ThingLink for Interactive Books

#1 What is ThingLink?
ThingLink is a free user-friendly digital tool that allows us to create and share interactive images. All can be done effortlessly and quickly and one can turn any static image into a multimedia rich interactive graphic by adding video, other images, audio, links to different sources...
In addition to the coloured dots / nubbins, ThingLink now has more graphic icons - we can therefore choose the one that best suits our purpose when tagging images.

#2 ThingLink in the Classroom
Its uses in the classroom are limitless. We can use it for any subject, any grade! Depending on our goals, we can tag the information ourselves or use it as a collaborative tool and ask our students to add /tag info. I've used it before with maps, with famous paintings as you can read here; I've used it with students for introductions as well as to introduce myself.

#3 Using ThingLink for Reading Suggestions
An interesting way of using this innovative and flexible tool in the classroom is also for Reading recommendations and suggestions. Bring books to life by collecting resources, challenging students / potential readers with questions, highlighting important info, presenting the author!
"Gone Girl" is a book I've finished reading recently and absolutely loved it. By then I wrote a short review here (please scroll down as there are already over 100 books!) and once the movie is going to premiere in the beginning of October, I thought about recommending it beforehand :) Here it is:

I'd be very glad to hear from you! Thanks :)
Many thanks to Susan Oxnevad for the #TLChallenge 

4+ Tools for Reading Reviews

While I haven’t had much time for reading myself lately, I’ve been instilling reading habits in my teen students.

To be honest, I’m not that demanding in what concerns language. In other words, whether they read in Portuguese or English, what really matters is that they start or keep reading. I do have one demand, though: whatever they read, they’ll have to present a review in English. Fair enough, after all I am their foreign language teacher.

For my students’ book reviews and recommendations, I’ve used the free tools below:

Animoto is an excellent tool for creating audio slideshows the only problem being the lack of space for writing / text; I have created 30 secs videos and  longer but only with an “Animoto for Education” account. 

Here are two examples: 

This is a multimedia storytelling tool that allows us to easily tell stories including photo, video, music, voice recordings and text. Have a look at this bilingual book review:

Fotobabble allows us to create beautiful talking photos / pictures. Listen to this book review now:

Another possibility is the creation of ebooks, flippable PDFs. An example is the one below I created with youblisher:

Let's not forget Tellagami which is also possible for book reviews as I mentioned in this previous post.
Hope you enjoy these tools and examples I've just shared with you. What others can you share with me? Thank you :))

More Students' Readings

Another book recommendation.
Another talking photo.
Another photobabble.
Catarina, a 15-year old student of mine and one of my tenth graders' avid readers, has read a heartbreaking book, based on a real story. She liked it so much that she would like to tell us about it. Listen:

Soon it will be available in our school library as it is included in our PNL (Plano Nacional de Leitura).
So, what do you think about this one?

Tellagami for listening / speaking

Some of my academic readings have recently included the listening and speaking skills. As much as I like

designing activities and developing materials, I have to admit that these two skills have been somehow more neglected. I have therefore decided to invest more and more time and effort to activate them.

I shall start with Tellagami, a free mobile app, that lets you share a quick animated video, a gami.

In education gamis can be easily created by students as a speaking / listening activity; as a teacher and having my last blogpost in mind, I came up with a book recommendation.


Here it is:

Procedures

First of all, download this app for your Android (version 4.1 and above) or iOS and then you can start creating  your gami in 3 easy steps:

1. Customise a character and choose your background; alternatively, you can personalize with a photo background (I chose the book cover);

2.  Record your voice or type a message for your character to say;

3. Share your gami on FB, Twitter,… or send it by email; there is also an embed code available.

Steps 1 and 3 were fast and fun but step 2 took me longer than all the others: the recordings have to be real short (around 20secs) and I had some problems stopping where I should as there was so much to say.

Hope you enjoy. Please share your links and/or resources, too.

