Adobe announces Web 2.0 tool "Flex Builder 2" free for Students & Faculty

Announced today (Oct 24th Northern Hemisphere time), Adobe will be offering Adobe® Flex™ Builder™ 2 software at no cost to students and faculty at educational institutions worldwide (see further story at Yahoo Finance).

Flex™ is used to develop cross-operating system RIAs (Rich Internet Applications) for the Web. "Using Flex Builder 2, developers can quickly build and deploy applications that are expressive, intuitive, and rich in interactivity. Flex Builder 2 is a productive development environment that makes it easy for developers to customize their applications to match the desired look and feel."

Flex™ should be available to download from Adobe in early November.

See Christian Cantrell's blog (Apollo Application Developer) for a run down on the development of Flex™

This opens up a lot of possibilities for interactive media and computer science programs within secondary and post secondary institutions. Applause!!!!

Free Online Photo Editing Programs

In a world where computer applications seem to be moving to the web: access anytime, anywhere, any computer. Here are a couple of photo editing online programs with some of the options that are offered by each.


1. picnik is easy to use. You can: fix underexposed photos,
remove red-eye, crop, rotate, and resize in real-time, special effects,
and works directly with many photo sharing websites.

2. pixer.us no registration or login required. Upload your image to the website and then you can crop, resize, rotate, flip, adjust brightness, contrast & saturation. Colorfx (change to grayscale, sepia, invert, red, green & blue), blur & sharpen and Specialfx (oil painting, jitter, marble, clouds, textile, rusty, 1850, pixellate, wood, labyrinth & dirty).

3. Snipshot is also browser based, no registration required.
Edit big pictures—up to 10 MB, or 25 megapixels (5000x5000 pixels). Import PDF (first page only). Basic editing and adjustment tools. Save your image as GIF, JPG, PDF, PNG or TIF.

Web 2.5 Entrepreneurs

Web 1.0 was the ability to left click and hyperlink somewhere new and exciting on the web. The ability to watch amazingly looooong flash intros on websites.

Web 2.0 allowed users to interact and make decisions on how things would look and now have the freedom to publish words, images, sound and video to the web.

Web 2.5 is a term I use because I don't believe we have reached Web 3.o (or the semantic web) potential yet. Web 2.5 allows users to manipulate and publish their data all within a web portal. Many companies are experimenting with this and there are free (or should I say Beta) web applications all over the web right now that give you free storage, communication tools, publishing tools, etc....

The Web 2.5 Entrepreneur takes advantage of all of these web tools to develop, advertise and market their services/products.

Leo Bridle embraces Web 2.0 with his winning video for TheFirstPost. This talented young film maker/animator combines an old technology (stop motion animation) to describe a new technology (Web 2.0). Within many of his short films he uses a combination of cut-out animation, stop motion, simple green screen techniques along with digital video techniques. This Web 2.0 is probably one of my favourite short films....each time I watched it I picked up something new....great piece (great audio as well).



Bridle is an example of the "Web 2.5 entrepreneur", using the Web 2.0/2.5 tools that are openly available to say "hey this is what I am doing."

What has YouTube done for his career?

Added to YouTube 10 months ago, as of this moment, this particular short film has had:
Views: 933,938

Comments: 1884

Favorited: 4366 times

His other short films that he has posted on YouTube have had similar success....that is a lot of free marketing and exposure for this young film maker. Even though some of the comments left are "cool printer dude...wish my printer would print pizza!" or " wow! thatz the pimpest thing i've seen! itz amazin how u did it! great job u guyz really!?" Of the almost 2000 comments that had been posted for this short video only about a quarter could be used for constructive feedback. That is what social commenting is all about, you take the good with the bad.

The Web 2.5 entrepreneur is a person who goes to the Internet for free marketing and exposure....this is exactly what Bridle along with thousands of others do as 2nd nature everyday. Their digital business cards probably lists their:

• website
• MySpace URL
• IM
• Skype
• blogging URL
• and possibly SecondLife name

Classrooms....
Are we preparing students in the classroom to be Web 2.5 or 3.0 entrepreneurs in schools today?

Showing this short film to anyone that you need to teach the concept of Web 2.0 to is a great springboard. Have your group watch this short film and then break into small groups to discuss all the things they observed from the film that they thought represented Web 2.0. Moving into having the groups discuss where Web 3.0 will take us? How can entrepreneurs use these web technologies?

