VoiceThread

VoiceThread is an online media album that can hold essentially any type of media (images, documents and videos) and allows people to make comments in 5 different ways - using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam) - and share them with anyone they wish. Voicethread has a dedicated education community now as well. A really good example which uses art as a theme can be viewed here:


and an English storytelling project here....

You do need an account to use it. Particularly useful for class based activities- you can setup members of your class as sub-users. Only one sign in, but everyone in the class has a working identity they can switch to which tags their work.
Even better it has mic. setting options for both mac and PC!
http://voicethread.com/#home

Freeplay

Try Freeplaymusic.com for loops and music.
Note:Clips from freeplaymusic.com cannot be freely used for podcasting. Educational use "is limited to student use on school grounds for in classroom projects- non broadcast". Check out the terms of use at: http://freeplaymusic.com/licensing/termsofuse.php

Avery label maker

Avery label maker is a free download from Avery, obviously, and has a cd cover template amongst loads of others:
http://www.avery.co.uk/uk1/downloads/macsolutions.jsp

PodSafe Audio

This site aims to provide a location where musicians can upload music under the Creative Commons license for use in Podcasts, Mashups, Shoutcasts, Webcasts and every other kind of 'casting' that exists on the 'net.

Creative Commons

The Creative Commons website on the search page lets you select how you intend using the music.
http://search.creativecommons.org/

Be warned it's hard work to find what you’re after as there is just so much available and there are different CC licence terms often related to whether the original can be changed. To be safe it's always best to create your own!

Garageband

For copyright free music try Garageband - you can also register a band if you play in one and get your music heard!

Soundsnap

What is Soundsnap?
Soundsnap is the best platform to find and share free sound effects and loops- legally. It is a collection of original sounds made or recorded by its users, and not songs or sound FX found on commercial libraries or sample CD's.
It was originally started by a small group of sound people from all over the world. Our common belief is that sounds and samples should be free for everyone to use in their projects, commercial or not.

Photosoup

PhotoSoup is a visual word puzzle generator that allows users to create word search puzzles with tag-photo pairs taken from Flickr. The tag is hidden in the puzzle, and only the associated photo is shown as a clue. The objective is to find all hidden tags in the puzzle before you run out of time.
http://next.yahoo.net/photosoup/
To create and play a new puzzle, you have to provide a topic, such as "zoo". Alternatively, you can use your own username to generate a puzzle that shows your photos. Of course you can also check out the photos your friends have posted on Flickr. Keep in mind, that we only use public Flickr photos that have the Creative Commons Attribution license when generating a PhotoSoup.

wikiHow

wikiHow is a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. With your edits, we can create a free resource that helps millions of people by offering solutions to the problems of everyday life. It currently contains 31,652 articles — written, edited, and maintained primarily by volunteers. Please join us by writing on a topic not yet covered, or editing a page that someone else has started.
http://www.wikihow.com/Main-Page

RealeBooks

RealeBooks - free download from www.realebooks.com
Make books which can be emailed, printed off or stored in an online library. They chose something they are interested in and make books. Can make template books and so differentiate for levels of ability. Can be used for 5-50 year olds.

e2bn - making the news

The developing National Education Network also has some resources.
E2BN's Making the News is a great motivator for engaging students (esp
boys) in writing and publishing. Find it at
http://mtn.e2bn.net/rostra/news.php?r=1&t=2&id=14

On Line, On Track - Literacy and Numeracy KS3

"The great problem is finding material which deals with their skill level
without being too juvenile in content and context
I'm not sure if you would find this relevant, but here at London Grid
for Learning we did a PRU-focussed project for KS3/4 called On Line, On
Track about 2 years ago which might be useful (it's for Literacy and
Numeracy)
Try http://www.lgfl.net/lgfl/accounts/olot/

This http://cms.lgfl.net/lgfl/web/nen/links will give you the links to
the other learning grids if you want to have a trawl around
David Mason"

