SYMPHONICAL

I recently discovered this tool and thought that I'd put it here for you teachers to have a look at.  It could be very useful for organizing all of those tasks that seem to never get done and stack up on a pile.  This tool allows you to visual tasks to do, tasks in progress and tasks that have been completed.  I like the looks of it too!

MINDMUP MAPS

Make your mind tick! Have some fun making mind maps with Mind Mup. Easy to use and good for some brain exercise during the Summer months!!SUMMER TIME on MindMup

THINGLINK

Have some fun this Summer creating interactive images and sharing them with your friends. THINGLINK is a tool which allows you to add 'hotspots' to your image, making it interactive in some way. You can link the hotspots to text, exterior links, videos, etc... Give your students a task such as the one found in the example below. All they need is an image and some imagination!

CLICK HERE TO SEE ONLINE EXAMPLE

Create guides and tutorials with TILDEE

There is no better way to learn than by teaching. Getting your students involved in teaching is an effective way to get them to use new language and structures in a useful and purposeful way. TILDEE is a free tool that helps you to create and instantly share tutorials on any subject. In the example (http://www.tildee.com/y8A3tj)you will see that a teacher has written a tutorial on English expressions, however, I see this tool as being used by students to create easy tutorials that will enable them to use new language for specific purposes. See this example of 'How to make a fruit smootie'

They can easily share their tutorials with their teacher and classmates too which enriches the whole language exchange. There are other tools for making guides such as http://snapguide.com/, however the point I'm trying to make is that the actual practice of getting students to create guides and tutorials is very rich language learning strategy that has now been made easy and engaging with tools such as the two I have mentioned here. Getting students to create and 'teach' gives them the opportunity to use language in an active way.  They learn by 'doing'.  Check out the examples and please share with me any tutorials you create with your students!
I will leave with this Chinese proverb:

  I hear and I forget.  I see and I remember.  I do and I understand!

DIGITAL STORYTELLING

DIGITAL STORYTELLING



I have posted before about the educational value of creating digital stories but I am going to add some new thoughts.  We can all create a good story.  No matter the age of the students you are teaching or what their interests or 'learning-language' may be, I can guarantee you that they have a story to tell.  Let's help them as teachers to find their  voice and to put their stories on the web where they can be shared with others in their class, school or even other schools around the world.

Some benefits which will come out of storytelling:

These aren't my own but I couldn't have said it better! (By : Med Kharbach)

•  It develops creativity and critical thinking
•  Students who are shy or afraid to talk in class get a chance to speak out their minds
•  It empowers students voice to deliver rich, deep message that is capable of conveying a powerful message.
•  It helps students explore  the meaning of their own experience, give value to it, and communicate that experience with others.
• It promotes the notions of life long learning and independent learning
•  It develops students communicative skills
•  It is a reflective process that helps students reflect upon their learning and find deep connections with the subject matter of a course or with an out-of-class experience.
•  It fosters students sense of individuality
•  It also gives students an opportunity to experiment with self-representation and establish their identity
• Students creating digital stories develop proficiency with multimedia applications

What I can add is the additional and obvious language learning benefit.  Getting students to write in a language which is not their native tongue is hard enough.  Giving them the opportunity to write about something that interests them is a must and if you add the 'wow' factor of an engaging tool, you've won half the battle!  Sharing their stories with their classmates is also a rich language learning strategy.  They have to read and understand (hopefully!) others' stories which means that they are receiving more language input than if they had simply written down a story in paper-form and handed it in to the teacher.  

The following link will take you the article written by Med Kharbach where you will find a long list of great 2.0 tools that can be used to write digital stories:

LIST OF FREE DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLS FOR TEACHERS

Get creating!

GRAMMAR GAMBLE

Grammar is not usually fun so why not try making it fun with GRAMMAR GAMBLE?
Learn and practise grammar as a game with the whole class.  What I like about this game
is that you can practise specific grammar topics that you may be learning at the moment.
If not, you can go straight into playing the game and competing against others from all
over the world with mixed grammar-related questions.  The more confident you are with
your answers, the more you will 'gamble'.
Very practical and engaging!