Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

I’ve written several posts about applications that easily let you annotate web pages — in fact, I have a Best Applications For Annotating Websites list.

I’m always on the look-out for web tools that can mimc a key instructional strategy I use with students in the classroom — having them use post-it notes to annotate books or articles so they can demonstrate their use of reading strategies (asking questions, making connections, etc.).

I thought Awesome Highlighter was the solution a year or two ago when I first heard about it, but often students found it didn’t work very well — either highlighting ability didn’t always work, or the virtual post-it notes were difficult to position.

However, today I revisited it, and the site worked like a breeze on multiple webpages I tried. If today is indeed typical of how it usually works, it will be perfect annotation tool for students — type in a webpage, highlight key phrases, type out and position some virtual post-it notes, click on save, and then post the url address of your work on a class blog or website.

My students will be giving it a try next Friday. I’ll let readers know how it works.

Has it been working well for others who have used it?

I ranked what I thought were the thirty-one Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2008.

I also invited readers to vote and see if they agreed with me. Here are the results (you can read descriptions of each web tool by going to my list):

1. Synthasite

2. Moblyng

3. Nile Guide

4. Flowgram

5. Book Goo

6. Graspr

7. Jog The Web

8. Posterous

9. Tikatok, Awesome Highlighter, and My Jugaad (three-way tie)

10. Edublogs.TV, Digital Vaults, Quikmaps, Tokbox (four-way tie)

I’m always on the look-out for web tools that can mimc a key instructional strategy I use with students in the classroom — having them use post-it notes to annotate books or articles so they can demonstrate their use of reading strategies (asking questions, making connections, etc.).

I thought it would a good subject for another “The Best…” list.

In order to make this list, it had to be available free-of-charge, be accessible to English Language Learners, and not require any downloads of any kind.

Here are my choices for The Best Applications For Annotating Websites (not in order of preference):

Backboard allows you to literally draw a line to a place on the website and then write a comment — very similar to putting a post-it on a page in a book. It seems very easy to use, no registration is required, and its free.

Book Goo is a new tool that lets you upload documents or webpages and then annotate and share them. Others can also then annotate the same document. You can draw on the documents as well.

Awesome Highlighter is easy to use and no registration is required.  My students and I periodically find that it doesn’t work very smoothly, and a fair number of the webpages we’ve wanted to use aren’t compatible with the application. However, even with those drawbacks, it definitely deserves to be on this list.

Jog The Web is so easy to use. It allows you to easily create a slideshow of websites or images, and you can leave comments on each page.  It’s not possible, however, to physically align your comments with specific parts of the website’s text.  I just have students use a strategy for each paragraph, and then just number the paragraphs in the comments section.

Voxci looks like a potentially useful tool. It’s a very, very “bare-bones” Flowgram in that it doesn’t give you the ability to write anything, but you can leave audio annotations. The drawback, however, is that right now you can only leave comments by calling a Pennsylvania phone number. They are planning on adding the capacity to record by computer microphone, and when they do that it might be worth trying out.  The New York Times recently had an article about a new web-based tool called Calling America, which lets you call anyplace in the United States for free.  Though I haven’t tried it with Voxci, it seems to me that an application like Calling America might work with Voxci and other Web 2.0 sites that offer phone-in options.

Mapanno lets you annotate any webpage with notes, save it, and then makes it available to share.  Mapanno is easy to use, though its initial interface isn’t that intuitive and will probably require a minute teacher tutorial to get students started.

A.nnotate is the newest addition to this list.  Instead of describing A.nnotate in detail here, though, I’m going to suggest you read a very thorough description of it — with screenshots — at The Make Use Of blog.

Blerp, I think, might now be the best tool on this list.

Once you register (which is extraordinarily easy and doesn’t require activation by email), you type in a webpage address, click on “post” and you can type on a virtual post-it note and place it anywhere on the text of the page and you are then given the page’s url with the notes. It’s extremely user-friendly.

But that’s not all.

It also allows you to see what other readers of the same page have written. All those virtual post-it notes are listed on the side of the page. All you have to do is click on a note and it magically appears at the location on the page where it was placed.

