This afternoon, I learned about a website and app which allows us to upload a presentation either from our computer or from google drive and record our voice and image using our webcam. http://www.movenote.com/My first trial was with my ipad. The ipad app is FREE, however, you can only use photos you have on your device or a photo you take with the ipad to include to your presentation. Other than that, the app is very simple to use and  the quality of the recording seems to be really good.https://api.movenote.com/v/saNK4Xb_JdsMy second trial was with using the WEBSITE http://movenote.comI uploaded a presentation I had  on my computer and recorded myself as a test.The slides are inspired by the articlehttp://www.learningunlimitedllc.com/2013/03/6-steps-to-a-flipped-classroom/How can we use the site and app with students?- with the app, students can tell their own stories based on a picture.- students can record a picture description.- with the website, the teacher can record flipped videos by using slides or pdf files.- students can record presentations of projects they develop.The MOVENOTE app is available for FREE for both IOS devices and ANDROIDS.One more app for the list BYOD apps for ELT

It's Christmas time, and it's time to celebrate life and friendships. I was tagged by Cristina Monteiro Silva for the "11 Random facts" Blog post challenge.Thanks, Cristina, for the tag and the opportunity for us to learn more about you in your blog post.So, how does it work?1. Acknowledge the nominating blogger(s).2. Share 11 random facts about yourself.3. Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger has created for you.4. List 11 bloggers.5. Post 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate to answer, and let all the bloggers know they have been nominated. Don’t nominate a blogger who has nominated you.#2 Sharing some random facts about me.  #3 These are the questions Cristina has asked me to answer:1. What was the best moment in your life?I've had many good moments in life but the more I live the more I think the best moment in my life is NOW.2. Do you expect much of people?I've been told I'm quite naive when it comes to trusting people. I always expect the best of everyone.3. How many true friends do you have?I have very few true friends but many people I truly love.4. What do you do when you need to have YOUR moment?I choose a book to read and sit by myself.5. What is the film of your life?"The color of paradise" could be one of the films of my life.6. When was the last time you slept 10h?I don't usually sleep a lot but last week I woke up at 10 in the morning so I guess I ended up sleeping for more than 10 hours, kkkkkkk.7. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?I drink a glass of water.8. Which historical character would you like to meet if you had that chance?I'd love to listen to the Dalai Lama.9. An embarrassing moment in your life was…When I greeted someone with a hug and then I noticed I had mistaken the person for someone else.Awkward!10. When did you last burst out laughing and couldn’t stop?I can't remember but I laugh A LOT. 11. City or countryside?City. I love living in the city, the noise, the movement, the people.#4 The list of eleven Bloggers I tag for the challenge:1. Roseli Serra2. Camila Sousa Sakai3. Andressa Cardoso4. Emma Heath5. Vicky Saumell6. Jennifer Verschoor7. Sílvia Heshiki8. Naiara Valente9. Daniela Pesconi-Arthur10. Susana Canelo11. David Kapuler#5 My questions for them:1. Where did you live as a child?2. What was your favorite toy?3. As a child, what did you want to be in the future?4. Tell us something you're afraid of.5. Tell us something you're good at.6. Tell us something you're bad at.7. Tell us about a place you'd love to visit one day and who with.8. What do you normally procrastinate?9. If you could a place to live, where would it be?10. What would you like to get for Christmas?11. What would you like to learn in 2014?

Sharing some activities I've collected for  android and IOS devices.   Wishing everyone a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I've always liked ideas which in a way connect us to what is really important in life. In this world of snapshots and selfies, I find myself many times overlooking little things in life which brighten my day. While reading my Facebook feed, I noticed a link my friend, Daniela Pesconi-Arthur shared about the 365 GRATEFUL PROJECT. I just loved it!The idea is pretty simple: you take a photo a day of something you're grateful for.According to the 365grateful website, "The project was created by Hailey. In early 2008, in an effort to fight depression, Hailey started a year long photographic project which involved taking one Polaroid photo a day of something she felt grateful for. Initially this was a chore but eventually it became a delight."Watch Hailey's inspiring video:  My friend, Daniela, has started her #365grateful project here: http://365reasons-mywritingshed.blogspot.co.uk/I'll be posting my photos and posts using instagram plus the hashtag #365grateful and will be collecting them all at my Tumblr http://anamariacult.tumblr.com/This was my first photoWouldn't this be a great idea for a writing project with students?Coincidentally, this same week, I read a post by Vicki Davis about writing a Joy Journal which kinds of reinforces this idea of being positive about life.http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com.br/2013/04/9-fine-reasons-to-keep-journal-and-how.html

