Here is a very creative and fun application for kids! Eye Paint Monsters lets kids choose images from world-renowned artists and color them.   The best part about this coloring is that you are using your mobile device’s camera as a tool  to capture colors, patterns and textures to interactively fill areas in the drawings selected by you. After you choose your illustration, tap on any area in the drawing to connect the live camera. You will then see the camera shutter button that enables you to capture the chosen pattern and finish your coloring. The images created can be saved to the device’s Photo Library by tapping the star icon or you can take the picture of it. Unfortunately, there is no social sharing feature available due to the child protection regulations.   Here are some ideas to use this app in class: Students walk around the school and find different patterns and colors to color their monsters. Students show their finished monsters and talk about where they get the patterns and the colors. They compare their finished monsters and they talk about their differences and similarities. Students describe their monsters to each other. Later, they can write about their monsters. Ask some guiding questions to your students to come up with their own unique stories. The questions can be: What’s his/her name? What does it like doing?/Where does it live?/What does it eat? … The creative possibilities are endless. This app is so creative, fun, animated and extremely easy to use with learners.

The Dumesnil-Vickers Family - Originally uploaded by courage.campaign Through a random series of web page clicks, I ended up on the Flickr set from the Courage Campaign group that are protesting the decision in California to outlaw gay marriages: http://www.flickr.com/photos/couragecampaign/sets/72157611501972510/ This is an issue that I feel very strongly about as a long time advocate for gay rights with a large number of gay friends (one of whom was a bridesman at my wedding!). I think that all couples, same sex and hetrosexual, should have the same rights in the law and in our society. If gay couples want to get married, then I believe they should be able to. I think that loving, healthy relationships should be what we aim for in our society rather than sticking to some antiquated ideal of the family unit. This set of photos on Flickr is a great way for people to show the world their support and solidarity for gay couples in California! I’m going to take a photo showing my support and invite you to as well. Authored by suzievesper. Hosted by Edublogs.

If you are a busy teacher and if you have been looking for an easy way to create interactive and fun text activities that you can do with your students, here is Textivate! Simply, copy and paste the maximum 500 words text that you would like to generate your activities with. Click to "Textivate Now" button to see a wide range of activities that you can generate automatically by simply clicking on them. The activities are varied, such as drag and drop,hangman, fill in the blanks, put the text in order, memory game and many more. When you are done, you can share your activities with a link or embed them to your blog/website. You can play with Textivate on IWB or with your tablets as well. Here are some ideas to use in class: Create your own activities and ask your students to answer them individually or in groups. Divide the class into two and they compete each other while answering the questions.  Let students create their own activities and share them with the rest on a blog or a website.  I really like this tool as it is easy, flexible and functional! And it’s only a matter of choosing the right exercises for the level of your students.

OK - so I did actually have quite a decent break but it was also a time for me to ‘catch up’ with some web surfing and adding to the wiki a little. The video section in the online tools area of my wiki has been annoying me for awhile now so I finally restructured it. I have now added in a series of options once you go into the initial video tools page (thanks to cooltext.com for the menu buttons) As well as restructuring what was already there, I have added some new content such as the technical tips page and all the tools listed on the video creation tool (Marnie if you are reading this, some of these were the type of things you were trying to find last year). I still have a lot more work to do to update the examples but that might have to wait for the time being. Another thing that I added to the wiki in the offline tools section was a page for Timelapse tools. There are so many ways that you can use timelapse in a classroom. Some include: documenting a mould experiment over time creating a class art work charting the growth of a bean sprout watching shadows move during the day showing the change from a messy to tidy classroom! building a human pyramid creating a model or building something for technology There could be endless things to try really. There are some really useful tools out there to help in the process. If you have any more ideas on how you could use time lapse, let me know in the comments. I am going to put together a big list of them to add to the site. I am also looking for educational examples of completed time lapse projects if anyone has some online. I’ve also been reacquainting myself with some long lost software and abandoned tools. One thing I am enjoying is a Firefox extension that someone told me about ages ago but I have finally just installed called Speed Dial that gives a a Google Chrome type of experience each time you open a new tab - it displays thumbnails of sites that you select as being ones you visit regularly and then you can click on the thumbnail to take you there. Here are the ones that I picked though I would probably already change a few. I’ve been exploring other bits and pieces as well but think that is enough for now At some point I still have to work through all those links I saved to Diigo to explore at a later date. Now that is a scary prospect!! Authored by suzievesper. Hosted by Edublogs.

