Gadget Finder

Adobe Creative Cloud Express replaces Adobe Spark. Building on Spark's free web-browser based presentation and storytelling capabilities, Creative Cloud Express gives you access to design assets including a limited collection of royalty-free images and templates that make it easy to create video presentations and attractive webpages that can be embedded in Canvas. The free plan includes basic photo editing tools with the ability to remove background and animate. You can create on both web and mobile devices. You also have the option to upgrade to a Creative Cloud Express subscription for a monthly fee to access premium content and features available in Premier Rush, Photoshop Express, Spark Video and Spark Page.

AnswerGarden is a real-time audience participation tool (e.g. polls) that allows anonymous responses. Students can also use AnswerGarden to brainstorm ideas for projects, pose questions, vote on ideas, or gather other short-form responses from their peers. Quickly create a question and share the link (or QR code), students then type in their short answer (choose either 20 or 40 characters) - free and no logins required. Need to control posts on your AnswerGarden? Choose to enable a spam filter, or one of four modes, including brainstorm, classroom or moderator mode. Embed your AnswerGarden in Canvas. You can also export your AnswerGarden as an image.

Apowersoft is a free online screen recording tool that you can use to record your screen, audio, and webcam to quickly and easily narrate presentations, save your recording and upload to Canvas Studio or other video hosting service for online streaming playback. No logins required. Before downloading your video, you can do some simple edits such as trim the beginning and end of your recording, add titles/annotations, and delete section(s) of video.

Blogger is a completely free blogging Google tool that doesn't require technical skills to publish your own online content. Blogger gives users a free blogspot.com URL or you can purchase a custom domain name. With many free templates and themes to choose from, Blogger allows you to upload photo and video or integrate video from external sources such as YouTube or Vimeon into your blog. Students can use Blogger to create their own blogs, enable or disable comments, collaborate with classmates to build group blogs, and share their blog privately for journal projects.

Bubbl.us is a simple very easy way to create a mindmap online. Bubbl.us allows you to create colorful mind maps online; share and collaborate on mindmaps with classmates and colleagues; embed your mind map in your blog, website or Canvas site; email and print your mind map; and save your mind map as an image. You can create 3 mind maps with the free version (if you wish to upgrade to a paid account to get unlimited mindmaps, there is a 50% discount for teachers, students and employees of nonprofit organizations). 

Camtasia is the most advanced and full-featured video recording and editing tool that has been designed for higher education video. Available on both Mac and PC, Camtasia allows faculty to record and transition between their webcam and their screen seamlessly. Camtasia is best suited for faculty who plan to re-use videos from quarter to quarter. Example: Have a 5 minute video but only need to change 5 seconds before re-using? The timeline lets you quickly and easily re-record and splice in that new change in just a few clicks. CDLI has a limited number of licenses available for faculty and instructional staff and CDLI offers regular workshops on Camtasia. Contact CDLI with questions and requests for a Camtasia license.

Not to be confused with Canvas, Canva is an online tool that will help you make appealing and memorable designs including course banners for your Canvas course homepages, presentations, videos, posters, flyers, infographics, social media posts, etc. There are many templates available in Canva with a free account. Canva also offers a some inexpensive a la carte purchase options for some templates, icons and images, but employees of nonprofits can apply for a free Canva Pro account.

Canvas is Seattle University's learning management system (LMS). Managed by the Center for Digital Learning & Innovation, Canvas hosts all online, hybrid and face-to-face courses offered by Seattle University. Canvas includes a built-in Zoom integration for synchronous online class meetings and faculty office hours. CDLI offers regular workshops to learn how to use Canvas including Canvas Basics, Canvas Assignments & Quizzes, and Making the Most of Canvas Gradebook. CDLI also has compiled a number of resources on Canvas including faculty tutorials, student tutorials and faculty-specific FAQ's.  

There are two different quiz tools currently available in Canvas: Classic Quizzes, and New Quizzes. In addition to monitoring students' progress using graded or ungraded quizzes, Classic Quizzes can be used to also be used to collect informal feedback using graded or ungraded surveys. You can select from 11 different question types, e.g. multiple choice, true/false, fill-in-the-blank, essay, formula, matching, file upload, etc. Multiple attempts and time limits can be set for quizzes. Questions can be shuffled, ensuring that each student will receive questions in a random order. You can also use question groups and/or question banks to have randomized questions within a quiz. Classic Quizzes also has a Moderate setting where you can provide disability exam accommodations as needed for your students. 

