Handy Internet Tools for Educators and Students: OneNote

OneNote is digital notes taking application of Microsoft with which you can access  your notes on all your devices. When you use OneNote, your stuff travels with you on your computers, tablets and phones. Itsync across  all your devices and you can access them wherever you go. OneNote is available for Windows, Mac,  Windows Phone, iOS, Android and Symbian. Using OneNote you can attach video, record audio or snap a picture and saves it.  It also allows you to take handwritten notes or add handwriting and drawings to notes. You can easily share your notes with your friends and family and get things done with them.  Using OneNote you can organize your notes using notebooks, sections and tags.

For more information please check :  http://www.onenote.com/

Handy Internet Tools for Educators and Students: Evernote

Evernote is a handy product of Google for creating notes Using Evernote you can create a note with text, photos, attachments on all your devices With it you can capture and share everything that's important to you in a single, easily accessible place. Evernote can be installed on all your devices and your notes will stay up to date everywhere. If something clicks you, just type a quick note or snap a photo on your phone and it will be waiting on your computer. 

Using Evernote you are enabled to

•    Take your notes offline
•   Password protect your account
•   Use it anywhere
•   Work together
•   Share notes and notebooks
•  Email a snapshot of the note
•   Share a link to the updated note on social networks, chat or through email
•   Selectively share entire notebooks with one or many individuals
•  Make a whole notebook publicly available or available to the entire company, if you’re using Evernote Business

For more information please check :

https://support.google.com/drive/answer/6034939?p=accessibility&hl=en&rd=1

Handy Internet Tools for Educators and Students: Google drive

Google Drive is a  data storage service on the web which provides 15 GB of free cloud storage. It lets you store, access and edit anywhere  from your computer, laptop, tablet and even mobile. It you run out, you can buy more storage space.  Easy file sharing and collaborative editing can be done on google drive. It is available on itune and google play store for iPad. iPhone and android devices as well. With gogle drive you can access your files even when you’re not connected to the internet.

Some of the salient features of google drive are:

•  It enables you to download, upload, create, store, and edit files.
•  You can share files and folders with family, friends, classmates, or colleagues.
•   Files can be organized into folders
•   You can print files from your mobile device.
•    Scan important documents using the camera on your mobile device.
•   With Google Drive on your Mac/PC, you can Drag files into and out of the folder.

Here’s how it works:

•   Create a Google Drive account at drive.google.com.
•    Install Google Drive on your Android device, iPhone/iPad, and computer.
•   Upload and sync files in Google Drive.

For more information please check : https://drive.google.com

Udemy

Udemy is one of the leading online education platforms with more than three million enrolled students and about eighteen thousand courses. Some of the courses of Udemy are free and some are paid.  In addition to learners, Udemy also provides platform to experts for creating courses.  Udemy offers thousands of online courses which are mainly meant for improving job related skills. These courses cannot be counted towards a degree but can be

helpful to learn new skills.The main areas are development, design, lifestyle, health and fitness, math and science, language, business, office productivity, personal development, teacher training, social science, test preparation, marketing, IT and software, photography, music, humanities etc. Sometimes Udemy offers upto 75% discount also in courses.

 Its website is available in eleven languages with ten thousand instructors and three lakh forty thousand minutes of video content. These self paced courses available in more than fifty three languages. 

Course updates

On September 15, 2014, Sibling Group Holdings, Inc. (OTCQB: SIBE) (www.siblinggroup.com) (the "Company"), an educational technology holding company, announced that its Blended Schools Network ("BSN") division's teacher professional development courses will now be available through Udemy. This course will help teachers to  master new teaching skills to improve student learning in their classroom. 

Jigsaw Academy, the premier online analytics training academy recently launched a new video course "Analytics for Beginners". This course for beginners is 6-10 hours and is for anyone and everyone that wants to know more about data analytics.

Khan Academy

                                                     






                                                                    

Khan Academy is a non-profit organization providing online education platform. It is founded by educationist Salman Khan in 2006. It is focused on personalized learning which provides tutoring experience and is available for free to anyone around the world via internet. It provides assistance to students to understand concepts of subjects at their own pace. Khan Academy has video library with over 6000 videos on various topics.  It has thousands of automated exercises with continuous assessment. Now its educational platform is being used in classroom in many schools as well.

Khan Academy introduced several badges to encourage learning. Some of the badges are easy and some are extremely hard to earn depending upon level of learning.

Initially Khan Academy was  focused only on Maths and Science but now learning materials are available in Humanities, Economics, Finance and Computing from very basic level to advanced level. It has the materials even for test preparation of SAT, GMAT, CAHSEE, IITJEE and MCAT.