How can I use the many smartphones in the classroom for a simple and real communicative activity? This post describes a mobile activity I have already tried where basic learners use their own devices to introduce family members to their classmates.Level: basicLanguage Skill: speakingTopic: members of the familyDevice: students' own cell phonesInternet Connection: offAfter having learned vocabulary related to family, ask if students have pictures of any family member on their cell phones. Let them browse their photos and tell them if they haven't got a phone that day or a photo, there's no problem.Once students have selected a photo with one or more family members, model the exchange below with one of the students:Student A shows the photo: This is my brother.Student B asks: What's HIS name?Student A: His name is Maurício.Ask students to stand up and mingle while they show photos and ask questions. Students who don't have a photo to show, just go round asking questions.I know this activity is VERY SIMPLE but believe me, I saw some smiles while they interacted with each other.

I normally post in English because of the different people who follow this blog and speak other languages. However, today I'd like to share the result of the work I've been developing (in Brazil) for the last two years: my M.A. thesis.Why did I decide to study about Social Presence?Well, I start my thesis telling a story about a period of my life that because health problems I couldn't be in a real classroom in contact with my students. In an attempt to feel useful and share some knowledge with other teachers, I created an online course for EFL teachers and for the first time moderated an online course on my own. With this experience, the virtual learning environment was no longer a cold and impersonal place, but a space where I met people in order to exchange ideas and learn. This is my personal reason for the interest to understand about Social Presence.What were my objectives?I wanted to observe and analyze how participants of an online course live Social Presence and some implications of our conceptions of Social Presence to the learning process during the course.And what is Social Presence?Although there is no unique definition for this concept, based on my studies, I believe Social Presence is the degree in which you perceive your presence and the presence of others in a virtual interaction and the willingness to develop an interpersonal relationship aiming collaborative learning.My defense took place this morning and as I promised to share my presentation with the research participants and my friends, here it is. The research was carried out in Brazil in Portuguese, so the slides and the recording are in my mother tongue.This is a recording I made in order to practise for the defense: (IN PORTUGUESE) Presença Social from Ana Maria Menezes on Vimeo.And these are the slides (PREZI) I used for my presentation this morning.http://prezi.com/aicu8mvelpf1/vivendo-a-presenca-social/#The experience of having my work discussed by Cláudia Hilsdorf and Valeska Soares Souza was pure enjoyment. I have to thank them for the contributions to my work. If you wish to read the whole paper (in Portuguese), there's a version online at the blog where I've shared my writing since the beginning of the research  http://ufuanamariamenezes.blogspot.com.br  or flipping the pages below. This is the version I handed in for my defense. Please, bear in mind it's not the final version yet. At Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/209558265/Vivendo-a-Presenca-Social-historias-de-um-curso-online-para-professores-de-Ingles

 Is it possible to have students use their cell phones in class to learn languages even with no internet connection? Oh, yes, IT IS.Yesterday afternoon, during a workshop I presented to Cultura Inglesa Uberlândia teachers, Ana Cláudia, a colleague of mine, shared a very creative activity she has tried with her students. I'll call it Secret SMS.These are the steps we followed:1. Ana Claúdia asked each teacher/student present for their cell phone numbers and wrote them on a whiteboard we had in class.2. Then, she asked us to choose one of the numbers on the board to write a text message to. The message should include 2 things we did last weekend.3. Once everyone had written the message, she gave an OK for us to send it.4. The student who got more messages was the winner and got a candy.5. She then explained that in class, she elicited the messages students got on their cells and wrote them on the board calling attention to verbs in the past.VARIATION 1:- As we don't know who sent us the message, students could then stand up, mingle and try to find the sender of the message by asking questions such as:"Did you go to the cinema last weekend?"  "Did you eat out last weekend?"" VARIATION 2:- Instead of writing the phone numbers on the board, the teacher could ask students to write their names and cell phone number on a slip of paper. Then, after collecting all slips with phone #s, the teacher would hand one number to each student, making sure no one got their own number. Each student would send a message to the cell phone number they got (this way all students would get a message). Again, as a follow-up, students could mingle to try to discover the sender of the message.VARIATION 3:- The teacher would write his cell phone number on the board and ask students to write a message (with their names) to send to the teacher using specific vocabulary, structure or topic. When teacher says OK, they all send the message. The first message the teacher receives is the winner.Any other ideas?

