Educational Web2.

0 Resources for Adult Basic Literacy Practitioners

 Designates personal fav
Blogs and Blog Tools
1. 23 Things Learning2.0 -  23 Things (small exercises) you can do on the web to explore and
expand your knowledge of the Internet and Web 2.0.
2. Blogger - easy-to-use site, to quickly post thoughts, interact with people, and more
3. BlogLines - free service for searching, subscribing, creating and sharing news feeds, blogs
and rich web content.
4. Edmodo - private microblogging platform that teachers and students can use to send notes,
links, files, alerts, assignments, and events to each other
5. edublogs - Simply create, manage, moderate blogs for your students with a minimum of fuss.
6. Google Blog Search – search using edublogs tag (or not)
7. International Edubloggers Directory – open to all edubloggers from around the world
8. OTAN info on Blogs –  all you need to know and more, resources galore
9. Twitter-  microblog in 140 words or less – a must have resource to connect with
educators
10. weblogg-ed -  one of the best educational bloggers out there. Will Richardson
11. WordPress - get a blog started in less time than it takes you to read this sentence
Bookmarking
1. BlinkList – intuitive, easy and fast
2. del.icio.us -  del.icio.us is a collection of favorites - yours and everyone else's. Keep links
to your favorite articles, blogs, music, restaurant reviews and access them from any computer
on the web; discover new things. Discover both the favorite content of others and browse
what's currently popular
3. Digg - Digg is all about user powered content. Everything is submitted and voted on by the
digg community. Share, discover, bookmark, and promote stuff that's important to you!

4. Diigo-  combining social bookmarking, clippings, annotation, tagging, full-text search of

everything, easy sharing and interactions, a powerful personal tool and a rich social platform.
5. Furl- Make your favorite web bookmarks accessible from anywhere; easily save, take notes on
and share links you've stored, browse others' most popular bookmarks to find new and
interesting things.
6. StumbleUpon- uses thumbs up and down ratings to form collaborative opinions on website
quality. When you stumble, you will only see pages which like–minded stumblers have liked
Charts, diagrams, mind mapping
1. Bubbl.us - simple and free web application that lets you brainstorm online
2. Flowchart.com - The title says it all really. Flowchart allows you to create charts and diagrams
in a nice drag & drop interface. (Private Beta)
3. Gliffy - Likely the most technical and detailed option on this list. It has many more options
available than the others.
4. LovelyCharts extremely simple and intuitive drag'n drop drawing mechanism. powerful tool
for creating and editing all kinds of flowcharts and diagrams
5. Mind42 - browser based online mind mapping application.
6. MindMeister - Offering both a free and premium version, MindMeister focuses on collaboration
in an easy to use mind mapping environment.
7. Webspiration- online visual thinking tool

