Tuesday, December 15, 2009

My Brochure Maker

In education, I can think of a few times I or other teachers have had students create a brochure as part of a project.  Students could use Word or Publisher, but if they did not have them at home, then you were required to use class time to complete the project.  My Brochure Maker helps to solve that problem.  What makes this so great?  No sign up needed.  Just go to the URL, click on Get Started and you are on your way to creating a prochure.

You then have three options - Brochure with a Mailing Label, Brochure Without a Mailing Label, or a Flyer.  Each of those options then has a general theme that you can choose from.  Most will not match your topic, some might.  If they don't, no problem.  You can easily alter the pictures and titles to match what you are trying to achieve.  The software itself is fairly easy to use, at least much more user friendly than Publisher and Word.  Try it out for yourself.  It even gives you instructions for printing your brochure, making it easier to ensure you get the right direction when you go front and back.


Embedr

For those people who are bloggers and run a website, Embedr is a very easy and rather fast software you can use to create your own video player that you can insert your favorite videos from Youtube, Teachertube, Schooltube, etc.  I have created one both in this blog, as well as on the main page of the Wiki I have created in the hope of uploading videos that students and teachers create that we want to share with other educators.

It makes sharing videos easy.  Once you save a playlist, you can easily go back and edit it, get the new embed coade and easily upload it to your website or blog.

You could even create different players for different subjects....which brings me to classroom use.  If you have students constently creating video, this would be a great way to organize them.  You don't have to embed them to use them.  They are still in a playlist on the website for you to play and watch when the time is necessary.  It would also be of use to create a website to showcase student videos. 

So as you can see, the software is not just for use with a blog or website, you can easily use it in a classroom as well.