Tuesday 26 March 2019

New Virtual Classroom "Next-Generation" Version Released



BrainCert - https://www.braincert.com/ - is a Web-Based HTML5 Virtual Classroom/Training Platform, to Create and Sell Online Courses, Tests, and Live Classes.
All the tools & expertise you need to learn, teach, and collaborate online - all in one place.

"This new build introduces some amazing features and improves overall stability of the application."


Potential users can get started for free, providing them with...
  1. Unlimited Courses,
  2. Tests and Live Classes; Public only
  3. Unlimited Students and
  4. 1GB Cloud Disk Storage

There are other options, available to preview at https://www.braincert.com/membership/premium

Find out more by watching the Vimeo Video at https://vimeo.com/77840139

The four products available and integrated on one platform are...
  • Virtual Classroom
  • On-Line Courses Platform
  • On-Line Testing Platform and
  • Unified Content Management.

If you give BrainCert a try or have already used BrainCert, do share your feedback, positive and/or negative, in the comments.

Thank you

P.S. To make it easier for you to locate posts that are appropriate, take a look at my two Live Binders at...
1.     https://www.livebinders.com/b/2510432 (for 2018 posts) and
2.     https://www.livebinders.com/b/2510566 (for this years posts
P.S.S. Disclaimer: I don't have any relationship (financial or in exchange for services) with any of the items that I post.
"I post about items that I either like using myself or have found them to be very helpful and/or I feel that educators and/or Learners will find they can enhance their current practice by trying them out."

Friday 22 March 2019

FOSS Tools - Pencil2D Animation


Today I’ll introduce you to Pencil 2D Animation - https://www.pencil2d.org/ - An easy, intuitive tool to make 2D hand-drawn animations.
 - Take a look at the “Complete Tutorial Video at https://www.youtube.com/embed/nCX55XLx1F0 - which is a free simple and easy to use 2D animation software, aimed at beginners, from the “Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Movement”.

Pencil 2D Animation has a very small learning curve, so it is ideal for any beginner. Where the user only focuses on the design part, rather than worrying about implementation.

Pencil 2D Animation’s interface is broken down into 5 main areas. ..
  1. Menu contains the usual options
  2. Canvas is the part that is going to be focused by the camera. And entire area surrounding the canvas is the stage.
  3. Tools & Properties is where we select the tools and set its properties, like when we select brush, we get to set its property of brush size to be higher or lower using the property section.
  4. Colour Selector in this section, there is the colour wheel, along with manual colour setting option and a colour palette. Which will aid in selecting and blending colours.
  5. Animation section is where we bring instruct when the object in the canvas area be articulating. Remember Pencil 2D is used for only simple Timeline or Key-Frame Animation.
For a short and simple tutorial where only the basics are covered visit https://www.youtube.com/embed/nCX55XLx1F0 and/or for Pencil2D User Showcase watch https://www.youtube.com/embed/aa9PCu_UZpg

If you give Pencil 2D Animation a try or have already used Pencil 2D Animation, do share your feedback, positive and/or negative, in the comments.
Thank you
P.S. To make it easier for you to locate posts that are appropriate, take a look at my two Live Binders at...
1.     https://www.livebinders.com/b/2510432 (for 2018 posts) and
2.     https://www.livebinders.com/b/2510566 (for 2019 posts)
P.S.S. Disclaimer: I don't have any relationship (financial or in exchange for services) with any of the items that I post.
"I post about items that I either like using myself or have found them to be very helpful and/or I feel that educators and/or Learners will find they can enhance their current practice by trying them out."

Wednesday 20 March 2019

Digital Storytelling App for Learners




Adobe Slate - https://spark.adobe.com/about/page - is an excellent free iPad app learners to use in digital storytelling.

Adobe Slate/Adobe Spark Page, allows users to animate and bring to life any type of document and turn it into a beautiful visual story.

Adobe Slate offers a wide range of interesting features that make it easy for learners to design appealing stories without the need for any design knowledge.

Some of the things 
Adobe Slate offers include:
·        professionally designed lay-outs,
·        beautiful magazine-like themes,
·        multiple fonts and colours,
·        call-to-action buttons
..and much more.

Adobe Slate is very simple and easy to use, simply…

- pick a lay-out,
- add photos and images,
- talk or type to add text to them and when completed, users can…1: share their work with others through social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook or via email or text message.
     2: embed their Slate stories in their blog or website using the generated embed code

Watch the video at https://www.youtube.com/embed/cmOhIDwIlt4 to learn more about Adobe Slate.

