This year’s Istek conference was another great success, a rich experience and a momentous event as it was last year. There were great speakers and outstanding sessions, the organization was top notch and conference topics proved to be very interesting and inspiring. Also, I had the pleasure and honour to be one of the keynote presenters this year. It was also great to meet my PLN again and meet some of them face to face for the first time. But this isn’t the reason why I write this post today. I am writing this, because what is more amazing and outstanding than this conference is Burcu Akyol, the ELT star! She is absolutely beautiful and adorable inside and out. Can anybody be more modest and generous than her? She is always welcoming, smiling and bringing sunshine to everyone’s faces.She is patient and very kind. The respect she gives each person is outstanding. She has an infectious and inspiring soul with a special gift as a person and as an educator in seeing the potential in others and using her potential for making a positive difference in our world and she has a great vision! I would like to thank her for hosting such a great event again, which has opened me up to make connections with others. Special thanks again to her for being a true friend, for sharing her heart, profession, and congrats to her for building up a great kingdom of ELT!! I am fortunate to follow the way she has lit up for us!! Also, my compliments and cheers for her excellent team for making this event happen, and thanks to my PLN who has been a great inspiration to me from the beginning of my journey! And if you have missed this great opportunity this year, don’t miss it again!! And follow Burcu’s digital steps here and here.

Here is a new part of A-Z tools. This week’s letter is F. FontDeMusic lets you add sound and movement to the words. You write your text, select font, choose color and add movement to your words by moving your mouse up and down. FontSelf is a tool to create fonts from your handwriting. You just draw your alphabet, upload it to fontself, review and save your fonts.It’s online, it’s instant and available only to you. Fotobabble is a tool to create talking photos. You upload your picture and record your voice using your microphone and publish it. FillanyPDF is a site to upload your PDF form and link to it so other people can fill it out and sign it online. FolfingStory is a group collaborative storytelling tool. You can create your own story or edit other stories and share them with the world. FlipText is a tool that lets you write upside down. FlickrSlider is a tool where you can easily embed Flickr slideshows to your blog or website. File2 is a tool to turn any file into a public website. FlockDraw is a web based drawing tool. You can collaborate with others to draw pictures using this tool. Flashmeeting is a tool to meet people from anywhere around the world. You book a meeting time and assign a password. You share it with other that you want to collaborate. Forestle is a green internet search engine that you can save 0.1 m² of rain forest free with your each search. FluidSurveys is  a tool to create online surveys and polls. Fix8 allows you to customize your on-screen virtual appearance in real time using avatar technology. In short, it’s a web cam technology that lets you animate yourself. FluxTime is a tool to create animations, edit and play with them. Forums lets you create forums to build your own community. You can share posts, documents, different type of media, tasks and take notes. FormatPixel lets you create your online books, newsletters, magazines and portfolios. You can layout text, add your own images and interactivity and customize their appearance. FaceYourManga is a tool to create your avatar through your image and share it with others. Fodey lets you generate animated pictures such as a newspaper clip, a talking squirrel, talking cats, ninja text or a talking flower. Furly is a tool to shorten multiple urls into one. FuteBolTV is a tool  to select scenes from football matches and edit subtitles for them. You can share it with others via mail or place it on your blog or your website. FileDropper lets you to upload your file and share it with others on a link. Fav7 is tool to create a short page which can hold up to seven urls and you only have one link to share. P.S. any more tools? Just leave me a comment with your name, I’ll mention it, thanx. This blog or the author are not responsible for any inappropriate images/text/ads of the external links. Please double check before you use it with your students.

Here are thew new faves: Fotolia is the largest image bank of free and affordable royalty free photos and illustrations for any medium, web or print. You can use an image , vector or a video without any restrictions on the time or number of uses, or the number of prints. You can find photos based on a concept, emotion or theme. You can find people doing interesting things and simple single objects that are ready to use and fotolia is the source where most of my images come from! Notopipe is a site that allows you to edit text files in a collaborative environment from wherever you are. Multiple users can easily edit on the same document simultaneously and changes can easily be seen by each user. PicFont lets you add text, comment on a picture,  a canvas or on a shape. MyFakeWall is a site where you can create fake Facebook profiles and share it with others on Facebook. WhisperBot lets you create simple and secure notes between you and your friends. You create your note and send it to your friend. S/he will get a link with your mail.

