5 Useful Webtools You Don’t Know Exist
Have you ever learned about a new (or new to you) tech tool and thought, "Wow -- how did I not know about this?". Saturday I attended EdCamp Citrus, and experienced this during one of the sessions. Here is a list of my favorite free lesser-known webtools, all mentioned at EdCamp Citrus' Web 2.0 Smackdown.
- Typewith.me - Collaborate with others in real-time on a document. Each author can type in a different color, so you know who is contributing what. Share with others with the unique URL. Click here to learn more about how to use Typewith.me in your classroom.
- ViewPure.com - Make sure when you show a video to your class, that's all you're showing them! Get rid of the advertisements and comments on a YouTube video - all you need is the link to the video. I originally heard about this tool from Richard Byrne's EdTech UNconference Session, and mentioned it at the Smackdown. Thanks, Richard!
- TubeChop.com - Only want to show 2 minute clip of a 10 minute video? Put the YouTube URL of a video inside TubeChop, and select the part that you want. When you're finished, you are given a link and embed code for the cropped version of the video.
- Whenisgood.net - Tired of the back and forth that happens when you're trying to schedule a meeting? Select on a grid the times that are good for you, then email (via a link) your grid to your invitees. They choose when they are also free. Meeting scheduled!
- Fur.ly - Shorten multiple URLs into one, & easily navigate through all your URLs. The best way to understand is to see an example...click here to view a fur.ly of all the links mentioned in this post.
For a full list of everything covered in the Smackdown, click here. And a big thank you to Jerry Swiatek for managing the session and for all of the hard work he put into EdCamp Citrus!
What lesser known tech tool do you know and love? Leave a comment and tell me about it.
- Kimberly
I just wanted to say thank you for posting about TubeChop.com! I have never heard about it today and I like to think I am on top of my web tools. I guess you learn something new each day. I look forward to seeing other webtools and ideas coming from your unconferences in the future!
Thanks again!
+Shana
@ShanaatDS
Kimberly Reply:
December 7th, 2010 at 8:04 am
Yes Shana, there’s always more to learn! It’s especially hard to keep up with technology, but that’s part of the fun
If you know of any other tools you think should be on this list, I would love to hear about them.
Shana Ray Reply:
December 8th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Finding new technology tools has always been a favorite part of being in digital media marketing! Have you seen the new Mashable article on “4 Tools for Monitoring Your Child’s Online Safety” http://on.mash.to/hypm9m It has some great tools, some I haven’t heard about!
I am also a fan of http://Curate.Us which lets you save screen grabs of pages you want to remember without saving them to your hard drive. And of course, Collaborize Classroom is an online learning platform for teachers and students to interact online!
+Shana.
Thanks for the amazing list, but it appears as if ViewPure also allows video cropping under the more options tab, hope that proves to be useful as well.
Kimberly Reply:
December 8th, 2010 at 5:45 am
Thanks for the tip Freddy – will check it out.
Kimberly-
I always look forward to the articles, but this one is especially helpful. Thanks.
Kimberly Reply:
December 8th, 2010 at 8:49 am
Thank you, Kim! It’s always nice to hear feedback from our readers and learn about what you find useful & interesting.
Dear Kimberly,
really useful tips! I learnt about ViewPure and TubeChop from your post – they’ll be great for my English as a second language classes, as I often plan activities with YouTube content.
Thanks and all the best,
Marian
You may prefer primarypad.com as it is focused on Edu
Enjoy
Just have to share one of my favorite sites – it’s called Fiverr.com – People will do just about anything for five dollars! There are several on there that will write and deliver Santa letters or even make special, fun videos as gifts! Try it! You’ll love it!
Kristi
Hi Kimberly,
I learn so much every time I open your newsletter. Thank you.
Two of my current favorite websites are wallwishers.com and wonderopolis.org. Wonderopolis is a new website which has only been up and running for 72 days (the number on the website correlates with how many wonders they have posted). The web master of the website encourages people to submit something that they have been wondering about. So you never know, your wonder might just become the wonder of the day on Wonderopolis. The question is linked to a page that always has a short video and information that will answer the question. So you are not only challenge yourself to see if you know the answer, you can read to find out the correct answer.
This is how I use Wallwishers and Wonderopolis in my classroom:
I have created a wall in Wallwishers for my students with a generic question. I have Wonderopolis web site on my white board for the students to view the wonder of the day with its question. The students must post their response to the question and post it on Wallwishers. The students LOVE using both of these websites. It is great to begin my day using these two sites together.
I would love to hear your stories of success using these two websites in your classroom.
Wow1 I’m excited to try out tube chop. I like to use tiny video clips as intro activities and this will be a great tool for doing that.
Twitter! We have a classroom account and follow news feeds and various professionals for current events.
Wish I had known about Tubexhop a week ago. Great time saver. Thanks for sharing
Thanks for sharing. My undergrad students used ViewPure for an assignment in their educational technology course. Most added it to their delicious sites to use again!
I love all of the websites that you posted. I am anxious to use them when we return to school in January. Thanks for helping teachers be the best that they can be.
Fur.ly works even better than live binders plus then benefit of short URL.
Tubechop and ViewPure sound like two tools that will be very useful. Thank you.
Tubechop is something I definitely will try! This will allow me to show videos without my students getting TOO off task!
