Friday, March 1, 2013

Sites to Explore

This is a list of internet sites with mostly free creative and educational tools of interest to art educators. It will never be complete, there may occasionally be broken links, and I'll update this list only periodically.

A downloadable PDF of this list is available on my website.

Last Updated March 1, 2013

Interactive online technology tools, repositories, sites for storing and sharing

Animoto - Animoto turns your photos and video clips into professional video slideshows in minutes. Fast, free, and simple. http://animoto.com/

Artpad  -  an online drawing site (they call it a digital canvas). Students use online tools to draw and paint, and view their art in a “gallery” setting. http://artpad.art.com/ 

ArtSTOR – Online art image repository of art works from around the world, past and present. High-resolution images, fully identified. ArtSTOR is available through many university libraries. Subject to copyright restrictions. Sign In through your University Library Login and Password.

ArtBabble - Art video-sharing site. http://www.artbabble.org

Artsonia – Artsonia.com is the world's largest online digital art gallery for students and teachers. It offers a searchable online image gallery, and may include artists’ statements. http://artsonia.com

Audacity - Free downloadable software for audio editing (good for creating podcasts). http://audacity.sourceforge.net/  

Aviary - Online free image and audio editor. Also has a Screen Capture.  http://www.aviary.com/

Bitly – Shortens long links, gives real-time stats, helps you share, track, and analyze your links. See also Ow.ly http://bit.ly/ 

Blender - Free/downloadable 3-D modeling program http://www.blender.org

Creative Commons - Alternative copyright licensing system http://creativecommons.org

Blip FM -  Streaming Music. Search for free music to stream. Listen to free music recommended by real people. Create your own free Internet radio station. A blip is a combination of 1) a song and 2) a short message that accompanies the music. http://blip.fm/home

Blogster - Free online blogging community that features specific-interest blogs. http://www.blogster.com/

Calzles -  an online site for creation of digital stories or timelines using multimedia files (images, video, music, blogs, documents, etc.) Could be used for creation and sharing of albums, narratives, or research on topics of interest. http://www.capzles.com/

Creaza  - An online multimedia storyboarding site. Offers an integrated, web-based toolbox for creative work, both at school and in your free time.  You use the toolbox along with various fully developed thematic universes:  historical periods, fairy-tales, fantasy worlds, and current challenges, such as climate/environment. Creaza tools:  Mindomo is an online mind mapping tool for visual learning, developing creativity and problem solving. With Mindomo, you can organise and get an overview of thoughts, ideas, links, and other information visually With Cartoonist, you can compose multimedia stories.  You can use the tool to create comic strips or more personal digital narratives. MovieEditor is an online video editor to create movies, complete with professional-looking titles, transitions, effects, animation, music, and narration. MovieEditor is a full-featured timeline-based video editor, similar to traditional desktop-based video editing tools. There’s just one big difference: MovieEditor is web-based and a web browser with Adobe Flash gives you instant access. AudioEditor is an online audio editor for recording, slicing, and mixing audio. With AudioEditor you can produce your own audio clips and soundscapes. http://www.creaza.com/

Creative Commons Search - Looks for material that is in the public domain, not its own search engine, but works through independent organizations. Users need to verify the copyright attributes of material found. http://search.creativecommons.org/

Common Craft - 3-minute user-friendly video tutorials on everything technology. (RSS, Social Bookmarking, Phishing, Cloud Computing, etc.) http://www.commoncraft.com/about/who

Delicious - Social bookmarking site that allows you to highlight, annotate, tag, save, and share links with others you designate. http://www.delicious.com/

Digication - provides e-Portfolio and Assessment Management Systems for K-12 and Higher Education Institutions. http://www.digication.com/

Diigo - Social bookmarking site that allows you to highlight, annotate, tag, save, and share links http://diigo.com/education

Dropbox – virtual storage site for documents and files of all formats (docs, powerpoints, videos, images).  You can create and share folders and files with multiple people.  Free. https://www.dropbox.com/

Facebook – Online social network with text, video, image, link sharing capacities.

