Create a PDF from any website.

Click Here to try it out.

Enter website URL in URL box and press return. A PDF is then created and can be downloaded to your computer.

I’m not really one for dictionairies but definr is great and lightning fast too!

I recently came across a great visual search tool called KartOO

“KartOO is a metasearch engine with visual display interfaces. When you click on OK, KartOO launches the query to a set of search engines, gathers the results, compiles them and represents them in a series of interactive maps through a proprietary algorithm”

You can select a keyword and the site displays a list of comments next to the website’s name. The site also allows you to preview sites, you can even move search icons around to help prioritise and add order to your search.

http://www.kartoo.com/

Spotted the following article in my daily trawl:

“Have you been looking for a way to convert older learning resources into SCORM format? Well Hunterstone may have the answer for you.

HunterStone announced it has developed a “Mass SCORM Conversion Tool.”  The company developed the tool for use in projects that require large amounts of content to be converted to SCORM.  Targeted for use in projects with publishers and organizations that have very large databases of content and learning materials HunterStone President and CEO Neil Richards stated “the tool will save organizations countless hours of time which will directly translate into saving tens of thousand if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in SCORM conversion endeavors.”

The tool is thought to be among the first of its kind used for commercial purposes.  SCORM’s adoption rate is forecasted to accelerate during the next few years and HunterStone’s strategy as a leading provider of SCORM eLearning services is further solidified by this announcement.  Previously, the company released its leading SCORM Conversion and Authoring product suite THESIS for general use by instructional designers, subject matter experts, and trainers throughout the world.  Additionally, Microsoft’s Education Product Group licensed a portion of THESIS technology for use in its Learning Essentials Program and provides Microsoft Academic Customers the ability to author SCORM content with Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

THESIS is a suite of eLearning tools which adheres to the SCORM specifications and integrates with Microsoft Office. This enables a user to author eLearning resources and objects straight from familiar Microsoft Office applications such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Visio and Producer. The THESIS “Learning Object Manager” allows a user to author complete SCORM courses and quizzes for online instruction, using multiple learning objects from different sources. THESIS Librarian “SCORM enables” Microsoft SharePoint to create Learning Object Repositories where subject matter experts can collaborate on course development and also use the tool as a meta-data manager.”

“Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from 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 the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.”

Clearly Wordle is useful Web 2.0 tool that could be used to support literacy.

Example 1

Learners can paste in an extract from a book, Wordle would identify the prominence of words within the extract. Learners could then use these words to formulate there own work.

Example 2

Wordle could be particularly useful in supporting learners in the writing of poetry. Learners paste in an extract of text from a web page, they could then write a poem based on the most popular words identified by Wordle.

It almost creates a free form poem in itself!

http://wordle.net/

Finally Animoto is Free to Educator!

From Animoto… “Since launching our site in August, we’ve heard countless stories about how useful Animoto has been as a tool for educators to use with students. While we never originally thought Animoto would be something that could be used in the classroom, we’ve been both surprised and inspired by hearing how effective Animoto has been. We feel like this is one area we can do our duty to ‘give back’ a little.

If you are interested, we’d like to give you a ‘Classroom Code’ that’ll give each of your students a free All-Access pass (unlimited full-length videos for a whole year) upon signing up with this code. And you can use Animoto with your students however you wish. Keep in mind that videos can be viewed full-screen for classroom presentations.

Students’ Animoto videos can now also be downloaded to your desktop we’ve heard this is often more conducive for class presentations because you can view videos without being dependent on an internet connection and without the “Distractions” of the website.

The only thing we ask is that you keep us posted with the creative ways you find to use Animoto in the classroom. Our goal is to put together a collection that becomes a hub of sorts for teachers who use web 2.0 technology in a clever, innovative and fun way.

Click Here to find out more

I’ve used several online ‘YouTube downloading’ services, although I’d really like a free application that will download the video and convert it to a format for use elsewhere. Well I recently stumbled across YouTube Downloader, its a free application that allows you to download videos from YouTube and many others and convert them to other video formats.The program is easy to use, just specify the URL for the video you want to download and click the OK button!

The digital revolution has allowed ‘ordinary’ people to get usable software for word processing, desktop publishing and graphics to improve their communication on paper. Web 2.0 applications allow ordinary people to create blogs, wikis and websites. But creativity and particularly interactivity has traditionally been the domain of the programmer.

How many times have you looked at some of the polished interactive content generated by publishing companies and wanted a tool to create similar learning content? Things are changing! RM has recently been displaying a content creation tool called ‘Fuse’. The product developed by one of RM’s companies 3T, allows ‘lay users’ to create interactive learning content without the need for expensive programmers and web designers.

The learning materials created by Fuse can work on anything that’s compatible with Adobe’s Flash software – that includes PC and Mac web browsers, most handheld computers and many current models of mobile phones. The implications are exciting but RM is still on its learning journey.

I’ve been looking for a while now for an information manager for my Mac -Journler is a daily notebook and entry based information manager. Journler is a simple, intuitive program. Type your thoughts and attach pictures and songs using the iLife integration.

This is what the makers of Journler have to say about it:

‘Journler is a daily notebook and entry based information manager. The goal is to create a space in which you chronicle, organize, find and connect the thoughts, experiences and media most important to you. Ultimately Journler hopes to provide access to that recorded information from as many perspectives as possible.’

Journler is potentially one of those ‘Killer Apps’ for teachers and students to connect the written word with a range of media they use in their daily lives. All of these currently exist in seperate areas of my Mac – now I can access them from one place. I’ll be trialling Journler over the remainder of this term and hope to report back later in the summer.