News: U.S. Push for Free Online Courses - Inside Higher Ed
The Obama administration is pushing for creating free online courses at the high school/community college level, focusing on basic skills and job training. Some sort of examination/assessment is also possible, plus the idea of mixing free and paid courses at community colleges to reduce the cost of tuition.
Bonk said that administration's ideas about open courses are consistent with the "convergence" he sees taking place in online learning. There is a growing belief that for many kinds of courses, there are best providers whose work can be made available online, there are large numbers of students who could benefit from those courses, and those who might benefit don't necessarily have a lot of money.
SpeEdChange: Refusing Free, Depriving Students
Why do schools refuse to use free and open source software options, even when those options would improve accessibility for students? Ignorance? Fear? Politics? Probably some combination of all three.
If an electrician was too afraid of electricity to touch a wire, he'd be an electrician no more. So if an educator is afraid of the information and communication technologies of his/her age, then he/she can no longer be an "educator" in any meaningful way.
30 Stunning Fonts To Enhance Your Designs | Fonts | instantShift
Free fonts & additional links for free fonts. Check the licensing and be careful though; some are personal use only, some require registration, at least one requires personal info & credit card even though it's "free."
Cometdocs
Online tool for converting PDF files to Word, Excel, PPT, etc. It does a good job of making text editable, but converts SmartArt as static graphics. It would work for small text edits in a presentation where you don't have the original PPT file, but if you had a lot of SmartArt to rebuild it wouldn't save much time. It might work better for Excel spreadsheets than the PPT I tested.
8 Free Applications To Record Your Computer Screen | inspirationfeed.com
Multiple free options for screen recording. This is mostly about making videos for YouTube or similar sites, but these could be used for quick tutorials and demos in e-learning. I'm familiar with Screenr, Jing, and CamStudio, but not BSRSoft, XVidCap, EZVid, BB FlashBack Express, or Rylstim.
