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" iBooks Author is still making the news in the educational sphere. This is probably the first mobile app to be embraced wholly in education in such a short time since its release. After posting a simple and guided tutorial on how teachers can use the different services of iBooks Author , today I am sharing with you some hands-on examples of what students can actually do with it." Nice examples of how to use iBooks Author

This site creates several kinds of activities and games: interactive map, riddles, fill-in, crossword puzzles, dialogue with audio prompts, dictation, jumbled word or sentence, matching, word search, and quizzzes. You can store your creations for repeated use. Thanks to D. Gonzalez for sharing this.

"Create and share great video lessons with your iPad or browser." This is a great tool for getting students talking, or for creating a lively presentation. You can upload a picture, or draw from scratch, as on a blackboard or whiteboard. Easy to use, free download, and available from the App Store for smart phone or iPad.

You can put a question up on the website and then students reply with their webcam. It's a nice tool for oral language practice, digital storytelling, debates, etc. R. Stannard shows how to use the tool and suggestions for lesson plans. He notes that you will need a fairly fast internet connection. The site allows you to keep statistics on who answered.

Shelly Terrell offers FREE webinars every Friday at around 21:00 GMC/UTC at americantesol.adobeconnect.com/terrell/. This page gives a list of topics for upcoming webinars. Get somefree prof development with inspiring examples of how to use Web tools with your students.

This brief article by Tom Robb outlines a great new Moodle application that is free if your school already uses Moodle, or accessible online where you can have your own page for quiz access. The add-on offers a short quiz of 10 randomized questions for almost 2,000 commonly read books used for extensive reading programs with the major graded reader series. See the http://MoodleReader.org site.

Students can write and then read the commentary on their poems.

Offers songs in multiple European languages with text lyrics which you can manipulate as cloze activities. Lots of student control to repeat lines of a song, click on tab to show an answer to a missing lyric, etc. Students ign-up to keep a record of songs and the tasks completed. Provides 3 different levels of activity; e.g., "expert" is total cloze. R. Stannard has a training video on using this site at

"Instantly record & publish digital voice recordings" online, using phone, Skype, or mic. Saves and stores audio files in MP3 that you can post to website, blog, Facebook or Twitter, and playback with browser, tablet, or smartphone. Voice comments can be recorded, making it possible to use for language lessons. Great potential. Anyone who has used this with students, please comment!

A short video on PBL. Also links to an introductory aritlce and a longer video. Interview with Papert included. Embeddable on your website or playable on iTunes.

Great tips for the budding student artist. I would recommend this to any student who shows artistic promise with photography. Let the creative juices flow. You can send your direct learners directly to this page for a visual feast, plus good advice from professional photographers.

A very comprehensive list of links with visuals and short descriptions. From Nik Peachey.

"Learni.st makes it super easy to share what you know by pointing to existing web resources. You can use videos, blogs, books, documents, images, anything to explain how to learn something. This short video will teach you about the basics of Learnist like how the homepage is laid out and what is on a Learn Board." You will need an invite in this current Beta stage, but I think it will catch on.

ISSU can create an ezine, here a student zine published by Aiden Yeh's students in Taiwan. Colorful and with the look and feel of a real magazine.

Tom Preskett's blog is well worth following. Of special interest are articles on Using Social Media for Personal Learning (11 June 2012), and Tablets: Finally a Technology for the Classroom (18 May 2012). He suggests that "Dynamic content can be created, delivered and actively engaged with by each student."

"We all know Google Presentations is a great tool for making multimedia slideshows. But did you know it can also be used to make interactive quizzes and "Choose Your Own Adventure" style stories? With Google Presentations ability to link to specific slides you can build a non-linear slideshow that allows the user to make choices and go to different slides depending on their choice. Learn tips and tricks to make this work best, and see how this can be used for you or your students to make interactive quizzes and stories." This looks like fun. Users warn that some of the links to help files don't work, but give it a try.

This is an incredibly useful resource for language classes. In combination with news syndicates like ABC, Fox, AP, and AFP, Mapeas collects video news and locates it on a Google map. Students learn geography, read news in English or an FL, and can specify business, entertainment, science news, etc.

This video shows how to use Feed Marklet to create a button on your browser toolbar to add an RSS feed. Takes about 1 minute. You can use an RSS feed to keep track of student Webpages, and have them use it to keep track of each other's work. For instance, they might add all the pages they are making, or their blogs, and so be able to read them quickly when new content is added.

Stannard's training video on how to use Windows Movie Maker (Windows 7) is very detailed and complete. Subsequent parts give directions for XP and Vista. He first suggests downloading the free classic version, which has more features than WMM for Win 7.

Stannard gives a quick overview of http://www.rhymes.net, which helps you find words that rhyme with other words. But he doesn't mention that the site speaks the word too! There are also many other tools, such as a dictionary, words with multi-syllables, quotations using the word, phrases, abbreviations, etc. Great for vocabulary work, pronunciation, and writing poetry.