EditGrid - Online Spreadsheet

EditGrid is an online spreadsheet. It works solely in a web browser. It serves you and your spreadsheets better than ever in many aspects. EditGrid is native for spreadsheets on the web which are:
* shared,
* collaborated, or
* published
EditGrid does for numbers what blogs and wikis do for text.
http://www.editgrid.com/

Race to Ramses

Looking for a fun but simple word level activity? - try Race to Ramses! a game about combining prefixes and suffixes to create new words.
http://www.fekids.com/kln/games/racetoramses/racetoramses.html
Fits in nicely with Ancient Egypt as a theme too.

Fliptrack Slide Shows

Take a look at Fliptrack as an alternative to something like Animoto.
Fliptrack Slide Shows offer the Most Ways to Express Yourself:
http://www.fliptrack.com/
* Variety: The Most Themes, Effects and Music!
* Friendship Slide Shows: Let Friends and Family
Copy & Edit Your Slide Shows!
* Music Sync: Slide Shows Match the Rhythm of the Music!

Animoto

Animoto - http://animoto.com/
is very simple but offers no real creative control over what you produce. Just throw some photos at it, choose a music track and voila you've created an MTV style video.
A great tool for producing quick videos.
Curriculum idea - Tom Barret says:
"Last year we used our class (y6) digital camera for recording our work in a science investigation, we then gave the children a sheet of thumbnails of these images for their books. An extension of this simple idea would be to produce a quick movie of their science lesson or PE session. Not as an ICT, presentation task but as a simple, yet imaginatively presented, record of the work they have done."

TeacherTube & BlipTV

If you were hoping to use Youtube with your students but find it's been blocked by the LA/ school firewall you might consider using these two less well known alternatives out there..........

Try TeacherTube
http://www.teachertube.com
or
if you want good quality encoding try Blip TV
http://blip.tv/

voices of the world

onevoice
Voices Of The World was created by Sharon Tonner from The High School Of Dundee in Scotland to connect children from around the world using their voices rather than the standard text and images and prepare them for their globalised future.
If you would like to participate in this global project then send an email, through this network, to Sharon Tonner with the name of your school, town and country and also the age of the children who will be participating in the project.
Each month a new challenge or task is set - introducing a different application each time. February 08 uses Photostory 3 which you can download free from:
photostory

If you need help using this there are simple instructions at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/photostory/tips/firststory.mspx

many voices

manyvoices

"manyvoices is an ongoing collaborative story being written by 140 different elementary and middle school students across the globe using Twitter.com. Each student will use the same manyvoices Twitter Account to contribute their 140 (or less) characters. The story concludes at the 140th entry. At that point, we collectively edit and revise our little Twitter story before publishing it as a small book through Lulu.com"
Contributing teachers:
12 teachers - 6 countries (Canada China Thailand England Qatar USA) 140 students
@mrmayo
@glassbeed
@njtechteacher (has agreed to edit)
@arthus & co.
@GingerTPLC
@julielindsay
@tombarrett
@todbaker
@LParisi - (has agreed to edit)
@robinellis
@mscofino
@mrjarbenne
For more info. contact: mrmayo.org [at] gmail.com. Or, twitter him @mrmayo

tumblr

Why Tumblr?
"Tumblelogs are miniblogs — a fast way to share links, photos, and videos without the bells and whistles of a regular blog. Check out Wikipedia’s definition of tumblogs. Tumblr is a product of Davidville. The Tumblr definition is simple: if blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks.

Ability to easily create 6 types of posts: text, photos, quotes, links, conversations, and videos. A “Share on Tumblr” bookmarklet for Internet Explorer and Firefox makes it easy to post ad-hoc from within your browser. Posting to your blog is truly quick, fast and easy!
The ability to import RSS feeds as links including Flickr, Delicious, Digg, Twitter, LastFM, Wordpress, VOX, Blogger, LiveJournal, and YouTube."
For more info. and taken from: tumblr