Getting Started with ToonDoo

ToonDoo Getting Started Guide

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Import your PowerPoint slides into a Prezi

Did you know that you can now import your PowerPoint slides into a Prezi presentation? Watch the video below to find out how.
 Haven't got a Prezi Education account yet, click here to Sign Up!

3 Simple Online Countdown Timers

1. Online Egg Timer (MAX 90min)

2. iPad Online Countdown Timer. (not just for iPads) (MAX 99hr)

 

3. Countdown Timer (MAX 60min)

Tips and tricks - VoiceThread

VoiceThread is a pretty cool tool. It allows users to facilitate conversation similar to a blog or an Edmodo type social networking application, but with the restriction to a series of slides. Here are a couple of tips to get the most out of VT for your presentation:

Export PowerPoints to PDF for upload:

For some reason or another when uploading .ppt files the VT application has the tendency to jumble text and images around. Simply saving your .ppt presentation as a PDF will eliminate this issue.

The create PDF function can in the File tab under Save & Send in MS PowerPoint 2010.

Less is more:

If students are uploading PowerPoints to their VT put a limit on how much text can go on each slide itself. There is no point in a student just reading what they have on the slide in their VT comments. To take this to another level you could get the students to only upload .jpg (picture) files, this could save a small amount of time as students wouldn't have to muck around with PowerPoint.

Mix it up:

To avoid your VTs becoming a bit dry or boring mix up the type of  comments you put up. Make a rule with your students that they should use an equal mix of the comment features e.g. text, audio, webcam and drawing.

4 things that make "Glogster" better than "GlogsterEDU"

We have been using GlogsterEDU for about the past 12 months now, while the initial reaction was great and many of our classes started using it right away, the use of it has died off significantly. Many teachers said that they grew frustrated with it over time, while some of these issues no doubt were to do with our network stability, it was not until I compared the "Glogster" and "GlogsterEDU" that I wondered are we really getting the most for of our education subscription.
I noticed 4 pretty obvious features that are in the standard platform which I would highly recommend being integrated into the education platform:

Portrait & landscape templates VS one size fits all:

Left: standard platform w/ portrait & landscape templates. Right: EDU platform w/ no templates.

Glogster's catch-cry "poster yourself" says it all here. Why wouldn't you  give the education subscribers the ability to create landscape posters?

Sleek interface VS cluttered & kiddish interface: 

Left: standard platform w/ sleek interface. Right: EDU platform w/ kiddish elements.

OK, so I get the EDU platform is aimed at children, however I think the teddy bear and the loading "donut" give the application a fairly immature feel. It is also interesting to compare the differences in the "dashboards" in each of platforms, the EDU one is considerable more cluttered, however this could be because the platform offers more features such as projects and classes that need to go here. The standard platform is sleek and stylish, and because of this the interface is more simplistic to use.

"Private Print" button VS no obvious print button:

Left: standard platform w/ private print button. Right: edu platform w/o print button (users must right click their Glog and select "Print Glog")

Once again the users of this application are creating a poster, it would be great if you could easily print it. A user should not have to figure out that they need to right click the Glog to be able to get the print option.

Embed option VS one size fits all (or does it?):

Left: standard platform w/ three embed options. Right: EDU platform with no options.

Have you ever tried embedding a EDU Glog into your blog? It doesn't quite work as the sizing is a bit too big. Of course you can always fiddle around with the HTML code, but should you really expect students to know or have to do this? In the standard platform you get three options when embedding; Full size (960x1300), blog size (560x768), feed (sidebar) size (360x488).

How To Download a Prezi.

A common question we seem to get is, how do you download a Prezi you have done so you can share/show it to the class?
The answer isn’t however straight forward. Yes you can download a Prezi, but is it the best option for sharing and presenting if you have a reliable Internet connection?  I believe not, being a web2.0 tool Prezi is best viewed on the Internet for many reasons, here are just a few:

• Embedded YouTube  videos on your Prezi will only display when you are viewing your Prezi on the Internet. If you download your Prezi these videos will not be included in the package.
• Downloading and sharing your Prezi is cumbersome and time consuming. As a rule the files to download for a Prezi are quite large which means downloading them can take quite a while. Alternatively sharing the link of your Prezi with fellow students and teachers via email is both quick and easy.
• The commenting feature on Prezi great for getting students to peer assess each others work.Why not as a homework task get your students to share their Prezi’s and get other students to comment on them on what they have learnt from their friends presentations.

If you would still like to download your Prezi so that you can perhaps view it a time when you don’t have Internet connections here is how you do it.

Click here to download the hand out.

Three Ideas for the LOTE Classroom.

Language education is a particular area that can benefit greatly from many of the Web2.0 tools and technology advancements in computing. In-built microphones, web cams and the ability to be able create and share content online, has allowed the language classroom to be more than just the student

regurgitating what the teacher has just said. Here are 3 fairly simple ideas that language teachers could use with their classroom to engage their students using technology.  

1. Get your students to create a Voki of a famous person that resides within the country specific to your LOTE class. Students must then give their characters a voice by using the recording functionality of the Voki application.  Students can then embed their Voki into a a class blog or into a PowerPoint and show it to the class.




2. Get students from a senior class (Year 10) to mentor a lower year level (Year 7)  through their learning of the language.  Read this article about student mentoring for language education. By using a collaborative tool such as Edmodo a teacher could add students from each year level to a group he/she has created. Allowing younger students to ask questions or getting the older students to provide video tutorials or listening comprehension tasks.
3. Using a tool such as VoiceThread get your class to discuss a topic or theme relating to what you are currently studying. For a more advanced learning experience make it compulsory for students to use only the proper language for your class, making sure they have a variety of both written and audio comments on various slides. This page in the VoiceThread library provides a good example of the type of task you could complete with your  students.

Embed Web2.0 content into a PowerPoint.

Thanks to @ShellTerrell for tweeting this link on a embedding web2.0 content into PowerPoint.
http://digitaltoolsforteachers.blogspot.com/2011/11/embed-into-powerpoint.html

I have put together this How To slideshow to further explain how you can do this handy trick.