Flipbook - Make a flip book online. you draw with your mouse on the drawing area and use the arrows to add frames or to go back to previous frames. You can use the 'save' button to save your work in progress without publishing it. You can reopen it again from 'my flipbooks' and keep working on the animation until you are ready to publish it. Lots of examples available on the site. http://www.benettonplay.com/toys/flipbookdeluxe/guest.php

Flickr – Online image repository, frequently used by artists, operates under Creative Commons/Public Domain Licensing. Popular photo-sharing site. http://flickr.com

Foursquare - a location-based social networking website, software for mobile devices. This service is available to users with GPS-enabled mobile devices, such as Smart phones. Users "check-in" at venues using a mobile website, text messaging or a device-specific application by running the application and selecting from a list of venues that the application locates nearby. http://foursquare.com/

GIMP - Free/downloadable image-editing program http://www.gimp.org

Glogster - A Glog is an interactive visual platform in which users create a “poster or web page” containing multimedia elements including: text, audio, video, images, graphics, drawings, and data. A Glog is created using a very easy to understand, drag and drop interface that is relevant, enjoyable, and scalable for students of all ages and learning styles.  Glogster EDU meets or exceeds national educational technology and content area standards for teachers and students of all ages: K-12 & Post Secondary. http://edu.glogster.com/

Google Art Project – interactive museum sites, view galleries in street view, create your own gallery. http://www.googleartproject.com/

Google Docs - Create and share your work online and access your documents from anywhere. Manage documents, spreadsheets, presentations, surveys, etc in the Google interface. https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=writely&pa...

Google Groups – online groups using the Google interface. Often used as a closed social network. http://groups.google.com/

Google Sites - Free website or wiki builder http://sites.google.com

Google Maps: Street View. Lets you explore places around the world through 360-degree
street-level imagery. You can check out restaurants, visit neighborhoods, or plan your next trip. http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/

Instagram – not really an Internet site, but rather a mobile imaging app and social network with 90 million members.

Internet Archive - The Internet Archive works to bring together anything and everything that resides in the public domain texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages. http://www.archive.org   

Issuu: You Publish - Online site for self-published materials. Collect, share and publish in a format designed to make your documents look their very best. Customizable templates make self-publishing easy. Explore a world of publications by people and publishers alike.  http://issuu.com/explore

Jing – real time screen capture application, online and free. Interfaces with screencast.com. Take a picture or make a short video of what you see on your computer monitor. Captures audio as well.  Limited to 5 minutes. Share it instantly via web, email, IM, Twitter or your blog. Just tell Jing where to send the screenshot and it's there and ready to share. When you send to a destination like Screencast.com or Flickr, Jing even places a hyperlink on your clipboard. Simply paste the link into an IM, e-mail, forum post, anywhere…and when the person clicks it they see your freshly-uploaded screenshot. Uses: collaborate on a design project, share a snapshot of a document, comment on students' homework, demonstrate how to do something in a computer, etc.  http://www.techsmith.com/jing/

Kerpoof - Created and operated by Disney. Online site where students and teachers can: Make artwork, Make an animated movie, Make a printed card, t-shirt, or mug , Tell a story, Make a drawing, Vote on the movies, stories, and drawings that other people have made. Kid friendly and mostly free. (classic embedded Disney commercialism, but not too bad.)  Has an educator’s page just for teachers, and a parents’ page.  http://www.kerpoof.com/

Kidblog - Kidblog.org is designed for elementary and middle school teachers who want to provide each student with their own, unique blog. Kidblog's simple, yet powerful tools allow students to publish posts and participate in discussions within a secure classroom blogging community. Teachers maintain complete control over student blogs. http://kidblog.org/home.php

The Learning Network - Run by the New York Times. Through subscription online (free). News features, lesson plans, interactive. To honor The Times’s longstanding commitment to educators and students, this blog and all its posts, as well as all Times articles linked from them and from our Twitter and Facebook accounts, will be accessible without a digital subscription. Teachers and students can use The Learning Network to engage with the news, whether by commenting, taking quizzes, playing games or reading articles. http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/

Livebinders - Free online site to organize and present your resources and teaching materials. http://livebinders.com/

Lulu.com – On-demand Publishing site. Lulu.com lets you make, self-publish, print and sell print-on-demand books, e- books, photo books and calendars with free book publishing. http://www.lulu.com/

Ow.ly – Allows you to upload text documents, images files and (soon) video files; creates a shortened URL (weblink), and interfaces with Twitter – where you can post a short message to accompany the linked file. http://ow.ly/url/shorten-url

Paper.li – Paper.li aggregates and then publishes in magazine format Twitter posts, with their accompanying images and video links) according to the hashtags you designate. Also says it publishes from Facebook and Google+. http://paper.li 

Picnik – online image editing software. Imports images from Picasa, Flickr, Facebook, Photobucket, or your desktop. http://www.picnik.com/

Pinterest A content sharing service that allows members to "pin" images, videos and other objects to their pinboard. Also includes standard social networking features. http://pinterest.com/

Prezi – Free. Create astonishing zooming/rotating presentations live and on the web. Prezify your PowerPoint or Keynote slides http://prezi.com/