Thanks to Zeljko for sharing the link J

2013 Reading Review

Joining Goodreads in Jan 2012 was one of the best things I have ever done to improve my reading standards. As you may know, this website was founded in 2006 and "allows individuals to freely search Goodreads' extensive user-populated database of books, annotations, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and reading lists" (Wikipedia) 
It's now the world's largest-site for readers and book recommendations and by allowing readers to set goals, I (certainly like so many others) do my best to achieve them!
For 2012 I had set my goal in reading 24 books and tough as it was juggling reading, schoolwork, housework, kids... I promised myself I would do it. And I did!!!
For the current year, I was more modest and my Reading Challenge was 20 books. Besides the easiness with which all readers can keep track of their readings (or lack of them!), the visual reminders (or rather, the gadgets with the shelf and counting the books on the right bar of this blog) also work for me either telling me I am one / two books ahead or behind and I become aware that I have to allocate more time to my reading (even if that means sleeping fewer hours ;) )
In the beginning of December, as soon as I completed my reading goal, the nice folks at Goodreads sent me this:

How pleased I was!!! This is another reason why I'm definitely joining their 2014 Reading Challenge Goal!!! Another one, yes, because, I've already used this website countless times (also for quizzes, quotes, reviews, recommendations by other readers) and do not wish to stop.

What about you? Why don't you try it for 2014? 

Happy Reading(s) and a Happy New Year, y'all!

Creative Reading: BritLit 10 years on

Creative Reading, APPI and BC, 19.10.2013 from Alexandra Duarte

Wake me up when September ends - will you?

I don't really know why... this will be my 20th-something come back to school, but the fact is that every September, every year I get goose bumps!

If, on the one hand, instability and work overload are upon us teachers, on the other hand, returning to school after some months engaged in far more challenging activities, requires a lot of effort and creativity to keep students focused. Rather than get used to routine, this tends to get worse making every come back to school a bit more thorny.

Anyway, all these years I have never faltered in my purpose to teach English. I am there for my students and because of them; they are not to blame for institutional and governmental changes. Bearing this in mind, my work has always been driven by and focused on student learning and development - both academic and social. Therefore, I have already set my goals for 2013/2014 which, to be honest, have not changed that much over the years. Here they are:

1. Love what I do - I chose this profession and when I enjoy what I am doing (within classroom walls or outdoors), I feel I'm giving my best and that joy is quickly grasped by students. I believe that when they feel they have committed and caring teachers, they'll achieve more;

2. Read academic as well as recreational books - this way I can not only dive into my own professional development, but also do what I most like doing (besides teaching :) of course): Reading!

3. Connect and Collaborate with colleagues, students, staff, parents... on a professional and personal level. Throughout my 20-something professional career, I've shared and learned so much that this is - as far as I am concerned - the only way we can survive, without going nuts - especially now, surrounded by so much hostility by our Ministry of Education, budget cuts, increasing number of students per class and demands in our performance...

Till now I've been fortunate enough not to worry about where I'll be teaching the coming year or even if I'll have a position at all! For completely different reasons though, I just can't help feeling anxious about coming back to school and wish I could skip these first weeks. In the back of my mind are the lyrics of a well known song and, just like the singer, I was wondering if you could just Wake Me Up When September Ends , when the school year is already well under way? Please???

Thank you for sharing your views and please take a couple of secs to answer only 4 questions in the poll on the right sidebar- no big deal, really, and all will be anonymous.

Happy school year, y'all!

