat, a global catalog of library collections."   WorldCat   Keywords: Lifelong Learning
  • Libby, by OverDrive – an app for library ebooks and audiobooks - Download thousands of ebooks and audiobooks from your local library. You can borrow items, instantly, for free, using a mobile device. The app works together with Overdrive. Since a Library card is needed to check out items, the use of this app may be slightly limited.   Libby   Keywords: Lifelong Learning
  • Geocaching – The Largest Treasure Hunt Game - Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity, in which participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches" or "caches", at specific locations marked by coordinates all over the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and sometimes a pen or pencil. The geocacher signs the log with their established code name and dates it, in order to prove that they found the cache. After signing the log, the cache must be placed back exactly where the person found it. Larger containers such as plastic storage containers (Tupperware or similar) or ammunition boxes can also contain items for trading, such as toys or trinkets, usually of more sentimental worth than financial. Geocaching shares many aspects with benchmarking, trigpointing, orienteering, treasure-hunting, letterboxing, waymarking, and Munzee. Geocaches For the traditional geocache, a geocacher will place a waterproof container containing a log book ...
  • FutureLearn: Free Online Courses - FutureLearn is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) learning platform that includes a number of international partners, including non-university partners. They also push learning further with online Programs and Degrees. "Whether anyone wants to develop as a professional or discover a new hobby, there's an online course for that."  Future Learn provides a variety of courses from leading universities and cultural institutions from around the world. These are delivered one step at a time and are accessible on mobile, tablet, and desktop, so you can fit learning around your life. Future Learn tends to believe that learning should be an enjoyable, social experience, so their courses offer the opportunity to discuss what you’re learning with others as you go, helping you make fresh discoveries and form new ideas. It is a private company owned by The Open University with the benefit of over 40 years of experience in distance learning ...
  • Google – Search Better Tutorial at GCFGlobal - This site shares a number of Google search strategies and tips created by the Goodwill Community Foundation (GFC) Global to get you started on your quest to find new things to learn about. Learn the basics and advanced strategies for searching for info online. Get more out of your Google Search results with this helpful tutorial. Learn about the many hidden features of Google Search in this tutorial.   Google - Search Better Tutorial at GCFGlobal   Keywords: Digital Literacy, Lifelong Learning
  • Creative Commons – CC License Definitions, Search for Materials, & Share Your Work - The links below explain the various levels of permissions and Creative Commons licenses, enable searching for Creative Commons licensed materials, and provide information to those who wish to share their work using Creative Commons licenses.   Creative Commons Website   Creative Commons Licenses Search Creative Commons Materials Share Your Work using Creative Commons Licenses   Keywords: Copyright, Creative Commons, Digital Literacy, Lifelong Learning, Searching
  • Jigsaw Classroom – Elliot Aronson - The Jigsaw Classroom is a cooperative learning technique that reduces racial conflict among school children, promotes better learning, improves student motivation, and increases enjoyment of the learning experience.   Jigsaw Classroom   Keywords: Lifelong Learning, Websites
  • Web2Access (Disabilities and Tests) - Web2Access is a resource that aims to help those making decisions about their use of freely available 'Web 2.0' interactive and collaborate e-learning tools. The website provides rankings based on its accessibility.   Web2Access   Web2Access (Disabilities and Tests) - tests the accessibility of Web 2.0 tools based on different disabilities. Using the results, they then rank the tools from most accessible to least accessible based on that specific disability being tested. Keywords: Accessibility, Websites    
  • Poll Everywhere - Poll Everywhere is a polling application to gather live responses using simple text messages or WIFI through a mobile device, phones, tablets, or laptops. Poll Everywhere lets people vote on options displayed on the screen by visiting a website, texting a number on their phones, using the iPhone/Android app, or using Twitter. The poll results are updated in real time. People can participate in the poll by visiting a web page, using an app, or sending text messages. Poll Everywhere   How it Works   Keywords: Presentations, Productivity Tools, audience response, classroom response Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • Google Forms - Google Forms lets you easily collect online survey responses. It’s completely free and has no restrictions on the number of surveys you can create the number of questions in each survey or the number of responses you can collect. You can also automatically export your results to Google Sheets for online access and sharing.   Google Forms   How to Use Google Forms   Keywords: Productivity Tools, Websites Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • Blinkist - Blinkist is an app that takes a non-fiction book, summarizes it and reads it back to you (in audio or text) within 15 minutes. This app is great for people who love to learn new things but don't have the time to read an entire book. Note: a free trial is available. Otherwise, the app must be paid on a monthly or yearly subscription.   Blinkist   Keywords: Audio, Lifelong Learning, Mobile Apps, Productivity Tools
  • Flipboard - Flipboard is is your personal e-magazine, at your desk, in your back pocket or on your wrist. Filled with stories, photos, and videos on any interest, it’s a single place to keep up with your world. And now, the top ten stories can be sent right to your Apple Watch.   Flipboard     Keywords: Mobile Apps, Productivity Tools, Resource Library
  • Blogger - Blogger is a popular blogging platform run by Google. It is a blog-publishing service that allows multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. Although there are more complex blogging tools available, the combination of cost (free) and flexibility makes Blogger an attractive option, whether you’re updating friends and family about your life, hosting your own advice column, or discussing political views. Your blog can have multiple contributors or you only. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at a subdomain of blogspot.com. You can also use Blogger to make podcast feeds.   Blogger   Blogger Help Page - This is the Blogger Help page put together by Google.   Keywords: Blogs, ePortfolios, Websites Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • Shadow Health - Shadow Health is a fee-based virtual clinical patient simulation experience. It is a robust experience which simulates virtual patient examination for courses across the Graduate and Undergraduate Curriculum.   Shadow Health   Video demonstration Keywords: 3D, Simulations, Virtual Labs  
  • ShareLaTeX - ShareLaTeX is an online LaTeX editor which allows for real-time collaboration and online compiling of projects to PDF format. Unlike the similar service writeLaTeX, ShareLaTeX requires registration and all projects are inherently private.   ShareLaTeX   Beginner's Tutorial for ShareLaTeX   Keywords: Collaboration, Publishing, Websites
  • 17 Web Tools and Apps to Create Interactive Video Lessons and Quizzes - This blog post was written by Shelly Terell shares a number of tools that can be used to add interactivity to video.   17 Web Tools and Apps to Create Interactive Video Lessons and Quizzes   Keywords: Quiz, Video
  • Creative Commons USA - Creative Commons USA is a chapter of the CC Global Network. This site provides an array of resources that can be used to further your understanding or train others on Creative Commons such as what it is, how to use materials, implementing, etc.   Creative Commons USA   Keywords: Audio, Collaboration, Copyright, Creative Commons, Digital Footprint/Identity, Digital Literacy, Lifelong Learning, Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access, Photos & Images, Video
  • Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers - This electronic book helps readers learn how to fact-check claims made on the Internet on a variety of topics. Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers   The author, Michael Caulfield, also has a companion blog: Four moves   Keywords: Copyright, Creative Commons, Digital Literacy, Lifelong Learning, Media, Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access, Searching
  • The 10 Best Fact Checking Sites - This list of the top 10 sites helps students, or anyone, determine the bias and accuracy of information, which is published by International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). This site introduces you to 10 fact-checking sites.   Top 10 sites to help students check their facts   Keywords: Digital Literacy, Lifelong Learning
  • ALA Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education - The Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education which has been published by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). The Framework is organized into six frames, each consisting of a concept central to information literacy, a set of knowledge practices, and a set of dispositions. The six concepts that anchor the frames are presented alphabetically: Authority Is Constructed and Contextual Information Creation as a Process Information Has Value Research as Inquiry Scholarship as Conversation Searching as Strategic Exploration ALA Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education   Keywords: Digital Footprint/Identity, Digital Literacy, Lifelong Learning
  • How can we learn to reject fake news in the digital world? - This article, published by Trudi Jacobson and Tom Mackey in the journal "The Publication," talks about what it means to be a metaliterate person in today's society that is filled with fake news. It also provides strategies to become a critical consumer of information.   How can we learn to reject fake news in the digital world Keywords: Digital Literacy, Lifelong Learning  
  • Public Records and Factual Research (Harvard Law School Library) - This website maintained by the Harvard Law School Library has numerous resources to find public records consisting of business, property, and personal records. Many of the resources are freely available and some provide more in-depth information for a fee.   Public Records and Factual Research (Harvard Law School Library)   Keywords: Digital Footprint/Identity
  • What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains - This video, produced by KarmaTube, discusses the hazards of surfing from page to page on the Internet without taking time to deeply consider what we are interacting with. It brings this point to our attention so that we instead take time to try to focus and contemplate on the information that we do come across.   What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains (4-min. video)  
  • YouTube - Get started with YouTube, playing, watching, and creating videos. YouTube is a video-sharing site available in nearly every country and over fifty different languages. Anyone with an Internet connection can share content, whether they are organizations with large budgets or an individual with a video camera. The material is organized into channels and users can create their own private channels. YouTube is an extremely large platform that allows people to upload videos to the internet to inform, entertain, and share things with people around the world. Although many people think of YouTube as an entertainment-based website, the number of educational videos are innumerable. You can teach yourself almost any skill by watching Youtube videos. Youtube is a very useful tool to not only learn things but also to network with other people. So many people have connected through similar interests on Youtube. ...
