Group items tagged

Pre-training materials

More great resources for my workshop. This short video, very simply instructs users on adding a wiki within their Bb course. The video is free of extraneous, distracting information. The audio is clear and lined up with the appropriate visual.

Animoto allows the user to upload photos and and text as well as music. Just like the use of Glogster, the use of Animoto can be authentic if the assessment is designed properly, the use will be authentic. In an anecdotal way of reporting, I have seen students become excited about the use of Animoto. Animoto is free but does have a premium version.

Facebook pages and groups allows for creation of interactive sites to help creative active learning environments. This site is better than others due to its ease of use as well as its common use as a social media tool.

TaskStream is a workflow management system for performance assessments evaluation. The system provides templates for building rubrics, as well as the ability to publish specific assessments for individuals to complete. The rubric templates are especially useful for authentic assessment, as they allow for the creation of low-inference rubrics geared towards true performance assessment. Whether the individual participant uploads and artifact or the instructor chooses to observe the participants, TaskStream can help manage the process and ensure validity and management.

Thinking Worlds is a software application that makes the creation of virtual worlds relatively simple in comparison to other applications. Users can design and publish virtual worlds as simple or as complex as necessary for given projects. In circumstances where the training is geared around more "hands on" initiatives, or where participants will participate remotely, virtual worlds can provide more interaction and context for learning. This type of simulated environment is often very expensive to develop and very complicated to manage. As the technology improves, however, innovative applications such as Thinking Worlds make the process much more efficient and cost-effective.

Edutopia is a great resource where teachers share ideas, strategies, and resources. The link shared provides resources on teaching academic English.