Techie Ideas for non techies Jon Meier AST Dec 2010

Website
Just Google these / URL / Description / Idea for MFL – for some of the online activities you need a good high speed connection and ideally a good quality mike / camera
Voki / / Online speaking Avatar creator – works in lots of languages / Pupils create characters who present themselves giving simple personal info
Wordle / / Online - creates word clouds from text / Teacher inputs text on a theme. Generate and display the word cloud.
Pupils guess the theme, make up sentences using the words, do their own Wordles for each other, sort words into different categories (gender, tense, positive, negative etc)
Keepvid / / Youtube video converter / Copy and paste the Youtube URL into the top Keepvid box. Click the top Download button. Choose download mp4 as the download format
Toondoo / / Online cartoon/ comic strip creator / Teacher compiles their own and writes a set of instructions in the TL – don’t show the pupils the picture– include some help regarding categories and where elements can be found - Background , Characters, Props,
Pupils read the instructions, build the image and get as close as possible to the teacher’s version - which you can compare at the end.
Glogster / / Online Poster creator (similar to Publisher) / Pupils do a poster based on a piece of research linked to the target country. e.g.. sports personality, region, vocab field,
PicassoHead / / Online Picasso style Face creator / Pupils follow a set of written instructions to design their own picture.
Rather abstract but fun. You can sign your name in the style of Picasso
Fotobabble / / Online tool which lets you upload a photo and add audio / Upload a photo and add an audio commentary- great for homeworks about family, pets, home, school, friends, favourite team, hobby etc
Slideshare / / Online slideshow or ‘slidecast’ / Create Powerpoint –style presentations. Doesn’t allow animations.
However pupils can store their presentations online and consequently make them available to the whole world – so they have to be good!
Prezi / / Another online alternative to Powerpoint / Creates online presentations, like Powerpoint but you start by putting all your material on one big slide or ‘canvas’. You can then set up Prezi as a slideshow to zoom in and out of certain sections. Fiddly at first but worth a collaborative go with a friendly class.
Wallwisher / / A live online message board / Pupils can add post-it style stickies to a notice-board. Pupils could watch a film and add comments, or submit sentences on a theme e.g. leisure- past tense e.g.
Photostory / Free Download for Windows PC – google Photostory3 / free Windows download. Puts photos into a slideshow, add your own music and titles / great for real photos - homework about family, pets, home, school, friends, favourite team, hobby, holiday etc
You can also turn Powerpoint into a movie, or save each slide as a jpeg photo image and upload them to a site such as Animoto which turns them into a lively music-style video. This will only work well for simple, uncluttered slides – simple vocab-style flashcards
imagechef / / Generate captions on fun objects and signs / Pupils could use recent vocab – build a fun caption e.g. newspaper headline, US style roadsign, baseball cap. They could then incorporate these into a Powerpoint presentation
Triptico / / Great IWB style resources – free to download / In the process of a revamp- lots of great resources such as scoreboards, timers, word magnets, random name/word pickers
Dvolver / / Create moving image cartoons / Pupils can make their own mini movies using familiar language. A good option for an alternative homework task. Fiddly and time-consuming but some may enjoy it. They’ll certainly enjoy presenting their work to the class.
QR codes / Use an App such as Tapster to read the code
And the following
to generate codes:
/ Use a smartphone to read a printed barcode which opens up a website or a message. Know as the 4D classroom – the internet is the extra dimension. / Put a QR code on a classroom display . Use the phone to jump to related websites and messages.
You could set up an audio guide, similar to ones in an art gallery. Pupils use the phone to read printed barcodes at various ‘hotspots’ and then access audio files which you have uploaded to the internet.
Jing / Download from
/ Screencast software- record what’s on your screen into a video and add audio commentary . Jing or Camtasia are good but not free. / Screencasts are great for step by step guides to how to do something on the computer. In MFL you could use Jing or Camtasia for guiding students through a text Here’s a basic example:
You could also ‘screencast’ yourself marking someone’s work on Word and commenting on it as you go along.

Another time, another course: Greenscreening Blogs & wikis; using ipads in the classroom

Please contact Jackie Rayment MFL Adviser 07881695680 if you need training.