Awesomeness in your presentations!

   It is true that Power Point is something like the father of presentations. As the time changes the presentation tools are changing and that is awesome! There are different resources and tools you can use to vary and turn more interesting your presentations.

   Now I am going to give you one more to take in consideration…

   Would you like to turn some slides into an awesome video? Just click the link

www.powtoon.com

   Here you can create your presentations starting with simple slides, adding prompts, music, animation and amazing transitions.

   Use it in classes with your students to motivate them to create and take advantage of the tools available for us now!

StoryJumper

   

  In another opportunity I mentioned a website to illustrate your stories and incentive the creativity. This time, I am going to tell you about a similar one.

www.storyjumper.com

   

Click the link!

   This website allows you create your story, apply the format you want and also upload your own images. Think about it! There are a lot of ideas you can implement with this tool.

Ask your students to create a memories book where they can share their experiences, their photos, vacations…

Telling what they did last vacations could be a good idea to help them with the past tense.

If the topic is related to food, ask them to create or show a recipe using images to explain the process, step by step.

As teachers we need to be innovative. Try this tool! They are going to love it!

Create your surveys!

 

There is a tool that you can use to create or design your surveys and it is not that complicated as you can think. For us, sometimes, it is frustrating just the idea of designing a survey, but more than create it… analyze it! Defining results and percentages could be hard. This is because maybe we are not math experts.

    Well, that is my case…

    If that is also your case… let’s check google drive. This is a new tool, easy to use and all what you need is your gmail account. This app collects the answers and analyses them to give you the results, the percentages and it itself shows you the graphics of those results.

Try it! You are going to like it!

Music in classes?

 -Yes, music!   

  Well, you can think that making students listen to music during classes could be distracting, but this tool can change your mind…

www.lyricstraining.com

   I present this tool because I am sure that it is going to help your students to practice vocabulary and sometimes it could be useful to practice pronunciation. It has different levels to monitor their improvement.

  Innovate the way you impart your lessons! They are going to notice and enjoy it!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Your own collaborative video!

www.voicethread.com

  This webpage is a good tool to create videos and presentations. It is an interesting way to share ideas and interact with people. As the page itself explains, voicethreading is becoming more popular. There you can create slides, upload your own images, recordings and videos to make it more interesting. And people who watch your presentation can leave their comments written or recorded.

  Teachers need ideas to make their students share ideas and it is a good way. It could be an interesting project to make a presentation and ask them to comment other’s to enrich them. This could be evaluated as a forum for your students.

Just take the risk and help them to enjoy their projects! 

Teach pronunciation with fun!

   Have you noticed how hard it is to learn the symbols and pronunciation in English? Sometimes it could be bored for kids or difficult for people in general. But it is always important to learn the correct sound and pronunciation to get a good communication in this language. You, as a teacher, have the great responsibility to make the class more interesting and engage your students to make them enjoy the process.

Here I have this webpage that surely is going to help you with the task

cambridgeenglishonline.com/Phonetics_Focus/

Click the link! You are going to find the ideas you need for your classroom and homework.

Omar Dengo Foundation

  Today’s world is about technology and it is especially important in educational area. And because its importance there is a foundation that has assumed the responsibility to expand its knowledge to those public schools that normally have no access to technology because of their needs or lacks. Public schools do not have enough resources to provide an education as advanced as private schools do. This foundation has provided much of the technological resources and training the public schools need. And they keep extending that help to rural areas… even indigenous areas; giving them the equipment and internet to access and connect to the globe.

  In a short visit we did to the foundation they told us about their work, the areas they have covered and experiences they have had. It is just awesome seeing their great work. They told us that they have covered more than a half of the public schools in the country and the number is increasing. They do not just provide computers… they also train the administrative personal, teachers and groups of students to make them able to develop their abilities through technology.

  And the most interesting part is that you can visit the foundation, receive some training or courses they have and learn how to use technology not only in the classroom but in life projects.