This post is a simple app smashing I created for my students today using two great apps:COMICS HEAD + THINGLINKI usually try to make the revision guides I provide to my students more visually appealing. Apart from a paper revision sheet, today I'm going to offer them a VISUAL STUDY GUIDE to help them study the topics we've covered so far.1. First, I created a comic strip with the COMICS HEAD app (IOS) with the images you can see.2. Then, I linked resources which I had curated using the THINGLINK app (IOS).And this is the result:If you hover over the image, some clickable links will appear.  Let's see if they are going to find it useful.A day later, a colleague of mine inspired by my interactive study guide, created her own for her teenage students. With Bethânia's permission, this is her app smashing creation:

This question was sent to me by a friend, Camila Sousa Sakai, after I left a comment on her Tumblr. She's been sharing her first experience as a future mom via videos on a TUMBLR blog I've been following, http://cssakai.tumblr.com/Camila is very creative and this is how she announced to her friends that they were pregnant.Well, now back to the purpose of this post. How can we leave comments on a TUMBLR?It seems simple if you think of Blogger and Wordpress blogs which by default have comments allowed. Now, with TUMBLR, you have to go to your Tumblr settings and allow comments from people YOU FOLLOW.So, first you have to allow comments, and then you have to follow the blogs you want to send comments to.This is a simple tutorial I created for her. Camila, hope this is useful. And CONGRATULATIONS, once again.

Language focus: any grammar topic or vocabulary.Device: Cell Phone (1 per person)App: notetaking app which comes with any cell phone.Interaction: student - studentTime frame: 15 mins.Connection: offlineInstructions1. Teacher asks students to individually write 3 sentences using a target structure, vocabulary or topic on their cell phones. While students create their sentences, teacher can move around the class checking if students need help.2. In pairs, students have to dictate, letter by letter (without pauses) one of their sentences to their partner. They use their cell phones to write the sentences dictated to them. Students keep on alternating until they have dictated all their sentences.3. Students show the sentences they have written down to their partner and check if they understood them right. Teacher can also help.4. For debriefing, teacher can elicit some of the sentences created by students by writing them on the board.

How can I create a video with the Cartoonatic app?This post started with a question from one of the participants of the online course Jennifer Verschoor and I have been moderating this month.As the online course is about MLearning and we've been exploring several apps, I sent the following cartoonatic video to participants at the beginning of Week 4.The video was recorded with the CARTOONATIC app I have downloaded to my ipad. After that, I downloaded it to youtube as a video. It could also have been shared in different ways as facebook, e-mail, twitter or saving it my camera roll. After sharing the video with participants, Erika downloaded the app to her iphone and sent me the question mentioned above after having problems.My next question, this time to myself, was:How can I make this tutorial?When using my laptop it's quite easy to create screencasts showing what to do, but with the ipad, it's not so easy, at least, as far as I know. I would have to use AN APP TO EXPLAIN HOW TO USE ANOTHER APP.My first trial was with the app SNAPGUIDE:Check out How to Use Cartoonatic by Ana Menezes on Snapguide.Now, how did I make this Snapguide?1. I took screenshots of the images from my ipad.2. I inserted the arrows and texts to the images using SKITCH app and saved the images to my ipad again.3. I used SNAPGUIDE app to create the tutorial slideshow and then grabbed the link to share.My second trial was with the app SHOWME:This one I liked best as I could add my voice and draw arrows on the images while explaining.I sent the link to my own e-mail, clicked the link, clicked SHARE and grabbed the embed code for publishing.In conclusion, with both apps, I had to base the tutorial on static screenshots taken with my ipad. I keep wondering if there is an app which allows us to record video tutorials of ourselves while we use an app. I know some people mirror their ipads to their laptops and then make a screencast, but is there a way to do that with an APP? Wondering ........

On my previous post, I talked about how I managed to create some tutorials on my iPad. I took screenshots of the app and with these images I created the tutorials. However, I wanted to see if it was possible to create screencasts using an iPad app.After searching the web, I couldn't find any iPad app which could do that but came across some other alternatives such as mirroring your iPad to a laptop and then record your laptop screen with a screencast tool.The post I found most useful was this onehttp://www.labnol.org/software/record-screencasts-on-ipad-iphone/20958/Today, I decided to try the last option described by Amit Agarwal.1. I bought REFLECTOR Airplay Receiver ($12.99) and installed it to my Mac.2. I activated the Airplay and Mirroring on my Ipad.3. I used the Quicktime from Mac to record the screencast (other screencast tools I suggest are http://screencast-o-matic.com/ and http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html).

I'm very excited to share a new class project which is about to start. It's going to be a collaboration Brazil + Argentina. After contacting my PLN friends from our neighbour-country, Argentina, Jennifer Verschoor accepted the challenge.We both have teenage students who are going to be in contact during 4 weeks.What's the project about?PROJECT: Hello, there!TYPE OF LEARNING: Language GOAL: participants will be able to develop communication skills in the English Language. TARGET AUDIENCE: a group of teenage students (14-16) from Brazil and Argentina. TECHNOLOGY EXPECTED: students will be using their own devices (cell phones, tablets or computers) to communicate in Edmodo. STAKEHOLDERS: teachers, parents, directors. DEADLINE: project will be developed during four weeks. PROJECT DESCRIPTION:18 students from Brazil will be paired up with 18 students from Argentina to communicate during 4 weeks. Objective:  to learn as much as they can about the other student and the place where he/she lives during this period of time. At the end of the 4 weeks, each student will write a report to the teacher expressing what they have learned.Platform: students from both countries will join an Edmodo group. Both teachers, from Brazil and Argentina, will be the managers of the group. Students will be divided in small groups in Edmodo (pairs) where they can develop a conversation. Their communication can be via text, audio files, videos, photos using any kind of file they wish to attach to their messages. Teachers will have access to their communication the whole time.Teachers' role: to get students in contact, divide them into pairs and manage their conversation. Students' messages don't need to be corrected by the teacher beforehand as the objective is not accuracy but the development of a conversation. However, the teacher can prepare activities to be carried out in class with some common mistakes observed (without identifying students).Final Task: by the end of 4 weeks, each student should publish a report to their teacher, explaining how the communication took place and what he/she learned about the other student. The final report should contain at least 200 words and images/ videos to illustrate it. The reports will be posted on a common wiki: http://projecthellothere.pbworks.com/  which will then be shared with parents.Our students are joining the Edmodo group this week, so let's see how it goes.

Language focus: describing appearance and going to.Device: Cell phones or tablets (one per person)App: TellagamiInteraction: student - student, student - deviceTime frame: 15 mins.Connection: offlineSome weeks ago, I presented a workshop at Cultura Inglesa Uberlândia on OFFLINE MOBILE ACTIVITIES. We focussed on some apps which allow students to work offline once the app has already been downloaded to the device.We had great fun and brainstormed several activities we could develop with the apps TELLAGAMI and SIMPLE MIND. Both apps are available for IOS and androids.A few days later, a very creative colleague of mine, Ana Cláudia, tagged me on a facebook post where she shared pictures of her students using Tellagami in class.Then, I asked her to describe the steps she had followed.1. Students created their avatars using the app. They could customize the hair, eyes and clothes.2. Students interacted showing their avatars to other students and asked and answered questions about their appearance.3. Students recorded the avatar saying what they would be doing the following day. Ex: I'm going to play tennis tomorrow.4. Students exchanged devices, listened to the avatar speaking and repeated what they heard.Another variation for step 4 would be for students to listen and write the sentence they hear, then they could keep exchanging devices and write other sentences they hear.

I love simple activities! A very creative colleague of mine, Luiza Helena, shared two activities she has tried with her junior students recently.Luiza explains:"Well, here is a photo of a very simple activity. The students were organized in a circle. The teacher gives a piece of paper and they have to start drawing a monster. When the teacher makes a sound students change papers and continue the previous monster and go on. The teacher continues making sounds so students change the position of the monsters until get their own. The fun is that students don't make only one monster but it is a collaborative work. At the end, students laugh a lot and say: This is not  mine. What have you done with mine?... They create a name and then others vote for the best one."Then, Luiza shares a second one:"Today I did an activity and I also took a picture of it. It is a sleep diary. You give each student a sheet of paper (A4). They fold and cut it and then staple it in a format of a diary. Inside they write one information in each side, for example: I go to bed at...; I wake up at...so on... Students can tell if they dream or not, how many hours do they sleep ... etc. The diaries are so simple but cute. They made cute drawings inside.Thanks for your interest in these simple ideas."

