It Checks, It Grades, It Suggests!

Another site that helps students get a sense of their own writing is "PaperRater".  

From the website:  

"PaperRater.com is a free resource, developed and maintained by linguistics professionals and graduate students. It is used by schools and universities in over 46 countries to help students improve their writing."

PaperRater will even provide the following services:

• Plagiarism Detection
• Auto Grader
• Spelling and Grammar Check
• Style and Word Choice Analysis
• Readability Statistics

(In an article for SLJ, Krista Brakhage speaks about how she uses it herself! LINK)

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"Check your own paper, kids"

Worried about plagiarism? Wondering what to do about it? Instead of having the teacher check, why not ask the students to do it first? Plagium is a site similar to many grammar checking URLs that scours the internet for copied content. This can be a helpful pointer to students who may have inadvertently copied, and a wake-up call to those who have fallen into the practice. Why not give it a whirl?

ThingLink - link anything to your images

Do you want an easy way to annotate the images you find, or the pics you place on your website or blog? ThingLink is an innovative way to do this. You can embed videos, images, sound files and URLs, making your image much more than a simple picture. Teachers could upload an image of a worksheet, with step by step audio instructions. Students could use a relevant picture as a project placeholder for any number of links to supplemental material. Watch the short video on the site and then sign up!

Zipcast

Slideshare has added a great feature to its hosting of PPT shows - audio and video. Yes, using the Zipcast function, you can now do a realtime audio or video presentation using your Slideshare content. Invite participants and you have an instant webinar. The free version has a few limitations, but for ease of use, it can't be beat.




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Quick Start Page for your links

Looking for a quick "Table of contents" page for your staff or students? Start.io gives you an easy to set up, no fuss start page. Customize the colours and background design.



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QR Voice - have your say!

A QR code can be used for all kinds of things. Now, you can use them to share a machine-read message with QR Voice. It's a great way to add a little "spice" to a worksheet, book review or even a birthday card.

I think with a little brainstorming, you could come up with all kinds of uses. The best part? It even will read in a whole bunch of languages. (Maybe a fun way to do vocab lists, or instructions?)

Scan it! How's your French?

Miniature Faking with TiltShift

Stop motion animation has become a popular way to represent the world, and a "fresh" approach to film-making. Now, photographers are talking about "tilt shifting" as a way of flipping this on its head. Rather than trying to make clay look like the real world, tilt shifting seeks to make the real world look like claymation. Called "miniature faking", you can transform a real-life scene into a miniature world with a great iPhone app. This new application called TiltShift simulates the effect of a tilt-shift lens, tricking your mind into viewing a photo as a miniature scene.

StoryJumper - create picture books

Quick Picture Book Publishing

Create your own account and start writing using StoryJumper. Write a story to illustrate a concept you are trying to teach. Share it "publicly" and use it in your class. Teachers can create a class account and manage student work. 

"StoryJumper is a website that allows kids to build their own books. You can easily create cover pages, add text, upload drawings or photos to illustrate your story, and you can use the StoryJumper clipart gallery, too. When you re done, you can order your own professionally published hardback book."

Step-by-step instructions: HERE

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You're the publisher!

I've mentioned this site before, but I'm still amazed at how simple and slick it is.

Within minutes, Youblisher will turn your magazines, catalogs, business reports, presentations and all other pdf documents into publications with flippable pages!

Your book/magazine gets a URL that shows only your document, with no other ads or content on the side. Perfect for publishing a classbook or project. Finished work can even be embedded in a site or blog.

Write an eBook - PDF or ePub

Digital Publishing is back with the spread of eReaders and iPads in schools and homes. Cheryl Davis from Acalanes Union High School District has created 3 mini-tutorials for teachers and students to use, depending on the app they select: Google Mobile, Pages or Google Docs. The first 2 options generate PDFs which don't allow for resizing the text, but the Google Docs (+ ePub Bud) let you create true ePubs.

More about ePubBud:
https://sites.google.com/site/ebookcooltools/epubbud-site

SafeShare

Share Youtube videos in class without all the extras.

Youtube has many great clips that can enhance a class discussion or serve as a springboard to a lesson. Sometimes the "related content" is just not appropriate. SafeShare allows you to view just the clip without the "extras".

"Our service provides a unique combination of the ability to view the video with minimum distraction as well as the ability to crop distracting scenes within the video !"

Example: http://www.safeshare.tv/w/kPQWdwTOIB

picoDoodler - quick draw artist!

What can you do with just 10K? The site "10K Apart" sponsors a competition to see who can create the most interesting webapps, with the smallest footprint. These apps run in your browser window and let you play games, doodle, look up stuff, calculate, run animations, etc. One I like is quick draw app called PicoDoodler. This basic draw program lets you select pen size and colour, erase mistakes and save the image to your desktop, and it's only 4.97K - wow!  Perfect for a quick little sketch to show off an idea or illustrate a concept. Launch it is a sec, draw your image, and move on.

Spiderscribe

Spiderscribe is an easy-to-use mindmapping application that allows you to upload pictures and documents to enhance your "web". From the site: "It lets you organize your ideas by connecting notes, files, calendar events, etc. in free-form maps. You can collaborate and share those maps online!" Maps can be private or public, and can be a way to marshall resources needed for a presentation. Students simply login to their account and all their material is in one place.

Intervue - get video feedback on topics you post

One of the key features of the Web 2.0 world is the ability to give feedback to posts and webpages. In most cases, the feedback takes the form of a text comment. "Intervue" by particleteam allows you to create a video response wall where people can be invited to leave an AV comment to a question or issue you post. As the owner of the intervue, you can choose to set the video responses to Hidden. (When you do, only you will be able to see the videos.) Or you can allow them to be visible to the world.  Compose a set of questions, post them for your class, gather the responses publicly or privately, download the responses as mp4s or embed them. Use Intervue to get student responses to a test question, practice public speaking or as a placeholder for your own video clips.

A fast, handy way to take minutes

So, you're in a meeting with your iPad and you want to take some brief notes. But there is no wifi. Why not take advantage of this "web app for ipad" creation? Minutes.io is an elegant easy-to-use tool. Browse to minutes.io with your ipad or laptop  Create an account. If you've visited the site once previously, then you will be able to take notes and sync with your account, or even take notes off-line for synching later. (Here's a quick write-up on the desktop interface from MacLife.) You can take notes without an account, but having an ID makes it even handier.