The Adobe Slate apps for iPad & iPhone are available at https://itunes.apple.com/app/adobe-slate/id968433730 

If you give Adobe Slate a try or have already used Adobe Slate, do share your feedback, positive and/or negative, in the comments.
Thank you
P.S. To make it easier for you to locate posts that are appropriate, take a look at my two Live Binders at...
1.     https://www.livebinders.com/b/2510432 (for 2018 posts) and
2.     https://www.livebinders.com/b/2510566 (for this years posts
P.S.S. Disclaimer: I don't have any relationship (financial or in exchange for services) with any of the items that I post.
"I post about items that I either like using myself and have found them to be very helpful and/or I feel that educators and/or Learners will find they can enhance their current practice by trying them out."

Monday 11 March 2019

Mind Mapping Tool




Coggle...
  • integrates seamlessly with Google Drive and allows users to organise and share their files with their Google contacts. 
  • provides a wide variety of features that make it easy for educators and/or learners to create beautiful mind maps and share them with others.
"Interesting among these features is the collaborative functionality which enable users to invite colleagues and work on the same diagram in the same time."

Coggle... 

  • supports picture integration allowing users to add as many pictures as want want to their mind maps.
  • is also able to track the editing history and through ‘history mode’ users can access and change the recent edits they’ve made.
  • allows users to ‘look through the history of their diagram to see who changed what, and when! Just enter the diagram history mode to find out.’

Watch https://www.youtube.com/embed/iL40u0uNYa8 to learn more about Coggle and/or  https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y5bApW0aUo0 for Keyboard shortcuts.

If you give Coggle a try or have already used Coggle , do share your feedback, positive and/or negative, in the comments.
Thank you
P.S. To make it easier for you to locate posts that are appropriate, take a look at my two Live Binders at...
  1. https://www.livebinders.com/b/2510432 (for 2018 posts) and
  2. https://www.livebinders.com/b/2510566 (for this years posts

P.S.S. Disclaimer: I don't have any relationship (financial or in exchange for services) with any of the items that I post.
"I post about items that I either like using myself or have found them to be very helpful and/or I feel that educators and/or Learners will find they can enhance their current practice by trying them out."

Thursday 7 March 2019

Comic Book Creator App for Learners




Halftone 2 - https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/halftone-2-comic-book-creator/id603139024?mt=8 - is a very good comic book creator app that educators can use with learners to create comic and scrap books using photos and sound effects.

The process of creating a comic book using Halftone 2 is straight forward:

  •         Choose a page layout from the selection provided there, then
  •         import your photos from your photo library, Facebook or Flickr.
  •         Customise the look of your images using Aviary’s photo editing tools that include things such as automatic enhancements, filter effects, brightness, contrast, saturation, sharpness, redeye, whiten, blemish, and selective focus.
  •         add captions and speech bubbles to photos or choose from over 80 professionally-designed graphical shapes.
  •         mix in some sound effects then share your creation as an image, multi-page document, or high-definition video.

  • Other features provided by Halftone 2 include:

  • Over 30 unique caption and balloon styles (speech bubbles, thought balloons, banners, scrolls, and more)
  • A powerful 3D perspective feature lets you tilt your captions and balloons
  • A custom stamp feature allows you to add your own images (with support for alpha channels)
  • Choose from over 30 multi-photo page layouts
  • 50 licensed sound effects are included that can be assigned to each photo panel
  • An optional soundtrack can be added by choosing a song from your music library
  • A document library lets you create, save, copy, and work with multiple projects
  • Output formats include image (JPG), PDF, CBZ, and video (MP4)


Take a look at https://www.youtube.com/embed/JCywooJjfWo to learn more about how to to use Halftone2

If you give Halftone 2  a try or have already used Halftone 2, do share your feedback, positive and/or negative, in the comments.

Thank you.

P.S. To make it easier for you to locate posts that are appropriate, take a look at my two Live Binders at...
  1. https://www.livebinders.com/b/2510432 (for 2018 posts) and
  2. https://www.livebinders.com/b/2510566 (for this years posts)


P.S.S. Disclaimer: I don't have any relationship (financial or in exchange for services) with any of the items that I post.

"I post about items that I either like using myself and have found them to be very helpful and/or I feel that educators and/or Learners will find they can enhance their current practice by trying them out."

Tuesday 5 March 2019

Documents & PDFs



DocHub - https://dochub.com/ - is anther excellent Google Drive tool for...
  • filling,
  • editing, and
  • signing PDFs.


DocHub...
  • is way easier and simpler to handle than similar tools.
  • can be used it for a variety of purposes including:
  • signing PDFs,
  • highlighting text,
  • inserting images,
  • commenting and
  • adding pages to PDFs

...and much more.
"Users can easily sign and save any document. They can even import signature from phone and send documents to others to sign."
 DocHub is compatible with...
  1. all PDFs,
  2. Open Office and Microsoft Office Documents:  (PDF, DOC, PPT, XLS, TXT, DOCX, PPTX)

...and many more

Sharing Options:

DocHub allows users to email their documents or share them via social networking websites.
They can choose whether they want their docs to be public or private.
DocHub also supports collaboration and lets users collaborate with others on a document.

