IT 5130: Week 3 Tools

Interesting group of tools this week. Synopsis follows...

Kindling
http://www.kindlingapp.com/

“Kindling is a web-based application that cultivates and manages the ideas of everyone in your organization.”

Well, I must admit that their FAQ area displayed quite a bit of humor. It’s basically a collaboration tool. Their website is not the most user-friendly I’ve ever encountered. I have requested a Beta invite to see what it’s all about.


Skype
http://www.skype.com/

“With Skype’s free software – by the way, it works seamlessly with your internet connection – you can chat away with free Skype-to-Skype calls and never worry about cost, time or distance. Share the love and get your friends to download Skype so you can talk, chat or make video calls for nothing. You can also make local, long distance and international calls to phones and cell phones at great rates too.”

From what I can gather, it is an internet phone service. Free if you download Skype and the people you want to talk to do the same thing. Otherwise, fees apply.

This could be an interesting way for students to collaborate in real-time during classes. However, you’ll have to require that they download the program.

I feel that it should be pointed out that not all learners have the computing power/bandwidth/permissions to use this type of program.


Audacity
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

“Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. You can use Audacity to:

Record live audio.
Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files.
Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together.
Change the speed or pitch of a recording.
And more!”

Sounds pretty neat. Nice open source audio editor. Could be very valuable, especially for creating projects within the UCD program.


ClassSpot
http://tidebreak.com/prodclassspot.shtml

“ClassSpot-equipped rooms enable any student to instantly share their work or digital content they find online. They can send files or websites over the network to any large display system in the classroom. Faculty or student can easily interact with the material on the display screen by simply moving their mouse on to a screen to take control.”

Well, this sounds like a fascinating tool and it has a capability very similar to one the exists in eClass, the online course program we use at work. Instructors can grant an "App Share" to a student to share what's on their desktop and "drive" the mouse. I can see many benefits of the tool, but there are also some downsides, such as a lack of instructor control when students randomly move the mouse or upload information, etc.

There’s *no way* that this tool can be used “as is” in my setting. We are on a classified network with no access to the WWW. However, it *could* be made available with access only on the classified network and the appropriate licensing. Hhhmmm…I’ll have to look into this tool further.