Featured 5-8-2014: Booktrack Classroom

 

 

Used in the teaching of English and Language Arts, Booktrack Classroom is a new, free technology that enables students to read stories and texts accompanied by a movie-style soundtrack.

 

Integrated with Common Core standards, the easy-to-use Booktrack Classroom technology can improve student reading and writing abilities. New York University and The University of Auckland have conducted studies which show that Booktrack increases reading comprehension scores and student engagement.

 

Booktrack can be used on both an individual basis as well as in group learning exercises. Here are some examples of ways it can be used:

• Narrative Writing – Students can add music and audio to their original stories.
• Informative and Explanatory Writing – Students write essays and articles selecting suitable audio to clarify their text.
• Literature Study – Students can gain insight and increased understanding of the text by creating their own soundtracks for novels, stories, and plays.
• Read-Alouds – Teacher and student led read-alouds are enhanced through the addition of sound and music to the chapter or act being presented.

Booktrack Classroom can foster digital literacy and creative thinking among students while developing multiple learning objectives. 

 

 

 View a short intro to Booktrack Classroom

 

Booktrack Classroom also hosts a library of free lesson plans for K-12 students, covering a variety of subjects and learning outcomes. All lesson plans have been created by professional teachers.

 

 There are free Booktrack mobile apps for both Android and iOS devices.

  

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Featured: 12-18-2013 Metta

Use Metta to create learning stories, documentaries, summaries, and compilations from videos, pictures, text, and sounds that are already on the web or upload your own material.

Insert polls and quizzes into your Metta stories, lessons, or slides to get feedback from your viewers. Get insights and track who answered your questions, when, and where.

A convenient Collect Button makes it easy to gather videos, images, and text wherever you’re browsing on the the web with just a click.

 See an example Metta story

Your Metta profile can be shared with your followers and you can follow other Metta users. Even build your own channel.

All Metta plans includes a 30-day free trial. The free plan allows you to create and publish an unlimited number of stories, but you get only 10 MB of media storage and are limited to just 10 responses per poll. If you decide to go with a paid plan, be certain to check the EDU Discount box for 50% off.

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Featured: 9-25-2013 Kaizena

 

Kaizena reinvents the teacher feedback process. It’s as easy as highlighting and speaking. Voice comments make your feedback personal and engaging.

Giving feedback with Kaizena is faster than using a word processor, or even a red pen with its negative connotations. Kaizena is built to save you time, allowing prompt, useful feedback.

Other features of Kaizena:

• Students can respond to your feedback with a voice comment of their own.
• Support for text comments.
• Attach a resource.

Common problems can be taken care of with reusable mini-lessons. Add a link once, and reuse it every time you encounter that same problem.

 See a video demo of Kaizena by Greg Mcverry

Kaizena works seamlessly with your Google Drive workflow. No new usernames or passwords are needed.

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Featured: 8-6-2013 Breaking News English

Breaking News English provides free, ready-to-print ESL/EFL lesson plans for teaching current events.

Breaking News English presents simple news, in seven levels from elementary to advanced, that is easier for English learners to understand.

Breaking News English delivers a new lesson every two days. All lessons are based on stories currently in the news. Lessons have up to 26 pages of printable activities and handouts available as downloadable PDFs. There are 30 or more online quizzes for each lesson.

 

 See a Breaking News English video tutorial example from Shelly Terrell

Listening files in mp3 format in British and North American English can be downloaded or subscribed to via a podcast. Breaking News English includes graded listenings with each lesson.

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Featured: 6-27-2013 Macaulay Library

The Macaulay Library is the world's largest and oldest scientific archive of bird, animal, and other natural audio and video recordings.

The Macaulay Library's mission is to "collect and preserve recordings of each species' behavior and natural history, to facilitate the ability of others to collect and preserve such recordings, and to actively promote the use of these recordings for diverse purposes spanning scientific research, education, conservation, and the arts."

Teachers can use the accurate depictions of nature from the Macaulay Library to illustrate the natural world and create exciting interactive learning activities.

Lessons for elementary, middle, and high school use rich media including sounds and videos from the Macaulay Library to spark student interest in understanding biological adaptations. Teachers can download individual lessons or units addressing science standards about waves, forces, and motion.

 Watch a sampling of Macaulay Library video

The Macaulay Library provides training, equipment, and resources to help document the diversity of nature with sound and video. Field techniques and the technical knowledge required to record the behavior of birds and other animals in the wild are taught through workshops and informal training sessions.

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Featured: 6-3-2013 Empressr

Empressr is a free online visual storytelling and presentation application that lets you create, manage, and share rich media presentations.

You can upload your own media such as video, audio, images, and animations to your Empressr media library, import them directly from other sites like Flickr, Google, and Photobucket, or link to digital content from elsewhere on the web.

Empressr supports many popular file formats, including: jpg, gif, bmp, png, mov, flv, avi, swf, and mp3. The size of uploaded items is limited to 10MB.

You can upload a PowerPoint file to Empressr and use each of its slides as a picture or use it as a fully editable presentation (with some loss, however).

Your presentations can be shared in several ways. You can make a presentation public on the Empressr site, email the link, use the share button to get an embed code, or choose to auto-embed into a number of social network sites like Facebook, Blogger, or WordPress, or place it on your own site. 

 Watch an Empressr tutorial

The Empressr team is located in New York and San Francisco. Empressr was developed to give users the ability to include more dynamic content like streaming video and Flash in presentations.

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Things I Like: Coffitivity

Research shows that ambient noise, an important environmental variable, can affect creativity. Empirical results demonstrate a moderate versus low level of ambient noise enhances performance on creative tasks. A high level of noise hurts creativity. A moderate level of noise increases processing difficulty, inducing a higher construal level and thus promoting abstract processing, which subsequently leads to higher creativity.

I've always suspected that this was personally the case for me. I spend a lot of time working in cafes and I feel more focused and productive in that environment. On occasions when I might be working in the quiet of my home, I sometimes seem easily distracted and not able to get deeply into whatever task is at hand.

Therefore, I was delighted to stumble upon this website. Coffitivity delivers the vibe of a coffee shop right to your desktop, so that when your workspace just isn't quite working, you can find that cafe ambience anywhere.

Coffitivity generates the mix of calm and commotion of an environment like a coffee house that has been proven to be just what you might need to get the creative juices flowing.

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Featured: 3/11/2013 Natural Reader [Text-to-Speech]

NaturalReader is a free iOS text-to-speech app that converts entered text, PDF files, MSWord documents, e-books websites and more into spoken words.

With NaturalReader, you can have any text read to you in one of over 30 natural-sounding voices. NaturalReader can be a great help to students with dyslexia or other reading difficulties. By listening to text rather than reading, some students may be better able to comprehend reading materials or detect errors in their work.



Since NaturalReader can help pick out mistakes in your work, as well as giving you a sense of the natural flow of what you have written, it is also an efficient proofreading tool.

NaturalReader features:

• Works with Word documents, PDF files, web pages, eBooks, and many other formats.
• Provides over 30 natural sounding voices in 5 languages.
• Increase or decrease the speed of the voice reader.
• Input text via keypad, copy/paste, or from the application’s built-in browser.
• Load files from Dropbox, email attachments, computers via iTunes

Simply tap a sentence, and NaturalReader begins reading aloud from that point, and follow along with written text. Text automatically scrolls up the screen as it is being read.



NaturalReader Is free from the iTunes App Store. It is compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd, 4th, and 5th generations), and iPad. Requires iOS 5.1 or later.

Note: NaturalReader requires a Wi-Fi Internet connection in order to transfer text and audio from cloud spaces.

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Extra: ocenaudio [Audio]

ocenaudio is an easy-to-use, fast, functional, cross-platform,  audio editor from Brazil.

ocenaudio might be the perfect audio software for people who need an uncomplicated way to work with audio files. ocenaudio also has powerful features useful to more advanced users.

ocenaudio is loaded with features such as support for multiple file formats, spectral analysis, and audio signal generation, with a focus on usability, providing the user with a cohesive and intuitive audio editing and analysis tool. Time-consuming tasks such as opening and saving audio files, or applying effects, run in the background, so that you can work on other files.

ocenaudio is free and available for all major operating systems: Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

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COD - 9/25/2012 - Makewaves [Broadcasting]

Makewaves, from the UK, provides a free social media platform for education enabling schools to create and safely share videos, podcasts, and blogs.


The Makewaves school blogging network has been providing safe social networking for schools since 2003 when it was first known as Radiowaves. They work with schools, local authorities, charities, and government departments to publish internet radio, school podcasts, videos, and blogs from students around the world.

