domingo, 29 de marzo de 2015

7 Tools for Building Review Games


This week I received at least a half dozen emails from people who were looking for suggestions for creating review games or practice quizzes for their students. The following are the tools that I suggested in reply to those emails. One teacher's needs are little bit different from another's so this list covers a fairly wide range of options.

TinyTap is a good iPad and Android app for creating your own review games based on pictures and diagrams. You can create games in which students have to identify parts of picture or diagram. You can also build games in which your students have to assemble a puzzle by dragging and dropping pieces into place (the puzzle does not have to follow the jigsaw puzzle format). Click here to see a selection of games that teachers have made and published through TinyTap. 

ClassTools.net offers a handful of templates for building your own educational games. Through ClassTools.net you could build a Pac-Man style game, a Connect Four style of game, or build a QR code treasure hunt for your students.

Socrative and Kahoot continue to be my two favorite platforms for hosting fast-paced review quizzes. Both services allow you to create quizzes and host quizzes that your students complete through their mobile devices or laptops. Students can receive instant feedback on each question (if you allow that option) and a final score. In both tools you can include pictures as part of your questions. Socrative allows you to host team activities that they call "space races."

If a Jeopardy-style game is what you're after, eQuizShow,Jeopardy Rocks, and FlipQuizare worth giving a try. None of the three services requires you to download any files to create your activities. All three services provide text-based questions for free. eQuizShow and FlipQuiz support picture-based questions if you upgrade to their premium plans. Click here to learn more about FlipQuiz, eQuizShow, and Jeopardy Rocks.

martes, 17 de marzo de 2015

Useful YouTube tools


When most people think about YouTube they think sharing videos and or about all of the videos they can discover. Most people don't think about the useful editing tools that are built into YouTube. The YouTube video editor has some useful features for teachers and students.

1. Create photo slideshows. The YouTube photo slideshow creation tools allow you to specify the length of time that each image is displayed for. After uploading your images you can use the annotations tool to add as much text as you like to each frame of your video. Directions for creating a YouTube photo slideshow areavailable here.

2. Create slow-motion videos. The most recent addition to the YouTube editing tools is an option to record videos with a regular speed camera and then turn that into a slow-motion video. Directions for doing this are available here.

3. Use annotations to create a linked series of videos (or choose your own adventure videos). Directions for doing this are available here

4. Blurring faces in your videos. Directions are available here

5. Stabilizing shaky footage and adding color/ light filters to your videos.
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6. Add captions to your videos.
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7. Add a music track to your video.  
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8. Hide your video from public search results.Under the privacy settings select "unlisted" or "private."
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martes, 3 de marzo de 2015

Una aplicación que ayuda a digitalizar archivos para su almacenamiento y organización


(Fuente:Educ.ar)

Captricity es una alternativa para la extracción, almacenamiento y organización de archivos. El programa lleva de forma rápida textos a formato digital para que estos puedan ser leídos o editados dentro de una PC.

Funciona de manera bastante sencilla. El usuario tiene que tomar una fotografía del texto que desea digitalizar utilizando la cámara de su dispositivo móvil o en todo caso, escanear el papel.

Una vez realizado este proceso, los resultados se deben arrastrar a la carpeta que la aplicación tiene en Dropbox. Luego, el usuario sólo debe ingresar a la plataforma de Captricity para encontrar modificado su documento.

Los resultados finales pueden organizarse en la aplicación, desde donde uno puede crear carpetas para el almacenamiento de documentos a los que se les quiera dar un uso posterior.

Es importante mencionar que el servicio no sólo modifica textos en físico, sino también documentos en PDF.