I’ve long been a believer that teachers should explore open source edtech tools as an alternative to all the free, freemium, ad-supported, and privacy-invading web applications that are marketed to us. In addition to all the great open source desktop applications, there are a lot of open alternatives to the …
One of the most valuable tools for an instructional designer is a great screencasting app. Being able to record your desktop with voice narration frees us to share techniques on our computers in live motion video. Many of us IDs have learned to depend on tools like Jing, Screenflow, Screencast-O-Matic, …
Instructure Canvas is the new hotness in the LMS market, but for many it remains out of reach. For many schools who need an LMS on a shoestring budget, their best option is to contract for an open source Moodle install from a 3rd party hosting company. This is a …
I have been researching open source user feedback tools, and I stumbled upon a very nice app called AllOurIdeas.org. The app takes a novel approach to user feedback, allowing your audience to choose between two suggested answers that you “pre-seed” into the survey. This is great if you have already …
You can think of BitTorrent Sync as “Dropbox without the Cloud”. Not to be confused with the underlying technology of BitTorrent, this is a way of keeping a folder and files sync’d across multiple computers, but unlike Dropbox, your files are never stored on a remote cloud server. Instead, files …
This video shows you how you can quickly convert a Markdown formatted presentation outline into an HTML5 presentation using Reveal.js. I think this method is a great way to familiarize yourself with web technologies while producing attractive and powerful presentations that work great on desktop and mobile devices. You can …
The Social Media Status Quo is Broken Most people and businesses maintain several social media profiles, flitting from Facebook to Twitter to Instagram and beyond to keep up with all our different circles of friends. We use all different smartphone apps because each little tool does one thing better than the others. As …
One of the thrilling features of the Iron Man movies is the idea that Tony Stark can step into a mechanized robot suit and control it as if he were just moving his body naturally. The suit is expertly designed to understand his movements in real time and seamlessly amplify them to …
Mozilla Popcorn Maker is a free tool for triggering rich web content to pop up as a web video plays. You can import a YouTube video, then add your own annotations, links, quizzes, maps, questions, and further reading, triggered to appear at key points in the video timeline. These enhanced …
If you make a lot of screencasts, tutorials, or documentation, you probably keep a keen eye out for any tool that can make your documentation better. Sometimes when a picture isn’t enough but a video is too much, you can take an animated GIF recording of your screen. Let …