Over 50,000 students with mopre than 130,000 blogs and videos stories already online are using Makewaves regularly to broadcast their school podcasts and videos using a safe social network.


Started up by brothers Mark and Tim Riches, the Makewaves team now includes teachers, broadcasters, journalists, developers, designers, project managers, and trainers.  

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COD - 8/1/2012 - Science of Cycling [Science]

The Science of Cycling is the second in a series of planned sports science resources from the Exploratorium focusing on the science behind popular spectator and recreational sports.

Get the answers to questions such as "Why do road bikes have thin tires, while mountain bikes have fat tires?", "What are the best materials for frames?", and "How does drafting help a cyclist?"

The Science of Cycling is divided into six main sections:

• The Wheel
• Drives & Gears
• Frames & Materials
• Braking & Steering
• Aerodynamics
• Human Power

Included are twenty audio and video clips, many images, and interactive elements. The Science of Cycling is an introduction to an enormous and fascinating topic. You can also find information on the history and unique culture of cycling at the Science of Cycling. 

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COD - 7/11/2012 - Present.Me [Presenting]

Present.Me lets you add video and audio to your presentations in an easy and intuitive way, allowing your audience to see and hear your message in the way you intended. 

 

Educators can enhance learning with Present.me by providing great content as well as a friendly face to go with it. You can use Present.Me for the 'flipped classroom' model to give a recorded lesson which students can then watch at their convenience. 

 

 

Simply upload your presentation or document, wait a a short time for it to convert, then click ‘record’. Then present into your webcam, clicking your slides forward as you go. If you make a mistake, you can stop, rewind a bit, then resume recording. You can review what you’ve done when you project is completed. If you’re satisfied, press ‘publish’, if not, click ‘retry’ and have another go.  

 

A private presentation can't be seen or searched on the Present.me site. You can see your private presentations when you log in, and you can share them, using an encrypted URL, to individuals via email, to social networks, or embed them in your blog.  

 

Students have used Present.me for public speaking practice. They can learn a lot about themselves from watching a presentation that they've created, for example, they may realize that they talk very fast or have a nervous habit that is distracting to the audience. 

 

Present.Me has been built with ease of use in mind. No special software is needed – just your browser. Being online, you can instantly share your presentation with anyone you like, anywhere in the world, anytime.  

 

Watch a video into to Present.Me 

 

The Present.Me free plan allows three presentations per month (one private presentation) of up to 15 minutes each. The $9 (USD) Plus plan allows 30 monthly presentations (up to 30 private) of up to 60 minutes each, and additional features. You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel any time. 

 

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COD - 7/10/2012 - NewsHour Extra [Current Events]

Using the standards and resources of PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, NewsHour Extra provides students and teachers with quality educational resources based on current issues and events.

NewsHour Extra provides unique current events resources for teachers such as news stories, pictures, maps, video, in-depth lesson plans, stories written by students, and more.

Lesson plans are organized by topic and can be found on these category pages: US, World, Science, Economics, Health, and Arts/Media. In addition, you can use the search function at the top of every page. 

Visit the NewsHour ExtraYouTube channel

NewsHour Extra also provides an outlet for young people to speak out on issues important to them by publishing essays and original audio and video. These student voices are often directly related to the news and give adults insight into how events affect young people.

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COD - 3/1/2012 - HelloSlide [Presentations]

 

HelloSlide can simulate the experience of a live lecture by transforming your slide-based presentation into a rich audiovisual format. HelloSlide closes the gap between traditional slide presentations and video.

HelloSlide allows you to create a hybrid between slides and video. Create and edit the audio as if it were a text document. The possibilities are there for collaboration, translation, and search.

To use HelloSlide upload your presentation, type the speech for each slide, and HelloSlide generates the audio. Press play to hear your presentation.

HelloSlide provides several advantages over ordinary video:

• There's no need to record any audio, just type text.
• Edit presentations by just tweaking the typed text until you're happy with the result.
• You can make your presentation available in 20 different languages. Just write the spoken text in English, and press translate.
• Presentations are searchable by audio keywords since everything is text-based.

Watch a video showing how to use HelloSlide.

HelloSlide is free, with unlimited editing, for the first 50 presentations. Paid plans start at $9 (US) per month.

Note:  Currently, you can only upload your presentation in PDF of 100 Mb or smaller.

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