Babbel.com

School is all about learning, but what about learning and having fun at the same time? I think it should be an everyday goal for teachers to create fun and challenging activities that triggers the students’ learning. I discovered a new tool that I think students will enjoy a lot. Kids these days love everything that is on and about computers. The tool that I will discuss today is Babbel which can be used on Internet or a tablet. Babbel offers different workshops and courses on language learning depending on the level of the students. In addition, they are many other languages than English that can be practice and learned with this tool such as Spanish, German, French, Dutch, and many more. What is even nicer about this tool is that it asks you what your first language is in order to adapt the lesson to your needs. This tool mainly helps improve the communication skills of the students as well as enlarging their vocabulary. Here is a short and sweet video that will explain to you how Babbel works.

As a teacher, I would mainly use this tool as a support. I do not plan on using it to teach to my students new lessons, but I think that for reinforcing new material it can be nice to use. It is easy to use and could be used with young or older learners without any problem. Also, sometimes as a teacher we like to give students reward activities because they did a great job. I think that using Babbel as a reward activity could be great because it is created like a game and it enforces their learning of English. Moreover, it helps practice the pronunciation of the students since it repeats the words with the right pronunciation and listens to the students’ answers. If the students make a mistake the tool will correct it in order for the students to know the errors they make. The only think I disliked a bit about this tool is that it uses a lot the first language of the learners. Since I plan on only using it from time to time, it is not a major issue, but if you consider using this tool regularly it is something you have to take into consideration.

 

If you have a computer or tablet with the new Windows 8, here is a short video that explains to you how they adapted their learning tool to it.

Storyboardthat

Does someone remember reading comic strips during their childhood? I think that every adult can remember of at least one comic strip character that they used to like very much. The new tool that I discovered, basically help you create your own comic strip. The website is called Storybardthat and it provides you with a great range of characters, scenes, shapes, and bubbles that help you create your very personal comic strip. This tool even allows you to choose the colors of clothes, skin, and hair of your characters. It is a great tool that helps you create comic strips and what is even more wonderful is the fact that you have a lot of ways to personalize your characters and settings. Therefore, it allows you to create your comic strip based on your preferences. However, clarity is an important issue for such projects because comic strips are really short and straight to the point.

One thing that is particularly difficult to do in class is to motivate all your students at once. I think that having my students create comic strips can motivate girls as well as boys. Boys have a great tendency to read a lot of comic books. Consequently, allowing to create their own comic might motivate them even more. In addition, with the tool I explored there are also princesses, unicorns, and mermaids that students can choose from as characters. As a result, even the girly girls will be happy to use this tool because of the variety of characters that appeal to everyone. It can be used with older grade 6 students as well as with grade 1 students. The only difference will be in the complexity of the texts presented. Also, I particularly enjoyed this tool because it allows my students to practice dialogue. Comic strips are mainly made of dialogues and students will have to create somee in order to present their story clearly.

In addition, I could even use this tool to help me present small content matter or for giving examples to my students. The visual aspect of this tool is something that will appeal to my students as well as making them concentrate more on the subject presented. I think it is a “short and sweet” way to present or clarify some points. I would not use it as an everyday tool, however, I think I could use it from time to time for my students. I think it is something they will greatly enjoy.

I really enjoyed this task because it is easy to use with students and I think it is a dynamic activity that they will enjoy doing. Both boys and girls will be motivated to create their own comic strip and that is an important point to take into consideration for the well-being of the class. Overall, it is a great tool to use because really is polyvalent. I hope that you will at least try it yourself in order to really see the potential of this tool.

Weebly

I am currently taking a university class where I need to create a WebQuest for my students. It basically consists of a website where you have your students do a web project. At first I was like, creating a website? I cannot do that! However, I found a tool that helped me a lot in creating the project. This tool is called Weebly. It is a website that allows you to create your own website in a simplified version. Let me tell you something it facilitates greatly your life. You can create pages easily, add pictures, texts, videos, and even your own documents. Consequently, adapting your website to school projects becomes really easy. And let me tell you, if I was able to create my website, everybody can create their own. In addition, I just discovered that you have the possibility to have a Weebly For Education that you can manage as a teacher. By creating a teacher account, you can password protect all your students’ websites for privacy. In addition, it also allows you to manage and moderate their websites. At first I struggled a bit with all the components of the websites, if you are like me, watch this video it will help you a lot.

