People don't seize to create interesting tools to help us make our QR Codes more visually appealing.  Check out the different qrcode styles provided by http://qrphoria.com/Click on the numbers 1-2-3-4-5-6 below the next image to see my qrcode CUBE created withhttp://www.classtools.net/brainybox/14_FYggLj

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 Bank of resources : Livebinders in Ana Maria Menezes (anamariamenezes2) 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-0DQWhich 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.

I've been trying out different QR CODE activities and would like to share two which I think worked really well. Conversation Tic Tac Toe1. Print one sheet for each pair of students.2. Pair students up and ask them to use one notebook to draw a TIC TAC TOE grid (example below).3. Students decide who is the cross and who is the nought. One person starts the game by choosing a number on the grid, scanning that specific code, reading the secret topic and speaking about it for 1 minute ( or 30 seconds for lower level students). The other student listening has the role of timing his partner. 4. If the student can speak about the topic during 1 minute without stopping, he can leave his mark on the grid. Then, it's the other player's turn. 5. To win the tic tac toe, you have to cross three numbers in a row (vertical, horizontal or diagonal).http://www.scribd.com/doc/146095931/Conversation-QR-CODEConversation QR CODE by Ana Maria Menezes HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN ACTIVITY - Go to http://qrcode.kaywa.com/dashboard/ , click TEXT and type the topics you want your students to talk about.- Open a word doc, insert a table (3 x 3) and copy and paste the QRcodes one by one. - Then your activity is ready for use.Listening Dictation + Conversation1. Print one sheet per pair of students.2. Pair students up.3. Students scan the codes together, listen to it and write it down.4. Pairs ask each the questions they have written down.For this specific activity, I prepared questions using the Present Perfect and the Present Perfect Continuous.http://www.scribd.com/doc/146096130/Qr-Code-Listening-DictationQr Code Listening Dictation by Ana Maria Menezes HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN LISTENING DICTATION- Go to http://qrvoice.net/?id=u8gLjf , type a question, click the BLUE BUTTON on the right to create the qr code which will take students to a voice reading your sentence.- Copy the code and paste it on a word doc.- Repeat the same procedure for the other questions.

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by one of Onestopenglish editors about writing a story for a section of the MacMillan Dictionary Blog entitled STORIES BEHIND WORDS. I've always liked stories; I believe you can learn a lot through them. After reading some of the stories already shared in the blog, I chose to share a story which I've already written in Portuguese, in my M.A. dissertation, but this time the story would be told in English.This is my story:2009 was a singular year in my life. I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to stay home during the treatment. As I couldn’t be in a real classroom, I moderated an online course for teachers. During my treatment, one of the participants of the course lost her mom to the same disease. Some weeks later, this teacher e-mailed me asking if she could send me a box with gifts she had bought for her mom but had no chance to give her before her passing. She told me she would send a book about cancer which would help me a lot. I was deeply touched by her offer and answered that I was honored to receive such a special gift.One day, as I got home feeling a bit dizzy after a chemo session, I saw a big box on my sofa. "Wow, what a big box!", I said. "It’s Andressa’s box!", I explained while taking the box to my bedroom. I sat down on my bed and started opening the box. Inside the post office box, there was a beautiful second box tied with a purple ribbon. I was caught by surprise when I opened its lid and felt like a little girl opening Christmas presents.Inside the box, there was the promised book along with delicate paper flowers, pieces of colored paper and several little gifts. In every little detail, I could notice Andressa’s love for her mom and her kind gesture in including little treats specially for me, such as messages about education, hope and faith. I recorded a video message thanking my student and for the first time, wrote about my fight against cancer and the beautiful box which had brought me enormous joy and hope.

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

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 kwoutAnother 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.htmlhttp://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

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.

How can I make Study Guides more visually appealing?Many times I feel my students don't really know how to organize themselves to study. I often hear them say they only studied by reading the lessons in the book.These are different ways I've tried to help students get ready for their English exams:1. A Study Guide with links to resources shared in our EDMODO GROUP2. I've created a wordcloud with topics and used THINGLINK to add online resources.3. I've used the app VISUALIZE to create a visual poster and added links by using THINGLINK