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Chat
1. campfire- Simple, Web-based group chat for businesses, allows real-time sharing, editing, and
collaboration for team members in a secure, password-protected chat.
2. Gizmo- Gizmo Project uses your internet connection (broadband or dial-up) to make calls to
other computers. Connect to friends, family, and colleagues anywhere on earth.
3. Joopz- Allows users to send text messages from Web to both individuals and groups; enables
recipients to respond directly to the originating PC or Mac. web texts can be sent from any
web-enabled device worldwide to any U.S. or Canadian mobile phone.
4. Meebo- web messenger lets you access IM from anywhere. supports msn, yahoo, aol/aim,
google talk and others
Communication Services
1. Google 411 -  service is likely something you have never tried before, but once you do, you
might use it for a long time coming. A good 411 replacement. (US Only)
2. Google Alerts -  Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web,
news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. If you want to keep up with news about e-
learning, type that in as your search term and you will receive notifications of all new Google
results that contain that search term http-//www.google.com/alerts?hl=en
Digital storytelling
1. Mixbook - allows educators easy access to powerful suite of digital storytelling tools
2. Photostory for Windows - Create slideshows using your digital photos. Touch-up,
crop, or rotate pictures. Add special effects, soundtracks, voice narration to your
photo stories. Small file sizes make it easy to send your photo stories in an e-mail
3. PicLits – Inspired picture writing. Creative writing site matches images with keywords
4. VoiceThread - create collaborative presentations by collecting comments - both text &
voice
Emails
1. Gmail - Much more efficient at handling large volumes of email than rival services.
2. Zookoda- email marketing app designed for bloggers. Enables you to send daily,
weekly or monthly summary of your latest blog posts directly into your visitors inbox.
File conversion
1. Media-Convert - Free online file conversion no installation
2. Zamzar – free online file conversion
File Storage & Sharing
1. Backpack- web-based service that makes organizing your information incredibly easy.
Backpack lets you make pages which can contain any combination of notes, to-dos, images,
files, etc. keep pages to yourself or share with colleagues, co-workers, friends, or family.
2. Box.net - very nice solution to uploading and backing up your files, as well as sharing them.
sign up for free, get a gig of space, additional storage with premium options.
3. Docstoc - Download Legal, Business, Tech & Educational Docs; Store Your Documents
Privately Online for Free, upload, share, embed
4. Drop.io - create drops, privately share files by web, email, phone, fax, and more. Share what
you want, how you want, with whom you want
5. Dropbox - Store, Sync, and Share your files online
6. Esnips - place where you can share ALL your passions; your thoughts, photos, files, stuff you
find on the web... and you control who you share it with and how
7. LiveBinders - Share all your documents in an easy presentable format. Use for presentations.
Build a library of binders and become a valuable resource for others
8. LiveDrive - Unlimited storage space. See the same files on all your PCs, the Web and your
mobile. Send large documents, presentations and ZIP files to contacts
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 9. Omnidrive - Bring all your files and content together from your desktop, devices and the web
onto a single space that's easily accessible from any platform.
10. Posterous - Have your own website to share thoughts and media with friends, family and the
world. Send any type of file and Posterous will convert it to the most web friendly format
available. Docs, ppt, pdf, jpg, gif, png, mp3, avi, mpg, etc.
11. Tumblr - lets you effortlessly share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and
videos, from your browser, phone, desktop, email, or wherever you happen to be. You can
customize everything, from colors, to your theme's HTML.
Goals
1. 43Things - List your goals, share your progress, cheer each other on
Images & Photos
1. Flickr - store, search, sort and share your photos (limit of 200)
2. Photo Peach - quick easy way to make an audio slideshow video. Many music options for
Photo Peach are classical which could make a nice accompaniment to slideshow of art work.
3. Picasa –  Picasa and Picasa web albums (no limits)
4. Picnic – store share tweak to your heart’s content
5. PictureSurf - a community of people helping each other understand the world through images
and video
6. Pimpampum -variety of tools that use images, photos, ed games (includes bookr, bubblr,
memry, phasr and other fun tools for projects
Mapping
1. Google Earth 5 - just released; includes a host of new tools that educators can tap in the
classroom. Google Ocean is being touted in particular, allowing users to interact with 3D maps
of the ocean floor, courtesy of US Navy data National Geographic, the BBC, Cousteau’s Ocean
World, and several others to provide a wealth of information about everything from the global
fishing crisis to footage of shipwrecks.
2. Google Maps - Not only does it have streets, but you can get an insane amount of data
displayed on Google Maps through other services like StreetAdvisor.
3. Mapquest - A very reliable source for getting you from point A to point B
4. Yahoo Maps - Google has obviously driven Yahoo to improve its mapping services, and it
shows here.
5. WindowsLiveLocal - http://maps.live.com/
Office ProductivityTools
1. Blists –  neat online database
2. Dabble – Create reports, calendars, charts and whole databases in a sharable format. Easily
import data and present it in simple, attractive ways.
3. GoogleApps - powerful online applications to help you manage your time, collaborate on
documents and keep in touch. Google Apps Education Edition is free for educational
institutions
4. Google Docs & Spreadsheets-  Create, collaborate, share, documents, spreadsheets,
presentations. Create surveys, forms
5. Scribd- Upublish, discover and discuss original writings and documents. "one of the best
tools for English Language Learners to use for language development.” (Larry Ferlazzo)
6. TextFlow – parallel, cooperative word-processing
7. ThinkFree - Think Microsoft Office, except this is the online equivalent.
8. Writeboard - Write, share, revise, compare
9. Wufoo - create contact forms, online surveys, and invitations
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 10. Zoho- Similar to Google Docs, Zoho Many apps for Productivity and collaboration
Online Calendars
1. ePrintableCalendars easy-to-print out calendars by month or year, in various sizes
2. Famundo - It's more than just a calendar! Famundo is changing the way families connect to the
community around them
3. Google Calendar – Simplify. Organize. (And relax.) Shareable calendar
4. Yahoo! Calendar – shareable online calendar
Podcasts
1. Education Podcast Network –  great resources
2. LearnOutLoud - the Net's largest Catalog of educational audio books, podcasts, downloads, &
free resources. nice service for audio self-publishing. If you've got a course you teach or a
book you've written, this is your opportunity to record an audio version and make it available
to the world. There's no cost to participate in TeachOutLoud and it's really easy to get started.
3. Odeo - Home to millions of audio & video episodes from thousands of podcasts and media
sites across the web, Odeo.com is part search engine, part media directory, and part social
network.
4. Podomatic - Create, find & broadcast podcasts
5. Recap - Educational podcasts for teaching and learning selected podcast channels for
educational use
6. SpanishPod - Learn Spanish on your terms with mobile podcasts and a global community of
Spanish learners.
Portals/StartPages
1. iGoogle -  If you have a Google account, then the iGoogle comes part of the package deal,
and since many of us have Google as our home page anyways, why not give iGoogle a trial?
2. Live- Microsoft web 2.0 portal
3. ma.gnolia- Build your web site and build community online
4. My Yahoo - offerings are somewhat more customizable than iGoogle, but essentially the same
concept from a different provider.
5. Netvibes - free start page that provides you with access to all your digital resources in one
page. Blogs, news, online videos, podcast, pictures, e-mail. Netvibes Universes are
customised versions of Netvibes that can be published for public access.
6. Pageflakes - all kinds of resources and tools on your web-based desktop (to create a personal
learning environment) there are thousands of flakes that can be added, e.g. wikipedia flake,
calendar, bookmarks, etc., You can also add RSS feeds and share your page with others.
7. SecondBrain- Organize all your content in one place. Easy to manage all your social media,
bookmarks and. organize everything in your library, follow your colleagues updates and
discover good content.
Publishing
1. Blurb- create your book; work with photos, text, and layouts; upload your book; and more
2. My Publisher- Create books and photo albums
3. On Sugar- easy to create beautiful sites, post dynamic content, and discover and follow your
favorites. Start your site, share your life. It's free.
RSS readers /aggregators+
1. Bloglines - A competitor to Google Reader, and offers most of the same services, just a matter
of personal taste as to your selection.
2. Feed43- This free online service converts any web page to an RSS feed on the fly.
3. FeedBurner- FeedBurner helps bloggers, podcasters and commercial publishers get more
value from the content they create. (recently purchased by Google)

