The Best of Richard Byrne compiled by David Loertscher. Check out his blog: Free Technology for TeachersHere are the most popular items from the first week of 2011:
1. 11 Mathematics Resources to Try in 2011 2. 11 Language Arts Resources to Try in 2011 3. 11 Science Resources to Try in 2011 4. 11 Social Studies Resources to Try in 2011 5. 11 Art & Music Resources to Try in 2011 6. Amazon Introduces Kindle Book Lending 7. Video - The Giving Tree If you enjoyed the links above, please consider subscribing to Free Technology for Teachers if you haven't already done so. Subscribe via RSS. Subscribe via Email. Become a Facebook Fan. Get Free Technology for Teachers on Kindle 
10 Ways to Create Comics Online
 Witty Comics provides a simple platform that students can use to create two character dialogues. To use Witty Comics
students just need to select the pre-drawn background scenes and the
pre-drawn characters they want to feature in their comics. Writing the
dialogues is the creative element that is left to the students.   Pixton is a
drag-and-drop cartoon creation tool which allows anyone regardless of
artistic ability to create comics. Users can join the Pixton community
to share their creations with other. In addition to the free individual accounts Pixton offers Pixton for Schools
(not free) which allows teachers to create private rooms in which only
their students can create and share comics. To learn more about Pixton, watch this short video.
  PikiKids
provides a variety of layouts to which students can upload images then
edit the images or add text bubbles and titles. The comics that students
create can be embedded into a blog or website as well as be shared via
email. PikiKids is free to use, but it is a for profit website as it offers options for buying tee-shirts or mugs with user-created comics.  Make Beliefs
is a free comic strip creation tool that provides students with a
variety of templates, characters, and prompts for building their own
comic strips. Make Beliefs
provides students with a pre-drawn characters and dialogue boxes which
they can insert into each box of their comic strip. The editing options
allow users the flexibility to alter the size of each character and
dialogue bubble, bring elements forward within each box, and alter the
sequence of each box in the comic strip. Students that have trouble
starting a story can access writing prompts through make beliefs. Most
impressively, Make Beliefs allows users to write their comic strip's dialogue in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portugese, or Latin.  Chogger is a free comic strip creation tool offering a good selection of editing tools. Chogger allows you to draw images from scratch or use your existing images. You can even connect your webcam to Chogger
to capture pictures for use in your comic strips. Once you've added
images to your comic strip, you can add effects such as fading and
outlining. Chogger also allows you to customize the look of each frame in your comic strip. Comic strips created in Chogger can have as few as three frames or as many as twelve or more frames.
 Using Primary Pad
anyone can create a new document in one click. Your document can be
shared with the world via email or by posting your document's unique url
online. Each person that collaborates on your document can have their
own text highlighting color. These colors help you keep track of changes
to your document. Primary Pad
also offers some additional services for educators, but those services
do require a licensing agreement after a three month free trial.  Entri is a free document collaboration tool that doesn't require registration to use. Entri's
goal is to make document collaboration as quick and easy as possible.
To start a document on Entri, just click the big "create your entri"
button. Entri
assigns your document a unique url that you can share via email or with
Twitter. Once your document is developed to a point at which you no
longer want it edited by other, click the "lock" button to prevent any
further changes by others. Using TitanPad anyone can instantly create a collaborative document. You do not have to create an account to use TitanPad,
in fact creating an account isn't even an option. To get started just
click "create public pad," enter your name, and start typing. To invite
people to collaborate, just share the url assigned to your TitanPad. Every collaborator on TitanPad is given a unique color to highlight the text they've added.Applications for Education Students
working in groups could use these tools to create outlines of lectures
or share the burden of taking notes. These tools could be used by
students to collaboratively write a short story. One student could start
the document then each subsequent student could add a line or paragraph
to the story.  Deviant
Art is known as a huge community of artists who share their work with
each other and the world. What you might not know is that Deviant Art
has a pretty good online drawing tool called Muro. Muro
is a free tool that allows you to create original drawings containing
multiple layers, backgrounds, and brush stroke styles. Creating drawings
with Muro does not require you to create an account. When your drawing is complete you can export your work to your computer.
 Applications for Education
The
best way to avoid any worries of Copyright infringement when students
create multimedia projects is to have them create their own original
images and sounds. Muro from Deviant Art is one tool that students could use to quickly create their own original drawings.
Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:7 Resources for Creating Cartoons & Comics Five Online Drawing Tools Nine Tools for Collaboratively Creating Mind Maps
Thursday, March 11, 2010Nine Tools for Collaboratively Creating Mind MapsMind maps or graphic organizers can be invaluable tools for visual thinkers and visual learners. The process of creating a mind map can help students gain an overview perspective on complex, multifaceted concepts. Mind maps can also help students outline an essay or story they're planning to write. The following list contains nine tools that can be used by students to create mind maps independently or collaboratively.
If you found this list useful, you may also want to read:
ImageBase - Hundreds of Free Stock Images
Free Document, Calendar, and Worksheet Templates
Join.me - A Free Way to Share Screens
     When
selecting free typing programs I prefer tutorials and games that
provide instant feedback about my typing skills, or lack thereof. Typing Web is one of those tutorials that provides instant feedback after every free typing lesson. Typing Web offers beginner through advanced typing lessons for free. You can register to track your progress or you can use Typing Web without registering. Tux Type is a fun, open source, program designed to help young students learn touch typing skills. Students can play a variety of games which increase in difficulty as a student's skills improve. Tux Type is available for Mac and PC. If you're looking for something for a typing program that doesn't require software installation try the program from Sense Language. The program is web based, but is also available for use offline. The best feature of Sense Language's typing program is the option of creating your own typing activities or using the standardized lessons. Sense Language's typing program has useful timing options and audio feedback features to help students develop their typing skills.  Power Typing hosts a small collection of five typing games that students can use to develop their typing skills. Power Typing also offers typing lessons for Qwerty and Dvorak keyboards. The two games that I found easiest to access are Alphabetic Rain and See Don't.  Six Visual Dictionaries and ThesauriHere are six visual dictionaries and thesauri that can help your students better understand the meanings of words.
 Visuwords uses a web design to show users the definitions of words and the connections between words. To use Visuwords just type a word into the search box and Visuwords
will generate a web of related words. Place your cursor over any of the
words and the definition appears. Use the color-coded key to understand
the connections between the words in any web. Lexipedia, like Visuwords,
provides the definitions of words along with a webbed diagram of
related words and their definitions. In addition to definitions and
diagrams, Lexipedia
offers audio pronunciations of words although when I tested it the
audio didn't seem to be working properly. In my side-by-side comparison
of Lexipedia and Visuwords, both performed equally well, but occasionally offered different definitions and connections for the same word. Merriam Webster's Visual Dictionary
is divided into fifteen thematic categories containing more than 6,000
words defined and accompanied by images. You can find words and
definitions by browsing through the categorized images or by using the
text search bar. Wordia is a free visual, video dictionary. Wordia
features a selection of user-submitted and professionally created
videos explaining the meaning of a word. The videos focus on the
everyday use of words while the text accompanying each video provides
the dictionary definition of the word. Thumb Scribes is a new platform for collaboratively creating poems and short stories. Thumb Scribes can be used in two ways. First, you can contribute to story or poem that someone else has started and placed in the public gallery. Second, you can start your own story or poem and either place it in the public gallery or invite others to collaborate with you. If you put your poem or story in the public gallery anyone can add to it. If you don't want the whole world adding to your poem or story you can mark it as "private" and invite i ___________________________________________ Thumb Scribes - Collaborative Poems and Stories Thumb Scribes is a new platform for collaboratively creating poems and short stories. Thumb Scribes can be used in two ways. First, you can contribute to story or poem that someone else has started and placed in the public gallery. Second, you can start your own story or poem and either place it in the public gallery or invite others to collaborate with you. If you put your poem or story in the public gallery anyone can add to it. If you don't want the whole world adding to your poem or story you can mark it as "private" and invite individuals to add to it.  YoYo Games - Create Your Own Games Game Maker 8 is available in three versions; Lite which is free for Windows users, Pro which unlocks advanced features for $25, and a Mac version which costs $25. The Mac version can be tried for free for up to ten hours before a payment is required. Applications for Education Game Maker 8
could be a good tool for students to use to try to develop educational
games. After a unit of study instead of having kids give a presentation
have them try to develop a game which demonstrates what they've learned.
Perhaps they could develop a game based on a set of mathematics
concepts or a game based on a set of historical events.
