A.nnotate Documents and Images

A.nnotate is a site that allows you to upload documents or images and annotate them.  The free version allows you to share with peers but you will have to upgrade if you want to be able to collaboratively add notes to the same document.  

You can upload images, PDFs, or MS Office documents.  This is nice because you don't have to worry about someone having an older version of Word that won't open your document.  Everything, including fonts will remain intact.  All you have to do, is share the link.

Here is an image of my family with some Star Wars characters I used as an example.  http://a.nnotate.com/docs/2010-06-08/TdxcIKoq/index.html

Oil Spill Visualization in Education

Http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com/ is a site that uses real data from NOAA to create an image that will lay over a map to help people understand the true seriousness of the oil spill disaster.  You can select any location and the image will show you what the oil spill would look like if it happened there. According to the site, it is usually updated once a day. I selected my home town and here is the image I saw. 

Think of how you could use this site in education.  A social studies teacher could probably use this to talk about how society is being effected.  An English teacher could show a map of the local area and have students write about how their lives would change if this actually did happen to them.  If anything, it will help students empathize with the people being affected.