I believe a lot of the things many web tools allow you to do are neat, but don’t necessarily provide much “value-added” benefit to doing the same task using non-tech tools. Even the other tools on the “website annotating” best list only let you do the exact same thing you can do with hard copy.

With Blerp, however, after students have completed demonstrating their reading strategies, they can then see what everybody else has written, too.

Now, that’s what I’m talking about in terms of a way technology can enhance learning.

Rooh It! is the newest addition to this list.  Since the Make Use of blog has written a good post describing it, I’m going to encourage you to read their explanation.

I’d like to highlight a couple of great features, though. One, you don’t have to register for it. And, two, all you have to do is put “roohit.com/” before any web URL address and you can start highlighting and leaving notes about it.

The only negative I see is that it looks a little “busy” — English Language Learners could be a bit confused by all the initial options and text. But a short teacher explanation should take care of that.

Layers is a new site that lets you annotate any webpage. Two especially nice features it has are (1) you can add photos and videos to your annotation by just including the url address and (2) you can see how other people who are also registered at Layers have annotated the same page. It’s not initially particularly intuitive in its initial lay-out on how to use it, but it’s still worth a try.

As always, feedback is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

I posted earlier this year about an online tool called Backboard.. I thought it was a nice little application, but probably wouldn’t add it to any of my The Best… lists.

They just sent out an email announcing a number of improvements to their site.  One in particular stands-out.

I’m always on the look-out for web tools that can mimc a key instructional strategy I use with students in the classroom — having them use post-it notes to annotate books or articles so they can demonstrate their use of reading strategies (asking questions, making connections, etc.).

Book Goo and Awesome Highlighter allow you to do something similar on webpages and then save the annotation, but I’ve found that they don’t necessarily work on all webpages, or for some reason they don’t always work well on our school computers.

One of Backboard’s new features is that it allows you to literally draw a line to a place on the website and then write a comment — very similar to putting a post-it on a page in a book. It seems very easy to use, no registration is required, and its free.

It may end up having some of the same shortcomings of the other sites I’ve mentioned, but it looks like an excellent addition right now.

I’ll be writing up another “The Best…” list soon called The Best Tools For Website Annotation, and Backboard will certainly be on it.

Last year’s The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2007 was very popular among readers, and now it’s time for this year’s edition.

Since last year’s post, I’ve written nearly one hundred other “The Best…” lists, including four lists (including this one) that have highlighted the best of 2008. These four — The Best Online Learning Games — 2008; The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly — 2008; The Best Internet Sites For English Language Learners — 2008; and this one –all include a reader’s poll to see if others share my preferences.

The poll for this list — The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2008 — is located below this post, and closes on February 1, 2009. Please vote for no more than ten of the thirty-one sites listed. Please note that I’ll be listing these sites in my post from my pick for thirty-first place and ending at first place, but the poll is listed in the opposite order.

In order to make this list, a site had to be:

* accessible to English Language Learners and non-tech savvy users.

* free-of-charge.

* appropriate for classroom use.

* completely browser-based with no download required.

It’s possible that a few of these sites began in 2007, but, if so, I’m including them in this list because they were “new to me” in 2008.

Here are my thirty-one picks for The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2008:

Number thirty-one is Webon . It appears to be one of the easiest website-builder I’ve come across. It’s very easy to grab images off the web and write captions. One of its features that I like a lot is that your images automatically become a slideshow. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that other slideshow creators have, but it seems to work well enough. It’s an excellent place for students to display their oneline work.

Number thirty is Jog The Web. It allows you to easily create a slideshow of websites or images, and you can leave comments on each page. It’s a nice tool for categorization, and I’ll be describing that instructional strategy in the context of other web tools on this list.

Number twenty-nine is a bookmarking site called Sitemark,
and, like a couple of other similar applications on this list, it’s a great tool for students to apply categorization skills. That instructional and learning strategy requires higher-order thinking, and you can read more about how I use technology for this purpose at The Best Social Bookmarking Applications For English Language Learners & Other Students.

