Group items tagged

"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! "

This site is going EFL/ESL in a big way, using video: "We recently found out that 22frames.com is becoming a popular site for learning English as a second language (ESL). It turns out that watching captioned videos provides a way to not only learn formal English but also idioms and other cultural concepts. To find videos, you can browse through categories or make caption-only video searches on your interests. Even more, we have been devoting significant time and resources to developing ESL-specific features that are motivated by our users' feedback." "Recently, we found out that many of our users are using the site to supplement their English learning (see: http://www.22frames.com/esl.aspx ). They also began to pitch ideas we could implement to make the site even more useful for this activity. With so many requests, we decided to seriously consider these ideas and devote significant time and resources into realizing them. Now, we are turning our site into a substantial and FREE English learning resource. We are aware of a couple sites out there that are also focused on using captioned videos for English learning, so we've been focusing on the unique user-motivated features. Therefore, my goal here is to let you know about our free resource and that we are opening the door to requests for anyone who might desire features that have not been implemented elsewhere. Perhaps, you can share this with your colleagues/readers/etc as it will help us better gauge which features to prioritize and to increase the rate with which we will release new features. Please note that we are really serious about considering whatever feedback we get. I'm also pleased to announce our first feature, which we expect will help in learning/teaching popular English idioms. Idioms are a big deal in learning English, and it is clear that watching them used in real situations will increase the rate with which they are learned. We therefore processed a large group of YouTube videos in o

22 Frames is going to the ESL/EFL market, and is free. First features are idioms.

"Collect up gifs related to any vocabulary area you want to teach or revise. Embed them in an html page on your desk top and start a collection. Each time you add new ones send the html page to your students. (They will need to have a live connection on their computer to be able to view the gifs) Ask them to make notes of any words they relate to the images they see." This is another neat little tool with notes on how to use it from the very extensive collection by Nik Peachey. I'd suggest having the students make animated vocabulary gifs of words they want to learn/find useful.

"If you're the "techy" person in your school but you're not in the IT department sometimes your colleagues come to you with their tech help questions before heading to the IT folks. Sometimes those questions come over the phone and you find yourself trying to explain where to click next or struggling to understand the problem the other person is trying to explain. That's when it's handy to have a screen sharing tool readily available. Here are five that are quick and easy to use." Actually, these screen-sharing tools might be really great for seeing what your students are doing, or to allow remote collaborations.

"As part of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), students need to "ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century." Many teachers have little to no formal training on how to teach about climate change. Along with the ever-changing research and the controversy that comes with it, some teachers inevitably shy away or even prevent students from digging deep into the content. Some suggest that teachers might be getting climate change all wrong. Since teachers can't rely on books to stay current with all the new research, digital resources are the only effective way to stay on top of such a dynamic field. Consider these practices when using technology to teach about climate change:" Sites include NASA Global Climate Change, Climate Kids for younger learners, Global Oneness Project, and Earth-Now to analyze realtime data.

"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.

A brief presentation (1:02 min.) of what the Wiki-to-Speech tool can do. W-to-S allows you to use your computer's (Mac or PC) text-to-speech capability to record the comments written into your slideshow. For use with mobile technology as well, W-to-Speech looks like a great way to enhance presentations posted to an asynchronous site like SlideShare.

R. Byrne: "Wideo is a nice tool for creating Common Craft-style videos. You can create animated videos on Wideo by dragging and dropping clipart and text in storyboard frames. You set the position and animation sequence for each element in each storyboard frame. When you have completed your storyboards Wideo generates a video for you. "This week Wideo added a new feature that allows you to build interactive buttons into each frame of your video. The buttons can be hyperlinked to any webpage that you like. When people are watching your video they can click the buttons to be taken to the webpage you want them to land on. For example, clicking the buttons in the video embedded below will take you to the website of my favorite animal rescue organizations." Older students could, of course, create videos themselves to instruct others. The new interactive button might also lead to a quiz on Quizlet or in Google Docs, for example.

"This study aims at investigating the efficiency of web quests in enhancing the 8th graders' descriptive writing. The 8th graders in the Lebanese public schools in general usually demonstrate poor writing skills. Consequently, they don't show motivation to write in English. The subjects of the study are one control group (n=22) and one experimental group (n=23) enrolled in grade eight in a public school in Beirut and whose ages range from thirteen to fifteen years old. The purpose of the study is to examine whether or not the web quest helps 8th graders achieve unity and coherence in writing descriptive paragraphs and to examine if the motivation towards writing is increased after using the web quest. Based on a pilot study conducted earlier by the two researchers, the prospective findings of the study shall convey that the experimental group produces unified and coherent writings. More importantly, the experimental group is expected to reveal great motivation towards writing. The researchers' prospective recommendations will be mainly urging the teachers of all levels to use the web quests as an indispensable tool requested to enhance students' motivation and to better their descriptive writing skills."