  • Vimeo - Vimeo is a popular video sharing site. Anyone can upload a video to this site for free, by signing up for the Vimeo basic membership package that offers video storage and privacy settings. Vimeo hosts videos in the highest quality possible. You can upload 4K Ultra HD quality, video management tools, no ads before, during, or after your videos, and professional live streaming plans. With Vimeo, you can use powerful editing tools made for creators and brands, review videos with collaborators, drive engagement, and embed anywhere. It is possible to easily see how your videos are performing. You can also find quality videos created by others.   Vimeo   Vimeo Help Center - Help in several main areas and a search bar. Vimeo help on Uploading your videos 5 Reasons to Host Videos on Vimeo Instead of YouTube - Compares Vimeo and youtube for hosting videos.   Keywords: Audio, ...
  • Speechnotes - Speechnotes is a powerful speech-enabled online notepad, designed to empower your ideas by implementing a clean & efficient design, so you can focus on your thoughts. They use up-to-date speech-recognition technology, powered by Google, for the most accurate results possible. This very handy tool works in a Chrome browser. No download, no install and even no registration needed, so you can start working right away. There are several useful features. Users can email their work and/or upload it directly to Google Drive or their own computers as a .txt or .doc file. Several languages are available and the text can be translated. In addition, a text-to-speech app is available.   Speechnotes   Voice Typing with Speechnotes - Briefly explains features of Speechnotes This video shows you how easy this tool is to use.   Keywords: Audio, Digital Literacy, Mobile Apps, Presentations, Productivity Tools
  • Windows Movie Maker - If you are using Windows 10, you can use this free video editor and slideshow maker app. Use it to easily create video stories and share them with your colleagues, students, friends, and family. Transform everyday moments into works of art as you want. There is easy to use professional editing tools. Users can trim and merge video, write subtitles, add stickers, choose a theme, and insert transitions between videos. .MOV and .MP4 support is now available. NOTE: Microsoft no longer supports MovieMaker; however, you can still download software that works similarly to the original. The version linked to below is a free version but there are advanced features only after paying for the Pro version. There are sites that provide non-free versions and also versions that pass along viruses. Proceed with caution!    Windows Movie Maker   Windows Movie Maker Software Tutorials - Tutorials for ...
  • WeVideo – Collaborative Online Video Editor in the Cloud - WeVideo is the online video editor that makes it easy to capture, create, view and share your movies at up to 4K resolution for playback anywhere. Videos can be uploaded easily from DropBox, and edited online from multiple devices.   WeVideo   Review: WeVideo is a cloud-based video editor that makes editing in your browser fun and simple - An easy-to-read description of how this tool works. The Video Marketing Best Practices You Need To Know - This site offers a free download for the book, "Tips For Creating The 6 Most Common Business Videos"   Keywords: Presentations, Productivity Tools, Recording, Social Media, Video
  • iMovie - With iMovie for iOS and macOS, you can enjoy your videos like never before. It's easy to browse clips and create Hollywood-style trailers and 4K-resolution movies. You can even start editing on an iPhone or iPad, then finish on a Mac. And when your movie is ready, iMovie Theater rolls out the red carpet. There are styles for titles and credits, video filters for a cinematic touch, and special effects.   iMovie   26 best iMovie for Mac tips 2017 | How to edit video with iMovie for Mac - With tips about features and shortcuts. Apple iMovie (for Mac OS X) - Discusses the features of Apple's video editing software.   Keywords: Mobile Apps, Presentations, Productivity Tools, Simulations, Video
  • Screencast-o-matic - This tool is for anyone needing a fast recording app to create a video file, share on YouTube, or even upload to a custom branded site hosted by them. It makes it easy to record on-screen activity for short tutorials, visual presentations, and communicate while you demonstrate. Free and pro versions are available.   Screencast-o-matic   Screencast-o-Matic|Support - Support for Screencast-O-Matic including how to use and common issues. Screencast-O-Matic (SOM): Best Practices - Provides best practices for using Screencast-O-matic.   Keywords: Mobile Apps, Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access, Presentations, Productivity Tools, Simulations, Video Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • Explain Everything - Explain Everything is a cloud collaboration platform built on the learning technology of tomorrow. Whether you're sending just-in-time messages to colleagues or recording lessons for students, Explain Everything is the imagination space that helps you tell your unique story. It works like an interactive whiteboard, allowing for quick communication with students, colleagues, and customers. Write, draw, and move objects to enhance your project. Add media from various sources including a built-in clipart library. Record voice/video and even create screencasts to make your story even more engaging.   Explain Everything   How to Use Explain Everything to Record Instructional Videos - A few key best practices when recording videos. This in-app help and guide features a video to guide you through how to use the Explain Everything app. There's the help file for Explain Everything, including a dedicated iBook showing all the functions of the app and pop up ...
