EPALS GLOBAL COMMUNITY

E-Pals is
the leading provider of safe collaborative technology for schools to connect
and learn in a protected, project-based learning network. With classrooms in
200 countries and territories, ePals makes it easy to connect learners locally,
nationally or internationally (epals.com)
http://www.epals.com/projects/info.aspx?divid=spotlight_main
Main Features
Teachers
work collaboratively with other Teachers and their classrooms. There are 200 countries to select from. Teachers
select a country. They contact a
teacher who would be interested in working on a project. Both teachers and classrooms begin working on
the project while each of them share information and knowledge.
Potential Application in the
classroom: This is a perfect project to involve my
students in learning about students in a Spanish speaking country. Both my American students and the Spanish
speaking students will learn to respect each other’s differences and learn about
the culture. This is an awesome
icebreaker project for students in the beginning of the semester. It is fun, interesting and so important. It provides a lot of reflection about each
other’s culture and sparks interest and curiosity. They not only learn about each other but
about the country. See below for
detailed description.
http://www.epals.com/projects/info.aspx?DivID=TheWayWeAre_overview
Level of Difficulty – very easy especially because its
through email and teacher monitors.
Conclusion: This tool is worth learning.
Students will walk away learning about each other and another
country. Teachers get to see how
collaborative learning and communication through email with foreign students
helps them learn Spanish.

WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER

Windows Movie Maker is a video creating/editing software
application, included in Microsoft Windows Me, XP, and Vista. It contains
features such as effects, transitions, titles/credits, audio track, timeline
narration, and Auto Movie. New effects and transitions can be made and existing
ones can be modified using XML code. Windows Movie Maker is also a basic audio
track editing program. It can apply basic effects to audio tracks such as fade
in or fade out. The audio tracks can then be exported in the form of a sound
file instead of a video file.
(Wikipedia)
Level of Difficulty and Time required for learning: This is a very easy program to learn and you can learn to use it without so much technical knowledge. It is user friendly. It requires basic computer skills.

Potential application in the classroom: This is an excellent program I use in the
classroom. The students love using it because they can be creative and learn Spanish. They put their ideas to life and students always enjoy video and
laughing and enjoying each other’s projects. The students picked up learning this program quicker than I did. This tool is worth learning. You can do so much with this tool. This tool helps to motivate students, especially in a foreign language class to actively participate and be comfortable with each other. So many
students are afraid to speak Spanish or act but I notice that with this program
students have so much fun and where there is fun there is learning! It’s interactive and necessary in a foreign language program. I use it during my
unit to teach the news unit. Students create a news program.
Click on youtube link to see a demo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9fmeJZgy6E

Wallwisher

Wall Washerhttp://www.wallwisher.com/

Wallwisher is “an online notice board maker.” It is a place where you can post announcements and keep notes. There is a 160 character limit for each post, but you can post multiple times.

While you cannot create the full web link name you are allowed to create the last part. For example all links have to have www.wallwisher.com/wall/, the creator of the wall is allowed to create the last part of the url.  There is a tool to create an html code so you can embed your wall in other websites.

Difficulty:
The level of difficulty is very easy. It is very intuitive to use. To start you do not even have to create an account, you can just start, which is odd because every website these days requires you make an account to use. If you do create an account it takes two seconds, as they only ask you for a profile name and email.

The one benefit of making an account is you are able to restrict access to your wall. The bad thing is the restrictions are not that good. You can choose to make the wall completely private to only yourself, the wall creator, or to anyone on the web. There are two options, who can view and who can post.

The one other option you have if you create an account is you can choose to approve every post.  This tool makes up for the first one, so if some random person finds your class wall and tries to post the teacher can deny the post before it goes public.

When creating a wall, there are only a few options you must complete

Select an image(that is used in the corner of the wall), create a title, create a web address, and choose a theme.

Once you create your wall all you have to do to create a post is double click the wall and a stick note is created for you to type your 160 characters.

You are also able to add a web link, audio, or video to each of your posts

Don’t like;

I do not like the way you have to add audio and video. You have to add the url but many times I would much rather upload an audio or video or image file instead of putting in a url.

