Currently, I am moderating a free online course, Digital Storytelling for Young Learners, with a dream team of moderators who are phenomenal at working with young learners, Esra Girgin, Barbara Sakamoto, Özge Karaoglu, Jennifer Verschoor, David Dodgson, and Michelle Worgan. Over 250 participants have joined and have shared incredibly imaginative stories in our online class portfolio. One of the most surprising discoveries, though, was that 62% of the teachers who took our survey said they had never had their learners create digital stories. Our language learners have powerful stories to share and often share personal stories in blogs, Facebook, Youtube, or Twitter. Through digital storytelling we motivate our learners to apply, contextualize, visualize, and personalize the language they learn. There are 100s of free digital tools and websites to inspire your learners to create extremely imaginative stories and share them with a global audience. I hope the following tips and resources will help you along your journey towards integrating digital storytelling into your curriculum.

Tips

• Ease your students into sharing information about themselves by doing a fun icebreaker activity such as Show and Tell with a Cell! Simply have your students take out their cellphones, share one of their favorite pictures and tell the story behind the picture. If they can’t use their cellphones then have them come into class with a picture.
• Teach your students about creative commons. Below I share some of my favorite websites.
• For collaborative projects and more detailed stories, have students plot ideas in a storyboard. Kevin Hodgson has some fantastic storyboarding worksheets here!
• I like to break my students into small groups of 4 and while they are creating their characters and drawing the scenes I elicit vocabulary from them. For example, I will ask questions such as, “Is this a boy or a girl?” “Is it hot or cold?” “Does she have blond or brown hair?”

Recommended Webtools

Literally, 100s of webtools and apps have been shared, but I would like to share with you the ones I believe are the easiest to use. We are listing these in a livebinder, which is being constantly updated.

Creaza- One of my favorite sites where you can create comics, make movies, edit audio, and more! Embed in a blog or wiki.
GoAnimate- Choose from various characters, type in the dialogue, choose your background scene, and create a free fun movie.
DVolver- Choose from various characters, type in the dialogue, choose your background scene, and create a free fun movie.
ZimmerTwins- Choose from various characters, type in the dialogue, choose your background scene, and create a free fun movie.
PicLits- Drag and drop words unto a beautiful image.
Bubblr- create your comic strip with Flickr pictures and add bubbles to tell your story!
Comicmaster – Cool graphic novel creator.
Stripgenerator – You don’t have to register in order to create a comic.
Make Beliefs Comix – Two, three and four panel comics that you can create in multiple languages.
Comic Strip Generator – You can upload photos or use web images in addition to their library of ready-to-use images
ToonDoo – the site allows students to share their comics, comment on other comics, and even save and edit a copy of a comic
Kerpoof – Create videos or an animated picture.
Googlesearch – Use Google searches to tell your story.
OneTrueMedia – Mix your photos and pictures with text and animations.
Blabberize – Make your pictures talk
Smilebox – Create videos from your pictures and videos adding design and music. You download this software to your computer.
Glogster – Create and online poster with your videos.
VoiceThread for Educators-Interactive way to present stories and have parents and other students comment on the stories. Several options. Embed in a blog or wiki.
Storybird-Students create beautiful stories by choosing beautiful art and adding the words. Embed in a blog or wiki.
Voxopop – Construct audio stories.
5cardflicker – Tell your stories through flicker photos.
Zooburst – 3D pop up story creator.
Scholastic story starter – Start your story randomly.
Thestorystarter – Start your story randomly.
LittleBirdTales – Upload your picture, record your voice to tell your stories.
Animoto- Upload up images, choose a soundtrack from the library (many nice holiday tunes to choose from, and click a button to make a free short video online and on your mobile device.

Creative Commons Music and Images

Musicshake – Create copyright free music for your video.
Compfight – Search Flickr photos for your videos.
MorgueFile – Find free pictures for your videos.
Free Music Archive, and Jamendo, and Royalty Free Music are all great places for free creative commons music!
SoundBible - FreeSound – Free sound effects.

Digital Storytelling Apps

Posterous- With this app, learners can include a mix of text, photos, audio, and videos as well as tags and location information in a blog post. Share immediately on Facebook and Twitter! Even allow others to add to your posts (set this up through the web app vs. the mobile app). Free version available online as well as various mobile devices including the iPhone, iPod, Android, and Blackberry.
Flixlab- Like Animoto. Free app to create incredible slideshows on the iPhone, iPod, iPad. Soon available on the Android. No website editing like Animoto but longer videos when using the app. CC library of music, themes, fonts, and more.
StoryRobe- It’s incredibly easy for children and adults to create audio/visual stories on the iPhone and iPod Touch using this app. Use the built in microphone, or any 3rd party microphone to create audio recordings with photos and videos. You have the option to upload to Youtube or send it through e-mail. If it’s in their e-mail, then the parents can easily e-mail their child’s production to their friends! You don’t need an Internet connection to create the stories, but you do to send them! Available on the iPad and iPod.
Splice- Best video editing app for the iPhone, iPod, and iPad that is free. Add audio, transitions, images, and more.
Fotobabble- It’s incredibly easy for children and adults to create audio/visual stories on the iPhone and iPod Touch using this app. Use the built in microphone, or any 3rd party microphone to create audio recordings with photos.
Sock Puppets- If you enjoy playing with sock puppets, you’ll love this app that allows students to create a sock puppet show. Choose the sock puppet characters, personalize the characters by adding your voice, select the scene and props, and record a video. Send this by email or upload to Youtube. Watch this great example. Available on the iPad and iPod.
Puppet Pals- IChoose the western characters, personalize the characters by adding your voice, select the scene and props, and record a video. Send this by email or upload to Youtube. Available on the iPad and iPod.
StoryKit- Create an electronic storybook by drawing on the screen, uploading images, recording sound effects and voice, laying out the elements of the story (text boxes, images, paint, and sound clips) freely by dragging them or pinching to resize, reordering pages, and uploading to the StoryKit web server. Email a link to the story. The application includes four public domain children’s books to rewrite and rearrange into a new story. Available on the iPad and iPod.
Animoto- Upload up to 10 images, choose a soundtrack from the library (many nice holiday tunes to choose from, and click a button to make a 30-second video. Sync your videos with your Animoto.com account, download videos for offline viewing, and make longer ones with an All-Access Pass. Available on the iPad and iPod.
Videolicious- video creation in 3 easy steps
Create A Comic App- free comic creation app for Android and i-devices.

