E-BOOK: Best Student / Teacher web 2.0 lge learning / teaching sites

I'd like to congratulate David Deubelbeiss on his wonderful e-book and share it with you. He shares 60 GREAT WEBSITES. I've already discovered interesting sites to explore and try out in class. Thanks, David!

You can read the book online or download it.

Open publication - Free publishing - More web 2.0

Using Technology Well: David Deubelbeiss interviews Ana Maria

Last week, David Deubelbeiss (living in Seoul) creator of  the wonderful ning community EFL Classroom 2.0 got in contact with me for an interview for his new website ELT INTERVIEWS.

What an honour! He'll be interviewing several teachers who have been exploring the web around the world to share their experience.

Apart from the echo, the interview went very well. Loved talking to you , David. You're a great interviewer as you put us at ease.

During the interview we talked about my job, my blog,  the e-book I've published, using webtools with my students and Cultura EDtech , the online course I run to train teachers.

FUN TIME- enjoying songs

Do you like having "a soundtrack" for everything you do? Well, I am truly  moved by music and this is a post dedicated to sites which can bring music to your life.

stereomood – emotional internet radio - music for my mood and activities via kwout 
1. Choose the mood you´re in and listen to a selection of songs related to that. I love listening to the ROMANTIC channel while working in my computer.

MoodTurn.com - Relax your mind. Enjoy ambient music to lift your mood. // Beach via kwout

2. You can select a beautiful THEME and BACKGROUND and listen to relaxing music.

Musicovery : interactive webRadio via kwout

3. Choose your MOOD or the type of music you want to listen to.

MOODSTREAM
4. Choose the mood or any of the preset themes and the site shows extracts of songs with beautiful images from getty images. Very Beautiful!

 BLIP.FM

5. Be a DJ. Create your own radio station so that other people can also listen to your selections. Many songs have a youtube video included. You can also integrate your blip channel with twitter.
My radio station http://blip.fm/anamariacult

Students create a mini story with LIVE TYPING

I heard about Live Typing via Alex Francisco and decided to give it a try this week. We had just practised using past tenses to tell stories (S. Past, Past Cont., Past Perf. and Past Perf Cont.)

I divided the class into two groups. I asked a volunteer to come to the keyboard in class and type a story beginning with "One day I was ..." with the group's help. The student at the keyboard typed what the other members suggested up to a full stop. Then, it was the other group's turn to continue the story. I also told them I wanted them to try to use the 4 tenses we had studied in class.

As students typed, I could notice all students were really involved with the task, giving suggestions and laughing at the various suggested sentences. As soon as they had used the 4 tenses, I typed ENLIVEN and showed the recording of the whole process to them. Once again, all eyes were stuck to the e-board, re-reading what they had just created.

Some comments I heard:
"Cool, we should do this again."
"Wow, you can see the corrections happening."

This is the mini story which came up:

LiveTyping.com

These are other ways I'll try using LIVETYPING:

• To practise a certain grammar structure. I'd ask different students to rewrite a sentence with the same beginning. "Ex: Ïf I had a lot of money ...

LiveTyping.com

• To assign written homework. I'm going to ask students to write a paragraph about their dream holiday destination and send me the link, then I intend to publish their texts in a blog so that we can read the texts in class.
• In the last 10 minutes, I'll take students to the lab and ask them to write a comment about a topic related to the lesson we're studying. Then, as soon they finish that, they grab the code and publish it in our edmodo group for others to read.

A lesson plan with XTRANORMAL

The amount of phrasal verbs in one of the books I've been using with some students is significant and I end up having to think of ways to help my students use them meaningfully.

This week, the coursebook brought a list of sentences which could be substituted by phrasal verbs.

MY LESSON PLAN:

1. I used QUIZLET FLASHCARDS to present the phrasal verbs. (same sentences from the exercise in coursebook). The first time I showed both sides (sentence + phrasal verb)
2. To help sts memorise the phrasal verbs I showed them the sentences only to see if they could remember the phrasal verbs.
3. I then asked sts to do the exercise in the coursebook.
4. I showed an animation I had made with XTRANORMAL and asked my students to watch it and write down all the phrasal verbs which were used.
5. After pairing up students, I asked them to choose a minimum of 3 phrasal verbs and create a mini-dialogue. As each dialogue was created, students used the computer in class to type their dialogues into Xtranormal to make an animation.
6. We watched all animations in the following class as we elicited the phrasal verbs used.

QUIZLET flashcards

Phrasal verbs unit 6 flashcards | Quizlet via kwout

Inspirational POSTERS

If you're looking for cute posters you can easily print for the classroom or teacher's room, this is where you can find it: http://www.poster-street.com/

KIZOA - slideshows with effects

While surfing through David´s Kapuler´s wonderful blog, I decided to give Kizoa a try.

I normally used other slideshow creators but this one is truly AMAZING. You can choose transitions, effects, music, animations, insert texts ...

I know my first trial was a bit over-the-top with too many animations but I wanted to play with the possibilities. As today we celebrate Mother´s Day in Brazil, this one is for my mom. Beijos,mãe.

* I'm so sad :( , it was too good to be true. Many of the animations and effects I had chosen are part of the premium package which is paid. The free package is similar to other tools I've tried before.

mother´s day - Slideshow

Celebrating MOTHER'S DAY

These are some ideas for projects to develop with students to celebrate MOTHER'S DAY.

• Use GLOGSTER to collect writings or drawings made by students. You can also record students singing and add it to the glogster poster. The poster below was a collection of writings which were scanned and pasted into the poster by the teacher (Lívia Fernandes).

• Record students singing a song or reading a beautiful poem and share with the mothers. You can use VOCAROO or record it an mp3, host the file and then use of the cute players from MYFLASHFETISH

• Make a bookr with the whole class where students write about their moms. Ask students to write the sentences for each page and then share the link with moms.

• Make a WALLWISHER wall for your students to add messages for their moms with beautiful images.

• Ask students to record a VOKI reading a beautiful message to their moms.

TECHNOLOGY - what's in it for my students?

I bless the internet everyday for the possibility of getting to know so many wonderful professionals I would never have the chance of meeting otherwise. Alexandra Francisco is one of these brilliant people whom I have been following and learning from.


Today, Alex, kindly accepted our invitation to talk to us in WIZIQ about the projects she develops with her students. It was a very enjoyable 1 hour session. Million thanks , Alex.

Watch a part of her talk below.
PART 1: