User (Web2.0) Tools
This page provides links to a selection of tools that might be of use for an e-learner or e-tutor - for both individual or collaborative use.
Articles in alphabetical order.
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Agatra
“Agatra is free service that securely stores your passwords online so that they’re accessible from anywhere you have an internet connection. It can even log you in directly to most sites!”
Added: 28 November 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
Site explains: “Agatra uses a block cypher encryption technology that is widely used and that has never been compromised”
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ajaxwrite
“AjaxWrite is a streamlined word processor, comparable to Microsoft Word. To keep the program lean, we left out some obscure advanced features; you’ll find the functions you use most often, right where you’d expect them to be.”
Added: 25 March 2006
Reviewer’s Note:
“AJAX programming techniques allow web-based software to function smoothly without the waiting around for page uploads that you normally associate with the Internet.”
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Backpackit
“Gather your ideas, to-dos, notes, photos and files online. Set email and mobile reminders so that you don’t forget the little things. Easily collaborate with others”
Added: 11 December 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
Sign up for free - only takes 10 seconds - web-based and hosted - no install
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backflip
“Backflip gets you back to the good stuff. It’s the easiest way to save and share important things you see on the Web. With Backflip’s organization and powerful search, you’ll never lose anything interesting again. You can use it from any computer. And it’s totally free.”
Added: 24 July 2001
Reviewer’s Note:
a free tool that will let you share bookmarks
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blinklist
“BlinkList is Social Bookmarking merged with People Powered Searchand Expert Recommendations… all wrapped in an elegant interface”
Added: 19 January 2006
Reviewer’s Note:
Import and manage Your Bookmarks - in the Blink of an Eye; Create Watch lists to See What Your Friends Are Discovering Online; Follow the Wisdom of Crowds and Discover What’s Hot
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blinkx
“blinkx changes the way you find and access all kinds of information, from anywhere in the world, without having to search endlessly. blinkx rapidly links you with the information you need from the web, from online news sources and files on your own PC.”
Added: 19 July 2004
Reviewer’s Note:
The Times review asks “Is the search over for the new Google?
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bloki
“You can share your Bloki pages, blog, and forums with anyone you like. Authorize other users to edit your pages, and Bloki becomes a tool for communication and collaboration.”
Updated: 20 June 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
Bloki integrates Web hosting, blogs, forums, and online collaboration
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blummy
“blummy is a tool for quick access to your favorite web services via your bookmark toolbar. It’s a kind of drop down menu consisting of widgets (called blummlets) that provide rich functionality. It works on every page on the web. Just click on it at your toolbar.”
Added: 14 November 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
the multifunctional bookmarklet
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Brainstorming Toolbox
“Brainstorming Toolbox is a dedicated piece of software for brainstorming sessions and it is designed to complement and enhance the free training given at the brainstorming website”
Added: January 2001
Reviewer’s Note:
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CleverKeys
“CleverKeys is free software that provides instant access to definitions at Dictionary.com, synonyms at Thesaurus.com, facts at Reference.com and more - from almost all Windows or Mac OS programs, including word processors, Web browsers and most e-mail programs. With CleverKeys, the answers are just a click away.”
Added: 12 December 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
Download CleverKeys for free
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cl1p.net
“With cl1p.net you can copy and paste between computers. Just enter in any URL that starts with http://cl1p.net (example: http://cl1p.net/chronography/) and post. Then from any other computer enter the same URL and copy”
Added: 24 April 2006
Reviewer’s Note:
Read the blog to find out more about building cl1p.net (http://building-cl1p.blogspot.com/)
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Clipmarks
“Why clipmarks? Because you can highlight, tear and save parts of pages from magazines and newspapers, so why shouldn’t you do the same thing on the web”
Added: 1 February 2006
Reviewer’s Note:
Social clipmarks - Make your clipmarks public so others can see and discuss what you’re clipping
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del.icio.us
“del.icio.us is a social bookmarks manager. It allows you to easily add sites you like to your personal collection of links, to categorize those sites with keywords, and to share your collection not only between your own browsers and machines, but also with others.”
