21st Century Education

I came across this presentation about 21st Century Education in New Brunswick, Canada. It's very well done and worth a look.

BOOMWRITER

Haven't had time to try this one out yet but it looks interesting.

Read, Write, Read, Vote, Read, Write Again! One of Boomwriter's guest authors writes the first chapter of a story. Then Boomwriters are invited to create the next chapter. The chapters are submitted by Boomwriters from around the world and then they are voted on. The winning chapter gets published!

Boomwriter is 100% free for schools.

I think this could actually get students motivated with the degree of competition involved.
And it obviously gets students to practice both reading and writing skills.

BITSTRIPS

One of my students showed me 'BITSTRIPS' this week. It seems very similar to 'TOONDOO'. It enables you to create comic avatars and use them to make up comic strips. They have been making comics related to food and restaurants. I will try to post one of the examples soon. For now, I shall leave you with an example found on the bitstrip website.
CLICK HERE TO TAKE YOU TO THE BITSTRIP SITE.

TOP TEN SITES FOR CREATING A WIKI

Here is a link to some great wiki sites for those who are interesting in creating a wiki.

Web 2.0 Like drinking water from a fire hose

A short article by Frank Pileiro worth reading. I thought I'd share it with you, as it gives good advice for teachers who don't know which tools to start with.

BUBBLE JOY

Here's a tool that can be used to practise 'Oral Communication'. BubbleJoy enables you to quickly create and design custom video cards. All you need is a webcam and you are ready to go. There is no need to create an account and you can create a video card in minutes. They are easy to share with others.

Some ideas to use in the English classroom:

- Reciting a poem
- Sending a birthday wish/Christmas wish to a friend/teacher.
- Planning an imaginary trip and send a card telling other classmates about it.
- Pretending they are anchormen and reporting the news.

MOSHI MONSTERS

For those of you who work with primary-aged children, moshimonsters.com is a great place for younger learners (6-10). My seven-year old, just turned eight, discovered it a few months back and is thoroughly enjoying it. The programme allows them to adopt their own pet monster, chat with friends and play games. In my daughter's case, it's been good for her reading and writing skills as she has friends that post messages on her board and she has to read them in order to reply. It also teaches them the responibility of looking after a pet. They have to feed it and care for it in order to change the 'mood' and 'health' status. All in all, it seems to be quite educational and best of all, it's set up within a controlled environment, normally set up by parents or teachers.