Desktop publishing starts to move to the web....

Web 2.0 is shifting what we did with standalone computer applications to web based applications. The earliest form of a web based application was Web Email....many have moved from using applications like Outlook as their only email source and also use Hotmail, Gmail, etc... just a couple of the many web based email services now available for free.

Limitations to web based applications and the success of these will depend on the Internet connections...which in many countries (sad to say) are still not efficient.

Still need a quick overview of Web 2.0? Watch the video (from YouTube) called: " 'Web 2.0' in just under 5 minutes. " by Michael Wesch (if you don't see the video below your network probably has YouTube blocked).


Tabblo (supported by HP) is a unique website that allows users to upload photos from a variety of sources (within Tabblo, Picasa, Flickr, your computer, etc...). You can create a number of different documents once logged into your free Tabblo account such as:

• online (photo album....a "tabblos")
• comic
• photocube (that you print and cutout)
• a book
• poster
• postcard

Customizable layout and design tools let you swap and resize pictures, add photo effects, customize colors and layouts, and add text to help you tell your story.

The Tabblo community: share your stuff, see what others are doing, see the photo challenges that are available for users to participate in.

Web sites moving to Web Television

Since YouTube, there are more and more websites coming online that are offering users the ability to create their own personal web television channels. There is a movement away from "stupid people trick" videos and a movement now into very specific niches and uses for web television.

The first site is Vator.tv. "It is a professional network and marketplace for ideas and businesses. Anyone, across all industries, at any stage, can share ideas, products, services and businesses with the rest of the world, mainly through video."

Have 3 minutes to pitch your idea, business, skillset or need......What's your pitch?

The hope is that people via Vator.tv can network, exchange knowledge and collaborate with other people who can help those ideas get to the next level. People can use Vator.tv to get their ideas or needs discovered or to find, discover and connect with others in networks of interest.

Classroom....
Interesting idea for young entrepreneur programs.
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The second site is Ourmedia ...."Video producers and podcasters can use Ourmedia to show off their works and create communities of interest. "

You can create your own Channels of interest either as a producer or as a user. Ourmedia allows you to share your user created content, but they'll also host it at the Internet Archive for free as long as you're willing to share your work with a global audience.

Ourmedia also has a Personal Media Learning Center that is aimed to help users create video, audio, and other forms of citizens' media. Presently there are resources for video (how to create a videoblog, video compressions, etc...), audio (how to create a podcast, editing and compression, etc...), multimedia (how to screencast), digital photography tips, and text (how to write for the web.)

Classroom....

A great way to introduce video production for the web. Also teachers will be able to create video tutorials and then create their own channels for their students to view.

The ability to personalize any space on the web is and will become an important factor for the consumers of today but especially tomorrow.

Online media album...telling digital stories

VoiceThread (beta) is a different way to build voice stories/communities through the web.

I think I could use VoiceThreads this morning as I have completely lost my voice to a winter bug :(

"A VoiceThread is an online media album that allows people to make comments, either audio or text, and share them with anyone they wish. A VoiceThread allows an entire group's story to be told and collected in one place."

The VoiceThread marketing team created a great diagram explaining what VoiceThread "is not." They call it the proverbial elephant....check it out (roll your mouse over all of the points).

The cool thing about VoiceThread is you can have 1oo's of voices that comment on one of your images. Each voice is represented by a small avatar/image of that person. You can click on each image and hear the message the person left.

Classroom....
It could be a great tool that is used for peer review/collaboration. Students could post their work and other students could comment and critique the work by leaving audio messages (VoiceThreads).

Start with a story concept and use VoiceThreads to build the story....everyone could add a piece....what direction would your story take?

Create Slide Shows & Screensavers

Slide is a free web service where you can create your own slideshows, guestbook and other options. Just upload images to the interface on the website (be sure to resize your images before you upload them). Add images from: your computer, Bebo, MySpace, Tagged, Slide, Photobucket, Facebook, Flickr, Image URL, and Search.

Customize your slide by adding captions, background color, style, themes, skins, music, effects, size and choose your privacy level (public or private). Be sure to test the privacy settings if this will be an issue for your slideshow.

You can also load your slideshow to a variety of social websites such as: Facebook, Bebo, Slide, Hi5, etc...

I just copied the code and pasted it in the html view of Blogger. This can be done on any webpage, blog or wiki that allows HTML editing.