Added: 20 September 2003
Reviewer’s Note:
“Once you’ve registered for the service, you add a simple bookmarklet to your browser. When you find a web page you’d like to add to your list, you simply select the del.icio.us bookmarklet, and you’ll be prompted for a information about the page. You can add descriptive terms to group similar links together, modify the title of the page, and add extended notes for yourself or for others.”
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DeskPort
“DeskPort facilitates one-click, browserless access to weather, maps and directions, search, travel, frrequent flyer programs, dictionary, thesaurus and more … DeskPort is free. Always on DeskPort instantly displays category menus.”
Added: 23 August 2004
Reviewer’s Note:
“The DeskPort is built around research showing that about 95% of Internet access revolves around only a handful of information types. The DeskPort provides 2-click access to the leading site of each information category.”
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diigo
“Diigo is about “Social Annotation”, a superset of social bookmarking. We believe that the social annotation service provided by Diigo can really enhance your experience for online browsing and interactions, and for information gathering and sharing.”
Added: 27 December 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
“to diigo some content, e.g., a page, a paragraphs, or a picture, is to bookmark, collect and comment in situ on that content.”
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esnips
“The one place for ALL the stuff you want to store online and easily share with others.”
Added: 3 October 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
You get 1 Gb free storage space
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flickr
“online photo management and sharing application”
Updated: 20 June 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
Flickr is a way to get your photos to the people who matter to you. With Flickr you can: Show off your favorite photos to the world; Blog the photos you take with a cameraphone; Securely and privately show photos to your friends and family around the world ; … and much, much more!
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Fold
“Fold is a portal or start page. The aim of Fold is to consolidate most of the tools and information you need every day into a single web page. No matter where you are in the world, each time you log in you’ll feel right at home.”
Added: 22 May 2006
Reviewer’s Note:
Public beta now online
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Furl
“Furl is dedicated to making it easy for users to archive, recall, share, and discover useful information on the Web. With a couple clicks, Furl will archive any page. You can easily find it by browsing your personal directory of web pages or by using the full text search that only searches pages you’ve archived. It’s like having your own Google.”
Added: 23 February 2004
Reviewer’s Note:
It’s free too
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GoalMaker
“Now you can identify, set, organize, manage and achieve your goals and achieve success with the complete Goal Management Software-based System for the motivated professional. Ideal for sales professionals, networkers and entrepreneurs. GoalMaker will help you with both your personal and business goals and help you achieve a balance between the two.”
Added: 25 February 2002
Reviewer’s Note:
Also contains advice on managing goals
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GoBinder
“Agilix GoBinder™ helps students organize classes and schedules, manage assignments, take and store notes, search for important information, and collaborate with their peers. Manage everything you need to succeed in class into a single system providing infinite organization and personalization.”
Added: 28 July 2004
Reviewer’s Note:
You can get a trial of GoBinder™ 2005.
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Google Calendar
“With Google Calendar, you can see your friends’ and family’s schedules right next to your own; quickly add events mentioned in Gmail conversations or saved in other calendar applications; and add other interesting events that you find online.”
Added: 14 April 2006
Reviewer’s Note:
A web-based calendar for personal use or to share with others that uses RSS. You can import other (e.g. Outlook) calendars
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Google Notebook
“Google Notebook makes web research of all kinds - from planning a vacation to researching a school paper to buying a car - easier and more efficient by enabling you to clip and gather information even while you’re browsing the web. And since Google Notebook lives in your browser, you won’t be left with a scattered collection of notes, Word docs, and browser bookmarks to sort through; all your web findings will be gathering into one organized, easy accessible location that you can access from any computer.”
Added: 16 May 2006
Reviewer’s Note:
Just sign in to the Google Notebook homepage with your Google Accounts username and password, then download the Google Notebook browser extension.