CONNECTing

A fortnight has already gone by and no new posts! I guess you assumed I was on holiday and you were/are not mistaken.
The 2012/2013 schoolyear was very demanding and intensive; my last teaching day was July 19 and, my goodness, what sacrifice!!! After a tiresome year, strikes, "no-meetings", real meetings, exams, developing materials, planning and preparing lessons, these last weeks have been really tough but the students are obviously not to blame. Besides feeling I desperately needed some rest, I also felt it was high time I dedicated quality time to my dear ones, friends, acquaintances - in other words, time to nourish my relationships, to celebrate summer and time off from work and school, and, well, yes, laughing, eating, drinking, clubbing. That's exactly what I've been doing.
I admit I do make an effort not to check on my laptop and time (and weather!) allows me now to go to the beach, to read and definitely to socialise. It has made wonders... you know, chatting in the typically funny way of people around my age about the things we used to do when we were "younger" (though I'm still young - at heart!), recollecting celebrations and/or events with our kids... I'm sure you know what I mean :)
These last days have been indeed to (re)connect - connecting with all those who, one way or the other, make part of our lives and connecting with the simplest and purest joys of life such as reading.
Let me assure you that soon, very soon, other posts will follow and, hopefully, some of a different kind, though that part doesn't depend on me only.
Needless to say, I keep counting on you - as always - and it's never too much to show my appreciation to all readers/visitors who keep sending me encouraging emails, leaving comments and facebook entries.
To all, a huge THANK YOU and a happy summertime.

READING in EFL - part 2

Sharing again!
The second part of an article I wrote on READING in EFL has just been published by APPI, in its Journal (Year 12, NO. 2, Autumn Issue 2012). The first part (The APPI Journal NO.1, Spring Issue, 2012 pp. 17-22) was published last year and just like the documents mentioned in this second part, everything is available here.

  Happy Reading, y'all!

Read, Think and... Write!

Read Write Think has an awesome array of free classroom resources  which are really cool for ESL teachers. Today I'm sharing what I've created for The Great Gatsby (book) and its author, Scott Fitzgerald,  but I have used these resources before and one of them very recently to write poetry. If you missed it then, please check this and the results here.
Taking advantage of the new film adaptation (therefore my new interest to reread Fitzgerald's masterpiece - check it here) I tried out some other resources by Read Write Think.
I chose Cube Creator to display info on the book itself. Here's a screenshot of how it looks like:

My option was Story Cube where I could "map out the key elements of a story", in other words, I entered the required information according to the six distinctive parts / topics. When all is complete, we can print it and fold it to have a cube as you can see below; we can also save or email it.

Then, using a different interactive resource, the Trading Card, I filled it in with Scott Fitzgerald's biodata.
Here's how it looks like when you begin:

Again, after filling it in with all the required data, we can print it, cut it and even laminate to have a card, and download it as a pdf document and / or email it. Here's the final product:

I must say I found these two interactive tools simply great for organising and summarising data.
In this case, I used these two free resources to prepare materials for classes and though I did it for a book and an author, we can use them on movies, environmentalists, singers, actors - you name it! However, just like I've done with the acrostic poems resource I've already mentioned, why not ask our students to do them themselves??? These are free web tools which they can use either in the classroom or for homework tasks. They can do it individually or in pairs and then email us for correction. Something also great about these Read Write Think resources is that one can save the draft and change / add whenever we wish to. With the final cubes and / or cards, sts can always review stuff, ask questions to classmates, play a guessing game,...
Asking students to do this will surely be funnier, engaging and memorable once they will have to scan and skim loads of info before being able to write and go straight to the point - oh yes, because there's always a word limit!

World Book and Copyright Day

Today's Google Doodle: St George's Day

23rd April marks different observances. It's St George's Day, England's National Day, as well as the anniversary of the birth and death of famous writers such as Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare.        

Logo

For this reason,UNESCO chose this date to pay tribute to books, authors and copyright laws that protect them.
Therefore, to promote reading among all age groups, a range of activities usually take place worldwide which include reading alouds, the distribution of bookmarks, announcement of literary prize winners, ...

guardian.co.uk

What about you, yes, have you discovered the pleasure of reading? How? When?
What are you currently reading? What do you recommend? How do you read, in other words, would you rather read physical books or digital ones?
If willing to read more about the importance of reading, take a peek to see previous articles
http://issuu.com/teacheralex/docs/the_importance_of_reading_def_p_issuu_nov_2011/1
http://issuu.com/teacheralex/docs/reading_challenge_in_l2_-_part_1/1
and former blogposts with many different suggestions on reading and reading sources.
Happy Reading, y'all!