TagMyDoc Website TagMyDoc lets you apply a QR-code tag to a document, which can be scanned allowing the virtual copy to be retrieved. What do you think of TagMyDoc?

Today, I would like to introduce you, Smore which is an easy way to design flyers and publish them immediately. Start by choosing an event template that you would like to create. Smore takes you a page where it is ready for you to start. Go on editing in the blanks, add your text, add your pictures. Everything on this page is customizable. Just click on each box to delete, or to add something else. You can add videos, links, text, audio, embed a link, picture, event, gallery or bio.  don’t forget to change the colours, background and the font titles. You can go back to your flyer to change or edit anything. When you are done, click on save and your flyer is ready to share with the world. Now, you can print your flyer, you can allow comments, add social buttons, make your flyer public or private and see how many people have visited your flyer. How to use Smore in education: Create your school bulletins on Smore and share them with the parents. If there is an event at your school, create an online flyer or ask your students to create the flyers. Students can create flyers about the events in their area and share them with others. Let students create flyers that talk about a film, holiday resort or a book. Put all the links somewhere and ask the rest to vote for the best one. Students can create Smores that introduce themselves or their classes. They can leave comments or ask questions on each others’ pages. Students can present a project using this tool. Students can create an online poster about any topic that you are doing. Another simple way for technology integration .. Hope you and your students enjoy!

I had an interesting letter turn up in the mail about a month ago. It was from my husband’s step-brother’s wife (yes that is a mouthful) who is living in London asking if I would consider writing a 200 - 800 word piece around the topic of something that has great importance in my life. She plans to put together a book after getting responses from a wide range of woman. Being the computer geek that I am, I ended up taking a technological view when I came to try and write something for her so thought I would share it here. For me, one of the most important aspects of my life is the ability to connect with other people.  While some argue that society has become more splintered with families and individuals being increasingly more isolated, I would counter that by focusing on the way that technology has begun to bridge the gaps between people. I lead two lives; one involves interacting with friends and my husband at home or at social events and the other involves my online life with all the friends and acquaintances I have developed in this space. While nothing will ever replace face to face contact with people that I enjoy spending time with, my online life is almost as important to me.  The friends that I have developed through tools like Twitter and through being part of a blogging network may be virtual but I talk to them regularly and have found like-minded people that I can both learn from and share ideas with. Facebook keeps me in touch with a number of friends now living in many places around the world and has helped me to reconnect to people I have not seen in many years. I could do without all the application invites but that is a small price to pay for having a network that allows me to stay in touch with so many people at once. So I guess what I am trying to say is that all of us have a powerful desire to connect with people - it is the essence of what makes us human. As technology changes, people are finding new ways to adapt this technology to meet this basic human need.  The most important aspect of this for me is that some of the biggest shifts in technology we have seen in recent years have not been driven by advancing technology for its own sake; they have been driven by this desire for people to reach out to each other.  I find that reassuring and believe that this growth in networking ability may prove to be one of the defining positive forces for change in our increasingly global society. The funny thing is that I had just published this blog post when I ended up following a link while on Twitter that lead me to a blog post containing this graphic that symbolises connectedness online. Couldn’t illustrate my point more clearly I think! So - what angle would you take if given this topic. Would you focus on friends? family? that lovely new piece of technology you got for Xmas? Why not let me know in the comments.

MetLink Website MetLink is the flagship dedicated educational website of the Royal Meteorological Society, with weather and climate resources aimed at primary and secondary school teachers, students, teenagers, children and the general public. What do you think of MetLink?

