Connect+to+Tech


 * Self-Directed Technology learning**


 * Caroline Lee-Thompson: Voki Project**

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 * Wendy Yuan: Movie Project**

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=Creating Content=

Playing with Text
This is a neat tool - one idea for world language educators is to take a reading in the target language, paste the text into Wordle, thus creating a word cloud of the high frequency words for the text selection. Here is a Wordle based on [|an article from El País] //Hint:// after you create your Wordle, capture the screen and crop your image down to the Wordle, save as a JPG and you are ready to embed!
 * 1.** [|**Wordle**]**creates word clouds.**




 * //In the classroom://** Current unit of study is healthy living. In El país newspaper (Spain) an article about a new kind of electric bike was published. The teacher would like to use the article with the class. As a pre-reading activity, the teacher creates a Wordle of the article’s text. Prior to reading the article online, the students will (1) individually skim the Wordle, then (2) with a partner guess what the article may be about.

Here is [|a nice article]with many ideas on incorprating wordle.

[|Tagul]is a similar service.


 * Giving a voice**


 * 2. [|Voki] allows you to create an avatar and give it a voice**
 * [|French example]
 * [|German example]
 * [|A French Voki Poems Group on Ning]
 * A teacher of Japanese created this [|voki]


 * //In the classroom://** The current unit of study is clothing and descriptions. The students create an avatar, then orally describe the avatar. Variations and expansions: The students can write a narrative description of their avatar. The students can write a narrative of a classmate’s avatar and then listen to see if their written description is similar or different to the recorded description. The avatar can be used as a matching listening exercise – where the avatar is describing something and the students have to choose which is being described.


 * 3.** [|**Blabberize**] **allows you to bring a photograph or graphic to life**

Create web-based multimedia posters. This [|handout] will walk you through some of the key features of Glogster
 * 4. Glogster**

Examples: [|All About Me Project (Spanish)] Note that students can include their own voices! Costa Rica A different way to do a country report [|Les freres lumieres (French)] [|Linguistics Poster (University Level)]Glogster can be useful for helping university students prepare research for poster sessions at conferences

I.wonder is not a world language example, but very interesting with a teenager's essential questions

Glogster has a special Education portal, [], which enables your IT people to easily unblock the site.


 * //In the classroom://** Image the students are talking about their childhood. The student could make a poster about their childhood and add a narration track describing each photo.


 * A**dditional content-creating tools that allow the user to upload or add content, and personalize it. The end product is often embeddable as well. For each of the sites below, enter your language in the search box to locate examples in your language. Quality varies!

=**Comics**= [|Make Beliefs Comix] has set characters, so no personalization of graphics is possible. [|Pikistrips] allow you to create comic strips from your photos. [|Pikikids] allow you to create comic strips from your photos. [|Pixton]allows you to create your own comics, has a [|portal for schools]and is partnered with multiple interactive whiteboard vendors. [|Scrapblog] takes scrapbooking online. [|Toondoo]allows you to create your own comic characters and comic strips.

Create books at [|Tikatok]

[|Storybird]is a collaborative storytelling environment

Create timelines at [|Dipity]

[|Scrapblog] takes scrapbooking online.

Voicethread is a digital storytelling tool with the ability to have text, audio, video, or doodle commentary on each slide by multiple people. You must have a VoiceThread account in order to create or comment. Be sure to apply for an educator account. Not free.

=**Video**= [|Animoto] is an easy to use photo and video collage making tool. Easily make videos for the classroom, program advocacy. Be sure to get your account through the education portal.//In the classroom:// Create a video to promote your program or perhaps an upcoming trip abroad.

Quick example that I created last week: []

BubblePLY allows you to add a transparent layer over any video, then add text, graphics, video comments to the video. The teacher can draw students' attention to specific features of a video clip. Students can use their language skills to comment on the content of the video by inserting text, graphics, or analysis - they create their own mash-up! Here is [|an example] around the infamous First Semester Spanish Love Song.

[|GoAnimate] allows you to animate graphics and create videos

[|Xtranormal] is a web-based animated movie-making environment

=Finding visuals=

Use the [|Creative Commons] search to find materials with copyright license for use. Did you know? In Firefox, Creative Commons search is one of the toolbar search options.
 * 1. [|Creative Commons]**

Start a search at Flickr, and then click on the "Advanced Search", scroll and select "Only search within **Creative Commons**-licensed content" There is even an Images to Teach Languages group where you may find interesting visuals to use. All of the group members have agreed to share their content. Anyone can join the group and then tag an image to be added to the group's content. Explore [|fd's Flickr Toys Big Huge Labs] to add special effects to the photos you have stored at [|Flickr]. Use [|Dumpr] to turn photos into coloring book images, make them look old, turn them into globes, cubes, etc
 * 2. Flickr Search for Creative Commons licensed products**


 * 3. Stock.xchng**has both free and for-purchase images. Registration is required. Note the terms of use of each item. Individuals may upload content to the site and add terms.

