This post follows on from Learning whilst Immersed in Web 2.0 Part 1 where I discuss the origins of WEB 2.0 and why the World Wide Web changed in the way it did around 2004. I also listed 10 WEB 2.0 tools that have helped me in my teaching and some that have been suggested to me on Twitter. This second post will highlight a further 10 tools that have made an impact on pupils learning for many teachers I know. If you find these tools useful why not subscribe to my new series of posts on Ideas for Learning and Creativity?

WEB 2.0 Tools for the classroom

11. Xtranormal

There are many comic and video editors available on the web, but not many that combine the two so well. Once registered you can either create videos online or download ‘State’, their offline video editor (PC only). Xtranormal provides the user with a vast array of different characters, backgrounds, music, effects and pre-made animations that you use to create your movie.

What is especially good about this tool is that you can control the camera as well as character movements and reactions by using the pre-recorded items in the editor. The editor is divided into three main sections which together make up the final movie:

• Direct the Action – camera movements, animations, expressions, reactions
• Write the Script – decide on a single or two characters and then type what you’d like them to say
• Design the Scene – change set, music and background noise

If you want to create a quick movie and you’re not to fussed about camera angles (you can even get the characters to look into the camera – I love that bit) then you only have to select the ‘Magicam’ which sets up auto camera angles for you.

Once the final movie has been rendered you can send it to colleagues, share it on the most common Social Networks and embed it on your school blog or website – it also embeds well on most Learning Platforms. There is also the option of downloading it as a movie file so you can edit it using your favorite video editor.

Here’s an example:

12. Awesome Highlighter

This is a superb tool, particularly for older students, as it can be used to teach them how to underline and read more effectively. It also has the added bonus that everything that has been highlighted is also copied so they later can print off their notes or email them. There is also a firefox bookmarklet so you can highlight on the go and if you register you can also save pages including annotaed videos. Quick and effective.

13. Browzmi:

This tool gives the user the possibility if co-browsing or social browsing sites as well as sending each other instant messages. Google Wave is more powerful of course, but this one is quick and easy to use and only does one thing. This is a very effective for group work and for research, well worth a look.

14. Go Animate!

There are many good WEB 2.0 tools that provide possibilities for students and teachers to create comic books of various kinds, some of which I have already mentioned in other posts for example ToonDoo, Pixton, Memoov and Pikikids. GoAnimate is slightly different as it provides the user with the possibility of creating talking characters as well as full animations. This tools is as featured-packed as Xtranormal but uses more comix-styled graphics. Here’s a simple example of an animation (3 minutes to set up):

15. ShowDocument

If you are looking for an easier to use tool to Elliminate then ShowDocument is a good choice. Although it’s not as powerful as Elluminate, for example lacking many of the administrative features, ShareDocument is  quick to set up and fun to use. Here’s a brief list of what you can share and collaborate at the same time using the Quick Start menu:

• Watch Youtube videos
• Files from your machine
• Google Maps and Docs
• Whiteboard

16. Scribblar

Scribblar shares many of the features of ShowDocument. Unlike the latter students can use audio chat and not only text-based chat (like in ShowDocument) and Scribblar’s Pro account ($99/month) enables you to integrate the entire functionality of Scribblar into your existing website – pretty powerful. Although Scribblar is very good, ShareDocument has a few extra functionalities that makes it just that little better.

17. MovYlo

This surprisingly powerful resource provides you with the tool to create mobile websites. All you need to focus on is to add the content – MovYlo will take care of the rest. There are several features that you can use to produce your mobile site including:

• RSS feeds from e.g. your blog, Youtube, Flickr
• Create newsletters
• Adding mini blog and pages
• Polls and contests
• Videos
• Images

See this example of a mobile site that was set up in less than 10 minutes. For about £3.50/month you get 5000MB of space and your pages will not be covered in ads, which is the only set back of the free option.

18. Mobile Study.org

If you’re looking for an easy tool to help you create quizzies for mobile phones then look no further.

MobileStudy.org is suprisingly effective and with its ‘Add Explanation’ feature you can produce good activities that will support students in their learning by providing them with feedback for each question. The website has evolves since it first started and you can now install each mobile quiz in different ways:

• Install the quiz on a mobile phone via SMS
• Install the quiz on a mobile phone using QR Code
• Download directly to your phone or PDA

There is also installation guidance available on the website. Here’s are a couple of examples:

KS2 French Quiz (PC version) (mobile version)

GCSE Quiz + Explanations (PC version) (mobile version)

19. QR Generator

If you are looking to use mobile phones in the classroom, in school or even for outdoor learning then QR codes could help. QR stands for ‘Quick Response’ as the inventor Denso-Wave intended to have the code decoded at high speed. For more information about QR its history and usage please visit Mobile Barcodes.