I’m also going to try to schedule meetings with whenisgood – I’m super organized and love anything that allows my Type A personality to flourish
Thanks for these!
Thanks
Thanks for the great list. I’ll pass these on to other teachers and be using them in class.
Thank you for the great info! These are five very useful tools!
I am going to be sending this to my teachers. I didn’t know where I could find the app that would ONLY show the YouTube. Thanks.
This solves a real problem for me, since maybe NOW I can get it IT folks to give me access to youtube. Cutting out the junk was one of their big issues. Thanks!
I think the ViewPure is the best option for live videos. Those ads are always annoying when you show videos to a larger audience.
Type with me and Furly are great sites. A friend got a well known author to use type with me to answer student questions. It was a wonderful experience.
Thank you for the great new tools. As a Tech Coordinator for the district, these are excellent new sites to share with the teachers in my school. And the ViewPure is helpful in controlling exactly what will be shown to a class.
I like the new TypeWithMe … but I also like TitanPad and use it with colleagues as well as students.
What wonderful tools! I will share them with our teachers and know that they will be very useful.
It is an early Christmas present. Thanks so much for sharing!!
I am always looking for new tools. My collection has turned into a series of professional development courses!
I love the Whenisgood.net – great for scheduling meetings with teachers and staff – and parents! Great for meetings! Nice addition
The doument sharing apps are great. The apps to delete ads or to select portions of videos are appreciated..would be helpful if our district did not block YouTube access!!
Great information! I can definitely use whenisgood.net for scheduling meetings with my coworkers. Thanbks!
Whenisgood is going to be incredibly useful for scheduling team meetings- thanks for the tip!
I’m going to love tubechop.com. It will save time with downloading, converting and using movie maker. I’m checking out the others too.
Thanks.
I am going to add a link to this site from a webpage I am creating about Technology 4 Teachers – Never Stop Learning.
( http://sites.google.com/site/ellistechnology4teachers ) Great info!!!
Thanks for the tip of those 5 Web 2.0 tools…I have not heard of nor used any of those tools before…but I can’t wait to put them to use!!! I am passing this very useful information on to all of the teachers at my school, as well as the tech dept. for our district!
I like Viewpure. It is nice to have a tool to get rid of the junk on Youtube and leave the video.
I’m so glad you put this together! I always love finding out about new gree things that will help my students!
These are great sites and wanted to thank you for sharing them with us. I have shared these to a few teachers already this morning and have gotten back several comments already from them stating they can’t wait to return to school to use them.
Thanks for the list- really looks as if these will be some great tools- however, when I tried fur.ly.com it did not open-
really like the one on scheduling meetings- for me this is always a hassle, with several emails or phone calls back and forth
have you seen the site: http://www.teachparentstech.org
have not explored it fully, but have watched a couple of the videos and decided it could also be teachteacherstech – you can pull the videos up and show them without sending in an email- however, if you send the email to a teacher who is having problems then they can later review it again
Kimberly Reply:
December 21st, 2010 at 8:16 am
Thanks for pointing out the broken Fur.ly link – I fixed it and it is working now!
Typewithme is just what I am looking for. Teachers need a quick way to collaborate with their students without any set up.
I will definitely use these tools.
Thanks for sharing these five sites. All five were new to me, but I plan to try them out after the holidays!
I am so thankful for these tidbits! I share with my colleagues and it is so important to share with others. Thank you.
I am always so thankful when I run across tested sites to investigate. There are so many options, and to have others recommend after sorting through them is a huge timesaver. In addition, the other recommendations in the comments just add to the value of this post. Thanks!
I look forward to using typewithme with my students. The two websites for working with YouTube look promising also.
Excellent resource Kimberly… I will be sure to share it with my readers and clients.
Keep writing… get blog.
Candace Davies
http://resumesforteachers.com
[...] Vicki Davis RT @TLC_edu: 5 Useful Webtools You Don’t Know Existhttp://bit.ly/m53nBM [...]
[...] RT @tlc_edu: 5 Useful Webtools You Don’t Know Existhttp://goo.gl/YgudI #ISTE11 [...]
[...] Fur.ly – Shorten multiple URLs into one, & easily navigate through all your URLs. The best way to understand is to see an example…click here to view a fur.ly of all the links mentioned in this post. via blog.simplek12.com [...]
Looks like the fur.ly example isn’t working.
Kimberly Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 10:42 am
Thanks for pointing this out think fur.ly has a time limit (not available forever). Something to keep in mind, if you would like to use it.
[...] I love showing YouTube videos to my students, but sometimes the advertisements, comments, or even parts of the videos are not suitable for my students eyes (or ears). Here are two resources that were discussed in 5 Useful Webtools You Don’t Know Exist. [...]
Does Typewith.me still restrict to 16 users or less? I was gaga for Typewith.me until I discovered that limitation last summer (2010)–and I hope they’ve changed it since. For those who need more than 16 users, Meetingwords.com does the exact same thing (because it’s built on the exact same EtherPad platform) but has a higher user cap. I’ve had as many as 25 people in Meetingwords at once.
Kimberly Reply:
July 27th, 2011 at 8:09 am
I believe they do Jen. Another good alternative (which I just learned about) is Titanpad, which doesn’t have a limit and is very similar to Typewith.me
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