This is an activity shared by a colleague of mine, Stela Morgado. Language focus: the timeLevel: BasicDevice: Interactive White BoardSite: http://24timezones.com/ Interaction: student - studentTime frame: 10 mins.Connection: onlineStela describes the activity:Project: What time is it in...? 1. Go to the website http://24timezones.com/  2. Invite a student to come to the board and choose a place around the world. Click on the place. 3. The student should then choose a friend and ask "what time is it in London?" (for example).  4. Elicit alternative ways of asking about the time: What´s the time...have you got the time, etc. 5. One of my B1 students, Crissiê, invented a follow-up activity. The T can publish the link at Edmodo. Ss take turns choosing places and asking the time around the world to other students through the reply icon. (I´ve attached the photos of Giselle and Geovana during the activity).* Alternative topic: What´s the weather in...? What´s the temperature in...? Ss can use the site http://weather-finder.com/?gclid=CNvq_qHW2L0CFUoV7Aod4B8AEA or upload an app to the mobile(e.g A weather life)- Suggestion from Patrick a Basic 3 student. 

This post is an account of my first test with the website APPEAR.IN , which allows you to video chat with up to eight people for free. https://appear.in/How does it work?As usual, I was super excited to try it out. I created my own room TESTINGANA, copied the link and sent an invite to my PLN on Facebook.A few minutes later, I got my first visit, an American lady (I didn't get the chance to ask her much as she only dropped in to say hello). Then, Cíntia Rabello, an e-friend, an e-colleague, I had never had the chance to talk f2f accepted my invitation to try the room. Thank you, Cíntia!As no one else joined us and we wanted to see how the webcam images looked with more than two people, Cíntia got into the room with another device. We talked a bit about her PHD experience in England which I had been following via Facebook and also checked what was possible to do with the site.Two Brazilians together..... our conversation was in Portuguese, of course. I also tested recording a part of our conversation with QUICKTIME on my Mac. I guess the same kind of recording (a screencast) would work with SCREENCAST-O-MATIC or JING. What did I like about it?1. It's free.2. There's no need to log in or to have an account.3. It's not necessary to download anything.4. A simple interface, just click and talk.5. The chat room also provides a text chat space.How could we use this site with students?- To meet with a small group of students.- If you have a big group of students you can organize groups of 8 who could get together on different days to practise discussing a topic or even chat using English.- A group of students could interview a foreigner or an expert in a field.

