Free Web-Based Software Reviews

Office Suites
I've been using Google Drive for quite some time.  In fact, back in my day, it was still called Google Docs.  When I hired into St. Joseph Public Schools in 20012, one of the first things I did was set up a Google Drive for my fellow elementary art teacher and I to share our ideas and catalogue our lesson plans.  Google Drive, in a nutshell, has free equivalents of the main Microsoft Office applications - Word, Powerpoint, Excel - but with two huge added perks: accessibility and collaboration.  I can access my Drive from any location.  Most times, when working on homework or another project, I prefer to create a Google Document so that I can be sure to have it no matter the device on which I'm working.  Where Google Drive differs from Microsoft Office is that everything auto saves and I can access it without having to email it to myself or bring it up on the same computer.  Google Drive also gives me the choice on how to share the things I create.  I can share them with others as "view only" or I can give others the chance to edit what I share.  What's really cool is that when someone else is editing a document or presentation, I can see the edit in real time.  A recent addition to Google Drive is the ability to download the app to a device.  This allows me to drag and drop items that I would to appear on my Drive from my computer, and again, access them from any device.

Image Editing
Last year, I took a professional development class specifically to raise awareness of free iPad apps for art educators.  One of the apps introduced was Sumo Paint.  Sumo Paint was described as an app that was somewhere between Paint and Photoshop.  I hadn't given much time to the app until it was mentioned again this week.  I revisited Sumo Paint in order to make my screencast and found it incredibly user-friendly and intuitively designed.  A lot of the icons in Sumo Paint correspond to those in Photoshop, but I think the layout and options are quite a bit simpler.  I'm not an advanced user of Photoshop, so I'm not sure how Sumo Paint would compare for advanced techniques, but a lot of the basics of photo editing seem to be there.  One of the downsides to using Sumo Paint is that it doesn't link directly to other Adobe products.  For example, when I'm using Photoshop, I often bounce around and drag things to and from Illustrator and InDesign as well.  While I'm missing that level of correspondence with Sumo Paint, for a free app that has many capabilities, I really can't complain.

Screencast

I created this screencast as an aid to students and myself in my classroom.  I think this screencast would serve multiple purposes.  First, if a student were absent during the introduction of a 1-point perspective lesson, this screencast would help her establish the basics and get back up to speed.  Second, this tool could serve as a good refresher for students who don't remember the steps of a 1-point perspective drawing the first time around.  Finally, this screencast would save me time in repeating directions to students and would allow me to focus my energy elsewhere.  If I embedded this video on a class website, I could simply direct students to it and have them work independently.

Google Mapping Activity

My idea for this activity was to have students use the custom mapping tool to plan a day trip in Paris.  I would provide students with specific guidelines for what they had to include in their day trip and they would then have to find places and a mode of transportation to and from these places.  The guidelines for students might look something like this:

-Start the day in hotel or hostel.
-Find breakfast.
-Find a nearby park to eat breakfast.
-Find an afternoon excursion.
-Find a place to eat lunch.
-Find an activity to do after lunch.
-Find a place to eat dinner.
-Find a site that has a wonderful nighttime view.
-End the day in the same hotel or hostel.

In addition to students finding the aforementioned places, they would also have to show the method of travel they would take be it walking, bus, or metro.  What I would really like to do with this assignment would be to add actual walking, bus, or metro directions showing accurate paths and distances.  For some reason, I had a really hard time getting this feature to work.  It seems as if there are two different versions of this tool, Classic Google Maps and some updated version.  The updated version (which I was working with) didn't seem very well supported.  All the support tools reverted to Classic Google Maps.  Nonetheless, I was still able to add descriptions that detailed how I would get about, which would still prove a valid learning experience.

What's great about this lesson is that it could be extended in multiple ways.  First, students could write descriptions in French to practice grammar and composition.  Second, students could detail the prices of meals and excursions in order to understand prices and budgeting abroad.  Or, students could provide historical information about a particular place to gain a new historical perspective.  Overall, fun tool with lots of possibilities.  I only wish the help and tutorials provides extended to every version.

*Please note I only created the first half of this activity to provide an example of what students would be expected to create.

Concept Mapping Activity

Here's an example of a concept map I did using the French verb être (to be).  This example could be one that I would create for students as a study tool to learn the different parts of speech of a verb, but more than likely, I would use this tool to have students create these maps for themselves.  I found a lot of reward in having to think about the different parts of speech and map it out.  A variation of this concept could be for the instructor to pick a different part of speech, i.e. present tense, and have students create the present tense for multiple verbs.  I also see the potential of this tool to be used to check for student understanding.  The only downside to this is that because bubbl.us functions on the web, students would have the ability to look up verbs.  However, I could always create a blank concept map and have students fill in the blanks.  Overall, very intuitive, user-friendly tool that holds a lot of potential.