Pixlr – Pixlr is an online photo editing site. Looks and works a lot like Photoshop.  Ypload images, edit them, and save to your desktop. Free. http:// http://pixlr.com/

Scoop.it – online social bookmarking site, formats bookmarked sites into a magazine-like interface.  http://scoop.it.com   

SAM Animation- Stop Motion user-friendly downloadable software designed specifically for students and teachers for classroom use. SAM Animation is a software platform that allows the user to make stop-action movies using a USB or fire-wire real-time camera (i.e. web camera or webcam) and whatever props the user desires. The software is both Mac and PC compatible and free to all users willing to register with www.samanimation.com. http://www.samanimation.com/

Screencast-O-Matic - the original online screen recorder for one-click recording from your browser on Windows, Mac, or Linux with no install for free. http://www.screencast-o-matic.com     

Scribblar - Simple web-based interface for online collaboration. Multi-user whiteboard, live audio, image collaboration, text-chat and more. http://www.scribblar.com/

Scribd - Free social publishing site, where tens of millions of people share original writings and documents. http://www.scribd.com/

Skype  - Free Internet video conferencing site. Because you can share your screen with anyone on Skype for free, you can present slice shows, websites, word documents, etc to anyone you are connected to through Skype.  http://www.skype.com/

Slideshare – Free. Offers users the ability to upload and share publicly or privately PowerPoint presentations, Word documents and Adobe PDF Portfolios. Searchable archive on about every topic. http://www.slideshare.net/

Second Life (SL) - a virtual online environment in which you create your avatar (online persona) and visit SL sites and interact in various environments with other SL avatars. http://secondlife.com/   You need a fairly good graphics card and a computer with lots of power.

Sendspace – Free. Large file hosting sharing service. Upload large files; tell Sendspace where to send them by e-mail. Recipient gets email download link. http://www.sendspace.com/ 

Sumopaint -  Online image editor with lots of tools for image creation and manipulation. Upload images or start from scratch. Almost as good as Photoshop (even has layers, etc). http://www.sumopaint.com/app/

ThinkQuest  - ThinkQuest is a protected online environment that enables teachers to design and carry out learning projects within their classrooms or in collaboration with ThinkQuest’s global community. Projects come to life when students create pages with text, pictures, multimedia, votes, brainstorms, debates, and messages. ThinkQuest is designed to make it easy for teachers to set up learning projects within their classrooms or in collabo­ration with other students and teachers around the world. The environment is flexible so that teachers can design projects to meet their specific teaching and learning goals. Developed and hosted by the Oracle Education Foundation, Thinkquest  – Interfaces with Twitter, you can log into Twitter, upload a document from your hard drive, and Twitter creates a shortened link to the document, which is hosted on Scribd.com. http://www.thinkquest.org/en/TwitDoc 

TwitDoc – Interfaces with Twitter, you can log into Twitter, upload a document from your hard drive, and Twitter creates a shortened link to the document, which is hosted on Scribd.com. http://twitdoc.com/

TwitPic - lets you share media on Twitter in real-time. You can post photos or videos to TwitPic from your phone, from the site, or through email. Similar to yFrog. http://twitpic.com/

Twitter - Micro-blogging and instant messaging tool. 140 characters. Numerous #hashtag groups share content on specific topics. Twitter hashtag groups also sometimes organize online meet-ups at specific times to discuss specific topics, post conference highlights. You can sigh up for RSS feeds to your website or email.  http://twitter.com

Tumblr -  is a microblogging platform that allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Users can follow other users, or choose to make their tumblelog private. The service emphasizes ease of use. http://www.tumblr.com/

Vimeo - Video-sharing site, used more often by artists.  http://vimeo.com

VoiceThread - Record and playback conversations around images, documents, and videos http://ed.voicethread.com  See http://www.artjunction.org/voicethread.php for advice on using VoiceThread in the art room.

Weebly – Online free web hosting site with easy to use web templates and a drag and drop editing interface. http://www.weebly.com/  * Art teachers I have worked with seem to like Weebly.

Wikispaces – Wikis are simple web pages that groups, friends, and families can edit together. http://www.wikispaces.com/

WordPress - is an open source Content Management System (CMS), often used as a blog publishing application. WordPress is used by over 13% of the 1,000,000 biggest websites. WordPress has a web template system using a template processor. http://wordpress.org/

yfrog - Similar to TwitPic. Share your images and video on Twitter with yfrog. Upload the image or video, add a message, and tweet it to followers. yfrog offers a short URL service that can be used anywhere. You can email the short URL to friends. Your images and videos are stored online in your yfrog account. http://yfrog.com/

YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/  See also - Richard Byrne's alternatives to YouTube:  http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/06/30-alternatives-to-youtube...
  
