Instagram and Vine

Another two pieces of technology for use in the classroom are Instagram and Vine.  Both are highly popular among the younger crowds.  There are various things you can use them for in the classroom.

Instagram 

These two pictures I took of my children.  As an educator, Instagram can be used in a variety of ways.  One of the obvious ways to use Istagram is to document memories throughout the year.  The yearbook club could make great use of this program.  Almost everyone's smartphone has a pretty good phone.  What better way than to use the tool and be able to tag who ever is in the picture.  It would make the lives of the yearbook committee a lot easier if students could take pictures using instagram and take the yearbook committee/class in the picture to use at a later date. 

I also liked the idea of using Instagram as a way to document what a famous person might say or post.  The students would have to place themselves in the role of the famous person and to do that, the student would have to have some background knowledge of the person. 

Students could also use Instagram to document the stages in experiments.  It would be great to be able to capture the processes. 

Vine

Here are some clips from the Vine. 



This is my daughter, Kenna getting ready for the Aggie football game. 

Students in the classroom can act out the main idea or big picture of different subjects.  I like that since it is looped, formulas can be studied for math and science. 

Since again, this smart tool is easily accessed with a smart phone, creative ideas can take place in the classroom with using technology. 

Information Curation

Scoop it is a web tool that allows its users to create a webpage with personalized topics of interest.  It is great because you create something that is based on your likes and personal touches.  This information curation tool would be great for teachers to use to make a webpage dedicated to various topics.  It is really easy to create a web page and edit to the users specifications.  Simply sign in using your Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.  You can simply edit what types of information you would like to include and the tool gives the user suggestions for the topics they selected.  Easy and neat to work with. 

 



Paper.li is a webtool used to create an online newspaper.  Think of the countless ways teachers could use this tool.  Plus it is free.  Can't get any better than that.  Users can sign up through Twitter or Facebook.  You are able to import information from Twitter, Google, You Tube, Facebook or RSS. 
It was really effortless to create the newspaper. 

 

 

Prismatic is a tool that users can use to create a webfeed.  There is an option of logging in via Facebook, Google, Twitter, or use the creation of the users own preference of name and password.  I like that this webtool allows users to sign in with a choice or creating their sign ins.  I found this tool to be a little more difficult to work with.  It is not as user friendly as the other two so far.  It is a little similar to Pinterest. 

 

 

Zite is an application for creating a personal magazine in which the user picks the topics to be addressed in the magazine.  It is obviously personalized to the extent of the topics selected.  However, there are times when the feed does not work or when the types of feeds do not necessarily fit the personal selections.  It is a creative ap that can allows the users to filter information to their personal desires. 

 

 

 

 

Flipboard is similar to Zite but the interface is a very different. It is more creative and is more interactive than that of Zite.  Users can save articles for a later read.  Users flip through the different pages making more like that of a magazine.  I find the information a little hard to read at times, but of course there is an option to have it on an Ipad or larger screen smart devices.  This one seems to be my favorite simply because it is user friendly and acts more like an actual magazine. An added plus is being able to listen to music when browsing.   

 

 

Google Currents is my least favorite application.  It is the least creative visually.  I like that you can save the articles.  I find it difficult to read some of the articles.  It is a great tool to be able to change it to different languages.  On another positive note, it can be linked to users other Google accounts. 

 

 

 

 



Screencasts

Really great way for teachers to educate their students would be through the use of screencasts.  This will work really well with upper elementary all the way to college to demonstrate and elaborate on projects due in class.

Here is one of the free websites that people can use called screencast-o-matic.  This is a quick sample of how a teacher can use the screencast to demonstrate a Toondoo.  This tool is really easy to use and very user friendly.  It was fairly easy to save and get a link to my video.  The process was painless :)




Here is another tool used to create a screencast called Screenr.  This website is another easy to use web based screen recorder.  Just make sure your laptop or computer is equipped with a microphone if you wish to records any details you would like to add. 

This is an example of how teachers can demonstrate how to narrow searches when doing research.  Too many times, students are required to do some type of research and the Internet generates millions of responses.  The following is a way to limit the number of responses while obtaining just the information of what is sought. 






