This organising element from the Australian Curriculum ICT Capability involves students in using ICT to communicate and share ideas and information to collaboratively construct knowledge and digital solutions. Students develop an understanding of the context when communicating using ICT, including a sense of the audience, the form of communication, the techniques used and the characteristics of the users and the technologies. In developing and acting with information and communication technology capability, students: collaborate, share and exchange, and understand computer mediated communications.
AnswerGarden is a minimalistic feedback tool. It can be used as a creative brainstorming tool, blog or guestbook. You create an AnswerGarden by entering a topic on the Create New AnswerGarden page. Then you'll be redirected to your newly created AnswerGarden. Students can start posting their answers to your question, either by entering their own answers or by clicking on and submitting existing answers. These are then represented in your AnswerGarden in the form of a growing word cloud. You can embed your AnswerGarden as an embedded object in the LMS Life, using the provided embed code from the Share link. AnswerGarden is free to use.
Bubbl.us is an online brainstorming and mind-mapping tool. To begin, the main topic/concept is entered into the parent bubble. Then ideas and thoughts are recorded in colorful text bubbles linked to the parent bubble. Users continue to add text bubbles that are color coded according to hierarchy. Bubbl.us is Flash based so cannot be used on iPads or iPhones. Bubbl.us mind maps can be shared with others for editing purposes or as read only. The mind maps can be exported as images, html or printed. You can incorporate a completed mind map into the LMS Life by getting the embed code from the Sharing button. It can then be embedded into Life as an embedded object. Once embedded into Life, it will be read only. You will not be able to edit in Life. Bubbl.us is free but free accounts are limited to three saved mind maps. You can create Team Accounts and also apply for an educational discount.
Educreations is an iPad app. Educreations turns your iPad into a recordable whiteboard. Record and replay your voice, handwriting and drawings. Add text to any page. Add photos from the iPad camera, Photo Albums, Dropbox or the Web. Animate images by dragging them around while recording. Pause and resume recording anytime. Create multiple whiteboard pages. Undo and redo your actions. Choose from 10 different ink colors. Share your lessons via email, Facebook and Twitter. You can build courses that pull together a variety of lessons. Once your lesson is complete, upload to http://www.educreations.com/ and get the embed code to use in LMS Life. In order to access the embed code for lessons, your lesson must be public. Therefore be cautious of using student names or images. Accounts are free at http://www.educreations.com/ and the Educreations App is free on the Apple AppStore.
Explain Everything is an easy-to-use design tool that lets you annotate, animate, and narrate explanations and presentations. Explain Everything records on-screen drawing, annotation, object movement and captures audio via the iPad microphone. You can import Photos, PDF, PPT, XLS, RTF, Pages, Numbers and Keynote from Dropbox, Evernote, Box, WebDAV, Email, iPad photo roll and the iPad camera. To embed Explain Everything into LIFE you can export an image, pdf file or movie to camera roll, mail, ibooks, Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, iTunes and Youtube. Explain Everything costs $2.99 to purchase. The App Store Volume Purchase Program allows educational institutions to purchase iOS apps in volume - Explain Everything is available under this program. No account is necessary to use Explain Everything and share creations.
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by the school or college. Facebook allows any users who declare themselves to be at least 13 years old to become registered users of the site. There is no doubt that Facebook is on the rise, and as social networking grows you may ask yourself, as a educator, how you can incorporate this into the classroom. If you are looking for a way to get your students talking about what they are learning, you may consider using Facebook to initiate student-to-student collaboration. Consider opening a classroom Facebook page on which the teacher could post a status update about what is being taught. Students could then post replies to that status which could lead to an effective class discussion between students. Facebook Feeds can be integrated into LMS Life, but ensure that your school LMS Administrator has enabled Facebook integration and that Facebook is not blocked by WebSense. Facebook accounts are free.
Lucid Chart is an online collaborative tool to draw flowcharts, mockups, mind maps and more. You can easily share diagrams with students and have multiple users experiencing real time collaboration with changes merged and synced instantaneously. There are hundreds of templates and examples for use. You can get the embed code and embed the diagram in LMS Life as an embedded object. There is a free account which has limited features, or you can apply for an educational license upgrade using your edu email address.
Padlet is a Web2.0 tool that allows people to express their thoughts on a common topic easily. It works like an online sheet of paper where people can put any content (images, text, videos, documents) anywhere on the page, together with anyone, from any mobile device or computer. A wall is basically the web page where people post content. It can be used for personal note taking, to-do lists, feedback, collection, brainstorming. You can embed a wall in LMS Life by clicking on the side panel and selecting share which will give you the embed code. It can then be inserted into LMS Life as an embedded object. Walls can be password protected. Padlet is free.