  • ShowMe - ShowMe can be used to create beautiful tutorials with the top of your finger. With the ShowMe app, educators can use the iPad as an interactive whiteboard and record voice-over lessons. If desired, these can then be shared with the public. The best of the lessons are available online on the ShowMe.com Web site.   ShowMe   ShowMe Knowlege Base - Answers to 24 customer questions and a search feature.   Keywords: Mobile Apps, Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access, Presentations, Productivity Tools
  • Second Life - Second Life is a virtual world used by many colleges and universities to provide immersive learning, real-time collaboration, a global community, and secure and safe virtual campuses. There are many campuses you can visit to get a feel for the power of a virtual world in education. Also, check out the many education-related environments relating to SecondLife.   Second Life   Returning to Second Life - An analysis from Ars Technica about how Second Life is currently used by its social media platform.   Keywords: 3D
  • iNaturalist - The iNaturalist app helps you upload citizen science observations of plants and animals to the iNaturalist.org online community for naturalists as well as other members of the iNaturalist network such as NaturaLista.mx in Mexico. You can: record observations with photos and GPS locations; explore observations from around the world; keep track of updates from people you follow.   iNaturalist   Getting started with iNaturalist - This page explains how to get started with iNaturalist and offers a wealth of resources, including video tutorials and a teacher's guide.   Keywords: Virtual Labs
  • Facebook - Facebook is a well-known and free to use social networking platform. Utilizing Facebook can help you connect, share and market to people. User groups based on common interests, workplace, and more can provide you new methods to communicate. Now very often seen in news media, Facebook and other social media platforms are commonly used to give voice to social issues, customize marketing on an individual level, and further the spread of both news and fake news.   Facebook   Facebook tutorial - This tutorial will walk you through the set-up process, available features through the privacy settings and controls, essential to any social media platform. Branding in the age of social media - Learn more about branding yourself via social media from this Harvard Business Review article.   Keywords: Collaboration, Digital Footprint/Identity, Media, Social Media
  • Twitter - Twitter is an American microblogging and social networking service on which users post and interact with messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and retweet tweets, but unregistered users can only read them. Users access Twitter through its website interface or its mobile-device application software ("app"), though the service could also be accessed via SMS before April 2020. Tweets were originally restricted to 140 characters but was doubled to 280 in November 2017. Audio and video tweets remain limited to 140 seconds for most accounts. Twitter is a some-to-many microblogging service, given that the vast majority of tweets are written by a small minority of users. - from Wikipedia First reactions and breaking news flood Twitter as soon as they happen. With only a limited number of characters per tweet, Twitter users need to be brief and meaningful when composing. Official hashtags make conference tweeting is yet another ...
  • Doodle - Doodle is an online scheduling tool that can be used quickly and easily to find a date and time to meet with multiple people. First you suggest dates and times for your event participants to choose from, then Doodle creates a polling calendar that can be sent to participants for feedback. As each participant selects the dates and times from the polling calendar that he or she is free, Doodle aggregates the responses and tells you which option works best for everyone. Getting everyone on the same page is hard enough with just five other coworkers, let alone fifty new volunteers you may have never met. Doodle can be a valuable tool for coordinating a large event like volunteer training as well as a small event like a monthly meeting with the board.   Doodle   Doodle Help and Learning - Help with a section ...
  • EndNote Basic - The full desktop version of EndNote is the number one citation management product used by academics and it offers a comprehensive approach to citation management. Many institutions have site licenses available for faculty and students. If your institution does not provide access to the full featured version, you can use the free version online, EndNote Basic. Two advantages to using EndNote Basic is the ability to transfer references to and from EndNote on your desktop and share references with others who have EndNote.   EndNote Basic   How to use EndNote for Windows How to use EndNote for Mac   Keywords: Collaboration, Resource Library, Searching
  • Zotero - Zotero is citation management software that is available as a stand-alone desktop application and also as a browser add-on. Since most searches are performed with a browser Zotero provides a seamless way to manage your citations. Zotero is well suited to organize scholarly literature such as books and articles. You can also add PDFs, images, audio, and video files. Zotero allows you to organize, tag, highlight, and add comments/notes about the items. Zotero allows you to create workgroups and share resources online, either with a private group or publicly. One of the many benefits of Zotero is that it is easier to learn and navigate than Endnote, which is a commonly used commercially available citation manager.   Zotero   Zotero Quick Start Guide - A quick help guide to the Zotero interface.   Keywords: Collaboration, Resource Library, Searching
  • Diigo - Diigo is the tagging and social bookmarking site. Registered Diigo users can bookmark, tag and highlight webpages with the key feature of adding annotations. For collaborative projects, you can share those annotations with a group or create a share link to send to outside users. The social tagging feature has created a collection of quality content with the opportunity to find and connect with those with shared interests in the field.   Diigo   Watch this video about using Diigo to collect, highlight and select. (3 min. 36 sec.)  Diigo - Tour - Annotate Archive Organize - This page summarizes how Diigo works and some of the highlights of the tool. Using Diigo to Annotate, Archive, & Organize Student Learning with Diigo Apply for a Diigo Educator Upgrade to request a special premium account provided specifically to educators. Note: To get quick access to your Diigo libraries and be able to ...
  • Google Sites - Google Sites is a structured wiki- and Web page-creation tool offered by Google as part of the G Suite productivity suite. The goal of Google Sites is for anyone to be able to create a team-oriented site where multiple people can collaborate and share files.   Google Sites   Sites Help - Information on creating, editing, previewing, sharing, publishing, and managing your Google site. 20/20 HindSITE: Best Practices for Google Sites - This site illustrates how organizations are using Google Sites, and includes a wealth of resources and tools.   Keywords: GoogleSites, Digital Footprint/Identity, Publishing, Websites, Wikis Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • Wix - Wix.com is a cloud-based web development platform that was first developed and popularized by the Israeli company also called Wix. It allows users to create HTML5 web sites and mobile sites through the use of online drag and drop tools.   Wix   Wix Help Center - This site has many articles organized into twenty topics plus several trending topics. There is also an opportunity to search. Landing pages 101 - Landing pages are an important marketing tool. This site focuses on creating effective landing pages.   Keywords: ePortfolios, Productivity Tools, Publishing, Websites
  • Zoho - Zoho is a suite of online services developed and provided by the company with the same name. They offer a variety of products related to productivity and online services (such as a sites builder -Zoho Sites-, corporate emails, an online office suite, among many others). While their portfolio of products is very wide, most of them are offered for free through a free trial version with limited functionalities, some of them are for a limited time only. Their various products have different pricing alternatives according to the needs of the user.   While most of the tools are office-focused, they also have services aimed at non-profit organizations, educators, and individuals.   Zoho   Zoho Sites- Beginner's Guide - A video plus Instructions for how to set up your Zoho site. More advanced features are also covered.   Keywords: Productivity Tools, Publishing, Websites Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • Google Calendar - Google Calendar is a time-management and scheduling calendar service developed by Google. Google Calendar allows users to create and edit events. Reminders can be enabled for events, with options available for type and time. Event locations can also be added, and other users can be invited to events.   Google Calendar   Google Help - Calendar Support - Help getting started with Google Calendar and information about notifications, sharing, syncing, importing events, and more. 26 tricks to help you tame Google Calendar - Many of Gcal's best features lurk beneath the surface. This site helps you handle it like a pro.   Keywords: File Management
  • Google Drive (and Google Docs) - Google Drive is a file storage and synchronization service developed by Google that allows users to store files in the cloud, synchronize files across devices, and share files. In addition to a website, Google Drive offers apps with offline capabilities for Windows and macOS computers, and Android and iOS smartphones and tablets. Google Drive encompasses Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, which are parts of the office suite that permits collaborative editing of documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, forms, websites, and more. Files created and edited through the office suite are saved in Google Drive. Google Docs is the original term that described the tools that now make up a portion of the Google Drive suite of applications. Drive is  a place to store your files and Docs refers to the applications that make up the suite of tools found within Google Drive to ...