Personnally, I used Weebly to create a special project for my students. Consequently, my students will need to be on a computer, go to my website and follow step by step the instructions to carry out the task. I loved to create my website because I think that students will particularly enjoy this type of project since it will be different from the usual activities we do in class. In addition, there are a lot more of ways to use this tool but I preferred to start simply with a project. Once I get better with the tool, I would really enjoy creating my own website where students could go and check for documents and information about what we do in class. Consequently, I plan of using this tool as a support of the teaching material we see in class. This website is the perfect example of what I want to do with my own website later on. It is well organized and information can be found easily. Also, there is a calendar where students can go and look up what is coming up in the months whether it concerns exams or projects. I believe that Weebly would be a great tool to create such a website since it is simple and effective.

Dear Journal…

I just discovered Penzu and thought I could share it with you. Penzu is like a web journal where you can write anything you want without having anybody finding out about it. You just need to create your own account and you are good to go. What I like about the tool is that you still have the possibility to personalize your journal by adding pictures, choosing your lock, and your font. Consequently, the writer has a lot of freedom to choose from what he (yes boys can also write their own personal journal) or she wants. When you start writing, the web page has the same appearance as a real journal page. Consequently, you really feel like you are writing your own journal. What is even nicer is that you don’t have to hide your journal from anybody anymore since Penzu offers privacy of content. Unless you want to share the content of your Penzu journal, nobody can find out about it.

You might ask yourself, yes this tool seems nice but how can I use it with my students. Well, let me tell you there are thousands of possibilities for you to use Penzu in your classroom. Personally, I would mostly use a journal like this with elementary students since they will be more appealed to it. However, I believe that Penzu can also be used for high school students if you would like to. The beauty of Penzu is that when you create your account, you have the possibility to create a “classroom journal”. Then, Penzu will give you a unique class code that you can share with your students. In their own Penzu accounts, students will simply have to add the code to join the classroom. After this, you can do anything you want with them. You can have students write essays on the tool or only use it to really write small journal entries about their day but all in English. Both possibilities allow your students to practice their writing skills in English. In addition, as the teacher you can go and check the students’ work, comment and grade them. Here is the website that helped me gather all the information about Penzu classrooms.

I can already picture some of you saying, but it is quite similar to Google Docs, why use it? I would prefer using Penzu with younger students since they will find it more engaging to work on than on Google Docs. Students will have the possibility to personalize their journals which a lot of students love to do. Consequently, students will be more motivated to write since they find the tool they are using more engaging. I hope I have convinced you to at least try out one time this amazing tool.

Here is a short video that can help you get started with Penzu that helped me understand the tool easily. Also, here is another blog talking about Penzu and education and why you should use it in your class.

In today’s society technology is taking more and more place. Consequently, it allows teacher to use it more effectively in their classrooms. IPads are a great example of technology that can be integrated into our everyday teaching. Students love everything that is technology oriented and are often more motivated when we bring them new ways to learn with technology. Also, students feel more involved in their learning. That is why I chose to discuss the integration of IPads in the classroom after discussing the matter in class.

Using an IPad is great both for the teacher and the students. However, as teachers we have to remind ourselves of our pedagogical intention behind the activity we want to carry out. What is our intention? We do not look for an app that will teach “English” or “science”. Before we need to think about an activity that we would like to carry out with our students and only after we look for an app that will help us with the activity. As a result, activities will be created in order to develop a particular competence instead of simply doing an activity for no particular reason. IPads are limitless; they are thousands of possibilities to use them. Consequently, it is up to you to decide how you want to use them in your teaching.

Personally, I found various ways to use the IPads for my classes. Any usual task that we do in a normal classroom environment can also be carried out with an IPad. Whether it is writing, drawing, or creating videos, it can all be done with the help of an IPad. With a simple writing and document sharing app like Google Drive a lot can be done with the IPads. Any kind of activity can be done accordingly. Students simply answer or write on their personal IPad and the teacher can go correct directly on the same document afterwards.