Photopeach is a simple to use slideshow creator where you can upload images from your computer and enhance the experience by adding background music, captions, quiz questions and request comments. Photopeach is free for the basic account, however there are a number of accounts including an educational account which allows a wider range of tools including voice over, uploading MP3 music, making unique folders and burning slideshows to DVD. In the basic account you have a limit of 50 students logged in at one time. In the basic account you can choose between making the slideshow unlisted, public or invitation. You can also decide to request or remove comments. To embed Photopeach into LIFE simply click the share button to produce an embed code, ensuring that you have chosen unlisted as your privacy mode.
Poll Everywhere enables you to gather live responses in any venue, via texting, website or Twitter. It allows for instant polling and responses from students. You ask your audience a question. They answer via text, web or Twitter. The results update live in your Web Browser or in LMS Life as an embedded object. Get the embed code by clicking on Share and Publish > Blog or Web Page. The free plan allows for an audience of up to 40 people. Responses are generally anonymous unless respondents use their names of if the response comes from Twitter.
Prezi is a cloud-based presentation software that is an alternative to Powerpoint. The zoomable, virtual canvas enables presentations to be visually captivating and highly motivating. You can embed images, youtube, video, music, diagrams and URLS to your Prezi, while setting navigation paths, transformations, customising colour and fonts. Prezi can be used as a real time collaborative space where changes can be synced and monitored by all participants. With Prezi, you can co-create with up to ten other users. Prezi can be viewed on an iPad and can be embedded into LIFE via an embed code created in Prezi. There are three different types of account depending on what you need. Public is free where all prezis can be viewed by the public with 100MB storage. Enjoy account is $60 US annually and allows for private presentations with 500 MB storage and Pro is $160 US per year with 2GB of storage.
Primary Pad is a web-based word processor designed for education that allows students and teachers to work together collaboratively online in real-time. It can be used for getting ideas, collaborating, sharing and quickly posting pieces of information when working in groups. The timeslider is a useful tool for formative assessment. Pad contents can be exported as pdf, rich text, Word documents and to Wordle. A Pad can be integrated into LMS Life in an iFrame or as an embedded object. A free account gives up to 30 days of Pad life with up to 50 concurrent users on any Pad and up to 10 saved revisions.
SlideShare is the best way to get your slides out there on the web, so your ideas can be found and shared by a wide audience. SlideShare is a website that allows you to upload documents to share publicly or privately ideas, conduct research and connect with others. Your audience can view presentations and documents on topics that interest them, download them and reuse or remix for their own use. You can turn powepoints into a Slideshare and engage your students in an online platform. You can embed Slideshare easily into LIFE by using the embed code generated. Slideshare can also be shared on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. You can embed Youtube into Slideshare presentations. The basic subscription to Slideshare is free, this allows for the public to view your slides. You can only make your slides private by updating to UPLOAD +.
Socrative is a smart student response system that empowers teachers by engaging their classrooms with a series of educational exercises and games. Teachers can engage the entire classroom with educational exercises and games while capturing student results in real-time. Teachers can engage with the data to further student understanding in the moment, and review the reports to prepare for future classes. Socrative enables teachers to create short answer questions; quizzes, exit tickets and multiple choice questions. Teachers login through their device and select an activity which controls the flow of questions . Students simply login with their device by typing in the room number provided by the teacher using any android; IOS device or a desktop/laptop. Socrative is a free tool with no student accounts and passwords. The limit per room is 50 students logged in at any one time.To embed Socrative into LIFE simply copy the URL and embed into an iFrame.
SpiderScribe is an online mind mapping and brainstorming tool. It lets you organize your ideas by connecting notes, files, calendar events, etc. in free-form maps. You can collaborate and share those maps online! You can share and collaborate with other people on your mind maps. As a personal subscription you can have unlimited public maps, 3 private maps, 3 MB files & images space. There is no educational platform however there is available a Pro account with features such as unlimited public maps, unlimited private maps, single user (full sharing), 2 GB files & images space, priority support. There are three types of maps: Private (default)- the map is visible only to its creator and to the people it is shared with. Public with the link - the map can be visible to anybody who has the direct link to it. People don't have to be logged into SpiderScribe.net to see it. Public on internet - the map can be found on internet and is visible to anybody. People don't have to be logged into SpiderScribe.net to see it. When sharing maps with other users, the Editors can also edit the maps, and the Readers can only view them. In order to edit a map a person has to be logged into SpiderScribe.net. To embed SpiderScribe into LIFE click on the embed wizard and then copy the code into LIFE.