Do you have to assess your students' oral performance in English? Do some of your students feel anxious and end up speaking less than they normally do in a normal class? Do you, teacher, feel exhausted after a whole class assessing pairs of students? If you can relate to some of these questions, this post might interest you.The objective of this post is to share my experience in trying to make the oral assessment moment a less threatening one, where my students can speak to each other while I observe how they have been using the English language.In 2012, I had the great pleasure to study about Evaluation at UFU (Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, in Brazil). I learned a lot and one of our first topics was about the difference between ASSESSMENT and EVALUATION. I had always understood an assessment as an ongoing process which involves observing not only the 10 minutes a pair communicates in front of a teacher for marking purposes, but specially the overall performance observed during the classes. So, what is the difference?Table from online document http://duke.edu/arc/documents/The%20difference%20between%20assessment%20and%20evaluation.pdfWhile reading several books and participating in discussions, an important point I had failed to observe was the objective of an Oral Assessment. If an Oral Assessment in the middle of the semester is supposed to be formative, its goal should be to diagnose areas for improvement. I asked myself: Have the Oral Assessment interviews I've been conducting with my students for years and years been diagnostic or judgmental? Due to my dissatisfaction with the way I had been assessing, or better, evaluating my students, as a final project for the Evaluation Class I had been taking at University, I decided to try something different.Considering that we can continuously assess our students orally during our classes, the oral assessment moment would be one more opportunity for focussing on the speaking skill, therefore, there would be no need to check every little word each student spoke.My proposal:1. ONE CLASS BEFORETell students about the oral assessment moment which will take place the following class and explain that they will be doing the same kind of activities they normally do in class. Show the rubrics to students:By explaining the rubrics to students, they could understand that my focus was not to write down every little mistake they make, but how well they can communicate with others. I also asked them why the item INTERACTION had a different mark (1-2-3-4) from the other items. They promptly answered "Because it's more important". I told them their marks (yes, for the school record there has to be a mark) would be a combination of 3 observations: my impressions, their own impressions and their peers' impressions.2. THE DAY OF THE ORAL ASSESSMENTThe idea is to use 40 minutes of a normal class ( we have two  80 minute classes a week) for the oral activities during which pairs or groups of students will be engaged in communicating while the teacher can move around the room observing and taking notes of their oral performance individually on the following marking sheet. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bzu68Gr4amCudmxzZWptT3FrVG8/editBefore the activity, organize the desks into 4 groups at different corners of the room ( I normally have a maximum of 16 students). So with bigger groups, I might have groups of 4 and in smaller groups, trios or pairs. On each corner of the room, there's a communicative activity they have to carry out for the period of 5 to 7 minutes. To set the time limit, I normally use http://www.youtubealarm.com/ , then when the time is over a song is played and students move to the next station and a different activity, like a "carrousel".This is a video I made of a group of students during the Oral Assessment moment. Do they seem nervous? After all the groups have covered the 4 stations or the 4 different activities, show the rubrics to the students again and ask them to write their impressions about their own performance and the performance of their partners (5 to 10 minutes). This is the form (in Portuguese ) that we used.3. THE FOLLOWING CLASS-The teacher shows the rubrics again reminding them they have been evaluated in 50 points. The total mark involves the mark given by the teacher, the students and their peers.- Ask for suggestions for how students can improve their oral performance in each of the items observed (Grammar, Vocabulary, Pronunciation and Interaction).- Cut out the squares from the form used by the teacher during the oral assessment and hand to individual students. Ask students to observe the aspects they did well and the points they need to improve.- Ask the whole group about the major difficulties they faced and what kind of activities they can do to improve their English.What comments did I get from students?"I didn't feel nervous!""Wow, I've never talked so much!" "This is much better!"" I don't want to do the other type of oral assessment anymore!" Points to consider:-You might question "If the objective is to have an ongoing assessment, why have an oral assessment moment?" Well, for the simple reason that, teachers at our school find it hard to abolish an evaluation moment. Another reason is to have a moment to pause and reflect with students about their progress.-I don't know if this "Carrousel" dynamics would be appropriate for all levels and all the groups. I've piloted the idea with Lower Intermediate and Upper Intermediate students and have been thrilled with the results.REFERENCES:https://comoavaliar.wikispaces.com/ http://duke.edu/arc/documents/The%20difference%20between%20assessment%20and%20evaluation.pdf

I've just learned from the amazing blog http://www.freetech4teachers.com/ about an interesting IOS app called ADOBE VOICE which allows us to create video stories.I just love storytelling and I was thinking of what story I would tell to try this out. The other day I was talking with a group of students of mine, some teenagers, about this love and hate chemistry. I was saying that sometimes feelings change and I mentioned that I knew that from experience.I caught their attention straight away. They all wanted to know about my love/hate story. I've been postponing this storytelling, but they don't seem to forget that, LOL. This week, we've been focussing on narrative tenses, trying to improve our storytelling by using different verb tense combinations. This is a video grammar class about the topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPQjKcnn2NoWell, back to my ADOBE VOICE trial. I thought to myself, why not use the opportunity to tell my story and see if they can notice the verb combinations we worked with last class?Last class, apart from doing grammar exercises with Simple Past, Past Continuous, Past Perfect and Past Perfect Continuous, I asked students to choose a story to tell: a funny story, an accident, a surprising story or meeting a famous person. They had 4 minutes to choose one of the topics and write notes which would help them tell their true story to a classmate. After pairs of students told their stories, I asked them to send me their stories via Edmodo.Next class, I'm going to start with notes I've written down about "Our love ? story" Can you guess my story? After students try to predict the story, I'll play the following video which I've created using ADOBE VOICE.http://voice.adobe.com/v/Nfo2ryMskoi A friend of mine, Lívia Fernandes and her very creative boyfriend, Matheus Pinheiro, created and Adobe video with their adaptation of the story "The secret of the king". I had to share it with you, it's really worth listening.How can we use ADOBE VOICE? This is a tutorial showing step by step how to create your own stories. The app is FREE and very intuitive.

