Printing from mobile devices WIRELESSLY

Imagine you can print a document or photo you have on your cell phone, ipad or laptop using a printer you have in another part of the house or somewhere else. Moreover, you can use your classic printer which is the one  connected to your desktop and internet connection.

 Well, WE CAN DO THAT without spending any extra dime. I know this might not be SURPRISE to you but I was jumping up and down with joy a few minutes ago when I saw my document being printed wirelessly. I thought I would have to buy one of those new cloud printers for that.




To learn how to do that, I watched two videos. The first one was from the Google Cloud Print page: https://www.google.com/cloudprint/#jobs

The second one was a very helpful TUTORIAL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A4ZBCUVeo4

You can also print from  cell phones and ipads. This is a tutorial for printing from ANDROID DEVICES .

When trying to do that from my android phone, I downloaded the CLOUD PRINT app, opened it, clicked  the print button on the top right, selected GOOGLE DRIVE and a document, picked a printer and voilá.

OH, IMPORTANT (kind of obvious) INFO: your printer has to be on and online to be able to do its job. kkkk

Apart from printing wirelessly, with google cloud print you can also share your printer with others. Let's imagine you have a guest at home who would like to print from his cell, or you're in a bus but want to have a document printed waiting for you at the office for an urgent meeting. Isn't that brilliant! https://www.google.com/cloudprint/#jobs

When I was a child, I used to dream of future technologies such as a telephone with a camera but this idea of printing from my own classic printer wirelessly really caught me by surprise.

HOW CAN WE USE THIS IN THE CLASSROOM?

- Printing from the cloud makes everything simpler now. Imagine how easily your students can print their work for display in the classroom.

- Or if students are writing a story together online and want to print it at school, they can.

How to embed PINTEREST boards to blog posts

Yes, you CAN EMBED a pinterest board.

In my previous post, I shared an idea I had from a fantastic PINTEREST BOARD called "History - tools of the trade". As you can see, I took a screenshot of the board, pasted it to the blog post and linked it to the pinterest board.

I DIDN'T KNOW YOU COULD EMBED IT!

What's the advantage of embedding applications?

Well, one, your reader does not have to leave your blog to explore what you're sharing. They can choose what to click from your blog.

So how can we do this?

I didn't find it so easy, but here is a tutorial I've created to help anyone wishing to do that.

The link to the WIDGET BUILDER page is http://business.pinterest.com/widget-builder/#do_embed_board .

This is a board I chose to embed in this post. It's A SUPER HERO board full of interesting ideas for class activities.

How to use a PINTEREST board to spark up conversation

It's amazing the kind of stuff people curate in PINTEREST boards.

This week I came across a board called HISTORY - TOOLS OF THE TRADE which inspired the idea I'm sharing in this post. http://pinterest.com/AmylynnRichards/history-tools-of-the-trade/

As you can see from the image, the board is a collection of old stuff we used years ago. It's quite funny in fact to remember what they were used for.

The idea I had for an activity is the following:

- As I teach teenagers, the idea would be for them to discover different objects people used in the past (from the pinterest board) , read about it, ask their relatives if they had one or even if they still have one. Learn about it.

- In a following class, students could present to the whole class or small groups the chosen object (either using the image from pinterest or showing the real object if they have it), talk about what they have learned from their research and conversations with relatives.

- They could even create a joint post for a blog where each student would write about their findings.

Language: USED TO,  names of objects, verbs in the past.

Skills: reading, speaking, listening, writing. ALL.

Ipad apps for GREEN SCREEN videos

In case you don't know. WHAT'S GREEN SCREEN?

 According to EHOW,

Green Screen Classroom Projects | eHow via kwout

I've always wanted to try out creating green screen videos with my students but didn't know how to start. 

With the IPAD it's quite easy.

The easiest app in my opinion is FX Studio. Although you have to pay U$2.99 for the app, it's quite easy to create your green screen movie.
https://itunes.apple.com/br/app/green-screen-movie-fx-studio/id575716410?mt=8

http://youtu.be/_JFjo9SEewU

This was my first trial with FX Studio:

 What I liked about it:

- it's very easy to use and there are various backgrounds and effects you can choose from.

What I didn't like so much:

- As far as I know, there's no way I could use my own images in the background. :(

The second app I tried today was VideoFX Live.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/videofx-live/id478338333?mt=8

I couldn't find a youtube tutorial but at least I had access to this written tutorial which helped me a bit. http://videostarapp.com/blog/2012/03/making-better-green-screen-videos/

After some trials and errors, I discovered that first you have to click NEW FX, choose the effect USER PHOTO, click PICK PHOTO to choose a photo from your own ipad and then click RECORD to make your video. 

I feel a bit embarassed to share this simple trial but here it is.

 What I liked about it:

- the app is FREE but by paying U$ 0.99 I was able to use my own background photo.
- there are MANY background images, animations and effects to choose from.

What I didn't like so much:

- I couldn't find a tutorial easily.
- It took me some time to find how to go about the green screen effect.