(Note: Please be aware that there MAY be content that is not appropriate for certain age groups as this is a FREE web application. Please preview any website or service you want your students to use BEFORE you ask them to use it.)

Nexo - a free web service for group work online

Nexo is a free web service for groups to work online and collaborate on projects together. Sharing "interactive calendars, pictures, video, tasks, polls, comments, blogs, files and more."

The web site is setup within a secure community. As a developer you can decide who access to what within the site. View the Nexo user video tutorials: overview, setting up a poll, security settings within Nexo and the ease of "drag and drop" in Nexo.

Classroom....

Another great tool to encourage students to work together on group projects.

Nexo has the functionality to survey a group of students online...only they see the survey...only you see the results. Find out how they found the last test. Did you just take your class on a fieldtrip? Post the pictures of the fieldtrip in Nexo and survey the students on the fieldtrip. Whether you are a teacher, administrator or student.....a great tool to build that sharing group community.

Zoho - tools to help you work online

Zoho Online is a great collection of tools to help you take care of all of your document needs online.

Zoho Writer is an "online word processor with collaboration features."

Zoho Sheet is an online spreadsheet application.

Zoho Present is an online presentation tool to create, edit, publish, and show presentations.

Some of the other online tools available from Zoho are:

• Zoho Wiki
• Zoho Notebook
• Zoho Meeting
• Zoho Project, Zoho CRM
• Zoho Creator (databases)
• Zoho Planner
• Zoho Chat
• Zoho Mail
• Zoho Surveys
  

Many of these tools can be used collaboratively. For example with Zoho Writer, you can allow multiple users to work on a document simultaneously. You can share your documents with your friends or publish them publicly.

Give it a try....
Try something different next time you assign a group project in your class. Have each group sign up for Zoho Writer and encourage the students to try working collaboratively on a project using this online tool.

DIGI[cation] - creating e-portfolios & online communities

DIGI[cation] is a web tool that has been created by teachers for teachers to create and manage "e-Portfolios or online learning communities.

DIGI[cation] is free for up to 1,000 users. You can also use this web based tool to setup online courses for you classroom. You can set privacy preferences and along with other communication authoring tools, such as a calendar.

The e-Portfolio function is quite easy to use. Whether you are an art student or preparing a graduation portfolio for work or for a final assessment....DIGI[cation] is easy to use and leaves you with a web-based Portfolio without having to be a web designer.

Online garden planner and house plan for blueprints

smallblueprinter is a great online tool that allows students to "design a set of house plan blueprints online with smallblueprinter,
then take a 3D walk through their design,
using an isometric view and print out their plan."

This online tool is quick and easy to use for budding architects/builders of any age.

The other tool available at smallblueprinter is the gardenplanner. You can quickly design a garden plan online with a drag-and-drop interface. There is a small cost for the download version but the online version is presently free. Just use a screen capture tool to save your finished plan.

Great for horticulture programs, design studies, architecture, science, etc....

Other related links:

TMW Interactive Landscape Guide
Visual Landscape Design - Interactive Multimedia Training
Web Garden
Garden Organic for Schools
Green Teacher Magazine
California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom

VOX: the easy way to keep in touch with people

There are a lot of blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 web applications that allow you to keep in touch with your friends, family and even make new friends. Vox takes it to a new level with an easy WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") editor and security levels.

Vox reports that, "you can choose the privacy level for every post, every picture, every sound clip, every video. Put up posts for the world. Put up posts for just your family. Or just your friends. You can control everything."

This is especially helpful when you are using a collaborative site for your classroom....you can decide who sees it. Just want your students and/or their parents to see it, Vox states that this can easily be done.

An easy editing interface allows the user to add text, images, video, and audio are just some of the great things you can add into your Vox postings.

Frappr: the social map

It is easy to sign-up to Frappr and create maps for your website or blog. If you are working with schools from around the world, create group maps to find out where those students are from.

Springdoo - video says it better

Springdoo is a great tool that is taking audio and video easily to the masses with tools such as springMail and springCast.

springMail allows you to record audio and/or video and load the messages to your Springdoo account. An email is sent to whom ever you want and instead of clogging an inbox with large audio or video files....the recipient is sent a link to hear/see your message.

As easy as "push a button on the website, talk and then hit send."

springCast "communicator is a video and audio broadcasting widget" which allows you to post your audio/video directly to a blog or website. Videos you record from your mobile phone can be displayed onto your website.