I particularly enjoyed the iMovie app where students can create their own book trailer. It is a very dynamic activity that I think students will greatly enjoy doing. It consists of taking pictures of a book and adding questions or sentences to bring in the interest of the viewer. Audio soundtracks are added on top to add realism to the project. I think it is a great project to do with Grade 3 or 4 students since it helps them create short sentences and questions based on their understanding of the book. In addition, the result is concrete and students have the possibility to show it to the class or their parents. This website presents a teacher who decided to use IPads in order to publish her students’ poetry. As you can see, there are many ways to use the tool depending on what you want to do with it.

In addition, information is a lot easier to reach with the IPads since the students have direct access to Internet. Consequently, it is also a great resource that students can use when they are experiencing difficulty and the teacher is busy helping another student. As a result, students will become much more independent since they will be able to look for their answers easily with their IPads. However, the teacher needs to clarify right at the beginning of classes how the IPads will be used; for pedagogical purposes only. Consequently, make sure to specify that the taking of unnecessary pictures or videos is forbidden and point out the consequences that go with it. As a result, students will be aware that they cannot use the IPads how they want and will be more concerned about what they do with.

Overall, I think the IPads can really be useful in my classes as it allows students to be more independent and learn at the same time. If you look for specific apps depending on your field of specialization click here.

Here is a short video of a teacher sharing about his experience with the IPads. Also, here is a blog written by a teacher talking about his experience with IPads in his classroom. This, blog particularly help in my research on the subject. This forum of teachers discussing the issue of IPads in their classrooms helped me discuss the matter greatly since many have experienced the tool.

Pinterest

I admit it, I am a Pinterest addict. However, I never thought I could use it for educational purposes. This website is all about sharing ideas, links and connecting people together. At first, Pinterest looks like a big interactive pinboard. However, when we get used to it we see the many options it has to offer. Originally, Pinterest was mostly for arts and crafts. However, with the increase of popularity new themes were created. Users can have as many boards as they want which allows them to create their own subjects and to pin on. A pin directly saves the link and brings you back to the original source. By doing a bit of research, I soon discovered how this great tool could help me in my teaching (to know more about Pinterest and how to use it go on this website). Also, here is a website that explains how schools have used Pinterest since its creation.

First and foremost, Pinterest is a tool that helps you find inspiration. Whether it is for classroom decoration, ideas for school project, organizing information or lesson planning, Pinterest can help you in every step of the process. Moreover, it allows you to reach out to other teachers worldwide (here are some useful information for teacher thinking about implementing Pinterest in their classrooms). Therefore, sharing becomes a lot more interesting as you can ask questions about the activity carried out or know if the teacher’s students liked it. In addition, visual learners in your classroom will be particularly appeal by this tool because of the visual nature of it. Pictures are big and catch the attention quite easily.

 

Apart from all the great advantages that I pointed out previously, I would mainly use this tool for a long term project. Whether it consists of a team or individual project both can be carried out easily. If it would be for a team project, I would suggest using a private board between each members of the team. A private board can be shared with any person you want without having other people look at it. Consequently, my students could carry their research and put their resources on this board without having other people look at their work. With the pictures, students could be reminded of what the link is about as well as writing a short description of the subject. Therefore, information about the team’s project would be available for every team member. In addition, the comments under the picture allow the students to share their opinion about the content. For an individual project, the same thing would be possible but instead of sharing the board the person would simply work on it alone.

I believe that Pinterest could be greatly useful to me and my students, and I hope I have convinced you of using it. Coming from a Pinterest addict, I can assure that you will see the benefits of this tool rapidly.

If you still did not find a useful way to use Pinterest in your classroom after reading this article, here are other options that might interest you.

Google + Education = A Perfect Match

Nowadays, Google has become one of our everyday go to website. How could we live without Google? To be honest with you, I do not know how I would carry out a research without my beloved Google. And not surprisingly, I am probably not the only one who thinks this way. We all have become used to this tool because of its efficiency and fast research capacity. Then, why not use it for educational purposes as well? Different schools have tried it out and have seen the benefits of Google Education. For more information about schools that have started using the tool, here is a short video of people talking about their experience with Google which allowed me to know about their opinion about the tool and be more critical of it.