Free ebooks

Digital Storytelling Tools by Silvia Tolisano
Effective Mobile Learning: 50+ Tips & Resources by Shelly Terrell
Digital Storytelling in the Classroom by MicroSoft

Check out my Pinterests with these bookmarks and more!

Challenge:

Try a digital storytelling project with your students this year.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

Part of the Cool Sites series

January is the month when many of us are motivated to accomplish our goals for the year. If you are like me then you may have experienced several years of getting goals accomplished then felt defeated. In April 2009, I joined Twitter and began collaborating and communicating with educators and found that this interaction helped me accomplish goals and so much more. With free social media platforms you can begin to develop and harness the power of your Personal/ Passionate Learning Network (PLN) to accomplish goals. Social media provides us with incredible opportunities to choose the way we want to develop professionally. You can choose the topic, the medium, and who you want to learn from. Moreover, online professional development is packed with various types of multimedia experiences, such as webinars, virtual learning environments, discussion forums, live video, podcasts, web 2.0 creation tools, and more. The experience is usually dynamic and motivating because you are learning with others around the world! Below is a list of courses, programs, and webinars that offer you the opportunity to continue learning in 2012.

Upcoming Free Professional Development

• The 30 Goals Challenge- Over 7000 educators have participated in the 1st and 2nd cycles of this global challenge for educators with the premise of getting you to complete 30 professional development goals in one year. These are short-term goals, such as guest posting, changing your classroom environment, providing effective feedback, establishing an online presence, and engaging with parents. We begin the 2012 cycle this week. To keep up to date, please join the 30 Goals Facebook group or you can easily follow through Twitter by checking out the #30goals hashtag. You don’t even have to have a Twitter account to get the tweets. You can easily subscribe through RSS.
• Free Friday Webinars- Thanks to the American TESOL Institute, I conduct free 30 minute online webinars every Friday at 4pm EST (New York), 3pm Texas, 1pm LA, 7pm Brasilia, 9pm London, 10pm Paris, 11pm Athens/Istanbul, Sat 8am Sydney, and Sat. 6am Tokyo.
  • This is the Adobe Room to join! http://americantesol.adobeconnect.com/terrell
  • Join on your smartphone or iPad using the free Adobe Connect app!
  • Check out the Livebinder resources that accompany these presentations!
  • Download several of the slide presentations here!
  • Catch past video archives here!
• TESOL’s free Electronic Village Online (EVO) sessions- These are free online 5 week courses that start January 9th and end February 12th. You can choose from several courses including the Digital Storytelling for Young Learners one I am moderating with a dream team (Esra Girgin, Barbara Sakamoto, Özge Karaoglu, Jennifer Verschoor, David Dodgson, Michelle Worgan, and Sabrina De Vita)
• Simple K12 webinars- Attend free webinars with experts on various topics. In 2012, I will be hosting a few of these webinars! Simple K12 was the winner of the Edublogs Award for Best Webinar Series.
• Free Webinars by the IATEFL Learning Technologies SIG- Learn about various technologies and how to integrate them effectively in the classroom. January 15th is the first one this year, Cool Activities with IWBs. I will be hosting one on March 25th, Integrating Collaborative Projects with ICTs.
• Join the online International Teachmeet event where you will see over 20 teachers worldwide present about various topics in 3 minutes! The next one is March 3rd, but you can sign-up to present now.
• The Virtual Round Table E-Conference- ELTon nominated free online conference focusing on language and technology. Unique in that participants can attend via a live video conference or in Second Life. Check out the next conference in April 2012.
• Edublogs Live Events- Every week, attend a free webinar on various topics. Usually, Jo and Phil Hart hosts these free webinars that cover effective use of web 2.0 tools or instructional methodologies.
• Future of Education- Steve Hargadon will be hosting a free worldwide virtual Future of Education: Learning 2.0 conference January 23 – 27, 2012.
• Classroom 2.0 Live Events- Every week, attend a free webinar with an expert in a field or listen to some great authors speak live and ask them questions.
• Integrating Technology for Active Lifelong Learning (IT4ALL)- provides free online workshops on Moodle for Teachers (Orientation, Beginners, Intermediate, and Advanced), Professional Electronic Portfolios (PEP), WebQuests, Facilitating Online Classes, Grant Writings, TESOL, Integrating Technology and using Web 2.0 in the classroom.
• Attend Second Life Live Events- Second Life has several educational groups that meet weekly for free conferences, talks, workshops, and more. Download the software and register for free. Consider joining these educational groups- ISTE on Second Life, Discovery Educator Network, EDTECH Retreat, EDTECH Community, or Visit Edunation Island- a safe place for educators
• #Edchat- Join over 2000 educators every Tuesday to discuss various topics you get to vote for and suggest.
• Education Chats on Twitter- Find out the dates and times of educational conversations that occur on Twitter.

Free Online Classes Throughout the Year!

Although many of these don’t necessarily start in January, these free courses are worth keeping an eye on for the rest of the year! They are free online courses taught by authors, subject matter experts, and university lecturers.

