Time for a utilitarian post–and to clear the decks of some handy web apps I’ve run across via Twitter lately.

One of my favorites is fur.ly. (thanks for the tip, David Jakes!)  This site is a teacher/librarian’s dream when making a pathfinder.  It allows you to consolidate a list of websites under one url.  Then you just have one address to share with students. Here’s a fur.ly I created for this post. Use the small arrows at the top of the screen to flip through each site.

I revisited VoiceThread recently and found a lot of handy new features there, plus a downside.  They have added a “call in” feature so that you can use a cell phone to add your commentary on a slide.  Handy if you are working on some sort of oral history project with someone who doesn’t have a computer, for example–they can call in their narration of the slide.  Also handy if you don’t have a webcam or microphone available!   You also now have the long-awaited ability to purchase an archived version of your VoiceThread, which is an excellent way to preserve a project.  The downside is that it seems you can only have three VoiceThreads in your account unless you pay for the account;  downside if you are using it very often.

A last handy site I found via twitter was bitty.com. (thanks to Aschmitz on twitter!) It allows you to embed another webpage within your website.  The webpage is fully functional within the frame,  or you can click on it to launch the page.   Very handy and a nice way to garner student interest in a site, unless it gets blocked by your district’s internet filter!

Here’s an example of Bitty at work–with fur.ly’s home page.