Working with PHOTOS

I found these sites in a Brazilian teen magazine and wanted to try them myself. They transform photos virtually. You can become Asian, a Simpsons character, look similar to a celebrity, have your caricature done, etc.

Check out the results:

• http://www.simpsonizeme.com

• http://www.morphthing.com

This is a mixture of Ana + Angelina Jolie:http://magixl.com/heads/transformaton

http://morph.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk//transformer

Getting the RSS feed to your blog

Have you noticed the blidget (Life Feast Feed) I´ve just included on the sidebar of my blog? Well, in order to do that you need a "so called" feed. And how can you get that? Well, I almost had my brains burnt trying to figure that out, when Nina (from Ukraine)and Nelba (from Argentina) came to my aid. This is what you have to do:

1. Go to the bottom of your blog and right-click on Subscribe to: Posts(Atom)
2. Copy the link
   
3. Go to widgetbox.com
   
4. Look for BLIDGET, and follow the instructions. The feed URL is the one you´ve copied (from Subscribe to...)
5. Customize your blidget and publish it.

Hope it can help other people.

Technorati Claim

Technorati Profile

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Get your own at Gizmoz.com

Season´s Greetings

Dear bloggers and friends,
This is one of my favourite times of the year. A time when everyone is open to help, smile, hug each other, in other words a time when we´re more human. This is a little message I´ve made for you.


Get a Voki now!

Videos of countries

Dear Colleagues, we know contextualization is extremely important when teaching. This week I was looking for an online free video about Thailand to show my students and I found great videos that can be used in EFL and ESL classes. You can find them in YOUTUBE by typing "Discover countries GOOCLIP". The videos show different countries + narration, so you can both exploit the images and the audio. This is the one I chose for my class, it´s about Bangkok.

English Media Lab

I had already visited this site which offers lots of exercises and videos but a drawback I found was that I wasn´t able to enlarge the screen in order to use the videos in the classroom with my groups. Now, with the window media player format we CAN do that. Click on the video title you want, when the page has uploaded right-click with your mouse on the screen, choose ZOOM, whole screen and voilá you have the video to use in class. I believe you can´t download it though.

Why don´t you have a look? It´s really worth a visit.

http://www.englishmedialab.com/index.html

Remember the videos can be found on the left sidebar.

GAMES FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING

http://eflclassroom.ning.com/page/page/show?id=826870%3APage%3A14690

This is a wonderful site with links to various games:
HAVE YOU GOT THE TIME?

PREPOSITION PRACTICE

MEMORY GAME: body

MAGIC LANTERN: changing words

CLOUDS GAME

Papiroflexia

Watch a wonderful video I´ve found:

Any idea on how to use this video? I thought of asking students to describe the scene to each other. Don´t you find it poetic?

Creating online material with Windows MOVIE MAKER

This is a quiz I created for my basic students. Do you like music? Can you say the names of these singers or bands? Hope you like it.

LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdUgTvkz0Wg

EveryScape

This site had me baffled. It´s like virtually visiting a city and being able to choose where to go, go into certain shops, see what people were doing. It´s amazing. I never thought that would be possible. So far, there´s only one city , San Francisco, but there will be other american cities soon. Can you imagine once they start doing that with famous capitals in the world, and make it possible to visit famous landmarks without leaving your home? It´s really worth a visit.

http://www.everyscape.com/

Blabberize

http://www.blabberize.com/creation/playBlabber/418 click on the PINK button.

A great site where you can make talking pictures. This is my trial. I read it in Larry Ferlazzo´s blog that a French teacher had her students created a character to read their compositions. Isn´t it a great idea? Very cute!

Busy and Working

I´ve haven´t posted here for some time now. Well, let me tell you why. I´ve been involved in different projects and have been posting in class blogs. So now it´s the moment to share my work with you.

1st - The "Beautiful places in Brazil" Project: Students were invited to create powerpoint slides in which they had to describe a beautiful place in Brazil. They had to write in English and had to make a minimum of 4 slides. http://pi3blog.blogspot.com/

2nd - The Brazil - Portugal Project: Isabel Neves, a teacher in Portugal, invited me to have a joint blog where our Pre-Intermediate students could discuss common topics. At this point they are introducing each other in personal profiles. http://brazportblog.blogspot.com/

Hope you enjoy the projects and feel free to leave comments!

PEACE DAY

21st Sept - Peace Day

I´d like to wish everyone lots of warm feelings in our hearts so that we can understand and respect each other.
I´d like to share a video with you.
The wonderful Israel Kamakawiwoole.