Canvas Collaborations enhance student group work by providing a mechanism for students to work on shared documents within a Canvas course or group. Available for either Google Apps or Office 365 files, Canvas Collaborations enable multiple students to work together on the same document, spreadsheet, or presentation or at the same time. Documents are saved in real-time, which changes tracked and immediately visible to everyone. Instructors are able to view collaborations and offer feedback.

There are two different quiz tools currently available in Canvas: Classic Quizzes, and New Quizzes. Both quiz tools can be used to monitor students' progress using quizzes. With New Quizzes, you can select from 13 different question types, e.g. categorization, essay, file upload, fill in the blank, formula, hot spot, matching, multiple choice, ordering, true/false, etc. Multiple attempts, time limits, and disability accommodations can be set for quizzes. Questions and answers can be shuffled, ensuring that each student will receive questions and answer options in a random order. You can also use item banks to have randomized questions within a quiz. You can easily print quizzes, as well as duplicate and share questions, quizzes, and item banks using New Quizzes. Please note: New Quizzes does not include a survey option, so we recommend a 3rd party tool such as Qualtrics or Microsoft Forms to collect survey data.

Canvas Pages can integrate a variety of content and resources that are part of a course or student group but don’t necessarily belong in an assignment. You can include text, images, video, and links to files and other content. Pages can also be configured to be editable by teachers and students and used as a collaboration tool for course or group wikis. Canvas keeps the entire history of the page to account for changes over time.

Canvas Studio is the integrated video platform in Canvas. Using Studio, instructors and students can easily record webcam and/or screen capture videos including some limited editing capabilities. Canvas Studio media can be embedded in a Canvas course (with or without time-stamped video comments), or used as an assignment or discussion board submission. Studio enables you to easily annotate a video, add, review and edit auto-generated captions for accessibility, and create video quizzes.

Coggle is a freeware mind- and concept-mapping web application that allows you to break down your idea in tree form, laying out items using all the available canvas space. You can put related items close to each other, and provide visual links to represent dependencies. In addition you can invite others to work on the same diagram, at the same time. With Coggle's free version you get: unlimited public diagrams; 3 private diagram; unlimited image uploads; over 1600 icons; map history; pdf and image download. Coggle maps can be downloaded, exported and embedded in your website or in Canvas.

Creating infographics to share things like statistics, lesson plans and presentations used to take time, money and graphic design skills but Easel.ly makes it possible for anyone to design their own custom infographics and share visual ideas online. Using Easel.ly is as easy as dragging and dropping design elements and users can either choose a template from the site's extensive library and customize with a library of icons, charts, illustrations and images or they can upload their own background image and start from scratch. Infographics can be downloaded, shared, or embedded in your website or Canvas course.

emaze is an online presentation and digital content creation platform where users can create, manage and share presentations, websites, blogs, ecards, and photo albums. emaze offers a variety of templates including formats using 3D animations and video backgrounds. A basic free plan enables you to create and share up to 5 projects; if you wish to upgrade for additional projects, discounts are available for educators and students. Premium users can download projects and collaborate with others. All users can shared using a link, or embedded on your website or in Canvas.

Explain Everything helps you draw (on an infinite whiteboard), present, create video, and collaborate on media-rich presentations and makes the process quick and easy. Users can narrate and annotate slides, images, or videos. The Explain Everything app is available for iPad, Android, Chromebook or can be used right in your web browser. A free account enables you to create up to 3 projects with 1 slide per project with up to 500 MB of cloud storage. This app can be downloaded to your own iPad, or used on one of the CDLI iPads available for checkout.

Genially is a free application to easily create presentations, infographics, interactive images, quizzes and games, video presentations, guides and more. There are a wide variety of free themed templates, or you can create from scratch. Roll-overs, web links, hotspots, or embeddable content from outside sources can be added to any image or Genially slide. Genially projects can be downloaded, linked to, or embedded in your website or Canvas course, or shared in Microsoft Teams.