Upto June 2014, Khan academy has launched its website 23 languages and its videos in 65 languages. This project is funded by several donations like Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Ann and John Doerr, Lemann Foundation, Google, Carlos Slim Foundation etc.

In 2012, an offline version of the platform, called “KA Lite”, has been launched to help people who do not have internet access. KA Lite has been installed in more than 30 schools and orphanages around the world. Recently, Khan Academy launched its "#youcanlearnanything campaign", designed to encourage lifelong learning and acknowledge the role of struggling in skill development.

Coursera

Coursera is an education company which is collaborated with various universities and organizations to provide MOOC. Its vision is to provide world class education freely to everyone. Currently Coursera is providing more than seven hundred online courses developed by the world’s top educational institutions.

All the courses on Coursera can be accessed without paying any fee. It also provides tutoring, verified certification and introducing students to potential employers and recruiters on payment basis. Many of partner institutes are using online platform of Coursera for blended learning.  

Courses are available in various areas including humanities, medicine, biology, social sciences, mathematics, business, and computer science. In addition to English, study can be done in Chinese, French and other languages also.  Most of the courses have start and end dates, while some can be joined any time. Each one includes study material as well as short video lecture. 

Assessment is based upon take interactive quizzes, assignment, project or exam. In many humanities and social science courses peer assessments is used, where students can evaluate and provide feedback on each other’s work.  

Udacity

Udacity is one of the leading online education provider which teamed up with Google, AT&T and other tech giants for Open Education Alliance (OEA). OEA intends to provide students around the world with a curriculum and skills they need to pursue careers in technology. Its partners include Google, Autodesk, Cloudera, Intuit, 23andMe, Khan Academy and Georgia Tech.

Udacity focuses more on vocational courses for professionals which are project based with personalized support. Currently Udacity is offering more than thirty five courses which are divided into six categories-Data Science,Web development, Software Engineering, Android, Georgia Tech Masters in CS, Non-Tech Classes. Instead of exams, evaluation is based upon project. Udacity’s online courses are rigorous and its projects are built by tech leaders like Google, AT&T, and Intuit, to develop relevant industry skills. After enrollment Udacity offers courseware, coach and project with feedback. It also provides verified certificate  recognized by industry. 

Access to course, video and exercise is free of cost. Without paying any fee, you can also view and manage your progress. But for in class project, project feedback, code reviews, personal guidance from coach, personalized pacing support and verified certificate, you have to pay fee. Students can enroll in one or more courses at any time. The course can be completed at the student's preferred pace.  

edX

edX  is a nonprofit enterprise which provides an open-source online learning platform for highest quality education. It is founded by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University. Its interactive free of cost courses are available to public on various topics including biology, business, chemistry, computer science, economics, finance, electronics, engineering, food and nutrition, history, humanities, law, literature, math, medicine, music, philosophy, physics, science, statistics and more.

Unlike  standard model of online education which depends  only on video content, edX offers an interactive experience for students. Students can participate in  quizzes to receive instant feedback, discuss the subject on course boards and work in online laboratories. Its technology is open-source, so the platform will be continuously improved by worldwide collaborators. edX offers self-paced learning and discussion groups. Certificate of achievement can be earned after successful completion of course for a modest fee.

The edX platform also serves as a laboratory from which data is gathered to better understand how students learn. 

edX updates

edX is going to expand its horizon by  offering courses for high school students. This will help to address a “readiness gap” that leaves a significant number of high school students unprepared for college studies.

edX is  also launching courses for employers and employees in the professional sphere. It will charge for professional education courses starting next year. The subjects would include leadership, IT, business, education, engineering, energy, medicine and big data.

Free Education for All

It is well said that "If there is will, there is way". If you want to learn new subjects, you can learn for free. There are various open educational resources  providing free access to their educational materials, textbooks, webinars and video lectures. You only need a computer and internet connection to educate yourself. The course materials and educational resources can be viewed and downloaded.  If someone wants certification, it can be available with little fee. Wide range of courses from science, arts and technology are available freely.Using these educational resources can be fun and one can learn new skills. Various courses can be taken at individual's pace in comfortable environment of home. Even you can connect to people from all over world during these courses.

The leading  open e-learning resources  are: MIT Open Courseware, edX, Open Yale, Open Michigan, Webcast.berkley,  Open Courseware Consortium, Flooved, Coursera, Udacity etc. Some of the sites like Codecademy and  learnstreet are quite good to learn coding.