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Portugal
I am from Coimbra, Portugal, and am currently teaching in a school in Soure, about 30 km away from Coimbra. I have been a teacher of English for over 20 years and have already taught different levels and age groups. After all this time I can say I love working with adult groups because there are no coursebooks and I can create my own resources. I am an avid reader, a blogger and very curious about free tools and their implementation in the classroom.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Snapchat: ephemeral photos

Snapchat is an ephemeral photo-sending app and now a huge trend among our students: with this application, available for both iOS and Android, users / snappers can take photos, record videos, add text and even include drawings on the snap and finally send it to one or more recipients. The snaps are automatically deleted shortly after they are opened / viewed according to the time (1 to 10 secs) set beforehand by the sender. In case you do want to keep the snap you got, you can take a printscreen, but the sender will get that notification.

So,
1. Download the app here for Androids or here for your iOS. 

2. When you start the app, you’ll see a large round button on its interface which is the camera button. When you press it, a photo will be taken, and if you hold the button a very short video lasting up to 10secs will be recorded. After that, one can add text by tapping the snap and / or draw onto the image by using an icon on your phone’s top right hand corner. Snaps can be sent to the ones you choose from your list of contacts / other snappers!
I’ve “played” and experimented this app with my eldest kid and I believe we can also use this in class, for example, for a speaking activity if our sts also have it installed: take a snap and send it to students as a speaking prompt!
Check this tutorial, too:

Easy and fast, right? Obviously free to download and install, too! This is one of the coolest tools but also one of the most controversial.
Snapchat has quickly risen much like Instagram while, at the same time, teens are losing interest in Facebook… Indeed, the fact that it allows us to create perishable photos, gives parents and teachers huge headaches. If we think about this for a while, we easily reach the conclusion that if it can be used for fun and for educational purposes, it has been causing a lot of worries worldwide due to sexting and cyberbullying … perverts as paedophiles are also said to be among its top users…
In any case, here is an info guide for concerned parents and educators developed by http://www.connectsafely.org/ .
Happy Snapping :)                

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