Communications
Animoto is a web application that, with the click of a button, produces videos using images and music that a user selects. Language teachers and students can choose culturally-appropriate images and audio to produce short movies that can be used in language presentations. These can be looked at on the web or embedded in blogs to be shared with classmates. Some NOVASTARTALK products have included videos on Chinese food and Arabic scripts.
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Using Audio Tools (Audacity) in the World Language Classroom
Audacity is an open-source (aka 100% free) program for recording, editing and exporting sound files. It can be used to record a voice track that can be exported into other programs, or to mix music, narration and sound effects together into a single file.
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Bamboo Paper - Note taking with iPad
Bamboo Paper is a free app for iPad, which turns your iPad into a notebook. You can use it to sketch your thoughts and ideas in an authentic paper-like digital notebook and your notes can be shared visually and easily. You can also use it to practice your penmanship of writing in non-western language characters such as Chinese, Arabic, etc.
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Cultures
Nearpod is an App for iOS devices. (Nearpod’s School Edition works for Andriod devices now.) It allows you to create multimedia presentations to share content with your students and to manage the flow of the lecture in real time.
Your students use Nearpod on their iOS/Android devices to receive multimedia content and to participate in engaging assessment and collaboration activities. Your presentation can be engaging and interactive through polls, quizzes, videos, drawing interactivity, website-sharing, self-guided quizzes and more.
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Using Picasa to Facilitate Teaching in World Language Classrooms
Picasa is an image editing software from Google that helps you organize, edit, and share your photos. It's free, and easy to use and works on both PC and Mac. The program is free and has many features that you'd typically have to use an advanced image editor such as Photoshop in order to make those same changes without Picasa.
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Keeping your students engaged with PollEverywhere
PollEverywhere is an online service that lets your audience interact with your live presentation using their web browsers, or mobile phones. You can also insert the polls into your PowerPoint presentations or web pages. The poll that is embedded there will be update in real time.
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Connections
Brainshark is a free online tool that allows you to upload PowerPoint slides, images, PDF files, documents and other media, and then embed your narrations over the content. Additionally, you can add music and multimedia to the presentation to make it more engaging. The final output file can be streamed online or embedded onto your website or blog. This software could be used for online presentations, slideshows, flash cards or even podcasts.
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KEEPVID - A useful site to download online videos
Keepvid is a website that you can use to download any video from a website so that you can insert it to your presentations to use offline.
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Creating a Personal Collection of Online Resources with MERLOT
This module is designed to introduce new users to the features of the MERLOT World Languages collection and to demonstrate how to use MERLOT as a teaching resource.
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Comparisons
Brainshark is a free online tool that allows you to upload PowerPoint slides, images, PDF files, documents and other media, and then embed your narrations over the content. Additionally, you can add music and multimedia to the presentation to make it more engaging. The final output file can be streamed online or embedded onto your website or blog. This software could be used for online presentations, slideshows, flash cards or even podcasts.
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Creating Screencasts with CamStudio
CamStudio is a free software download that allows you to take video screen captures of content displayed on your desktop. This program allows you to create video segments of anything that you can show on your screen, from websites to software applications to simulations and demonstrations. You can not only narrate as you record the screen, but you can also add special cursors, annotations and even an embedded video box from a web camera. The videos are saved out as either AVI or SWF files.
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Haiku Deck - Simple and beautiful slideshow creation
Haiku Deck is a free slideshow creating app. It is a completely new kind of presentation app designed to make your slides stunning. It allows you to create unique presentations with artistic flavor. It allows you to pull a large database of striking background and images from the web. It is best to show a chart, image or screenshot with fewer words to describe it.
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Communities
Dropbox is a free file hosting service that helps you keep your files safe, synced and accessible from anywhere. According to Dropbox, “ Dropbox is a home for all your photos, docs, videos and files. Anything you add to Dropbox will automatically show up on all your computers, phones and even the Dropbox website – so you can access your stuff from anywhere.” After you have placed files in Dropbox, you can easily share your files with other people, and the files will be backed up and kept safe. The following image best illustrate how you can access files in Dropbox:
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Flip Cameras for World Languages
Flip video cameras are a useful tool in language classes as they are extremely easy to use and fairly inexpensive. With a class set of flip cameras, students can interview each other, perform skits in the target language, create their own "commercials" or music videos and much more. In order to produce a "professional" video, students will work on their project from storyboarding to rehearsal and finally to filming.
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Using Google Docs for Collaboration in the Classroom
Google Docs is an easy-to-use online word processor, spreadsheet and presentation editor. You can use it to create, store and share your documents instantly, securely, and collaborately online in real time.
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