TitanPad lets people work online on one document simultaneously. This is a great tool for collaboration without the need for everyone to have an account. The organisers creates the new pad, shares the URL or embeds the URL into an iFrame in LIFE so that the particpants can work in real-time. . Collaboration can be done anonymously or by name. Every author gets their own background colour, so the teacher can see who wrote what. Using the time slider function you can see how the text evolved over time. Export the results to multiple formats, such as Word of pdf. Check the deletion policy: if the pad isn't visited for some time the pad will be deleted. The basic subscription to Titan Pad is free. Silver $20 per month; Gold $50 per month individual user. They also have educational costings.
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables users to send and read "tweets", which are text messages limited to 140 characters. Registered users can read and post tweets but unregistered users can only read them. Users access Twitter through a web browser, SMS, or mobile device apps. Tweets are publicly visible by default, but senders can restrict message delivery to just their followers. Users may subscribe to other users' tweets – this is known as following and subscribers are known as followers or tweeps. In addition, users have the capability to block those who have followed them. Users can group posts together by topic or type by use of hashtags – words or phrases prefixed with a "#" sign. Similarly, the "@" sign followed by a username is used for mentioning or replying to other users. To repost a message from another Twitter user, and share it with one's own followers, the retweet function is symbolized by "RT" in the message. In late 2009, the "Twitter Lists" feature was added, making it possible for users to follow (as well as mention and reply to) ad hoc lists of authors instead of individual authors. The tweets were set to a largely constrictive 140-character limit for compatibility with SMS messaging, introducing the shorthand notation and slang commonly used in SMS messages. The 140-character limit has also increased the usage of URL shortening services such as bit.ly, goo.gl, and tr.im, and content-hosting services, such as Twitpic, memozu.com and NotePub to accommodate multimedia content and text longer than 140 characters. Since June 2011, Twitter has used its own t.co domain for automatic shortening of all URLs posted on its website. If you are looking for a way to get your students talking about what they are learning, you might consider using Twitter to create a class Twitter list that you Tweet to as do your students. Twitter can be used to get real-time and instantaneous feedback from students as well as posting classwork and reminders. Your Twitter feed can be private with only you approving those who follow you. Twitter Feeds can be integrated into LMS Life, but ensure that your school LMS Administrator has enabled Twitter integration and that Twitter is not blocked by WebSense. Twitter accounts are free.
Vocaroo is a simple online voice recorder that allows people to record and play back their own voice. This is a good option for schools using Apple technology as they are unable to consistently use the voice recorder in LMS Life. There is no fixed limit on message length, however be aware that even brief internet connection outages can cause recordings to stop or fail. Vocaroo does not provide permanent storage and there is not a definite age at which messages are deleted, but they will probably expire after a few months. Various download options are available beneath a recording once complete, including the embed code. The play button can then be inserted into life as an embedded object. Vocaroo is based on Flash and therefore recording is not possible on iPad and iPhone. However message playback should work on laptops and tablets. Vocaroo is free.
A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). VoiceThread allows for richer, more dynamic conversations that take place around the topic rather than below it. Users can doodle while commenting, use multiple identities, and pick which comments are shown. VoiceThreads can even be embedded to show and receive comments on other websites and exported to MP3 players or DVDs to play as archival movies. VoiceThread is a cloud application, so there is no software to install. The only system requirement is an up-to-date version of Adobe Flash. VoiceThread will work in any modern web browser and on almost any internet connection. You can keep a VoiceThread private, share it with specific people, or open it up to the entire world. To embed a VoiceThread into LIFE use the embed code created when you choose to share. Free-account holders are limited to creating 5 VoiceThreads. If you would like to create more than 5, you will need to upgrade to a premium account. The Single Instructor License is $79 per year and includes accounts for one instructor and up to 50 students. Additional accounts can be purchased as needed.
You Tube is a video-sharing website that uses Adobe Flash Video and HTML5 technology to show a wide range of user-generated video content. Users can upload, view and share videos with family, friends and the world. It was created in February 2005 by former PayPal employees. YouTube is the perfect alternative to uploading large video files into LMS Life and means that your students can watch uploaded videos using their Web Browser only on both computers, tablets and mobile devices. YouTube is a part of Google. Users need a Google account, which is free. Once you have established a Google account, you are then able to establish your own YouTube Channel. For use in an educational context, we recommend that you set your channel to Unlisted, which means that no-one can search for and find your uploaded videos. However you are able to get the embed code to integrate into LMS Life as an embedded object.