PADLET

What is Padlet?

Padlet can be used by students and by teachers. With padlet you can create an online post-it board that you can share with any student or teacher you want. Just give them the unique Padlet link. Padlet allows you to insert ideas anonymously or with your name. It’s easy to use and very handy.

Whoever has the Padlet board opened on his smartphone or computer, can see what’s on it and what everyone is writing. Students just have to take a device and start adding little sticky notes online. They can see all the ideas gathered on the teacher board immediately.

HOW WE USE PADLET FOR EDUCATION?

Use Padlet to gather student work, all in one place. Don’t use it for ordinary homework, because all the other students can see what the others have done. Use it for articles and research on a topic.

When you let your students do some research on, for example, ‘great historical poets’, you have all the articles and research on the same place. Other students can take a look at the research of someone else as well.

When it’s international poem day, you could ask your students to post a poem they really like.

Use Padlet as a student portfolio tool. Create boards for every student and let them post assignments, articles and projects on it. As a teacher, you can comment on each one and give meaningful feedback.

Whenever a student finds something helpful for his portfolio, he just has to save it on his portfolio Padlet board. No more editing and printing articles.

Here is my account link of Padlet:

https://padlet.com/ackgzfsn

AUGMENTED REALITY

Augmented reality (AR) is one of the biggest technology trends right now, and it’s only going to get bigger as AR ready smartphones and other devices become more accessible around the world. AR let us see the real-life environment right in front of us—trees swaying in the park, dogs chasing balls, kids playing soccer—with a digital augmentation overlaid on it. For example,  a pterodactyl might be seen landing in the trees, the dogs could be mingling with their cartoon counterparts, and the kids could be seen kicking past an alien spacecraft on their way to score a goal.

With advances in AR technology, these examples are not that different from what might already be available for your smartphone. Augmented reality is, in fact, readily available and being used in a myriad of ways including as Snapchat lenses, in apps that help you find your car in a crowded parking lot, and in variety of shopping apps that let you try on clothes without even leaving home.

Perhaps the most famous example of AR technology is the mobile app Pokemon Go, which was released in 2016 and quickly became an inescapable sensation. In the game, players locate and capture Pokemon characters that pop up in the real world—on your sidewalk, in a fountain, even in your own bathroom.

VIRTUAL REALITY

The definition of virtual reality comes, naturally, from the definitions for both ‘virtual’ and ‘reality’. The definition of ‘virtual’ is near and reality is what we experience as human beings. So the term ‘virtual reality’ basically means ‘near-reality’. This could, of course, mean anything but it usually refers to a specific type of reality emulation.

We know the world through our senses and perception systems. In school we all learned that we have five senses: taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing. These are however only our most obvious sense organs. The truth is that humans have many more senses than this, such as a sense of balance for example. These other sensory inputs, plus some special processing of sensory information by our brains ensures that we have a rich flow of information from the environment to our minds.

Everything that we know about our reality comes by way of our senses. In other words, our entire experience of reality is simply a combination of sensory information and our brains sense-making mechanisms for that information. It stands to reason then, that if you can present your senses with made-up information, your perception of reality would also change in response to it. You would be presented with a version of reality that isn’t really there, but from your perspective it would be perceived as real. Something we would refer to as a virtual reality.

So, in summary, virtual reality entails presenting our senses with a computer generated virtual environment that we can explore in some fashion.

VOKI

Voki is a free service that lets you create a talking avatar to help students share their learning.

Voki gives you as a teacher the opportunity to engage students in any topic area through a simple to use and free resource available anytime and anywhere for almost any purpose. 

I have used Voki’s with students from age 5-13 and they ALL love it and on many occasions I have had students go home and show parents and use them on their own personal blogs or wiki’s. 

I have used Voki’s for:

• Getting students to share their learning
• Getting feedback from students
• Getting students to add a more human feel to their blog or wiki
• Foreign language speakers to express views and opinions easier
• Engaging and hooking students into a subject or topic
• Interacting with students on a global level (e.g. quad blogging)
• Practising and listening to their presentations (e.g. pronunciation)

This is my avatar link:
http://tinyurl.com/vnzvdo2

PIXTON

WHAT IS PIXTON?

Pixton is a cartoon creation tool that allows its users to create awesome comics. Pixton has also a growing community that anyone can access to contribute with their own comics. This tool is very easy to use and does not require any artistic skills to work on it. You can introduce it to your students and let them create their own comics and share them with each other.

Besides the free individual accounts, Pixton offers a service designed specifically for schools called Pixton for Schools which is not free. This service enables teachers to create private rooms for their students in which they can collaboratively create and share their comics.

Some features of Pixton

Here is a list of the main features that Pixton provides for its users:

• It is free for individual accounts
• It lets users create their own comics
• It lets you give text and speech bubbles to characters
• It lets you edit the shape and position of each comic panel
• It offers unlimited range of expressions
• It lets you upload your own photos and personalize them the way you want
• It provides presets, templates, and shapes.

STORYBIRD

For English instructors, students, and parents, Storybird is an online tool for developing language knowledge, especially reading comprehension and writing. From the first sight of Storybird cover page, users will be excited about its vivid-color design and appealing illustrations, which draw readers’ attention and focus on  the reading and writing context. Storybird centers on three types of stories: (1) Picture books (2) Longform books and (3) Poetry.

Here is the link of my short story:
https://storybird.com/picture-book/harvest-mouse-and-city-mouse

PINTEREST

You can use Pinterest as a social networking tool, but not everyone does. In fact, it’s more common to use it as a source of inspiration to collect ideas on interior decorating, travel, and fashion.

Your Home Feed

When you first log in, either as a new or returning user, you’ll see an endless, scrolling wall of pictures related to your interests.

This endless wall of photos is called your Home Feed, and the Home Feed—much like other social networking sites—is where subjects and posts from people you follow are aggregated.

The big difference here is that it’s all visual. No words necessary.

It’s important to note that the subject matter on your Home Feed will change as the algorithm learns what kind of topic you’re currently interested in.

Let’s say I want to make a cake, so I type “chocolate cake” into the search bar to find pictures of them. Along with showing me a million different images of chocolate cake, Pinterest’s algorithm will decide, “Hey, this user likes cake! Maybe they’ll like cupcakes too.”