Google Calendar

First let’s talk about the Google calendar. The first time you look at it, you might think that it looks like a basic calendar, but let me explain to you how it could be useful for you and your class. Google Calendar creates the possibility to overlay calendars of various topics. So let’s say you have your school calendar with your different classes and material planned out and you want to see your full week. You can overlay your personal calendar on top of your school calendar to be able to see more clearly your free time. By doing so, planning either for a meeting or simply a personal activity will become much more efficient. In addition, you can share your school calendar with your students if you want and by doing so, it will become easier for them to keep track of the exams or assignments coming up.

Google Docs

The magic of Google Docs is infinite! I think it is a wonderful tool as it allows students to share their documents for peer review and more. By sharing their documents, students can comment or even have the possibility to edit it. Consequently, team work is much more efficient with only one internet document instead of many paper copies. With this tool, the excuse of “I’m sorry I lost my homework” cannot work, as I can go and check if they did it or not. Also, through the whole process I can go and look up the students’ work and make sure they understood properly. If I noticed some issues I can come back on it in class and make sure that every student is on the same level. Furthermore, this tool simplifies grading as I do not have to bring all the copies of my students back home. I only need to log on to my Google account and check my students’ documents. Moreover, we can say that it is an ecofriendly tool has it saves us the use of many paper copies and photocopies.

Google Quiz

In addition, with Google Docs there is the possibility to create small online quiz. You simply create the quiz and send it via Gmail to your students so they can answer it. After they have done the text, the answers are sent to you in a spread sheet where you can see all the answers of your students as well as the time they took it. Consequently, it is a more interactive and fun way for students to complete a quiz. I would mostly use it for comprehension quiz as I can create quizzes with answer choice and more.

Reflection

As a teacher, I think that Google Education is one tool that I can use a lot. It allows me to save time, as I do not have to deal with forgotten homework anymore. Also, it gives my students the opportunity to work effectively with one another without having to meet on a frequent basis. Another important factor that makes me like this tool even more is the fact that it is totally safe, based on who you want to share your documents with. If I share my document with only one person, I know that nobody else but me and the person are allowed to see the document (information about the website’s safety has been found here). I am aware of the fact that students are sometimes quite shy to show their work to others. Consequently, even with the use of Google Education there is room for privacy and security of content. And let’s not forget that Google is a completely FREE tool which makes it even more appealing. It is an efficient tool for every one and most importantly it is also accessible for ANYONE who desires to use it with their school.

If you still struggle with the tool, watch this tutorial, it will explain it to you in detail the various ways to use it. In addition, this website can help you find useful and educational activities that can be carried out using Google Docs which helped me write this article.

The Magic of Prezi

Oral presentations can be quite boring at times, especially for teachers who have to listen carefully to every student’s presentations. Let’s forget all about the boring PowerPoints and let me present you Prezi.

Prezi is an online tool that helps you create attractive presentations. What is special about Prezi is the “zooming function”. You can drag from one point to another by zooming in or out to another point, by doing so it catches students’ attention more easily. In addition, students that are more visual will particularly like this tool because it favors visual learning with motion and colors. It can also be used as a visual learning tool for teacher as we can create our own documents to support what we want to explain. If you want to know more about how to start creating your own Prezi click here.

Another thing that is particularly fun about Prezi is the fact that it can be used collaboratively. Two students which are respectively at their home can work collaboratively on the same project with the help of Prezi. Whether it is only for brainstorming ideas or for their actual Prezi creation, they both can work on it simultaneously. In addition, what I particularly like about Prezi is the fact that it is an online tool, so no need to save it on a USB key and bring it to class. As we know students often tend to forget their USB key at home. With Prezi, problems like this won’t happen because they only need to log on to the website to access their Prezi.

I can hear other teachers tell me “I already have my PowerPoints, I don’t want to recreate all my documents on Prezi, it will take too much time!” I am glad to announce you that if you already have your PowerPoint documents, you can easily convert them into Prezi files with the PowerPoint import function on Prezi. Consequently, there is no reason not to use it now.

