Group items tagged

wireWax is a new service (still in beta) that takes the concept of YouTube annotations and makes it much better. On wireWax you can build interactive tags into your videos. Each tag that you add to your video have another video from YouTube or Vimeo or an image from Facebook, Flickr, or Instagram. A tag can also include an audio track from SoundCloud or a reference article from Qwiki. What makes using wireWax different from using the YouTube annotations tool is that clicking on your tags (what YouTube calls annotations) does not send you outside of the video you're currently watching. This means that you can watch a video within a video or view a picture or listen to a different audio track within the original video. When you click a tag in the original video the video pauses and the tagged item is displayed. wireWax allows you to add tags to any YouTube video that is publicly viewable and has not had embedding disabled. I tried wireWax with this five minute video. It took a while (15-20 minutes) for the video to process for tagging, but once it was processed it was easy to create a tag. To create my tag I just advanced the video to the spot I wanted to tag, drew a box around the person I was tagging, then selected the wireWax YouTube app to put a video within the original video. Check it out below by advancing to about the 1.5 minute mark. Applications for Education wireWax could be a great tool for adding new layers of information to educational videos. If you're creating videos for your students or your students are creating videos to share with others consider tagging key points at which viewers might have questions. At those points insert tags that reveal clarifying information in the form of a video, an image, or an audio recording. 

Scholastic Story Starters is a great tool that students will enjoy using to create short, creative fiction stories. Scholastic Story Starters offers four story themes; fantasy, adventure, sci-fi, and scrambler. To create a story on Story Starters a students picks a theme, enter his or her name, chooses his or her grade, and spins the big wheels of prompts. The student can spin the wheels until he or she finds a prompt he or she likes. After the prompt is selected the student can write his or her story using the letter, postcard, notebook, or newspaper format provided by Scholastic Story Starters. When the story is finished it can be printed. 

"What is Snappy Words visual English dictionary? It's an online interactive English dictionary and thesaurus that helps you find the meanings of words and draw connections to associated words. You can easily see the meaning of each by simply placing the mouse cursor over it. Why use Snappy Words visual dictionary? Easy to use dictionary and thesaurus. Learn how words associate in a visually interactive display. Get ideas to help write content for your blog, article, thesis or simply play with words! No registration required. No limit on number of searches. Look up as many words as you need anytime. No software installation needed. All you need is an internet connection and a browser (Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer and others). It's free and fun! How do I use it? Type words in the search box and click Go or simply hit Enter. Once the words branch off the main query, you can double click a node to find other related words. To explore the features: Place the mouse cursor over a word to view the meaning. Double click a node from the branch to view other related words. Scroll the mouse wheel over words to zoom in or out. This helps you see more associations or view words and meanings more clearly. Click and drag a word or branch to move it around and explore other branches. What dictionary does Snappy Words use? The Snappy Words interface queries the WordNet lexical database developed by Princeton University and made available for students and language researchers. This dictionary groups synonyms into synsets through lexical relations between terms. These meanings and semantic relationships are revealed graphically by the interactive web technology made available by Snappy Words."

Wouldn't it be great if you could be a different person everyday? Maybe you want to know how you would look like with a different hair cut, in a famous picture or in a cd cover...  Many of us have tried to manipulate pictures in order to try something different or just to have fun but not only it takes loads of hard work but also the results aren't usually all that great. Well, not anymore. With FACEinHOLE.com you can easily and in a matter of seconds create a totally "new look" for you and your friends. You just have to select a scenario, upload and adjust a photo (or use your webcam) and there you have it; a great FACEinHOLE that you can send to your friends, post in your blog or make available to the world.

Textivate is an online facility for creating and sharing interactive browser-based activities. Text re-ordering, gap-fills, text re-construction, anagrams, matching, memory, hangman, flashcards, millionaire and lots more - all automatically generated based on any text and/or list of matching items that you put into the textivate text box. Much of the site is free to use, and subscribers can upload resources to share with their students or embed activities on a blog or website. It is browser-based, so it works on desktops, laptops, ipads etc. The activities are ideal for whole-class work with any interactive whiteboard. You can see video tutorials here: http://textivate.posthaven.com/video-tutorials To help you get started, browse the hundreds of public resources on the site, or click on "textivate now" to see the range of activities available.

Vialogues is a website that is designed to enable users to host conversations around a video. Users can upload videos to Vialogues or use YouTube videos as the centerpieces of their conversations. After you have selected a video from YouTube or uploaded a video of your own, you can post poll questions and add comments that are tied to points in the video. Your Vialogue can be made public or private. Public Vialogue's can be embedded into your blog or website.

ClassDoJo is a free online service for recording and generating data about your students' behaviors. To get started using ClassDoJo you create class lists and select the behaviors that you want to track. Then assign each behavior as a negative or positive behavior. Once you have created your class lists and selected behaviors to track, actually tracking behaviors is quite easy. To track your students' behaviors just sign-in, select your class, and start marking student names with positive or negative points. When you mark with positives or negatives you can state the reason by selecting from the menu of behaviors that you created while creating your ClassDoJo lists. You can use your computer or your mobile device to make entries in your ClassDoJo account. Students can view their records by signing into their records through secret Clas DoJo codes assigned to them. Parents can have reports about their children sent to them by you.