Great tools to use whith your classes if you have your students working on global projects with other schools. Great tools to use if you are on a school field trip and want to update a class/school website.

iGoogle

iGoogle allows you to personalize your own homepage for free. There have been many different personalized homepage web applications over the last year, but I must say iGoogle gives a user a number of options.

There are over a hundred different RSS feeds or widgets to choose from to put onto your desktop.

• Weather - choose as many cities as you like around the world to have a 4-day weather posting.
• Calendars/clocks - a couple of different varieties to choose from.
• To-do lists
• Convert a document to .pdf via email
• Various quotes of the day
• Lots of games
• Spell check

Just to name a few of the hundreds that are available. If you like to have the news at your finger tips when you login along with the weather and other tid bits....give iGoogle a try.

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iGoogle Sidebar - Firefox Add-on

If you don't want to take up a whole page for your iGoogle widgets/modules, you can download the free Firefox add-on and this will display your iGoogle widgets/modules in the side while you continue using your main navigation window (can only be used in Firefox).

gOFFICE - the web office suite

gOFFICE is another online tool that is pushing towards a "web desktop."

The user experience is quickly evolving. We used to have to install software applications onto our computers, now many are available on the web and do not need local installation.

gOFFICE is one such evolution. gOFFICE is a web-based office suite that lives in your browser. You have access to word processing, desktop publishing, develop presentations, and spreadsheets. It does not matter what computer you have stored your data on, you will be able to login and access your data from any computer.....anywhere.

Student Resources

Whether it is research or managing your school day....there are a variety of web applications for students to help them do all of that.

The great thing about these web tools is that it does not matter what computer or where you access your data from....it will be there.

mynoteIT is an online note taking tool for students including a WYSIWYG note editor, assignment reminders, grade management, to do lists, manage your tasks with an online calendar and more.

Students can also share notes with friends and receive feedback through commenting on notes.

A similar online tool is Backpack.
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Zotero (beta) is a free extension to use in the Firefox 2.0 browser.

"See it. Save it. Sort it. Search it. Cite it."

This is a really great research tool and I only wish it had been around when I was writing my papers during university. It lives where most of us do our research these days....in our Firefox browser. It makes it so easy to organize your references.

Netvibes - your personal homepage

Netvibes is a free Web 2.0 startup page that has a huge amount of options for the user.

When you first open any browser window, you have the option to decide what site will be your opening page (tools-->Internet options). If you use Netvibes as your opening page, you will be able to personalize a lot of content at your finger tips.

"With millions of users in more than 150 countries, Netvibes lets individuals assemble all in one place their favorite websites, blogs, email accounts, social networks, search engines, instant messengers, photos, videos, podcasts, widgets, and everything else they enjoy on the Web."

The World of "Colr Pickrs"

I have used Colr Pickr - Color Fields for quite a while. This cool software toy (designed by Jim Bumgarder) is a Flickr mash-up that allows you to choose a colour from the colour wheel and it will retrieve thumbnails of photos from Flickr that are available to the public to download.

I have used this tool time and time again when teaching colour theory and needed to retrieve photo images that represented the various colours. Great to also get images that will spice up a classroom with colour and interest.

Adjust the slider to change the saturation of the colour...different photo images will appear.

Other groupings of Colr Pickrs (more on the website):

1. Flowers
   
2. Squared Circle


3. Graffiti


4. Doors & Windows


5. Urban Decay
   

Want to find out more about the code that Jim used for these applications? Jim has co-authored a book with Paul Baush that shares this code and more for Flickr mash-ups. You can review this book at Amazon.

Answers.com - the online dictionary, encyclopedia, etc...

Answers.com is an online information portal that has a collection of over "4 million answers that are are drawn from over 120 titles of brand-name publishers, the Answers.com editorial team, Wikipedia and user-generated answers."

Answers.com can be launched from Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera browsers.

The unique thing about Answers.com is that it goes beyond the search box and offers free software that a user can download (Windows only) and when you alt + click on any word in any program on your screen.....a pop-up windows appears with an AnswerTip. Read more information on this application here.

Answers.com teacher toolkit is a great reference and search option for teachers and students. Answer.com teacher toolkit was the Winner of the 2006 Codie Award for Best Education Reference or Search Service.

This portal starts with a lot of links that would interest educators such as: lesson plan tools, free worksheets & posters, free downloads, ESL, Education Blogs, Librarian Lowdown, just to mention a few.

Take Answers.com for a spin and give it a try!