October 30, 2010

Monster Project

Sharing a project developed by a friend and a Cultura EDtech member, Roberta Righetto. She invited her beginner students to create their own monsters , write a description , recorded each student and shared the project in a glog.

Grammar topic: it's got .....  / Vocabulary topic: parts of the body.



October 29, 2010

Group Communication Platform

  • Want to send e-mails, text messages and voice messages to a group of friends?
  • Want to set up chat rooms and conference calls for your group?
  • Want to share files so that other group members can collaborate with you?
You can do all of this and more using WIGGIO. I've just learned about it via a tweet from @ShellTerrell and would love to start testing it. The possibilities are great for groups you can create for friends, family, co-workers, your students , all in one place.

Watch the TUTORIAL and learn more about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k63qSH5cwsk&feature=related 

October 21, 2010

Tell stories using SHOWBEYOND

This is a simple tutorial to show my trainees how to use Showbeyond to develop projects with their students. With Showbeyond, you add the images you want, record the narration for each image and then share it with the world.



A colleague of mine, told me she wanted to develop a project with daily routine and I guess a great tool they could use is SHOWBEYOND. This is my sample story.

October 16, 2010

List of links with one URL

Simple and useful tool for teachers and students.

Let's imagine you want your students to carry out a research by finding bits of information from different websites. We all know how distracting surfing the net is, and here comes in FUR.LY. With FUR.LY , you add the URLs you wish your students to use and grab one URL generated by the site which guides students through the suggested sites.

To test, I grabbed some interesting sites to develop writing I had bookmarked previously and generated a FUR.LY Url to share via twitter.
http://fur.ly/2hr7

This is how it looks, you can see the page navigator at the top.

October 15, 2010

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

A dense talk (by Sir Ken Robinson) made visually simple by the medium of animation.
Can't we do the same in our classes, change the way we present, involve our students senses and minds?
A MUST-WATCH.

October 14, 2010

Create an Interactive Wall with your students

I've always liked WALLWISHER, however, due to the limit of characters you can type on the sticky notes, if you want your students to write lengthy texts then Wallwisher won't work.

I had been looking for a similar tool with more space for writing.
STIXY serves the purpose. You can create a wall where several people can collaborate and share notes (long texts), photos, links and documents.

http://www.stixy.com/guest/86530


Watch the TUTORIAL to learn more.


October 13, 2010

Taking care of your mind and soul

I decided to share one of the most pleasant activities I've been doing lately: TAI CHI CHUAN.

Last year, during my cancer treatment, I was looking for some sort of meditation when I luckily found my old tai chi master. The movements are very smooth, gentle to the body and great for the soul. Specially when you're suffering the stress of such a serious disease, the peace of mind you get from the practise of TAI CHI , was exactly what I had been searching for.

This is the trailer of a movie to be released "Masters of Heaven and Earth" 

October 11, 2010

Practise SPEAKING with Sketchcast

I had alredy seen this tool via Russell Stannard @russell1955 but had never given it a go.

It's incredibly simple, you register freely, and click to create your recording. Choose the option of the audio, give it a title and start recording. You can listen to a preview before publishing. As soon as it's published you're offered an embed code for publishing. During the sketcast you can record yourself while you draw and type.

My trial was something simple to talk about my nuclear family



HOW CAN WE USE THIS SITE WITH STUDENTS?
  • have students record sketchcasts and describe their families, their bedroom, their house, a town scene, their city.
  • students can also talk about any given topic you propose while they scribble.
  • for groups, you can create a channel where all students can add their sketches.

To learn more about SKETCAST, watch Russell Stannard's TUTORIAL

October 9, 2010

Better Learning with ICT

Yesterday, while talking to Andréa Borges, I showed her Joe Dale's blog which has concise posts full of links and wonderful ideas. That reminded me of a video from Teachers TV I watched some time ago where they show Joe Dale teaching French to his students.



To watch the same video in Teachers TV, click on the link below
http://www.teachers.tv/videos/improving-your-presentations

October 8, 2010

A Study Guide for my students

Sharing a simple Study Guide I've created for my students. It has links to various grammar and vocabulary exercises, ppts used in class and a video.

October 4, 2010

Your Online Business Card

While browsing through my PLN in twitter, found this site MYONEPAGE suggested by @ozge to make online business cards where you can include links to your twitter, facebook, e-mail, web site and so on.

After you create your card, there's even an embed code for publishing. How do you like it?
http://myonepage.com/anamariacult