Lingro provides an online environment “that allows anyone learning a language to quickly look up and learn the vocabulary most important to them“. English, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish and German are all catered for on Lingro.
Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University created this “humorous, yet informative, review of copyright principles delivered through the words of the very folks we can thank for nearly endless copyright terms“.
An entertaining video explaining copyright, designed especially for the ‘disney generation’?!!
The eLearning Guild is a “member-driven online information center and Community of Practice where anyone involved in the design, development, and management of web-based educational or instructional content (e-Learning) can identify and access resources needed to ensure that their organizations’ projects are successful”.
In fact, the eLearning Guild provides a professional peer network where members can “focus on expanding their own professional skills, knowledge, and expertise“.
At the eLearning Guild, membership is “all about members sharing with, and learning from, other members“.
Associate membership is free and provides for, among other things, access to every issue of the ‘Learning Solutions e-Magazine’, which is “packed with ideas, strategies, and techniques that you can actually use“.
Members also have access to the entire archive of over 235 past issues.
The eLearning Guild provide free ebooks packed with helpful tips, information and links to further useful sites – for members and non members alike.
WiZiQ is a free virtual classroom tool. WiZiQ is “equipped with live audio-video communication, chat, content sharing, and session recording capabilities“. No download is required as WiZiQ works in any web browser and on any operating system.
WiZiQ also has a social networking aspect as you can communicate with other teachers and students with the same subject interests.
You can upload and share your own PowerPoint presentations as well as finding content created by other members.
Multiple choice WiZiQ tests have, recently, been added to the site.
When it comes to watching video channels online you have at least two great sites to choose from - Joost and Miro.
Joost claims to have over 15,000 shows to view, with more being added every day. You need to download the player and sign up before you get started.
Joost also includes some social features and tools within the player, so you can chat while watching your video or view the latest news through a news feeder. The videos can be played on a full screen or re-sized to suit.
Miro is open source and provides 2,500 channels including a huge range of HD content (unlike Joost). In fact, Miro claims to be much better than Joost citing better access, features, content and organisation (comparison).
Download the Miro player and get started straight away. A quick search of Miro revealed over 300 channels tagged with ‘education’.
Personally, I like both players and am quite happy to use both of them for different channels.
18/12/08 Update: As of Dec 19th 2008 the Joost software will be discontinued and all movies will be viewable on Joost.
Have just discovered Giveaway of the day, which offers licenced software for download for free!
Every day Giveaway of the day nominate one software title that will be a Giveaway title of that day. The software is then available for download for 24 hours for free – not a trial or limited version – but a registered and legal version of the software, subject to the software usage being non-commercial only.
Giveaway of the day also encourage user feedback. This is very useful as seeing the comments of other users, good and bad, can help you decide if you should use the software or not. These comments can also lead you to other free software as recommended by the individual contributor.
Slawdog Shutdown has a very easy to use interface and includes many shutdown options (turn off, reboot, log off, lock, hibernate, etc).
The program allows you to determine how long the warning dialog box appears before shutdown takes place. Slawdog Shutdown also lets you password protect the settings and the program can be set to empty the recycle bin on shutdown. All very useful features for a classroom setting.
Undoubtedly, this is a very handy tool for anyone who is in charge of a school/college computer laboratory.
Simply set the shutdown time (this can be set to repeat each day at the same time) and Slawdog Shutdown does the rest.
You don’t need to worry about the machines being switched off correctly at the end of the day anymore!
Imagebank is a photo library website where people can search for and share high-quality photos for educational use.
The site was launched recently by NCTE and Scoilnet and has been developed in response to teachers’ needs and requests.
Imagebank is intended to be a support resource for students and teachers in Irish education by providing Irish related photos (places and spaces, animals, sport and flowers, etc).
The images in Imagebank are made available under Creative Commons licensing and everyone, with an interest in education, is encouraged to add high-quality photographs to the site.
Although geared towards an Irish setting, many of the photographs in Imagebank could easily be used for any educational setting.
Lingro provides an online environment “that allows anyone learning a language to quickly look up and learn the vocabulary most important to them“. English, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish and German are all catered for on Lingro.
The web viewer opens a website in the Lingro viewer and allows you to select individual words for translation.
The 
In fact, the 
Undoubtedly, this is a very handy tool for anyone who is in charge of a school/college computer laboratory.
The images in 
Patricia Donaghy