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goowy
“IM with your buddies from aol, msn, yahoo and icq ; Upload, manage and share your files online; Manage your email, contacts and calendar; Organize your web data with a personalized start page; Play games.”
Added: 11 June 2006
Reviewer’s Note:
Your personal webtop - try a demo account
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GoToMyPC
“GoToMyPC is the fast, easy and secure way to access and control your computer from any Web browser, anywhere”
Added: 23 January 2002
Reviewer’s Note:
A useful service
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ikeepbookmarks.com
“allows you to upload, and keep, your bookmarks on the web for free. You can access them at any time, from any computer… anywhere!”
Added: 25 September 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
See how Gloria Freidgen uses ikeepbookmarks.com in her teaching. (http://www.ikeepbookmarks.com/profile_gloriafriedgen.asp)
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Information Mapping
“Information Mapping’s software products are designed to help customers more easily apply the principles and concepts taught in our seminars. Because these products do not “stand alone” without the user’s full understanding of the Information Mapping Method, our software is available exclusively to Information Mapping seminar graduates.”
Added: June 2001
Reviewer’s Note:
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Inspiration
“The premier tool to develop ideas and organize thinking. Inspiration 6 integrates an expanded range of visual learning and thinking techniques with the latest standards in graphics and Internet technology. Use it to brainstorm, organize thoughts and communicate ideas.”
Added: 2000
Reviewer’s Note:
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iRows
“Web-based online spreadsheets. You can manage your data online, access it anywhere, anytime; share your data with friends, family or the entire world; display your data on any web site, change it here, and all sites change automatically; compute, chart, and analyze your data online.”
Added: 21 February 2006
Reviewer’s Note:
Registration is free
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ItsAStart
“ItsAStart.com is a New way to look at the Internet! We’re positive that when you see how easy it is to make a Customizable and, better yet, Portable interface for the internet, you’ll make ItsAStart your first stop on the internet, everytime!”
Added: 30 January 2006
Reviewer’s Note:
Play around with the page and see what you think! To save your settings permanently, Sign Up for free!
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Jots
“Jots is a collaborative bookmarking system that allows you to Store, Share and Discover relevant links. Store your own links and choose whether to share them with the world, with a select group of people or just for yourself to use. Discover new links based on specific users or topics of interest.”
Added: 30 July 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
Links are available via the jots.com web site or by RSS. Post your links to your blog daily to keep others informed of your areas of interest.
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Jybe
“Jybe enables you to surf the web in real-time with friends, family and co-workers. Give online presentations or show your mum how to use eBay.”
Added: 28 January 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
Download for free
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Learning Styles Profiler
“The Learning Styles Profiler (LSP) asseses the neuropsychological basis of learning. It is suitable for business and education. You can view the software and the manual free of charge.”
Added: 17 August 2003
Reviewer’s Note:
For use by both individuals and organisations
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MindMapper
“MindMapper is an effective and proven tool for visual thinking, organizing thoughts and ideas visually, decision making, making presentations, planning, brainstorming, outlining ideas, note taking,…And more, this mind mapping software utility is one of the easiest mind map creativity tools to learn and use.”
Added: 10 July 2004
Reviewer’s Note:
“MindMapper was specifically designed to be used by anyone from beginners to experts utilizing mindmapping techniques invented by Leonardo da Vinci and further developed by Tony Buzan.”
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Mystickies
“To put it simply, Mystickies allows you to place little yellow squares of digital paper anywhere and everywhere you feel like in the whole wide web. Along with the ability to put sticky notes on webpages mystickies offers a powerful interface to browse, search, sort, edit and generally have a wonderful time with your sticky notes from any computer that has internet access.”
Added: 22 January 2006
Reviewer’s Note:
“Mystickies is like bookmarks on steroids.”
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MyWebExPC
“is the most secure and reliable solution for accessing your remote PC. Access anywhere is the only remote PC access provider to offer the benefits of the MediaTone Network and the unique security of Phone authentication”
Added: 30 October 2004
Reviewer’s Note:
Try it free until 2005!