Number twenty-eight is Selfcast. It lets anyone with a webcam immediately broadcast over the web for free, and anyone (without registering) can watch and also participate via live text chat. The presentation is also recorded and can be watched in the future, too. It’s an ideal way for students to record presentations.

Number twenty-seven is The Broth. It lets you create password-protected private “rooms” where people can cooperate on creating a piece of art. In addition, it has a chat component that lets you talk with people who are in the room at the same time. With our International Sister Classes project, it’s unlikely because of time zone differences that we can make that happen. However, the chat messages remain, so students can leave messages about what and why they’ve contributed to the community art work.

Number is twenty-six is My Jugaad, a new web tool that allows you to easily make slideshows of webpages and post/share links to them. You’re also able to write descriptive notes about each slide. I’m always looking for new applications that could provide ways for students to use higher-order thinking and categorization skills, and this could be another one. I especially like that it’s extraordinarily easy to use, and that images from the web can be included without any problem. There are a number of other tools trying to fill the same niche, but many are more complicated to use.

Number twenty-five is Book Glutton , an intriguing web application that allows groups of people to read books over the Internet and “chat” and leave comments about what they’re reading. That’s okay, but I think it’s their “uploading” feature (that they recently began) that will really be useful. You can then upload your own materials and have groups chatting and leaving comments about it. I could see that really having potential for online discussions of short articles between classes in the same school that meet during different periods and with sister classes in different parts of the world.

Number twenty-four is Fo.reca.st. It’s a free online polling application that lets you easily add sound, images, or video to your polls/surveys; has a variety of ways to see your results; and many different formats to show your survey. Creating polls and analyzing their results can certainly be educational activities.

Number twenty-three is Tokbox. It’s a free tool for a video conference call. You can participate with a Webcam or just if you have a mike for audio, and can be used for students in different cities or countries to communicate. They used to have a limit on the number of people who can participate in a call, but now they say they don’t have that anymore. You do have to sign-up for an account, though.

Number twenty-two is MeBeam. It allows you to have up to eighteen people on the same video conference call, and it’s all browser-based. But you can participate in the call if you only have a microphone, too, so a Webcam is not necessary. It’s free and doesn’t require any pre-planning with the site — you don’t even have to register. All you do is go to the site and give your “virtual” room a unique name. Then others can log-on, too. Up to eighteen people can participate in the call.

Number twenty-one is an online comic-creation site called Pixton, If you make a series of comic strips, lets you put them into a virtual “book.” It also seems to have a very overt and pro-active (at least it says it does) policy on ensuring that only appropriate content remains on the site.

Number twenty is Wix. It’s a fairly easy site that lets you use Flash to create a website or content that you would like to embed into a website or a blog. The final product can look pretty neat. There’s so much you can create that I think it would be a little too overwhelming to English Language Learners. I also suspect that my mainstream students would would want to spend far too much time using it to make their creations look cool and spend less time on the actual content. However, teachers, I think, might want to use it to create content their students would then access.

Number nineteen is Synthasite, another website-building application that seems very similar to Wix, but seems just a little less complicated to use.

Number eighteen is Zunal. It’s an easy way for teachers (and students) to create webquests. I know there are some specific parameters involved in using the term “webquest,” so you can also use Zunal to create much simpler “online scavenger hunts.” At their most basic, it can be a series of questions students have to answer, along with links to websites where the information can be found. Zunal also acts as the host for the webquest or scavenger hunt after its been created.

Number seventeen is ZeeMaps. You can make maps without registering, though it’s slightly more complicated to use then some of the other mapmaking tools that do not require registration. However, unlike the others, ZeeMaps lets you insert images in addition to writing, Students, for example, can write about different natural disasters that have occurred around the world.

Number sixteen is Nile Guide. I’ve posted before about online sites that allow you to decide where you want to go, search for things that you would do and see there, and then easily “drag and drop” an itinerary that can be posted on a website or blog. Nile Guide now appears to be the most accessible of them all.