  • Google Custom Search - Google Custom Search (formerly known as Google Co-op) is a platform provided by Google that allows web developers to feature specialized information in web searches, refine and categorize queries and create customized search engines, based on Google Search. The service allows users to narrow the 11.5 billion indexed webpages down to a topical group of pages relevant to the creator's needs.   Google Custom Search   Custom Search Help - Information and instructions for setting up your own specialized search engine. Rewriting Queries - Sophisticated advice on getting more from your custom search.   Keywords: Searching
  • Google Scholar - Google Scholar is a freely available web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes most peer-reviewed online academic journals and books, theses and dissertations, preprints, abstracts, technical reports, and other scholarly literature, including court opinions and patents. While Google does not publish the size of Google Scholar's database, third-party researchers estimated it to contain roughly 160 million documents as of May 2014.   Google Scholar   Google Scholar - Search Tips - Get the most out of Google Scholar with some helpful tips on searches, email alerts, citation export, and more. Google Scholar Metrics - Google Scholar Metrics provide an easy way for authors to quickly gauge the visibility and influence of recent articles in scholarly publications.   Keywords: Searching
  • Google Books - Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search and Google Print and by its codename Project Ocean is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition (OCR), and stored in its digital database. Books are provided either by publishers and authors, through the Google Books Partner Program, or by Google's library partners, through the Library Project. Additionally, Google has partnered with a number of magazine publishers to digitize their archives.   Google Books   How to use Google Books - Discusses how to read, download, cite, or translate a book.   Keywords: Searching
  • Google Earth - Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D representation of Earth based on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery, aerial photography, and GIS data onto a 3D globe, allowing users to see cities and landscapes from various angles. Users can explore the globe by entering addresses and coordinates, or by using a keyboard or mouse. The program can also be downloaded on a smartphone or tablet, using a touchscreen or stylus to navigate. Users may use the program to add their own data using Keyhole Markup Language and upload them through various sources, such as forums or blogs. Google Earth is able to show various kinds of images overlaid on the surface of the earth and is also a Web Map Service client.   Google Earth   Google Earth Help - Instructions ...
  • Google Arts & Culture - Google Arts & Culture (formerly Google Art Project) is an online platform through which the public can access high-resolution images of artworks housed in the initiative's partner museums. The project was launched on 1 February 2011 by Google, in cooperation with 17 international museums, including the Tate Gallery, London; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; and the Uffizi, Florence. Virtual field trips help students see and experience the world in new ways. Students can get in the center of 360-degree photos and 3D scenes with historical importance. Self-guided tours enable anyone to explore anywhere. The tours are great activities for classrooms and for home use.   Google Arts & Culture   Keywords: Photos & Images, Searching
  • DropBox - Dropbox is a cloud drive service that provides file synchronization with personal computers as well as a mobile app. It is a free service that allows you to store and share files with others. It is commonly referred to as a way to backup your files online. Documents, pictures, videos, and presentations can be saved and shared on DropBox.   Dropbox   Advantages and disadvantages of using DropBox   Keywords: Collaboration, File Management, Mobile Apps
  • Google – Advanced Image Search - Click the tab labeled "Images" when using Google to limit your searches to just images. You can then click on "Tools" to reveal advanced search options. Advanced options include size, color, type, and the timeframe of when the image became available. The most useful feature of the Google image search is being able to limit your results based on its usage rights to locate images that are able to be used based on the image's license information. Google recently changed the way image license info is displayed. When filtering by Usage Rights -> Creative Commons licenses, a badge that says “Licensable” is displayed over photos in search results. When you click a badged photo to view, you’ll see a link to the license details of that photo. A reverse image search option is also available by dragging an image into the Google search ...
  • TinEye Reverse Image Search - Tineye is a reverse image search engine. Upon uploading a saved image a user has, TinEye creates a "unique and compact digital signature or fingerprint" of the image and matches it with other indexed images. It is helpful in finding the original source of an image to provide proper attribution.   TinEye Reverse Image Search   How to Use TinEye   Keywords: media, photos, images, Creative Commons, copyright Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • Fotor – online photo editor and design maker - Fotor is a photo editing platform, utilizing exclusive technology to bring an unprecedented level of editing control to everyone. [Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fotor] It is a simplified suite of powerful editing tools for your images. Fotor's fast and intuitive design brings advanced photo editing techniques to anyone who wants to try. With just a few clicks you can achieve impressive results that will let you push your creativity without having to learn some of the confusing ins and outs of other graphics editors. Fotor's software is available on every major mobile device, desktop computer, and online. Fotor One-Tap Enhance, a tool designed to improve the most common imaging problems in the shortest period of time is just one of the many unique features. Fotor GoArt, turn photos into classical painting style artwork. Fotor SDK, the ultimate solution to all users' graphic needs.   Fotor   Fotor Photo Editor ...
  • Be Funky - Be Funky is a suite of graphic editing tools. Photo Editor includes amazing photo effects such as the world-famous Cartoonizer, oil painting, and pop art effects. You can also add extra flair to your photo with hundreds of one-of-a-kind, hand-drawn graphics, like hats, beards, jewelry, photo frames, and graphic overlays. You can also create photo collages with Collage Maker and Designer provides many tools and templates to create posters, flyers, invitations, and more. It has essential editing tools such as crop, resize, and exposure. Unique effects include Cartoonizer, Digital Art, and Enhance DLX. With its photo editor, you can turn photos you like into photos you love and helps to add a little extra flair to your images. If text is your thing, BeFunky photo editor has tons of fonts and customized text layouts for you to choose from as well.   Be Funky   Help Center   Keywords: Media, Photos & Images
  • Plickers - Lets you poll your class for free, without the need for student devices. Just give each student a card (a "paper clicker"), and use your iPhone/iPad to scan them to do instant checks-for-understanding, exit tickets, and impromptu polls. Best of all, your data is automatically saved, student-by-student, at plickers.com.   Plickers   Plickers Help - Help page that includes a quick start guide, tips & tricks, and technical support. Plickers Presentation Kit - A kit put together by the Plickers team that includes presentation templates, our getting started guide, Plickers logos, and printable Plickers Cards.   Keywords: Mobile Apps, audience response, classroom response Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • Coursera - Perhaps the best-known provider of online MOOCs, Coursera describes itself as providing "universal access to the world s best education, partnering with top universities and organizations to offer courses online." While courses are mostly free or low-cost, students must pay to secure a certificate of completion. Students can even complete degrees online via Coursera and partnering institutions.   Coursera   Keywords: Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • Udacity - Udacity's tagline reads: "where lifelong learners come to learn the skills they need, to land the jobs they want, to build the lives they deserve." While Udacity offers many university-style MOOCs, this for-profit site is now oriented towards vocational education, offering courses and nanodegrees in technological fields.   Udacity Keywords: Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access  
  • Canvas Network - Canvas Network provides an open platform where "teachers, students, and institutions worldwide can connect and plan their own course for personal growth, professional development and academic inquiry." Learners can choose between enrolling in a MOOC or courses that have enrollment caps. Canvas does not award certificates or degrees although many partnering institutions do. The Canvas Learning Management Platform allows schools to build the digital learning environment that meets the unique challenges faced by their institution. Canvas simplifies teaching, elevates learning, and eliminates the headaches of supporting and growing traditional learning technologies. Canvas is made up of a powerful set of highly integrated learning products that allow institutions to get all of the functionality they need and none that they don’t. Instructure built Canvas with open, adaptable, reliable, native cloud technologies that empower learning in every context.   Canvas Network   Keywords: Open Educational Resources (OER) & ...