I like innovative ideas and Acapela is one of them! You are selecting a video, writing your text up to 200 characters, and you view the complete scene with your own words. Acapela uses the text-to-speech application to make the characters speak your words! It is an easy tool that can be used even with lower graders. The mini videos are animations and they are in good quality, the characters are fun and lovely! When you finish, you can get a link or the code to share your creation with others. Acapela offers different languages and accents too! This makes this tool more powerful! How can we use Acapela in education: Choose one of the animations and students come up with their own ideas. Then, they choose the best one! Students can practice a grammar point that they have just learnt. Teachers can announce events, assignment or projects with this tool. This tool can be used for dictation activities. Students can introduce the characters with their own words. Whatever you do with this tool is sure to be something fun!

The General TIG Site I have a new role this year in my job at CORE Education. I am now working on a brand new project to encourage teachers to make use of the tools available to them within the Taking It Global website. The main website is broken down into six different sections. I have been having a good play through the different areas and have been impressed at the sheer breadth of resources and tools that are within each one. I have written about one or two interesting things I found from within each area under the screengrabs below: There has been really interesting discussion on the Community ‘Discussion Boards’ about the Gaza conflict with perspectives from all around the world including people from Palestine and Israel. This would be a wonderful resource to engage in if wanting to get a deeper understanding of the issues involved. I also enjoyed reading through a few ‘Member Stories’ which are the perspectives of individuals in relation to a few key questions. One question was on what makes a good leader and I thought that this was an excellent response from a 22 year old in Jamaica - A good leader is able to identify in himself his faults, accepts when he’s wrong and takes recommendations. A good leader is one who wants the best for himself and his group and not to be placed on a pedestal, but to carryout his given duty with great pride and humbleness. A good leader is uncommon. A good leader is charismatic yet at the same time democratic and possesses the ability to use all leadership styles where necessary. The ‘Commitments’ area is a place where you can share with the TIG community what action you plan to take on an issue that you feel is important in your own context. You can either make a pledge or a commitment. You can browse through what other members of the TIG community have already said they will do and join in with that pledge or commitment. I joined in to ‘Share my knowledge with others’ along with 289 other people in TIG. Groups is a place to join in with others on areas of interest (a little like Facebook groups). I have downloaded the Climate Change resource in the ‘Action Guides’ section and I have to say that it was an incredibly complex and thorough resource that gives you background information and takes you step by step through planning to take action in this area. The ‘Projects’ section is a place where you can set up projects for others to join in with. I like the way you can have blogs associated with projects. There are some excellent tools contained in this section. I think my favourite of these I have come across so far would be the Workshop Kit (a downloadable PDF) that was great tips for running different types of workshops. There are some excellent open meeting resources I plan to use this year as part of the work I am doing with ICT PD! It was linked to from the main events page. Here you can read ‘Blogs’ from TIG members and groups (as long as they have been made public). The thing I really like about this function is that you can link an established blog to your TIG blog so that when you put up a post in your normal blog, it appears in both places. You can even customise the look of your blog within the TIG environment. When in the ‘Regions’ section, you can also browse blogs by region. The ‘Games’ you can play are based around environmental issues or help you learn more about other cultures. I went for the beginning level of the flag recognition game and I have to admit that I didn’t do very well at all. The ‘Global Gallery’ is a place for members to share art work to help explore ideas and issues or simply as a means for self-expression. There are competitions where you can submit work that fits that theme. The ‘Panroma Magazine’ takes submissions for articles from all members and looks to have very interesting articles. ‘TIG magazine’ pulls together art from the ‘Global Gallery and articles from Panorama on a particular theme and can be downloaded to your computer. This