You can quickly make an image sticker or make a gif (a short, looping video) to bring attention to part of your Canvas page, efficiently explain a process, use as an animated Zoom background, or just liven up your online course. Giphy is a free tool that allows you to turn part of any of your videos, or videos you find online, into a looping gif image that can be made private, downloaded to your computer and then uploaded directly into a Canvas page. You can also upload a series of images to Giphy and make a looping slideshow or animation.

For use with Google accounts, Jamboard offers a rich collaborative experience for teams and classrooms. Available as a web app via browser or installable app, quickly collaborate with group members, drop in images from a Google search, add notes, sketch out ideas, save work to the cloud automatically, use the easy-to-read handwriting and shape recognition tool, and draw with a stylus but erase with your finger - just like a whiteboard.

With the newly redesigned Google Sites and a Google account, you can build an unlimited number of websites for free using an easy drag and drop interface. Google Sites uses your Google Drive account to store images and files, so you can store up to 15GB of files for your sites for free. Your sites will be on Google's domain with an address like sites.google.com/view/yoursite. You can collaboratively edit a Google Site with others in real time and see each other’s changes live. Google Sites allows you to publish the site for everyone to see or restrict sharing permissions and make the site accessible only to people you want to share it with, which means you can use it for private journal or blog, group project sites, portfolio or other public-facing websites. Google Sites websites are responsive for tablets and smartphones. Note: You can view Google Sites on most browsers on computers and mobile devices. However, at this time, you can only edit Google Sites content using Chrome or Firefox.

H5P allows you to create, share and reuse interactive and mobile friendly HTML content. H5P is free provides many interactive content widgets that can be embedded into a Canvas course, including collapsible content accordions, image sliders, charts, flash cards, drag and drop exercises, fill in the blank exercises, image hotspots, memory games, quizzes, etc. Please note that responses are not recorded in H5P, so this tool is best for embedding self-check lessons into your course content; this tool is not well-suited for assessment purposes.

Jimdo is an easy, intuitive website builder for building professional-looking web sites, online stores or logos - no coding skills required. With over 100 templates to choose from, Jimdo allows you to upload 500MB worth of text, photos, audio files, and incorporate video and maps from external sources such as YouTube and Google Maps. Free accounts come with up to 5 website mobile-friendly pages, basic features and a free jimdosite.com subdomain. Pro subscriptions are available, which include ad-free,  increased storage, more and advanced features. Students can use Jimdo to create online portfolios or blogs.

Jotform is an easy to use a feature-rich form building tool for creating online surveys. While a free Jotform subscription provides more functionality than Canvas Quizzes (including question branching and conditional display logic) the free plan is limited to 5 forms, 100 submissions a month and 100MB storage space. Jotform is a great option for students looking for a form building tool to use for course research projects. It provides over 10,000 free templates to quickly get started building a form, survey or questionnaire. Forms can be linked to, emailed, or embedded in your website or Canvas course.

Kahoot can be used to create, host, and share fun, engaging learning games, quizzes, polls that can be incorporated into e-learning or training presentations, etc. Create a self-paced quiz for your students or present a live kahoot on a shared screen – via video conference (Zoom, Google Hangouts, MS Teams, etc.) or in-person – with learners answering on their computer or smartphone. Limited free version; paid accounts have access to more question types and features.

Knoema is a data platform that faculty and students can use to visualize and compare statistical data. With a free account, easily search and explore one of the world's largest statistical databases and access limited free datasets.  Knoema collects data from a large variety of sources (such as US Census, World Bank, IMF, ILO, CDC, etc.). Datasets include world and regional statistics, maps, rankings, etc. on topics such as agriculture, crime statistics, demographics, economy, education, and many others. With a paid subscription users can import their own data to analyze and visualize.

Many people don't realize that Apple's Preview is more than just a file viewer. It actually has a fairly robust set of tools that allow you to edit photos - without ever opening another image editor like Photoshop. Once you start exploring Preview's editor you will see that you can crop and resize photos, add text and shapes like arrows and text bubbles, control transparent layers, as well as adjust colors and dropout backgrounds. Preview can also be used to edit PDFs.

Mentimeter can be used to create interactive presentations by adding questions, polls, and quizzes to a presentation. Images and gifs can be incorporated into questions and answer options. Your audience can respond to your questions in their web browser or smart phone and responses can be viewed in real-time. Results can be exported when presentation is completed. A free account includes unlimited presentations, unlimited audience, but only 2 question slides or 5 quiz slides per presentation; paid accounts include additional features.

