Frame.io | Video Review and Collaboration Software
Tool for reviewing videos with comments. The free plan is limited to 2 projects but might be enough for some uses
Screenlight Video Review & Approval
A tool for collecting feedback on video, audio, or images. The free plan allows only 1 project, but that lets you try it out. $9/month for the first tier paid plan with unlimited reviewers.
Twine Resources
A collection of resources for Twine, including story formats, compilers, extensions, guides, and communities
Tint and Shade Generator
Provide hex codes for colors and get tints (lighter) and shades (darker) of that color. Useful for staying within a color scheme while still providing some variety
Free Stock Video Footage, Royalty Free Videos for Download
Free stock videos; commercial use is OK. These could be used as b roll, transitions, or backgrounds.
CreateStudio Animation Made Easy - CreateStudio
Tool for creating 2D and 3D animated videos. The basic plan is $99 for a lifetime license, with limited characters and templates.
Open a Mac app from an unidentified developer - Apple Support
When installing Twine on a Mac, you may get a warning about it being an "unidentified developer." This is just Apple trying to restrict you from leaving their walled garden and using an open source program where they can't make any money. Follow these directions to change the security settings and install the program.
4 Online Tools for Estimating Learning Development Time and Price | Scissortail Creative Services, LLC
Kayleen Holt compares 4 different calculators for estimating time and cost for elearning development
Harlowe Audio Library
Free tool for managing audio files with Twine and Harlowe
Knight Lab
Free tools for creating VR stories, timelines, annotated maps and charts, image comparisons, and more. These are open source tools and may be a little clunky, but potentially worth exploring for short experiences. They're design more for journalists and media companies than training, but there's overlap in explainer journalism and elearning.
Using Twine for Classroom Engagement - ACTion
This is a summary of a project at the University of Toronto using Twine to create an educational game, plus an overview of Twine.
Although Twine is a tool for creating “games”, this project goes beyond games and gamification to think creatively about how the functions of Twine can be used to create activities that allow students to more directly engage with learning content in a hands-on experiential format that may not be possible in a traditional classroom learning space.
Lesson plans – Teaching with Twine
This post includes lesson plans for teaching students how to use Twine, either in a single 50-minute session or in two days with extra time for practicing in the tool. These plans are a few years old, so a few details have changed, but the overall structure makes sense.
Video Caption Generator - Automatic Captions - VEED.IO
Automatically generate captions for videos for free
Formfacade - Customize Google Forms UI
Use Google Forms but customize the look and feel so it's more modern, plus additional features. This is a paid tool, but it's cheaper than Typeform for a similar style.
Share a secret - One Time
Need to securely send a password or other sensitive information? This site lets you create a secret link that can only be used once, and then disappears.
Slido - Audience Interaction Made Easy
Tool for creating live polls, Q&A etc. during meetings. The free account would be enough for many events. h/t Matt Pierce (who used it in a recent session)
GitHub - ChapelR/tw-analytics: Quickly add Google analytics to Twine games (and other web apps) from the command line.
This hasn't been updated in 2 years, but it's a tool for adding Google Analytics tracking to Twine games. While getting xAPI to work with Twine is still probably the ideal option for most learning applications, analytics data would provide a lot of useful info too.
GuidedTrack – Home
A no code tool for building web apps and interactive surveys. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks like you could use this for building branching scenarios. In the info for educators, it says you can make CYOA lessons that adapt content and grade automatically. You can start with a free plan to try it out.
Will training help? Ask the flowchart from Cathy Moore
Cathy Moore has created a new interactive online version of her flowchart to decide if a problem is best addressed through a job aid, better tools, training, or something else.
Raindrop.io — All-in-one bookmark manager
Bookmark manager that takes screenshots and allows highlights like Diigo. Although I have relied on Diigo for a long time for saving and tagging bookmarks, the site hasn't been actively developed in several years. This might be a viable alternative.
Fancy Font Generator
Generate text with different fonts to paste in other places like LinkedIn. This is one way to make a large block of text easier to read by adding headings and dividers, like in your About Me section on LinkedIn
Hack: How to Add Custom Characters to Scenario Blocks - Overview
While the Rise scenario block doesn't have a way to add your own customer characters, you can use this trick from Tom Kuhlmann. It's a bit of a kludge, but you can swap out the images in the published file. The image file names aren't obvious, but Tom shows how he uses PPT to keep track of which label goes with each image.
Tiiny Host – The Easiest Way To Host Your E-Learning Course
Need a quick way to share an elearning course? This looks like a very simple way to do so, much simpler than setting up an Amazon S3 account. This might work as an option for students in my branching scenario course to host their scenarios. However, on a free account, the uploaded content is deleted after 7 days--this is meant for quick reviews of sites, not for long-term hosting. You can do a paid account, but there are probably better options for the cost at that point.
Accessible color palette builder
While there are lots of tools for creating color palettes, this is the first one I have seen that so clearly notes the accessibility of different combinations. Even if you create the palette using another tool, you could check it with this free tool to note which colors have sufficient contrast when used together.
40+ Best Affinity Publisher Templates & Assets 2022 (Free & Premium) | Design Shack
Templates for Affinity Publisher, including brochures, project proposals, and ebooks.
Viral Post Generator
An AI took for writing a viral LinkedIn post--the kind with one sentence per paragraph and some vaguely inspirational advice that the LinkedIn algorithm loves. Use the slider to control the "cringe level" of the text. While this is good just for a funny break in your day, I could see using this as an Easter Egg in a scenario or a mockup in an elearning course.
Top 100 Tools for Learning 2022 – Results of the 16th Annual Survey
Jane Hart's report on the top 100 tools for learning in her annual survey. Tools are categorized based on whether they are mostly used for personal learning, workplace learning, and education (although there's plenty of overlap and exceptions in those categories).
Upload and share screenshots and images - print screen online | Snipboard.io
A free site for sharing screenshots without needing separate software. This is great for sharing on sites where you can't upload an image and need to share a link to an image instead. Just grab a screenshot and paste it in this website to generate a link to the image.
Stark: The suite of integrated accessibility tools
Plugins for checking for accessibility. Check for color contrast, alt text, typography and more. The tools also include a vision simulator so you can see how a site will look to people with color blindness. h/t Tracy Parish
OneUp: Schedule your social media posts
Scheduling tool for social media posts with both free and paid plans