is an incredibly meaty section where you can go explore current world issues in-depth. Each issue has links to where information on that topic can be found throughout TIG as well as links to outside information. There is enough here to keep people busy for a long time! There are themes profiled in each area such as the focus on the 60th anniversary in 2008 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was linked to within the ‘Human Rights’ area. The ‘Regions’ section has information about those areas of the world. You can view information at continent level or drill down to individual countries. There are also links to content throughout the rest of TIG that relates to that area of the world eg blog entries or discussion points. If there are locally based projects, they can be profiled on the page for that country. Education Specific Tools OK - so those are the main areas of TIG and they are a huge resource on their own but where it gets really interesting in my opinion, is the range of tools specifically for educators in the education section (TIGed). You can use many of the tools completely for free such as the ‘Community’ area where you can search for partner classes to work together on a project. The ‘Resources’ area is a place for teachers to post useful resources they have made that they think would benefit other teachers. The only thing that has any cost associated with it is setting up a virtual classroom for a year and that is a very small fee to cover the costs for hosting any content that is posted up into this space (around $30 US) Basically, a teacher can set up a classroom and then students can be signed up as members of this classroom. There is the choice of having the students sign up themselves through an internet link and using a registration code you create (in which case they would need an email address) or the teacher can add them in (and they wouldn’t have to have an email address). There are excellent tools available within the protected classroom environment. Members of the classroom can have their own blogs - a much cheaper and safer way to have a whole class individually blogging than with some other educational blogging tools. There are also places to post assignments, discussions, art work, videos (imported from YouTube using your username), writing and you can build a number of maps with place pins (using Microsoft Virtual Earth). There is also a place to publish written work to so that students are able to share their work with the group. Something else that you can enable within the classroom space is integration with the Google tools. You can enable this just for teachers to be able to access (as I have) or for all students as well so that they have their own TIG Google accounts. There would be issues around monitoring content if students have their own accounts but there would also be huge benefits as well. Students would be able to have documents uploaded that they then share with you and their fellow students. They could work collaboratively on a document with students both within your classroom or with students overseas (if you are collaborating with other classes). I think this is an incredibly exciting option and it only took a couple of clicks to set up my TIG Google account (I am suzievesper@tig.org). Basically, Google Aps is built into TIG and I think this is a huge advantage. Overall, I think this is a brilliant set of tools! You have everything you need in here to have a classroom that is open all hours and allows for multiple forms of contribution. This is the area that I will be focusing on in my role of project co-ordinator for TIGed in New Zealand. The project I am involved in is specifically targeting secondary schools. For those that get involved, there will be training from myself on how to use the tools and support in using the site to investigate issues and take action So - do you want to be involved? I have set up a test classroom space for teachers to play around in to learn how it all works. You are welcome to come in and join me in here even if you are not a New Zealand teacher and I welcome primary teachers to join as well. I have posted up an assignment in the class to come up with ideas how TIGed could be used to support different areas of secondary education. You can choose to be a student member of my classroom or to be an associate teacher that can set assignments etc. Want to be a student and see what options they have? I have set it up so that students self-register (ie as if they have an email address) and you can join as a student by visiting this link: http://collaboration.tiged.org/educators/register/ The registration code is joinsoc Or join as an associate teacher by visiting this link: http://collaboration.tiged.org/educators/assistant/ The registration code is teachsoc Come in and explore with me. Make sure you mark where you live on the classroom map. Hopefully, together we can come up with many ideas on how to maximise this amazing resource.

