iPods as a language tool

One of the blogs I like to read is "TechToolsForSchools". A recent post talks about how you might take advantage of the powerful technology that walks into your classroom everyday: the iTouch! Using an inexpensive external mic (the contact info is all available in the post), you can have your students record their voice and work on their accent. The post also mentions a promising app, Audioboo, and a related site, audioboo.fm.

(The mic is listed for $3.50 on the Suntekstore site, but for even less on Amazon.com)

Poetry Springboard: PicLits

Teaching "poetry" poses many difficulties for the teacher introducing the genre, and for students trying to get their heads around a challenging format. PicLits offers a number of options for teacher and student alike.  
How it works: The site serves up a number of striking images. Visitors are encouraged to place items from a word bank onto the image in order to create an inspirational message, a poem or short saying. This site could be used as a springboard to a poetry lesson, or as a way to consolidate techniques learned. Finished products can be saved to the site (after creating an account), emailed to a friend, embedded in a blog or downloaded as a screenshot. Use it with a Smartboard too!


See the full PicLit at PicLits.com


See the full PicLit at PicLits.com
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Using the "Back-Channel" - TodaysMeet

When you read about conference presentations and college classrooms, you might also hear mention made of the "back-channel".   Wikipedia defines this activity as "the practice of using networked computers to maintain a real-time online conversation alongside live spoken remarks."  The advantage of this kind of contribution is that it allows those present to comment on the session, ask questions, request clarification or add missing details; all in real time. Some conferences even allow the back channel to be projected up alongside the PowerPoint!  While some are using Twitter to create this, the site "TodaysMeet" lets teachers and conference presenters easily set up a space for participants/students to respond. "Encourage the room to use the live stream to make comments, ask questions, and use that feedback to tailor your presentation, sharpen your points, and address audience needs." Its easy interface and simple design makes this a very easy web-app to use. Give it a try!

A wealth of Digital Story telling tools

There are so many tools out there, it can seem overwhelming! Then, along comes a someone (Alan Levine) who imposes a little order on the chaos! I stumbled across this great site, CogDogRoo, that reviews 50+ digital story tools (listing the plusses and minuses) and even gives an example of how each can be used to tell the same story! You'll find some favourites in here, as well as some surprising gems. While the odd site has since expired, there's still lots to look at.

Make and Share your own books - StoryJumper

Storyjumper is another site along the same lines as Bookr (which I mentioned in an earlier post) but this new offering has a few extra features that make it a little more user-friendly for classroom projects. Once a student has created an account (must be at least 13 years old), s/he can upload pics and drawings of their own, in addition to searching within a bank of Flickr photos. The user can add what are called "props", as well as background images and text. For the teacher,  Storyjumper would be a great way to  create books on seasonal or topical themes and then view them in class on a Smartboard or digital projector. (Here's one I made as a demo.) Unfortunately, there is no embed code. If you think your book is particularly inspired, a nice extra is to have it professionally printed (for a price), or even print it out on your own colour printer. Take some time to look through the books in the gallery. Some will be perfect as is, and some will even let you "remix" the content for your class.

(See the comment from Blake for more information on how to use Storyjumper with your class.)

Magnetic Poetry - Smartboard app?

Here are another couple of web apps that are fun to try on your Smartboard. Both are from the "Magnetic Poetry" site. This vendor sells a number of boxed sets of magnetic word games. The idea is to make "found poems" on your refrigerator, filing cabinet or any handy metal surface. Using the app on the site, students can "try before they buy",  make a poem, and then save the final digital product as a screenshot and perhaps use it on a blog or website. You can even view poems others have created, although the quality is..."uneven".

Older kids
http://www.magneticpoetry.com/poetgame/create.cfm?k=1

Younger kids
http://www.magpo.com/kidspoetry/playonline.cfm

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Jeopardy Game - online version

We all know that that the Jeopardy format (questions & answers on a grid) makes an excellent review activity. Kids enjoy competing individually or in teams, in order to score points. And all the while, they are reinforcing concepts they've learned in class. While there is a way to do this using Powerpoint (there are a number of sites with downloadable templates), Jeopardylabs provides an online app for building presentations. When you visit the site, you have the option of browsing or creating your own. Take a look at a couple of samples to see how it works. (sample) Building a new game is easy. After creating an account, follow the instructions to create question grids and then save them on the site. With the resulting link, teachers can encourage students to "play" at home before coming to class for the big competition.

