ScreenJelly

Screenjelly is a unique program that is completely java-based and records activity on your computer screen. It allows you to make a recording and send that recording via Facebook, Twitter, or email. Screenjelly is for any and every one who wants to quickly share information or anything they just find neat on their computers. ScreenJelly limits a video to three minutes because it is not meant to create an entire well-detailed tutorial. If someone would like to create a video longer than three minutes, they could use ScreenToaster, which is from the same creators as Screenjelly.

Vocaroo

Vocaroo is a very useful tool that can be extremely valuable to students, teachers, parents, and other people in every day situations. Vocaroo is a tool that allows voice recording for blog posts, social networks, and emails. Students can use Vocaroo to record comments for other students blogs. Elementary students will especially love this feature of Vocaroo. Sometimes text emails can be misinterpreted or misread to be sarcastic or mean when a person is truly joking. With Vocaroo, this eliminates the question of whether the person was being sincere or not. I cannot wait to use Vocaroo through Facebook and emails.

Google Tools

Google has many great tools available to its users. In some sense, Google can take the place of Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. The best feature about Google tools is they are FREE! This makes them a great candidate for classroom usage. Because Google is on the internet, anyone can view their presentations, documents, etc. from anywhere that has internet access. This means students will not have the excuse of leaving their USB or forgetting to email their project to a teacher. Google tools are extremely user friendly.

Google presentations can be opened using Microsoft PowerPoint. Blogger is another awesome tool Google has to offer because it allows everyone with a Google account to create a blog. Blogs are extremely useful for writers, students, and educators to share their views and opinions. I will continue to have a professional blog throughout my years of teaching. I plan to expand my blog to have many followers and other teaching professionals so that we can share our opinions and views. My Blogger account will be a major part of my PLN. Teachers should most definitely share Google tools with their students because it is extremely easy and cost effective.

Skype

Skype is an awesome program that I recently started using. Skype allows individuals to videochat with one another over the internet. Skype even allows its users to play games with one another over the internet. Skype can allow students to converse with each other about projects and give each other ideas. Skype is one step past text messaging.

Having a pen pal was one of my favorite memories from childhood. My pen pal was simply across the school district, and we would write letters back and forth from my class to hers. Eventually, we took a field trip together. With Skype, students can have "Skype pals" all across the world and converse via videochat rather than pen and paper. Nothing is wrong with pen and paper, but children are advancing extremely well with technology. This would not only allow students to converse with students all over the world but also allow them to show each other things about their cultures. This could help students improve their diversity with other ethnic groups and cultures all over the world.

iTunesU

Apple has many resources available through iTunesU for everyone around the world. These podcasts/videocasts are at our fingertips just waiting to be used. It is important for teachers to show their students these resources because the student can use them outside the classroom. When a student goes home and has trouble with their homework, iTunesU might have videos related to the topic the student is studying in class. No teachers teach exactly the same way, and sometimes students just need someone else telling them how to solve a problem.

I have used iTunesU before in a class. My teacher was German, and it was a junior level math class at the University of South Alabama. He was extremely fast-paced, and I found myself struggling to keep up. I found lectures from a different professor on iTunesU, which helped me survive the class. I was not surprised to find that many other students in my class had also watched these videos via iTunesU. ITunesU is one of the many resources readily available to students, and it is important to share this resource with our classmates and future students. I plan to give my students a run-through iTunesU and encourage them to explore it on their own so that they have the opportunity to better understand their schooling.

Podcasts

Podcasts are extremely helpful tools in classrooms and every day life. Almost any topic has podcasts about it, especially educational podcasts, and the number of these podcasts are growing every day. Podcasts can be extremely insightful and useful for everyone. Many podcasts can be found at iTunesU, and they are conveniently seperated by subject and/or creator. Making a podcast is fairly simple and can be done with Audacity software. Podcasts vary greatly in length, but iTunesU has a scroll bar so that you can scroll to whichever part you need to listen.

Podcasts can be extremely helpful for teachers because if they are going to be absent and know this beforehand, they can record messages to their students or even a lecture. This would benefit the students quite well because they would have a lecture rather than busy work out of a book. Obviously the students cannot ask questions, but they can write down questions to ask the teacher at the next class period. A teacher could refresh the students' memory on certain topics before having the substitute teacher give an assignment. This would be beneficial to the students because most substitute teachers do not hold a degree in education. Teachers can also record lecture sessions and post them to the teacher's website so that students can listen from home in case they cannot remember exactly what the teacher said.