QR Generator

This tool is very simple and very powerful so you don’t need to know any coding as the website will generate that for you. You need a mobile phone that has a camera + software that can decode QR codes (most barcode apps do a pretty good job). Here is a list of recommended softwares. I use QR App on the iPhone which works very well and it’s free.

The QR Generator allows you to create a number of different QR images:

• website url
• vCard
• 100 character text message
• Phone number
• SMS
• Email address

As a result you can create a suite of interactive tasks for students to do, particularly if you combine the different tools. For example:

• Setting up a Thinking Skills Mystery using a combo of website urls and cryptic messages which finally ends with students having email their answers to the teachers.
• Hook QRs: teachers stick up images outside the door of the classroom which students can access before the lesson starts
• Revision: create a series of images and add them to the departmental ‘Revision Board’.
• QR Challenge: split class into a number of teams and get each one to create questions that the other teams have to answer
• QR Debate: same as above but get teams from different sets/classes to have a running debate on a key topic over a half-term. Add QR images outside each others’ classrooms.
• PowerPoint aide: students scan the image and can link to a website, article or task instead of having to remember the Url.

Here are couple of examples of code generated by the website just use a QR decoder which is compatible with your camera, take a snapshot and see what happens:

QR website

QR Message

For more ideas about using QR in the classroom and for more articles on QR please visit the brilliant blog Don’t Waste Your Timeby David Hopkins and also watch this example of using QR code in the classroom (worksheets linked to YouTube):

20. FaceBook

This application is blocked on schools’ network and most teachers don’t wish to share their FaceBook profile with students. Judy Hart explained at the NAACE conference 2010 that there is an alternative so you don’t need to add students as ‘Friends’ to your page, just create a Fan Page. This is different to a standard FaceBook page because authors of the fan page can’t add fans as friends. This is a great way of  providing additional opportunities to engage students as autonomous learners by adding resources to your Fan page.

Scroll down to the end of any page and click ‘Advertising’, then ‘Create Page’ and off you go. There are several applications that are useful to add to your Teacher Fan Page e.g SlideShare and Poll to name a couple.

Here’s an example of a Fan Page – at the time of writing I had no Fans…

Mr. Ahrenfelt

Hopefully these two posts have provided you with 20+ tools that can be used in the classroom to help the delivery of lessons, content-generation as well as a series of engaging tools for your pupils.

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• 7 Brilliant iPhone Apps for Teachers and Bloggers

The dedicated website owner, blogger or Social Media enthusiast used to be confined to their office or at the very least laptop and broadband dongle. Nowadays however, these creative individuals can run their online empires from the comfort of, well, anywhere. Cue devices like iPhone and iPod Touch.

Below follows my top 11 Apps that I use to keep track of trends in education, communicate with colleagues and other creative professionals and update my websites and blogs with text as well as files and graphics. This list is by no means exhaustive and only contains apps I personally find effective, some of which are free whilst others come with a modest price tag.

If you use other ones which would be worth mentioning please add a comment.

1. WordPress 2 (free)

This is a simple, fast and effective application that enables you to update your WordPress blogs at the press of a button. It focuses on adding and editing posts, pages as well as handling comments but has left out other WordPress features like changing themes, plug-ins and major administrative settings.

2. EverNote (Free)

I started using EverNote way later than most it seems and it’s got to be said that it really does improve your workflow as well as your organisation. This app lets you save ‘snippets’ from your online as well offline experience including photographs, text (whatever you copy like hyperlinks and standard text) and you can record audio and save it on the EverNote app. After you press save it will automatically sync with your online (free or premium) account that you set up via the app. Similarly, it’s a good idea to install the software on all the machines you use as it will sync with all. There’s also a handy web widget to install for most browsers so that saving to EverNote becomes a breeze. Many productivity apps now allow you to save directly to EverNote (like Qipit below). Superb.

3. Documents ToGo Premium (£8.99)

A very handy app to have as it allows you to open, edit and create Word, PowerPoint and Excel files straight on your device. I have found it invaluable particularly when I really need to do last-minute amendments to a presentation or handout. A tad pricey for what it is but hey it’s still under a tenner so won’t break the bank and coupled with DropBox and FTPOntheGo you’re invincible!

4. Drop Box (Free)

To put it simply, DropBox is outstanding. It syncs all files saved on its server to all computers (PC and Mac) where you have the software installed. It’s as if you saved the document to all of your computers in one go. There are also other powerful features which makes DropBox superb:

• File Sharing: share an entire folder or specific files on DropBox with friends and colleagues. A great way of using DropBox is to open a ‘Public’ folder which you can use to link to files from websites and emails.
• Back-up: use DropBox as your online back up. The free account allows you to upload 2G of data which is a pretty good start. If you need to backup all your music and video files then upgrading is very cost effective.

