Here are a few tools I’ve discovered recently and thought merited sharing.
Many Eyes is an information-visualization tool that turns data sets into informative and stunning graphics. Here are a few examples:
- World Language Speakers grouped by language
- Iraqi Civilian Deaths with gender breakdown
One of the nicest features of Many Eyes is that it can be used for more than just traditional data sets. Users can upload text files to create visual representations of the most commonly used terms in the text. The word clouds that Many Eyes creates can provide stylish visuals to enhance presentations or be used to illustrate key themes in a text. For example, students might compare the most commonly used terms in Barack Obama’s speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention with his pre-election speech in Berlin or with the key terms emphasized in John McCain’s nomination acceptance speeach at the Republican National Convention.
Overstream allows users to subtitle videos from YouTube, DailyMotion, and many other video-sharing Web sites. This is a great resource for language instructors, since it can provide a more engaging way for students to transcribe or translate audio from a foreign-language advertisement, movie, TV show, or song.
EduFire initially caught my eye because of its large library of foreign-language flash cards. However, I was quickly fascinated by its main business as a marketplace for online learning. The site allows instructors to offer courses on any topic they like and set their own rates, all for a small fee that comes out of the tuition they collect. This business model has exciting (and frightening) implications for the future of higher education, especially in fields like language instruction where accreditation is often less important than effectiveness. I hope to have time to enroll in a class or two and post a follow-up on what I’ve learned about the service.