Number fifteen is Graspr a site where users can upload (and watch) “how-to” or “instructional” videos to do just about anything. One of the features, though, that makes Graspr a little different from the others is the ability for the viewer to write online notes about what they see — while they’re watching. I help my students learn reading strategies (asking questions, making connections, etc.) so they can become better…readers. We also talk in class about how we can become better listeners by using these same kind of strategies while in conversations and while watching movies. This site is an interesting, and challenging, way for English Language Learners to try this out.

Number fourteen is Awesome Highlighter. I often have students use sticky notes in class when we’re reading something to demonstrate reading strategies (summarize, evaluate, predict, connect, etc.). Awesome Highlighter is easy to use and no registration is required. It would be rated much higher, but my students and I periodically find that it doesn’t work very smoothly, and a fair number of the webpages we’ve wanted to use aren’t compatible with the application. However, even with those drawbacks, it definitely deserves to be on this list.

Number thirteen is Middlespot. It’s sort of a combination Search Engine and a little bit of a social bookmarking application. After you enter your search term and click “enter,” your search results appear both as images and short text blurbs. Obviously, showing these screenshots benefit English Language Learners, and several other search engines I’ve listed on my website under Search Engines have this feature. The unique tool offered by Middlespot is called a “workpad.” You can drag-and-drop the webpages you want onto your workpad, give it a title and description, and then Middlespot will give your workpad its own url that you can post on a blog or online journal, or email to someone else. They are planning to add the ability to search and save images. They also are planning on adding an embedding option, so you won’t just have to link to the url of your saved screenshots. This is another tool that can be used for developing higher-order thinking skills like categorization.

Number twelve is the site formerly called Fliptrack, and which recently changed their name to Moblyng. It appears to have kept all their attractive features — plus making it even more accessible to English Language Learners (and others). It seems even easier to make a slideshow and it continues to allow you to invite others to collaborate on your creation. Plus, and this is the best addition, you don’t have to register on the site to create slideshows anymore. The only negative with that last change is that, if students are using a public or school computer, they need to click “Clear Your Personal Info” so that others don’t have access to it.

Number eleven is Rock You. It has many of the same features as Moblyng It’s easy, has lots of options, doesn’t require registration, and seems just a little easier to use.

Number ten is Quikmaps. It has recently added the ability to “draw” lines on your map between various markers. You can write in the markers, and also write a general description of your map. Then, you’re given an embed code as well as a unique url address. And you don’t even have to register to use it!There really isn’t a mapmaking site out there that’s easier for anyone, including English Language Learners, to use. The only disadvantage is that it doesn’t appear that you can import images in your marker descriptions.

Number nine is “The Digital Vaults.” It’s an entry into the vast resources of the National Archives, and allows you to use those resources to create your own movies, posters, and what it calls “Pathway Challenges” to… challenge others to find connections between a series of images, documents, and other resources you put together.

Number eight is Tikatok. It’s a new site that is a real find for English Language Learners (and lots of other students). Users can create online books that they write and illustrate (they can also use lots of images available on the site). It has a number of features that really make it stand-out. You can make a book from scratch, or you can use one of their many story frames that contain “prompts” to help the story-writer along. In addition, you can invite others to collaborate online with you to develop the book. Once the book is done you can email the link to a friend, teacher, or yourself for posting on a blog, website, or online journal. You can create the online version for free, but have to pay if you want them to print a hard-copy version.

Number seven is Edublogs.TV, the newest tool from the Edublogs, the best educational blogging tool in the world. Edublogs.TV is a “video-hosting site dedicated to education.” You can upload videos, such as educationally useful ones from YouTube, and then Edublogs.TV does magic to it so that schools can access them when the original site might be blocked.

Number six is My Studiyo. It’s without question, I believe, the best way to create online tests and quizzes. It’s easy to use, you can include multimedia, and others can add questions (that are moderated before they appear).

Number five is 280 Slides. It’s the newest and best addition to my The Best Ways To Create Online Slideshows. I especially like its feature that lets you search for images and videos off the web right inside the slide-show creation process. Except for the wonderful Bookr tool, which is still by far the easiest way to make an online slideshow, all the other slideshow sites that I’ve seen require that you open up a separate window to search for images in order to get their url address first before you “plug” it in. This feature just makes it easier for English Language Learners and everybody else to create their shows. And 280 Slides has far more “bells and whistles” than Bookr.

