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"Programming is magic. It's the ability to create things from pure imagination. We started CodeCombat to give learners the feeling of wizardly power at their fingertips by using typed code. "As it turns out, that enables them to learn faster too. WAY faster. It's like having a conversation instead of reading a manual. We want to bring that conversation to every school and to every student, because everyone should have the chance to learn the magic of programming. "CodeCombat is a community project,with hundreds of players volunteering to create levels, contribute to our code to add features, fix bugs, playtest, and even translate the game into 50 languages so far. Employees, contributors and the site gain by sharing ideas and pooling effort, as does the open source community in general. The site is built on numerous open source projects, and we are open sourced to give back to the community and provide code-curious players a familiar project to explore and experiment with. Anyone can join the CodeCombat community! "

"VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVD, Audio CD, VCD, and various streaming protocols." From R. Davis and R. Wilson: "One of the best features is that there is a portable apps version that you can load onto a thumb drive, and thus you can play streaming media files in locations where you do not have administrative permission or rights to download the VLC player or other applications to computers at work or school." For Windows-based PCs.

The blog for the Flickr group that collects pictures to use with EFL/ESL students. Join the crowd-sourcing, and use this blog to get ideas for teaching with pictures.

The crowd-sourced collection of images on Flickr that is used by teachers for inspiring classes. Includes grammar topics, relationships, even maths.

R. Stannard shows how to use ELT Pics, which is hosted by Flickr. You can also get an email feed to show pictures as they are updated. A nice way to garner resources for writing or student projects. Pictures are crowd-sourced, and curated by EFL teachers. I use pictures often for teaching writing: description, emotions, cultural comparisons, if-clauses, etc. Don't miss the "Making Collages" part of this video, as it includes PicMonkey, which has templates for collages. ELT Pics also has its own blog with ideas for using images.

"Classroom Clipart: The Source for Free Clip Art, Illustrations and Photographs" has a huge list and a search engine. Very useful for students creating presentations and projects.

VCecommerce.com - VideoCast de Comercio Electronico en español. La mejor seleccion de videos en espa�ol sobre los temas de e-Commerce (Comercio electronico), de e-Marketing (Mercadeo electronico) y tecnologia en un solo sitio., VideoTutorial No 13 del Curso para Emprendedores en Second Life en el que vemos como crear un Hud que nos permiten tener un Animation Override totalmente personalizado. Empezamos viendo la situaci�n del Mercado en SL y el tema de los permisos; explicamos los distintos usos y creacion de luces artificiales y vemos todo el proceso de creacion de Un Animation Override. Partiendo del HUD open source ZHAO, incluiremos unas cuantas animaciones creadas con Poser. Veremos como importar y exportar animaciones entre Poser y Second Life y las distintas opciones que nos ofrece. Unos 41 minutos.

"The U.S. Library of Congress offers a wealth of fantastic online resources for teachers and students. A quick jump into the teachers resource page will lead you to things like these primary source analysis guides that I have used with students in the past. The LOC also offers a couple of good iOS apps that are worth noting." Shows how various apps can be used with the teachers' resource pages at the U.S. Library of Congress. Great authentic materials for research papers and projects. H/T to R. Byrne

This link gives you 3 sources including the title: Visual Writing Prompts, The Literacy Shed, and Video Writing Prompts. Some can be browsed by genre, grade, or subject area. And some have the prompts written directly on each image. The title site includes a prompt explanation, an explanation of any relevant vocabulary and language, and a convenient one-click download button. I always used a set of images, culled over years of browsing magazines and newpapers, as writing prompts for various types of writing. Sites with prompts built-in can be an advantage for the busy teacher, or a disadvantage if you don't want to search for something that precisely fits your assignment goals. You can also have students create their own portfolio of images and prompts to share with other writers. T/H to Nick LaFave.

The Quizlet Blog is a good source, not just for using Quizlet, but for lesson plan ideas like this one for Black History Month -- or any time of the year that race might come up as a topic. And when doesn't it?

This video is spoken very slowly, with subtitles, so it is quite useful for ESL/EFL students.