Wordcloud + Puzzle Maker

Reading Janet Bianchini's lovely blog this afternoon, I learned about an interesting tool which lets you create interactive puzzles which can be embeddable on webpages or even shared in facebook and twitter. http://www.jigsawplanet.com/

Janet posted a puzzle of a wordcloud with internet words.
Janet, I have to tell you I tried hard but wasn't able to beat your time.

This is my wordcloud

And  below is the puzzle which I've just shared with my students in our EDMODO group. As the puzzle has a time counter, you can also use it on an IWB having different groups try to assemble the puzzle faster. In order to play, click on the SETTINGS icon below the image, click SCATTER and let's see how fast you can go.

To make the wordcloud I used http://www.abcya.com/word_clouds.htm
And to make the puzzle, I tried http://www.jigsawplanet.com/

Give VOICE to your cartoons

I've always loved using comics in the classroom, and now it's become even more fun with the possibility to add audio to my comics strips.

http://www.pixton.com/


I learned about it from Kevin's Meandering Mind (blog). Unfortunately, adding the audio layer is not a feature available for the free PIXTON version. You have to sign up for PIXTON FOR SCHOOLS in order to be able to do that. Well, at least they offer a 30-day free trial so let's see if I can get my students to create comic strips during that period.

This was my first trial with the aim to welcome my students to our EDMODO group. After creating your comic strip you can publish it on a website, like I'm doing right now, or by clicking on the Edmodo icon, this way it's automatically attached to your message to an edmodo group of your choice.

To listen to the recordings, hover the mouse over the SPEECH BUBBLES and click on the PLAY button.

Turn Blog posts into a BOOK

Sharing material our students produce in class with their parents is an important step when planning any project.

Yesterday, I found out via a great blog called "The Cutest blog on the block" about a great way to do this by ordering a printed version of your blog.

If you are using a class blog to record written texts, animations or drawings made by your students, wouldn't it be superb to turn the blog posts into a book which could be bought by parents?

First, you go to THIS PAGE , complete the box with your blog URL and click PRINT MY BLOG.

A 20-page softcover book - $15.95
A hardcover copy - $25.95
extra pages only 40c

http://blogger.sharedbook.com/pilot/enterBook.do?bookId=CutestBlogOnTheBlock

Written feedback via EDMODO

This is why I like Edmodo so much.
It's a free platform for educators which makes our lives so much easier.

 I'd like to share some video tutorials, a dear friend from Goiania (Brazil), Edmilson Chagas, has created to show other teachers how he's been using the site to give feedback to his students.
                                                                                 

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3 

Thanks, Edmilson, for taking the time to create these tutorials and show us in detail how we can annotate using Edmodo. This is certainly a feature I'll be using A LOT this semester.