TransferBigFiles

I came across the
TransferBigFiles site in my never-ending quest for ways to e-mail those large Microsoft Office files from my home computer to our department secretary for printing. The TransferBigFiles site allows you to upload any file or number of files under 2 gigabytes for free. The site will send an e-mail notification to the recipients you designate with a link to download the files.

So Foxy!

My favorite browser has now been issued in a back-to-school campus edition. This version of Firefox comes preloaded with some terrific "must-haves."

Foxy Tunes. This firefox extension opens up and allows you to control your music player of choice right from the browser window. No more waiting for iTunes or Media Player to load. You can control the volume, track selection, and music info without ever leaving your browser.

Zotero.I'm sure I've blogged about Zotero before, but this Firefox extension is a real winner for marking, annotating, storing, and retrieving web sites related to a research project. You can export your Zotero library into any Word Processing application (plug-ins required for Word and Open Office) or even into RefWorks.

StumbleUpon. One of my all-time favorite sites for buttressing my store of useless information, this Firefox extension can take you to places you've never been before.

On a related note, check out this nifty trick from CyberNet News for displaying web sites in your Firefox sidebar!

PowerPoint and YouTube...Mm Mm Good

This excellent video details how you can embed a YouTube video into an offline PowerPoint presentation. I'm thinking my students are going to enjoy my lectures just a little bit more!

Social Bookmarking in Plain English

Phat PDFs

I'll bet if they did a study, it would be discovered that you spend at least 1.2 years of your life waiting for Adobe Acrobat Reader to open. Sumatra PDF Viewer is reported to be fast-acting, along the lines of the lithe and responsive Firefox FoxIt Reader.

A Dash of Design

Free, high quality stock photos from Free Range and images collected from other photo sites from EveryStockPhoto.com.

Also from Lifehacker: Top 10 Free Wallpaper, Fonts, and Icon Sites.

Back in a Flash!

An extensive list of portable freeware, applications that will run from the ubiquitous flash drive. Also searchable--

TeacherTube

With the new semester right around the corner, I've been hard at work figuring out how to include new technologies into my course. I really wanted to include some audio & video to help my students learn how to use tools like the SmartBoard, Videoconferencing, Audacity & Podcasting. So, I was searching the Internet & came across TeacherTube. What a wonderful resource that I can use. It works just like YouTube but has a focus on education so it's easier to find the videos I want.

In searching for an Audacity tutorial, I found not only several tutorials but examples of how Audacity is used in lessons to meet the needs of diverse learners! I'm so excited...I hope to find additional content to add to most of the units we cover in the course (Production & Utilization of Instructional Technology). I'm hoping to embed the videos in a blog that we'll be using throughout the course.

I'll have to keep you posted on our progress!

Tired of Win-Doze?

One of my favorite sites, Lifehacker, just published 10 excellent substitutions for standard Windows utilities. If you often find yourself napping while using Windows' search utility, Lifehacker suggests the lickety-split Launchy; for Explorer, they suggest Xplorer2. I've tried most of their suggested replacements and they are truly faster and better. All suggested replacements are free and easily installed. So head on over to Lifehacker and check out the rest of the replacements!