If you give DocHub a try or have already used DocHub, do share your feedback, positive and/or negative, in the comments.

Thank you.

P.S. To make it easier for you to locate posts that are appropriate, take a look at my two Live Binders at...

P.S.S. Disclaimer: I don't have any relationship (financial or in exchange for services) with any of the items that I post.

"I post about items that I either like using myself and have found them to be very helpful and/or I feel that educators and/or Learners will find they can enhance their current practice by trying them out."

Sunday 3 March 2019

Graphing Calculator



Desmos - https://www.desmos.com/ - is a good platform for maths educators and learners. 

Desmos is a graphing calculator that allows users to...

  • easily plot functions,
  • create tables,
  • add sliders,
  • animate graphs 

...and many more. 

Some of the features Desmos provides to users include...

  1. Graphing: Plot polar, cartesian, or parametric graphs. There’s no limit to how many expressions users can graph at one time
  2. Sliders: Adjust values interactively to build intuition, or animate any parameter to visualize its effect on the graph
  3. Tables: Input and plot data, or create an input-output table for any function
  4. Statistics: Find best-fit lines, parabolas, and more.
  5. Zooming: Scale the axes independently or at the same time with the pinch of two fingers, or edit the window size manually to get the perfect window.
  6. Points of Interest: Touch a curve to show maximums, minimums, and points of intersection. Tap the gray points of interest to see their coordinates. Hold and drag along a curve to see the coordinates change under your finger.
  7. Scientific Calculator: Just type in any equation you want to solve and Desmos will show you the answer. Desmos can handle square roots, logs, absolute value, and more.
  8. Inequalities: Plot cartesian and polar inequalities"

"To learn more about Desmos, take a look at https://www.youtube.com/embed/bC8xA1vAqyc "

Desmos is available on...

  1. Apple Store - https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/desmos-graphing-calculator/id653517540
  2. Google Play - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.desmos.calculator -  and on the 
  3. Web - https://www.desmos.com/ 


If you give Desmos a try or have already used Desmos, do share your feedback, positive and/or negative, in the comments.

Thank you.

P.S. To make it easier for you to locate posts that are appropriate, take a look at my two Live Binders at...

  1. https://www.livebinders.com/b/2510432 (for 2018 posts) and
  2. https://www.livebinders.com/b/2510566 (for this years posts)


P.S.S. Disclaimer: I don't have any relationship (financial or in exchange for services) with any of the items that I post. 

"I post about items that I either like using myself and have found them to be very helpful and/or I feel that educators and/or Learners will find they can enhance their current practice by trying them out."

Friday 1 March 2019

Document Scanning & Sharing App


CamScanner - https://www.camscanner.com/ - is an excellent document scanning and sharing app. 

CamScanner allows Educators and/or Learners to instantly scan any type of text or graphic and save or share them with others. 

Using their phone or tablet camera, they can take a photo and CamScanner will automatically enhance the scanned results so users can easily...

  • email,
  • print,
  • fax  or
  • share them in PDF or PNG format.
"Using the integrated OCR feature, CamScanner allows users to scan an image or PDF making all the text captured editable and searchable." 

Users can use text and OCR to quickly find the document that they want. 

They can also invite colleagues, learners, peers and more to view or provide feedback and comments on their scanned docs within a group.

Other features provided by CamScanner include...

  • Smart cropping and auto enhancing make the texts and graphics look clear and sharp.
  • that by entering any keyword, users will see a list of docs with the word in their titles, notes or images.
  • Extracting texts inside single pages for further editing or .txt sharing.
  • sharing docs in PDF or JPEG format with others via social media, email attachment or sending the doc link.
  • instantly printing out docs in CamScanner with nearby printer and/or directly faxing docs to over 30 countries right from the app.
  • making annotations or adding customised watermark on docs are made available for users.
  • setting passcodes for viewing important docs; meanwhile, when sending doc link, users can set a password to protect it.


NOTE: CamScanner is available for both...
1: Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.intsig.camscanner - and
2: iOS devices - https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/camscanner-free-pdf-document/id388627783?mt=8 

CamScanner provides a free basic account with very limited features. 
Premium accounts ($4,99/month, $49,99/year) has more advanced features. 

Watch the "CamScanner - Intelligent Document Management" video to learn more about CamScanner https://www.youtube.com/embed/0E9X_x4AJHc

If you give CamScanner a try or have already used CamScanner, do share your feedback, positive and/or negative, in the comments.

Thank you.

P.S. To make it easier for you to locate posts that are appropriate, take a look at my two Live Binders at...
https://www.livebinders.com/b/2510432 (for 2018 posts) and
https://www.livebinders.com/b/2510566 (for this years posts)

P.S.S. Disclaimer: I don't have any relationship (financial or in exchange for services) with any of the items that I post. 

"I post about items that I either like using myself and have found them to be very helpful and/or I feel that educators and/or Learners will find they can enhance their current practice by trying them out."