Talking Avatar

There may be times you want to pass on information in a different way. For example to liven up a web page or blog. You could try creating your own avatar. With Voki, you can customise what you look and sound like or even record your own message.

Get a Voki now!

Teaching Techniques

A fun video with some serious points about teaching techniques that I came across some time ago. The video "The Educational Adventures of Brent and Joel" is based around The Sound of Music.

Dictionary.com

Today's post was prompted by a discussion with some of my students about academic writing and the difficulties they have with this.

The Dictionary.com website is a very useful tool for those wishing to check the meanings of words or search foar alternative vocabulary. However is has much more to offer than this including

a translation tool and multilingual dictionary

language and grammar guides and podcasts

puzzles

and much more.

Cartoon Creator

Sometimes it is helpful to present teaching materials in pircure or cartoon format. Makebeliefscomix.com is a very easy to use site which takes you through the stages of creating a short comic book cartoon. Once created you can email the cartoon to yourself (or others). Easy to use, I have made use of this in my online modules to emphasise key points I am making.

National Geographic

The National Geographic Society is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. It provides wide ranging information about geography, archaeology, natural science, environmental and historical conservation, and world culture and history.

The National Geographic website has something to offer all age groups.

Of particular note are the geography quizes which are updated daily and record scores to enable competition.

There are also daily news updates, photographs and videos and many articles and quizes covering a wide range of topics including animals, science, health, astronomy, geography, history, environment, people, culture and much more.

Historical Timeline (of art)

Happy New Year!

Reflecting on the start of a new year and as the old year passes into history, the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, seemed like a topical website to explore in my first post of the year.

This website explores the history of art based on chronology, geography or themes. In addition to a useful history of art, this site provides more general historical timeline which can supplement other non-art-based teaching resources.

StumbleUpon

This will be my last post before Christmas so I will take the opportunity to share a tool I enjoy using when I have some spare time.

StumbleUpon takes you to random web sites based on your interests (these might be educational or personal interest). When you sign up for an account, you have the opportunity to register your interests and when looking at websites you are taken to you can vote on whether you like the site - Stumbleupon's engine learns what you like, and it will also save those you vote for so you can go back later.


I wish you a very happy Christmas and will be back blogging on 5th January 2009.

Karen