Changing our way of teaching is not an easy task.How can we help teachers learn, discuss and try out new approaches in English Language Teaching? With this objective, we've started a  blended (part face2face + part online) methodology course at the school where I work when we'll be studying about 3 different approaches: PBL, the Flipped Classroom and Mobile Learning. The course started at the beginning of September. Each week, we have presential meetings as well as online readings and tasks to carry out.Following a PBL model, we started our course with a "driving question" :How can we use PBL in our classes at Cultura Inglesa? this question was later refined to "How can we create a project which could be used with our students?"Our final goal would be to think of a feasible project which could be implemented in our classes considering our reality.But, how could we reach the final goal? What would be our NEEDS TO KNOW?We needed to know more about characteristics of a PBL lesson, see some examples, talk to teachers using PBL.Our group came up with the following steps:- read different articles about PBL.- watch different videos about it.- interview a teacher who uses PBL for teaching English.- try to imagine our own projects.As a teacher to interview, I suggested a dear friend, Vicky Saumell, from Argentina, who has successfully implemented a Project-oriented approach at the school where she works.The interview happened assynchronously, first we brainstormed some questions at our EDMODO group, then I sent Vicky the screenshot of our thread and  hoped Vicky would have the time to record a  video-response for us. Here, I take the opportunity to thank Vicky again for kindly taking her time to share her experience with us. http://vickysaumell.blogspot.com.br/For those interested in examples of projects for ELT, check  one of Vicky's presentations on slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/vickys16/saumell-meaningful-use-of-web-20-projects  It has been a great opportunity for me not only to study with a group of teachers who are my colleagues but also to try to be a more collaborative teacher.Our next module is about "The Flipped Classroom".

Weeks ago, I was contacted by Larry Ferlazzo about having our students collaborate somehow as his students have been studying about Brazil. We exchanged a few messages trying to decide how this collaboration would take place and this is the result. First, Larry's students recorded videos asking questions about Brazil.http://sacschoolblogs.org/larryferlazzo/2013/10/07/questions-for-our-sister-classes-in-brazil/Wow, there were many questions to be answered!I asked my students if they accepted to collaborate with them and assigned a video to each student. The student would watch the video at home, select 3 questions to answer and write a draft on a piece of paper. In class, I had a quick look at the texts, helped them with the pronunciation of some words while they practised reading their texts to their classmates. To make the recordings, I took a digital camera, my smartphone and an ipad to class, divided the students into 3 groups and asked them to record themselves. Although some of the video recordings have a lot of noise in the background, I believe they did a great job. They talked about  our typical food, carnival, our schools and much more.

This week, my Basic 1 students were learning how to ask questions in English. Each group, decided on a question they thought was interesting to ask, wrote words on slips of paper and we recorded a VINE. Can you please help us by answering one or all the questions in the reply area? I've also posted the videos separately so that people can choose what question to answerhttp://ourprojectsci.weebly.com/blog.htmlThank you to everyone who has already contributed.

This is a blog post which follows a presentation given by me at the IMAGE CONFERENCE in Brasília today.While thinking about the topic I had chosen to discuss, I decided to build my talk around an infographic with all the information I'd collected, along with links. - First, I used PIKTOCHART to create the embeddable infographic.https://magic.piktochart.com/output/442066-flow-2- Then, to make it interactive, I added the resources to it using THINGLINK. So if you hover the mouse over the image, when clicking the little dots, you'll be taken to different resources.I initially talked about different aspects we have to consider when adopting either a BYOD or a 1:1 approach. Then, I presented some apps and activities involving the use of IMAGES and VIDEOS.For THE LINKS I shared during the talk, pass the mouse over the infographic and look for some "magic dots".

Interested in flipping your class? If so, you'll probably need  some tools to make the videos you intend to share with your students.http://learni.st/users/anamariacult/boards/35935-tools-for-flipping-classes Same list in a different format: Tools for flipping your classView more lists from Ana Menezes

Looking for a simple idea to help your students revise VOCABULARY?This week, we had to revise for the final tests.I was trying to think about a simple activity for my Upper Intermediate students and I remembered something I'd tried with my Intermediate students in the past.What would I need?- For 8 students = 4 slips of paper (or as many slips of paper you feel are necessary).- Five words students need to revise written down on each slip of paper.In class, I organized the desks in a circle and had 4 pairs of students: 1a + 1b , 2a + 2b, 3a + 3b, 4a + 4b.1. I gave a slip of paper to each STUDENT A who had to describe the words on the slip of paper for STUDENT B to guess the word. I kept monitoring in case students needed help remembering what words meant. (Ex: 1a describes for 1b to guess)2. When I noticed most students had guessed the 5 words, I asked STUDENT A to pass the slip of paper to STUDENT B who now would have to describe the same words to the next student to their left. (Ex: 1b now describes for 2a to guess)3. The slips of paper kept on passing to each student, the student with the slip describing and  the other student listening and trying to guess the words.Why do I like this activity?- it's incredibly easy to organize.- you can revise any kind of vocabulary.- students are involved all the time.- students keep alternating partners as they talk to the people to their right and then to their left.

Some weeks ago I was invited to help some professors from UFU (Universidade Federal de Uberlândia) to start using the interactive whiteboards the department had bought. The board they had purchased was DUALBOARD which works with the INTERWRITE WORKSPACE software.Although I had never used this software, as I'm very well acquainted with the usage of another brand of interactive whiteboards (Promethean), I imagined after a few tutorials I would be able to learn how it worked.I found a few tutorials in English online at http://www.einstruction.com/workspace-video-tutorials but none in Portuguese for the teachers to watch whenever they needed it.So, here they are: a few video tutorials (in Portuguese) if you have Interwrite Workspace installed where you teach.