EtherPad - real-time collaboration tool.
First there was Etherpad. Then Google bought the software and released it as Open Source. There are now a wide range of sites running EtherPad, so it really is your choice which one to use. Whichever you settle on it provides a great tool for instant collaboration, group activities and brainstorming, with a group of learners or work colleagues. No logins no clicking around an LMS or getting to grips with a Wiki. The resulting conversations can be easily copied and shared with participants after wards.

Yammer Think social networking and the workplace don't mix? That is the opinion of some employers, sometimes with good reason. In education its a communication tool that can be harnessed to reach and engage with students. A good starting point for staff to explore the uses (and pitfalls) of this communication method is Yammer This is being used in my workplace to good effect as a more immediate communication channel alongside email. A common sense approach from employers would really benefit the exploration of social networking, such as this guidance for Thomson Reuters employees.

Voices of the Holocaust This digital archive from the Illinois Institute of Technology presents the work of Dr David Boder who interviewed survivors of the Holocaust in refugee and displaced peoples camps across Europe over a three month period in 1946. This amazing collection of interviews, conducted in several languages and using a bulky wire recorder, represents the earliest known oral histories of the Holocaust.
 The resources can be searched by language, interviewee, camp and numerous other categories as well as interactive maps. This is an unmissable resource for students and researchers of World War II and the Holocaust.

If you are looking for an interesting way of presenting images in presentations or course resources, one approach is to create a Polaroid effect. This can be done to good effect with a bit of time and effort using anchor points in PowerPoint as David Anderson  demonstrates in this screencast.

If you are looking for something to do the hard work for you though, Poladroid is a great free tool. It comes complete with some of the quirks of a real Polaroid camera, such as developing images and 10 shots per 'cartridge". It works in an easy to use drag and drop format with a number of different display effects. Here's another screencast that tells you a little bit more.

Grou.ps With the recent announcement from Ning regarding phasing out of their free service, now is a good time to look at alternative tools for developing social networks and online communities in support of teaching and learning. Grou.ps is similar in nature to Ning, allowing multimedia to be uploaded and shared and providing blogging, forum and other communication tools.

Te Pātaka Matihiko- Digistore is New Zealand's new look repository of digital learning content spanning early years through to senior secondary level. Content includes multimedia learning objects, images, audio and video. The site is much more searchable than its previous incarnation and content can be viewed from the site or embedded into a LMS/VLE.
Learning paths can be created and PINs generated for student access.

Here is a sequence of videos on how one school has integrated learning objects into an environmental science class (opens in Blip.tv)

JorumUK has been developing for some years now in the UK as a JISC funded repository for shareable learning content for Further and Higher Education.

Now comes JorumOpen, bringing selected content to the world under a Creative Commons licence. There is a whole range of content available from images, to Flash activities to SCORM objects. Currently content can only be deposited by UK institutions, but to search and download is free for everyone.

Nothing to watch on TV? Sick of Hollywood blockbusters? The Auteurs brings creative, classic and cult movies to your laptop. Great for the Arts, Media Studies or generally for movie fans who want to watch and discuss great cinema.
Films can be viewed for $1-3 or even for free. Look out for the free film of the month. Not all films are available in all territories, but they are working on that.

As the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species has arrived (24th November), here are a couple of resources which can be used with students. Darwin, a naturalist's voyage is a great multimedia insight into his journey and discoveries.
From a JISC project, comes the chance to view digitised logbooks from Darwin's journey on the Beagle, Cook's voyages on Discovery and many more.

Wallwisher is a nifty little webtool to use for brainstorming ideas, planning for reports or even as a notetaking tool in lectures, meetings and conferences. Throw your ideas down in online stickies, include links where needed and shift around as your ideas take shape.

Mahara is an open source ePortfolio system, developed in New Zealand and with a growing band of developers and users worldwide. The latest version 1.2 marks a significant landmark with the introduction of import/export functionality conforming to LEAP2A specification. If your school or organisation is looking for an environment for  personalisation, reflection and lifelong learning, then this is well worth a look. Read more in Tools for learning.

JISC and the British Library have worked together to make available nearly 28,000 hours of rare and previously unheard archival recordings as part of JISC's Digitisation Project. This is an incredibly rich resource for oral history and well worth exploring to source content in other subject areas such as music technology, history, art and literature.
Search the public collection or search across all 44,500 recordings if you are in a UK FE or HE organisation. There are some emerging case studies on how teachers and lecturers are using this resource.

Tired of the same old PowerPoints? Prezi offers a great alternative to the slide by slide approach. A Flash based tool, it allows non-linear presentations/visual maps which can be zoomed in on specific words, phrases, videos, images etc. The free version offers 100mb of storage and an offline player. Here's an example from their site.

Don't forget PowerPoint just yet though, if you want to explore similar functionality, download Microsoft's pptPlex plugin.

LibraryThing can be best described as a social networking site for book lovers. Combining a mix of social bookmarking, blogging and Amazon style functionality, LibraryThing offers a great way to share book lists and connect with readers with similar interests. It can be used to support teaching in a number of ways and has the usual range of widgets and embeddable tools you would expect from a social website.

myUdutu is a free content authoring tool, with which you can build your own interactive courses and integrate existing content such as PowerPoints. It enables scenario and branching activities, quizzes and supports video and audio files.
SCORM conformant Learning activities can be exported and uploaded to a LMS (or even put it on a memory stick or CD), or for a charge Udutu can host content for you.

Poisson Rouge is an interactive site for early childhood and young learners enabling them to develop their mouse skills through a range of activities, including English, French and Spanish alphabet games.

Whilst confusing for some adults, the site is deliberately designed for young learners to explore and discover. Don't worry, though, there is a user guide for any teachers who really want one!

xTimeline is a great tool with applications across many curriculum areas, particularly History and the Sciences, but in fact any subject where visuals and chronologies are relevant