CALL_IS_VSL

Creative writing site, or blog experience for younger learners. Cartoons and ideas for inspriations. Read other youngsters' writing. Free, but you must join and log in.

A tablet-based way to create games using pre-made icons and moves. Introduce students to programing and game development as a creative project. Then go on to Code Academy for more advanced stuff.

Some students really like puzzles and riddles. These are all short, and can be searched by tags, such as math, logic, brain teaser, programming, deduction, chess, etc. A good way to prepare for a few extra minutes of downtime in class.

From R. Byrne: "School websites and classroom blogs are excellent tools for distributing information to parents and students. But sometimes you might want to make your announcements stand-out from the rest of the cyber noise that parents and students experience on a daily basis. Or perhaps you want your students to create their own webpages to showcase their best work or to announce an upcoming school event. In those cases, you might take a look at a tool to build a stand-alone webpage dedicated to one specific event or announcement. " The links at the bottom add a few more online page-makers.

R. Byrne describes "web adventures in science that Rice University has produced. There are six adventures in the series including the CSI adventure. Each of the adventures is appropriate for middle school or high school use. In each adventure students take on the role of scientist to solve a crime, conduct experiments, and learn about scientific methods and processes." Neat way to engage students in science and science careers.

These apps help transform the process of sharing and demonstrating knowledge. R. Byrne: "Digital storytelling is a powerful tool in the classroom. It is engaging for students and teachers of all grade levels and can be used across the curriculum. Most of all, digital storytelling gives students a voice and a way of communicating information in an authentic manner. One of the great things about digital stories is that there are no "cookie cutter" answers."

"Students will practice syllabification, reading, storytelling, and vocabulary when playing these games! This product contains directions and material for four different types of games to use during literacy centers: clapping out the syllables, vocabulary battle game, vocabulary flashcards, and storytelling. The games focus on the daily five activities pertaining to word work and writing. Each game would last 30 minutes."

"Students will practice syllabification, reading, storytelling, and vocabulary when playing these games! This product contains directions and material for four different types of games to use during literacy centers: clapping out the syllables, vocabulary battle game, vocabulary flashcards, and storytelling. The games focus on the daily five activities pertaining to word work and writing. Each game would last 30 minutes."

This looks like a potentially useful site with loads of how-to tutorials on various apps and popular websites, such as Pinterest. Many lessons seem to be made by real teachers.

A demonstration of how you might use this app for iPads to brainstorm ideas with an audio recorder running. ScreenChomp can write over whatever is on the screen, e.g., a pdf file or website. Or just draw from scratch. Good tool.

Part of a lesson from Modern Lessons (EdTechTeacher): shows how to put a pdf file into a background, then add to /write on by importing into Explain Everything. The teacher using a Know-Want to Know-what I learned graphic for her example. Excellent tutorial with pedagogical implications.

This guide is fairly complete on how to use Google Hangouts, but doesn't mention that you can open a text chat elsewhere on the web, e.g., in your blog or YouTube channel, and thus have a much larger class or group of students join in with text chat, while seeing and listening to the audio-video hangout. Participants take turns dropping in and out. This would be hard to organize with high school kids/teens, but would work with adults or teachers-in-training.

A great explanation of how and why to use screencasting, with many examples and video tutorials. From Modern Lessons. "The fundamental advantage of screencasting is that it allows educators to provide an easily created video resource for their students that essentially acts like a private tutor. It gives students a way to explain themselves through drawing, typing, voice narration, and video, allowing you, as the educator, to demonstrate a process, concept or skill. Through published screencasts, students can access content in and out of class in order to learn at their own pace. However, we also want to think about having our students act as creators of their own screencasts to demonstrate their problem solving, tell a story, explain a sequence, diagram a concept, or illustrate a concept."

Evernote for iPad seems to have a new interface, and this video is the most up-to-date I coud find--by J. Hannam 10/31/13. The introductory video covers just about everything, including note creation, sharing with other apps, annotating images using Skitch (built-in), and connecting with Explain Everything to create lessons. Evernote has always seemed a little more trouble than it's worth, but maybe after more trial and error, I'll get to like it. Might be useful for student projects, if the teacher is allowed to share the notes and can skillfully organize them when received. The information age really demands organization skills.

Famous actors read from children's books. Nice place to be read to if parents don't speak English, or are too busy. Stories from many lands, in English.

A session on TESOL Technology Standards: Why, How, and for Whom. This explanation of the new TESOL Tech Standards explains how they were developed and where to find them online. There are many good lesson plans in the Standards, demonstrating how good technology can be embedded in good practices at many levels and with many levels of technology access.

From Learn Alberta, this set of lessons has vivid cartoon animations. Skip the Intro, if you have low tolerance for kids' cartoons. This lively and practical set of lessons should be fine for young learners (7-11).

The Japan Virtual Science Center has Webby Award winning science videos and trials where students can experience phenomena. A great place to support ESP learning and STEMs in your classroom. Some videos are animations for younger learners.

"Freelancers, small business owners, college students and family members have found that the Internet has made it easier to work from home, collaborate on group projects, and share important files and links. This list of web tools is ideal for anyone working on a group project, whether you're looking for task management support, scheduling and calendar organization, or just a place to collect all your materials and brainstorms." These tools may be of more use to teachers than students, and you will need to try them out individually, although there are short snips of information about each one.

Interesting site with activities for kids to learn about the geography and culture of ancient China.

"WebAIM, in my opinion, provides well-written and very user-friendly advice and instruction for those who want to learn more about accessibility. Below, I've selected a few of their resources that explain some of the most common issues concerning this topic." This blog page has some great, short, and simple advice about making your website more accessible -- a good place to start.