Aviary

Aviary provides an amazing suite of creative tools for free and in the cloud and given the unbelievably slow development of Microsoft Paint (I just checked it has a new layout but the exact same tools as I used in middle school) it is a tool that many students need to let their creativity and not software limitations dictate what they design. Aviary provides four types of image editors that provide students many of the basic tools they would find in an Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, two types of audio editors that allow users to create their own and edit audio tracks and a tool that allows you to capture screenshots of websites without installing any software.

The tools that Aviary provides allow students to create a variety of projects that lend themselves to all content areas. When I explore the suite I can remember times when students have asked me if they could create “photoshoped” images, tee shirt designs, their own website graphics, magazine covers, or radio ads and have been limited by the software available to them. Having a website like this to direct them to will allow students to channel their creativity however they see fit. I can certainly see teachers learning to use specific parts of Aviary and asking an entire class to complete a project using it but if you do not have the time or skill to do so it would be equally valuable to direct an eager student to http://www.aviary.com/tutorials where they can learn how the website works via video tutorials. Either way the Aviary Suite allows students to tackle almost any design project that they can dream up from any device with an internet connection.

Positives

Allows students to be very creative and develop graphics and audio files in almost any way they can think of.

Suite is available on tablets, phones and computers

It is free and there are no ads

A large community and tutorials available to help students trouble shoot problems

Students who have used Photoshop or Gimp will love to have a similar product available anywhere

Aviary has developed an education site that allows teachers to set up student accounts

Negatives

You must create an account to use many of the features

Creating graphic or audio files online takes a ton of bandwidth, with a slow internet connection this is a very slow process

All of the tools and options can look overwhelming to teachers and students