New tool: Clarisketch

Have just returned from some days off and shared a guessing activity with my students in our class blog using a free Android app Clarisketch.


How?
1. Download the Clarisketch application into your tablet or smartphone. This app is for free and works on Androids 2.3.6 Gingerbread or higher.
2. Take a picture or use one from your camera.
3. Record your voice.
4. While adding voice to your pic, you can also draw on it highlighting details and commenting.
5. In the end, send or share it. No embedding, but a link to share. Here's my example - the one I used with my students:

http://www.clarisketch.com/sketch/7Y5Fla3i0h56U9N2yQXJ8N

What?
As you can see, it's very user-friendly and relevant for classroom use as a listening activity, eventually also combining reading; it can be used for tutorials, for homework, instructions, directions... or as a guessing activity. By the way: where was I???

Enjoy your holidays :)

Printed Books vs Screen Reading

Hooray!

Time to celebrate: after some resistance, I’ve finally finished reading my first digital book and am reading a second one already!

For me it’s definitely an improvement, a step forward, which has taken place because I had no more physical books to read and love reading in bed. It was, therefore, a kind of last resort but, ok, I’m glad it happened and now I feel it was just a question of time. Besides it wasn’t that bad really.

As you all know, I am a huge fan of Gutenberg and his invention and am going to let him down. I don’t even own an e-reader (and don’t plan to buy one!) and the digital reading I’ve been doing is free. I’m not ready to pay for a digital file, a “book”, I can’t actually touch – at least not yet. What I did was therefore look for public domain ebooks across different platforms (some tips and links here and here from slide 34 onwards), chose the format and downloaded 2 ebooks I've been meaning to read for ages. Right now, I'm proud to "announce" that I've managed to read The Secret Garden from cover to cover, and am reading Room with a View .

I can't deny I' enjoying it. I am! At night, when when my eyes feel strained, I change to font size 36, the brightness of the monitor and / or lettering and keep reading for some more time. What about you, have you had a similar experience?

Though much has already been said about screen and paper reading, I’d like to butt in too once I’ve just had the experience. Quite clearly, both have advantages and disadvantages and ultimately it’s up to each one of us to evaluate our needs and decide.

Here is what I’ve come up with. I’m sure I haven’t covered all aspects and that’s exactly why I would like to ask for your contributions with comments. 

Please consider audiobooks, for example, from here, this link, and/or a recent publication by UNESCO "Reading in the mobile era" you can download  http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002274/227436e.pdf 

Thank you!
Happy holidays and happy readings, too.

4th July, US Independence Day

http://www.whitehouse.gov/

 After an exhausting school year and still recovering, a surprise arrives by traditional mail: an invite for a reception at the US Embassy Lisbon to celebrate the 4th of July.

4th of July is Independence Day in the USA, now over 200 years old! The aforementioned invite and its background have prompted this post but just to introduce some info on the topic once only in September will we be back at school. Besides, it is also a local holiday and if needed be, both can be used for lessons on Citizenship, on Celebrations, History...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Independence_(Trumbull)

For history stuff, History.com is, for me, the most comprehensive and trustworthy site and it's no exception in what concerns the events that led to the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain in 1776. It includes several videos and lots of info also on Thomas Jefferson, a draftsman of the Declaration of Independence.

In biography.com, another great site, there is more info on the The Founding Fathers, the men behind the Declaration of Independence.

The US Declares Independence is one of the amazing videos shared by history.com and here you have in-depth all you need concerning the topic.

 

To finish off the best way possible, here's John Green's Crash Course on 4th of July - with his usual humour and irony. Delightful!!!

Happy Independence Day, Happy 4th July - whether in Coimbra or anywhere else :)