Online Social Networks and Sites with Resources for Art Educators

Art Education 2.0 - Social Network for Art Educators, hosted by Ning, 8000 members worldwide sharing ideas in blogs, images, videos, uploaded teaching resources, and chats. There are 111 Groups of varying sizes in Art Education 2.0, some are more active than others.  Groups include: AP Studio Art Teachers, Artists Teaching Students with Disabilities, National Board Certified (art) Teachers and candidates, Artist Trading Card swaps, One Day On Earth, Comics in the classroom, Artists who Teach, Art Café @ Second Life, Artsonia Users and Wanna be Users, etc. http://arted20.ning.com

Adbusters - a global network of culture jammers and creatives working to change the way information flows, the way corporations wield power, and the way meaning is produced in our society. Lots of resources for teaching critical visual literacy here. http://www.adbusters.org/

Art21 - PBS series on contemporary artists in the US.  Lots of high quality images, content about contemporary artists, thematic lesson ideas. http://www.pbs.org/art21/

Artsedge - ARTSEDGE is the Kennedy Center's free digital learning platform for arts education. Resources include lesson plans, guides, audio stories, etc. http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/educators.aspx

Artsednet - Education-related activities, lessons, and resources offered by the Getty Museum for teachers, students, professionals, and the general public. Lots of lessons and resources on artists for K-12 art teachers. http://www.getty.edu/education/

Boing-Boing – Originally a zine and now a blog, Boing Boing provides weekly snapshots or archives in the form of short descriptions and images, videos, and links of/to art, culture, technology, literary publications, music, science, gadgets, games, and just about everything else found on the web. http://www.boingboing.net/

BuzzFeed - website that combines a technology platform for detecting viral content with an editorial selection process to provide a snapshot of "the viral web in realtime." Every registered user of BuzzFeed has a homepage that contains links to their most recent contributions to the site. The BuzzFeed homepage consists of a time-sequential list of posts from users and staff members. The content of the posts is usually either a video, image, or link. These posts are the site's attempt to capture the essence of viral media currently resonating on the web. http://www.buzzfeed.com/

Deviant Art – deviantART is a platform that allows emerging and established artists to exhibit, promote, and share their works within a peer community dedicated to the arts. The site's social network environment receives over 100,000 daily uploads of original art works ranging from traditional media, such as painting and sculpture, to digital art, pixel art, films and anime. http://www.deviantart.com/

Digication - (NAEA) Hosted on the NAEA website with e-portfolio with lesson plans, images, and blog posts by teachers. http://naea.digication.com/home_guest.digi?sid=1601&cid=0&t...

Digital Art Education - Social network for students at the Digital Arts Technology Academy http://digitalartsed.ning.com

Edmodo - leading social learning network for K12 education, offers online classroom communications tools for teachers and students: including online library, blogs, webinars, and free private microblogging in the Classroom with built-in security features that give teachers privacy controls over their virtual classrooms. www.edmodo.com/

Educators PLN Ning - Online social network for educators. Everything you find in a good Ning: Groups, Blogs, lots of  conversations and posts about trending topics from the classroom, lots of “how to”, access to educators’ lessons and multimedia files (whatever they shared), etc. See their Twitter Edchat Page - a feed from #Edchat on Twitter. (Members of the Educators PLN may view Twitter Edchat Page page. Interaction in #edchat requires a Twitter account. http://edupln.com/

#edchat – a Twitter hashtag group of educators, mostly k-12, who share and discuss issues and experiences in education.  This group posts throughout the week, but also meets online in twitter on Tuesdays at noon EST and 7 p.m. EST to discuss topics selected in advance by the group. Need a twitter account to participate. Anyone can see the Twitter feed online.

Edutopia – Online site developed and maintained for teachers and learners by the George Lucas Foundation, dedicated to the development of 21st-century skills. http://www.edutopia.org/

Merchants of Cool - PBS Frontline documentary about the creators and marketers of popular culture for teenagers. Lots of teacher-created lessons here, and feedback from teens. Critical visual/media literacy orientation. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/

Pew Internet & American Life Project - one of seven projects that make up the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit "fact tank" that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. The Project produces reports exploring the impact of the internet on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life. http://www.pewinternet.org/

Project Gutenberg - Online open access site where you can download over 33,000 free e-books to read on your PC, iPad, Kindle, Sony Reader, iPhone, Android or other portable device. http://www.gutenberg.org/

Rotoball 2009 - International Animation Project http://www.carrotrevolution.com/rotoball