"Google added two fantastic new features to Google Slides. First, Google Slides now has a Q&A feature that lets your audience submit questions to you. Second, Google Slides now has a built-in laser pointer that you can use to call attention to parts of your slides. I've already received some questions about how to use these new features so I made the following short video." t/h R. Byrne This makes Google slides very versatile for online presentations. Check out the how-to video.

"These videos give you an up to date outline of using the program Blogger. They start off with how to create your first blog all the way through to adding more pages and authors to your blogs" R.Stannard takes you through the updated Blogger program. I have used Blogger for years, but now tend to just use Diggo and Scoop.It, the latter for the more reflective, pedagogically oriented discussions. Blogs are very helpful as a place for student portfolios, and are easy to tag and search.

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.

"Many schools are currently using Forms as a way to easily and quickly record data from teacher observations. The advantage is of using a Google Form is that it compiles all the data into a spreadsheet which allows school leaders to quickly and easily see trends in the school's classrooms." Suggests that the administrator can also use the Google spreadsheet to collect data on what teachers are doing in the school as a whole. Video shows how to go to the Template and create your own by copying the document. Links to template, which has an auto-mail feature.

One teacher explains how to teach thinking skills. A nice build up, e.g., from concepts to topic sentences, observation to finding patterns and drawing conclusions. Starts with magazine advertising as a short path to larger works. Points to intersection with Common Core targets.

Key findings: ICT use by pupils and teachers in the case study schools led to positive motivational\noutcomes, supporting a focus upon learning and the tackling of learning tasks.\n* Positive motivational outcomes were most frequently found when ICT was used to\nsupport engagement, research, writing and editing, and presentation of work. Where ICT\nuses supported internal cognitive aspects of learning, for example in the case of secondary\ndesign and technology, there were indicators that the motivation arising from the use of\nICT was linked to enhancements in some subject specific attainment.\n* More positive motivation resulted when ICT use was focused on both teaching and\nlearning, than when ICT was used to support teaching alone.\n* Boys and girls were both motivated by uses of ICT. There was evidence that motivation\nfrom ICT use positively affected the work patterns of boys so that they worked in similar\nways to the persistent pattern of girls.\n* Motivation appeared to be independent of ethnic background, but socio-economic\nbackground impacted on occasions in terms of limited access or out of school support.\n* There were indications that ICT impacted positively upon

PurposeGames.com is host to educational quiz and trivia games created by its members. In just a few minutes, you can create your very own game to share with your friends!. Play games and tournaments to compete against your friends, co-workers, and classmates! Become the reigning champion of your community! The easiest way to learn something is to have fun while doing it! Geography, Science, and Languages, any subject is easier and more fun to learn by playing a quiz game!

A screencaster on the Internet--nothing to download. For Mac or PC, you can record anything within a limited frame for 5 min., so this would be nice to help students start running a program or to create their own short presentations. Easy to upload to YouTube, embed on a Website, send to a smart phone, share by email, tweet, or download as mp4. See R. Stannard's instructional video

"You could use Google Maps Engine Lite to create your own classroom version of Novels on Location. Ask your students to write short short book reviews in the placemarks that they add to a shared Google Map. If you have students creating video book trailers, those videos could be added to their placemarks too. If could be a fun challenge for your call to try to collectively "read around the world" by locating stories set on each of the seven continents. " A nice tool and an interesting lesson using it. T/H R. Byrne

"Cyberbullying is something most families hope they never have to deal with. But if your kids are texting, sharing photos, and posting comments, it's important to talk to them about how to deal with online harassment. Learn 5 ways to stop cyberbullies. "

A browser-based audio editor

TwistedWave is a browser-based audio editor. You only need a web browser to access it, and you can use it to record or edit any audio file.

All the audio is stored and processed on the server, so you don't need to download anything, or save your work when you are done. Close your browser window and your work is saved. Open TwistedWave somewhere else, and all your audio files, with the complete undo history, are still available.

With a free account, you can edit mono files up to 5 minutes in length. Once you have an account, you can purchase a subscription to increase this limit. T/h to R. Byrne, Free Technology for Teachers.