• SEETA Courses- The South Eastern Europe Teachers Association offers several week courses with a guest author or expert in the field. You will have to register, but the courses are free!
• MOOC- Massive Open Online Courses where 1000s attend for free through discussion forums and free webinars. Follow the hashtag #MOOC for the latest MOOC. University professors, TED speakers, and notable educational theorists moderate these courses. You learn from the very best in our field! Topics range from Personal Learning Networks to Mobile Learning!
• MIT Open Course Ware offers over 1900 free online courses in over 20 subjects. You can subscribe by RSS or get e-mail updates.
• Stanford on iTunes- Download courses, faculty lectures, interviews, music and sports that will play on your iPod, iPad, iPhone, Mac or PC.
• 17 Universities with free online courses- Find out how to access these free courses from some of the most respected universities in the world! This article also describes the experience of learning through these online classes.
• 250 Free Online Courses- Find a list of several more free online courses from the top universities categorized by subject.

Challenge:

Try any of these professional development opportunities and blog about your experience.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What are your favorite ways to learn online? Did I miss any other great professional development opportunities starting in January?

Many believe that learning occurs incidentally. Children will naturally learn by interacting with the world around them even if educators are not in the picture. Sometimes, that is true but I have found that as a facilitator and guide I can help motivate my students to learn in more challenging ways. Let’s face it, many of our students will be watching TV, playing video games, updating their social networks or texting their friends this holiday. They won’t think about the learning potential of these technologies unless we help guide them. And yes, I feel that is important because if not then many will tend to be couch potatoes and not choose to explore the world around them. Let me suggest some activities that will help you as an educator show your students learning happens anytime, anywhere and can be very fun and active! By the way, these activities are always optional for my students but I find even if they aren’t graded they complete a majority of them.

Slide Presentation

These ideas are outlined in the presentation below but I will explain them a bit more in this post.

Motivating Students to Keep Learning During Breaks

Make the Learning Resemble Video Games

I watched this incredible presentation from Paul Maglione where he outlined things we can learn and adopt from video games. His presentation inspired these thoughts of how we can try to make learning in our classes resemble the learning in video games:

• It’s social- Sometimes you need a little help from your friends and often in video games this will be with several on social forums sharing tips or cheats; many games also have virtual worlds players can be a part of
• It’s a representation of the world teens and kids want to be immersed in because it integrates movement, visuals, multimedia, popular music, graphics and more
• It is goal-oriented- Aim to reach the next level; each level is more challenging, but achievable; and the learner must complete tasks
• It teaches learning is all around- characters must collect items that help with the journey and must search for these all around them
• It is a great analogy of what happens when we learn something new in that the learner discovers a new world each time a new level is achieved
• It focuses on positive stress- yes learning is difficult but most learners are willing to invest several hours to complete tasks they enjoy or reach an outcome they want
• It shows that failure is part of the journey- learners try again till they reach goals and are not punished with grades, they are allowed to try again with no penalty except the time invested
• It focuses on the journey- in a video game, every kid can be a hero as long as they keep trying but in schools we punish kids if they stay too long on any level

Tips for Integrating Games into the Curriculum

Ways to integrate games into the curriculum during the break include:

• Add suggested games by theme and topic to a wiki, blog, or website like I have done in my wiki, English Story Time
• You will notice many of the activities for the kids involve online games and games that can be played in a room or outside.
• You will also notice I encourage parents to play these games with their children. Engage parents by listing free events in the community or directing them to free publications with free coupons. In San Antonio, for example, some of our museums are free every Tuesday and we have the SA Kids publication that lists all the library free craft days.
• For kids, you can find several games at the Kindersite
• For teens to adults, get them to practice problem solving ways to improve the world by playing Evoke

Tips for Getting Your Curriculum to Resemble Game-based Learning

Make it social

• Set up a class blog, wiki, Facebook group, Ning, or Edmodo site. Features include private chatting; creating profiles; uploading files, videos, and more; commenting, polling and embedding

Set-up tasks in an advent calendar

• For each day your students are off they can click the calendar to find a new task worth points.
• Sharon Hartle includes a PowerPoint advent calendar here that you can edit and customize
• Use this template to create a calendar in PowerPoint
• This post by Kelly Tenkely will help you create one through Glogster or Wix
• Mix up the tasks to include various activities like visiting museum, attending a play, snapping a picture outside, or using an online web tool
• Provide a points system where they can cash in later to collect prizes
• Tasks could look something like this:

Mission: Snap a photo of graffiti you think could be art and tell us through an audio recording why you think it is art versus just graffiti.
What You’ll Need: Fotobabble App or visit Fotobabble.com
Points Worth: 10
Bonus Points: Post a short reflection in your blog for 5 more points.

More Ideas

• Set-up a scavenger hunt. Do this easily through the SCVNGR hunt app for Android and iPhone where students win prizes for going places, completing tasks and checking in
• Organize a global project! Chances are another school around the world is not on break and this is a great time to sync a meeting with time zones
• Host weekly meetings through Google Hangouts (only 10 videos), Skype, Second Life virtual field trips, or other platforms
• Let the students organize their own chat topics and times. You can do this by having students set-up a calendar and organize their own chats. They may want to have a chat for those interested in discussing poetry, another for music, another for a book club, and so forth. Determine student leaders in your class to lead and manage the discussion.

Part of the Cool Sites series

Recently, I presented a webinar with Simple K12, Holiday Apps for Creating Gifts. Children, adolescents, and teens can create very meaningful gifts for friends and family members using several fun apps. The apps are very easy to use, often free, and have various multimedia options. Many integrate images, audio, text, video and extras. Moreover, students write, read, and present digital stories that tie into their real world experience! Children can also easily send the messages, videos, and cards Christmas morning for parents to wake up and see on their phones. Many of these apps have the ability for users to share their productions through online communities, e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter! Some even allow editing online on a website and embedding options.

The Presentation Slides

Holiday Video Creation Apps

These are some of the great video apps that are especially geared with Christmas and Hanukkah backgrounds and extras!

