Capture Screenshot
You can use this to capture screenshots of the web page you are browsing and upload it to Flickr, Evernot and other services. ( when you click on this link scroll down to the bottom to find the bookmarklet to drag).
"A raccoon with the word "why" Phylo is a project that began as a reaction to the following nugget of information: Kids know more about Pokemon creatures than they do about real creatures*. We think there's something wrong with that. Apparently, so do many others.
picture of a bird with the word "what" Phylo is: (1) a card game that makes use of the wonderful, complex, and inspiring things that inform the notion of biodiversity; (2) an exercise in crowd sourcing, open access, and open game development; and (3) FREAKIN' AWESOME!
picture of a plant with the word "who" The phylo project is the product of the kind and (frankly) amazing contributions of many many individuals who have given art, science expertise, gaming advice, programming chops, and more. A card usually begins its life by someone submitting art to this Flickr pool, but you can also develop new games, help out with programming, or providing general feedback by leaving comments on the blog or forum.
picture of a lady bug and the word "how" You can Start quickly by printing yourself a starter deck and checking out a set of rules. Alternatively, you can just collect and print the cards by going to the card section and "select"ing the ones you like."
Preston Girls' Secondary College Reading Wiki to show and share with students and teachers how web 2.0 tools can inspire students to respond to set texts in a more creative way.
Making book trailers
Filming their own '60 second recap
Making animotos
Creating toondoos
Using Flickr to make a showbag
Developing a glog
Creating a Google Lit Trip
Making a Prezi
Creating VoiceThreads
and responding in Twitterature style
are just some examples of how students can creatively respond to a book.
Each link explains how the tools can be embedded into the curriculum and shows examples of how other people have used these sites to develop a book response. Some responses are better than others and it would be good to discuss with students beforehand what made certain examples better than others.
For some of the presentations, students may need a Flip camera (such as 60 second recap) however the rest of the presentations could use photos and images from the internet. A lesson on Creative Commons and Wikimedia before students are let loose would help them understand their responsibilities in terms of selecting appropriate images and music to use.
Once finished, students could show their presentations to each other and have them critique their work. Permissions allowing, presentations could also be uploaded to the school website or shown on parent information evenings or parent/teacher nights.
Challenge:
My challenge to you is to ask students to use one of these tools (can be in conjunction with a written response) in their next text response.
20 slides for 20 seconds each totalling 6 minutes and 40 seconds for a presentation Pecha Kucha style. Alan Levine has provided this great service for our enjoyment.