Number four is Posterous. It’s definitely the newest addition to my list of The Best Sites To Easily Create And Display Online Projects. Basically, users just email what they want posted on their “micro-blog” (it’s similar to Tumblr) and it is automatically posted with the subject line as the title and the body of the email as its content. I was able to copy images off the web and paste them in my email, along with a written description, and it all immediately appeared in my “Posterous.” You can also email attachments and some embeddable applications. There’s not an easier application out there for blogging and keeping an online journal.

Number three is the Search Me search engine. It’s an excellent search engine that shows snapshots of the webpages in addition to text information, which makes it very accessible to English Language Learners. In addition (and this is why it’s so high on my list) you can create “stacks” of categorized sites, images, and videos; embed them in a blog or website; and/or email them to a friend or teacher. You can also write some kind of description, or tag, for each site. Thiskind of application is great fo categorization activities, and teachers can also easily create “stacks” of webpages, videos, or images that they want students to review.

Choosing between the two remaining sites was so difficult it proved to be impossible.    So, unlike practically all of my other lists, this one has two number ones.  They both offer exceptional online tools for students, and I just could not choose between them.

The first number one site is Flowgram, an amazing screencasting, link-sharing tool. Flowgram lets you show one or multiple pages on the Web, and, when you’re making this screencast, you can move the screen up-and-down to focus on particular areas on the page. You can show videos or images. You can provide an audio commentary, and people can leave comments. This kind of application offers multiple language learning opportunities for all levels of English Language Learners. Plus, they’re incredibly responsive to input and suggestions from users of their service. They’re planning more upgrades soon, and I suspect that when they’re completed this is going to be the most versatile and useful web application out there for education, and will not only be number one for this year, but may well be the number one best web 2.0 application — period. (Sadly, Flowgram is closing down on June 30th, 2009)

My pick for the other number one Web 2.0 Application for Education for this year is Book Goo. It’s a new tool that lets you upload documents or webpages and then annotate and share them. Others can also then annotate the same document. You can draw on the documents as well. I have students use the notes to demonstrate reading strategies on webpages. Their staff is also very responsive to user feedback. And it’s always worked whenever my students or I have used it.

Don’t forget to vote in the poll that appears after this post.

As always, feedback is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

Book Goo is a new tool that’s supposed to allow you to upload documents webpages and then annotate and share them.

It has a number of features in common with The Awesome Highlighter. Two major differences — that I see, at least — are that you have to register with Book Goo (though it is very easy to do so) while you don’t have to with The Awesome Highlighter) and the much bigger difference is that the Awesome Highligher works and Book Goo does not appear to do so — at least not today. I couldn’t upload any webpages at all. 

If Book Goo can get that feature working, it could be a very helpful tool for English Language Learners and other students.   It does have a neat drawing tool that lets you circle and mark-up the sheet, and it lets groups of people work on the same document.

I’ve emailed them about the problem, and will update readers when, and if, I get s response.

I’ve mentioned Awesome Highlighter in previous posts as a nice little application that lets you pick any webpage; highlight whatever words you want, and then email the page for posting on a blog or website. I’ve had students use it when we are in the computer lab to help reinforce some skills I teach in the classroom about being very careful about highlighting only the most important words — not the whole paragraph.

TechCrunch, though, just posted about either a new feature, or one that I just missed the first time around. You can write virtual notes, like post-its, and connect them to each area you highlight.

This ability now makes Awesome Highlighter move way near the top of my list of useful applications. I often have students use sticky notes in class when we’re reading something to demonstrate reading strategies (summarize, evaluate, predict, connect, etc.). When we’re in the computer lab, I’ll have them do the same with similar online tools like Jump Knowledge and Fleck. However, with this feature, Awesome Highlighter becomes the easiest of the bunch and the one that is most accessible to English Language Learners. No registration is required.