Friday afternoon, we had one more APP FUN DAY at Cultura Inglesa Uberlândia.We are still focussing on apps which work OFFLINE and are available for both IOS and android devices, such as:- Songify - Instaquote - Buddypoke We had one hour to demonstrate the apps, try some possibilities, a hands-on activity and then pairs brainstormed other activities for their classrooms.These are the activities we tried together:Songify turns your recorded sentences into a songified version.Challenges for using the SONGIFY:- when recording you have to speak very close to the microphone.- covers of devices can muffle the sound and spoil the recording.- pronunciation has to be very clear to be understood.Having said that, we tried recording sentences and isolated words.With Instaquote you can create short texts with beautiful background and fonts. You can use default backgrounds or even your own photos.First, I asked teachers to imagine ways of ending the sentence "Where there is love, .......", create an instaquote with their sentence, share with others and choose the best one.Then, I asked them to try to guess the original quote, which was "Where there is love, there is life." by Mahatma Gandhi.Buddypoke is a great app for children and young teens. It allows you to create customisable characters and create video recordings using your own voice.For the background you can use default backgrounds provided by the app, grab pictures from your device or even use your camera.After having played with the three apps, before saying goodbye each teacher was handed an EXIT TICKET where they contributed with more ideas to use the apps.Their suggestions:SONGIFY- Each student records a short sentence about their last weekend and the partner tries to guess what it is.- Record 5 to 10 words and use the app to present a different dictation.- Students leave the room to record a sentence, then the sentence which is more easily understood gets a prize.INSTAQUOTE- Write definition to find out words. For example: Sentences using relative clauses (which, where) / It's a place where we buy food (they can use pictures in the background)- Students can prepare a gap fill sentence (using comparatives for example) and their friends have to fill in the blanks. As a round up, they can practise speaking and can elect the best or more creative background.BUDDYPOKE- Two students create a short dialogue (with two characters) about the subject they are studying and present the recording to the class.- Students can use it to give funny orders and their classmates have to obey. For ex: go to the front of the class and start dancing samba.- A student records directions using Buddypoke. The other student listens to the Buddypoke and follows the directions with the help of a map.Some examples:SONGIFY- A recording made by a student of mine where he reads two sentences in the First Conditional. Can you identify them?listen to ‘First conditional sentences’ on Audioboo This is a previous blog post where I explained the activity. http://lifefeast.blogspot.com.br/2012/08/songifying-first-conditional.htmlINSTAQUOTE- two instaquotes created as a test by Ana Cláudia.BUDDYPOKE- This is an example of what can be done by adding images from the web to the background. In this case, it's used to describe a bedroom.

Changing can be scary sometimes, but it can be refreshing too.LIFE FEAST has just been remodeled with the help of the very talented Savannah and Jenny from http://maiedae.blogspot.com.br/I wanted a template which reflected the way I am and the way I see things in life. What am I like? Well, the title of the blog can give anyone a hint. I value life, family, true friendship, I cherish moments such as being in the classroom with my students. I love flowers and delicate images. My personal and professional lives are forever entwined. I am simple with flaws and dreams. And above all, I love LEARNING and sharing.Life Feast is my virtual home, the place where I share, in a simple language, the things I like about teaching, what I try or would like to try with my students and whatever touches my heart.I started blogging in 2006 and little by little I found my voice as well as what I really wanted to share with others.With the help of an interesting website called WAYBACK MACHINE I was able to trace back the different looks Life Feast has had over the years.20062008 (header created by my daughter Camila)20102013Now, we're back to a cleaner look with a delicate touch. Thanks, Camila, for discovering the great work developed by Maiedae. Hope all of you enjoy the new look. :)

Last week, I was invited to facilitate a 3-hour mini course to EFL teachers from public schools in Uberlândia, Brazil. The topic I selected to work with was "Text Genres in English: exploring digital possibilities".I wanted it to be a course where teachers would explore different webtools themselves and then discuss about the possibilities.My plan was to use a Google Docs page as the basis of our course. As the course would take place at a school lab, I imagined each teacher would have access to a computer and we would use the google docs first as a space for synchronous brainstorming ( Part 1), as a guide for the activities we would develop, as a library with the links to resources we would use, as a notebook where participants would also post and share whatever they produced during the course.However, as usual, many things didn't go according to plan. The first problem we encountered was to get each teacher to be on one computer. Although the lab had several desktops, few of them were ready to be used, so teachers ended up having to share the same computer. Well, not a big problem, I thought, at least the internet was working.As soon as we started, I provided them with  the link bit.ly/cemepe1 and started our brainstorm activity by proposing two questions:I made the google docs public and after they discussed their ideas with a partner, they started typing their ideas synchronously. They were amazed with the fact that they could all type on the same document at the same time and were also able to see what others were typing. I could say this was a highlight that morning.The text genres I had selected to work that day were: poetry, message, poster, e-mail, text message, storytelling and the news.From that moment on, the hands-on mini course became more of a lecture, against my will.The internet was very slow and at times inexistent. Fortunately, I had a plan B with all the activities on a powerpoint presentation, so instead of trying out the tasks, I explained what the tool allowed us to develop and showed some images with examples.By the end of our course, participants got together and exchanged ideas about what tools they imagined using with their own students and what activities they could develop.In spite of all the problems we faced, the opportunity to be in contact with these teachers and also learn from their realities was priceless. Right below, I bring a feedback message posted by one of the participants in Portuguese (our native language).If you would like to see our google docs, click HERE. In June, we're having the second part of this mini course. 

