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. 

"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."

StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives. Since 2003, StoryCorps has collected and archived more than 45,000 interviews with nearly 90,000 participants. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to share, and is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, and millions listen to our weekly broadcasts on NPR's Morning Edition and on our Listen pages. We do this to remind one another of our shared humanity, strengthen and build the connections between people, teach the value of listening, and weave into the fabric of our culture the understanding that every life matters. At the same time, we will create an invaluable archive of American voices and wisdom for future generations. In the coming years we will build StoryCorps into an enduring institution that will touch the lives of every American family.

"PopuLLar is a European Union,  funded, innovative, education project designed to harness music, the primary social interest of secondary school students, in to their language learning. There is a huge need to motivate secondary school students, in particular, to learn languages, focus digital competencies and be creative; and music is the key. The project will ask students to write their own lyrics to songs of their choice. They will then translate their songs in to the target language they are learning, The students will then record their song (audio or video) and share it with students all over Europe. Students will be able to combine their love of music, with creativity, literacy, digital competencies, group collaboration and, most importantly, use LWULT languages. PopuLLar is a project that is 'Owned' by the students, they work autonomously and collaboratively, teachers are guides to the project process. The project will create to enable the project to be replicated autonomously: ■    Sample guides and videos ■    A replicability package for teachers ■    A community space for productions ■     A repository of examples of the use of music in language       education There is no limit to the number of schools that can use the project."

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.

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.

Toasted Cheese is a daily writing prompt site that publishes prompts on a monthly calendar. The whole month is laid out for you with a different prompt each day. Don't see anything you like on the current calendar? That's okay, click through the previous months to find old prompts. Periodically, Toasted Cheese holds writing contests which you can learn about by clicking on the links on the calendar. The writing contests are based on one or more of the prompts from the calendar.

With Grammar.net's Grammar Checker you can check and correct grammar and spelling mistakes and use Thesaurus feature to find synonyms. It's easy to check your texts using our Grammar Checker - just download this Free program. Then you need to highlight the text you want to check and press CTRL+G button. Or use Grammar.net's Rich Text for editing and checking your text with rich mark-up, just copy-paste it and then check your text. Grammar mistakes are underlined with a green wave line and spelling errors with a red one. To correct mistakes you just need to select a word from the Suggestions list. The Thesaurus tab is used for synonyms. The words with found synonyms are marked blue. To change the active word to one of the suggested synonyms you just need to select one of the suggested alternatives in the Synonyms list, and then click Change to. Press Finish Checking and corrected text will be returned to input field. Enhance your writing with FREE Grammar.net's Grammar Checker! All you need to do is download and install it on your computer.

"Learn English online with the help of this free website brought to you by the British Council and Barclays Premier League. Communicate in two of the world's global languages - English and football. Every section of the site has something to help you learn English. Play vocabulary games in Fun and practise your reading with stories on and off the pitch. Watch videos with exercises, do listening activities and grammar exercises.   We have a special section for Teachers with lesson plans and classroom resources. The Coaches section provides information on the Premier Skills courses around the world."

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. 

One Word is a simple writing prompt generator. The way it works is the user clicks "go" on the One Word homepage and they are presented with one word. Users then have sixty seconds to write in the text box whatever comes to their minds regarding that word. The idea is not so much to write definitions of the words, but rather it is to write sentences using the word.

This is a site all about Playground Games. Teachers could use the site for students to learn some classic playground games some of which can be used in the classroom and to show students some games that British primary school kids have written about. One of the main features of the site is the Build A Game section where your students can write about a game they play in the playground and submit it to be published on the site.

The Noun Project is an online catalog of free clip art that you can download and reuse for all kinds of projects. The catalog is divided into eleven categories including sports, safety, food, animals, and more. All of the images are either public domain images or Creative Commons licensed images. If the images are public domain you are free to reuse them without attribution without restriction. If the images are Creative Commons licensed, please note the attribution requirements.

"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"

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.

Booktrust is an independent reading and writing charity that makes a nationwide impact on individuals, families and communities, and culture in the UK. We make a significant positive contribution to the educational outcomes of children from the earliest age. We work to empower people of all ages and abilities by giving them confidence and choices about reading. And we want individuals of all backgrounds to benefit from the wellbeing that a rich and positive engagement in reading and writing can bring.   Our work supports children and young people, parents and carers and indeed anyone who would benefit from the positive impact that books, reading and writing can have on their lives.   Vision: Empowering people through reading and writing.   Mission: Booktrust inspires everyone to enjoy books, reading and writing and the lifelong benefits that they bring. Our aim is to build a literate, connected and creative society.

"EnglishForEveryone.org is your resource for printable English worksheets. On the left of this page you will find an index containing hundreds of quality teaching materials. To open a PDF file for printing, simply click on the topic of your choice then select the desired worksheet from the links on that page. You are welcome to use any of the materials on this website without asking permission, granted that our strict copyright policy is respected. If you'd like to thank us, please tell your friends about this website and consider linking to our web pages (see our Terms of Use to learn how). We appreciate your interest and support, and hope you find our materials to be beneficial for use in the classroom or at home. "

"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!"

This site contains 23 different search engines which are designed for use by children and suitable for use in the classroom for research projects. Sites include the BBC, NASA, Encarta and Ask Jeeves Kids. The website was set up to support the international school communities (teachers, support staff, administrators, students and families) in 17 countries in South East Asia but schools worldwide would find the site a useful resource.

"Welcome to the first ever intercultural podcast. 'absolutely intercultural!' is its name and, as far as we know, this is the first podcast in the world to deal with intercultural issues. We'll be releasing a new episode every second Friday evening, looking at all intercultural aspects of human intercultural communication. For example, we'll be hearing from students on foreign work placements, asking how teachers can make use of intercultural exercises and simulations in their classroom and sharing with you any intercultural gossip we come across. 'absolutely intercultural!' won't be so much about passing on information but more about starting an intercultural dialogue between the makers, and you, the contributors and listeners."