• Flixlab (I-friendly)- Great way to create collaborative holiday videos!
• Holiday Video by Vlix (I-friendly)- so many cool effects and options.
• Animoto- Upload up to 10 images, choose a soundtrack from the library (many nice holiday tunes to choose from, and click a button to make a 30-second video. Sync your videos with your Animoto.com account, download videos for offline viewing, and make longer ones with an All-Access Pass.
• Talking Santa (Android/I-friendly)- search on the app market for your phone’s free version; mimics your voice in the form of a Gremlin
• Talking Gremlin (I-friendly)- free for a limited time; mimics your voice in the form of a Gremlin
• Talking Gingerbread Man (I-friendly) mimics your voice in the form of a Ginderbread
• Wishstix (I-friendly)- record a video of you as an elf telling Santa what you want for Christmas and email to friends.
• StoryRobe (I-friendly)- It’s incredibly easy for children to adults to create audio/visual stories on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Use the built in microphone, or any 3rd party microphone to create audio recordings with photos and videos. You have the option to upload to Youtube or send it through e-mail. You don’t need an Internet connection to create the stories, but you do to send them!
• Super Dance Elf Christmas with Friends ($0.99; I-friendly)

• RedStamp (I-friendly)
• Holiday Cards by Sincerely (Android/I-friendly)
• A Card for That (Android)
• Fotobabble- Quickly create and easily share talking photos in 3 steps (Snap or select or a photo, speak into the microphone to record audio, share with friends via email, Facebook or Twitter). You do get various holiday themed backgrounds. Example- Here’s Rosco, my pug’s holiday card to you!

Holiday Reading Apps

Inspire kids to read holiday classics with these great apps!

• MeeGenius- helps kids read (Android/I-friendly)
• Christmas Tale- Interactive ebook (Android/I-friendly)- Search for the name in your phone’s app store for the free version
• Santa’s Village- Interactive games/reading (Android)
• Tales2Go- Audio Stories (free for 30 days; I-friendly)

Holiday Music Creation Apps

Create holiday music or send a singing carol with these great apps!

• Autotune Xmas (I-friendly)
• A Holiday Piano Book: Jingle Bells by StoryBoy (I-friendly)
• Maxi’s Holiday Piano (I-friendly)
• Piano Mi (I-friendly)
• Christmas Piano (Android/I-friendly)- search in your app store for the free version
• My Baby Piano (Android)
• Jellybean Tunes Holiday Edition ($1.99; I-friendly)

Holiday Miscellaneous Apps

Create holiday books, write letters to Santa, and so much more!

• Santa Hat Sewing (I-friendly)- is a brand new arts and crafts app that will lead you all the way to design and sew that perfect Santa Hat for your kids. This art and craft app has been specially designed for the kids to take an active role in making a Santa hat.The Santa Hat Sewing app will teach you and show you how to make a great one. Idea- Create a Santa hat for a favorite doll or loved one with a cute title like Mrs. Claus!
• Comic Touch Lite (I-friendly)- Create a comic by adding various bubble captions to photos. The free version has the company logo. Example- Below is Rosco’s example!

Challenge:

Try these apps with your students and blog about any exciting ways you use them!

You may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What apps do you love using to send your friends holiday cheers?

Part of the Cool Sites series

Halloween is one of the most fun holidays. Kids love the spooky monsters, sounds, music, dances, treats, traditions, haunted houses, and costumes that surround the holiday. As an educator or parent that has an iPad, iPhone, or iPod you can capitalize on this time to help kids learn while celebrating the holiday. Here are free apps to help encourage math, literacy, and problem-solving skills. Some of the apps are just fun!

Apps

ScrapPad Halloween- Kids create a scrapbook with various creatures, words, and their own images. Have the students write stories to accompany their books. They can even work in pairs. They can email the scrapbooks to their parents or friends or post on Facebook. Only works on the iPad.

Halloween Card Creator- Kids create e-cards with various choices in backgrounds, characters, and their own images and text. Have the students e-mail the e-cards to friends of family members.

Halloween Origami- With this great app, kids learn to create various spooky creatures in origami. Kids can watch videos after seeing the step-by-step instructions.

Halloween Counting & Words Games- Created for the iPad, this free app features 8 different learning games for kids to celebrate Halloween and learn math, spelling, and vocabulary.

Carve A Pumpkin- With this great app from Parents magazine, kids create a jack-o-lantern that lights up after it is carved. Kids can even add spooky stickers to their pumpkin. There are various pumpkins to choose from and backgrounds. Have the students e-mail the e-cards to friends of family members. A follow-up task includes having students get into pairs. Student A describes the pumpkin created. Student B must try to recreate the pumpkin by the verbal description. Make sure the students save the pumpkin to their photo library to compare. You can also have students try to carve their pumpkins in real life after the drawing.

Halloween ebook- Students read this story and it has a personal touch. Kids upload their own photos for a surprise ending at the end of the story.

Talking Skeleton- Like the famous Talking Tom app, kids speak and an animated skeleton repeats their words in a funny voice. Their messages can be recorded through video and sent to parents in an email. Have the students send Halloween greetings to their families or friends or create a video of them doing a Halloween rap.

WordSearch Halloween- This app provides several word searches. These are divided in levels from easy to difficult. Listen to scary music or your own while you play. There are over 200 puzzles under 3 categories- Halloween, costumes, and treats. This app would be great to encourage students to learn various vocabulary. Try getting the kids to then use the words the find in a story or poem.

Word Search- Another Halloween wordsearch app with cool backgrounds but less features than the above app.

Haunted Hangman- Guess the Halloween word and get a pumpkin with treats. If you lose the pumpkin is carved then becomes sad.

Make a Zombie- Students create zombies and choose from various backgrounds, bodies, clothes, eyes, hairstyles, heads, pair of legs and mouths.  A follow-up task includes having students get into pairs. Student A describes the zombie created. Student B must try to recreate the zombie by the verbal description. Make sure the students save the zombie to their photo library to compare. You can also have your students create stories about their zombies and read them in a circle aloud.

Mash-o-Ween- This app is for teens. It is based on a famous game that I played in my teens before mobile devices were mainstream. Teens type in various options for categories and at the end this app tells their future. Have the students work in pairs then after read the fortune to each other. Some of these deal with romance, costumes, and more.

