In case you don't know. WHAT'S GREEN SCREEN? According to EHOW,Green Screen Classroom Projects | eHow via kwoutI'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$2.99 for the app, it's quite easy to create your green screen movie.https://itunes.apple.com/br/app/green-screen-movie-fx-studio/id575716410?mt=8http://youtu.be/_JFjo9SEewUThis was my first trial with FX Studio: What I liked about it: - it's very easy to use and there are various backgrounds and effects you can choose from.What I didn't like so much:- As far as I know, there's no way I could use my own images in the background. :(The second app I tried today was VideoFX Live.https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/videofx-live/id478338333?mt=8I couldn't find a youtube tutorial but at least I had access to this written tutorial which helped me a bit. http://videostarapp.com/blog/2012/03/making-better-green-screen-videos/After some trials and errors, I discovered that first you have to click NEW FX, choose the effect USER PHOTO, click PICK PHOTO to choose a photo from your own ipad and then click RECORD to make your video. I feel a bit embarassed to share this simple trial but here it is. What I liked about it:- the app is FREE but by paying U$ 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 Projectshttp://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.cfmOh, 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.

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.

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.

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/#jobsThe second one was a very helpful TUTORIALhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A4ZBCUVeo4You 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. kkkkApart 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/#jobsWhen 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.

I love using animations in class. I believe there's a lot we can do with these short, really cute videos easily found on youtube.  I was having a look at JUX.COM and impressed at how beautiful and different  blog posts can be. As I am a highly visual person, the wide screen images and the way the texts are displayed really attracted my attention.As I see it, it's one of the most creative blogging platforms there is. The only drawback  I noticed is the impossibility of sharing embeddable applications and the option for a mobile app for blogging on the go. From what I understood, it's possible to publish quotes, articles, videos, photos and slideshows. Here I was, thinking of how I could use this beauty for the classroom when I came across a blog post saying Jux.com would close down 31 August 2013 and a message in Jux saying the platform is still running. I truly hope they have changed their minds.Ok, so what does Jux.com have to do with the animations I talked about at the beginning of this post?Well, as my first trial using the site, I created a playlist with animations I've selected to use in class.https://anamariacult.jux.com/ How else could we use JUX? Provided it doesn't close down.- Teachers can use it to showcase student's work such as drawings, videos, poems they've written, stories they've created.- Students can tell their own stories using images, texts and video. A multi-modal digital story.- Anyone could use it as a digital portfolio to showcase their work.If you're interested in using these animations with your own students and would like some ideas, check out this blog post from a while ago YOUTUBE ACTIVITIES IN A FLASHWould you have any other animations you've used with your students to add to my collection?I'd love to hear from you.

Would you help us build a list of cross-platform apps (IOS and Android)?by Ana Maria MenezesRoseli Serra and I have started collecting apps which can be used by our students with their own devices. http://list.ly/list/6qC-byod-apps-for-elt?feature=mylistAll the apps added to this list can be found for BOTH SYSTEMS ( IOS and Android), therefore, ideal for BYOD classes.To contribute to the list, click the pink button ADD TO LIST and paste the URL of the app.BYOD apps for ELTView more lists from Ana Menezes

By eltpicsThis past week, I started attending a very interesting class given by my M.A. tutor and a teacher from Canada. We're going to study about Teacher Development and Narrative Inquiry. One of the evaluation tools suggested by the teacher was writing narratives as journals. We all discussed in class that it would be a little bit overwhelming for the teachers to answer all the journals written so we suggested having different "reading partners" each month. For example: each week, I have a partner with whom I'll be sharing my narratives with. We'll be reading each other writings and give feedback to each other. Then, the following month, we can have new partners. I'm really anxious to start this experience as I believe we can learn a lot by reading each other's reflections. Then I thought, where and how am I going to write my narratives?PENZU.COM With Penzu, you can write your journal entries on a notebook page which resembles the traditional paper journals. You can keep your writing private or share it with others either via e-mail or by getting a public link to be shared only with the ones you wish to share it with.To learn more about it, watch the TUTORIAL below. The tutorial I've chosen to add here is great. However, it doesn't show how to grab the public link to share with those you want to, which I think is the easiest option. TO GRAB THE PUBLIC LINKAnyone wishing to use PENZU with students can suggest the FREE ACCOUNT which is pretty good. But if you wish to use it frequently, it might be interesting to invest in a PRO ACCOUNT which is only $19 for a year membership. As a PRO member you get the chance to customize your journal by choosing from a very rich variety of background templates and pad styles.My first narrative for the first class we had last week (written in Portuguese).

