GRAMMAR IN INFOGRAPHICS

Infographics are a great way to present grammar, punctuation or common spelling mistakes to your students. Not only are they good for students but also for many of us native speakers who often make the same common mistakes!  How many of us have misspelt 'there' or 'their', 'meet' or 'meat', 'who's or whose'? Present it on an infograph and get your students to create others. A great visual way for it to finally stick in your students' mind....and in yours!

Explore more visuals like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually.

MAKING GUESSING GAMES WITH PREZI

MAKING GUESSING GAMES WITH PREZI

To introduce my teens to Prezi for the first time, I had them make sentences about a 'secret animal'.  It was a great first activity because they learned how to place their sentences on the canvas, make their own paths and hide the image somewhere within the words.  They also practised the vocabulary we were learning; adjectives, comparatives and superlatives.  The end result was having short presentations in front of the class for everyone to guess the secret animal.  On top of using their English, both written and orally, they had fun making their Prezis.  I didn't correct all of their English mistakes because I didn't want to discourage them!! After this activity, Prezis became a norm in our classroom!

BUNCEE

BUNCEE

This looks like an interesting tool to use with your students. Basically, Buncee is yet another web-based content creation tool.  Students can add photos, videos, audio, text, drawings, etc. in order to create dynamic project presentations.  Teachers can use Buncee to create lessons online.  You can also make fun greeting cards like the example I am showing here. I joined and made it in less than 10 minutes!

http://www.buncee.com/buncee/45336

Here is another example where a video has been embedded.  A great tool for getting students to give presentations on whatever topic is related to your curriculum.

http://www.buncee.com/buncee/11996

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!