  • Edorble Academy - Edorble helps teachers, trainers, and students create, publish, and use collaborative 3D + Virtual Reality worlds. Edorble is a virtual world for education and a learning community for those interested in 3D/VR technology, online learning, education technology, gamification, and more.   Edorble   Keywords: Flipped Learning, Presentations
  • Open SUNY Textbooks - A publishing model to support faculty adoption, remixing, and creation of open educational resources.   Open SUNY Textbooks   Information for Faculty - Information page for faculty who wish to implement OERs into their courses. Learn to navigate the Open SUNY Textbooks page and catalog.   Keywords: Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access
  • SUNY OER Course Development Support - SUNY OER Services is a well-organized collection of resources for courses in many disciplines with several subjects specialized within each. Each link provides a section for SUNY resources, where available, and another for Additional Offerings. The site is growing with resources being added regularly. Select your topic of interest to reach the individual support page for each subject area.   SUNY OER Course Development Support   Keywords: Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access
  • MERLOT II (including Merlot OER & Content Builder) - A program of the California State University System partnering with education institutions, professional societies, and industry to bring together a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community. Each resource has been reviewed by faculty familiar with the discipline and rated by the community of users. OER include full courses, websites, videos, test sets, textbooks, and tutorials.   MERLOT II (including Merlot OER & Content Builder)   MERLOT Help – A 'context-sensitive' help system designed for users who require information or assistance about the MERLOT website, functionality, or services. How to Use MERLOT – Resource guide providing links to several pages for using MERLOT in your classroom. Merlot Content Builder – offers a quick and easy way to deliver web-based open content, hosted through the CSU and MERLOT. Content Builder resources can easily be incorporated into MERLOT's vast ...
  • OER Commons - OER Commons provides a single point of access from which users can search, browse, and evaluate resources in OER Commons growing collection of over 50,000 high-quality OER. They include game-based learning objects, videos, full courses, and adult education materials. Some of the disciplines covered are communication, history, career training, anthropology, and economics. The site is a comprehensive infrastructure that allows site visitors to identify high-quality OER and collaborate around their adaptation, evaluation, and use to address the needs of teachers and learners. OER Commons is one of the best resources for open content. It is indexed and searchable (by topic, by resource type, by academic level, and by standard) and the content is reliably open (and vetted).   OER Commons   OER Commons Help Center - Resource page to get users started in creating, building and evaluating content on the page. Open Educational Resources: - OERCommons Reviews - ...
  • OpenStax College - Publishes a collection of peer-reviewed, freely available online textbooks. It is an initiative of Rice University. They have a limited number of disciplines covered, but there is a gold mine of supplemental resources linked under each.   OpenStax   OpenStax Support - Resource page to get started in using the platform or find help from the question bank. Free Textbooks From Rice OpenStax: Too Good to Be True? - A discussion of Open Stax including its origins and the groups involved.   Keywords: Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access
  • Open Textbook Library - A repository hosted by the University of Minnesota to provide access to complete textbooks licensed so teachers and students can freely use, adapt, and distribute the material. They cover a variety of disciplines including law, business, mathematics, and the natural sciences.   Open Textbook Library   Frequently Asked Questions - There are many ways you can use these quality books. This guide shows how these books will be a good match for you. Penn State joining Open Textbook Network to support affordable course content - This article about Penn States' recent decision to join Open Textbook Network discusses the value of OTN both educational and financial.   Keywords: Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access
  • College Open Textbooks Collaborative - This is a collaborative of educational non-profit and for-profit organizations that are affiliated with more than 200 colleges. The group is focused on raising awareness and adoptions of open textbooks for community and two-year colleges. The collaborative also offers training for instructors adopting open resources, peer reviews of open textbooks and mentoring online professional networks that support authors opening their resources. In addition to instructors at community and 2-year colleges, this site would also be useful for entry-level courses in a variety of disciplines.   College Open Textbooks Collaborative   Keywords: Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access
  • Open-NYS - Open-NYS is the collaboration of the State University of New York (SUNY) and the City University of New York (CUNY) to provide support for the implementation of Open Educational Resources (OER) across both systems.   Open NYS   Getting Started with Open Resources - Guide to help educators adopt, adapt and build open resources for the classroom.   Keywords: Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access
  • What are Open Educational Resources? – SUNY OER Services - The guide below from SUNY OER Service that explains the best uses for OERs in the classroom and how to implement them into your teaching. Open Educational Resources (OER) includes any type of educational materials that are in the public domain, and are legally and freely available for use and reuse by anyone, without charge. Examples of OER include textbooks, course materials, tests, audio, videos, and software.   What are Open Educational Resources? - SUNY OER Services   Keywords: Open Educational Resources (OER), Open Access
  • Flickr - Flickr is an image and video-hosting website and web services suite. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, and effectively an online community, the service is widely used by photo researchers and by bloggers to host images that they embed in blogs and social media. Flikr has an enhanced search function to allow searching for images that are under a creative commons license. Flicker allows members unlimited uploads of images that are licensed under Creative Commons.   Flikr   Help for Flickr - The Help - FAQ Support page for Flickr Users Flickr for Education - 18 Ways to Use Flickr in Schools - A blog post regarding the many uses of Flickr as a photo-sharing website in schools and education.   Keywords: Media, Mobile Apps, Photos & Images, Video, Creative Commons
  • Google Photos - Google Photos is a photo sharing and storage service developed by Google and gives users free, unlimited storage for photos up to 16 megapixels and videos up to 1080p resolution.   Google Photos   PC Magazine - 25 Tricks to Master Google Photos - A magazine article describing tricks, tips, and hints users can practice to become more proficient with Google Photos. Using Google Photos in the Classroom - An extensive YouTube video describing how to use Google Photos in the classroom.   Keywords: Media, Mobile Apps, Photos & Images, Video
  • Pinterest - Pinterest is a web and mobile application startup that operates a software system designed to discover information on the World Wide Web, mainly utilizing images and on a shorter scale, GIFs and videos.   Pinterest   The Atlantic - What is Pinterest? - A magazine article that defines what Pinterest is and how it has developed since its beginnings. The Teacher's Guide to Pinterest - An article describing the many uses of Pinterest within Academia and Education. What is Pinterest, and How Does it Work? - An article that describes Pinterest and how to use it.   Keywords: Collaboration, Media, Mobile Apps, Photos & Images, Resource Library, Searching
  • Instagram - Instagram is a mobile, desktop, and Internet-based photo-sharing application and service that allows users to share pictures and videos either publicly or privately. Users can apply various digital filters to their images, and add locations through geotags and assign hashtags to link to other photos.   Instagram   University of New Hampshire - Instagram Help - A simple guide to using Instagram built by the UNH. Do more with Instagram - A board of posts relevant to using Instagram to its fullest.   Keywords: Media, Mobile Apps, Photos & Images, Video
  • Pixlr - Pixlr is a cloud-based set of image tools and utilities, including a number of photo editors, a screen grabber browser extension, and a photo sharing service. The suite was intended for non-professionals, however, the apps range from simple to advanced photo editing. PIXLR   Pixlr Support Page - The link to the Pixlr Support and FAQ page. WikiHow - How to Use the Pixlr Online Image Editor - This wikiHow teaches you how to navigate and use the options in the Pixlr online image editor in order to make changes to an image or photo.   Keywords: Media, Photos & Images Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • Pipl - Pipl identifies itself as the world's largest people search engine currently with over 3 billion people in its database. It is the place to find the person behind the email address, social username or phone number.   Pipl   This Tool Will Help You Clean Up After Your Online Footprints - A recent article discussing how PiPL can be used professionally. Focused on journalists and other people who write for the Web, but the advice applies to everyone.   Keywords: Digital Footprint/Identity, Digital Literacy
  • LastPass - In this current world of multiple sign-ins, it's difficult to impossible to remember all our passwords. Password managers can be a big help. LastPass remembers all your passwords so you don't have to. Once it's been stored in LastPass, you'll always have it wherever you go. LastPass generates long, randomized passwords that are a barrier to hacking. It goes further to fill in forms and payment details for you once the information is safely stored. It also makes it possible to store digital records and share important information safely.   LastPass   How to use a password manager and why you really should - As the title says, discusses the why and how of keeping passwords safe. Provides links to several informative articles as well as two other password manaagers. (Note: I'm not sure why they don't mention KeyPass - another popular password manager.)   Keywords: ...