Here comes the next letter: G EduGlogster is a tool to create online visual posters that are called glogs. You can add text, images, music and video to your interactive glog. GoAnimate is a tool where you can ceate your own cartoons/animations using a variety of tools. GeoGreeting lets you create greeting cards using letters on google maps. GeekChart lets you show where you share stuff online as a web widget. Gickr isa tool to create animated pictures online. Glypho is a great way to write and read novels. You can find many great ideas for novels or you can write your own to inspire others. Grabbabeast is an interactive website where you can build your own beast using a variety of body parts. Grapholite is a tool for designing professional-looking flowcharts, organizational charts, mind maps, venn charts etc. that can be used online and offline, in and out of browser. Google Search Stories is a tool to create digital storytelling using google search.  You choose a video based on your search terms, add some music, then click create. GraffitiCreator allows you to create your graffiti and share it online. This blog or the author are not responsible for any inappropriate images/text/ads of the external links. Please double check before you use it with your students.

"What is the use of a book, without pictures or conversations? said Alice… With the coming of the 21st century, technology has added a new twist to our traditional storytelling. Beyond the scope of pen and pencil, we can now easily tell and share our stories digitally with mobile phones, flip cameras, recording our voice or using free web tools. There is no doubt that today’s students are more motivated and interested in using digital storytelling just like any other multimedia. It offers us, educators, a new and a very 21st century way to captivate students’ attention, facilitate learning, reach shy students and increase collaboration and community in a classroom. It’s a great way to give voice to ourselves and our students in an out of the classroom walls. Audio Tools: LittleBirdTales is a tool that lets you capture your voice; create an online book using artwork, pictures and words. You can scan your pictures, upload them from your computer or you can draw your pictures on LittleBirdTales’ art pad. When you finish uploading your pictures, you write your text and record your voice for  each one. When you finish, you can share it with others via email or get an embed code to place it on your blog/website. This tool is ad-free, user friendly and a great tool  to create digital stories with young learners. It will certainly foster the creativity of our students. LittleBirdTales is a tool that lets you capture your voice; create an online book using artwork, pictures and words. You can scan your pictures, upload them from your computer or you can draw your pictures on LittleBirdTales’ art pad. When you finish uploading your pictures, you write your text and record your voice for  each one. When you finish, you can share it with others via email or get an embed code to place it on your blog/website. This tool is ad-free, user friendly and a great tool  to create digital stories with young learners. It will certainly foster the creativity of our students.Children can illustrate their favourite stories and share them with others. Vocaroo is a tool that lets you record your voice immediately and get a link for it. You don’t need to download any software or get an account  for  this tool. It’s the easiest tool for recording voice. Children can tell/retell a story by  recording their voices and sharing it with others. Voxopop is a web-based audio tool. You can consider this tool as a message board that uses voice instead of text. You create a talk group and share it with others and let them record their voices on the same timeline.  Children can create a chain story by recording their voices on the same timeline. Voicethread is a site to create collaborative and multimedia slides that you can navigate and leave comments for. Each slide can hold images, videos or documents such as PDF, Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel and Word documents that can be commented by the people you choose to share your Voicethread.  Children can create a collaborative story by adding their own pictures or drawings and recording their voices. Voki is a tool to create speaking avatars with your own voice. You choose your  avatar; you customize it by changing the hair, clothing, bling and the colour of the hair, eyes and skin. When you finish, you give your avatar a voice by recording your voice by phone or using a microphone. You can also upload an audio file or you  can  use text-to-speech feature to convert your text into speech choosing the gender and the accent. When you finish, you can get a link or the embed code to publish it on your blog or your website. Children can tell their stories by recording their voices or they can retell a traditional story with a different ending. BubbleJoy is a tool to create and customize video greeting sites. You don’t need to download anything or get an account. All you need is a camera. You choose your message card and record yourself using your web cam and send it others via mail.Children can record themselves while telling/retelling a story that goes with the frame that they are using. Fotobabble is  a tool to record your voice for pictures. You upload your picture, record your voice using your  microphone and publish it online. You can get a link or an embed code to place it on your blog/website.  Children can record their voices telling a short story or a poem about a picture or they can listen a fotobabble story and talk/write about their favourite part. Jing is a tool to take a picture or make a video of what you see on your computer screen and share it online instantly via mail, web or by saving it on your desktop. Children can record their voices for the presentations that they have prepared or they can get a picture, talk about it and create a story for this picture. This blog or the author are not responsible for any inappropriate images/text/ads of the external links. Please double check before you use it with your students.

"Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop." Animation tools are great for imaginative narrative expression and creating a learner-centered environment for collaborative and cross-curricular learning. There are many free animation tools to tell your stories in a fun and an interesting way. Like other tools, they are great sources to engage our students into their own learning, encourage problem solving/technology skills and facilitate learning. ZimmerTwins is a tool to make great and fun animated stories. You can start making your animation from scratch or you can create your own, using one of the story starters. You choose the characters, settings, transitions, actions and emotions by using drag-and-drop feature. Then, you only write the text in bubbles. You don’t need any drawing skills to make animations with Zimmertwins. You can get a link, send it to others or you can place it on your blog/website ZimmerTwins is a tool to make great and fun animated stories. You can start making your animation from scratch or you can create your own, using one of the story starters. You choose the characters, settings, transitions, actions and emotions by using drag-and-drop feature. Then, you only write the text in bubbles. Teachers can create the animation and children write the dialogues. When they finish, they can act it out in the class while they are watching the video or children can write an ending or a beginning of the story after they watch. DVolver is a tool to create your mini animations by pointing and clicking. You can choose the setting, characters, music at  the background and how the chosen characters interact in your animation. You write what you want your characters to say and it shows up in bubbles in your animation.  Children can watch a video and write an ending for it or they can summarize a story. GoAnimate is a tool to create your animations. You choose your theme and characters or you can even create your own animated characters by changing the size and  the  color of their body parts and clothes. Characters can do different actions such as walking, dancing, and talking. You can use text to speech application to make your characters talk or simply record your own voice using your microphone. Children can redesign a scene from the story or they can create their own animations using the new language that they have learnt. Xtranormal is a text-to-movie tool that lets you create your movie using your own words and text-to-speech application. You choose your characters, settings, background, voice and music. You then write your text into the appropriate boxes and create your dialogue. You can also play with the  camera angles and sounds in the scripts. Children can create their own films on different topics and share them with others or children can create their animated book reports. DomoAnimate is another tool to create animations. You can animate the characters, change the background, movement, sound effects and  emotions; you can add speech bubbles, interactive elements and music  to your animation as well. You can resize things, delete, and move or change their places. Children can create their animated books that talk or they can write their own screenplays and turn them into animation. This blog or the author are not responsible for any inappropriate images/text/ads of the external links. Please double check before you use it with your students.

"Read the directions and directly you will be directed in the right direction." said the DoorKnob. Digital storytelling is an exciting medium of telling your stories using a variety of digital tools. Using pictures to create your digital stories is another great way to get together, collaborate with each other and increase the community in a classroom. There are many free tools online that can turn our photos into digital stories to express ourselves, accelerate learning and create a space for our students to boost their creativity. Bookr is a tool to create and share your photo book using Flickr pictures. You can write tags to find the pictures from Flickr photos or you can search your name on Flickr to find your own photos. When you find them, you drag and drop the picture on the book, write your text for that picture and share it with others via mail or you can place your online book on your blog or website Bookr is a tool to create and share your photo book using Flickr pictures. You can write tags to find the pictures from Flickr photos or you can search your name on Flickr to find your own photos. When you find them, you drag and drop the picture on the book, write your text for that picture and share it with others via mail or you can place your online book on your blog or website. Teachers can create a Bookr and ask the children to add text on it. Children can answer questions, complete the sentences or answer true/false questions according to the Bookr they have seen. Zooburst is a tool to create 3D popup book. When you start building your book, you can choose any angle and rotate the book. You can make the items click-able and let the readers read more about them. You can place speech bubbles on the  characters that pop up when it is clicked and make them talk with each other. Children can retell a story, book reports or biographies. Animoto is a tool to create videos from your images and videos.  It produces a video from your pictures, video clips and music automatically using transitions and text. When you finish, Animoto does the rest by putting all the information together and creates your video in minutes. Children take their own pictures and create their own story or they can watch an Animoto video and write a story about it. Mixbook is a collaborative tool to create customizable photo books, cards and calendars online.You choose your theme and start adding your pictures. You can move  and change the pictures move, rotate, crop, zoom into your photos. There are different fonts and styles to add your text to it. You can also choose your templates, backgrounds, stickers and you can add pages to your Mixbook.  Children can create a newsletter or a newspaper or they can publish their drawings and create a story using them. ScrapBlog is a great way to share photos and videos on a creative outlet and create your own digital stories. You choose from colourful and cute backgrounds,  add speech bubbles and frames. You can delete or edit anything you want on your scrapblog. You can add your pictures, text or videos and you can create as many pages as you like. Children can illustrate a story that they have written or they can create a scrapblog for their favourite books. PhotoPeach is a tool that lets you make slideshows using your pictures, adding captions and music. When you finish your slideshow, you can add a quiz to it. You can also leave comments to the slideshow.  Children can create their slideshows telling a story and add a quiz at the end for their friends to answer. This blog or the author are not responsible for any inappropriate images/text/ads of the external links. Please double check before you use it with your students.