I tested out added an image url and video url from a website, both could not be loaded on the Wallwisher website. A message came up asking me to click this link to view the content. So I might as well just add the url in my post instead of the web tool having an extra feature that seems able to imbed things but couldn’t.

I also do not like the limited control over the theme of my wall. You have a choice of 12 themes but once you select the theme that’s it. You cannot select background colors and text colors independently of each other. So in one test I used a white background theme but the text in each post was also white. Looking at the wall as a whole was a pain but if you click on each post the background of each post does turn black for easier reading.

I would also like more control of restrictions. For example to use this in the classroom I would like to keep the wall private to the entire class or so that the whole class could view a wall but only a select few students can post. Right now there are only a few options, either viewing (and posting) is restricted to only the creator or to everyone on the web.

Potential in the Classroom
I think this has a very cool potential in the classroom. It can be used as a place for the teacher to post announcements that allows the students to comment on. The Teacher can create a wall to get feedback on a project to see how the class liked it. The teacher could post a picture, website, or video and ask for the students to type a response to it.

Because the teacher can move the posts, a good idea is to have the students talk about a controversial issue, and the teacher can move the posts to each side of the wall, one side supporting one view, the other side supporting the opposite view.

I think it could be a cool area for group projects or group discussions. It has a different feel and look than the normal discussion boards, so it might be nice change of pace.

The only drawback is that when you open up access to post to anyone beside yourself(the teacher) anyone can post to it but I think the website accounts for this and gives the teacher a tool to approve each post.

Conclusion

I think this is a cool tool to use for groups work, collaboration work, as a means of having a small discussion that has a different look and feel than the usual discussion forums. It is also a cool way to respond and connect with a posted website, or video, or picture that the teachers posts.

I like how you can create a wall and imbed it into your distance learning tool and it can be shared on facebook

The positives are much better than the drawbacks.

Quizlet

Quizlet is an online interactive study guide. Teachers or
students can create their own study questions and flashcards to help prepare
for an assessment. Teachers can create the entire study guide and allow
students to access the website by telling the students the name of study guide.
Students can then go on Quizlet.com and find the study guide designed
specifically for their class. Quizlet also uses the terms and definitions to
create games and tests that the students can take using the information
provided by the teacher. Students just need to be told what the study guide
name was and they can search for it and find the study guide without even
logging in or having an account.

Quizlet does take a little time to get used to. However, if you take 20-30
minutes to play around with its capabilities one can quickly find out how
valuable Quizlet.com could be for a classroom. Students will enjoy the games
and find the practice to be very useful reinforcement. Quizlet is absolutely
worth the trouble of learning how to create the sets of flashcards. It has
excellent capabilities for both English and social studies. It can be more
difficult to set up good flashcards for mathematics, but it is still worthwhile
when it comes to learning vocabulary.

In order to play around with some flashcards I have made for
this class, please go to Quizlet.com and search ETAP - 638. Take your time and
try the tests and games. It is an excellent web 2.0 tool!

Animoto

Animoto

Main Features
Animoto is a tool online that can be used to make amazing slideshow presentations. It works great and is a lot of fun. Animoto allows you to put your pictures and video clips together, back it up with music, and use high definition graphics and text to put together a slideshow. One you put in all you want, Animoto puts it all together and makes it fit together nicely. It can be used for fun to show your friends, or it can be used in a professional setting. Everything created is unique to you.

Level of Difficulty
Animoto is relatively easy to use. All you need to do upload whatever pictures you would like and whatever music you want to go along with it. You don’t need a great deal of computer experience in order to use it. A background of PowerPoint can go a long way towards helping you work with Animoto.

Potential Application in the Classroom
Animoto can be a great tool for any teacher. Lectures and presentations can sometimes be boring for students, but Animoto helps things more exciting and engaging. It allows you to put pictures in great detail with music to help set the tone you’re looking for. Animoto will help you make it all flow together.

Conclusion
Animoto is a tool worth learning. It can be a great way to put information together in a fun and informative way, while also impressing people. What you create with Animoto is very impressive and very easy to create.

