Jigzone

I used to subscribe to the website Jigzone years ago, but it became too addictive. Especially if you have the jigsaws emailed to you everyday! But it is a great educational tool, all you have to do is upload a jpeg, choose how many pieces you want then embed into a blog, website or wiki...or hyperlink through PowerPoint to the link where your Jigzone has been saved.

This activity has been created in Jigzone. Upload a photo to Jigzone, set the number of pieces and save it. I created these images in PowerPoint by typing in all the words, rearranging them, inserting a shape behind them, grouping all the images and then right clicking to use the option 'Save as Picture'. Then I uploaded the image to Jigzone. I could then hyperlink the image I had made from PowerPoint to the jigsaw I had made.

This is a photo that a child took of another child playing on the Adventure Playground.

Scribd - Presentation Software

Scribd is my new favourite online presentation tool. It is very simple to upload documents, and accepts many types of files (PowerPoint, Word, PDF and picture file formats jpeg etc). This is a wonderful way to showcase children's published work online as it embeds into Blogs and Wikis. Below is an example of a Word document.

Where the Wild Things Are Activities - Upload a Document to Scribd

Big Huge Labs 'Curriculum use of Photos'

Big Huge Labs
has a multitude of applications that can be used in an educational context mainly as different ideas for publishing or presenting. If your school blocks Flickr though you might not be able to use it. Occasionally you might see some questionable advertising that you might like to advise your students to ignore. Click on images to see a larger version.

Motivational Posters

Insert a photo and type in an inspirational message, choose a frame.

Bead Art

Digitises photos and turn into beads

Jigsaw

Photos are turned into jigsaws with some pieces missing.

Picture Cube

Create your own dice with photos and graphics.

Magazine Cover

Create your own magazine cover with photo and words

Wahorliser

Turn a photo into a Warhol picture.
And there are many more if you click on the 'Jump to Menu' options

Kerpoof - Motivate children's writing

Kerpoof is a great piece of software that you can use to motivate










children's writing. It is free, colourful and interactive.
Make a Picture - choose a background and make a picture using the graphics provided, use the text button to add text to the page. Print the page out as full A4 or as a card. You can also choose to print it out in full colour or as a colouring book page.

Make a Movie option allows you to create a movie with moving objects. There are 7 different story lines to pick from, several scene pages and a limited amount of graphics for each page. Choose from the animation list to animate the objects. Text can be added to the scene as well. It can be saved to an account at Kerpoof or printed.

Make a drawing has drawing tools where you can create a picture and print it out.

Make a card has 8 preset cards including Birthday, Thank you etc. with a limited set of graphics to add.

The Make a Story is my favourite option with 19 different scenes, some graphics, text boxes and text speech bubbles. You can also add more scenes to the story.

This would be a great site for those children who don't have anything to write about as it provides the scenes and graphics, but they get to add the words. They can manipulate the graphics and can add their own drawings to it by using the pen tool. It prints out beautifully as well.

VoiceThread

Voicethread is a collaborative space of group conversations.
The example below is created by a student called Zoe in America, she designed it around her interest in Global Warming.

Zoe's Global Warming Voicethread

A VoiceThread can be created using documents, videos and photos. Comments can be added by registered users by text or voice.

They can be exported to your computer as a widescreen movie and to wikis, blogs and webpages. You can use a variety of images: JPG, GIF, BMP, PNG; docs: PPT, PPS, PDF, DOC, XLS; and videos. If you've got a Flickr account, you can import from those as well.
It has a 'doodle' feature which means you can draw over the images to make a point while you are recording your voice.
Classroom Application:
a way for children within the class to collaboratively present

• an investigation
• book report
• any writing genre (recounts, reports, explanations, descriptions, procedural etc)
  
• technology challenge

Or for children as in Zoe's example to invite experts outside of the classroom environment to comment or answer questions

Sketchcast

Sketchcast is an online drawing and writing programme. This is a great way to record your voice, draw pictures and type text realtime and then play it back as a movie. You can stop and start the recording at anytime, it can be embedded in a blog or a wiki, or can be viewed through your account. What are the applications for the classroom?

• retelling a story
• showing the workings of a math problem
• Tic Tac Toe
• teaching a new concept
• publishing a story

Toondoo and Creating Comics

Since posting on this blog about Kerpoof, I have been directed to another comic making interactive online site. This one is called ToonDoo. You can make 1-3 page comics using numerous backgrounds and graphics. You can change the body position of the figures and facial expressions. There are lots of props and drawing tools to create your own backgrounds. You can save the comics and publish for everyone to see or you can publish privately. If you publish for anybody to see then anybody can comment. That was the only problem with this programme were the comments as they could be inappropriate for children. Some of the cartoons made by other people were a little dodgy as well.
The actual editing page is fine but the main home page changes all the time so you are never sure what is going to pop up. But it is still a worthwhile site to use with careful monitoring. Particularly for younger children I would set up the editing page for them, then there is no need for them to see the home page.
There is no download feature which is a shame as it would be great to download the comic and print it whole screen. But there are always ways around this, you can print out the page when it is in View mode, cut out the comic and glue on to other paper. Or you can take a screen capture (Windows: press the Print Screen button on your keyboard, open Paint, Press Ctrl V and then use the square selector tool to crop the area you need. Copy paste that piece into the Wordprocessor of your choice) Mac Users press Shift, Ctrl, Option and 4, click and drag around the comic, paste into your wordprocessor page.
Again this is another great interactive writing motivating tool.

UDL Book Builder

Discovered this website UDL Book Builder where you can create, read and share digital books. You do need to register to create books.

Click on Create and Edit books. There are plenty of guides to help you create books

You can add your own graphics and photos. If you are making a story using photos of your children, comicfy them by changing them in a photo editing programme like Photofiltre.

UDL has lots of helpful tips on the way, they help you to write text, choose images, add audio clips and glossary terms, and there are prompts, hints, and models for your books. You can use your published books with students online, download them to your computer, copy them to a CD, or share them with others by clicking on "Share to Library."

Here is an example of a book

Teachers can use this site to create their own books for children or students can publish their own work.