I love exploring tools which allow our students to share what they produce using English. This week, I noticed Tackk for the first time. This post has the objective to briefly explain how it works and also share some examples of tackk projects and assignments which I've come across.WHAT CAN YOU PRODUCE WITH TACKK?Tackk allows you to publish photos, videos, audios, maps and forms. It's great for digital portfolios, assignments, promoting events, storytelling, book and film reports and so much more, all it's needed is your creativity. The site is free and it's DEVICE NEUTRAL, a term I learned from Lisa Johnson today. And what does that mean? It works on laptops, Ipads, and cell phones (IOS and androids), therefore it's perfect for BYOD. Students can create a tackk page without signing up, however, it is deleted after one week. If you wish to have your content saved, consider creating your free account. https://tackk.com/To learn how it works, watch the tutorial below:For references on how teachers have been using it, I suggest the reading of two blog posts and the TACKK education page: From Freetech4teachersFrom EmergingedtechAs I believe we can learn a lot by checking examples, these are some I've collected:Try scrolling the image above to see the rest of this tackk page.MORE EXAMPLES:This assignment was to answer the question "How would you increase the peace?"  Students added the tag #PeaceDay2013, this way all the pages created by them can be found on the same board. https://tackk.com/board/peaceday2013Márcia Lima and Marjana Smolcec have been developing a collaborative project (Brazil + Croatia) and a final task developed by their students was a presentation about a city in their countries. Check out two of their amazing tackks: https://tackk.com/gq09ek and https://tackk.com/rio (Juliana's presentation).This teacher developer created a page to present some webtools and apps  https://tackk.com/qslelhMy second trial making a page with a simple recipe https://tackk.com/334dcyThe very creative Lisa Johnson used a tackk page as a virtual handout after a presentation, adding the resources shared. https://tackk.com/agdf1gHave you ever had your students use Tackk? If so, please use the comment area to share your project with us.

This post is dedicated to a dear friend, Márcia Lima, who introduced me to FUZE, the webtool I'll be talking about today.According to the website, Fuze is an online meeting platform for Mac, Windows, IOS and Androids, in other words, it's a device neutral platform which allows people to meet online (for free) and share content.So you might say, "That's the same thing we can do with Skype, Google hangouts, Adobe Connect and Wiziq". Well, not quite. As far as I know:- With the free version of Skype, nowadays, you can't have more than two webcams working, no screen sharing and your meeting is not recorded.- With Google hangouts, although you can share your screen and record your meeting, you have a limit of 10 webcams.- Adobe Connect is perfect for webinars and online meetings, however (this is a big BUT), it is paid.- Wiziq would be the best alternative here. The free version allows several webcams to work and you have the possibility to record some of your sessions.To start my exploration, I watched some of their videos, such as this one: Fuze Content Collaboration from Fuze on Vimeo.With the FREE plan you can have:As with all the webtools and apps I decide to use with my students, I wanted to try it out first. Márcia promptly accepted my invitation to give it a go on a Saturday Morning. Our trial video is in Portuguese, our mother tongue, but you can have an idea how our exploration happened. What we liked about it:It's free.It runs on different devices and systems (Mac, Windows, IOS and Androids)You have a whiteboard to write on.You can share different files such as word, ppt, pdf, images and videos.You can share your screen.There is a chat box.You can have 25 people using their webcams (I haven't tried the quality of the session with many participants).It seems simple to use.It's very easy to start an instant meeting by creating a room and sharing the link with another person provided you have already downloaded Fuze.What we didn't like about it:You can't record the meeting with the free version ( I used Quicktime on my Mac to record our meeting).The files I shared didn't work so well on the Ipad. The only file Márcia could see was the image I shared. However, when I started another meeting on my Ipad, the video worked just fine.You have to download the product before you join a meeting.