ZooBurst

ZooBurst (http://www.zooburst.com)

Main Features

ZooBurst is a free website (with the option of paying for upgrades) that helps you create digital 3D pop-up books. Images from the website’s clipart gallery can be added to the book or other images can be uploaded to incorporate into the book to “pop-up” off the pages. Each image and text has the capability of adding a clickable hyperlink. The book is capable of being inspected and rotated from any angle while building the book by the author and also while viewing the book by the reader. There is an expanded text feature for each page and also an audio recording feature to add voices and sounds. There is also a “webcam mode” to view the digital books which requires the reader to have a webcam. The experience of the “webcam mode” is referred to as “augmented reality” by zooburst.com. The images of the pages are superimposed with a screenshot of the viewer. The augmented reality mode allows the reader to interact with the images by using simple gestures to digitally turn the book’s pages. The digital pop-up books can be viewed on the website using a hyperlink (see my creation below), or embedded into other websites pages.

Level of Difficulty

This website is pretty easy to use and navigate through however it is extremely time consuming to create one book. Sign-up for the website is required in order to create books (but the basic account is free). The clip art, as far as the ones I chose from the website, were not the greatest quality images. I opted to upload several pictures instead of using the clipart available.

Classroom Application

I could definitely see a teacher using this website as an option for students to create a digital pop-up book to present research from a long term project. Since it only requires an e-mail and is free, it is easy to sign up for. The website also has a “classroom management” feature for teachers, which allows them to set up a protected and safe online environment for students where they can share usernames, passwords, personal information, etc. without the threat of online predators.

Conclusion

I tried building a book of my own on Taxonomy in Biology (click here to view it: http://www.zooburst.com/book/zb03_4edab1ea28a99). It was fun at first to play around with all the different features and to view the finished digital pop-up book product, but it became extremely time consuming. This website definitely encompasses several aspects of the “participatory culture” that we live in right now. “Technology has made it easy for everyday people to take media in their own hands; create, share, express themselves, archive, appropriate, remix and recirculate content” (Henry Jenkins). Overall, I would probably use this as an optional presentation outlet if students chose to utilize it.

Chime.in

www.chime.in

Main Features: Chime.in is a new social networking site that unlike Twitter, which is centered around following specific people, or Facebook which is focused on networking friends and families, Chime.in focuses on networking people of similar interests. Users can search set up a “Chimeline” which organizes their interests into a RSS like newsfeed which are made up of individual “Chimes.” These Chimes can be can be made up of 5000 characters and can contain attachments such as multimedia, outside links, or polls. Users can create their own Chimes as well which are organized in a blog like fashion based on the topic. One very interesting feature is that Chime.in will also give users 50% of the revenue it earns from selling advertisement on their profiles, thus providing a monetary incentive to chime in.

Level of Difficulty: Chime.in is still in a beta phase and everything including layout or features is subject to change. It feels like a Frankenstein mash up of Twitter, Facebook, a RSS feed, and a blog (but in a good way). It would likely take someone with an intermediate/high background in social networking a day or two to really get comfortable with all the different features and buttons on the website (I’m still learning my self). Once the site completes the beta stage, I don’t see Chime.in being any more or less difficult to use then any other social networking/media site such as Facebook or Twitter. For someone with basic computer/social networking skills however, Chime.in might be very overwhelming as there is just so much going on even on the basic dashboard screen. Hopefully this is something that can be addressed in time.

Potential Classroom Applications: I think Chime.in could potentially be much more impactful in the classroom than any social media to date. Teachers can set up classroom communities and allow for students and faculty to contribute and comment on each other’s chimes. As they site grows teachers could assign students different interests relating to the subject material. For example, a Participation in Government class could assign students to follow U.S Politics and contribute in a discussion about a current event.

Conclusions: I believe that this tool is definitely worth using as it allows for lots of different levels of interactivity. If you just want to keep up with your interests and follow a few things you can do that. Or if you want it to be, Chime.in could be your own personal blog (and potentially even get paid for it). A lot of times jack-of-all-trades applications end up mediocre, but Chime.in has the potential to really excel at everything it is trying to do.