This last week, I had the great pleasure of being interviewed by dear Shelly Terrell for the 30 GOALS CHALLENGE round of interviews with participants.Like Shelly said in her blog Teacher Reboot CampConquering Fears- Edtech & Life: Interview with @AnaMariaCult #30GoalsEDU : Teacher Reboot Camp via kwoutEach week ( I think), Shelly interviews one of the participants (past and current) of the 30 Goals Challenge about various topics and close to the end of the interview, the interviewee recommends the next person to be interviewed. I was tagged by my friend Roseli Serra, another admirable educator from Recife Brazil. Our interview was about Edtech, mobile learning and life in general.Conquering Fears- Edtech and Life: Interview with @anamariacult #30GoalsEDU I'd like to thank Shelly one more time for taking her time to talk to educators around the globe and for helping us, interviewees, feel so at ease.She also included a slideshow I created last year when we met in Brazil. Meeting Shelly on PhotoPeach

I prepared a qrcode game activity for my Upper Intermediate students last week which I'd like to share with you. Our last lesson had the theme "Hidden Messages". We discussed several ways people used to hide messages in the past and nowadays, including the use of QR codes.The lesson grammar topic was language to express different levels of certainty. As a warmer for the following class, I decided to create an activity which involved sentences using the language learned recently, and QR codes. THE GAME:-  First, I had asked students to download a QR code scanner to their mobiles at home so after checking how many students had remembered to do that (only 3), I divided the class into 3 groups.- They had to read the sentences and try to guess the ending of the sentences and write them on paper.- Then, they would use a cell phone to scan the code and see if they had guessed the idea of the original sentence. They would get 1 point for each correct guess. UIB 6B GAME QR Code Activity by anamariacult The activity worked well. Students were involved trying to guess the sentences and I saw some enthusiasm during the time they scanned the codes for the right answer. Now, could I have done the same thing simply giving them the answers on a separate sheet of paper? Of course, I could, but using the QR CODES to hide the rest of the sentence made a lot of sense because of the topic of the lesson and it also avoided some cheating.What would I have done differently? - Maybe I would have asked different groups to check each other answers.- Or I would have asked students to create their own sentences one class and done the same activity with the codes but this time with their sentences. The idea of guessing the ending of sentence can be done with any kind of content, I guess.

There are several things I like about the FLIPPED CLASSROOM model:- First, you save a lot of time for really practising the language if students have access to the theoretical part of the explanation beforehand (at home).- Second, if a student is absent, he can always catch up.- Third, if a student needs more explanation he can watch it as many times as he feels is necessary for his comprehension.- Fourth, before tests, students can always watch the videos again to help refresh their memories. This is how I've been TRYING to flip part of my class.I'm aware there are various ways people have been flipping their classes but it's always important to think of each reality. I work at a Language Institute in Brazil and have to follow a course book for my classes. A moment which I've been finding useful to flip is the grammar explanation part of the lesson during which I would probably deal with the grammar focus. There are various videos available online, however, I sometimes prefer the ones I make myself as I try to make them more personal and as short as possible.My most successful "flips", in my opinion, have been recording screencasts of myself explaining the grammar focus with examples. In addition, I assign a quiz to my students using Edmodo after a few classes of practice.The instructionsThe QuizI normally create a multiple choice quiz with 10 questions. They have 5 mins to answer the quiz which is corrected by Edmodo automatically.The following class after the quiz, we go over each question and answers as I have access to the question most students had problems with.This week, I wanted to try something different so I started to look for different tools I could use to make flip videos. The result of my search is a board I've created at http://learni.st/category/featuredMy board: Tools for Flipping Classeshttp://learni.st/users/anamariacult/boards/35935-tools-for-flipping-classesThen, it was time to try some of them out.Oh, the first step was to create the video screencast I wanted to use. Therefore, I used the EDUCREATIONS app on my ipad.http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/past-and-present-habits/10063195/?ref=appemailThe first flipping tool I tried was https://grockit.com/answers. Nik Peachey has created a very helpful post about it http://quickshout.blogspot.com.br/2011/10/create-online-social-interaction-around.htmlMy trial: https://grockit.com/r/hu9Then, I decided to try http://www.metta.io/createI had watched one  of Tamas Szakal's metta videos and just loved it. Unfortunately, I had no idea I would find it so hard to figure out how it works. I tried to find a tutorial, but to no avail,  I had to rely on my trials and errors to manage to make this first trial video.