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 4. Google Reader -  If you would like a straight and simple news reader, then Google Reader
might be worth your time to check out.
5. Netvibes – easy-to-use Web-based aggregator which allows you to collect all of your RSS feed
on a single Web page
6. Pageflakes - Like Netvibes, Web-based aggregator that allows you to create a page and
includes "flakes" (widgets) to add in, such as a calculator
Slide Sharing Sites/Presentations
1. 280 slides - Create presentations, access from anywhere, share them with the world. No
software to download, nothing to pay, when you're done building your presentation you can
share it any way you like.
2. Animoto - cool way to put pictures together with music
3. Empressr - Add photos, music, video, and audio, and share it publicly or privately in an instant
4. Slideboom- Upload PowerPoint files, animations and other effects, audio
5. Slide.diigo- similar to flowgram
6. SlideRocket - quickly make stunning presentations, manage a library of slides and assets,
share them securely with
7. SlideShare-  Upload your slides, share with a link, embed in a blog, discover interesting
slideshows, tags, comments and have fun. Provide an audio track to sync
Social Networks/Communities
1. Classroom 2.0 -  social network for educators who are interested in learning about
Web 2.0
2. EFL Classroom –  great Ning site, fantastic resources
3. English Companion - Where English teachers go to help each other (Ning site)
4. Facebook - Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world more open
and connected.
5. LearningTimes open community for education and training professionals. Free access
to wide range of opportunities to interact and network with peers from across the globe; live
webcasts and interviews with industry leaders, online debates and discussions, live coverage
of industry conferences, and international working groups; free group collaboration tools,
virtual meeting rooms, a site-wide instant messenger, and virtual office suites, a vital place on
the web for thousands of education professionals to meet and interact at any time.
6. LinkedIn- like Facebook for business professionals- Build yourself a business network
to give you credibility in job searches and hiring, or use LinkedIn to reconnect or keep in touch
with important business connections.
7. MySpace - Create a community on MySpace and you can share photos, journals and
interests with your growing network of mutual friends!
8. Ning-  social network geared to education
9. Ning in Education -
10. OTAN Social Networking Resources – huge list of resources
11. Social Networks in Education – Another huge list
12. Twitter- microblog 140 words
Survey Tools-
1. Advanced Survey a free, basic, online survey creation tool
2. Survey Monkey - Intelligent survey software for primates of all species
3. GoogleDocs -  create a survey in from any spreadsheet. Click New > Spreadsheet > Share
Timelines-
1. Dipity- collaborative timelines, works with youtube content
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 2. Timetoast- multimedia online timelines
3. XTimeline - free web-based timeline. Easily create share timelines with pictures and videos.
Video
1. 100 Best YouTube Videos for Teachers
2. commoncraft –  Explanations in plain English, great simple teaching videos
3. Edublogs TV -  Educational videos you can use in your classroom! Allows you to snag
youtube videos and they host an imprint of them on their site
4. Embedr - free service that lets anyone create a custom playlist of videos from the top video
sites on the web
5. Free ESL Video Lessons
6. Imeem- imeem is a social media service where users interact with each other by watching,
posting, and sharing content of all media types, including blogs, photos, audio, and video. In
one sense, imeem is a media-centric social network service, and in another sense, it is also a
user participation service for online content.
7. Jumpcut- place to create, remix and share movies and slideshows online.
8. MeBeam- essentially allows anyone to broadcast from home, office or studio, live tv to an
infinite amount of viewers, all with direct live feedback, showing, how many viewers, from
where etc.
9. Miro - download videos to use offline. If your work blocks most video sites, download videos
and then play them back at any time regardless of Internet availability.
10. TeacherTube -  Like YouTube, except for education. host, tag & share instructional videos
11. TeachersTV –  thousands of educational programs on TV and online
12. US Stream TV - live video In just minutes, broadcast ,chat online with a global audience. free,
all it takes is a camera and Internet connection.
13. Vimeo- Share your video clips. Upload video that you shoot with your digital camera, mobile
phone, or camcorder. Share video by linking to Vimeo.
14. YouTube-  YouTube is a popular free video sharing Web site which lets users upload, view,
and share video clips.
Virtual Classrooms/LMS CMS
1. Edu2.0 - Web-hosted learning management system- teach, learn, collaborate
2. Haiku LMS - Create online lessons with articles, images, audio, and video for your class.
Manage discussions, auto-grade assessments, and track scores through a gradebook.
3. Moodle - The Moodle system on LiteracyTent is free for adult literacy providers and teachers. if
you want to create a course, you need to be given course creation privileges. Send an email to
steve@literacytent.org with your name and request
4. TappedIn - The online workplace of an international community of education professionals
5. WiZiQ - Free online web-based virtual classroom, audio, video, chat, voice, webcam,
whiteboard, PPT, privilege control
Voice Tools
1. Vaestro - audio forum software that you can use on your web site for free. Talk to your friends,
host interactive podcasts, or use it like an audio blog. Use it anytime you need to communicate
with groups of people small or large
2. Vocaroo - new service for recording and sending voice messages online with option to embed
the recording anywhere.
3. Voice Thread- an online media album that can hold essentially any type of media (images,
documents and videos) and allows people to make comments in 5 different ways - using voice
(with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam) - and share them
with anyone they wish.