  • 7 Things You Should Know About Creative Commons – EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) - This concise and well-organized document by Educause explains Creative Commons and its relationship to copyright. Creative Commons allows copyright owners to release some of those rights while retaining others, with the goal of increasing access to and sharing of intellectual property. It further discusses who's using it and how; and the implications for teaching and learning. The 7 Things You Should Know About... series from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) provides concise information on emerging learning technologies. Each brief focuses on a single technology and describes what it is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning. Use these briefs for a no-jargon, quick overview of a topic and share them with time-pressed colleagues.   7 Things You Should Know About Creative Commons   What we do - What is Creative Commons? - Information about how Creative Commons works, its programs, platforms, and ...
  • Google Search Advanced Feature - Google can be helpful in finding reusable resources. It explains how to use their advanced search features and explains various types of usage rights.   Google Search Advanced Feature   Google Guide making searching even easier - More information about how to use this tool - with examples.   Keywords: Audio, Copyright, Creative Commons, Digital Footprint/Identity, Digital Literacy, Media, Music, Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access, Photos & Images Searching
  • Interesting Ways to find Creative Commons Resources - This slideshow is rich with resources that are about Creative Commons (CC) or that are a source of CC-licensed resources including music, videos, images, and more. There are also resources to explain copyright and information about other resources for finding Open Educational Resources.   Interesting Ways* to find Creative Commons resources   Your Digital Footprint Matters   Keywords: Audio, Copyright, Creative Commons, Digital Footprint/Identity, Digital Literacy, Media, Music, Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access, Photos & Images, Searching
  • Lifelong Learning and Technology Article - This article looks at the interest in lifelong learning among adults. It reports on a Pew Research Center survey on the topic showing considerable interest amount the American public. The Internet is instrumental in meeting this interest, but the use of it varies inversely with levels of education and income.   Lifelong Learning and Technology   Lifelong Learning and Technology by John Horrigan - A podcast on the topic by John Horrigan, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center who just released the report.   Keywords: Digital Footprint/Identity, Digital Literacy, Lifelong Learning
  • TED Talks: lifelong learning playlist - TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). This playlist is of 5 TED Talks related to lifelong learning. Titles include "The Nerd's Guide to Learning Everything Online"; The Life-long Learner"; "What We're Learning from Online Education"; "On Being Wrong"; "What Adults Can Learn from Kids."   TED Talks: The love of lifelong learning   Keywords: Digital Footprint/Identity, Digital Literacy, Lifelong Learning
  • Intellectual Property: Part I Video - This entertaining video explaining intellectual property rights and discussing how you can share and protect your rights simultaneously is created the State University of New York Metaliteracy Learning Collaborative.   Intellectual Property: Part I Video (3 min. video)   What is Intellectual Property? - A definition and resources from the World Intellectual Property Organization   Keywords: Copyright, Creative Commons, Digital Footprint/Identity, Digital Literacy, Media, Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access
  • Four Reasons to Care About Your Digital Footprint - This enlightening 8-minute video demonstrates the lesser-known issues that can arise from our trips around the Internet. It discusses how extensively our online views are tracked and shows how this information is of commercial value to various entities, how little control we have over who gets access, the possibility of identity theft, and the potential impact on our reputations.   Four Reasons to Care About Your Digital Footprint   Keywords: Digital Footprint/Identity, Digital Literacy
  • The Padagogy Wheel - A graphical representation of the interface of mobile apps with Bloom's Cognitive Domain Categories and the SAMR Model of technology integration. The Padagogy Wheel, developed by Allan Carrington of Designing Outcomes in Adelaide, Australia, is a graphical representation of the interface of mobile apps with Bloom's Cognitive Domain Categories and the SAMR Model of technology integration. Consider more fully exploring the backstory to the wheel, by visiting Carrington's blog, In Support of Excellence. To quote Carrington: The Padagogy Wheel was born out of a desire to help teachers at the coalface of teaching. I wanted a model that could be applied to everything from curriculum planning, development, writing learning objectives and designing student-centered activities. Then quickly help teachers access relevant educational technology e.g. individual iPad apps or sequences of apps, to enhance those activities. Finally to help teachers use that technology to redefine activities to include ...
  • AudioNote - An iOS and Android app that combines a notepad with a voice recording, giving your tablet with a stylus functionality similar to that of a LiveScribe pen. Watch as your text and drawings highlight during playback, helping you to remember the context in which they were taken. Tap your notes to hear the audio that was recorded at that point.   AudioNote   AudiNote Support - Frequently Asked Questions page to assist the utilization of AudioNote's features. Organized by device type.   Keywords: Accessibility, Audio, Mobile Apps
  • Evernote - A cross-platform app designed for note taking, organizing, and archiving. The app allows users to create a "note" which can be a piece of formatted text, a full webpage or webpage excerpt, a photograph, a voice memo, or a handwritten "ink" note. Notes can be tagged or placed into Notebooks for organizational purposes.   Evernote   Evernote Help & Learning - Help page that includes a quick start guide, tips & tricks and technical support. How to Use Evernote to Organize Your Life - An article that lists the most productive uses for Evernote. To clip webpages simply add the web clipper app to your browser.   Keywords: Collaboration, File Management, Mobile Apps, Productivity Tools, Resource Library
  • Practical Guide to Meaningful Gamification - This guide is an Open Educational Resource (OER) offered by a research group at the University at Buffalo. The guide provides educators with the tools necessary to develop their own meaningful, gamified learning activities.   Practical Guide to Meaningful Gamification   Keywords: Gamification
  • 7 Things You should Know about Gamification – EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) - An article that describes the ins and outs of Gamification: the application of game elements in non-gaming situations, often to motivate or influence behavior, published by the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) as part of the 7 Things You Should Know Collection. The 7 Things You Should Know About... series from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) provides concise information on emerging learning technologies. Each brief focuses on a single technology and describes what it is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning. Use these briefs for a no-jargon, quick overview of a topic and share them with time-pressed colleagues.   Educause ELI: 7 Things You Should Know about Gamification   Keywords: Gamification
  • Kahoot - Kahoot! is a free online game-based learning resource where you can create quizzes that brings engagement and entertainment to players. It may be used at school, at work, and at home. You can add videos, images, and diagrams to your questions to amplify engagement. Kahoot allows you to create group based multiple choice questions with diverse formats flexibility. Players answer the questions on their own devices, while games are displayed on a shared screen to unite the lesson. Besides creating your own Kahoots, you can search among millions of existing games.   Kahoot   8 Ways to Use Kahoot! Beyond the Basics - This article speaks to the multiple uses of Kahoot and serves as a quick training session. Using Kahoot in the Classroom to Create Engagement and Active Learning: A Game-Based Technology Solution for eLearning Novices - A research article that deals with instructional games ...