SUMMLY - for more Reading!

Summly logo

Summly is a free mobile app that automatically summarises full news pages from different sources. Developed by a now seventeen year-old British schoolboy, Nick D'Aloisio, and already dubbed “the internet’s newest boy genius” and “the next Mark Zuckerberg”, this young tech whizz found it difficult to look for what he needed when surfing the web and created a simple and easy to use app. According to him, regular news articles and blog posts are long and always sprouting the web, don’t fit in a mobile screen and we can’t afford to waste so much time reading huge blocks of texts that may end up not being what we were looking for. So, why not a convenient app that customizes content for a mobile screen, now that we are always on the go?

Summly condenses news articles into three key paragraphs that fit onto an iPhone screen. It already includes package categories such as BUSINESS / TECHNOLOGY / ENTERTAINMENT and ARTS / US NEWS / THE WALL STREET JOURNAL and obviously APPLE (the only platform that currently supports it). These categories are represented by large horizontal color blocks and the latest story shows up after choosing one. By swiping left or right, you can navigate through the latest summaries.  If any of them sounds interesting, you may save it for later use, email it, tweet it or share on Facebook – you just hold down and a flower-shaped menu shows up for sharing options.

Why am I interested in this? Well, first I believe it may improve reading skills and habits taking advantage of the fact that even our students own a smartphone… though it’s only available for iPhones (or any other iOS-using hardware) yet, it’s surely just a question of time to make it available for Androids, thus allowing many more to download this free app and READ short texts, eventually longer ones. As a teacher and an avid reader, hope dies last, and for reluctant readers (either adults or teens) this can be a start – with news, then with other areas that Summly might develop.

I did try to introduce a new category… EDUCATION… then CULTURE… none of them worked and my doubts are whether they don’t work at all and still need to be developed once this app is brand new, or whether it’s simply blocked due to excessive traffic overloading Summly servers.

On a final note, I find it relevant that this app is simple to use even with more troubled students since the UI (user interface) changes according to the user’s country, thus making it easier to understand how it works whilst still having to read the SUMMLYS and news articles in English ;=)

To sum up, Summly is still pretty much a fresh app with its downsides, but has had a good start and is looking promising.

Let’s wait and see!

eBooks for Holidays

SOURCE: goodreads.com

It’s no secret I’m all for the printed word, for real books both for academic and recreational readings – they don’t need electricity, I can freely underline, mark… However, I have to admit that digital books also have advantages and, right now, besides the environmental issue, the economic reasons top my list (and maybe yours as well!). Having said that and taking into account that what really matters is that we / our kids / our students read and not how we / they do it, why not share some links so that we all read something during the summer break?

So, with no excuses, read free and legal ebooks anywhere, any time.

Try these links and choose for yourselves:

http://www.planetebook.com/ - the home of free classic literature

http://www.intechopen.com/books - over 1800 scientific books

http://www.openculture.com/free_textbooks - all the 150 books can be viewed for free and most can be downloaded for free as well. The titles in the collection are appropriate as supplemental books, more for mathematics and science than for the humanities.

http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search - google hosts thousands of books that are in the public domain; many of them can be viewed and downloaded in their entirety for free.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ - Project Gutenberg has over 40,000 free ebooks in English and there are also over 500 in Portuguese at http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/PT_Principal check Os Lusiadas at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27236  

The next one is also a very good source for ebooks in English or in Portuguese

http://www.dominiopublico.gov.br/pesquisa/PesquisaObraForm.jsp and at  http://www.dominiopublico.gov.br/download/texto/pe000004.pdf  - you can check Mensagem de Fernando Pessoa

Strange enough is this link http://purl.pt/index/geral/aut/PT/index.html  but worth visiting, Biblioteca Nacional Digital, from where one can also download Mensagem, de Fernando Pessoa http://purl.pt/13966
Besides the titles already mentioned above that many of our sts will need to read for next schoolyear, check the next link where you can find 1900 free and legal ebooks - by Portuguese authors as well as, among others, some plays by W. Shakespeare but in Portuguese:
http://utilnet.blogspot.pt/2009/03/1990-livros-para-download-gratuito.html 

For those who for any reason don't / can't read, don't give up, because there are audiobooks! Please check AudioLiterate where you can select either from the featured audiobooks or by category. Just stream it; it's free!