 Create Your Own Super Hero Comic MarkUp.io - Draw On Any Webpage =========================================== Scribd, a PDF publishing service, has now integrated Apture search technology to make PDFs interactive. Now anytime you're reading a document on Scribd and you come across and unfamiliar term just highlight it and click "learn more" to have text references, images, and videos pop-up on the document. You can then click the links, read the pages, and watch the videos within the pop-up on the document. I tried it this afternoon and it really is as simple as easy to use as it sounds. Watch the short video below to see Scribd and Apture in action. Apture Highlights on Scribd from Tristan Harris on Vimeo. Earlier this week Robert Scoble published a video interview of Apture's CEO Tristan Harris. In the video below Harris explains to Scoble how Apture works. Applications for Education I often use public domain primary documents in my US History courses. Some students really struggle with some of the verbiage in those documents. Now if I upload those docum________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Voki for Classrooms ____________________________ Fat World - A Video Game About Nutrition Fat World is available as a free download for Windows and Mac users. _________________________ More Historical Imagery Available in Google Earth  Applications for Education Many times I've had students comment to me that exploring Google Earth and Google Maps has been very helpful for them in recalling information about our history lessons. The historical imagery can be useful for providing students with geolocated imagery to aid in recall of information about historical events. ________________________________________________________________ Twiducate - Social Networking for Schools __________________________________________________________ Khan Instant - Instant Search for Khan Academy
Seven Ways to Build Your Own Educational GamesThere
are hundreds of places to find educational games and quizzes on the
Internet. That said, sometimes you still cannot find quite what you're
looking for. In those cases you're better off creating your own games.
Here are seven good tools you and your students can use for creating
games.  Sharendipity makes it possible for students and teachers to quickly create and share simple video games. Sharendipity's drag and drop creation tools can be used to create a game in as few as four steps. For new Sharendipity
users the tutorials provide clear directions and helpful game ideas.
Games created on Sharendipity can be embedded in your blog or website.  ClassTools.net is a free service teachers can use to create their own educational games. Games made on ClassTools.net can be shared via email or embedded into a blog or website. (Yet another reason for having a class website or blog). ClassTools.net
provides fifteen easy to use templates with which teachers can make
educational games for their students. There are also pre-made games on ClassTools.net which teachers will find useful.  Purpose Games
is a free service that allows users to create custom games, share
games, and play games. There are two styles of games that you can create
and play on Purpose Games.
The simpler of the two styles is a fairly basic multiple choice game.
The other style uses images and maps on which players have to name the
places represented by placemarks on the image or map. For an example, try this game about the skeletal system. Purpose Games
gives game creators the option to make their games public or private.
If you select the private option, only the people to whom you send
invitations will be able to play your game.  What 2 Learn
is a website offering more than two thousand educational games for
middle school and high school age students. If that library doesn't have
what they're looking for, teachers can create custom games using twelve
different templates provided by What 2 Learn. What 2 Learn also offers teachers the option to monitor their students' scores. What 2 Learn
is a European based website so some of the games, particularly the math
games where money is expressed as Euros and Pounds, may not be
appropriate for US students. Aside from that most games are appropriate
for use with US students.   Jeopardy Labs is a free service you can use to create your own online Jeopardy game. Jeopardy Labs
provides a blank template on which to build your game. You do not need
to register in order to build your own game. However, if you want to be
able to edit your game at a later point you will want to create a
password before you create your game. When completed your game is given
its one unique url. Post that url on your blog, wiki, or website and
anyone can then play your game. ProProfs Brain Games allows you to build
interactive crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, word searches, hangman
games, and sliding puzzle games. The games you create can be embedded
into your blog or shared via email, Twitter, Facebook, or Myspace. If
you don't want to take the time to create your own game, you can browse
the gallery of games. All of the games in gallery can be embedded into
your blog.Let's Crate - A Simple Way to Share Files Let's Crate is very easy to use. To use Let's Crate just drag a file from your desktop to the Let's Crate page. Let's Crate then creates a unique url that you can send to others so that they can access your file. The unique url expires after 30 minutes unless you create a free Let's Crate account in which case you can keep files on Let's Crate as long as you need them. Write Comics - A Simple Comic Strip Generator  Applications for Education Creating comics can be a good way to get reluctant writers to develop stories. Write Comics enables students who don't think they're good artists to create comics and focus on story development without worrying about their artist abilities. Here are some related |
for Christmas, you're probably looking to load that thing up with good
things to read this week (especially if you're on the east coast of the
US where we've been hammered with snow). If you don't need the latest
best-seller, you can probably find some great reads for free in a few
different places on the web. The first place to look is in the 
