DE Tools Of The Trade (John Goldsmith)

• DE Tools Of The Trade

WHAT?
'DE Tools of the Trade' is a web site by and for K-12 educators who teach partly or completely online. This simple but useful site contains a compilation of links and resources that may be useful to any online educator.

Although, its' target audience is K-12 educators, its collection of online links, resources and tools can also be useful to any educator, whether he or she is in higher education, the corporate sector, or involved with any form of education.

MASTERMIND?
John Goldsmith

JUICE?
John Goldsmith's site powered by Wordpress is a great example of a humble individual going the extra mile to share his experiences and discoveries, which can surely benefit people out there who are rather new to online education, and fed up of seeing massive lists that do not filter out the juice from the garbage. As John Goldsmith says, "the site and the information it contains is not meant to be extensive or comprehensive (Source)." In other words, he has filtered out the juice from his own experience and expertise to compile a great list of online resources, which can be accessed by intuitive categories such as:

• Blogs & Wikis - This section contains information on setting up your own blog, wiki, pod/web cast and web site.
• ClipArt - This section contains link and descriptions of site with pictures and/or clipart that is available free or under a Creative Commons licence.
• Graphic Tools - This section contains downloadable and web applications for creating and editing photos, pictures, images and clip art.
• Learning Objects - This section contains a list of websites with learning objects, course content, tutorials, video clips or other resources which may be of use to an online educator.
• Survey/Polling Tools - This section contains links to websites which contain free applications and resources for setting up an online survey of poll.

Also, each compiled resource is accompanied with some concise and useful information (or metadata) about it, answering basic questions that we would like to know such as What, Where, Cost, and a short description. It might not pass the Dublin Core standard, but it is more than good enough for me.

Also, the interface design is quite pleasant, and finally I love the site's cool mascot (graphic, logo or whatever it is!). I suppose Bob the Builder would like to get his hands on this toolbox. As the site is rather new (since October if I am not mistaken!), I believe we can expect some more sparks and juice as it evolves :)