National Art Education Association - NAEA is the world's largest professional art association, with 22,000 members worldwide. NAEA's website is rich with information, teaching resources, policy documents, portfolios, and links to additional resources and networked online communities. http://www.arteducators.org/

Second Life (SL) - a virtual online environment in which you create your avatar (online persona) and visit SL sites and interact in various environments with other SL avatars. http://secondlife.com/   You need a fairly good graphics card and a computer with lots of power. See system requirements: http://secondlife.com/support/system-requirements/ There are 78 Education & Nonprofit groups in SL http://secondlife.com/destinations/learning, and 88 Art Groups in SL. http://secondlife.com/destinations/arts  Second Life (Education Group) Wiki: See http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Second_Life_Education 

Taking It Global - Collaborative learning community that provides youth with access to global opportunities, cross-cultural connections and meaningful participation in social movements for a better world. See the educator’s section. http://www.tigweb.org/

Teacher Tube - Online teacher-made videos for teachers and students.  Demonstrations, lesson plan videos, etc. http://www.teachertube.com/login.php See: Teacher Vision (part of Teacher Tube) - content is organized by subject, grade and theme.  Theme pages feature cross-curricular lessons, graphic organizers, printable handouts, quizzes, books, etc. for every area of focus, making it simple for teachers to create a study unit that is inclusive and varied. http://www.teachertube.com/teachervision.php

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) - a nonprofit devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading”.  Hosts conferences and videos of inspiring and informative speeches online. Almost 900 TEDTalks are now available. http://www.ted.com/


Sites and Blogs Created and Maintained by Art Educators 

Art on The Move - Created by Susan Bivona, Art Teacher at Mount Prospect School, Illinois. http://art-on-the-move.blogspot.com/

Art Junction - A collaborative virtual environment in blog format, offering activities, projects, and resources for teachers and students. Created by Craig Roland.  http://www.artjunction.org/atcs.php

The Art Teacher’s Guide to the Internet -  ideas, tools, and resources for teaching art and design in a post-digital age. Created by Craig Roland http://artjunction.org/blog/ Check out links to other sites on Craig’s Blogroll (right side of his Blog)

The Carrot Revolution - David Gran's art education blog and resource page http://carrotrevolution.blogspot.com

Dryden Art - Elementary school art website created and maintained by nationally recognized art teacher Tricia Fuglestad, Arlington Hts., Illinois.  See Tricia’s links: Fugleblog Wiki, Artsonia, and Vimeo. http://drydenart.weebly.com/  

Graphic Design - Union City, Pennsylvania Graphic Design and Middle School Art, created by Kris Fontes. http://www.krisfontes.com/

The Imaginarium -  Online gallery of Rebecca Rohloff Plummer’s artists’ sketchbooks and journal writings. http://rprgallery.com/gallery/main.php

Incredible Art Department - Founded in 1994 by Ken Rohrer as a showcase for his elementary art students in a school in Indianapolis, Indiana, and now one of the most resourced and visited art education sites in the country. You just gotta see it. http://www.incredibleart.org/

The Teaching Palette - A Blog dedicated to the teachers who constantly work on perfecting the art of education. Created and maintained by Hillary Andrlik and Theresa McGee http://theteachingpalette.com/2011/03/24/artsonia-artist-statements...

Zonkey Street - Website created and maintained by Ian Sands, Art teacher, Apex, N.C. http://www.zonkeystreet.com/ “The purpose of Zonkey Street is to encourage artists everywhere to make Zonkey Art. “You should get involved by creating Zonkey Art and posting it on The Art of Zonkey Street Facebook Page.”
  
Other sites, blogs, ed-tech how-to tutorials, and random things I liked

Mashable – Their description doesn’t do this site justice. Mashable covers the top social media news on topics like Facebook, YouTube, Gmail, Twitter, Amazon, Pinterest and More. http://mashable.com

11 Techy Things for Teachers to Try This Year. By Richard Byrne -  crate a blog or a website, build a wiki, create videos, use an online service to save your bookmarks (social bookmarking), make a podcast, etc. http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/08/11-techy-things-for-teache...   See detailed but east to understand explanations with great diagrams - http://issuu.com/richardbyrne/docs/how_to_do_11_techy_things/1

The Super Book of Web Tools for Educators By Richard Byrne - http://issuu.com/richardbyrne/docs/super_book_of_web_tools_for_educ...

30+ alternatives to YouTube. By Richard Byrnehttp://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/06/30-alternatives-to-youtube...

6 easy ways for students to publish videos online. By Richard Byrne   - http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/11/six-easy-ways-for-students...

Ken Thomas’ public domain images from nature - http://kenthomas.us/?page_id=13

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