If you are looking for ideas to let your students build up their own stories, you may like WordTamer. This tool teaches children how to develop characters, write a plot and design the settings in a story. It teaches this, in an interactive way, in a carnival. You move your mouse through the carnival to try each step. My favourite one is the "Capture a Character" where you develop your character by playing a game with the ducks. When you complete each step, you can print out what you have written or save it to your desktop. WordTamer also gives certificate to the students. Some ideas to integrate in class: This tool is a great way to motivate any age level to write and create their stories. Students can use the same game on WordTamer and come up with their unique stories. Great way to show how children can start writing their stories. Let children create their stories, print them out and display them in class. Teachers can create questions for the stories that the students have created. Don’t miss the chance to visit this interactive funfair to choose a story start and get tips with your plots, genres and characters.

BigMarker Website BigMarker is a web conferencing community. Features include multipoint video conferencing, whiteboard, desktop sharing, unique meeting room URL, public or private rooms. What do you think of BigMarker?

This post is a plug for a reading campaign being supported by the Christchurch Library staff. They emailed me asking if I could promote the reading crusade and I am happy to help! Here are the details: In February 2009 Christchurch City Libraries and the Crusaders are once again joining forces to recreate that exciting reading promotion, the Reading Crusade. Crusaders, librarians and teachers will be working in partnership to encourage reading throughout the first term of the 2009 year. Any primary or intermediate child living in the Crusader Franchise catchment which includes Canterbury, the West Coast, Nelson and Marlborough is eligible to enter and be in to win a number of great prizes - the grand prize sees a ‘team’ of 15 children winning the chance to join the Crusaders squad at a special training session. All those entered in the Crusade will receive a participation certificate printed with the signatures of all the Crusaders team. This year the Reading Crusade has a blog! Designed to help teachers get the most out of the reading crusade, it will feature: Teachers link of the week Weekly reading challenge Fun reading sites for students Fun book, library and Reading Crusade facts Insider news Find out about web only competitions Ask the ‘Coach’ (Librarian) Book Reviews Check it out at http://readingcrusade.wordpress.com/ Add it to your RSS feed, be emailed site updates or just add it to your Bookmarks. You can also contact us via an email link to ask questions, get help with resources or ask detailed questions about the offside rule. Have you registered your school for the 2009 Reading Crusade? Go to http://christchurchcitylibraries.com/ReadingCrusade/ ,download teacher resources and register online! Good luck to anyone who registers!!

Poems have several uses and benefits in English language teaching and learning. They are thought-provoking, often humorous and they certainly add a motivational buzz to our classes. If you would like to add some tech into your lesson through poems, here are my recommendations: Concrete Poetry lets you choose or draw a picture on the screen, then drag and drop the words to fill in it that the tool gives you. When you are done, you can print it out. MagneticPoetry is a kit that gives you a white canvas to drag and drop the given words. You can get more words and start over whenever you like. when you are done, you can share your poem via mail.  AiPoem is a great automatic poem writer. Choose a favor and answer the questions that the tool asks you. The tool generates the poem by itself with adding your own words. When you finish, mail your poem or publish it to your website.  Acrostic Poems helps you step by step to write your acrostic poem. Choose your topic and then brainstorm about your topic and write them on the screen. Then, you move to a screen where you write your acrostic poem with the words that you have brainstormed. You are ready to print or share it via mail  now. Poetry Idea Engine is great for creative poem writing. You start choosing the type of poem that you would like to write. It gives you a short description of the genre. You select the words to complete your poem. When you are done, you can print it out or try another one. Piclits is a web tool for inspired picture writing. You simply choose a picture, then by dragging and dropping the words on the picture, you can create your poem. when you are done, share your poem via mail, or post it on social networking tools.  WordMover is an app that helps children crate their poems. On the app, you select the given words to drag and drop on the canvas to create your poem.  You can add your own words, and you can choose different canvas backgrounds.   and here is my favourite poem by Taylor Mali, "What Teachers Make"!

An interesting thing happened this afternoon. I opened up my http://learningweb2.wikispaces.com wiki to find the content on the front page had disappeared with a single line on the page saying "THIS WAS DEMOLISHED BY JAMZ1″.  Having never had one of my pages vandalised before, I hopped into the page history to see who was at fault and discovered from the profile of the user that it was a 10 year old boy in Scotland. The actual page was very easy to fix given that I just had to roll back to an earlier version of the page. I then pondered if I should send the lad a message but then decided this might seem a victory to the boy as it would prove I had visited his profile and probably his wiki which may have been his goal in the first place. So instead of rewarding him with attention, I sent this message to the Wikispaces team: I just wanted to report that a Wikispaces member has purposely deleted the content from one of my wiki pages. I have reverted it back to before it was deleted so no real damage done but still think that this isn’t an appropriate way to behave on the web. When I checked out the history, it was deleted by a user called spyguy4 who it appears is a 10 year old boy in Scotland. I was thinking of sending him a message myself but didn’t want to reward his behaviour with attention - I thought it might be better coming from the Wikispaces team   The page that was vandalised was http://learningweb2.wikispaces.com Action following this message was swift - Wikispaces got back to me to say that they have suspended his account. And now I find myself feeling a little guilty! The kid had spent a bit of time setting up a wiki showcasing all of his interests (video games, cars etc) which I guess he can’t access anymore! I thought maybe a stern talking to would have done the trick. Still, I guess this is a very clear lesson for the youngster on what happens if you behave badly in virtual spaces. What would you have done in the same situation? Do you think the punishment matches the crime?