As a teacher, I gladly recommend this tool to my students because it allows oral presentations to be more interactive and fun which is often not the case. And most of all, my students can use this tool collaboratively if they have to work on team projects. I hope you know more about Prezi than you did before and that I might have convinced you in using it in your future class with your students.

Storybird

Since my childhood I have always been fond of books, even to this day I like to spend my free time reading a good book. When I decided to become a teacher I always envisioned myself sharing my passion of literature and books with my future students. Recently, I discovered a tool that could help me reach this goal. It consists of a website called Storybird.com. Basically, it is a website specialized in storytelling that can be used for education. On these two websites, you can learn more about what Storybird is and how you can use it in your classroom. Moreover, there is a possibility that allows teacher to create an account as a teacher which create interactive classes and allowing the administration of student accounts. What is even more appealing for teachers is the guaranty of online safety for children. Consequently, there is no fear of having students see anything inappropriate. For example, if the kids decide to publish their story publicly, the name of the child or the school that he or she is linked to, will not be named. As a teacher, I find it particularly important to know that my students can use this website safely.

 

I would mostly use this tool to evaluate or to practice competency 3(writes and produces text). By creating their own story, my students would be able to practice and improve their writing skills as well as being introduced to the writing process. Also, there is a possibility to use this tool in group, as one student can continue the story of his friend or give feedback. By working in team, students would have the possibility to learn cooperatively. Therefore, Storybird can be used in various forms for the purpose of different activities.

I particularly like this tool because it allows students to use their creativity as well as improving their ability to write text. And most of all, with the help of this tool they can create their own book which they can show to their parents after and feel proud of it. Consequently, I do recommend this tool to other teachers as it can be used for the creation of original projects.

If you would like to know more about Storybird, here is a video that teaches you how to use the tool. It helped me greatly to understand more fully how to use the tool as a beginner.

Facebook, an educational tool?

Many students have difficulty believing that Facebook can be used as an educational tool for their classes. Some teachers have decided to use this tool for their class and have seen the benefits of it. Nowadays, Facebook is mostly known for friend’s research and the sharing of pictures, links, articles and many more with a group of friends. But we need to remind ourselves that Facebook was originally created as a social networking website exclusive for post-secondary students. Therefore, even though many do not use it for this purpose today, teachers still have the opportunity to use it for educational purposes.

As a teacher, I was surprised that some teachers use Facebook for educational purposes. On this website, I found pros and cons for using Facebook in an educational environment which helped me set my opinion on the subject. Also, I found another website that states why it should be important to allow students to use social media such as Facebook in class. I would use Facebook with my students to have the opportunity to share information rapidly and to be able to help my students more easily with the network. Group work becomes often difficult for students who do not know well their team mates which makes communication harder. With the help of Facebook, my students could share files and information more efficiently as well as informing other class’ students about their project. One important benefit of Facebook is that teenagers are always on it. Whether it is on their computers or on their cellphones, they have access to it quite easily. Consequently, students could not avoid or ignore the group conversation as it would be in their notifications. As a result, homework, exams or oral presentations could not be avoided since they would see the posts about it on their Facebook account which would remind them of their school work. I believe that I could use this tool to post homework and to answer particular questions from my students. Often, when students are home they can get confused about the homework or what was being asked to do. With Facebook, they would have a fast and efficient tool to contact me for any questions or clarifications. In addition, if for some reasons I do not respond rapidly, other students who understood well what was being asked could also help the student. What is primordial for a teacher who uses this tool, is to understand that he or she needs to respond rapidly and be aware of what is happening. As teachers we have a job to do and we are responsible of our students. Therefore, if we see students being mean to one another or we see a student who seems to suffer from depression we have the obligation to help or reach out to them. We are responsible of them and we have the duty to take actions if we see something inappropriate on Facebook, even if it does not concern school. Some teachers are skeptical to use this tool as it implies other types of problem and creates even more obligations for them. However, the benefit of using this tool in class is something that we have to take in consideration too.

Based on these arguments and the discussion I had in class with other teachers on the subject, I believe it is up to every teacher to decide whether or not they want to use it in their classes. However, one cannot deny the positive effects that technology has on students, has they become easily motivated because most of them like everything that is new and unusual for class. By using Facebook in class, let’s challenge the meaning they have of the network and make it useful for something other than their social life.