Free and Easy Tech Tools

During last week’s in-service session with Dr. Teresa Freking, she ended the session with a list of useful utilities and applications faculty could use to help create blended coursework. This is a compendium of some of the programs she mentioned.

1.       Screencastomatic (http://screencast-o-matic.com/) : This is a program that allows you capture your screen activity using a single click. In essence, it records what happens on the screen for the period of time you let it. You can use a basic version (for up to 15 minutes at a time) for free, or pay $15 per year for unlimited recording time.

2.       Khan Academy (http://www.khanacademy.org/about): Khan Academy provides you with access to a great number of general video clips over a wide range of topics, including computer science and health and medicine.

3.       Movie Captioner (http://www.synchrimedia.com/): This allows you to put captions onto any movie or video clip you wish to show in class. This is useful for universal access for students, for example, with hearing impairment.

4.       Survey Monkey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/): A now standard program that allows you to easily create online surveys. You can sign up for free, which allows you limited access and numbers of participants, or pay for the pro version, which allows you unlimited access and numbers of participants. For most of us for classroom use, free will be fine.

5.       Poll Everywhere (http://www.polleverywhere.com/): This is sort fo cool. You can create a poll which you can bring up on screen. Your audience can then answer the poll using either a mobile phone, Twitter or a web browser, and you can then show the audience the results live or import into a PowerPoint presentation. Sort of like clickers, but without the need to use clickers.

6.       Jing (http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html): Jing is a free program that allows you to share images and short videos from your computer screen, and it allows you to add visual elements to what you show.

7.       Dipity (http://dipity.com): DIpity is a program that allows you develop timelines, such as theone Dr. Freking showed in class that demonstrated the growth of technology programs for the classroom.

In addition, she listed a number of other programs, which you may feel free to check into: Amara, Vimeo, Creative Commons, Youtube, Ted Ed. Please consider using some of these- they are fun, easy, and can transform how you teach others.