Landon’s Pumpkins- This book has several features to help kids follow along the story and learn vocabulary. At the end a recipe is given for Roasted Pumpkin seeds, which would be a great reward for a teacher to make with a class after reading a story.

It is Halloween- Kids create Halloween scenes with characters and backgrounds. They can even animate them. Have the students write stories to accompany their scenes. They can even work in pairs. They can email these to their parents or friends or post on Facebook.

Halloween Countdown- Features include a Halloween countdown with sounds, various sounds (some you pay for so be careful), ringtones, background music loops, 100s of costume ideas, wallpaper images, trivia, and a flashlight for trick-or-treating.

Halloween Voice Transformer- Only the reaper voice is free, but kids speak into the mic and record their message which then is played back in a spooky voice. Have the students email Halloween greetings or messages to their families or friends or even record a spooky story or song. Thanks to Tara Benwell for recommending this app and sending me a spooky message in my email!

Ace Math- Learn multiplication, division, and addition and celebrate Halloween. This is basic math.

MouthOff Lite- This app works best on the iPhone/iPod. Kids choose between various silly mouths and hold the device to their mouth while they talk. This always brings a lot of laughs. Encourage students to repeat vocabulary or even tell spooky stories in a circle.

If you enjoyed this post, check out other apps I recommend to encourage learning!

Challenge:

Try one of these apps and let us know how they worked for you!

You may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What Halloween apps have you discovered to encourage literacy?

Part of the Cool Sites series

Photo adapted from Flickr by kevindooley licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

Summer has officially started for many of you! I know that you will probably be relaxing for the first few days, but eventually you may feel the need to be inspired and motivated for the upcoming 2011-2012 school year! Social media provides us with incredible opportunities to choose the way we want to develop professionally. You can choose the topic, the medium, and who you want to learn from. You can choose the way you like to learn, because social media provides us with several multimedia experiences, such as webinars, LMS, live video, and more. The experience is usually dynamic and motivating because you are learning with others around the world! Additionally, you will be developing your Personal/ Passionate Learning Network (PLN).

Professional Development Opportunities to Choose From…

Free Programs:

• The 30 Goals Challenge- Over 5000 educators have participated in the 1st and 2nd editions of this global challenge for educators with the premise of getting you to complete 30 professional development goals by 2012. These are short-term goals, such as guest posting, changing your classroom environment, providing effective feedback, establishing an online presence, and more. How do you participate?
  • read the 30 challenges here!
  • add a video blog as a response on The 30 Goals Youtube Playlist
  • add your blog posts and thoughts to the 30 Goals Facebook group
  • add a comment or link through Twitter using #30goals as the hashtag
  • Got a smartphone?
    • Subscribe to the podcast through iTunes! Scroll down the page to see the button!
    • Subscribe to the Youtube Channel then click your Youtube icon, go to more, and the most updated videos will be listed under Subscriptions!
  • Download the free e-book if you want to accomplish the 1st edition goals.
• SEETA Courses- The South Eastern Europe Teachers Association offers several week courses with a guest author or expert in the field. You will have to register, but the courses are free!
• 31 Days to Become a Better Edtech Leader- With his vast experience, Terry Freedman offers excellent goals to accomplish each day that help you use educational technology effectively. Goals include conducting a SWOT analysis to organizing an inservice! Here’s a handy list of each post and the links.
• The 23 Things Project- Take Steven Anderson’s 10 week course that shows you how to use various web 2.0 tools effectively in the classroom.
• ASCD Free Summer Boot Camp- Webinars by various guests. First one is Lisa Dabbs, @teachingwthsoul
• Arts Integration E-Course on Education Closet- Registration is happening now for an online arts integration professional development course this summer. This was submitted by Susan Riley!
• Integrating Technology for Active Lifelong Learning (IT4ALL)- provides free online workshops on Moodle for Teachers (Orientation, Beginners, Intermediate, and Advanced), Professional Electronic Portfolios (PEP), WebQuests, Facilitating Online Classes, Grant Writings, TESOL, Integrating Technology and using Web 2.0 in the classroom. This was submitted by Nellie Deutsch!

Attend Live Events in Real Time!

You can attend several free conferences, webinars, Twitter chats, and presentations online with your PLN! These usually last one hour, but many conferences also offer free all day live streaming of their keynotes.

• Free Friday Webinars- Thanks to the American TESOL Institute, I conduct free 30 minute online webinars on the Adobe Connect platform every Friday at 4pm EST (New York Time), 3pm Austin, TX, 1pm LA, California, 9pm London Time, 10pm Paris Time, 11pm Athens/Istanbul Time, Sat 8am Sydney time, and Sat. 6am Tokyo time. Check your time zones here!
  • This is the Adobe Room to join! http://americantesol.adobeconnect.com/terrell/
  • You can even join on your smartphone using the free Adobe Connect app!
  • Check out the Livebinder resources that accompany these presentations!
  • Catch past video archives here, http://americantesol.com/cafe/
• Attend the free Reform Symposium E-Conference along with 8000 other educators from over 50 countries. This takes place Friday, July 29 to Sunday, July 31, 2011 and we hope you will join us for what promises to be our biggest yet global online conference for everyone concerned with education. With up to 60 presentations and 12 keynote speakers it is sure to be an incredible event!
• The Educators’ PLN Ning Live Chats with Guest Experts- The Educator’s PLN is a great place to interact and learn from other educators. Join us for free live chats with various authors. In the past we featured Alfie Kohn, Howard Rheingold, Diane Ravitch, Chris Lehmann, Steve Hargadon, Jim Burke, and others.
• Watch Live Streams of the 140 Character Conference- Jeff Pulver has been amazing in getting celebrities, educators, and leaders in various fields to speak passionately about how social media is revolutionizing their fields. If you cannot attend physically, then attend virtually. Jeff live streams the talks! Follow the hashtag, #140Conffor continuous updates.
• Edublogs Live Events- Every week, attend a free webinar on various topics. Usually, Jo and Phil Hart hosts these free webinars that cover effective use of web 2.0 tools or instructional methodologies.
• Future of Education- Join Steve Hargadon live as he interviews some of the greatest minds in education. Past guests included Sir Ken Robinson, Alfie Kohn, Diane Ravitch, and more!
• Classroom 2.0 Live Events- Every week, attend a free webinar with an expert in a field or listen to some great authors speak live and ask them questions.
• Simple K12 webinars- Attend free webinars with experts on various topics.
• Attend Second Life Live Events- Second Life has several educational groups that meet weekly for free conferences, talks, workshops, and more. Download the software and register for free. Consider joining these educational groups:
• ISTE on Second LifeDiscovery Educator NetworkEDTECH RetreatEDTECH CommunityVisit Edunation Island- a safe place for educators
• #Edchat- Join over 2000 educators every Tuesday to discuss various topics you get to vote for and suggest.
• Education Chats on Twitter- Find out the dates and times of educational conversations that occur on Twitter.

