This weekend we bring to you some tools for creating information and lessons that will greatly benefit your visual learners.  In the lounge we teach workshops on using digital visuals in education. Students learn how to create thematic webs, concept mapping, decision charts, and venn diagrams. We use a program called Inspiration from http://www.inspiration.com/. Many times in education it maybe hard to find funding for a school or teacher to buy such software. Below are some alternatives tools for creating concept maps other visual aids for teaching and research.

Webspiration – http://www.mywebspiration.com/ – Developed by the people who created Inspiration. It is currently in beta. It is a web 2.0 technology and is a collaborative in nature of creating presentations and visual information.

Visual Understanding Environment – http://vue.tufts.edu/ – Created at Tufts University

Operating systems: Windows (XP and Vista), Mac (OSX 10.4+) and Linux

IHMC CmapTools – Created by the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. The Institute has also developed a Lite version of CmapTools. The lite version has some features missing such as search, compare, and record.
Operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux (Intel), and Solaris (Sparc)

I am very excited about this site. I found out about it through the Kidcast podcast I subscribe to. Innertoob allows you to create markers within your podcast, but the great thing about it is that the content you add to these markers is accessible by search engines. I will be posting some more about it as soon as I get to try it out.

The same people responsible for Innertoob have also created Crowdabout. This is a flash application that allows people to insert audio/text/video comments into your existing podcast and turn it into a conversation and make it more interactive. Again, I just found out about these two sites so I have not had a chance to give them a full trial yet.

Need to create a quick map with markers and notes?  Then TinyMap is the way the go.  You can easily add waypoints (markers) and points of interest (notes) to your map, then when you click on Save you get a URL you can use to share the maps.

This can be used in history classes to have students trace historical events (Columbus’s travels, Crusades, etc. are just a few ideas that come to mind).

I found this site called Murphy Mac that has some great screencasts. They are all very short and easy to follow (the site’s owner calls them snippets). I like that they are created in Flash so they are very small. Some great tips for all ability levels. The way he has them set up, each day of the week the tips get more advanced.

I highly recommend this site.

Maplib.net is an interesting application of the Google Maps API. The idea is that you can upload any image (the larger the better) and then use Google Map controls to navigate it by zooming, panning, etc. just as you would with a Google Map. I already thought of a good idea for how to use this: create an annotated screenshot of any application’s interface, with each section labeled.

Maplib is a little rough (it’s in serious beta…I had a hard time placing and removing markers). The interface to the people viewing the image will be familiar, and you can copy some code on the site and post it to a blog or another website.

Spresent is going to be one of my favotire web 2.0 apps.  This flash interface allows you to create a presentation completely online (with images, audio, tables, charts, etc.)   It’s like having access to PowerPoint from any computer.

One thing I like is that it can add credits at the end for any media you want to add to a presentation (and Flickr images are supported).  It can be used with audio to create a much better enhanced podcast (with bigger slides).

Get it here.

This video on YouTube does a great job of summarizing what web 2.0 is all about. It also raises some important issues related to the new web and the way in which information is created and consumed in this new environment:

This week’s site is Scrapblog. This is currently in beta, so use at your own risk. Scrapblog allows you to create a scrapbook online using all the web 2.0 goodness we’ve come to know and love…you can even have a page with layers in it so that you can add stickers, captions, and more. I’m thinking this may be a good site to use for digital storytelling. It has good integration with Flickr.

The site can be slow at times (due to it being in heavy development) but that should improve once the new version is out.

Divicast allows you to upload an audio file for your podcast and then it allows you to add chapter markers and images to go along with the chapters…all online, and with a very nice interface. I also believe it allows you to use any MP3 file…so finally, a quick way to create enhanced podcasts for Windows users..Of course, your podcast will have to be hosted at this site.

Netvibes is a great personal start page. One feature I had not noticed before is the tabs feature. Using the tabs feature, I now have the following tabs set up:

1. Productivity: GMail checker, GMail Calendar, Laptop Lounge Calendar (via Google Calendar..I love that you can subscribe to iCal calendars using Google Calendar).
2. News: headlines from MSNB, CNN
3. Social Web: the latest stories on Digg and del.icio.us.
4. Bookmarks: all of my bookmarks on del.icio.us
5. Photos: the RSS feed for my photos (mostly my daughter) at Flickr, also Flickr memories, a good feed of pictures I can use for wallpaper.
6. Weather: five week forecast of weather in Tampa
7. Podcasts: the top 2 or 3 podcasts I listen to. I discovered that you can even play them using an embeded player with Netvibes, so no need to open up a separate window, etc.

Netvibes is a great way to have all the information you need in one place (page). The only other window I need to have open is Pandora, currently my favorite website.