Microsoft Forms is an app in the Microsoft 365 suite available to all SU accounts.  With MS Forms users can easily create online surveys (with advanced functionality such as question branching, shuffle options, answer rankings, etc.), polls and quizzes for people inside and outside SU. Forms are accessible from any web browser or mobile device and can be embedded in Canvas or integrated in MS Teams. Form builders can see real-time results as they're submitted, use the built-in analytics to evaluate responses, and export results to Excel for additional analysis. Forms builders can also require SU respondents to authenticate with their SU account, to validate their account and contact info.

Microsoft Teams is an app in the Microsoft 365 suite available to all SU accounts. It can be used either through a desktop app or a web interface, and has a Canvas integration. Microsoft Teams provides chat, video conferencing for virtual meetings, and other real-time collaboration services to a SharePoint environment. Use Teams to keep your group, project team, or department connected to their work from any device and any location. Easily integrates with other Microsoft products, such as Whiteboard, Forms, etc.

A free, intuitive, whiteboard app included in SU's Microsoft 365 suite available to all SU accounts. Comes in two versions; a web-based app with limited brushes/pens and an installable app with additional brush and pen options. Works best with Apple Pencil or other stylus options. Whiteboards can be shared using a link for a collaborative whiteboarding experience or exported as an image file.

MindMeister is a web-based tool for creating presentations in a visual mind map format. MindMeister allows you to facilitate real-time collaboration and task management. Changes in mind maps are instaneous to all users on all devices. Mind maps can be shared both privately with an unlimited amount of users and publicly. MindMeister users can insert images, links and notes into their mind map. Based on the freemium model, MindMeister provides three free mind maps and limited options.

Miro is a free virtual whiteboard where you can add images, draw, text, add post-it notes, comment, present, and invite collaborators. Your virtual board has many uses such as brainstorm ideas, create lists and plans as well as creating a presentation. The boards are accessible for screen reader users. With the free version you can create 3 boards (all boards can be shared with unlimited viewers) and a Slack integration that pushes Miro activity updates to a Slack channel.

Microsoft OneNote is a free digital notebook application for gathering typed or handwritten notes, drawings, screen clippings and multimedia files. Part of the Office 365 suite, OneNote allows content to be easily imported from other Office applications. Contents in OneNote can be shared, allowing multiple people to collaborate and share notes. Please see the OneNote in Education site for ideas on incorporating this tool into your course.

Padlet is a favorite faculty collaborative tool because it is so easy to set up and invite students to contribute multimedia content from across the web. No membership or sign-up is expected of students, so it can be a great forum to share anonymously. Padlet can also serve as a replacement to the standard Canvas discussion tool or as a supplement to share projects in your face-to-face classroom. You are welcome to use the limited free Padlet account, or contact cdli@seattleu.edu to get an unlimited faculty account.

Piktochart is a web-based infographic software which allows users with no graphic design experience to create professional-grade infographics. An important feature of Piktochart is its capability to generate infographics that are readable by screen readers and search engines, with multiple clickable elements for users. Data can be visualized via charts, graphs and maps by importing from Excel, Google, or Survey Monkey. Users can include images from Piktochart's extensive image library or upload their own. The free option allows up to 5 Infographics that can be published online and downloadable as a PNG.

Pixlr is a completely web-based image editor. You can start using their free basic editing tools with limited sets of overlays and stickers without a login. Use Pixlr to crop images, add text, apply color effects and adjustments. You can choose the easiest to use Pixlr X editor or the more advanced Pixlr E editor. These editors offer features you'd expect from expensive software like Adobe Photoshop that supports layers to help you perform many advanced techniques, which you can save as a PXD (Layered Pixlr Image) that you can open and continue editing later on. Both Pixlr X and E editions allow you to edit images from your computer or from the web, and you can save images to your computer for uploading into Canvas.

Poll Everywhere is a full-featured online polling tool that allows you to pose questions, receive anonymous feedback from students (from their computer, smartphone or even SMS text message), and display responses in real-time. Check student understanding with multiple choice, true or false, free response, clickable images and Q&A / brainstorm voting polls. Free educator accounts allow up to 40 responses per poll. Since Poll Everywhere is primarily intended for synchronous classroom use, only one poll at a time can actively receive responses. You can embed the poll in Canvas with a simple copy and paste of the embed code.