A web-based photo editor. No registration is required. Resize, touch up, add effects. For fun - try [|Dumpr] to turn photos into coloring book images, make them look old, turn them into globes, cubes, etc. or [|fd's Flickr Toys Big Huge Labs] to add special effects to the photos you have stored at [|Flickr].
 * 4. [|Picnik]**

Organize with Delicious !
Where do you keep your bookmarks (favorites)? Are they on one computer? How do you share them? Both of these services allow you to have web-based bookmarks that are public or private, and you can organize them with Tags (keywords).


 * Delicious** - instead of groups, there is a "network" feature which is on the individual level - so you can add individuals to your network. Here is a quick video about how delicious works - []. (note, the website used to be [|http://del.icio.us] and the service has migrated to delicious.com).

When you find a terrific website, how to you remember it and keep track of it? How do you share it with colleagues?

What makes delicious powerful are the people and the tags!


 * Management tip!** Easily manage delicious by installing the browser toolbar buttons - this will make it a snap to bookmark and tag your resources


 * //In the classroom://** You could consider doing is creating a tag(s) that you would share with students that when they click on that tag, the resources pertinent to them would appear. For example, if I wanted to share the resources related to Chinese I have bookmarked at Delicious with teachers of Chinese, I could give them this URL (or they could click on the "Spanish" tag) - [].

I have an account at both delicious and diigo, and automatically post to both places (this can be set up at diigo in the tools area): []

Utilities of note

 * 1. Zamzar** allows you to convert file formats and save videos you find online.


 * 2. Jing**allows you to capture all or part of your screen (still and video)


 * 3.** **Doodle** makes it easy to do web-based voting, polling, and scheduling.

Authoring Environments with commenting/collaboration features
If your school doesn't provide a webpage for you, where can you put all the web 2.0 things you create and simply link to them? What is a wiki? A wiki is a website where one or more people can edit the pages and participate in a discussion. Note, a page can be edited by only one person at a time.
 * 1. WIKIS**

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Examples:

Nadine Jacobsen - Elementary Wiki Ah-Bon French middle school wiki [|David Warlick's CoLearners] shows how a presenter can put presentations, notes, handouts, and invite participants. FrauLyon high school German wiki Mme Mina Kim, French Teacher, has a fantastic wiki. Mme Thomas French class wiki Teresita Eldridge Spanish Wanglaoshi Wiki Chinese K-1 wiki Guy Dippolito has a wiki for each of his classes, brand new this year to wikis.(Private wiki, for Kendall demo only)

[|Flat Classroom Project] has new collaborative projects for 2009-2010 Youth Wiki is a collaborative project across several schools

LanguageLinks2006 and specifically the Intern Level Methods shows how wikis can be an interactive tool for World Language Methods courses

ISTE has a [|NETS Implementation site]

Educational Wikis provides a rationale and examples for K-12 TeachWeb20 is an interesting collaborative wiki evaluating Web 2.0 tools

If you have a wikispaces.com account, then login and "Request to join" this wiki. If you don't have a wikispaces.com account, then go to []

So if students are creating wikis, how can you assess them? [|Vicki Davis] has a [|wiki grading rubric] and [|Read*Write*Think] has a [|wiki rubric and interesting lesson on protest songs.]

Ready to start your own wiki? [|Visit this page to get the advertisement-free wikispace or click the image below].

And, **need help**? Check out the [|video tours] of Wikispaces to learn how to begin editing your page, add images and media, and personalize your space.

The main page of the Wikispaces Help has quite an array of help topics to chose from. For more specific information that has been asked for by teachers, it can be found in the Teachers Section of the Wikispaces help. There are a few more resources about halfway down the page under heading number 8 (a couple PDFs and PowerPoints)

2. BLOGS
View the [|Blogs in Plain English] from Common Craft.

• Instructional • Informational • Reviews • Lists • Interviews • Case Studies • Profiles • Link Posts • Problem Post • Contrasting Two Options • Rant • Inspirational • Research • Collaboration • Prediction and Review • Critique • Debate • Hypothetical • Satirical • Memes and Projects
 * What type of [|content is in a post]?**

• Promotional • Informational • Persuasive • Editorial • Provocative • Collaborative [|10 Ways to use your edublog to teach] [|How you can use your edublog to start conversations]
 * What is the purpose of the blog?**

[|Community of Learners] is a blog started just a few days ago out of necessity - school closed because of H1N1 and teachers expected to continue teaching online. An interesting companion site is [|Intrepid Teacher's] own blog! [|Daily French Pod] offers snippets of language, culture, audio and video! [|Kinderkids Classroom] is a kindergarten blog in a New Hampshire school [|More Spanish] by Sherry Amorocho looks at tech and world languages [|Nodehill Spanish] focuses on middle schoolers [|PMarriott] simply puts homework online
 * Examples:**

[|Spanish for the Masses][|Tamara Tendrop] - high school Spanish I blog - student entries on right [|The World A.T. Ways] blog highlights tech and world languages [|World Language Lab] from the University of Chicago Lab School highlights tech and world languages also

Who is your intended audience? What is the purpose of your blog? Personal? Professional? Instructional? Collaborative? What kind of media are you interested in using? What would you like your blog to be called?
 * Plan your blog**

[|Edublogs] - a free web-based blog service specifically for educators; [|video tutorials] and helpful [|support forums] make this a terrific site.

Information extracted from http://ckendall.wikispaces.com