CALL_IS_VSL

Very practical classroom ideas to help students get the creative juices flowing. "You will have seen, there is a strong collection between imagination and creativity. We did not want to get bogged down with the neuro-science behind how imagination works (click on the links above if you want to read further about this), but the need to encourage imaginations should not be left behind in Early Years settings. Allow time and space for imaginations to flourish is a tough demand within modern schools, but the importance of finding time is crucial, being something which all educators can play a part in."

"Subtext and Tellagami are two amazing free apps that can expand the way you discover information about each student's reading comprehension. By using their combined power, students can produce and publish valuable information about their reading comprehension to help their teachers better understand them as learners." Meets Common Core standards for bringing visual material into readings. Gives students a way to read and answer questions collaboratively, then respond with an avatar speaker in Tellagami. Powerful combination.

A very useful how-to if you are tired of carrying around your laptop and want to spend your spare time to get everything running conveniently. One important tip involves using your iPhone as a laser pointer so that you can walk around the room while presenting.

Some nice tips to narrow and refine your searches using Google.

A game-board to make your self-tests like a quiz show. Cute and fun.

Thousands of free activities for educators, parents, and students, aligned with Common core goals and standards. Includes history, aret, music, languages, college boards, mind mapping, math games, technology etc.

Powerful content sites from such providers as Annenberg and NAACP. Thanks to Michael Sheehan.

Easily create images, write on maps, place markers, draw shapes, share,and export to Google Earth. A great way to give student presentations some real backgrounds.

R. Stannard shows how to find a map, add markers and other assets, draw, embed, link, and so on.

If you are a fanatic of literature, tv shows, or pop culture, this "periodic table" might be a great source of inspiration. Combine the periodic elements into simple story molecules. Students might use these tropes to create their own stories or videos--and learn something about classic literature along the way.

Fotobabble lets students load in pictures and write on or about them. R. Stannard shows how to use the interface.

"Have students create a Pinterest board with 10 pins that summarizes them. Ask students to create a 30 second podcast that introduces themselves. Then allow students to present them or play them on separate devices as an audio gallery. Create a classroom blog and ask each student to write a blog post introducing themselves to the rest of the classroom. Have students create a quick comic strip to describe themselves or to recreate a recent funny moment in their lives. Use PollEverywhere to ask students interesting questions and get to know them as a class, like their favorite subjects, bands or TV shows. Use GoogleForms or SurveyMonkey to survey students about their interests, academic inclinations, and background info - a 21st century alternative to the "Getting to Know You" info sheet! Have students create word clouds to describe themselves and share with the rest of the class. Have students go on a QR code scavenger hunt in teams to get to know each other and learn about your classroom rules in a fun, engaging way. Ask students to create their own Voki avatars that introduce themselves to the class. Encourage them to be creative with the backgrounds, characters and details of the avatar to reflect their own personalities and preferences. Have students create graffiti online that speaks to their interests and personalities and share with the class." A nice set of ready-made lessons using readily available apps on the computer.

Add a voiceover or video to your PPT presentation with PowerPoint, Google Docs or PDF (Keynote and Prezi). This useful little screencast app helps make your ppt more understandable. Or have students use it to make their own presentations. R. Stannard's training video shows how it works: http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/presentme/index.html

"Using gaming as a vehicle for learning is a very powerful idea and one that is under-utilized. This wiki is an attempt to create a comprehensive resource about gaming that we can all learn from - all contributions welcome!" This might be an interesting place to share if you are interested in gaming and gamification. Several contributions and student handouts are available. Add your own.

Playlist for the Shaping the Way We Teach English videos, the basis for the U.S. Dept of State/Univ of Oregon MOOC, Shaping the Way we Teach English.

This description of educational uses with Minecraft includes a discussion of children with Aspberger's, 3D printing, and a video explaining more of how Minecraft works. Food for thought if you like the idea of using multi-player 3D games as an education tool.

There are 3 ways to search this video archive -- videos by practitioners who are getting started, discipline-specific topics (including carerr and technical education), and videos for administratorseand leadership teams. Though this is a U.S.-based effort, the consideration of grading and approaches at this grading conference from 2013 should be of use to any teacher.

"This screencast was created to present four ideas for how teachers and students can use Evernote during the K-5 literacy block." Good ideas for using this useful app.

Using tools that are appropriate for the task is one theme of this blog post, but it is also a good explanation of SAMR and how to "walk up" to teaching beyond repetition and substitution. Uses an American history lesson as an example

This is an incredibly thorough article that gives one a lot of ideas for using Google Drive on your own desktop or tablet. Apps and add-ons make some of the neat features of MS Word available, with the added advantage of picking and choosing which features you really want/need. Thorin Klosowski is most helpful. Just having regular updates of Drive enables work off-line where needed.