  • ProProfs - ProProfs' delightfully smart tools are used by millions of users each month. The site hosts more than 1,000,000 pages of content in 70+ languages and is a leading platform for online training and assessment with the world's largest library of professional tests & quizzes. ProProfs products, including Quiz, Survey, Learning Management System, Knowledge Base, Chat, Project and Training tools.   ProProfs   Keywords: Flipped Learning, Gamification
  • Wheel Decide - Wheel Decide provides a free spinner tool intended for decision-making, games, raffles, prize giveaways, and other miscellaneous uses. Enter your values and the Wheel Decide will randomly select from the options provided.   Wheel Decide   5 Ways to Use "Wheel Decide" - This is an article that demonstrated several ways to utilize Wheel Decide, especially in the classroom.   Keywords: Flipped Learning, Gamification
  • Quizizz - Quizizz is a game-based classroom response system you can play on any device with a web browser! Quiz creation is simple, enabling you to use your own images and text, or even reuse public quizzes. Students can answer at their own pace and watch their data appear on the main screen from where the quiz is being run. Quizizz also lets you download a spreadsheet to get detailed data to monitor student answers. The tool runs equally well across platforms and devices. And you should think of it not just as a "response system." It can be used for quizzing of all types. You can even choose the type of "consequence" users get, by choosing different sets of memes.   Quizizz   Kahoot! vs. Quizizz: What's the Best Formative Assessment Tool for Your Classroom? - A blog post that compares and contrasts the most popular ...
  • FlipQuiz - FlipQuiz provides educators with a quick way to create your own gameshow-style boards for test reviews in the classroom. With FlipQuiz, questions are displayed on-screen and boards are saved for later use. Combined with a beautiful board, students are more likely to be interested and stay engaged with the test review process.   FlipQuiz   Using FlipQuiz in the Classroom - A blog post that describes the ease of use of FlipQuiz and how to set one up.   Keywords: Flipped Learning, Gamification, Quiz
  • 11 Myths of Digital Literacy, Debunked - Designed primarily for educators but relevant for students as well, "11 Digital Literacy Myths, Debunked" provides a definition of "digital literacy." The authors then explore why being digitally literate matters, focusing particularly on common misconceptions.   11 Myths of Digital Literacy, Debunked   Keywords: Digital Literacy
  • Ten Basic Rules of Netiquette or Internet Etiquette - The rules of etiquette are just as important in cyberspace as they are in the real world -- and the evidence of poor netiquette can stick around to haunt you for much longer. Following these basic rules of netiquette, to avoid damaging your online and offline relationships.   Ten Basic Rules of Netiquette or Internet Etiquette   Keywords: Digital Footprint/Identity, Digital Literacy
  • Google Alerts - You can get emails when new results for a topic show up in Google Search. For example, you can get info about news, products, or mentions of your name. This Google support page below provides clear instructions.   Google Alerts   Five Creative Uses for Google Alerts - Discussion of the power of Google Alerts and five specific ways it can be useful.   Keywords: Lifelong Learning
  • Digication -   You are encouraged to use any available platform or tool to create your EmTech ePortfolio. A few of the many freely-available ePortfolio tools that you can use to build your portfolio can be located through EmTechWIKI and searching the ePortfolio category. Digication is a leading provider of ePortfolio and assessment management systems. Digication develops its platform with students, faculty, programs, and institutions' needs in mind, and enables institutions to close the loop that links student learning to institutional assessment and reporting.   Digication's Official Website   Digication Tutorials New Digication (This version is used in #EmTechMOOC) Quick-Start Guide for the New Digication ePortfolios will provide basic information about how to get started using the New Digication. Getting Started with New Digication video tutorials introduce many of the features you will use to create and edit your ePortfolio. Digication Student Guide contains more in-depth information about creating your ePortfolio.   Publishing and Permissions You ...
  • Pathbrite - Pathbrite offers the best-in-class, cloud-based Portfolio Platform in the market, whereby users can aggregate and showcase all digital evidence of what they have created, achieved and mastered. The portfolio platform transforms individual and community assessment to make understanding the skills, achievements, and knowledge of a person, or group, holistic, continuous and easy. Thousands of higher ed and k-12 schools, as well as companies, rely on Pathbrite to support student and employee success.   Pathbrite   EduTopia: Five Ways to Use Online Porfolios in the Classroom - Five Ways to Use Online Portfolios in the Classroom by Heather Hiles - A blog post that describes the effectiveness and "5 Best Practices" of using ePortfolios in the classroom.   Keywords: ePortfolios, Visual Design
  • PortfolioGen - Developed by teachers, PortfolioGen allows users to easily create a web-based portfolio and display their skills beyond conventional paper-based binders. Users can share their portfolios with prospective employers, principals, professors, and colleagues. PortfolioGen is for teachers, educators, students, and anyone else who desires a simple way to create their own customized portfolio website. Thousands of teachers, students, and educators from all over the world have used PortfolioGen to showcase their skills.   PortfolioGen   Keywords: ePortfolios, Visual Design
  • Fuze – Web Conferencing - Fuze is a web conferencing platform that supports up to 25 participants in a single meeting without charge. Fuze   Keywords: Audio, Collaboration, Mobile Apps, Screencast, Video
  • FolioSpaces - FolioSpaces, powered by "Mahara", enables you to create an online portfolio. It was developed by faculty at the University of Ballarat, AU. It is a fully-featured electronic portfolio, weblog, resume builder and social networking system, connecting users and creating online communities.  You do this by assembling a selection of your resume (curriculum vitae/CV), files, journals, and links to your files onto a web page and sharing the page. FolioSpaces ePortfolio also provides you with the tools to set up a personal learning and development environment.   FolioSpaces   Keywords: ePortfolios, Visual Design
  • Zoom - Zoom is a video conferencing and web conferencing service that provides video, phone, and chat services. The basic package is free and hosts up to 100 participants, and an unlimited number of meetings. The basic package includes video conferencing, web conferencing, and group collaboration features such as polling and whiteboards. ZOOM has been noted to be more reliable and easier to use than competing software. The use of the platform is free for video conferences of up to 100 participants, with a 40-minute time limit. For longer or larger conferences with more features, paid subscriptions are available. Features geared towards business conferences, such as Zoom Rooms for large audiences, are also available at higher subscription costs.   Zoom   Keywords: Audio, Collaboration, Mobile Apps, Recording, Screencast, Video, Webinar, webconference, webconferencing
  • AnyMeeting - AnyMeeting offers webconferencing and webinar services. It enables users to host and attend web-based conferences and meetings and share their computer screen with remote users via the Web. AnyMeeting is geared for small businesses and different packages are offered. There is a free Lite version.   AnyMeeting   Keywords: Audio, Collaboration, File Management, Mobile Apps, Screencast, Video, webconference
  • Strikingly - Create a beautiful website for you & your business, in minutes. Zero code or design skills required. You can also convert a LinkedIn profile to a personal website in just a few clicks. Add a Blog section to any of your sites to start blogging right away. A separate page is created for each blog post.   Strikingly   Discover Strikingly Sites - A link to the Strikingly community to see what sites have been built recently.   Keywords: Blogs, Collaboration, ePortfolios, Publishing, Websites
  • VoiceThread - A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in multiple ways - using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too. The free version allows you to create up to 5 VoiceThreads, comment by microphone and text, and share your VoiceThreads via a share link.   VoiceThread   Creating a VoiceThread - This guide from VoiceThread will walk you through setting up and all the features available. Keywords: Audio, Collaboration, ePortfolios, Media, Recording, Video Review Accessibility/Security Info  
  • Google Meet - Google Meet is a webconferencing platform that includes instant messaging, voice, and video calls. It is useful for individual and group conversations. Technology that connects us while we're apart and video meetings can bring us together—whether we’re working with teammates, talking to healthcare professionals, sharing with loved ones, or learning from home. Note: Google Meet has replaced Google Hangouts within G Suite.   Google Meet   Review of Google Hangouts - This review discusses the pros and cons of Google Hangouts, features, and tips for getting started.   Keywords: Audio, Collaboration, File Management, Mobile Apps, Video, Webconference, Web meeting
  • Weebly - Weebly is a complete platform that allows anyone to start and grow an online business with curated website templates, powerful e-commerce and integrated marketing. More than 40 million entrepreneurs around the world use Weebly to grow their customer base, fuel sales, and market their idea. Designed for any entrepreneur who wants to reach a global audience, Weebly gives everyone the freedom to create a high-quality site and store that works brilliantly on any device.   Weebly   Weebly Website Builder: Get a Pro Website in 60 Minutes or Less - A short tutorial on how to build an effective website through Weebly.   Keywords: Blogs, Collaboration, ePortfolios, Productivity Tools, Publishing, Websites Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • Padlet - Padlet is an online virtual bulletin board, where students and teachers can collaborate, reflect, and share links and pictures, in a secure location. Padlet allows users to create a hidden wall with a custom URL. Padlet creators can also moderate posts, remove posts, and manage their boards. Note: Padlet is one of the few tools that can be used by a learner on a Padlet without signing in. However, it should be noted that an account is created to be a Padlet "creator" and the data that is shared to create an account is not always limited to within Padlet.   Padlet   30 Creative Ways to Use Padlets for Teachers and Students - An article that discusses the many uses of Padlet as well as how to create one. Padlet - Best of Education - A collection of the "best" Padlets within the realm of ...
