Alec Couros gave a fantastic talk today on the benefits of open and networked teaching. In his one-hour passionate and inspiring presentation, he made attendees reflect on the nature of knowledge, the change of learning paradigms from individual to social, the benefits of sharing instead of hoarding.
Saturday, 23 May 2009
Thursday, 7 May 2009
WordSift: Tool for visualizing text
Wordle taken a step beyond?
Apart from showing the most frequent words in a text in the form of tag clouds, this tool integrates visualization of word relationships and Google searches of images and videos. You can see images of the words, word webs, definitions, sentences where those words appear, etc.
Some of the applications suggested in the tutorial below include:
Apart from showing the most frequent words in a text in the form of tag clouds, this tool integrates visualization of word relationships and Google searches of images and videos. You can see images of the words, word webs, definitions, sentences where those words appear, etc.
Some of the applications suggested in the tutorial below include:
- pre- reading activities, e.g. making predictions about a text, introducing unfamiliar vocabulary
- post- reading activities, e.g. creating word webs to explore connections between words, writing a paragraph including some of the most frequent words
Friday, 24 April 2009
Bookmarking and annotating
Today I came across this post by Robert which I definitely want to remember. I had no idea that there were tools like the ones he mentions below, which let you bookmark, annotate and share web pages.
"...I wonder if others have experience of these:
http://trailfire.com/
http://stickis.com
http://fleck.com/
http://sharedcopy.com/
http://info.jkn.com/
http://www.mystickies.com/
http://drawhere.com/"
I have had a quick look at some of them and they look really interesting. I'd like to explore this some more to see how they compare with del.icio.us, Diigo and SimplyBox.
"...I wonder if others have experience of these:
http://trailfire.com/
http://stickis.com
http://fleck.com/
http://sharedcopy.com/
http://info.jkn.com/
http://www.mystickies.com/
http://drawhere.com/"
I have had a quick look at some of them and they look really interesting. I'd like to explore this some more to see how they compare with del.icio.us, Diigo and SimplyBox.
SimplyBox
SimplyBox
This is a tool for capturing, sharing and organising content you come across in the web. While you're surfing, you can make captures of any section of the page that interests you, put it in boxes you can organise according to topic, add comments to your boxes, share your boxes with other people who can also add comments and content.
This is a tool for capturing, sharing and organising content you come across in the web. While you're surfing, you can make captures of any section of the page that interests you, put it in boxes you can organise according to topic, add comments to your boxes, share your boxes with other people who can also add comments and content.
Sunday, 12 April 2009
Adding subtitles to videos
Overstream is a free tool that allows you to add subtitles to online videos. It only takes a few seconds to upload the video of your choice. Adding the subtitles is quite straightforward as well. You only need to get the hang of the timing. Anyway, the step by step tutorials on the page are very clear and easy to follow. When you are done, you can get the url or the embed code.
Since students in general like working with videos, I think this tool offers a lot of potential for the language classroom. For example:
Since students in general like working with videos, I think this tool offers a lot of potential for the language classroom. For example:
- giving background information about a particular artist. My experiment:
- describing feelings
- telling the story behind the lyrics and the images of a music video
- preparing vocabulary quizzes based on the lyrics/images, etc.
Friday, 10 April 2009
Digifolios
Today, as I was following a link in a blog, I came across "Digifolios", a tool completely new to me. When I googled the word, I ended up in a slideshare created by Cristina Costa. She provides a very clear explanation of what digifolios are and how they can benefit us and our students. This is part of what she says in one of her comments below the presentation:
"I think eportfolios really have a 'saying' in the 21st century, and we as educators need to look at it from the students' perspective. And also find ways to realize how it can add value to what they are doing. It is important to guide them to establish their professional and personal identity in order to make them more marketable to their future careers. How people can be prepared / mentored to show evidence of their knowledge (what they know), of their ongoing activity (what, how and with whom they are learning) and of their predisposition to keep learning and upgrading their skills ( how flexible, how dynamic and how willing they are to constantly improve and excel)"
And this is the actual presentation:
"I think eportfolios really have a 'saying' in the 21st century, and we as educators need to look at it from the students' perspective. And also find ways to realize how it can add value to what they are doing. It is important to guide them to establish their professional and personal identity in order to make them more marketable to their future careers. How people can be prepared / mentored to show evidence of their knowledge (what they know), of their ongoing activity (what, how and with whom they are learning) and of their predisposition to keep learning and upgrading their skills ( how flexible, how dynamic and how willing they are to constantly improve and excel)"
And this is the actual presentation:
Saturday, 14 March 2009
ISSUU: publishing tool
ISSUU is an extremely versatile publishing tool. It allows you to publish different types of documents in a very attractive way, with the look and feel of a real book.
You can share your work with other users, create networks and work collaboratively with the people in them, insert relevant documents from other users into your own creations to have all the information relevant to you in a single place, and, I guess, many other things that I haven't explored yet.
This is a very simple example of what you can do with this tool:
You can share your work with other users, create networks and work collaboratively with the people in them, insert relevant documents from other users into your own creations to have all the information relevant to you in a single place, and, I guess, many other things that I haven't explored yet.
This is a very simple example of what you can do with this tool:
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