The app does not allow you to access all of these features from the handheld device, but you can still:

• Access media, photos and documents you can’t fit on your iPhone
• Sync photos and videos from your iPhone to their secure online storage
• Download files from your dropbox to your iPhone for offline use (just select your favourites and they will be downloaded straight to your device)

5. FTPOntheGo (£3.99)

I love this tool! Upload your files straight to your server without any hassle. It will also allow you to upload using secure FTPS. Perhaps the best feature is the ability to edit files within the App and upload on save ( (Word/PowerPoint and any text file such as PHP/HTML) as well as take a photograph or video with your phone, resize it and upload, all witin the App – clever.

6. Mocha VNC (£3.99 or Free)

I started using this app initially when my daughter was a newborn as it was difficult to access my Mac when she was sleeping (generally on me). I just launched Mocha VNC and controlled the Mac from the iPhone. Hmm a bit fanatic I know. However it will also allow you to use your machine from anywhere – very clever and immensely useful particularly if you need to send larger files and you haven’t got access to a fast connection or PC/Mac.

7. Qipit (£1.19)

QiPit turns your iPhone or iPod Touch into a scanner! This handy little gem will turn any photographs of written and printed materials into scan quality digital documents so if you are in a lecture theatre or workshop and want to save time, then take a snap of the Interactive Whiteboard, Flip-chart or handouts and QiPit will digitize the photo and tweak it until it’s readable. Then just send it to EverNote or email, all within the app. Genius.

8. ColorSplash (£1.19)

Originally I wasn’t going to add any design or graphics apps but the following two apps are too good to miss out.

ColorSplash is a stunning application for what you pay. You start by taking a photo with your device or import a photo from your Photo Album. ColorSplash will then convert the photo to black-and-white and it is your job to ‘add a color-splash’ which really does draw people’s attention to the image. You can zoom in and out of the image which means that you can create very detailed and sophisticated images. Fantastic for your blog posts or department website.

9. Sketches 2 (£1.19)

Sketches 2 is the web designer, blogger, artist or doodler’s dream. You can use it to just draw images using the various painting and drawing tools (very similar to PhotoShop), sketch ideas for webpages, prototypes, layout of your own iPhone app or whatever else you’d use the various backgrounds, shapes and icons for. You can also add your own images as backgrounds. Perhaps the most clever feature is the ability to add a background map (satellite, map or hybrid) based on your location! It also offers extensive export features of your amazing canvas to the Photo Album, Twitter, email, PDF as well as JPG/PNG.

10. EchoFon Pro for Twitter (£2.99)

I tried eight different Twitter clients before realising that EchoFon is the most efficient and easy-to-use of them all. The most significant features I use are:

* Multiple accounts (Pro version)
* Searching for people you follow auto-list their usernames for quick selection
* Creating lists
* RT your own Tweet menu
* Who has RT you menu
* and a lot more!

11. Skype (free)

I always question how this can be a free service everytime I speak to my friends and colleagues abroad. Even when there were 21 million users talking and VC:ing at the same time, the quality was still good. Skype is the ideal tool to stay in touch and signing up only takes a few seconds. All you have to do then us to search for your friends and colleagues and add them to your Skype list – if they haven’t got Skype tell them to download it ad it works on both PC and Mac as well as most mobile devices.

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Here follows a list of Twitter tools that I use frequently because they make my online work easier to manage. I have decided to focus specifically on tools that can provide impact on the way I use Social Media and ideas for classroom practice instead of fun and cool tools as there are already plenty of posts which do that well : ) .

Interviews on Twitter

This handy tool does what it says on the tin, you sign up, invite someone to get interviewed or receive an invitation yourself, then start the process. See this link for one that’s already been done. As it’s currently in BETA format you have to tweet the site on @tweeterviews to receive an invite code (oh yes, only special people get to play). Alternatively, if someone invites you for an interview then you can leave that bit blank. Once you get that code you’re ready to rock.

This tool really has great potential if it takes off properly. There are many different uses I can foresee with Tweeterview, for example running a live interview during conferences which people can follow on monitors in corridors, rooms and on mobiles and laptops. There’s also potential to use this in the classroom, particularly for group work and if they use a username already set up by you. Hopefully Tweeterview sets up some form of educational area on the website where students can sign up and ‘interview’ safely, although this is probably not going to happen until the site has established itself.