  • Tumblr - Tumblr is a microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007, and owned by Oath Inc.The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog. Users can follow other users' blogs. Bloggers can also make their blogs private.   Tumblr   How to Use Tumblr for Blogging and Social Networking - This article talks about the classic uses of the platform Tumblr.   Keywords: Blogs, Collaboration, Mobile Apps, Photos & Images, Publishing, Social Media, Video, Websites Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • WordPress - WordPress is an open-source blogging and a website creation platform. WordPress (often referred to as WP) is very widely used and makes up about 30% of all published websites.  There is a subtle but important difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com. WordPress.org gives lots of freedom, but you need a self-hosted platform to deliver your site. This involves additional steps to set up a server and install the WordPress software or payment for a hosting service. WordPress.com allows free pages that are hosted directly on the WordPress.com site. Both versions of WordPress are user-friendly but some of the advanced themes are not an option that is available on WordPress.com. This is only available when you have your own server space to install your own version of WordPress. Themes and plugins are similar to webpage templates and provide advanced functionality for WordPress websites.   WordPress.com and WordPress.org   Beginner's Guide for WordPress - How to ...
  • Wikidot - Wikidot.com is the world's third-largest wiki farm, with almost million and a half users running 500,000 sites and serving more than 100M unique visitors per year. Our growing success comes from building a service that people enjoy using, and tell their friends and colleagues about.   Wikidot   Getting Started with WikiDot - This is WikiDot support page which details how one would get started in creating an account and using their WikiDot to the fullest. An example of a WikiDot - Student Apathy   Keywords: Collaboration, ePortfolios, Productivity Tools, Publishing, Websites, Wikis Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • Zoho Wiki - Zoho Wiki is a free online tool to create collaborative web portals. No downloads, no installation, no special IT infrastructure, no need for IT experts, no webmasters. You can access your wiki anywhere, anytime. Wikis are offered as a knowledge management tool, for which multiple users can be added as collaborators. These wikis are ideal for small teams, closed groups, intranets, etc.   Zoho Wiki   FAQ and Help Page for Zoho Wiki - This is the ZohoWiki help and FAQ page.   Keywords: Collaboration, ePortfolios, Productivity Tools, Publishing, Websites, Wikis
  • Wikiversity - Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning. We invite teachers, students, and researchers to join us in creating open educational resources and collaborative learning communities. To learn more about Wikiversity, try a guided tour, learn about adding content, or start editing now.   Wikiversity   Wikiversity article About Wikiversity - This is a Wikiversity article regarding Wikiversity.   Keywords: Collaboration, Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access, Wikis
  • Wikis in Higher Ed - The purpose of this wiki is to collect ideas, thoughts, suggestions, resources on ways in which wikis are being used in Higher Education.   Wikis in Higher Ed   Keywords: Collaboration, Lifelong Learning, Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access, Wikis
  • EduBlogs - "Since 2005, Edublogs has grown into the largest educational blogging network in the world. We believe that blogging transforms the educational experience of students and have seen firsthand how Edublogs increases ownership of learning, engages students, and becomes a source of pride in the classroom. Edublogs is a project of the prominent WordPress company Incsub; the same team behind CampusPress and WPMU DEV. We pride ourselves on making user-friendly products and providing lightning-fast support."   Edublogs   EduBlogs Youtube Support Page - This page has several "How-To" videos regarding EduBlogs.   Keywords: Blogs, Collaboration, Publishing, Websites, ePortfolio Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • The Internet Archive’s Audio Archive - Digital library containing recordings ranging from alternative news programming, to Grateful Dead concerts, to Old Time Radio shows, to book and poetry readings, to original music uploaded by our users. Many of these audios and MP3s are available for free download.   Internet Archive's Audio Archive   About the Internet Archive - Guide to resources provided by the Internet Archive.   Keywords: Audio, Media, Music, Podcasts, Searching
  • AudioBoom - This tool enables you to record and instantly share audio. You can have free unlimited 10 minute recordings. If you want to use your smartphone or tablet, sign up, take the tour, and download the app.   AudioBoom   AudioBoom Help Center - Tutorials and help using AudioBoom tools.   Keywords: audio, media, recording, podcasts Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • SoundCloud - Discover, stream, and share a constantly expanding mix of music from emerging and major artists around the world. SoundCloud is described as a 'social sound platform' and is basically the same as Youtube but for audio files. With SoundCloud you can follow millions of people, musicians, radio channels and podcasts on a vast range of topics or you can create your own channel and upload recordings for people to listen to.   SoundCloud   Get Started on SoundCloud - Guide to starting and managing a SoundCloud account with support resources. Podcasting on SoundCloud - Resource page to get started with recording your podcasts.   Keywords: audio, media, recording, podcasts Review Accessibility/Security Info
  • Wikibooks - Wikibooks is a Wikimedia project for collaboratively writing open-content textbooks that anyone, including you, can edit right now by clicking on the edit link that appears near the top of each Wikibooks page. Wikibooks is for textbooks, annotated texts, instructional guides, and manuals. These materials can be used in a traditional classroom, an accredited or respected institution, a home-school environment, as part of a Wikiversity course, or for self-learning. As a general rule, this collection mainly includes instructional books. Contributors maintain the property rights to their contributions, while the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License and the GNU Free Documentation License makes sure that the submitted version and its derivative works will always remain freely distributable and reproducible.   Wikibooks   Wikiversity Article About Wikibooks - This is a Wikiversity article regarding Wikibooks and its multitude of uses. See Wikibooks Policy Info about Copyrights for more information.   Keywords: Open Educational ...
  • Learn Out Loud Podcast Directory - A directory with over 7000 audio & video podcasts selected to instruct, entertain, and inspire you. Stream podcasts through the site or download them directly to your computer without any software. Links to RSS Feeds are provided if you want to subscribe.   Learn Out Loud Podcast Directory   Learn out loud help center - Information on how to use the audio and video tools. Get a Free Education Online with Podcasts and Audio Books - This article highlights different podcasts and audiobooks available online to learn for free.   Keywords: audio, media, music, podcasts, searching