Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Voki Happy

Voki is a free service that allows you to create personalized avatars to use on your wikis, blogs or websites. The best thing about Voki is that it motivates learners of different ages, because of their highly interactivity by providing various options for students to customize them. This service provides various features which allows students to personalize their speaking avatar's voice, appearance, hair color, background, clothing, etc. 

Image Source: Flickr by I'm Your Father with some rights reserved
Image Source: Flickr by I'm Your Father with some rights reserved.



Teachers can use this in the classroom by having their students creating digital identities. For English classes mainly, whether ESL or the mainstream English classes, students can use it for any digital storytelling projects. This can help raise the learners' interests in reading and storytelling which will help improve their speaking and reading skills. Besides that, learners can create conversations with their classmates or teacher and this can help to motivate all kinds of learners--the quiet or the outspoken ones--to practice their speaking and listening skills.

Besides that, most parents would feel comfortable with their children using avatars instead of their real identities especially when it is geared towards learning. 

Here are some suggestions that teachers can do with Voki in their classroom, this is geared mostly towards English teachers. 

Friday, April 19, 2013

The Power of Educational Technology: Arguments for the iPad in Education

The Power of Educational Technology: Arguments for the iPad in Education:
As our generation transits into a world surrounded and functioned with technology, should we as educators stick to our traditional ways of teaching which have done a pretty good job over the past decades, or should we embrace the new "in-thing"--incorporating technology into our class? If your answer is yes, congratulations, you will see so much learning opportunities and convenience that technology will provide to you and your students. Now the bigger question is, what's the big thing about iPad and some teachers have doubts and are unfamiliar with the 1 to 1 teaching program. This article will give you some insights on it and tell you why you should use iPad instead of a computer.
Image source: Iowa AEA online by iClipart for Schools

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

The Answer Pad

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) classrooms provide students and teachers with endless learning opportunity and aims to heighten the interactivity between students and the teacher. 
If you are a teacher in a BYOD classroom, you will appreciate The Answer Pad

 
Image Source: Used with permission from Flickr by flickingerbrad


To put it simply, The Answer Pad is a student response system, an add-on to the formative assessment puzzle. It allows students to draw and type out answers for the teacher to view.
There are 2 parts in The Answer Pad:

1. Go Interactive - The student response piece comes with drawing features.
2. Answer Sheets - scores and retrieve data from existing paper exams allows students to show their work, and a variety of question types.


Even though this is designed for ipad users, but now, it is available for students to access it with their own laptops or other electronic devices.

This video will tell you how The Answer Pad is useful and how it can be integrated into your classroom. 










Monday, April 1, 2013

inklewriter

Image Source: Flickr by Bruce Guenter with some rights reserved.
Writing is a powerful tool to allow you to record your thoughts and express them in your own ways. However, many students do not find writing an empowering and enjoyable activity. The field of teaching writing has called for many researchers and teachers to explore and publish articles related to it. As technology slowly emerges into education, we should always be on the lookout for anything that would help us engage students in the area of writing. 
Image Source: Flickr by Mads Boedker with some rights reserved.

 I'm telling you now that you can use Inklewriter to make your classroom more interactive and fun. With inklewriter, you can use it with younger children and instill in them an interest to write and to write creatively.
I have found this article that gives a good general idea of what Inklewriter is about and how you can incorporate it into your classroom. 
Inklewriter is a great digital tool that allows learners and teachers to write and publish interactive stories. This tool can train learners in the field of creative writing. Learners can try on with multiple plot-lines and "what if" scenarios and even come up with alternative endings to a story they are reading.
Inklewriter is also made for your tablet. Schools with students having tablets should take advantage of this.
Go to the site and be ready for a new adventure.





Friday, March 22, 2013

Using COMICS in the classroom? Yay.

Comics In The Classroom

Image Source: Flickr by Stallio with some rights reserved.















Let's admit it, we all love, if not like reading comics once in a while. I'm sure the one above attracted your attention. Using comics in the classroom is a fresh and captivating idea to me. After reading this article, I thought to myself, what a clever tool to capture the attention of students. Not only that, comic is an effective tool in engaging learners--all kinds of learners. The best thing is, comics can be used in almost any subjects. As a future English teacher, I could totally see how comic can be incorporated into my classroom and lessons. For example, instead of having students to learn up a new vocabulary by checking the dictionary, they could read a comic that explains the word in context. Students will not only remember the word and its meaning more quickly and better, it also allows them to practice their analytic skills as they learn to guess the meaning of the word in context. 
               A comic is capable to represent pages of written materials while it is enjoyable and effective for students in their learning. Teachers should know what are the things that students of today and future would be attracted to, and turn them into meaningful learning opportunities. Comic Life is a software program that is easy to use by anyone to create his/her own comics.