Web Tools for Collaboration
| From an article in Technology & Learning magazine: http://techlearning.com/blogs/26378 | |
| Web Tools to Enhance Collaboration by Ozge Karaoglu “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Isaac Newton
“Snowflakes are one of nature’s most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together.” Vesta M. Kelly It is easy to collaborate with your colleagues around you. What about other people in your PLN? Can you collaborate with 50, 100, 1000 people? “Collaborate”, “Collaborative”, “Collaboration” were the most frequent words I heard last year and I believe it will be more important and popular in this new decade. DabbleBoard is a whiteboard that enables you to visualize, explore and collaborate. You draw as you are drawing on a whiteboard and you can easily share your ideas. It also lets you conduct presentation and chat though you can not share files. You can read 10 reasons why to use Dabbleboard. CoSketch is another whiteboard that you can collaborate to visualize your ideas and share them as images. The good thing is that, you don’t have to register or install anything. It works in all browsers, it’s real time and you can get an embed code for your drawing after you finish. Stixy lets you create online bulletin board to collaborate with family, friends, colleagues. You can share pictures, files, reminders, notes using different widgets that you can change size and colours. It’s fun, free,easy and colourful. Stixy deserves a try!! Grou.ps lets you create your own social network. There are different modules to be used as many as you want. You can create your forum, mailing list, share documents,files and your agenda to organize events, have your own YouTube, share links, bookmarks, photos. You can have real time chat and you can let the users have subgroups and it’s free. I’m sure many of us are a member of a Ning group and Ning is the one of the best sites to create and join new social networks that interest us. You can upload pictures,photos, feeds, bookmarks and many more. ImaginationCubed is a multi user drawing tool. You can use a pen, stamp,shapes, line or you can type. You can also change the color of the background. I loved this one, it’s cool! If you are using Twitter, you may want to try GroupTweet. It lets you create your Twitter account into a group communication tool where everyone in the group uses direct messages. When a member gets a DM, GroupTweet turns it into a new tweet that all followers in the group can see. Wallwisher is an online notice board maker. You can use this tool to make announcements, keep notes. You can use links, pictures, music, video and pages. You don’t have to register. You can have a look at Nik Peachey’s Wallwisher as a great example. PageFlakes is a social personalized homepage that you can customize Internet using flakes which are small, movable of all your web favourites. You can add Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, photos, music, videos, calendar, to-do list, message board, RSS feed. WriteBoard is a-web based text documents that you can track every edit and change that are made by other users. You can role back to any version and compare different versions. Wiggio is an online toolkit that lets you work in groups easily. You can send emails, text messages,voice mails. It makes it easy to share files and polls. You can set video conferences and also keep shared calendar, keep track of group’s tasks and resources. WeToku is an interview tool that automatically records it to play it back. You can embed it and share it with others. You can watch my WeToku interview with Ana Maria Menesez. Webnote is a tool for taking notes on your computer and you can share your notes with others giving the workspace name or the URL. PalBee is a free online service that allows you to set up online video meetings with your friends or colleagues. You also have a whiteboard and it lets you draw, write texts, highlight or erase using different tools. Phuser is a tool for groups to discuss or work together and privately. You can share photos, files, choose who joins, create and track discussions. WikiDot is wiki builder to share content, documents and collaborate with your students, colleagues, friends. You can create pages, forums,separate wikis for groups or students, discuss topics, upload files, documents,notes, images and share them with others. Creately lets you create professional looking online diagrams with your colleagues. DoingText is a web based text editor for collaborative writing. You tell others the URL and they write comments, make changes without signing up. It lets you track changes and comments by RSS feed, export text by embedding in other pages. You can go back to the previous version of every line or you can see an overview of the discussion history. SpringNote is an online notebook for collaboration. You can write down your ideas, create to-do lists, do scheduling and work together for projects. It also has an iphone application. MeBeam is a place where you can create your chat room. You just type the name of the room and tell the people to meet you there. |
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Voxopop is a message board system which lets you create talk groups that you can talk, discuss and collaborate using your own voice. Some of you may remember Voxopop as Chinswing in the past. You can listen to public discussions though you need to join to create yours.You can easily send group invitations, keep your discussion private, open or restricted.You can delete it whenever you want. You can explore public talk groups on Education, Learning and Language here.
EtherPad is a web based word processor that lets you work with others at the same time. When multiple users work on the same documents , you can get feedback immediately. You know who contributed to the text, also all changes are saved on the server in case you need to undo.
Mindmeister is an online collaborative mind mapping tool that you can brainstorm with others real-time. You can create your own mind maps on an award winning interface or share them with your friends or collaborate with others to create a collaborative map.
Survs lets you create your online surveys collaborating with others in multi user accounts. You can collect responses and analyze the results in real time with others.
I’m sure many of us are familiar with VoiceThread. It’s a tool to have conversation around different kinds of media. It’s one of the best ways to talk and share about your images,documents or videos. You create your Voicethread and others can leave comments by telephone, text, web cam, microphone or file upload. Learn more about it by watching this Voicethread.
Tgether allows you to communicate in small groups by emails. You can share files, track conversation and manage your group. You can share codes or use 3rd party applications that Tgther provides.
StoryBirds are short and simple stories that connect you with others. Two or more people can create a Storybird story by writing their own texts and inserting pictures by taking turns. You can create your story with the person sitting next to you or someone who is far away from you.
WebCanvas is a collaborative painting project. You can paint using different basic tools, upload or post professionally drawn images or you can watch others paint live. This is an interesting project for artists though we can still give a try.
AwesomeHighlighter is the easiest way to highlight texts on web pages. When you finish highlighting, you get a link and share it with others. If you like this, you should also try Markkit.
Protagonize is a community that writes collaborative, interactive fiction. One person starts the story, the others post chapters to your story that will lead it to different directions. At the end, it becomes an evolving story which everyone can participate.
Mixbook is a site that lets you create picture books with others. You start creating your own book with pictures, invite a few friends to build the rest of the book together.
Thinkature places an instant message inside a visual workspace with voice chat. You can use it as a collaboration environment, a meeting room or a personal whiteboard.
TextFlow is a way to review document versions instantly to produce a final draft. It matches all the different versions of the text to show you all the suggestion in one single view.
LucidChart is another way to collaborate on a document simultaneously. Everyone can see the changes that have been made on the document .The difference between the other word processors is that it has an built-in group chat that makes it easier for you to collaborate.
Wikispaces is the best way to create collaborative web pages that you can edit and share together. You can watch Wikis in Plain English by Common Craft or visit the world’s largest collaborative online encyclopedia,Wikipedia! Wikispaces are my favourite wikis, you can have a look at my wikispace though I’ve been using it as an e-portfolio.
Senduit lets you upload your files and share them with private links with your team.
With Stintio, you can create your own chat in seconds. You can invite people to join by simply sending a link. You don’t download or install anything. You chat will be deleted if it is not active for a while.
Yuuguu is an instant screen sharing and video conferencing too that lets you work together quickly and easily.
Voxli allows you to hold voice conferences online. You can have a voice chat up to 200 people. You can invite your teammates by only sending a link, and you don’t have to upload anything. You can use push to talk to control your speaking even you are out of your browser.
Wridea is an online idea management service and a collection of brainstorming tools. You store, manage,organize and share your ideas to improve them with others. You use the web interface or you write an email to your wridea address to keep your ideas organized. You have pages and categories that lets you improve your ideas easily and collaboratively.
Greetings! I'm Denise Jaffe, and here you'll find out what's new and meaningful with Instructional Technology in West Hartford Public Schools.
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