My most visited RESOURCES

In the last years, I've used LIVEBINDERS very frequently for collecting resources I share during workshops and talks. In the past, hand-outs were very practical and popular. Today however, as many of our resources are online, such as links and videos, having one simple link to share at the end of a session comes in handy.

In this post, I'll use the opportunity to show two different tools we can use for that purpose:

PEARLTREES and LIVEBINDERS.

The PEARLTREE below is a collection of my most visited LIVEBINDERS. If you click on each of the "pearls" you'll be taken to a webpage full of tabs of resources selected by me.
http://pear.ly/b-ALD 

 If you'd like to learn how to create your own LIVEBINDER, watch the tutorial below.

But if you'd rather try out  PEARLTREES, watch this other tutorial.

http://youtu.be/-XEdR0l-0DQ

Which one do I like most? 

Well, I still can't answer that question. I like the visual layout of the "pearls" around a topic but I find them a bit too small. On the other hand, I like the linear aspect of the tabs in Livebinders and they way we can easily browse what's in each tab. How about you?

How can we use these curation tools with students?

• - Students can use it as their digital portfolio, collecting articles, videos and material they have developed online during a course.
• - Teachers can create a Livebinders page and have the whole class or small groups collaborate organizing content related to a topic.
• - When organizing a webquest, you can have all resources organized in one binder for students to search.
• - When working at the lab, the teacher can organize a binder or a pearl tree with all the websites she wants students to explore, keeping them more focussed.
• - Use livebinders or pearltrees during presentations, it's much more practical than having lots of different tabs open on the computer.
• - Use them during webinars to have participants explore specific tabs with examples you want them to look into.
• - Use them in place of hand-outs.
• - Finally, you can use them for student projects such as the ones described HERE.
• - 10 GREAT EXAMPLES of student project Livebinders.

My bookmarks this week

I guess everyone who uses the web on a regular basis has a routine for reading and bookmarking what they find useful. The two tools I use the most for BOOKMARKING are Diigo and Pinterest.
These are some of the bookmarks I saved this week and would like to share with you.

This is a QUIZ SCORER which I've learned via a colleague, Georgia Teixeira. You enter the names of teams and quickly can start keeping the score on the screen. Great for IWBs.

http://www.curriculumbits.com/prodimages/details/misc/mis0014.html

I've always been worried about helping students become aware of the digital footprint they leave behing and this blog post I found this week offers wonderful resources.

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/04/a-great-guide-on-teaching-students.html

WHAT'S A DIGITAL DOSSIER?

Another post I enjoyed reading was one about PLAGIARISM and how to avoid it.
http://whatdoyouteach.blogspot.com.br/2013/04/plagiarism-and-google-tools-to-reduce-it.html

I've also collected some more INFOGRAPHICS to my infographics board at PINTEREST, such as one about the history of smarphones and another about the evolution of the internet.

I read Isabella Villas Boas' blog post about her IATEFL presentation where she talks about her experience turning a f2f course into a blended one. I loved the way she described the path she followed. http://isabelavillasboas.wordpress.com/2013/04/27/going-blended-if-i-can-do-it-so-can-you-part-1/

Another video I found useful was one created by a chemistry teacher before the beginning of the semester explaining to students about the FLIPPED MODEL which would be adopted that year.




Oh, last but not least, I've bookmarked with stars an article about Avatars in Education published at the excellent website MINDSHIFT. I was contacted by them a few weeks ago about my work using VOKI avatars. http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/05/a-new-role-for-avatars-learning-languages/

Well, these are just some the bookmarks I liked the most. If you're interested in exploring more resources you might want to check out my PINTEREST BOARDS.