So what is that exactly?
SYNCHRONOUS SESSIONS
Collaborate
There are a number of tools that allow for multiple people to interact in synchronous online environments. Among them Blackboards's Collaborate (free trial), the recently purchased by Blackboard Wimba Suite, Adobe Connect (free trial), and a variety of new tools like Big Blue Button. Here is an example of a Collaborate session.
Tegrity
Tegrity (free trial) is one of many tools that allow instructors to capture classroom lectures, to have synchronous online events, and to simply screen capture content and share it.
ITV
ITV (Interactive Television) was one of the first steps to live interaction between distant locations. It is expensive to maintain, but with today's technologies, it is pretty amazing.
Skype
Skype allows for one to one video conferencing for free and you can "screen-share." You can also have chats with multiple people for free. For a price, you can have multiple video feeds. Here is what a large chat would look like.
Google Hangouts
The new Google+ has a feature called "Hangouts." You can watch this short video to see what it does. It could be used to bring a speaker into your classroom, to take a virtual field trip, to hold online office hours, or to meet up for a synchronous class session.
Facebook and Hoot
Hoot is a 3rd party tool that allows you to connect via video with Facebook users. The interface is just like the Facebook environment and it has similar security controls.
Second Life
I would be remiss to not include Second Life tool/place as it has qualities that are important to "online spaces" including avatars, the notion of existing when you are not there, and creating relationships that have more than text to communicate.
Jing
Jing is a wonderful tool for easily creating narrated video. It is easy to use and provides users with the ability to quickly reply to someone or to create useful content for courses. Here is how to use it.
Camtasia
Camtasia is an amazing screen capturing software.
YouTube
You know YouTube. Lots of possibilities here.
Slideshare
If you like PowerPoint, Slideshare is for you! It allows you to easily narrate presentations and has a very nice player like the one below. Here is where you can learn how to use it.
Your Own Website
Having your own website can allow you to control the content you create and unlike many current LMS products, it can make it accessible to the public if you so choose. Websites like this one are easy to create and manage. Here are a few examples of how that might look:
You can find a longer list of teachers using webspaces like this here.
