Word magnets

Given the lack of fridge doors in the average classroom, this Word magnets tool is ideal as a substitute, allowing you to make word magnets you can move around on the virtual fridge door. For great ideas on how to use this for language teaching have a look at Russell Stannard's tutorial on using Word magnets it, along with a few other nifty tools.

Watching the telly in PowerPoint

Taking a post from last year a bit further...those of you who follow me will have seen the material I posted in July 08 on how to run YouTube videos within your PowerPoint shows. To update that, Tom Kuhlman, (whose Rapid elearning Blog I highly recommend, listed below right) has produced a Powerpoint show with demo TVs or monitors in each slide. It struck me you could use them as a neat way of running a video. I have converted his show to Powerpoint 2003, and it can be downloaded here. This also allows me to tie in another reminder that too many people do not realise: you can import slides from other PowerPoint shows into any PowerPoint show you want, using the Insert menu, Slides from other shows, just a single slide or a whole bundle. So just save this show to your own area, and import a suitable sized TV into your own PowerPoint show when you need it when you want it.

another little app: online timer

An onscreen timer should be a basic staple of any teacher, and while you can embed them within a PowerPoint show ( see David Foord's material for some clever ways of doing this) sometimes a freestanding onscreen one is what you need. http://www.online-stopwatch.com/ is the one I often use, you can even download a little app, that needs no installing but just runs freestanding in a small window.

creative commons photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/rsdio/3642119413/

Online safety

This was a recent topic on the ILT Champions list I subscribe to, and teaching staff here at CCN are increasingly asking me for resources in this area. Here are some online resources offered by Virginia Havergal, from RSC South West.

• Australian wiseuptoit resources, complete with videos, lesson plans, student handouts
• Jennies story from childnet, aimed at 14-19 year olds:
• Sorted, again from childnet - written by young people for young people
• Get safe online
• US netsmartz site with excellent videos
• Websafe Crackerz is a spoof world, with a range of microsites offering teenagers strategies to help them deal with all kinds of technology-related situations. The site makes use of interactive stories and games to teach e-safety in a fun, non-patronising way, offering prizes to those that can navigate the cyber-hazards and crack the safe

There is also the Information Commisioners Office website: http://www.ico.gov.uk/youth.aspx
(Bus photo from bus slogan generator)

Google Books ebooks, and embedding

You have probably read about the plan from Google to either take over the world/be very kind to everybody through the Google books project.
(From the Google homepage, go to More link at the top, and choose books) In my experience access to most of the books I would want to look at is limited, not surprisingly, but for some purposes this could be really useful. And also to return to a technique I have been banging on about for some time, the site allows you to embed the text in some cases, as illustrated here. So, dear reader, get reading!

issuu

issuu is a place to store documents online. In that sense it is far from unique, but what I really like about it is that it gives you embed code for your uploaded documents, which allow you to link to them in a far more attractive way than just a dull blue text hyperlink. Just to demonstrate in an appropriate way, have a look below at my embedded handout (on embedding, what else?)

Tiny and not so tiny URLs

I am sometimes suprised by how many people are not comfortable putting weblinks (URLs) into their learning materials. So to go from basics to hi tech in one short posting:

You can just paste in a link you grab from the internet, (or even just type in): http://www.bbc.co.uk/

You can hide the link behind some prettier text like this the good old bbc
by using that globe and chainlink icon:- highlight the text then click the globe icon and paste in the link you want to hide

If the link is inevitably one you can only pick up off a printed sheet you can shorten horrendously long urls by going to tinyurl.com . Paste the long URL in and press the button, hey presto you get a shorter one out! So...Robert Peston's blog at the BBC becomes http://tinyurl.com/2x7a4b

And the hi tech.... put the information into a QR code (as per picture) so that those with smartphones and the right software can pick up the link, and visit on their mobile device! This will take you once again to Robert Peston's blog