Instructional Tools for Online Learning
Resources to Help Create Learning Objects
See also
Survey/Quizzing Tools,
Other Tools and
Instructional Design Tools
Note: A good source for open source software is
http://sourceforge.net/.
Image Tools - Most Common
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Adobe Photoshop (not free) is the image editing software used by most web and
desktop publishing professionals the world over. While learning Photoshop can be a daunting task,
adeptness with the program allows users to enhance and/or alter digital images in a seemingly
infinite number of ways.
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/main.html
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Flickr is a photo and video sharing website. You can upload images from your
desktop, email, or camera phone. Manage and share image/collections using privacy controls.
http://www.flickr.com/
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iPhoto is part of Apple's iLife software that comes installed on all new Macs or
can be bought separately,
iPhoto is an excellent way to manage and present
your digital image collection. In addition to its elegantly simple interface and powerful options
for publishing/sharing your photos, and includes robust image editing tools as well.
http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/
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Picasa is Google's free image manager and editor that quickly and smartly modifies
digital images, offering a smart interface and a sense of fun, with "warmify" and "I'm feeling
lucky" being two of the image effect options. Picasa makes it easy to turn one's images into
collages, posters, movies, and other goodies. For anyone who wants to quickly view, manage, and
edit the 100s and 1000s of pictures one can generate with a digital camera, Picassa is the best
solution.
http://picasa.google.com/
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Snag IT: (not free). Robust screen capture software to capture all or parts
of screens and edit, including adding captions.
http://www.techsmith.com/screen-capture.asp
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XnView is a free utility that can be used for viewing and converting graphic
files. You may wish to use XnView to add images to your course web site, or to create custom icons
for your site.
http://www.xnview.com/
Other Screen Capture Tools (Free)
Note:
Snag It is the most robust but isn't free.
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Aviary Just put "http://aviary.com" in the front of any webpage URL ... that
webpage then comes up inside an image editor, including graphics and effects editor. This is
a free scaled down version of Photoshop.
http://aviary.com/
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Bug Shooting is a screenshot utility that was developed for software testers
who use bug tracking systems. Ability to highlight, notate and/or crop areas of the
screenshot. Screenshots can also be sent to Skype or a default E-Mail application.
http://www.bugshooting.com/
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Easy Capture captures screen shot, include windows screen capture,
scrolling windows screen capture, selected-regions screen capture. It also allow you to edit the
screen captures and add balloon stamps.
http://www.xydownload.com/easycapture/
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Firefox Plugins - eight tools for capturing screenshots in Firefox 3
http://mashable.com/2008/08/26/firefox-3-screenshot-tools/
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Gadwin can perform full screen captures, or only capture a specific window, with
some editing features.
http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/
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Greenshot saves a screenshot or a part of the screen to a file. Apply text
and shapes to the screenshot. Offers capture of window, region or full screenshot and supports
several image formats.
http://greenshot.sourceforge.net/
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Hard Copy is screen capture software - to print or save the current window or
screen-- whether you are taking screenshots to produce documentation, printing off records,
or anything else. Not as robust as Gadwin or Snag it-- so if you don't want to annotate it's
fine. You could import it into a graphics program to annotate.
http://www.gen.hardcopy.de/std.php3
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MWSnap is a program for taking screen captures of a desktop, an active
window,menu, or a specified part of the screen. The program supports BMP, JPG, TIFF,PNG and GIF
formats, with user selected color depth and quality settings. It also includes a zooming tool, a
screen ruler and a color picker as well as system wide hotkeys and preset selection sizes.
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/mwsnap.html
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Pearl Crescent Page Saver captures an image (png) of a complete web page, not just
the bit you can see on your screen, but the whole page.
