Group items tagged

"Google's Drawing program is the perfect platform to practice orthography- the skill of writing characters and symbols to create words- in language classrooms with non-Roman alphabets, such as Arabic or Chinese. Students of these languages need lots of practice handwriting the new alphabet or pictographic symbols, which is difficult to do in a digital environment. In traditional word processing programs, typing pictographic languages, such as Chinese, requires the student to change the keyboard language and then phonetically type the syllables. Characters will pop out fully formed, which is efficient and useful, but bypasses the important orthographic practice! Google Drawing presents teachers with an opportunity to digital collect and monitor their students' orthography without having to scan in and email worksheets. The Scribble Tool in Google Drawing allows the user to create free form lines and by extension hand-drawn language characters. Couple Google Drawing with a pen mouse and Chinese language students are fully prepared to complete short answer or extended writing assignments online." You could also use Google Drawing for students from pictographic language to practice handwirting English.

"Online programs for recording, uploading, mixing, and interacting. Free!" Teachers can record audio with their computer, create mashups including uploaded photos, embed conversations on Webpages (wiki, blog, or homepage), podcast on your own channel, and make or use interactive worksheets, practice process writing and handwriting, upload video and add subtitles, etc. Lots of great apps.

5 neat apps -- there are probably comparable apps for Android and other mobile devices. Whether you have an artistic bent or prefer hand-written notes, one of these might suit you and could be linked into Evernote or OneNote, most likely. T/H to R Byrne.