Well? Any suggestions?

There are many more, but the ones above have just been checked thinking about the holidays as well as a kind of preparation for next school year :D

I’m sure we all want our students to read. According to them, in the age of digital devices, books are old fashioned, outdated and some may even fear being teased by their peers. Why not give or send them links for free (and legal) ebooks they can read on their smartphones / tablets / PCs?

Enjoy… Enjoy your holidays and your Readings!

Stephen King on... books

--Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.--

 Stephen King

Ray Bradbury on... books

--There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.--

Ray Bradbury

Maya Angelou on... books

--For a person who grew up in the '30s and '40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, "Here I am, read me." Over time I have learned I am at my best around books.--

                        Maya Angelou (on Facebook, Oct. 30. 2010)

Word Search on Reading - Try it out!

An easy online activity on any topic, this one is on reading.
The Ultimate Word Search Maker allows us to create these activities easily and fast and then embed them to blogs / websites - we just need to type the words, they will appear underneath as well as the embed code...and it's done!
Try to look for the words given below and when you find them, just click on the first and last letters.
Simple? Fast? Useful? Try it out and give me some feedback :D

Make Your Own Word Search

Readers

 Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Readers may be divided into four classes:
1) Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied.
2) Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time.
3) Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read.
4) Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I would like to believe I belong to the last class... what about you?

Class activity

I'm sure it has already happened to all of you: not having the whole class and therefore not being able to introduce a new subject.
As my vocational students are from three different classes and this past week a substantial part was absent in a school visit, I decided to use a text from the course book but in a different way.
1st step: google a bit and choose four pictures that are somehow related to the text and prepare your 1st slide for a PPt presentation. In class, show it to your sts and, in pairs or groups of three, ask them to create a story around those pictures. Allocate some time for their creative process to take place and then ask them to read their versions to the class.
2nd step: a slide with the original story (the text from their course book). Show it to your sts and ask them to read it carefully and to check the similarities and differences between the texts they had just created and the real one.
3rd step: one last slide in which sts are simply given prompts and asked to rewrite the text they had just read.

The advantages of this? Well, it didn't take much time to prepare; they worked together, cooperated and had to take decisions to build their story; in class I kept correcting their texts as I was moving from one group to the other and so I didn't have to bring much homework either; as it was a text from their own course book, the absent sts can always catch up with the rest of the class by reading it afterwards and doing the exercises; fast finishers can be asked to do the tasks from the book and... I can always (re)use this (or any other text) as a replacement teacher.
Below, you will find the texts produced before and after reading the text though one of the groups didn't manage to deliver it on time; In my Issuu bar there is also the PPt presentation.
Feel free to comment on this activity and suggest some more.

Open publication - Free publishing - More ebay

Dr Seuss

2nd March is Dr Seuss birthday and a very good reason - another one - to celebrate READING.
Theodor Seuss Geisel was one of the most popular poets and cartoonists of his time and became most widely known for his books written on children. Indeed, in his prolific career he wrote no less than 46 books for children and credited his mother for it.
For you to have an idea of who Dr Seuss was and his literary productions, have a look at this neat tool I have been willing to share with you for some time: an interactive timeline. 

Dr. Seuss on Dipity.

What about you? Do you like Dr Seuss books? What about this interactive timeline? You just need to register, write your text and then add the links - either for text or video. It has Joao Diogo's name simply because it was started with his account :=)