Out of the two, screencast-o-matic seemed to give me the least amount of problems.  I had an extremely hard time logging into Screenr to be able to save my screencast.  It was less tedious to use screencast-o-matic.  Two thumbs up.  Whoop.

Playing with Words

Here are some word tools to use to create different pictures.  Below are some examples of different tools, both from a website as well as a phone application. 

Tagxedo-http://www.tagxedo.com/


This is probably one of the best of the word tools to use.  This free website allows users to create a word cloud with various formats.  Users can words from blogs, twitter accounts, tags, or  you can type your own words.  Users can change the shapes of the word cloud, as well as the font, color, theme and orientation.  I liked that there is a wide variety of shapes to choose from.  The entire process is not as user friendly as I would have liked, but it is easy enough to play around with. 


Wordle-http://www.wordle.net/





  

Wordle is a neat and free website for creation of word clouds.  There are two ways to input the word selection: manually typing or URL.  Once created, the user can change the layout, delete common words based on language, font or color.  Users can then save or print out their Wordle.  I did like the simpleness of the website but users were limited on choices within the layout, fonts, and colors. 

Tagul-http://tagul.com/

Tagul is another free website that allows users to create a word cloud with a creation of an account.  This was probably the hardest of the three to work with.  Users can enter the text from a URL, from text or from an uploaded list of texts.  I did like that users can create a list of words to filter when creating a word cloud.  There are limited shapes and sizes to choose from, as well as fonts and color.  But unlike the previous two websites, users can animate the picture. 





Quipio-available on

This application allows users to choose a picture and add text to the picture.  It is really a trend right now.  It does not take long either.  You can upload a picture or use one in the gallery.  Then decided on the font and placement of the text.  After it is created, users can share the picture with Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr or Twitter.  I really enjoyed this one. 

Recite This

http://piccsy.com/post/view/2587427

 

http://piccsy.com/post/view/2587445

 

This is a website that allows user to do what Quipio does with the phone application.  It allows users to write text on top of selected pictures  Users can create and post the pictures via Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest and Stumbleupon.  It does give a link to refer back to the created picture.  You are really limited on the selection of backgrounds and you cannot upload your own chosen pictures. 

 

Students could use these websites in a variety of ways.  As an ELA teacher, a student could upload the text from an essay to make sure there are not too many words repeated.  This would be an easy way to check.  As a class, students and teachers could create a word cloud to demonstrate comprehension of a book read.  The more important words would be larger because they would occur more often in the text.   They could also be used for surveys.  The list can go on and on.  Point is, here is another tool for teachers to use some technology in the classroom.

Cartoon and Comics

With kids back to touch with reading comic books such as the Diary of the Wimpy Kid, what better to learn about than how to make some of your own.  The following are some websites to consider using. 

ToonDoo

This comic strip was easy to create.  It did take a while to figure out how to navigate through the different selections.  I do not think students would have a hard time utilizing it at all.  I was pretty easy to save, although I would have preferred to see a save button set aside instead of using a drop down menu.  I would have like to have been able to print out just the comic strip without all of other parts of the webpage.  It did give an option to be able to upload pictures and other clip art so the user is not limited to what is available on the webpage. 



Pixton




This website is by far the easiest to use.  It works a lot like Microsoft Word where you can type and edit at free will.  This makes it a lot easier for students to use because most are familiar with Word.  It was also easy to create and save.  There are a large amount of options of templates to use.  These comics can be created really quickly when needed.  I would definitely recommend this site to use.  It is FREE but does need an account created to use. 



MakebeliefsComics

 

This website is free and does not require registration.  It is easy to create and email yourself or others the created strips.  It was a lot harder to navigate throughout the selections.  It was hard to view them in smaller icons and you had to go through them one by one.  It took a lot longer to create this one. It also did not have an option to upload your own pictures.  Students would be able to use this website but it would be the easiest or the most interesting. 

 

There is also a neat ap called Tellagami.  It is FREE too.  check out mine.

https://tellagami.com/gami/CYDNQY/