"Photobucket is the place to store, create and share photos and videos for life. Upload all your best pictures, images, graphics, icons, and videos and share them by email or link them to your favorite sites like Facebook and Twitter. Personalize your photos by using our photo editor or make slideshows to share with friends. Join our large community by entering competitions or searching our huge photo and video library. Use Photobucket on the Web or on your mobile phone."

Draw Island is a free online tool for creating drawings and simple GIF animations. Draw Island offers you your choice of four canvas sizes on which you can draw. Draw Island offers two canvas sizes for creating simple GIF animations. To use Draw Island just head to the site and select a drawing tool. You can draw free hand (or should I say free mouse?) or select pre-defined shapes to use in your images. When you're done drawing just click the save button to download your drawing or animation. 

"FlipSnack is an online flipping book software that allows you to convert PDF documents into Flash page flip digital publications. It's the ideal solution for those who wish to embed a book, magazine, catalog, newspaper, portfolio or any other kind of document into a website or blog. Once created, you can embed your flipping book collection, download it or share it on social networking websites such as Facebook. P.S. With FlipSnack you can upload several documents at once, allowing you to embed not only one, but multiple page flip publications in the same Flash widget."

Chogger is a free comic strip creation tool that offers a good selection of editing tools. Chogger allows you to draw images from scratch or use your existing images. You can even connect your webcam to Chogger to capture pictures for use in your comic strips. Once you've added images to your comic strip, you can add effects such as fading and outlining. Chogger also allows you to customize the look of each frame in your comic strip. Comic strips created in Chogger can have as few as three frames or as many as twelve or more frames.

"AnswerGarden is a new minimalistic feedback tool. Use it as a tool for online brainstorming or embed it on your website or blog as a poll or guestbook."

"50 Essential Vocabulary Sets in 3 Different Sizes -- Use these flashcards for teaching English, Spanish, Chinese or any other second language. The BIG CARDS make it easy to present vocabulary to the whole class. The MID-SIZED CARDS are great for teaching small groups of students. The SMALL SETS OF PICTURES work well for playing language learning games such as Down-Pass or Go Fish. Best of all, they're all FREE! Currently we have 968 total images and 2904 total flashcards. Enjoy!"

Ice Breaker Tags is a simple service for designing simple yet unique name tags. To use the service just enter your desired display name, upload an image to display on your name tag, and type your ice-breaker question or statement. If you need help developing a creative ice-breaker question or statement, Ice Breaker Tags offers some suggestions to get you going. You can print your name tag directly from Ice Breaker Tags.

SoundCloud is a free tool for creating and sharing sound tracks. On Monday I included it in my list of alternatives to Aviary. Today, I showed it to some teachers at the Bancroft School in Massachusetts. When I showed the option for inserting text comments into the sound tracks a teacher spoke up with an idea for using Sound Cloud in a world languages course. The suggestion the teacher made was to have students record spoken tracks on Sound Cloud and share them with her. Then she could use the comment feature to provide feedback that is tied directly to each student's recording. The comments could be tied to the exact second at which a student pronounces something incorrectly, uses the wrong verb form, or to praise a student for pronouncing a new word particularly well. SoundCloud allows you to have up to two hours of recordings stored in your account at one time. After that you need to either delete an old recording or upgrade to a paid plan.

Text 2 Mind Map offers a great way to turn your typed outlines into mind maps. To create a mind map on Text 2 Mind Map type out an outline in the text box. After typing your outline click "draw mind map" to have your mind map created for you. If after creating your mind map you need to add more elements to just add them into your outline and click "draw mind map" again. Your mind map can be downloaded as a PDF or PNG file. The mind maps that you create on Text 2 Mind Map can also be shared via email, Facebook, or Twitter.

MeeGenius is a nice source of free and paid ebooks for kids. There are lots of sites that offer the same thing as MeeGenius but MeeGenius distinguishes itself with one excellent feature. That feature is automatic word highlighting to accompany the narration of each book. When children open the ebooks online, on an Android tablet, or on an iPad they can choose to have the story read to them or to read the story on their own. When the story is read to them each word in the story is highlighted on the page. This should help children follow along with the story.

Voki enables users to express themselves on the web in their own voice using a talking character. You can customize your Voki to look like you or take on the identity of lots of other types of characters… animals, monsters, anime etc. Your Voki can speak with your own voice which is added via microphone, upload, or phone. Voki lives on your blog, social network profile and will soon be integrated in various instant messaging platforms. You will also be able to download it to most video supported phones.

"The idea behind the Polyglot Project is simple. We want to help you get fluent in whatever language you're trying to learn. And we believe the best way to get fluent in a foreign language is to put in time exposing yourself to that language as it's actually used by native speakers. Here, we've pulled together a library of foreign language content for you to work with, starting with classic literature from all over the world. You can work on your Italian by reading Dante's Inferno, or your Spanish by reading Don Quijote, or choose any other language and learn it from the best writers that language has to offer. Dive in to the library to start learning"

free 3D animation software, integrated with an online collaborative community, that gives individuals or groups the power of Unreal Engine 3 to create compelling videos in minutes, not months. You don´t need specialist kit or training, just a good idea. Our motto is: "Direct, don't animate."