Screencasts for Twitter

This is probably one of the most useful tools if you collaborate online as it provides a dead-simple way to demonstrate what you mean in a very easy manner. If you have a lot of contacts that you communicate with often particularly if you need to explain and describe issues such as web design, creating tools online or concepts etc, then Screenr is superb. It takes seconds to create a min screencast, add your tweet and send it to the world. Try it now, you won’t regret it. Here’s a 50 sec example of how quickly you can create screencasts using Screenr. By the way, you don’t have to tweet the screencast, you can keep it private if you wish : ) .

A great way of using Screenr in the classroom like during independent learning projects or for homework, is to get students to use a log-in created by you and then challenge them to demonstrate and explain a concept e.g. ‘revolution’ or ‘green house effect’ using a set of material which they have prepared before. Also, Screenr provides an effective way of presenting information coherently and succinctly to the audience. This is especially good for the students as they have to plan their work carefully e.g. writing scripts, but also consider ways in which they can physically show their understanding on the actual screen. This is very challenging task indeed.

Add sound and voice

Chir.ps is a real gem for teachers and students not only because of it’s simplicity but as we can upload recorded sounds in seconds without the need to understand any software. After registering just press record and you might be asked to allow Flash Player access to your microphones (allow it), then speak, sing or yoodle, press stop and you’re done. Type in a message in the box below and tweet it. Your ‘chirps’ are then stored on the website for later use. Simple and effective.

Classroom potential is immense as you can imagine and using Chir.ps can provide an engaging way into difficult or what might be considered dry subject matters to many students.

Store images for Social Networks

This website started in June 2009 so is very new online but has already made a stir in the community. The good thing about imjtweet is that you can upload images and use it with both Twitter as well as Facebook and other Social Media will be added according to the owner .

You don’t need to register as long as you have a Twitter or Facebook account (the site cannot access your details or use your account in anyway as it makes use of oAuth which is an authentication protocol that allows users to approve application to act on their behalf without sharing their password – brilliant.). imjtweet is simply fantastic as it’s simple to use and very fast so it will make your work on Twitter much easier and unlike TwitPic , which is also superb, you can share images across platforms.

Quick polls

TwtPoll must be one of the best mini apps available for Twitter and it’s free. As with many other good Twitter tools TwtPoll doesn’t require you to register as long as you already have an account with Twitter, just ‘allow’ it access.

Creating your polls couldn’t be easier, just click ‘Create Poll’, fill in the required details and you’re done. You can also embed the poll as well as results on your blog or website or simply add a link to the poll like this How Often Do You Use Twitter? What I particularly like about TwtPoll is that you can create ‘image polls’ where users e.g. your students have to answer a question about an image. You can also allow students to rate or rank images based on a set criteria which you provide them or add a description in the poll. TwTPoll is easy to use and brilliant for maintaining a fluid and exciting website or blog – why not add a poll to your department’s website now?

Organize discussions

I hesitated to add  ChatterBox to the post as there are already some software that sort of deal with the same solutions e.g. Destroy Twitter but they don’t enable you to monitor Twitter conversations that you find interesting so for example you could set up a list of  keywords or specific user handles. This tool can organise the information into a common dashboard that individuals and groups can collaborate and respond to conversations. Unfortunately ChatterBox is not open for new users which probably mean they are about to go commercial although I can’t see them charging more than a few quid for this tool. I’ll certainly upgrade to commercial should this happen. I’ve tried other tools that are similar e.g. TweetBeep but found it rather temperamental as the key word ‘beeps’ were far in-between.

Have you come across other Twitter tools that have not been mentioned here which you feel deserve to be added then please drop me a comment : ) .

Ian Harris, Oliver Caviglioli, and Carol Thompson

Thinking Skills and Eye Q: Visual Tools for Raising Intelligence is perhaps one of the best books available on mind-mapping and Thinking Skills diagrams. Many of the ideas you’ll come across on this website has been inspired from Thinking Skills and Eye-Q.

I first came across this book as a Newly Qualified Teacher in 2002, and began using it with a particularly challenging top set year 8. It didn’t take long before the whole class was working hard at tackling the various Thinking Skills mysteries and diagrams that I had planned for them. It worked. Since then I naturally plan lessons with the ideas from this book in mind for all my students (11-19 years old).

I have used this book during INSET with departments as it works through strategies to encourage and develop a range of skills particularly for thinking, writing, but also discusses methods to use for Gifted and Talented students, and to make speaking, listening, questioning and responding an intergral part of lessons.

If you are planning to start a new Scheme of Work of simply wish to plan a series of great, challenging and stimulating lessons then this book is for you as it is packed with ideas.

If you have a chance to attend one of their workshops you will not regret it as they are outstanding!

Came a cross this fantastic video on Twitter posted by moTik.