Easy Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers

This slideshare presentation contains some useful tools for learning, including my favourite: Delicious.

What is Google Wave?

Google Wave

It’s a web application from Google that allows you to communication and collaborate in real time with groups of people so you can get stuff done. (It had been invite only, but is now open to everyone)

And a wave is …

… a live, shared space on the web where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.
http://wave.google.com/

This video provides a quick introduction: What is Google Wave?

Here are some examples of using Google Wave.

The Google Wave YouTube channel has lots of help on getting started and for some background on the project visit the Google Wave Wikipedia page.

If you have used Wave before, please share your thoughts.

What is Huddle?

Huddle is a web-based team collaboration and project management tool developed in the UK.  It provides document management, meeting organization, integrated web and phone conferencing, discussion boards, tasks and project management, custom branding, security and authorization control, and an API, among other features. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huddle_(software)

Introduction

Huddle.net Introduction from Huddle.net on Vimeo.

It puts the social into business.

Eventbrite Online Event Management

Eventbrite is a website that allows organisations to manage and promote their events.

Some features:

• a customised event page
• a ticket widget to embed in your own website
• allows you to leverage social media
• send email marketing
• can use PayPal or Google Checkout
• accept donations
• enable waiting lists
• name badges and check-in lists
• good collection of reports
• free for free events

You can also use it to search for events in your area, similar to meetup.com, although both have an american geographical focus to them.

Overall this seems like a good service and one that I have bookmarked for future use.

You can follow eventbrite on twitter: http://twitter.com/eventbrite.

(Discovered eventbrite on Slugger O’Toole’s Consult website which used them for a series of workshops)

Presentations with Prezi

Prezi is a new tool for creating presentations.

It’s visualization and storytelling without slides. Your ideas live on stage and on the web.

Have you ever wondered about presenting your thoughts as free as they come? Ever got tired of creating a slideshow? It’s been said, that the best innovations come from people who are unhappy with the tools they use. We realized that our ideas won’t fit into slides anymore. Putting together creative thinking and technology expertise, we have created Prezi, a living presentation tool.

http://prezi.com/about/

Watch the video on the home page to learn more.  It looks like a really useful tool – presentations without slides … bye bye PowerPoint.

Here’s an example of a Prezi presentation:

• Learning Through Social Media
• Look who’s using social media

Blocking your office IP address within Google Analytics

If you’re using Google Analytics for your website stats then it’s important not to count your own updates and previews as that will distort your stats.

Google Analytics allows you to do this: How to Block the Office IP Address?

This support request points you to a page detailing the instructions: How do I exclude my internal traffic from reports? (key to this will be the version of the tracking code you are using on your website)

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics (GA) is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Analytics

So basically you sign up, creating a Google account, and then receive some code to place on every page of your website (or more likely a server side include – usually a job for your web master).  This allows Google to track visits to your site which you can then analyse with the tools provided.

Check out the Google Analytics tour and home page to learn more.

Google Wave User Manual

I’m sure you’ve heard of Google’s new communication platform Wave.  If not, check out the video below.

Google Wave is still at the invite/early stages and is not yet publicly available, but that hasn’t stopped a few enterprising folks creating ‘The Complete Guide to Google Wave‘ (free online user manual)!  Well done!

Story source: Mashable.com

Further reading: Google Wave: What Might Email Look Like If It Were Invented Today?

If you’ve been lucky enough to try Wave let us know what you think.

Tinychat

Tinychat.com is a free online chat room that is very easy to setup and requires no registration.

Just name your chat room and then pass the generated url to friends to begin chatting – it is that easy!

Features include:

• Embed within your website or blog
• Connect to Tweeter and other social networking sites
• Support for webcams
• Save chat text
• Is disposable

I can see this being very useful.

List of 50 Online Applications

Have a look at this list of 50 Online Applications.  No doubt, you will be familiar with many of them.

I do like lists!