TOOLS FOR WRITING SKILLS

Some fantastic tools for Teachers... :-) If you use some of them tell me about it!

DVOLVER MOVIEMAKER is an easy tool for creating short movies. The movie maker makes it easy to create and share short online movies, pairing cartoon-like backgrounds and characters with the users´ ideas and text.

http://www.dvolver.com/moviemaker/make.html

WORDLE is a tool ("toy") than enables the users to create word clouds form a given text. These clouds give more relevance to those words with a higher occurrence. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with the rest of the teachers, pupils, friends... and to prepare activities in which we need to use these word clouds to create a story, a poem...

http://www.wordle.net/

TAGXEDO is a tool similar to Wordle that turns words -famous speeches, articles, news, slogans, etc.- into a visually amazing word cloud. Words are also individually stressed according to their frequency within the body of the text.

http://www.tagxedo.com/

STORYJUMPER is a web 2.0 that allows students and teachers to create their own online story book. You can make adventure stories, fairy tales, treasure maps, photo books, calendars, among others. A great source of creativity and inspiration for everyone!

http://www.storyjumper.com/

STORYMAKER is another online programme whick allows the user to create his/her own story in a very intuitive way. You are given some support and instructions to develop your story. There are some characters and settings already created.

http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/make-your-own/story-maker

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qmr9TWawbeQ

ZOOBURST is a digital storytelling tool that lets anyone easily create his/her own 3D pop-ups Books.

http://www.zooburst.com/

I´M BACK!! :-)

Hello to Everybody!!

Wow!!! The time has passed very quickly and unfortunately I´ve been very, very busy lately...sorry. Anyway I´m back, I´m here and now I desire to continue this blog with all of you so that... I hope you have nice time reading me. Besides that I have good news...yeah!!!

First of all... I´m working again and I´m so happy for that because this year was difficult for me. My job is practically the same one that some time ago :-) I´m working in the area of Drug Prevention with Teenagers and young people. Moreover I´m teaching Abacus in English in a Primary School on the outskirts of Madrid so...It´s Great!!!! If you feel like to find out more information about this topic I recommended you to visit the web: http://www.kidsbrain.es/es  

And second of all... I´m preparing the next post related on "Tools for Writing Skills", in a few days you can see it :-)

Well, that´s all for today!!

Have a Happy Day!

THE POWER OF IMAGINATION :-)

Look these pictures...
Let your imagination fly and tell me what the images transmit to you. 
Come on! Dream and relax your mind!!  :-D

You can use as a teacher this type of exercises to develop imagination and creativity in your students and also to create an atmosphere of relaxed classroom work. Maybe the students could invent an story, a poem... and share at the end with everybody.What do you think about it?...

TOOLS FOR READING SKILLS :-)

Hi everybody!!! Today I´m going to share with you some interesting Tools for Reading Skills :-)... I hope you enjoy with all of them.

http://www.wordle.net/
Wordle is a tool that enables the users to create word clouds from a given text. These clouds give more relevance to those words with a higher occurrence. It is useful also for writing skills.

http://www.rif.org/kids/readingplanet.htm
Reading Planet is a site which is fully dedicated to reading and books. It contains a lot of activities and a story maker for the teacher and/or students.

• Advantages: 
• Minimum effort
• Group organization to write the story with a genuine ending
• Easy tool to create a story with already-made images
• Disadvantages:
• Difficult language
• Too simple and basic graphic design

 




http://storybird.com/
Storybird contains short, art-inspired stories that are curiously fun to make, share, and read. You can choose from hundreds of drawings and images and then write a story to go with them.

The website is free to sign up and class accounts are possible. Finished story books can be embedded into blos or read via the website, so, it would be a wonderful way to show parents what their children read in class.

http://www.zooburst.com/
ZooBurst is a digital storytelling tool that allows the teacher to create his/her own 3D books using augmented reality technology.

http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/make-your-own/story-maker

My Story Maker is a tool that helps teachers write therir own stories. Add characters and objects to the storyboard, and click them to add actions. 

A basic story will be automatically written, and the students can then embelish the text with the adjectives and other descriptive words.

To my way of thinking... we have as teachers in our own hands amazing educational tools to motivate students every day then... use them! :-)

BILINGUALISM IN MADRID: PRESENT AND FUTURE

SOMETHING INTERESTING...

http://mediateca.educa.madrid.org/reproducir.php?id_video=nq31onuufehywmjt

Tools to Enhance Listening Skills

First of all I would like to share some News, Great News is that... a few days ago I have finished my Degree as a Teacher of Primary Education with special mention in English... I´m very happy! :-)

Now I would like to share with you also the most practical and useful tools to enhance listening, reading and writing skills and today I begin with...

TOOLS TO ENHANCE LISTENING SKILLS :-)

http://www.voxopop.com/  

A voiced-based eLearning tool used by educators all over the world enabling the users to create online recorded discussions. These can be set up easily and learners can access easily and use to maximise spoken English practice. It is a free online discussion site.