This is Part Six of my series on The Best Ways to Create Online Content Easily & Quickly.  Previous parts of this series have shared over sixty sites that English Language Learners and others who might be new to using technology can create engaging online content in minutes.

The only knowledge that students would need to have in order to use these web applications is copying and pasting, and even that is not necessary for most of the sites on these lists.  You also don’t have to know how to type, and only need a beginner’s understanding of English.

These applications are free,  content created is hosted by the sites themselves indefinitely, and no registration is required.    Obviously, a number of these same tasks can be performed equally well in the classroom with a pen and paper.  These applications are just opportunities for a change-of pace, and for students to develop their English and technology skills at the same time.

The sites listed in this post, the latest of my “The Best….” series of lists, primarily come from three sources — my own knowledge, and recent posts that have appeared in the Langwitches blog and in GoToWeb20.

Links to these applications, along with 8,000 others,  can also be found on my website.  These particular sites, along with others where students can create online content, can be found on my Examples of Student Work page.

Here are eleven more recommendations:

CREATE A SENTENCE SCRAMBLE WITH A PICTURE HINT: I love OneSens.  It is an extraordinary web application for English Language Learners though, to tell you the truth, I’m not really quite sure why anyone else would use it.  You write a sentence, pick a picture that goes with it, and then the words are mixed-up on top of the picture.  There’s a built-in email feature, so you can just email the link to a teacher or friend and post it on a blog or online journal.  Then others can try to put the words back in order.  It works great in Firefox, though seems to have some problems on occasion with Internet Explorer.

SEND A SHORT REPORT WITH AN IMAGE: Phreetings is another new web application that appears to work best with Firefox.  You search for an image (it appears to use Flickr, but I can’t be sure), drag and drop it on a virtual card, and then write something below it (it looks like you can write a lot there).  You’re then given the url to copy and paste.  During our study of natural disasters, for example, I can see my students finding an image labeled “Katrina” and writing a short report on what they’ve learned so far about the hurricane.

EMAIL A LINK EASILY:Like with Phreetings, several of the applications that I’ve included in the six parts of this series have not had a built-in email feature you can use to send links of your creations to a teacher or someone else.    Of course, if you have an email you can just open your own email program.  But what do you do if you don’t have an email address?  You can use a nifty site called Note2email.  Just go to the site, type in the email of your teacher, paste the link, and click send.   It’s just like having your own personal built-in email feature.

HIGHLIGHT KEY WORDS IN A WEBPAGE: One of the challenges many of  my students face, both mainstream and English Language Learner, is learning how to take notes.  Often, when given a highlighter, students want to highlight almost the whole page and don’t know how to judge which are the most important parts.  I will sometimes make a rule that they can’t highlight more than one, two, or three words in a paragraph, and then we’ll review which ones they highlighted and why.  The Awesome Highlighter lets you highlight anything you want on any website and then provides you with the link to your page with highlights.

CREATE A PERMANENT WEBSITE WITH IMAGES & TEXT: I’ve posted about Short Text before — it’s a super-easy way to create a webpage.  The drawback is that once you’ve created it, you can’t make any changes.  It’s ideal for a final version of a report, for example.  They’ve recently added the features of being able to easily add images and videos, plus they have a built-in email feature that allows you to email the link to your site to many others.

EDIT PICTURES TO INCLUDE CAPTIONS, SPEECH BUBBLES, AND FUN EFFECTS: I’ve included several of these types of sites in previous parts of this series.  Here are three more sites that allow you to do similar things, and then provide you with links to your creations — Pixenate, Dumpr, and Pointpic.

DESIGN A CAR: Create a Ride lets you design your own race car.  Boys in particular will love it.  You can save your design with a special number, but it doesn’t provide you with a unique url address.  So to access it again you just have to go to the site and type in the the number.  Students can learn some vocabulary and write about their car.

DESIGN CRAZY IMAGES: RedKid and Glass Giant are two sites with a bunch of options for making strange things like a chocolate bar with your own text on it or bizarre Easter eggs.  In order to get the url of your creation,  after you’re done right click on your creation, then click on “Properties,” and then copy and paste the url address that comes up.

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