Email yourself Content from Web Pages Using CC: to me

cc:to me is a cool web application. It allows its users to send notes, pictures and videos from any website right into their email inbox. This is a really handy tool for educators for they can now share content of web pages or just part of it with their students or colleagues instantly and all for free. I have tried cc: to me and found it great and therefore I am recommending it to you.

How can I get started using cc:to me ?

It is very easy to use and does not require any advanced technological skills.All you need to do is head over to cc:to me and sign up for a free account. The service is still free till this moment and pro accounts will soon be available too. There is a bookmarklet that you can drag and drop into your browser. Whenever you stumble upon a good article and you want to share part of it be it a video, text, image or all of them just drag and drop the part you want and that's it. Yes it is that easy , watch this video to learn more.

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Nine Free Video Editing Tools You Need to Know

I have been receiving several emails from teachers and educators who are faithful readers of my articles in Educational Technology and Mobile Learning.They all ask me to provide them with video tools that would enable them to edit and customize video clips to be included in their lessons. There are many out there but it would take some time to go around looking especially with the growing spam content  many websites offer to its surfers.

I have already covered some video tools in my previous articles and all these tools can be found under the label Free Video Tools. If you look to the right side you see a widget called Categories, scroll down and you will find this label. Anyway today I decided to assemble the maximum possible of these tools in one article. So I will not be covering the tools I already talked about in the past articles but will particularly include new video tools. Using these tools you would be able to edit your videos the way you want. You can for example cut off certain scenes, add background music, integrate animations and many more. Well not all the these tools offer the same features but the basic functionalities like uploading , editing, and sharing are present in all of them. All the tools covered here are free.

Here is the list:

1- Magisto

Magisto is a cloud based video editing tool that allows its users to :

• Edit videos without the need for any advanced editing skills
• Tag people in videos
• Share videos in different social networking websites
• It is free and easy to use

2- WeVideo

WeVideo is another video editing tool that enables its users to :

• Edit videos online
• Share edited videos with friends in social networks
• It offers 1 GB storage space

3-  CellSea

CellSea is a free video editor and converter that does a number of things:

• It lets you add videos from your computer or from anywhere online
• It allows you to download  edited videos in 3GP, AVI, MOV, MP4, and FLV
• It is free and easy to use
• It has a very user friendly interface
• It requires a registration

4- Stroome

Stroome is an online  collaborative video editing tool. It offers several features :

• It lets you connect to a community of online video editors
• You can search and find clips created by the community members and use it in your own projects.
• Real time video editing either alone or with friends
• You can tag clips for archiving

5-  Kaltura

Kaltura is a " Wikipedia of video, audio and animation". It offers its users :

• The ability to create easy to use platforms for video projects
• Users can create their own personalized video pages and invite others to add or edit it
• Users can embed their collaborative projects anywhere online.

6- VideoToolBox

VideoToolBox is a video editing program. It allows its users to :

• Upload videos and edit them the way they want
• You  can mix videos, add or  change audio tracks
• You can also add watermarks, paints and text notes etc
• You can convert,  cut , crop, demux, and merge several video files into
• It is free and easy to use.

7- PhotoBucket

PhotoBucket is a very famous video platform. It allows its users to :

• Upload videos from the web or from their computers
• It offers several editing options such as adding text, titles, music to the background
• It also lets you cut and crop videos and add transitions effects
• It allows you to embed and share videos on video sharing sites and social networks

8- Overstream

Overstream is a great video editing tool. It allows users to :

• Add subtitles and comments in any language  to videos
• Easily create and synchronize subtitles to any video
• Store the edited videos on Overstream server and send the link to your friends to see it
• It supports most of the video providers

9- Lightworks

Lightworks project offers a lightweight, free and open source video editing software that offers the same features other pro softwares offer such as CutPro. Adobe Premiere, Avid Video Premiere.











As I said before There are many other important video tools that I have covered previously in this blog. I invite you to check the category labelled Free Video Tools to learn more about other tools.

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Eclipse Crossword Easily Create Crossword Puzzles

Eclipse Crossword is a web tool that enables its users to create engaging puzzles instantly and with no charge at all.This is an important tool for teachers teaching languages. They can use it to review vocabulary and drill some items covered during the lesson. Other teachers can also find creative ways to use Eclipse Crossword in their classrooms. It is a proved fact that students love challenging games and would definitely enjoy working on assignments in the form of puzzles. Their logical, critical thinking will be largely enhanced and their spelling errors will also be minimized.

Some features of Eclipse Crossword

Here are some of the important features that Eclipse Crossword offers to its users:

It is free
It is easy to use
It has a student friendly interface
It requires a download but this takes only a couple of minutes
Crosswords can be printed or uploaded into other websites or blogs.

Head over to Eclipse Crossword main page and give it a try.

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Online Safety Tips and Tools to Protect Kids and Inform Parents about Internet dangers

Internet safety, privacy issues, cyberbullying are but some of the major concerns of today's parents. It is true that the web revolution has positively affected many facets of our life, yet its downsides are equally devastating. We are in front of a double edged weapon that requires meticulous attention when using it.
It is impossible to imagine a house without internet connection. The web has crawled into our social texture to the point that we become dependant on its use in our daily life. Besides sending and reading emails, chat and socialising which are basic tasks users would constantly  perform, some people are using it now for e-commerce to buy and shop online, to read ebooks, to run businesses but regardless of the reasons why we have internet at home we should always pay heed to who shares with us this connection especially when it comes to kids.

