Latest Technologies A-Z
This A-Z features web 2.0 websites currently popular with teachers and/or students. Brief descriptions and safety information are provided. Some of these sites are typically blocked in school settings for educational and safety reasons. Sites are blocked by the Internet Service Provider used by the school. Occasionally sites are blocked at a 'Department' level but this is rare.
Schools always have the choice to allow/block individual sites at their own school location. This should always be an informed decision with teachers and students aware of their responsibilities. Discussions regarding use of such sites may still be beneficial to encourage empowered student use.
This page highlights some of the issues with these sites and presents some of the safety and privacy information included on each site. Ultimately, schools and parents should decide on the appropriateness of an individual site. Connect maintains a 'white list' of sites considered safer for students. Search to check if the site is included. All use of the internet should be supervised.
We have used a series of symbols to highlight the issues to be considered when using each site. The severity of these issues ranges widely with these sites (remote chance to high possibility).
Issues guide
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Copyright |  |
Digital Footprint
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Privacy |  |
Cyberbullying |  |
Strangers Online |
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Inappropriate Content |  |
Digital Literacy (is it true, reliable?) |
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| Animoto | |
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A free site which allows you to upload photos. A short movie using your images and music is then automatically generated. Age 13+. Free accounts are limited to 30 second movies. An upgraded account allows users to create longer videos incorporating more photos. You can then put your Animoto into a blog, your Facebook or website. Animoto has a comprehensive privacy statement.
| Audacity | |
'Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. You can also use audacity to:
- record live audio.
- convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs
- edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files.
- cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together.
- change the speed or pitch of a recording.'
Audacity is considered a safe tool for educational recording. Copyright issues can occur if users use existing music samples without appropriate permissions.
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| Bubbl.us | |
Online mind mapping tool. Mind maps can be embedded or stored in a blog or website. Users need to sign up to save mind maps to the site.
| Build Your Wild Self | |
Create your own character – a mix of human and animal. Option to send to a friend or print. Students could print and then write a description for their character. Users only need to provide their email address if they email their creation to a friend so privacy issues are very low.
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| Create a Scape | |
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'The Create-A-Scape website is provided by Futurelab, with the support of the DfES and HP Labs, to enable teachers and students to create mediascapes as easily as possible and to find all the resources they need to make them in one place.
The site includes everything you need to create your mediascapes, including all of the software, step-by-step guides
and inspiration to get you started in using them in school.'
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| Delicious | |
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An online bookmarking tool which can be accessed on any computer with internet access. Organise your sites using ‘tags’. Create a network with other Delicious users and share your favourite sites.
Delicious can be searched for sites tagged by other users. Some of this content is inappropriate for students. In these instances users will see the site name and sometimes a thumbnail image - the inappropriate sites themselves will usually be blocked in schools.
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| Edublogs | |
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Edublogs is "the largest education community on the internet" where you can sign up for a free Word Press-powered blog.
Edublogs has recently added advertising to key words on blogs. DEECD supports the use of Global Teacher or Global Student for a safe, ad-free blog environment with the same functionality as Edublogs.
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Facebook is a social networking site. Users create their own site with a profile of themselves and photos. They can invite friends to be part of their network and can choose from varying levels of privacy. Advertisers use some of the information on sites for targeted advertising. It is difficult, if not impossible, to delete an account once opened.
There are some privacy issues with Facebook. Users are offered the chance to 'Connect to your friends' and then asked for their email account AND password (to collect details of email contacts) in order to make the connections.
Whilst you can say no to this option, it is something that students should be aware of (and teachers especially if they are using their edumail account - access to payslip etc). Facebook is blocked in the majority of schools.
| Flickr | |
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'Flickr is a place where you can store your photos, tag them and share them with others either through a link to the site or by embedding them in your blog or web page.'
The Flickr site is searchable and does include content unsuitable for students. For this reason Flickr is often blocked in schools.
To contribute to this list A-Z, please email connect@edumail.vic.gov.au If you see issues we have not identified here please let us know and be aware that sites do change and develop.