Free Online Classes:

Ever dream of studying at Stanford or MIT or being taught by George Siemens? Well you can attend several free online courses taught by authors, subject matter experts, and university lecturers. Below are useful links to find a free online course in any subject!

• MOOC- Massive Open Online Courses where 1000s attend for free through discussion forums and free webinars. Follow the hashtag #MOOC for the latest MOOC. University professors, TED speakers, and notable educational theorists moderate these courses. You learn from the very best in our field! Topics range from Personal Learning Networks to Mobile Learning!
• MIT Open Course Ware offers over 1900 free online courses in over 20 subjects. You can subscribe by RSS or get e-mail updates.
• Stanford on iTunes- Download courses, faculty lectures, interviews, music and sports that will play on your iPod, iPad, iPhone, Mac or PC.
• 17 Universities with free online courses- Find out how to access these free courses from some of the most respected universities in the world! This article also describes the experience of learning through these online classes.
• 250 Free Online Courses- Find a list of several more free online courses from the top universities categorized by subject.
• Edufire Free Live Online Classes- Register for free and have access to various topics such as using various web tools or learning a different language. You get a live tutor on a video.

Find several more professional development opportunities by clicking on the tabs of Mike Fisher’s Live Binder.

Challenge:

Try any of these professional development opportunities and blog about your experience. Blogging helps you reflect and decide how you can apply this learning to improve your instructional methods.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What are your favorite ways to learn online? Did I miss any other great professional development opportunities?

Interview 15 of Education Voices

In the move for education transformation, we need to listen to many voices including students. I was fortunate to meet high school student and web developer, Shantanu Bala. We met online while collaborating on a project to further improve education. Shantanu is a high school student who developed this really cool software to help his fellow peers and other students worldwide, Quicklyst. Quicklyst is a free notetaking tool that does really cool things such as if you type a ? next to any word it searches through Wikipedia and other sources to find more information. I was so excited about Shantanu’s motivation to develop Quicklyst and his motivation behind joining a teacher led reform project that I asked him if he’d mind me interviewing this past week. So glad he agreed!

Bio

Shantanu Bala is a high school student in Phoenix, Arizona, and one of his interests is computer science. He learned programming when he was in elementary school, he was introduced to formal web development when he started working with the Joomla! Project. He volunteered and contributed to that free software project for about a year during his freshman year of high school, and states he really enjoyed it. He was introduced to the Joomla! Project through the Google Highly Open Participation Contest. After that, he started becoming more confident with his programming, and decided to find other projects he could work on. After looking at Arizona State University’s website for information about the university (towards the summer of his sophomore year of high school), he stumbled across an interesting laboratory called the Center for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing , and asked for a tour of the place since he was very interested in applying to Arizona State. He found some of their research really interesting, and asked if there was anything he could work on. One of the PhD students became his mentor, and with his help Shantanu published a few research papers at a couple conferences (http://www.chi2010.org and http://have.ieee-ims.org). This past October he presented at the IEEE HAVE Conference in Phoenix.

Shantanu reflects:

Quicklyst merged a couple of my passions. I enjoyed taking part in academic pursuits at Arizona State University, but I’m also very interested in education as well. I’m currently the chair of the Education Workgroup of the Arizona Governor’s Youth Commission, and I’ve always been interested in the possibility of starting a company.

Previous Interviews

Check out the previous interviews Twittering for Education- Jo and Phil Hart, Twittering for Education- Eric and Melissa Sheninger, Twittering for Education- Will and Elle Deyamport, Connected Principals- George Couros, 1:1 Programs- Rich Kiker, Mobile Learning with Kids- Scott Newcomb, Effective Leadership: Interview with Patrick Larkin, Using Skype for ELT Lessons: Interview with Marisa Pavan, Teachers as Leaders and Continuous Learners: Interview with Dr. Doug Green, Blogging with Students: Interview with Greta Sandler, What Does the Innovative School Look Like? Interview with Dr. Tom King, How Do We Animate Lessons? Interview with Ken Wilson, Building the Twitter Academy: Interview with Kelly Tenkely, and Leading by Example and Teacher Evaluations: Interview with Akevy Greenblatt.

If you enjoy this series, you may want to subscribe for FREE!

What do you believe is the ideal education students should be receiving?

Part of the Cool Sites series and the Presentation Tips series

I’ve read quite a lot about giving incredible presentations and have attended several amazing workshops with some of the best presenters out there. I’ll give you their number one advice for free, “It’s all in the preparation!” For this reason, my presentations consume me. Even after preparing them I go over them 1000s of times in my head. I picture how I will give the presentation and what I will say. I even imagine the questions the audience will give me. I picture every little detail even the clothes I’m wearing and the pitch of my voice. Preparation takes time. Planning slides, arranging them, finding pictures to accompany the messages, and making decisions on color schemes and templates can take hours. That is why I like to plan on the go and with mobile devices and apps, you can sketch out your presentation and rehearse almost anywhere. Here are the apps I recommend.