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MyYahoo
“My Yahoo! is a home for all your stuff. Anything that keeps you informed and organized can be pulled in from the Web to be seen at a glance. Creating one’s a breeze.”
Updated: 18 April 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
“n 3 easy steps, you’ve got a place to read the news, check your stocks, track your teams, see your mail - any of the dozens of things you do on the Web.”
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Newsgator
“Track your favorite news, topics or sports teams across many different sites, all in one simple page that you create.”
Updated: 18 April 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
“Do you spend too much time trying to figure out what’s new on your favorite web sites and blogs? NewsGator’s Web Edition tracks it all and brings the web pages to you.”
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Netvibes
“This is your personalized page, you can now modify everything: move modules, add new RSS/ATOM feeds, change the parameters for each module, etc. Your modifications are saved in real-time and you’ll find your page when you get back on Netvibes.com.”
Added: 8 April 2006
Reviewer’s Note:
If you want to be able to access your page from any computer, you can sign in (at the top right) with your email and a password.
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NotateIt
“Desktop whiteboard software to take notes, capture screens, make screen recordings, brainstorm and collect ideas.”
Added: 1 March 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
21-day free trial available
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ndxCards
“ndxCards™ is an electronic index card software for note taking and writing papers. You can take freeform notes that are organized using subjects and keywords. It helps you structure your notes and works with other Windows applications to help you write research papers or make presentations. ”
Added: 2 September 2004
Reviewer’s Note:
“Use ndxCards™ to jot down ideas, reminders, facts, notes and annotate them with keywords to help you find the information later. Drop notes into PowerPoint or Visio to analyze notes visually, drawing links between the cards and inferring relationships. Share note cards to collaborate on projects.”
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Netvouz
“Netvouz is a social bookmark manager where you can store your favorite links online and access them from any computer.”
Added: 15 June 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
Netvouz is FREE and it only takes you 5 minutes to get started.
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Onfolio
“Onfolio is a PC application for collecting, organizing and sharing information you find online. Fully integrated with Microsoft Internet Explorer and Office, Onfolio has tools for capturing a wide range of content including links, text snippets, images, web pages, and documents. Onfolio lets you organize and find captured content quickly and easily. And with Onfolio, you can easily share your research in documents, presentations, emails, and research reports.”
Added: 12 November 2004
Reviewer’s Note:
Try it for free for 30 days
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Oishii
“One of the main purposes of social bookmarking systems is allowing people to see what other people are bookmarking. I frequently find things that people are linking to very interesting, and thought it would be nice to slap together a system that could tell me, automatically, what lots of other people have just bookmarked.”
Added: 11 July 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
“Oishii is kind of a del.icio.us mini-zeitgeist. oishii! polls the del.icio.us front page every 5 minutes, and returns all sites bookmarked by at least 30 people.”
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Ourmedia.org
“We provide free storage and free bandwidth for your videos, audio files, photos, texts or software. Forever. No catches.”
Updated: 23 June 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
Free, quick and easy
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Pageflakes
“Your personalised start page to the Web. Add what you like Blogs, News, Search, Mail, Flickr, Del.ico.us, Address Book, To-Do-List… and much more.”
Added: 25 May 2006
Reviewer’s Note:
Sign up for free
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PaperToolsPro
“PaperToolsPro enables students to write notes as quotations, summaries, and paraphrases with citations; avoid plagiarism; create bibliographies in 5 styles; and organize notes to transfer to an outline or draft. Students focus on reading, writing, and thinking about their research topic. Install on PC or Mac computer, memory stick, or iPod.”
Updated: 20 April 2006
Reviewer’s Note:
Site licenses can be purchased to download a fixed number of copies of PaperToolsPro™ from this website, one to each PC or Mac computer.
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Parsnips
“If you are like most people, you frequently come across useful bits of information throughout the day while using your computer. They may come from a web site, e-mail, chat sessions, usenet news articles, or just files that you have been sent. Parsnips now gives you a place to store all these bits of useful text and the ability to easily retrieve them later.”
