Monday, September 27, 2010

Share-e-fest 2010: The best things in life are free

Welcome to this workshop which aims to be a collaborative exploration of some free tools that you can use to support teaching, presentations, collaborations, sharing and organisation of resources.

Please let us know:
  • what activity you are trying to achieve so we can suggest an appropriate tool;
  • if there is a particular tool you'd like to know more about (not that I promise I will know about the tool)
  • what free tool you'd recommend.
Sharing and using images
Making and sharing video
Audio
Presentations
Screencasts and screenshots
Mindmapping
Collaboration

8 comments:

Tabitha Roder said...

What about adding picasa to the image sharing section? Not as easy to use as flickr but is a google app so can use the same login as gmail and google docs

Craig said...

Hi Sarah,

Here are a few bits of software that were shared/talked about:

zamzar.com - Very easy way to convert all sorts of files (audio, documents, video, eBook)

irfanview.com - Easy video viewer/editor suggested by Mary

PortableApps.com - Carry a full suite of open source software around with you on a USB stick. No admin rights needed and leave no trace on others' computers.

Cheers,
Craig

Sarah Stewart said...

Thanks Tabitha and Craig for the suggestions :) Great to meet you at Share-e-fest

David Callaghan said...

Hi Sarah

I think I’m missing something. What about Twitter? Is it 'old hat' now? I was at AltC 2010 last month, and saw how powerful twitter was as a backchannel in session. Whilst the Keynotes were speaking, the audience was tweeting approval, disagreement and links - these tweets appeared behind the presenter – I thought it was brill – real ‘inclusive’, ‘immersive’ learning.

… and Audacity too?

Kindest regards

David

Sarah Stewart said...

You're right with both your suggestions, David. I was focusing more on presentation tools than communication tools which is why I didn't talk about Twitter and such like. And as for Audacity...yes...it's a brilliant tool for recording and editing - I think we mentioned it on the day, but didn't have time to look at it too closely.

Sarah Stewart said...

@David, forgot to ask you...is there another "easier" tool than Audacity for editing audio?

David Callaghan said...

Hi Sarah

I've asked around the office, and a good online (and free I think) editor is aviary.com. Colleagues say " ... it's great - really easy to use. It's a community thing, so the idea is what you share what you produce (I think!)."

Two others to look at are audiomunch.com (though I can't even get to the home page from here) and for the Mac Garage Band (but is this free?).

Kindest regards

David

Sarah Stewart said...

Thanks, David...all those suggestions are new to me, so will enjoy having a look at them