21st Century Technology in the World Language Classroom

Sites for Reading, Writing, and Class Collaboration

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Catherine Ousselin's homepage

AnswerGarden

AnswerGarden is a new minimalistic feedback tool. Use it as a tool for online brainstorming or embed it on your website or blog as a poll or guestbook.

What aspect of techn in the WL classroom intrigues you most?... at AnswerGarden.ch.

Wall Wisher - Catherine's Poll

Wall Wisher -Main link

Use Wall Wisher to sollicite ideas from a class. Each person adds his or her own sticky to the wall and can view the results of the class in real time.

Note: This site does not work with iPod Touch at this time. This would be well used in a lab or laptop setting.

Storybird Collaborative Storytelling

Using gorgeous art and storyboard options, collaborate on and publish a personalized storybook. This is my first story. It took me about 20 minutes from start to finish. I made up the story as I found the pictures.

A la recherche de son âme soeur by mvhsfrench on Storybird

Myebook - Publish an e-book on line!

This site offers inspired authors the chance to write and publish e-books to share with the world. Add text, pictures, and sound to create a truly unique project.

Fifi le chien - Par Sylvia Duckwork

Edu.Glogster.com

Use digital photos, text, and borrowed creativity to prodce attractive posterboards for projects. No more late night trips to the drugstore for posterboard and markers!

Explore 3rd French furniture and housing projects

Choose scenes, backgrounds, and characters to create a simple video with text. At the end of the creation process, use the embed code to add the project to a Web site, blog or e-mail message.

Register through GoAnimate 4 Schools

For the more motivated animators, choose GoAnimate to make short videos that allow the creator to customize characters, scenes, music, and much more. Experiment with the voices in French and in Spanish by upgrading (for Free as an educator) to the GoAnimate Plus.

Zimmer Twins

Use pre-made cartoon scenes and add your own text to make an animated movie.

PicLits.com

"Inspired picture writing"

PicLits.com is a creative writing site that matches beautiful images with carefully selected keywords in order to inspire you. The object is to put the right words in the right place and the right order to capture the essence, story, and meaning of the picture.

BigHugeLabs

View my students' Trading Cards

Use digital photos and language to create posters, magazine covers, inspirational posters, and unique projects. This is an exciting site from which you can publish your students' work.

“I teach educators how to use digital images in their classroom. Your site is one of my favorites to share with my teachers. We create posters, trading cards of Explorers, mosaics, and magazine covers. My teachers love to use your product.” – Susan, Technology Trainer

Penzu.com

Free online diary. Encourage online journaling that allows sharing between writers!

Wiki for more than 40 online useful story telling tools !

Students can make amazing online, thematic scrapbooks using visuals and written language. Make a basic page that can be worked on by groups of students and it is an excellent collaborative project.

  This is a basic book I made using the French club.

| View Sample Photo Books | Create your own Photo Book

Wordle

This is my Wordle based on the French poem "Déjeuner du matin" by Jacques Prévert. Wordle takes text and makes it into a visual artwork piece. It can be a unique view of the students' work. Students may use any work that they have produced and transform it into art.

ImageChef

Word Mosaic, Poetry Blender, and many other applications allow your students to create personalized and artistic projects using language and pictures.

ImageChef.com  

Word Clouds ABCya!

Much like Wordle, this basic program allows you to "play" with a text. Users are able to change the font, the color, and the size of the word cloud.

Tagxedo

Tagxedo is an advanced, but still easy-to-use program that uses shapes, fonts, themes, and the Web to help you create sophisticated looking word clouds. I have used Paul Verlaine's "Chanson d'automne" (Song of Autumn) to create this pictoral representation of the poem. I chose the colors, the font, the shape, and the layout. A great site for the artistically impaired!

Update: At this time I do not recommend embedding your creation in a site or blog. The developer used "Silverlight," which is not a compatible program with most browsers. Save your creation as a .JPG file and add it as a normal picture file.

Slideshare

Guided tour

 * Embed slideshows into your own blog or website.
* Share slideshows publicly or privately. There are several ways to share privately.
* Synch audio to your slides.
* Market your own event on slideshare.
* Join groups to connect with SlideShare members who share your interests.
* Download the original file
 

Mystudiyo

Make FREE fun quizzes with video, audio, photos for free! Have your students choose a video from either YouTube or TeacherTube. Students compose the questions and their classmates will take the quizzes. From this one site you will incorportate reading, writing, and listening! Can be used with an Interactive Whiteboard.