Added: 26 February 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
Free evaluation copy for 14 days
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Pluck
“The Personal Web Information Center for people who “live” on the Web. Everything you do and save in Pluck - RSS feeds, blogs, bookmarks, folders - is always available from any PC or browser. ”
Added: 16 February 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
Get Pluck! It’s free.
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Pobb
“Pobb is an online Tool to create your own unique eHome, with links to your favourite places on the Net and lots more.”
Added: 22 January 2006
Reviewer’s Note:
“Take the tour and discover why Pobb makes for such a great Homepage or Favorite.”
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Preople
“Preople is the ultimate ego booster or perhaps the ultimate ego buster. Preople shows you what you are really worth in the digital age. Get your Preople ranking and let the world know were you stand. ”
Added: 3 May 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
It allows you to start a Personal Profile too where you can Blog a little.
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Remember the milk!
“Remember The Milk is the easiest and best way to manage your to-do lists online - features galore - get reminded.”
Added: 17 October 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
Free account
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Rollyo
“Rollyo is the fast, easy way to create personal search engines using only the sources you trust.”
Added: 29 September 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
Roll your own search engine
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SaveThis
Added: 19 August 2002
Reviewer’s Note:
SaveThis allows you to save links to your favourite pages and share them with others.
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Spotback
“Spotback is a new breed of personalized news service. It is designed to quickly learn each user’s fields of interest and style by analyzing how users rate and interact with news information. It then offers users the most interesting, relevant and hard to filter news information personally tailored to their taste”
Added: 2 May 2006
Reviewer’s Note:
“The true challenge of a personalized information service lies in finding the information that will interest individual users the most rather than the information that most users think is interesting. This concept makes Spotback fundamentally different from the existing ‘find the most popular content’ or ‘top stories’ technologies.”
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Spurl
“Spurl.net is a free on-line bookmarking service and search engine. It allows you to store and quickly access again all the interesting pages you find on the web from any Internet connected computer. With Spurl.net you will never have to lose a good link again. You can search your links, notes and in fact the entire text of all the pages you’ve ever “spurled”.”
Added: 3 September 2004
Reviewer’s Note:
Because thousands of other users are using Spurl.net as well, you will discover interesting links through recommendations, hot lists and more.
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StudyStack
“The StudyStack web site, home to over 75,000 free online flashcards, recently added support for exporting flashcards from their website to the PalmOS. StudyStack allows students to enter data and study it using a variety of tools including flashcards, a matching game, a hangman game, and a word search puzzle. And now, with the capability to export the data to your PDA you can study your data anywhere.”
Updated: 25 June 2004
Reviewer’s Note:
“By contributing new studystacks you are making StudyStack.com more useful to everyone.”
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Stumbleupon
“StumbleUpon is a completely new way to surf the web. It lets you channel-surf pages which your friends and peers recommend.”
Added: 11 May 2004
Reviewer’s Note:
For serendipitous learning purposes
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Supertrade
“Organize, share and discuss web links via SuperTrade, the ultimate free knowledge exchange.”
Added: 5 August 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
SuperTrade is about creating Lists of Bookmarks which you can use for yourself or share with others.
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SuprGlu
“Do you already use services like del.icio.us, flickr, blogger, typepad,etc? SuprGlu is a new way to gather all your content from those sites.”
Added: 7 November 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
Free
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TheBrain
“TheBrain sets out to help people organize their computer-based information by using an alternative interface. TheBrain uses a ‘thinking by linking’ philosophy in which visual objects are used to structure and connect ideas stored on the computer and Internet.”
Added: 10 November 2001
Reviewer’s Note:
It enables you to link files, documents, and Web pages across applications and network boundaries
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The Idea Machine
”Use the possibility pool below to expose yourself to fifty questions that might get you thinking about a topic or a starting point for designing a Web-based learning activity. You can use the text field beneath the possibility pool to jot down ideas that create sparks for you (be careful because it’s a javascript, so nothing is saved.”