Watch what our students created for Peace Day.

Creating big books

I was speechless when I saw this application. It´s a ppt which allows you to make your own BIG BOOK. We sure can do lots of things with that!

This is the link where you can get the template.

http://www.priorywoods.middlesbrough.sch.uk/resources/book.htm

a Talking Bear

This is my special message for you. YOu can choose the bear, the clothes and personalize your message. Very cute!

http://www.buildabear.com/buildabearville/default.aspx?mid=23410004

Improv-o-gram

This is a different way to send a personalized message to someone. You choose the occasion, the character, the costume and can record or type a message. This was my test inprov-o-gram:
http://www.cluckhere.com/index.php?mid=23409696

Project Readon

This is another site mentioned in Larry´s blog which offers close-captioning for some videos. I found it a bit hard to synchronize the captioning but it´s quite interesting and worth trying.

http://www.projectreadon.com./

a Pronouncing Dictionary

If you don´t know how to pronounce a word, this is the dictionary for you. I found it in Ronaldo´s blog. Great tool!
http://www.howjsay.com/

Nice graphics

Have a look how cute they are:


http://mycutegraphics.com/
I found these beautiful graphics in Maria Claudia´s blog.

Building your own reef

This site was discovered by Rennée. I don't know how it could be used with students but it's so beautiful!!!!!! I had a great time making my own reef. Do you like it?
http://www.reefbuilder.co.uk/

Glass giant

I found this site in Larry Ferlazzo´s blog. It´s great to give some colour to your posts and also to use with your students. You can customize signs, cookies, easter eggs, halloween pumpkins and so on. What´s more, you can have a lot of fun trying things out. This is the neon site I created:

http://www.glassgiant.com/make_pictures.php
a WANTED POSTER

My BIRTHDAY

This is a fun countdown for my birthday which is 12 Oct. I love birthdays!
Oh, and on the right (in the sidebar) I´ve included my VIRTUAL i-pod with my playlist. Hope you like the selection.

I made this widget at MyFlashFetish.com.

New tool - Guest book

I found this tool in Isabel's webpage and found it great! Please register your visit here.

Reading Treasures show

This is a wonderful recording of an Alado session which took place some time in August 2007, called "Reading Treasures Show". Teachers from various countries talk about what they do to create reading opportunities for their students. I'd like to congratulate all of them on this wonderful work!
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THEIR DISCUSSION

Saving Energy

What can we do to save energy in our houses and help protect the environment?
This is an interesting activity suggested in Larry Ferlazzo's blog from the site myabodo.com. You fix your virtual house and learn about being more environmently correct.

* PLAY this "what's this?"game. It's very good for beginners.
* GAME: Clothes line
SATOSHINI list of games.

ESL video

This is a commercial I used for a listening comprehension exercise, it's very simple and aims at basic learners of English. Watch and tell me if you liked it. Eslvideo.com is a great tool!
CLICK HERE TO DO THE LISTENING

an interactive soundchart

This is the link to an interactive sound chart I´m going to use this semester.
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/download/pron_chart/pron_chart.shtml

Learning with NEWPAPERS

A teacher from Argentina, Jennifer, shared a wonderful site with us, The Learning Edge. You can read the newspaper articles, listen to them and do comprehension and vocabulary activities. GREAT!

http://www.thewclc.ca/edge/

Poodwaddle.com

Reading links

This month in Learning with computers we'll be sharing links to develop reading in English.
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html (Gladys's suggestion)(Enchanting!)

Some of Larry's links:

• http://professorgarfield.org/pgf_ReadingRing.html Put cartoon strips in order and answer comprehension questions. (Great!)


• http://reading.ecb.org/student/index.html It's not fully ready yet but focusses on reading strategies.


• http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/interactive/onlinestory.htm#talk a collection of online reading stories.
• http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/book_buddy/gr1_4lily/skill_ae.html Drawing conclusions. (simple but interesting)
• http://www.dfes.gov.uk/readwriteplus/learning_material/portal/predicting-meaning_lit_e2/m01/t08/index.htm Predicting meaning
• http://www.dfes.gov.uk/readwriteplus/learning_material/portal/checking-the-meaning-of-words_lit_e3/m01/t24/index.htm Using a dictionary
• http://www.studyzone.org/testprep/ela4/i/enviroprintp.cfm Reading Street signs
• http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/stories_poems_archive_frame.html a collection of stories from BBC
• http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-central-stories-archive.htm collection of stories
• http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-stories.htm stories for kids
• http://www.stories.org.br/ the same TRUE story in English and portuguese side by side.
• http://www.indianchild.com/short_stories.htm SHORT stories.
• http://www.englishclub.com/reading/short-stories.htm short stories graded by level.