Free Presentation Apps

These are available on the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad. Some of these may have Android and Blackberry equivalents.

Mighty Meeting- Manage a library of PowerPoint presentations directly from your smartphone or tablet and share them via email, blog, Twitter, or Facebook. Start or join web meetings directly from your laptop, iPhone, iPad, or Android phone. Nice interface! **For hosting a webmeeting or viewing your Powerpoint slides on your smartphone!

iClicker Lite- The paid version offers more but try out the free version. Use your iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad as your PowerPoint remote clicker to view slides and slide notes as you present. Make annotations and show it to your audience as you present. Need wifi. **For navigating your Powerpoint slides during your presentation!

Presenter Pro-Professional presentation training app that includes advanced presentation skills techniques with graphics, audio, and video clips, access to Rexi Media for additional presentation skills coaching or PPT design guidelines, a “tip shaker” for accessing hundreds of quick tips and a checklist feature, which enables you to store and e-mail any topic paragraphs to refer to later. View this while traveling to your next presentation. **For preparing your next presentation!

Adobe Connect- Are you presenting a webinar on Adobe Connect? Have your audience access it through a free app supported by iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and Android. Your audience doesn’t have to miss any of your presentations. The free app allows them to see your slides and chat with others. **For hosting a webmeeting on your smartphone!

FuzeMeeting/ Fuze Meeting HD for iPad- Are you presenting a webinar on Fuze Meeting? Have your audience access it through a free app supported by iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Blackberry and Android. Your audience doesn’t have to miss any of your presentations. The free app allows them to see your slides and chat with others. Features include instant web conferences, live desktop sharing of files (supports Word, PPT, PDF, and others), and start meetings immediately with access to your address and personal IM contacts from multiple networks like Gmail, LinkedIn, Yahoo and more. **For hosting a webmeeting on your smartphone!

Evernote- I mentioned this in a previous post but really there are so many uses for this free app! Create text, photo and audio notes that auto-synchronize your notes to your Mac or PC. Makes text within snapshots searchable. Add, sync, access, and share files (PDF, Word, Excel, PPT, and more) among the different versions of Evernote. Free version available on iPhone, iPod, Android, and Blackberry. **For preparing your next presentation! Try sketching out your presentation and gathering research with this app!

Mindblowing- I mentioned this in a previous post but really there are so many uses for this free app! Gather audio, video and photos into a colorized mindmap. Enter the main topic, title, or theme in the main node then create branches with images, audio, or video attached. Send the mindmap with the attachments through email. Free version available on the iPhone. This is my recent review of this app which gives several ideas on how to use it with students. ***For preparing your next presentation! Try sketching out your presentation and gathering research with this app!

Prezi for the iPad- Free but still has some problems and only seems to work on 4G.  You should be able to create, edit, and present your Prezi presentations. Give it a try it’s free!

If you enjoyed this post, check out 14 Apps That Should Accompany You to the Next Conference!

Challenge:

Try one of these apps for your next presentation!

You may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What apps do you love using at conferences?

Part of the Cool Sites series

You may have a conference you are preparing to attend in 2011, such as IATEFL, ISTEK, ISTE, or the upcoming EduConn conference. These are some of the face-to-face conferences, but many conferences are also free and can be enjoyed in the comfort of your home for free, like the upcoming Reform Symposium E-Conference on Saturday, January 8th.  With mobile devices and apps, you can do so much at conferences. In the palm of your hand you have the power to connect with people at the conference instantly, keep record of the speaker’s key points, collect favorite sayings, and share these key points virtually with others who cannot attend. Mobile apps are additionally environmentally friendly and make it easier for you to organize the information you gather digitally. You can keep a record of the information you gather in various forms through audio, video, images, and text. You can tag information in order to refer to it later when you need it. I find that I remember more using apps to document and share information. Moreover, toting around my iPhone is much easier than lugging around my Macbook. The apps are very easy to use, often free, and have various multimedia options. Many integrate images, audio, text and audio. I also recommend having the usual suspects for social networking and sharing images which include Echofon (Twitter), Tweetdeck (Twitter), Facebook, Flickr (Photo sharing), and 4 Square (not one I personally use but many conferences will now let you win prizes through this app).

Networking Apps

These are some of the free great apps! These are available on the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad. Some of these may have Android and Blackberry equivalents.

My Name is E- Share business cards phone to phone or through e-mail with 3 taps. Add notes to newly received cards and view social networking information. Add new cards instantly to contacts. E saves the location of where a business card was shared. Receive updates of your contacts’ information when they update. Also share cards with those who don’t have the application. Free version available on iPhone, iPod, Android, and Blackberry.

Bump- Share business cards phone to phone, even Android to iPhone, by bumping the phones together. Share contacts info, pictures, calendar events, and connect on social networks. Free version available on the iPhone, iPod, iPad and Android. Both parties must have the free Bump application for it to work.

NoteTaking Apps

These are some of the great apps! These are available on the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad. Some of these may have Android and Blackberry equivalents.

Evernote- Create text, photo and audio notes that auto-synchronize your notes to your Mac or PC. Makes text within snapshots searchable. Add, sync, access, and share files (PDF, Word, Excel, PPT, and more) among the different versions of Evernote. Free version available on iPhone, iPod, Android, and Blackberry.
** Try keeping notes of the presentations and workshops you attend or try brainstorming and planning your next presentation on this app!

Posterous- Want to blog and report the workshops or presentations in one location on a website quickly? Although, Posterous is the easiest way to blog it can also be used to effectively collect notes to publish immediately on a blog without any registration. Include a mix of text, photos, and videos as well as tags and location information. Share immediately on Facebook and Twitter! Even allow others to add to your posts (set this up through the web app vs. the mobile app). Free version available on iPhone, iPod, Android, and Blackberry.