Added: 2000
Reviewer’s Note:
FREE
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The Literary Machine
“The Literary Machine is a revolutionary relational database and composition tool that manages any kind of information, even the random thoughts and bits of information you get, and forget, throughout the day. LM’s unique system unharnesses you (and your thinking) from the rigid framework of conventional databases”
Added: 3 September 2004
Reviewer’s Note:
“Creativity is not “connecting the dots” with a graphic program that weaves a web among them all over your computer screen. Creativity is seeing which dots are connected. In groundbreaking, ingenious ways, LM helps you do that.”
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Toodledo
“Toodledo is an easy to use, web-based to-do list. Keeping track of all your tasks will help you avoid disorganization, stay motivated and be more productive.”
Added: 12 June 2006
Reviewer’s Note:
Accounts are free
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! TreePad
“! TreePad™ is an award-winning Organizer, PIM / Database, Personal Information Manager and Word Processor. Portability and compactness are smoothly blended into TreePad™ with its other distinctive features: versatility and power, as well as simplicity and intuitiveness of use.”
Added: 19 September 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
The file you download is fully functional and operational, the only restriction for non-registered users is the 21-day trial period.
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Turnitin
“Recognized worldwide as the standard in online plagiarism prevention, Turnitin helps educators and students take full advantage of the Internet’s educational potential. Used by thousands of institutions in over fifty countries, Turnitin’s products promote originality in student work, improve student writing and research skills, encourage collaborative learning, and save valuable instructor time.”
Added: 3 July 2004
Reviewer’s Note:
Turnitin is a WebCT partner, and has joined the Blackboard Developer Network and will release its plagiarism prevention module this summer as a Blackboard Building Block.
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Watch That Page
“WatchThatPage is a service that enables you to automatically collect new information from your favorite pages on the Internet. You select which pages to monitor, and WatchThatPage will find which pages have changed, and collect all the new content for you. The new information is presented to you in an email and/or a personal web page. You can specify when the changes will be collected, so they are fresh when you want to read them. The service is free.”
Added: 24 January 2003
Reviewer’s Note:
Web page monitoring service
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Webaroo
“You always need web search but you are not always connected. Now you can search the Web when you are not connected.”
Added: 17 April 2006
Reviewer’s Note:
Free download
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WebCV
“We provide a service which allows you display your CV in an attractive manner on the internet. We will create your own WebCV which will contain your work experience, your key skills, an optional portfolio and any other information that you want to display*.This will presented in one of our stylish templates.”
Added: 24 March 2004
Reviewer’s Note:
CV hosting also available
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Webnote
“Webnote is a tool for taking notes on your computer. It allows you to quickly write something down during a meeting, class, or any other time that you have a web browser available.”
Added: 8 October 2004
Reviewer’s Note:
Also creates an RSS feed of your notes. Clever!
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WinBackup
“WinBackup makes it easier than ever before to secure your data by making regular backups. Not only will WinBackup help you organize your backups and schedule automatic backups, it will also protect your data using the latest encryption techniques, compress data to save space, create detailed logs of all backup operations and more. WinBackup also features one of the most intuitive user interfaces you have ever seen, making even the most advanced features easily accessible to beginners and professionals alike.”
Added: 17 August 2003
Reviewer’s Note:
Since WinBackup is extremely easy to use it has become very popular in schools and academic institutions. CNET says that ” WinBackup is a first-rate backup program for students ” in their latest review. 30% academic discount for academic institutions and students
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wists
“wists builds lists of things on the web, with automatic creation of thumbnail image links.”
Added: 8 July 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
Use it for visual bookmarks, wishlists, recommendations …
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Writely
“The web word processor. Nothing to download - your browser is all you need. To share a document, just enter someone’s e-mail address. Publish pages and documents on the web with a click.”
Added: 2 September 2005
Reviewer’s Note:
Writely is free
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