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 4. Voxopop - global message board where anyone can add voice messages to ongoing topical
discussions. Share your personal interests or hobbies, debate hot issues or find answers to
questions.
VOIP
1. skype- It’s free to download and free to call other people. This tool has the potential to improve
class participation and collaboration, but it can also help cut costs by providing free voice and
video calling to other Skype users worldwide. Some uses of the platform include multi-class
and cross-district collaboration, professional development, and virtual field trips.
Web Conferencing

1. DimDim -  no software to download. Easily host or attend web meetings complete with
audio and video conferencing, desktop and document sharing. (free and paid version)
2. Elluminate - real-time online learning and collaboration (some free, mostly pay)
3. WebCast Academy - a hands on, collaborative training center for people interested in learning
how to produce and host live, interactive webcasts.
4. Wimba (mostly pay)
5. Yugma (free up to so many participants)
Wikis
1. 21 Ideas - Learning theory shows that one of the keys to successful learning is engagement.
Using Schlechty's "8 Qualities of Engagement" as a framework, Tony Vincent outlines 21
technology tools educators can use in the classroom, not only for instructional purposes, but
also as alternate forms of students assessment. This session promotes learning with live
participant blogging.
2. ALE wiki -  Learn about adult literacy education here, including English language learning,
numeracy, and adult basic and secondary education
3. OTAN Wiki Resources – tons of resources and links for ABE
4. PBWiki-  Make a free, password protected wiki as easily as a peanut butter sandwich. Easily
upload HTML, link files to your pages, integrate RSS, and more.
5. SimpleEnglish Wikipedia Wikipedia designed for children and adults learning English.
Articles are written using basic English words and phrases.
6. VoiceThread for Education
7. VoiceThread- powerful new way to talk about and share images, documents and videos
8. Web2.0 Tools in Adult-Ed - these wiki pages are designed to act as a supplement to OTAN
Online Connection Summer 2007 issue
9. WetPaint - Fully equipped with smart navigation elements and neat customization features,
Wikispaces - hosted service that lets you create a wiki for collaborative working
10. Wikipedia- The biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the Internet. Over two million
articles and still growing.
Tools/Utilities
1. Animoto - Animoto is an automated presentation generator that focuses on using images to
communicate a message. "This tool is great for class collaboration and digital storytelling"
and easier than PowerPoint. Create a music video and picture shows
2. Audacity –  records and converts audio files (voice and also music)
from one format to another, also a sound EDITOR. You can remove
long pauses or extract a short portion of a long audio passage. also fade
sound in and out, eliminate static and hiss and hum
3. Camtasia Studio- Jing’s big brother on the video side—and the ideal choice for creating
longer, more polished screen videos. Camtasia Studio can edit your Jing videos, too.