Mindblowing- Gather audio, video and photos into a colorized mindmap. Enter the main topic, title, or theme in the main node then create branches with images, audio, or video attached. Send the mindmap with the attachments through email. Free version available on the iPhone. This is my recent review of this app which gives several ideas on how to use it with students.
** Try keeping notes of the presentations and workshops you attend or try brainstorming and planning your next presentation on this app!

Free Storage Apps

DropBox- Get 2 GB of storage for free to upload photos, videos, documents, presentations, and audio. You can make these private or public (provides you a link to share for others to download). Save photos and videos taken with your phone’s camera, share and send files via email, or copy and paste links to share with another app. Export files to other apps and favorite them for offline viewing. Free version available on iPhone, iPod, Android, and Blackberry.
** Try storing your presentation slides or handouts and easily provide a link to your participants to download.

IBooks- I access my conference pdf programs, transportation maps, and other documents offline with this free app! You have scrolling features, zoom, bookmarking and more. You even have a great looking shelf to organize your collection. You can also have access to some free/paid books to keep you entertained during your free time! Any pdf attachments in your email can automatically be opened and immediately stored in this app! Free version available on the iPhone, iPod, and iPad.

Streaming Apps

Ustream Broadcaster- I always find events at conferences I want to livestream and have available online. This free app allows me to livestream and when I am finished it will be available online in case people missed the event or presentation. You can even tweet and chat while livestreaming the event. You have to register ahead of time (free) but when you do you have your own channel created that others can visit. Free version available on the iPhone and Android.

Ustream Viewer- This app simply allows you to watch Ustreamed events on your iPhone.

Challenge:

Try one of these apps at your next conference!

You may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What apps do you love using at conferences?

Part of the Cool Sites series

As a little girl, I made Christmas gifts for my father. He preferred them over bought gifts. Well, at least until I can afford box seats for the Dallas Cowboys games. Making gifts can be difficult for children who have to beg a parent to buy them the materials and disguise this so one parent does not find out. With their mobile devices and apps children, adolescents, and teens can create a very meaningful gift for a loved one. What I like about this idea are the apps are very easy to use, often free, and have various multimedia options. Many integrate images, audio, text and audio. The child can also easily send the message Christmas morning for the parent to wake up and see the gift. With so many families on the same phone plans the child will often have similar devices as their parents. If not, many of these apps have the ability for users to share their productions through online communities, e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter!

Creative Apps

These are some of the great free apps!  I’ll try to post in order of preference in considering the features, time requirement, and user-friendliness. These are available on the iPod Touch and iPad as well but may not be free on those platforms. Some of these may have Android and Blackberry equivalents.

StoryRobe- I love this free digital storytelling app. It’s incredibly easy for children to adults to create audio/visual stories on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Use the built in microphone, or any 3rd party microphone to create audio recordings with photos and videos. You have the option to upload to Youtube or send it through e-mail. If it’s in their e-mail, then the parents can easily e-mail their child’s production to their friends! You don’t need an Internet connection to create the stories, but you do to send them!

• Idea- Create a visual holiday card by taking pictures with your phone of family photos and tell a parent how much you appreciate them. Add self-made music or creative common music played in the background while you narrate for more of an effect.
• Example- Here’s @thehomeworkdog‘s nice StoryRobe celebrating my move to Hawaii in July.

Fotobabble- Quickly create and easily share talking photos in 3 steps (Snap or select or a photo, speak into the microphone to record audio, share with friends via email, Facebook or Twitter). Fotobabble is really easy to use and free! It’s very similar to StoryRobe but doesn’t allow video. However, you do get various holiday themed backgrounds.

• Idea- Create a visual holiday card!
• Example- Here’s Rosco, my pug’s holiday card to you!

Animoto- Upload up to 10 images, choose a soundtrack from the library (many nice holiday tunes to choose from, and click a button to make a 30-second video. Sync your videos with your Animoto.com account, download videos for offline viewing, and make longer ones with an All-Access Pass.

• Idea- Create a nice looking holiday video for your family or friends! The app doesn’t let you add text like the site does but you can always take pictures of text or signs if you’re out and about.
• Example-My Christmas card!


Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

StoryKit- Create an electronic storybook by drawing on the screen, uploading images, recording sound effects and voice, laying out the elements of the story (text boxes, images, paint, and sound clips) freely by dragging them or pinching to resize, reordering pages, and uploading to the StoryKit web server. Email a link to the story. The application includes four public domain children’s books to rewrite and rearrange into a new story.

• Idea- Create the holiday story starring your friends and family with a special message!
• Example- Here’s a quick Christmas story I made with Rosco! Click here to read it!

StoryCorps- Listen to the weekly story; share stories via email, Facebook, and Twitter; get tips for recording stories on mobile devices; create and email a list of questions for an interview with StoryCorps.

• Idea- Interview several friends that have great things to remember about another friend. You can also interview all your family members and collect memories about a grandparent or parent.
• Example- Listen to this Christmas memory from World War II.

Audio Boo- Free app that allows you to record and upload audio for your friends, family or the rest of the world to hear through Facebook, Twitter, and email.

• Idea- Share a poem, song, or story inspired by your loved one!
• Example- Here’s a story about my father called, 2 Feet Tall Trophies! My father used to be a championship bowler!

Santa Hat Sewing is a brand new arts and crafts app that will lead you all the way to design and sew that perfect Santa Hat for your kids. This art and craft app has been specially designed for the kids to take an active role in making a Santa hat.The Santa Hat Sewing app will teach you and show you how to make a great one.

• Idea- Create a Santa hat for a favorite doll or loved one with a cute title like Mrs. Claus!

Comic Touch Lite- Create a comic by adding various bubble captions to photos. The free version has the company logo.

• Idea- Create a comic of your loved one as the hero!
• Example- Below is Rosco’s example!

Challenge:

Try these apps with your students and blog about any exciting ways you use them! Or leave a link to a Christmas gift you want to share in the comments section!

You may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What apps do you love using to send your friends holiday cheers?