These ones I found in Libardo´s blog:

• http://www.zapdramatic.com/mod1.htm You can read, listen and watch a very exciting story. You are even asked to interact with the events. SUPERB!
• http://www.3xplus.com/pasnet01/scrpasnet01US.htm another interactive DETECTIVE story.
• http://www.kizclub.com/Sbody.html Different stories to read and listen, 3 different levels.
• http://www.nwlg.org/pages/resources/owl/OWL3Book1/Book01/default.htm this story explains about opposites in an interesting way.
• http://www.go4english.com/ffk/archive.php?lang=en&cid=10041002 Great stories.
• http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthemove/games/game2/game2.html The time machine. I had great fun travelling in time!

Top Ten Tools

We can learn a lot by looking at this list of favourite sites written by people who are involved with education. I wanted to share with you.
http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/index.html

These are MY TOP TEN TOOLS.

a Letter generator

I've just found this site and didn't want to miss the link. Great!
http://readwritethink.org/materials/letter_generator/

Peace day - 21st Sept

Watch this video and be inspired!

Vacation in Porto de Galinhas x)

This is the reason I was a bit quiet these days. I went away for a week to the northeast of Brazil to relax. Want to see my pictures? This is the slideshow I made using slide.com.

Using toufee.com to make flash movies.

Flash movies in minutes with Toufee.com

ONLINE KARAOKE

Larry Ferlazzo has suggested it and I gave it a try. Not a very good result though, I mean, not the tool which in fact is great but my voice...

MY TRIAL

- Get Your Own
VOCABULARY ACTIVITIES

These are suggestions from various teachers from the "Learning with Computers" community.

• English Vocabulary Quizzes using images
• Manythings.org
• OUP word games
• vocabulary.co.il (Fantastic)
• languageguide (word + sound + picture)
• tvo KIDS
• Make faces
• Weather lesson
• Disney Vocabulary game
• Memory Game
• Family Game

This is a great video activity created by Renée "My favourites".

Talking pages (really good!)

Nice sites for EFL learners

I found these sites in Larry Ferlazzo's list of favourites.
TEXT-TO-SPEECH
Great tool for learners! You type the word or sentence you want, choose the accent and listen to the pronunciation. Fantastic! CLICK HERE and try it.

DOCH LISTS this site brings a list of words which when selected you can hear in a sentence (the voices are very cute)

SIGHT WORDS has various activities for beginner students. Very Good!



STARFALL very good for reading practice.
Try the CALENDAR story





ENGLISH INTERACTIVE
You won't believe your eyes! An amazing site for learners for vocabulary and grammar practice.





PROFESSOR GARFIELD
very interesting. Try the different levels.

E-GLOSSARY

click on a word, hear how it's pronounced, see and hear the word in a sentence, see a picture and read an explanation.

WEB-EDUCASTUR

vocabulary activities for kids

REALL LANGUAGES various soundspell games (memory game to be played by two people, very good!)

CURSORS of the future

Look at what cursors might be like in the future.
Cursors of the Future

Animated Letters

Animated Letters

Pitara

Try the "My ten questions" activity.

SPRINGDOO

I had already used Springdoo but hadn't really explored all its features. The tutorials are very easy to understand. This is what you can do with springdoo.

You too, can Springdoo

- Springmail
- Springblog
- Springcast

And best of all, it's all for free! Fantastic!

MEMORY

How good is your memory? In this activity you look at a picture and then have to answer a question about it.
WHAT WAS THERE?

Medieval Helpdesk

Have you ever needed helpdesk? What do you do when you can't use a new system?
Watch this funny video and let's laugh at ourselves.

The Future is here

Watch this video of a new product created by Microsoft. "The Microsoft Surface" can be a revolution. Have a look. Do you think this new product will catch on? If it does, how do you think it will influence our lives?

INTERVIEW: The Internet

This is an interview with actor Stephen Fry where he talks about the internet today.
Great listening!

VideoJug: Stephen Fry: The Internet

Creating your own room

This is a room I've created. It's clean and simple. It's got a double bed with green covers, a brown wooden wardrobe and a bedside table. There's a big window.

Students can create rooms and describe them.

CLICK HERE to make your own room.

a Fridge message

Create your own message clicking HERE.