Lessonwriter

Occasionally, you may find you need to generate individualized material to help students build confidence in understanding info-text. You want to highlight certain vocabulary words, certain parts of speech or areas of comprehension. You'd even like to be able to embed a graphic organizer or two to help them take notes or focus on what's important. This can be a big job, but every once and a while, there's web tool that just seems made to order. Take a look at Lessonwriter. This site (free login required to use the features) allows the teacher to paste in a chunk of text and then proceed to tailor activities and questions to his/her class. You can even use the same article and generate 2 or 3 different leveled assignments. While it shouldn't replace all other reading activities, it will be welcomed by many teachers. It's cool, and it's free!

Photo Trail - Jazz up your site

Since we've been looking at photo sites, here's another addition to the list: PictureTrail. This site allows you to upload pics from your computer in order to create custom slideshows with a variety of transition and frame effects. To use it on your blog or website, simply upload the images you want  and decide on your look. Once you've added all the "extras" you desire, PT will generate an embed code that you can paste on your target page.

Photo Editing - with an artistic flair

If you like to have fun tweaking photos you've taken, or you want your class to experiment with artistic effects, take a look at BeFunky. This great site allows you to apply all kinds of effects on photos you've found, or uploaded, and make them truly unique. The range of filters allows the user to generate comic book images, oil paintings, sketches, etc etc. Other little extras include speech bubbles, frames  and text. There is a pay version that gives you more options, but the free package still has a lot of power. Create an account and store your creations on the BeFunky servers. Finished products can be shared (Facebook, flickr, picassa et al), printed or even put on shirts, mugs and other gift-type items through the partner site Zazzle. There's even an iTouch app.

Another way to "see" the news.

For teachers looking for another way to "see" the news, or at least track the big themes, 10x10 offers this unique visual snapshot of the major stories. One hundred images along with the top 100 words give the viewer a glimpse of the news zeitgeist. According to their website:

 "Every hour, 10x10 scans the RSS feeds of several leading international news sources, and performs an ... analysis on the text contained in their top news stories. ... The top 100 words are chosen, along with 100 corresponding images, culled from the source news stories. At the end of each day, month, and year, 10x10 looks back through its archives to conclude the top 100 words for the given time period. In this way, a constantly evolving record of our world is formed, based on prominent world events, without any human input."

A great activity might be to have students create their own 10x10, (or maybe 3x3), of the top stories for their area, municipality, school, hobby etc. The results could be shared as a Powerpoint, a webpage or ... even an art installation!    

Flashcards online

While "understanding" a concept is always more desirable than straight memorization, occasionally students need to drill a concept to own it, and that means flashcards! There are a number of great web-based flash card sites out there, but one I like is "FlashCardExchange". This site allows you to create 2 or 3 sided (ie giving hints) cards that you can access from anywhere. There is even a link to an iPhone app that works in conjunction with the site. Whether it's French verbs, or abbreviations for the periodic table, sometimes all you need is a good set of cards. (Teachers can create sets and then have the students use them.)

On-line Reading: Harper Teen

If you want to encourage reading among your young adult students, you might consider sending them to view publishers sites. Many of them are offering a "browse before you buy" feature, allowing interested students the opportunity to read the first chapter of two of a new or upcoming novel,

Harper Teen lets you do just that! Current offerings are mostly of the "vampire" genre, thanks to Twilight, but there are many others if you dig a little. Enjoy!

Also: check out their podcast. (Interviews with authors, reviews etc.)

No Comic Life installed? - try "Comiqs"

So, you love Comic Life, but it's not installed in your lab? You're in luck! There are a number of web-based comic creators out there. (I've mentioned a couple of them in previous posts.)

What's great about these apps is that there is no software to install, and as long as you have internet access, and a browser, you're in business.

Here are some of the sites that seem promising:

• http://pixton.com/ca/
• http://comiqs.com/editor/ 
• http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/
• http://chogger.com/
• http://chogger.com/createfullscreen
• http://stripgenerator.com/strip/create/

Both Pixton and Comiqs have great potential, but teachers are advised to check out the sites first in case there is inappropriate content. (Pixton has an education version that allows more control.) Like most of these apps, Comiqs has a login that allows you to save your work and return to it later, and is most like the "Comic Life" application used in many Elementary schools.( Even without the login, students always have the option of creating and taking a screen shot, or printing to the desktop.)

http://comiqs.com/editor/ <--- this is much like Comic Life

Online Pro-D resources: Anneberg Media

Sometimes, it can be difficult to find just the right Pro-D resource to encourage a colleague.

Anneberg Media has a number of videos and video series (complete with downloadable facilitator materials) that might just fit the bill.

 Just look for the "VOD" icon to view clips "on-demand.