"But if I’m not the same, the next question is "Who in the world am I? Ah! That’s a great puzzle!" said Alice. Bubblr is a tool to create comic strips using Flickr pictures. You can also use your own Flickr pictures to create your comics. You search the pictures from tags or writing your Flickr username. You drag and drop them on the strip and write in the bubbles. When you finish, you    can send it others via mail or you can place it to your blog or website Bubblr is a tool to create comic strips using Flickr pictures. You can also use your own Flickr pictures to create your comics. You search the pictures from tags or writing your Flickr username. You drag and drop them on the strip and write in the bubbles. When you finish, you can send it others via mail or you can place it to your blog or website. Speechable allows you to upload and add speech bubbles to your pictures and share them with others via mail or on social networking sites. Toondoo lets you create your own comic strips. You can change the background, draw your own character or choose one from the gallery, place objects on the background and move them around the scene. You can get a link or upload them to your computer as a picture and use it with Word or PowerPoint. Pixton is a tool to build your comics online using a freestyle comic layout. You can add pictures, backgrounds, sound and your voice. You can create your own characters and move them into any pose that you want. You can add speech bubbles and make your characters talk and you can also mark the comics and send them back to your students for revision.  When you finish, you can print, download or embed them to your blog or website. MarvelSuperHero is a tool to create comic strips using super heroes such as Hulk, Iron man and  many  more. You choose your comic strip style, and then you choose your background, characters, and objects. You can change the size of the characters and the objects and move them around the  boxes. You can add text and sound effects to your strip. When you finish you can download it to your computer or you can print it out. MakeBeliefComics lets you create your comic strips. You choose your panel and insert your characters on the panel. You make your characters talk or think by adding speech bubbles. You can change the colour of the  background and you can add objects and panel prompts to your panel. When you finish, you can mail it to others or you can print it out. With comic strip tools, children can create a short summary of a story using one of the tools above. They can create comics that incorporate targeted grammar and the vocabulary, create a comic strip of a conversation on a story or they can read a comic strip and they make a story out of it. Children can be divided into groups and each group can create a comic strip for one part of the story. They can write inside the bubbles on a comic strip and create their stories or they can create story beginnings using comic strip tools. This blog or the author are not responsible for any inappropriate images/text/ads of the external links. Please double check before you use it with your students.

"There are only three questions in life: What do you want to do, why do you want to do it, with whom do you want to share it?" from the writing of a 16th century yogi … A six week of summer holiday unplugged draws to an end and it is time to go back to work and blogging for me again. As I have been writing my very first post after a very long summer holiday away from blogging, please watch "Bubble and Pebble" cartoon that my kids drew, coloured, animated and dubbed their voices in English at the age of six. Bubble and Pebble from ozge karaoglu on Vimeo.

Here comes the new letter for the new week: H HideText allows you to convert text to image. This helps you to hide passwords, emails,personal messages, codes or any kind of information on a picture. HearWho  converts your text to speech and saves it as an MP3 file so that you can listen to it on any device capable of playing MP3 files, such as ipods, PDAs, mobile phones, MP3 players. HotPotatoes is a tool to create interactive exercises for your students. HistoryPin is a tool to share small glimpses of the past with pictures and to build up the huge story of human history. HearWho allows you to turn any text into speech so you can listen to it. Hunch allows you to share what you like with other people and get recommendations based on your taste. Huffduffer is a tool to create podcasts from audio links from the web and share it with others. This blog or the author are not responsible for any inappropriate images/text/ads of the external links. Please double check before you use it with your students.