While we all know PowerPoint as a presentation builder, it is also a powerful image creation and editing tool. You can easily edit existing images adjusting the contrast, brightness, and colorization using its Picture Format tool. You can even remove the background and add filters or 3D effects. In a more traditional use, as long as you are using a PC, your PowerPoint presentations can be narrated and turned into movie files (.mp4), perfect for streaming online.

Prezi is a web-based presentation application and storytelling tool that uses a single canvas instead of traditional slides. The Prezi editor allows users to place objects on a canvas and navigate by panning and zooming between videos, images, texts, and other presentation media. Prezi offers a Basic Free plan that allows users to create up to 5 presentations.

A full-featured online survey tool for gathering and analyzing responses. Includes advanced functionality such as question branching and conditional display logic. While powerful, Qualtrics is still easy to use if you've ever created an online survey. Seattle University has a campus license for Qualtrics here.

Slack is a messaging space for teams and workplaces. It can be used across multiple devices and platforms and is equipped with channels to allow users to chat openly with an entire team or privately for more sensitive information. Team members can share files such as images, PDFs, documents and spreadsheets by simply dragging and dropping them into the space. All documents and messages are indexed and fully searchable. Slack's search box has a set of search operators that allows users to find their way to specific messages in the communication haystack. Slack's free version comes with 5GB of space and the ability to search the team's last 10,000 messages. Slack can also be integrated with other apps and services, such as Zoom for video calls.

SoundCloud is a web-based audio hosting platform. With the free basic account you and your students can upload and record audio into the SoundCloud web interface or mobile app - up to 3 hours of audio for each free account. The SoundCloud player can be easily embedded for streaming playback inside your Canvas course. SoundCloud provides the ability to create playlists for a common space to share and discuss audio tracks with time-stamped comments.

Sutori is a free storytelling tool that enables students and instructors to create an engaging presentation that lays out a sequence of elements with text and images. Because of its layout, this tool works well for creating timeline presentations. Students can collaborate in real-time on group projects, and instructors can create an online Sutori classroom with a unique class code that allows instructors to view student's submitted stories. Sutori also allows you to create templates that students can then copy, modify and submit back to you.

Microsoft Sway is a free, cloud-based digital storytelling application designed to quickly and elegantly share stories, present ideas and rich online experiences that can be shared or embedded in websites. The intuitive interface is based around a story line, into which users can drag and drop a series of cards that include text, images, and video. Since it is part of Microsoft 365 suite, content from other Office applications can be easily imported and edited. Sway is a particularly useful tool when the goal is to build a linear, multimedia narrative.

TED-Ed for educators offers a set of tools that allow you to create interactive lesson pages around any YouTube video or you can start with videos from Ted-Ed's public lesson library. After selecting a video you can use the TED-Ed lesson editor to add multiple choice questions, open answer questions, discussion prompts, and additional resources to your lesson. When you publish your lesson, you'll receive a unique URL you can place on a Canvas page (Ted-Ed does not yet embed in other websites). As students submit work on your lesson page, you'll be able to monitor their progress and view their answers.

ThingLink is a user-friendly digital tool that allows users to turn any image into an interactive graphic. By creating multiple "hot spots" on specific parts of an image that image can be turned into a multimedia launcher. ThingLink allows users to include video, record audio or provide a link to any website with the click of a button. Interactive ThingLink graphics can be embedded into any blog or website. The free version gives you unlimited interactive image and video editing with a viewing cap of 1,000 views per year.

Tiki Toki is a timeline-building tool that allows users to add images, videos or links for each event or period and the editor allows html-text. It also allows users to categorize events into bands. In addition it can be viewed in a 3D version that gives the viewer the impression of moving through time. Each free account lets you create one timeline with a maximum of 200 events.

Trello is a tool for organizing group work. At a glance, Trello shows you what's being worked on, who's working on it, and the project's progression. Members of the group can upload and comment on shared files, as well as assign specific group members to tasks (even checklists full of tasks!) with assigned due dates. Trello is best suited for significant group projects with many tasks that group members need to track. The free plan only allows for file attachments up to 10MB, but Trello integrates with Dropbox or Google Drive so files uploaded to these services can be still be shared with groups.