 

http://www.skype.com/es/ 

Software founded in 2003 allowing users to make phone calls through the Net using voice over IP (VoIP) technology. It offers a wide variety of services including calls from fixed-lines or mobile phones, fax and video calling.

http://www.listen-and-write.com/

Dictation exercise creation tool. It has a large number of dictation exercises already created in a number of languages, but you and your students can also create your own exercises. The dictation tool offers a number of options to support and develop students ability to listen.

http://voicethread.com/

Online tool to create multimedia slideshows where you can insert images, documents, audio, and video. Viewers can add text or audio comments, and even doodle while commenting by using voice (mic or phone), text, audio file or video (via webcam). It allows to collect and share group conversations in one place from anywhere in the world.

http://www.voki.com/
It is a great way to have students share therir knowledge of a topic in 60 seconds or less. You can make students organize their thoughts to focus on key details, picture description. You can customize: Character Style, change the look, clothing and accessories, voice (add your own voice via phone, microphone, text to speech or upload a file).


In the next Post I will show you ...  Tools to enhance Reading Skills!! : - )  

Happy Week!!

WRITING A POEM :-)

WORDLE ACTIVITY

• Name of the Activity: "The Colored Poem"
• Age of the Children: 10-12 years old
• Level: Third Level / Cycle of Primary Education
• Aim of the Activity: To practice Writing skills and besides that  to improve Listening, Speaking, Reading and Vocabulary.
• Description of the Activity: The teacher shows a square with different colored words and will propose to the students to work in groups. Each group of the students will choose a color  and with these words they have to try to elaborate a poem. They will try to use the largest number of words as possible to create the poem. They have around 15-20 minutes. And at the end each group will read aloud the poem that they have done. It is a good colaborative task to improve several skills above all, writing skills.

Tool and URL: Wordle is a Free Tool to enhance writing skills. Practical tool and very easy to use. http://www.wordle.net/

THAT MAGIC NIGHT! :-)

STORYBIRD ACTIVITY

• Name of the Activity: "That Magic Night!"
• Age of the Children: 6-8 years old
• Level: First Level / Cycle of Primary Education
• Aim of the Activity: To practice Reading skills and besides that  to improve Listening, Speaking, Writing and Vocabulary.
• Description of the Activity: The teacher will read the story aloud twice but the students follow the text at the same time. At the end the teacher will ask to students if they are understand the story and he/she will encourage them if there is someone that wants to explain it to the class. Little by little all of the students will read a part of the text aloud and they will discovering the story step by step and if there are words that they don´t understand. The teacher also might propose to the students that in groups of 4 or 5 to prepare a different end or even it is a good idea to create a new story together, why not?... This kind of activities allow to develop children imagination and this is a good way to teaching and learning process.

• Tool and URL: Storybird is a Free Tool to enhance reading skills. Very useful for teachers and it would be a wonderful way to show parents what their children read in class. http://storybird.com/ 

THE GARDEN OF EMILY THE BEE : )

VOKY ACTIVITY

• Name of the Activity: " The Garden of Emily The Bee"

•  Age of the Children: 8-10 years old

• Level: Second Level / Cycle of Primary Education

• Aim of the Activity: To practice listening and speaking skills through an Avatar and improve vocabulary.

• Decription of the Activity: In this activity the teacher will explain that the class has a new friend and in each class this friend will talk about different topics and in this one especially they will revise "The Colors" following Emily The Bee (an special bee). In this activity the children will work Listening and Speaking Skills because they have to try understand to Emily and besides that they should be attentive because Emily The Bee asks questions to the students also and they should answer them. From this activity the teachers can review and work The Colors in English.

• Tool and URL: Voki is a Free Tool to enhance listening skills creating speaking Avatars and use them as an effective learning tool. Very useful and practical. http://www.voki.com/

"THE GARDEN OF EMILY THE BEE"

EMILY THE BEE: "Hello children! My name is Emily and as you see I live in a beautiful garden. Today I would like to show you the colors of my favorite flowers and these colors are red, violets and whites. Can you repeat what are the colors of my favorite flowers please?...
Do yo like my garden children?... And Do you like flowers? Oh good guys!! In the next class I will show you my home. Bye,bye!"

LEARNING SINGING

 ACTIVITY 4

●     Name of the Activity: “FIVE LITTLE MONKEYS”

●     Age of the Children: 6-8 years old

●     Level: First Level / Cycle of Primary Education

●   Aspects of English that students are going to practice: Above all Listening but also Reading and the activity is useful for increasing Vocabulary.

●     Material: Laptop with Internet Connection to watch the Video of Youtube.

      ●      Description of the Activity: The students have to watch the video and try to follow and sing it at the same time. The song is very popular and funny for children of the first courses. It isn´t very complicate but in the beginning the teacher will say that if there are some words that they don´t understand they have to try write down them and they can to ask the teacher about the doubts. The video will be watched several times and at the end the teacher can be propose to draw a large poster on the song by specifying the name of the things that appears. Then it will be hang in the class. In other session we can work other aspects with this poster, we just need... a little imagination! :-)

You can find this Video in the following Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRJ4X9oqwVU

You can find the complete activity also clicking this Link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MbEeHs5S7O2QDIRPmq1RxZITa_Cy3UzM1Kuj1uFAXk8/edit