Pinterest Website Pinterest is an online social pinboard. You can organize and share all the wonderful things you find on the web. Browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests. What do you think of Printerest?

If you need new and exciting ideas to present new ideas in the classroom, CuePrompter can be a handy tool to use. This tool is a free teleprompter which runs through your computer screen as it is used for television news with text scrolling up from the bottom of the screen. You simply copy and paste a text, set the font and screen size to large or small. You can change the color of the text and the background. When you are ready, click "start prompter" button and your screen will be a teleprompter. You can control the speed of your text and you can play it reverse or forward.  Some ideas to use this tool in class: While giving presentations, student can paste their notes on the cueprompter and read it or they can highlight the main points with this tool. Paste your reading text on the cueprompter, students can try to answer the questions as they read the text from the cueprompter. Student can read a text from the cueprompter and try to get the gist of it. You can make the screen go very fast for kids. Copy and paste a dialogue and have students dramatize it. The tool can be used to build reading fluency as students read the text aloud. This tool can be used for silent or choral reading. Students can create a commercial or a newscast.  No doubt that we will come up with more uses of this tool once we use it in class. 

We have been using Blip.tv to host quite a few CORE videos recently. We went with Blip as it allows you to embed private videos which we needed - especially with Google Video disappearing (and the quality of Google Video was pretty dire too!). CORE did need to pay to have a Pro account but it was a very reasonable price. At first I was frustrated with what I perceived to be limited options for the players that would contain the videos when they were embedded on another site. I used an older version of the player as I thought it was the only option where people wouldn’t be given a link to go back to Blip or the option of embedding the video themselves. It was only when I sent a message off to the help desk about removing the ‘More’ button at the end of the video that I found out just how customisable the newer player can be. I am able to choose which buttons to place underneath the video, what site I want to have the video link to in the bottom corner and a host of other things about how the video plays. I can also set the colour scheme for the player and can upload a thumbnail image of my choice that is visible before playing the video. They have a list of all the different ways the player can be customised on a wiki (need to log in to access it so I won’t link to it here). I certainly found this very handy and thought others using Blip might want to know where to go to do the same. To make your own customised player in Blip which you can then save as a preset and use for future videos, get to the settings by going to your Dashboard and then clicking on ‘Manage Show Players’ under the Quick Tasks heading on the right. Here is an example of a modified player - I just uploaded a brief clip of how the sliders in the EPS2.0 tool work. Note the branding on the player and the link back to the EPS website. The video quality isn’t that high as I cut it down in size to upload quickly but you can get the idea. This could be an option for schools wanting to have videos hosted cheaply but without worrying about advertising or people being directed towards other sites or inappropriate videos after viewing any embedded video.

iText Express Website iText Express is a refined text editor with support for header/footer, footnotes/endnotes, page layout and numbers, multiple columns, hyperlinks, lists, bullets, tables, bookmarks, customizable guidelines, background color, and vertical writing. Embed pictures, movies, spreadsheets, pdf etc. Open .epub files in RTFD. What do you think of iText Express?

