Tuesday 1 January 2008

Software of 2007

2007 brought a variety of excellent software designed to enhance the learning and teaching in our classrooms. Most of the software we looked at is open source(free). We tested all the packages to ensure that they worked on the C2k machines. Here is my top ten list:

1. Yacapaca - a brilliant assessment tool;
2. Splashcast - create your own media channel;
3. Audacity - Audio editing and podcasting made easy;
4. 21Classes - blogging geared specifically for the classroom;
5. PBWiki - easy to use wiki for your students;
6. GIMP - an open source piece of software similar to Photoshop;
7. Scratch - imagine, program and share;
8. Ning - create your own social network for your class;
9. eXe - create a scorm project or webquest;
10.EduSim - create your own 3D interactive virtual educational environment.


For more information, take a look at our previous blogs.

The top two management systems would have to be:
Moodle - a course management system - see clounagh.org as an example;
Joomla - a content management system - check out clounagh.org/joomla.

Have you any other suggestions?

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Aidan, like your top ten, however what is SCORM that you have referred to?

Aidan McCanny said...

Hi Martin, SCORM is short for a Sharable Content Object Reference Model. It allows content to be loaded into, launched and tracked by any learning management system. There is more details on the blog entry on 25/11/07. Aidan

G.McStocker said...

Hi Aidan that edsim and slash cast looks interesting, wouldn't mind a look at them..... Also a brief look at the best way of importing a video into powerpoint or Mediator

AM said...

Hi G.mcstocker,
We have found that Splashcast in particular is very useful way of sharing video through websites - including this blog.
Have a look at atomiclearning.co.uk for tutotials on embedding video. If you still have unanswered questions email us.