Webheads

The article suggests capturing your Prezi with a screen capture tool to create a video. A work-around, but could be useful. I find screen captures are usually pretty fuzzy, however.

This site has some amazing links for all the content areas: sciences, lanugage arts (lit trips), maths, and social studies, including U.S. History Tours, using Google Maps and Google Earth. For multiple grades.

This might be a nice way for students to get listening practice. Though set up to read blog-to-sound, students could also read the blog while listening. he teacher might also set up a blog and insert texts or words specifically for students to follow on audio.

"Based on the motivational theories of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, the game encourages students to assess themselves not on how smart or talented they are, but on how hard they work. And the reward for completing quests with characters is significant: Help the Cheshire cat from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and he'll help you turn invisible so you can sneak through the virtual world a la Harry Potter and his invisibility cloak. "The more characters from literature you get to know, the more powerful you become," says Schell. "

Many of these sites/apps have surprising features, such as the ability to insert a poll, educational portals where student accounts can be created, easy embedding of a collage or slideshow in a blog, student response systems within the slideshow, video mash-up, animation, video narration side-by-side, mobile apps, etc. Far more than Powerpoint can do.

This is an amazing site -- the news of the day is provided in three different levels of English, so you can select the reading level that is just right for your students. You can also have the news sent to your email. There is a word translation link also. Still free!

Learning2gether is a project of Vance Stevens and the Webheads. Vance regularly recruits experts and tech-using teachers to offer live webinars weekly. Links to the full schedule and archive of over 300 hours of recordings from past events may be found a this Wordpress blog.

This is a nice update on where to find resources for student projects. Mike Alfred's students use creative projects to show what they have learned, making all types of video from animations to full movies.

A good review of both LMS tools. Winning for me is Schoology's iPad connections and, especially, it's good was to create and thread discussions (with embedded media). Teachers can also see which students participate by using a filter, and share discussions across classes/courses.

"Here's a powerful example of a poem-photo combination that can inspire unlimited possibilities for writing. In the poem "Skateboarding" by Massbay College student Rose Scherlis, colorful images swirl and converge until the world blurs and the skater's mind becomes receptive to new ideas. The swirling lines and shapes in the accompanying photo add to the effect:" Using digital images to inspire writing.

Start your presentation, type a few words and then search for a copyright free creative commons-licensed image to illustrate, add charts or graphs, and select theme, layout, and filters. Share and view on any web-enabled device or embed in your website or blog. Help your students create beautiful presentations on the iPads. Free.

"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.

This is a great article on using some of YouTube's lesser-known features: annotations to great adaptive listening exercise, playback speed control, and Safeshare links to remove ads for student viewing. This is a must-read article if you use video with your ESL/EFL students.

These are divided by subject matter, and each has a short description, so it's not as daunting a list as appears at first glance. Take some time to explore the content areas, many of which are useful for language learners, such as Daily Haiku. There will be many apps with comparable features/functions for Droid-based smartphones and tablets also.

"...professional iPad interactive whiteboard and screencast recorder with sophisticated tools for hand-drawn graphics and remote desktop control." "You can create your own slides with the variety of tools available. More importantly, you can capture the screen shot and make notations directly on it." "Doceri is certainly a whiteboard app - and a great one. But it also allows you to control and use your pc apps remotely. So your presentation can consist of a pc app and then switch to a whiteboard display, all from your iPad." This seems like a great app for creating presentations while also controlling a smartboard and your computer from your iPad.

An app for iPad: "Explain Everything is an easy-to-use design, screencasting, and interactive whiteboard tool that lets you annotate, animate, narrate, import, and export almost anything to and from almost anywhere." Allows you to synchronize video and audio in MP4 files, and use timeline editing. $2.99 US.

Use video presentation and interactive assignment, with 13,000+ lessons in the video library. Video tutorials walk you through ways to animate your own content and record your face while lecturing. Use the screen cast on your tablet to create lessons.

This looks like a great invention. As you are watching a video, take notes and the timeline codes will automatically link your notes to the portion of the video you were watching. The note tool will embed your video from YouTube, Khan Academy, or any of a number of sites, with the note-taking apparatus beside the video. Students might take notes of you or another lecturer in a flipped environment, and then compare each other's notes for review. Appears to be free so far.

This important article by the ACTFL discusses how the U.S. Common Core standards can be aligned with the National Standards for Learning Languages. Presents several diagrams and other visuals to help teachers see the crossovers for each skill--reading listening, speaking, and writing--in presentational and interpersonal modes, and how culture is woven into the whole.

R. Stannard: "This tool allows students to create sound files and then the teacher or other students can listen, click on the sound wave and add written comments. So it is great for providing feedback as teachers can listen to the recordings and then click at the appropriate point and add comments regarding language, intonation, content or pronunciation." You can embed the audio file with your comments into your teacher blog for students to explore. Obviously very useful for listening-speaking practice. Can also be used on smartphones.