Grammar is the one of the most important aspect of teaching and learning a language. It is also one of the more difficult aspects to teach well and motivate students to learn. Today, I would like to share some technology enhanced tools for practicing grammar. Grammar Ninja is a cool and a fun game that helps you practice parts of the speech. You can choose among three different levels to work. In the game, you choose the correct parts of the speech as you read each sentence. Road to Grammar is a site that offers quizzes, games and extra practice for grammar with instant feedback and explanations. Free Rice is a game where you need to find the right definitions of the given words. For each right answer, the site donated 10 grains of rice through the World Food Programme to help end hunger. NoRedInk  offers help with apostrophes, subject-verb agreement, comma issues, sentence fragments, run-on sentences, and commonly confused words. The Adjective Detective is another game that teaches you what the adjectives are. You can take the quiz and play the game. Grammaropolis is a tool to learn different parts of the speech. There are different characters that stand for an adverb, pronoun, preposition, noun, action verb etc. Those parts of the speech characters interact with each other just as they are interacting in a real sentence. You can watch videos of each character, take quizzes listen to the songs, read books that feature the characters and play games. You can play word sort or colour the characters. The Grammar Practice Park offers different games on different parts of the grammar to play and practice your grammar skills. Fun English Games provides a range of free interactive exercises and practice activities that are perfect for helping students learn English Daily Grammar offers grammar teaching tools that are about punctuation, parts of speech and the common mistakes in grammar. It consists of 440 lessons and 88 quizzes. British Council has many grammar games that provide fun activities to practice English with word order games, gap fill games. Hope you and your students enjoy playing those games.

I seem to be having a bit of a run on interesting behaviour on my wikis. I was on my educational software wiki today and discovered a YouTube video had been added to the front page with the title ‘Latest resource’. Not wanting to be too territorial, I checked out what it was about. It was a short promo video for a new book on Web 2.0 that is available for purchase.  I don’t appreciate people using the front page of my wiki as an advertisement space so I have deleted the video. I guess what is really rude is the way it was posted in a way to look as if it was me adding a new resource to page and no message to me first to check it was OK. At least whoever posted it (the history showed that the person wasn’t logged in when they edited so I can’t trace it back) thinks that my wiki is popular enough to warrant the effort!

I am super excited and proud to say that our applications have been shortlisted for ELTons Award 2013 in the "digital innovation" category. Thank you very much to everyone who has made more than 200 children a nominee for this award! A little bit about the project … Our children in kindergarten have been drawing and coloring pictures for their own iPhone/iPad/Android applications. They are also recording their voices for the characters. These applications are the first and the only ones in the world that are created by children.  Fingers crossed and good luck to everyone! I also would like to congratulate "The Round" online publishing for being nominated! I am proud to be a part of it too! 

Flash Page Flip Website Flash Page Flip lets you make and publish your own publications (Online Catalog, Digital Brochure, Flipping Book, Interactive Flyer, Virtual Magazine, Flip Album etc.) by writing JPEG or SWF formatted pages names on XML file. What do you think of Flash Page Flip?

I have to admit that recently I have not been ‘playing’ with as many new tools as I have done previously. I think that this is partially because the tools I do use on a regular basis meet most of my online needs.  I don’t often see things that either surpass what I am using already or excite me from an eduational standpoint. There is also the fact that I have been having a bit of a break from my online life of late. Still, every now and then, I have a spate of looking around to see what I’ve been missing and today has been one of those days. Here are some of the things I’ve been trying out. ShareTabs This is a service where you can enter the URL addresses of a number of websites and it will turn them into a set of tabs (these will apear as sub-tabs within one of your tabs/windows) which can be accessed from a single hyperlink. There is a visual preview of these sites on the landing page when people follow the link. I tried it out by making all of my website links into a single ShareTab link. I think this will certainly reduce the cluster in my email signatures!! Postrank This is an RSS tool that prioritises the top posts in any feed based on the number of comments, saves to Delicious and links to the post among other measures. This means that you can identify the most popular posts on the site very quickly and can get a widget that shows this. When I put in my blog feed, this is what it came up with: I’m not sure if I would have called these my favourite posts but I found this a very interesting exercise. Thanks to the guys at the Tek blog for the following: Shape Collage A simple application that will turn photos that you drag into the interface into a collage - you can choose from a variety of shapes. It is a simple programme that does exactly what it is supposed to. I did wonder if the excellent Google’s Picasa software (now available for Mac and PC) might be better to use to do this on many occassions as you can do things like reposition images within the collage and resize individual photos. Still, it won’t do some of the shapes easily that Shape Collage does so I guess it is just personal choice. Picasa also does a lot more than just collages and maybe it is useful to have a dedicated piece of software for this purpose. You let me know your thoughts. Enough for this evening. I will keep playing and see if I can find anything else of interest!