Lego Comic Builder

Lego Comic Builder is fun! My class loved using the various lego elements to create their own comic strips.

Lego Comic Builder is very easy to use as well:

• choose a format for your comic (one box or multiple boxes in a variety of formats)
• drag whatever lego elements you want in your comic into the boxes
• resize any of the elements to fit the frame
• add speech bubbles etc
• your comic strip can use multiple pages
• you can save your comic online ( to complete later) or download it to your computer

Here are three examples of our digital citizenship work using lego comic builder. Click on the image to enlarge.

Picmarker

Picmarker is a watermarking tool which is quick and easy to use for copyrighting images or even naming students digital work.

Some of the features are:

• upload files from your computer or grab them from your Flicr, FB or Picasa
account
• add text watermark, image watermark or tiled watermark
• no need to download or install software
• free - unless you want the pro version with a few more bells and whistles

I used picmarker to watermark my class avatars. Our class uses a number of wikis as part of our online learning management system and students use avatars to identify themselves on these wikis. Although the students recognise themselves by their avatars, their teacher needed some other way of identifying them easily for management of work purposes.

Here is an example of what the watermarked avatars look like. Click on the image to enlarge.

Photovisi

Photovisi is an image tool that our class has been using to publish some of their most recent work. You have a range of templates to choose from (some are padlocked - pro users only). Simply select and upload your photos and photovisi will automatically generate your collage.

What my class really liked about this particular tool was the options it gave them to manipulate their collage once their photos were loaded. You can easily crop, replace, delete, add text, change background colours etc.

Here is an example their teacher created for a front page on one of their class wiki.

Prezi

Prezi is a neat presentation tool that kids can use as an alternative to keynote or powerpoint. What I really like about it, is that it is not slide based as are most presentations. Prezi is a flash based application that allows you to create non-linear presentations where you can zoom in and out of a visual map containing words, links, images, videos, etc

The interface itself is pretty intuitive, once you've worked out how to manipulate the "zebra" I had a play with it the other day and in no time I had made my first presentation. As with most of these tools, you can sign up as an educator (school website url and email address required) and then you are set to create an account for your class to use.

A number of my students were pretty keen to use this tool to showcase their most recent learning. Here is an example of a student's cultural heritage presentation.

Twiducate (2)

Twiducate is more than just a cool tool for bookmarking links, important dates and posting homelearning etc.

The other week I used it with my class in, what I think, was a real neat 21st century way. We had been having some discussion around what "culture" means. I got my kids in groups of 3 and they logged onto our class twiducate account. I then posted the question to the class, "What does the word "culture" mean to your group?

All groups posted their replies back to me, and as a class we went over them using the data projector. I then asked them, in their groups again, to use the "like" button to indicate which of the group definitions they thought was the "best" answer. Again, using the data projector, it was clear that one particular group's definition was the clear favourite amongst the class, having the most "likes" From there, as a class, we further developed this particular definition to arrive at a whole class shared definition of what "culture" is.

It was alot of fun and most kids were fully engaged for the duration of the activity :-)

Social Media

I've been thinking alot about communication lately. I read recently where email as a form of communication is fast disappearing from the digital landscape and social media is the cool tool for the "now" Our kids certainly understand this and as educators we need to make sure we are meeting these "communication" needs within our own classrooms.

I still have a number of issues with facebook and twitter as options for use within the classroom. This has led me on a search for an alternative that meets my needs as a teacher (moderation, security etc) as well as the needs of my students. Twiducate is an option that is well worth exploring for your own classroom. As part of my presentation for the Learning @ Schools Conference held in Rotorua recently, I shared how my class is using twiducate on a day to day basis.

If you are looking for a closed micro blogging platform, where the teacher has full control over posts and chat, then check out twiducate - I'm sure you'll be impressed.

Audio Tools

Vocaroo is a neat audio tool my class started using late last year. It is essentially an internet voice mail service. Some of the features include being able to ...

• Send your voice message to others via email
• Send your voice message to others via a link
• Embed your voice message into blogs or wikis
• Download your voice message

What I really like about vocaroo is that it is so quick and easy to use. Perfect for capturing student voice in the classroom.

Our class used it last year to record our prior knowledge about out topic study.

These were then embedded into our wiki page, easy for the teacher to access and refer to.

Here is an example ...