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"You can build just about any app you can imagine with App Inventor. Often people begin by building games like WhackAMole or games that let you draw funny pictures on your friend's faces. You can even make use of the phone's sensors to move a ball through a maze based on tilting the phone. But app building is not limited to simple games. You can also build apps that inform and educate. You can create a quiz app to help you and your classmates study for a test. With Android's text-to-speech capabilities, you can even have the phone ask the questions aloud. "

OMG Kids building real Apps! You can build just about any app you can imagine with App Inventor. Often people begin by building games like WhackAMole or games that let you draw funny pictures on your friend's faces. You can even make use of the phone's sensors to move a ball through a maze based on tilting the phone. But app building is not limited to simple games. You can also build apps that inform and educate. You can create a quiz app to help you and your classmates study for a test. With Android's text-to-speech capabilities, you can even have the phone ask the questions aloud. Greg, this is for you.

"Who this course is for? * Any teacher who ever wanted a practical way to begin their eTeaching adventure but didn't know where to start. * Any teacher who thought it might be useful to have a website for their educational work. * Any teacher who is curious about how the Internet can be used to help their students."

Who this course is for? * Any teacher who ever wanted a practical way to begin their eTeaching adventure but didn't know where to start. * Any teacher who thought it might be useful to have a website for their educational work. * Any teacher who is curious about how the Internet can be used to help their students.

"Lately, I have discovered many cool free apps that are incredible for creating digital stories, reading stories, and interacting with stories. These apps are incredibly engaging and meet the needs of our diverse learners. They allow learners to interact with the plot, characters, and even design of the story. They also support multiple learning styles because they are visual, have sound, and animation. Students can even begin to craft their own stories using their voices, drawings, images, videos, and so much more!"

Over the last year and a half I have really enjoyed exploring the types of iPad apps that can be used in the classroom and so I thought I would begin to draw together some of my favourites and share them with you here. This is the first of 4 posts in which I feature my first 5 recommendations:

More and more websites are coming online to give students the ability to unleash their creativity in new and innovative ways. From abstract art to pointillism, students now can click and draw their way into original works of art, and today's freebie gives you a great list of places to begin. The sites are labeled by grade level to help guide you to those that best suit your students. In addition, I've added ratings to give teachers and students an idea of how much interactivity is available at each site. Some allow students to create from beginning to end, while others simply generate the final product with minimal effort. What you will not find here are basic virtual coloring sheets. I tried to find sites that would give students a chance to generate their own original works of art. What could be better?

"Benefits for creating a classroom environment for student blogging begin with establishing a foundation for their success. Why is this important? Integrating blogs transforms a classroom into a learning community where students become self-directed learners and thinkers. This in turn, causes students to use higher order thinking skills as they create and post entries in their blogs, along with commenting on other student's blogs."

Where to begin, everything from ESL/EFL links to Foreign Languages

Greg, is this something that might interest you?

"Knoword is a game of quick thinking, smart decisions and great words. When you begin, you will be given one randomly generated dictionary definition along with the first letter of its corresponding word. You must fill in the rest of the word to experience a gain in points and an added time bonus. You will start off with one minute before the game ends, and every word is an opportunity to extend your time. If you're ever stuck on a word, just hit the skip button and a new puzzle will present itself."

"How the game works In the Languages Online Matching Game there are two columns. Each column contain six lines. To complete the game the player must drag a line between the matching pairs from each column. The Matching Game Maker allows you type in or record your own text or voice recordings in each column. Some suggestions about the types of tasks you can make: * Match a question and answer i.e. 'How old are you?' - 'I'm 12 years old' * Match the begining and endings of a sentences. i.e. 'My favourite colour' - 'is blue.' * As a translation task. Match a sentence in the LOTE with the English * A listening exercise. Match a recording of a sentence with the text of that sentence. * A comprehension task. Match a recording of a sentence or statement with a corresponding statement. * Match a sound with a word. i.e. the sound of a dog matched with the word 'dog'. * Complete the sequence. 'Monday, Tuesday" - "Wednesday" "

"What is a sentence game? A Languages Online Sentence Game begins with a sentence that has one or more words missing, and number of possible 'answer' words. The player must select the correct answer words to complete the sentence. This game focuses on sentence structure and word order, and depending on the answer options that appear in the game, it can be used to for practising agreements, adjectival endings, articles or many other grammatical points. "

"IfItWereMyHome.com is your gateway to understanding life outside your home. Use our country comparison tool to compare living conditions in your own country to those of another. Start by selecting a region to compare on the map to the right, and begin your exploration."

Great tool to let students see comparisons between world events and their home.

Interesting article and list of rubric sites.

Wortha read, especially for the useful and frank ideas about starting blogging. Good for the greade 4-6 classes!

From the first week of school, the six-year-olds in my classroom begin to create an online presence in the form of a blog and digital portfolio. We use a blogging platform to do this, and include artifacts that show their progress in writing, reading, math, social studies, and science. I am frequently asked why I do this. Even more frequently, I can see in a colleague's eyes that they are thinking "why," even if they don't verbalize their question. The way that those educators have always done portfolios has worked well for them. Their students are learning the things they need to learn and are building a paper portfolio as they do so. Why do I take the extra time to upload those artifacts?

PhotoPeach allows you to easily use images and music to tell a story. PhotoPeach also allows quizzes and user comments. Start by defining the goals for the project. Do you want a visual way to communicate a topic? Are you introducing a new topic? Are students trying to demonstrate mastery of a subject? Begin by uploading photos or bringing them in from a website such as Flickr. Arrange them in the right order to tell your story and add your music, special effects such as zooming and captions. Save your project so it can be embedded into a blog, wiki or even Facebook.

Ihad been looking forward to Edmodo's arrival since I first found out about it earlier this year, when I was researching for the Languages ICT Outlook. Since its launch earlier this month, happily coinciding with the beginning of term for us, my students and I have been exploring Edmodo as a means of teacher-student communication.