Tricider is a free web tool for brainstorming and voting on ideas. With built-in ability for users to post supporting arguments and your ability to set poll deadlines, this tool provides excellent functionality with very little setup. You don't even need to create an account to start a poll. Taking a couple minutes to create an account gives you the added functionality of archiving old polls, adding password protection, the ability to embed inside Canvas (SSL encryption), and the ability to export poll results.

Vimeo is a video sharing site, like YouTube. Vimeo is a great free option for when you need to share videos outside of the classroom. With Vimeo Basic, you can upload up to 500MB of video for free each week and up to 5GB total account storage. You can also make videos password-protected so they can't be easily viewed outside your Canvas course. Account upgrades exist for larger video uploads and advanced privacy settings. Note: Be sure to check out Canvas Studio for free video management within your Canvas course. 

Weebly is a free, intuitive, drag-and-drop website building tool that makes it easy to create powerful, professional websites -- minimal technical skills required. You can drag and drop text, images, and map elements onto pages. Weebly also makes it easy to embed videos from YouTube. Edit text and rearrange elements just like a word processor. Pro subscriptions offer advanced features like password protection and site search. Students can can use Weebly to create their own blogs, collaboratively build sites for group projects or group blogs, and design online portfolios.

Contributing to Wikipedia articles, individually or in groups, is an authentic task for helping students understand how knowledge is created and negotiated. The WikiEdu site offers educator-focused guidance and advice for implementing a course page and creating assignments around Wikipedia articles through online training, handouts and videos. Students are also supported through an online orientation for student editors, handouts and videos.

Wix is a free, intuitive, website builder with hundreds of templates that makes it easy to build powerful and professional websites with minimal technical skills. Drag and drop text, photos, audio files, and incorporate video and maps from external sources such as YouTube and Google Maps. Pro subscriptions offer advanced functionality, including increased storage. Students can can use Wix to create online portfolios, blogs and even password-protect their site for journal projects.

Wordpress is a free blogging and website building tool that doesn't require technical skills to publish your own online content. With dozens of free templates to choose from, Wordpress allows you to upload up to 1gb worth of text, photos, and incorporate audio/video from external sources such as YouTube or Vimeo. Pro subscriptions are available, and include video uploads, increased storage and no ads. Students can use Wordpress to create their own blogs, collaboratively build sites for group projects or group blogs, share their blog privately for journal projects, and design online portfolios.

Yammer is a group collaboration tool where you can create and invite others to different closed groups for sharing documents/videos/photos, messaging specific group members, posting group-wide announcements, and creating polls. Yammer is provided to all SU faculty, staff and students as part of the SU Microsoft 365 suite, so you and your students don't need to create a new account to log in.

YouTube is the world's largest free video sharing website. Each video you upload in YouTube Studio can be up to 15 minutes in length, and you can upload an unlimited number of videos. Verified accounts can upload videos longer than 15 minutes. You can also upload a video from your computer and use the built-in YouTube editor to edit your video. Publishing your videos as "unlisted" means that no one will be able to search for your videos, only those with the video link have viewing privileges. Your videos easily embed into Canvas pages to provide a seamless experience for your students. Another benefit of YouTube is that it automatically provides closed captioning that can be edited. Note: Be sure to check out Canvas Studio for free video management within your Canvas course.

ZeeMaps allows users to create their own customized maps with minimal effort. They offer options such as crowd-sourcing map data, or directly uploading and synchronizing from spreadsheets. You can embed maps created with ZeeMaps in other sites and even allow visitors to add their own markers, images, links and other media. The free version allows you to create 5 maps with an unlimited number of points per map. There is advertising with the free version so we suggest making your maps taller (1000 pixels) so that advertising remains at the bottom of the page.

Zoom is a powerful and intuitive video conferencing, screen sharing and screen recording application that works on all browsers and most mobile devices. With the integration in Canvas you can easily schedule course-related Zoom meetings. SU faculty, staff and students automatically receive a Zoom Pro account with the ability to host meetings of unlimited length. Zoom can be launched from with Canvas courses, or via the SU Zoom portal.