Now , HOW COULD I USE THESE APPS with my own students?

I searched for some ideas and these are a few links which I really liked:

- Green Screen classroom Projects

http://www.ehow.com/info_8054435_green-screen-classroom-projects.html

- Project: students choose as a background a place they would like to visit. Then they would have to use 3 props to talk more about themselves. An example video: http://youtu.be/uovkgxCj-wY

- Project: students create a Civil War film.

http://www.doverschool.net/pdf/dovergreenscreenarticle.pdf

- The Nome Storytelling Project (Superb idea)

http://www.jasonohler.com/resources/NomeDST.cfm

Oh, something important I forgot to mention, although these kinds of videos are called GREEN SCREEN with both of the apps I mentioned you DON'T NEED a green screen at all. All you need is a blank white wall to make the recordings.

E-portfolios and Webfolios: the same thing?

First of all, what are e-portfolios? And are e-portfolios and webfolios the same?

As I am a highly visual learner, I've selected two very interesting videos on the topic.

"It's an easily accessible online area where you store all you think is important to your career development."



"They serve as a student's professional digital footprint showcasing a combination of student's work in different formats over a period of time."


 A key word mentioned in this last video is REFLECTION. I'm a great fan of e-portfolios myself  as it can help learners reflect about their  own learning and it's EVIDENCE of what students have learned.

In my opinion, the use of e-portfolios is one of the best ways to evaluate student's progress as well.

In order to help me understand more about e-portfolios, I've also read some articles about their use in education.

An article I really enjoyed reading was
"Portfolios to Webfolios and Beyond: Levels of Maturation" written in 2004 by Douglas Love, Paul Gathercoal and Gerry McKean. In the article, the authors describe different levels of maturation when adopting e-portfolios as an educational tool. The image bellow taken from the article is the taxonomy developed by them.

They also make a distinction between e-portfolios and webfolios.

Portfolios to Webfolios and Beyond: Levels of Maturation (EDUCAUSE Quarterly) | EDUCAUSE.edu via kwout

Another visual resource which I found very useful was the infographic below taken from the blog post http://www.pontydysgu.org/2013/02/issues-in-developing-and-implementing-e-portfolios/ . The blog post mentions the original article which inspired the infographic in which a dichotomy is  brought forth:  e-portfolios for LEARNING X e-portfolios for ASSESSMENT.

Diagramme: @lee74 (some rights reserved) http://www.flickr.com/photos/lee8/7164889790/

I've been teaching online since 2009 and I've used different tools to have my students create digital portfolios. First, I had my students use BLOGGER for their blog-portfolios. Then, for many years I opted for the POSTEROUS platform which was very easy to use as you could post by sending e-mails. However, unfortunately, Posterous has closed down and if you haven't exported it to another platform, bad luck, the blogs are gone. This year, a few weeks before I started a new online course, I had to rush to find another alternative to Posterous and I ended up choosing TUMBLR, for its ease in publishing different media and its popularity. A drawback I found was that you can't easily leave and receive comments in TUMBLR so that would limit the type of communication I wanted.

I myself made use of a platform to create my own learning portfolio for one of the subjects I took at UFU, Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, while doing my M.A. in Linguistic Studies. We were free to choose what format of portfolio we created, either paper of digital and my choice was a wiki at WIKISPACES. My first doubt at the beginning of the semester was what to include in my digital portfolio for that specific subject at university. I decided to keep adding everything which I thought would be EVIDENCE of what I had been learning. 

Next semester, I'm moderating a new group for the CULTURA EDTECH online course and my choice for the webfolios is WEEBLY. It's super easy to create your Weebly blog / portfolio. I liked the way you can drag and drop elements into the editing dashboard and create your blog posts. Apart from being able to publish at the website, you can also download the weebly app and post on the go.

But these are not the only platforms we can use to create digital portfolios, there are many others. 

These are some of the blog posts I've curated on tools to create portfolios:

http://www.teachthought.com/technology/8-educational-apps-to-create-digital-portfolios/

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2012/06/free-apps-to-create-digital-portfolios.html

http://www.edudemic.com/2013/01/create-digital-portfolios/?_tmc=LLzxvzv8LU0L2iFY9pgaDxDxWgshy4IkmOXUYmmyzJI 

If you still wish to learn more about the topic, another great resource is this PREZI presentation

CULTURA EDTECH new group 01 August

What's CULTURA EDTECH? It's an online course for EFL and ESL teachers worldwide.

How is it different from other courses? It's a 3-month course aimed at helping teachers reflect about technology integration.

The groups are generally small so that we can build a community of teachers who can learn together. 

Are you an experienced teacher but don't feel comfortable with the digital tools  and apps available nowadays? This might be an interesting course for you, where you can get all the support you need.

 We've already had students from different parts of Brazil, as well as from England, the U.S., Spain and Japan. Apart from living the experience of learning online you'll learn how to use different online platforms which could be used with your own students.

 For more info http://culturaedtech.wikispaces.com/ABOUT+THE+COURSE