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 4. Glogster  and http-//www.glogster.com/edu/ Here’s an example-
http-//squirrelygurl.glogster.com/music-is-like-a-rainbow/ Glogster is a revolutionary way of
expressing your mood, feelings and ideas, and it goes miles beyond text or video! Creating a
Glog lets you express all those things you haven’t been able to describe by words. It opens the
door to a whole new world of communication
5. Jing - Jing is free screen & video capture software that adds visuals to your online
conversations.
6. KickYouTube – very simple youtube/video converter
7. ScreenToaster – free online screen recorder
8. Screencast - It not only provides free storage and instant sharing of your Jing content…it's
also a super place to share your high-quality videos, images, presentations, and all manner of
digital content.
9. SimplyBox -  incredibly cool tool to Capture, Share, and Organize ANYTHING you find on
the web
10. Snagit - This Swiss-army knife of screen capture picks up where Jing leaves off. Powerful
image editing, scrolling window capture, cursor capture, tagging, search, and rugged good
looks.
11. Wink- Tutorial and Presentation creation software, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how
to use software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel etc). Using Wink you can capture screenshots,
add explanations boxes, buttons, titles etc and generate a highly effective tutorial for your
users. http-//www.debugmode.com/wink/
12. Wordle - clever new website lets you create artistic "word clouds" of text or website
13. Zamzar - Convert YouTube or TeacherTube files so you can bring them to school and use them
for education – converts all types of files to many formats
More Educational resources can be found at-
1. 21st Century Tools for Educators 
2. About Weblogs – tips and tutorials
3. Alltop – All the top education news
4. Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies –  excellent resources, great directory
of learning tools
5. CommonCraft – Video sharing in plain English 
1. EdTechTalk - Collaborative Open Webcasting Community
2. freetech4teachers -  free technology resources and how teachers can use them. Ideas
for technology integration in education
6. Google Knol - A knol is an authoritative article about a specific topic
7. Go to Web2.0 – The complete web2.0 directory
8. Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day –  check out the whole site for great resources
9. Larry Ferlazzo –  his “Best Of Series” is the best
3. Learning 2.0 - project to encourage staff to experiment and learn about the new and emerging
technologies that are reshaping the context of information on the Internet today.
4. ReadWriteWeb - blog that provides Web Technology news, reviews and analysis
10. Rss- A Quick Start Guide for Educators – nice guide to learning about RSS
11. Smart Teaching Blog - resources
12. Social Networks in Education - listing of social networks used in educational environments
13. Support Blogging - set up to provide an opportunity for students, teachers, administrators,
parents, and others to help promote an understanding of the benefits of educational blogging.
14. TeacherTrainingVideos - created for teachers to help incorporate technology into teaching
15. Transitioning to Web2.0 – Web 2.0 in the classroom, nice activities
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16. Web2.0 Tools in Adult-Ed  – the best resources I’ve found! Covers everything you need
17. Web 2.0 Sites-  web 2.0 sites directory, for all web 2.0 related services.
18. Web Tools for You to Use –  great media resources for libraries and classrooms
19. Web2.0 Guru – good resources for educators for integrating web2.0 technology
20. WIC -  This wiki is maintained by Lesley Edwards. She uses it as a resource for the
workshops she gives to teachers using technology in their classrooms

 My Ning: http://nesabestech.ning.com
 My Box.net files: http://www.box.net/shared/2ujmmiyghk
 My Delicious Bookmarks Link: http://delicious.com/poochiesan
Compiled by Patty Ball, Regional Technology Coordinator, Northeast SABES, Lawrence MA
pball@necc.mass.edu

7/20/2010