Kids when unmonitored can have free access to the net and surf in dangerous places , meet strange people and even learn new bad things we never thought they would. And because of their immaturity, innocence and predisposition to easily trust others, . children are the most vulnerable category to cyber bullying and in many cases abuse. Do parents know about these alarming facts ? Of course the majority ,if not all of them know, but the thing is that  they feel helpless and lack the necessary education on the preventive measures they need in order to seamlessly monitor what their kids do online. This ignorance, shortage of insight or call it whatever you want is no longer excused. Parents need to seriuosly address this issue and to help them do so, I have laboriously worked on several resources to compile a list of some of the tools that parents need to be equipped with to face this looming danger that threatens our kids safety.You do not need to be a technology geek or have advanced computer skills to be able to use these web applications. They are mundanely easy and can be used by anyone with the basic internet skills which all of you possess since you are here reading this post.


1-Creepsquash

Creepsquash is a  web based monitoring tool that allows you to seamlessly monitor your kids Facebook activity without invading their privacy. Here is a short video to show you how to do it




2-  MinorMonitor

MinorMonitor is another web application that helps in  monitoring kids activity on Facebook. It can :
Provide you with your kids' details such as status updates, friend lists , photos, and checked in places
Automatically analyzes and identifies possible bullying, drug use, sexual references, solicitation, profanity and more.
Watch this video to learn more





Yahoo Safely

Yahoo Safely is the official Yahoo security tips website. It provides Internet safety tips for both parents and teenagers. It contains sections designed specifically for parents and kids to teach them how to use the internet carefully and responsibly.


Family Safety Centre

Family Safety Centre is a portal made by Google where it aggregates a huge number of Internet security tips, videos and articles. Besides the tools offered by Google services, users can also watch videos made by other parents on how kids can use the internet safely. Family Safety Centre also provides ways for parents on how to report abuse or inappropriate content on its services.






NetSmartz

NetSmartz is a great website that educates its users on Internet Safety for kids. It addresses parents, teachers, teens, educatos, law enforcement . This is what it says about parents :

Wired Safely

Wired Safely is another fantastic website that teaches about online  kids safety. It covers topics such as: cyberbulling, cyberstalking,cyber crimes, online harassement , identity theft, email safety, malware and adware, phishing, downloading music safely and online gaming safety.





SafeKids

SafeKids is much more of a blog than a website. It covers internet safety for kids and has several  articles all of which tackle the issue of kids surfing the net safely.








Cybersmart

Cybersmart provides activities, resources and practical advice to help teens, kids and parents safely use the internet. It also offers training and resources for schools and materials for library staff.







Solos

Solos is another website that offfers education on internet safety for kids and parents.

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A List of Some of The Best Books of The Year 2011

Goodreads has finally published the list of the Winners of Goodreads Choice Awards. The selection covers different categories from fiction to paranormal fantasy. I have included here a snapshot of these categories together with the favourite book selected for each one.
Goodreads, in case you are not familiar with this website, is one of the largest site for readers and book recommendations in the world. It has a library of more than 220.000.000 books and over  6.600.000 members. Its mission is to help people improve the process of their reading  and learning . According to Goodreads :

"Most book recommendation websites work by listing random people’s reviews. On Goodreads, when a person adds a book to the site, all their friends can see what they thought of it. It’s common sense. People are more likely to get excited about a book their friend recommends than a suggestion from a stranger. We even created an amazing algorithm that looks at your books and ratings, and helps you find other books based on what fellow Goodreads members with similar tastes enjoyed. Ultimately, it’s all based on our foundation of true-blue readers. Our members also create trivia about books, lists of the best books, post their own writing and form groups and book clubs."

Here is the list of Winners of 2011 Goodreads Choice Awards

Head over to Goodreads Choice Awards page to explore more.

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6 Free Tools to Convert Youtube Videos to MP3

Now that mobile devices are ubiquitous, some people still find it hard to download their favourite music or audio files. This is due to the fact that  most of the portable devices do not support some of the video formats available online now. As a solution , here is a list of some of the best free tools you can use to convert Youtube videos into MP3. You might ask me why Youtube and not other video platforms. The answer is quite obvious, Youtube is number 1 video resource for internet users according to the latest statistics in this field. I also opted for Youtube because most of educators use it as a resource and it would be great if they can now convert some of its content to MP3 to embed in their mobile devices for sharing with their colleagues or students.

Image Credit :qweas.com

This list is not conclusive and I might have unkowingly skipped some tools. But the ones mentioned below are among the best ones online and are completely free.

1- Xenra

2-Video2mp3

3- Free Youtube to Mp3 Converter

4- X2X Free Youtube to MP3 Converter

5-Mobile Media Converter

This is a tool I have covered in a single post entitled Mobile Mdia Converter : Easily Convert Youtube Videos to Mp3.

6- Listen to Youtube

This is also a web tool that I have written about in an earlier article entitled ListentoYoube: Convert Videos into Audio Formats.

If you any suggestions or additions feel free to add them below.

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InserText Inser Preselected Text with just One Click

Today I am going to talk about a very important tool  called InsertText. This is a Chrome extension that allows users to save blocks of texts to paste them wherever they want. I found this extension very useful for I used to retype the same information almost  everyday when I am accessing certain websites. For instance you would always type your email address each time you want to register in an website or the like. You would also look for your email signature to annex it to a certain posting, these actions can now be done easily and with just one click. All you need to do if you are working on Chrome browser ,which I would advise you to use because of the several advantages it has over other browsers, is to install InsertText add-on and whenever you want to insert a chunk of saved text simply right click where you want to insert it, open the InsertText menu and  select the text to insert. Yes it is that easy.

Some features of InsertText

Here is a list of some of the best features that InsertText offers to its users:

• It is free
• It is easy to use
• It lets you create several blocks of text and save them for later use
• It allows you to paste the saved text with one click
• You can use either plain text or rich text format
• It lets you create multiple folders to organize different types of text

To installt InsertText you need to head over to Chrome Extension Store and click on download button.

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