Free Tools for E-learning

A few weeks ago I presented a session at the Elearning Guild Annual Gathering called “BYOW – Build Your Own Webinar”. In the session, I demonstrated a variety of free tools that users could copy/paste into their own webinar client. The tools came together to create an interface that includes chat, whiteboard, file sharing, remote-controlled slide deck, polls, video, breakout groups, VOIP, notes, and more.

Take a look at a sample of the final product at http://www.thedayjobs.com/byow (note: the slide deck is remote controlled, so unless I’m logged in as an instructor you will see a message that says, “The presentation has not yet started”)

I’m posting this here because I’d like to share some of the tools I used in my presentation. These tools could be used in a variety of ways:

• Slide Deck – http://www.zohoshow.com
• Chat – http://www.gabbly.com
• Polls – http://www.zohopolls.com
• Audio – http://www.skype.com and http://www.highspeedconferencing.com
• Video – http://www.youtube.com
• Whiteboard – http://www.skrbl.com
• FIle sharing – http://www.box.net
• Wiki – http://www.pbwiki.com
• Note tool – http://www.google.com/ig/directory?synd=open (search for notes)

If you’d like to see how I combined all of these tools into one, take a look at my handout.

One tool that was not available at the time of my presentation (or at least I hadn’t heard of it yet) was ustream.tv. From Techcrunch:

The basic Ustream service is free, and anyone with a computer, an Internet connection and a web cam can set up their own channel and broadcast live. Viewers can watch on the site, or embed the live video onto any other website.Coulda used Ustream to provide live video of the instructor in my self-made webinar client… oh well.

The point is this… there’s tons of free tools out there. Go play with ‘em! Some of ‘em might be of use to you during your next project.

Re-posted from my abandoned Eduspaces blog