This is a plug-in for Firefox and the basic version is free.
http://pearlcrescent.com/products/pagesaver/
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Safari Snapshooter saves an instant picture of any webpage to your
desktop. After you create an account at www.talkingletter.com, a free copy of The
Snapshooter is sent to you by e-mail.
http://safarid.com/index.php?page_id=256
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Stitch is a webservice (beta) to upload pictures from cameras, capture
screenshots, add captions and text.
http://skitch.com/
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SWFShot is great for saving images of SWFs greater than 2880 pixels. You can
encode the images as PNG or JPG and then, with Adobe AIR, you can save the image captured to the
local system.
http://tinyurl.com/4bwfga
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WebKut is an AIR application that allows you to capture web pages, or parts of
them in a very simple way. It provides you 3 capture options: the entire page, the current view, or
only a selection.
http://toki-woki.net/p/WebKut/
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Websnapshot allows you to enter the Url and press Snap. Or Drag&Drop it from
your browser. Click on the Thumbnails to Save.
http://myspyder.net/tools/websnapshot/
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xvidcap: Screencast application for Linux. It allows you to capture either parts
of the full screen of your Linux desktop.
http://xvidcap.sourceforge.net/
Sound Editing Tools
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Audacity is a free, open source audio editor for recording/editing sound files in
MP3, WAV or AIFF sound formats. Audacity can record live audio through a microphone or digitize
recordings, and includes sound editing effects.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
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AudioFlash is a free audio recording software that will record you speaking
via your computer and put it on your website with SWF control buttons.
http://www.audioflash.org/
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iTunes, of iPod fame, is free Mac/Windows software that goes far beyond being the
premier tool for organizing and performing your digital audio collection. The most recent version
has built-in support for receiving pod casts, which has great potential for simplifying the
delivery of online lectures or supplementary audio material.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/
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WM Recorder 12 is a way to record video and audio from the internet. Just open WM
Recorder, play your video or audio, and it's saved automatically. All the popular streaming formats
and protocols are supported. Recordings are saved as media files on your PC at the highest possible
quality. You can watch or listen anytime you like, even without an Internet connection.
http://www.wmrecorder.com/
Video/Movie Tools
Editing software: Simple editing programs like QuickTime Pro or iMovie (for the Mac) or Windows
Movie Maker (for PC's) work for many videos, though some professors use Final Cut Pro (for the Mac)
or Adobe Premiere (for the PC) for more-advanced projects.
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Adobe® Flash® CS3 Professional (Adobe) An advanced software application used to
author rich, interactive content for digital, web, and mobile platforms. (Interactive
websites, rich media advertisements, instructional media, engaging presentations, games, etc.)
http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/
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Adobe Premiere (PC) is a video design and creation software suite used to create
web videos, DVD movies, and more. Use this package to create animations, add or edit audio, use
special effects, and more.
http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/
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Final Cut Pro (Mac) is a professional non-linear editing software application
developed by Apple Inc.for film and video editing.
http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/finalcutpro/
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iDVD, another component of the Apple iLife software, provides a straightforward
yet surprisingly flexible means of authoring DVDs, allowing anyone to create DVD menus in the style
of those seen in professionally produced motion picture DVDs. iDVD integrates multimedia resources
from iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and other Apple tools.
http://www.apple.com/ilife/idvd/
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iMovie, part of Apple's iLife software that comes installed on all new Macs or can
be bought separately, is the tool that has set the standard for ease and power in capturing and
editing digital video, including special effects and titling. Seamless integration with iPhoto,
iTunes, and iDVD provides for an unparalleled ability to incorporate audio and still images into
your digital video project and publish to DVD. Other publishing options include email, web, CD, or
any of the options provided by QuickTime.
http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/
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QuickTime Pro: Purchasing a $29.99 key upgrades the free QuickTime Player to an
inexpensive yet powerful utility for converting digital video formats or adding interactivity to
QuickTime movies, such as HREF tracks, chapter tracks, alternate audio, or video tracks.
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/win.html
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Windows Movie Maker comes free with the Windows operating system and provides PC
users with the famous ease-of-use introduced by Apple's iMovie. If you're a Windows user and you
want to get started with video editing (or you are an old pro but want to do a small job quickly)
give Windows Movie Maker a try. You may like it. On your computer look for it in Start >
Programs > Accessories > Entertainment.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/default.mspx
