Make Music: Jam, Incredibox & Ambient Mixer

Incredibox is aptly named and highly addictive. Add up to seven human 'beatboxers' and allocate them a riff to produce. The best way to learn about it is to give it a go here but make sure you haven't left anything on the stove before you do. Alternatively, you could watch the fruits of someone else's labour and click on the video below.

Jam with Chrome: Start by choosing an instrument from a range of string, brass and drums before inviting up to 4 friends to do the same for a jamming session. The video below explains more.

And finally, there's Ambient Mixer where you can combine and edit professionally produced sounds to create your own soundtracks.

Integration:

• With these four tools (along with Soundation), there's no longer a need to worry about finding copy-free music for projects; allow learners to create their own
• Create ambient music to change the mood and pace of parts of your lessons
• Use as part of a dramatic production; another way to allow learners to contribute with their own creativity
• Use produced pieces as inspiration for free writing or discussion

Storyboard That: Drag n Drop in a Flash

I noticed Storyboard That from a tweet by Richard Byrne (@rmbyrne) a couple of days ago and set aside 5 minutes to have a quick look. It offfers a very simple interface for creating anything from basic to detailed frames.

As an entire year group at my school is currently producing video for a film festival I can see an immediate application, but the tool could also be used for providing instruction e.g. a process in Science, a technique in PE or a summary of historical events. Of course, being an English teacher, using this as a reading response assessment is also a possibility but I think my first exploration of Storyboard That will be to create frames (extracted by screenshot) for my teaching sites to engage learners and provide guidance at certain parts of the lessons. How could you use it?

Soundation: Create Your Own Soundtracks

As elements of operating systems are being replaced bit-by-bit with Web 2.0 tools,  Soundation is another free service to add to your kit. As with Garage Band, you can splice and mix uploaded tracks or choose from over 600 clips available from their library.

Results can then be used in group projects without the concern for copyright that is becoming an ever-increasing concern. Click here.

Free PBL courses from PBLU

This is too good to keep to yourself. PBLU are offering free courses to anyone interested in implementing the PBL model. As these guys are an offshoot of BIE - the heavyweights in the world of PBL - they are well worth a look. By completing the 6 courses on offer, including the final capstone project, you will receive certification as a PBL teacher. 
If you are one of the many who have been curious as to why there's so much hype around PBL, this is the perfect opportunity to be properly informed and explore the methodology with your own learners.
As the site itself is in beta, I'm wondering if the courses will remain free after this first trial run. Not waiting to find out, I'm all signed up and raring to go. Join me!

(The site also contains a range of PBL projects will which at the time of blogging will shortly be available. Be sure to peruse the examples for inspiration.)

PBL: Getting Started with Project-Based Learning

I've blogged about a few resources for the PBL classroom, which can be found in these search results, but a recent forum discussion and a chat with a colleague made me realise that not everyone is clear about PBL; many have the impression that it is simply incorporating projects into learning, but it rather more involved than this traditional classroom phenomenon. I intend to incorporate the elements that I find most suited to my learners such as the 'real world' focus and it complements my move toward thematic planning, providing a wealth of ideas to get started. My post on BIE is still a good place to start for those who are in the dark, but below are a few other resources that should make the ideas behind PBL a bit clearer, not least to myself!


Resource 1
Got 3 minutes and 50 seconds? This video from BIE explains what PBL is:

Like this? There are lots more on the BIE Youtube Channel and their project search tool on the right-hand side of this page is a great way to see what potential projects look like.

Resource 2 
Got a bit more time? Click here to access the Project-Based Learning Professional Development Guide from Edutopia.

Resource 3
Ready to get serious? Click here to access TechLearning's 25+ links to uncovering PBL online.


Hopefully, these resources provide a clearer picture of PBL in its purest form as well as the various ways it can be 'diluted' to suit other models of learning. Many professional forums, including those on the sites above, have threads around this topic, so jump in and join the discussion.

Screenr: Screen Capture without Hassle

Screenr is another free screencasting tool, with no downloads or signups required. Record up to 5 minutes of on-screen action ad then embed and share on any sites, social networks or blogs of your choosing. The buzz about this tool is its simplicity of use with almost zero IT skills required to create successful screencasts.

Integration:

As per Screencast-O-Matic

Get Writing with Elastoplast Stories

Elastoplast Stories offers another way to encourage writing among younger learners. Kids are offered a blank template with boxes for each scene of their story. They can write the story and then add pictures with speech bubbles and other media, including animated elements. Once finished, they can submit their stories to the public gallery for all to share.

Click to enlarge

Learners can peruse the gallery to promote excitement about writing and to see what the finished results could look like, and there is a kids' adventure pack to download for exploring the great outdoors which could be great inspiration in itself.

QuestGarden WebQuest Collection

WebQuests were a hot topic a few of years ago, but now that the initial novelty value has worn off, they may well be worth a second look for promoting independent enquiry and self-paced learning. QuestGarden offers a huge bank of WebQuests for free (as well as additional resources for paid members) so it's a great place to start if you're looking for one to supplement or kick-start a topic.

Collaboration without Google Docs

A recent post on Edmodo made me realise that not everyone is fortunate enough to have access to the world of Google and all the educational benefits it brings. If the powers that be have blocked the use of Google Docs and you are looking for a way to do collaborative writing, some alternatives are below. (With thanks to Ms Hurst, Ms Quirk and Mr Boysen on Edmodo for these suggestions.) Click on the icons to go to the sites.

"Springnote allows you to create pages, to work on them together with your friends, and to share files. Springnote is also a great tool for group projects as it allows group members to easily collaborate. Advanced search, numerous templates, and 2GB of FREE File Storage are only few examples of how Springnote can help you. Of course, you already know that Springnote is an Internet service, meaning you can access it from anywhere anytime."

Inanimate Alice

If you're looking for something really different to engage your learners, Inanimate Alice is a fictional hypertext novel following a young girl as she grows up and relocates to various places around the world, beginning in China with her parents. The story is episodic and requires various levels of interaction although the whole experience is an on-screen one.

There are suggestions for how to get started with this in the classroom, but you can also register for access to a much more comprehensive educational pack containing lessons plans of a full exploration of the genre.

The video below introduces the novel as one teacher gives an overview of her "epiphany."

Integration:

• Use with younger teens to give them a new way of experiencing texts and use as a model for creating their own
• I see this having applications for post-16 courses such as English Language A-Level and IB; the educational pack explores the idea of multi-sensory, multimedia texts so it's a very guided route into this genre for those who are unsure or just looking for some additional materials to add to their repertoire
• The cross-curricular links to be exploited make this a potential project to span several subject areas

Panoramas & Imagination

Since attending a Creativity workshop with Tim Rylands at ASB Unplugged 2012, I've been interested in using panoramas to inspire stepping outside of the classroom - at least in a a virtual sense.

The first of a few resources to help with this is Autostitch, the gallery of which is here. With Autostitch you simply input the pictures you've taken and it automatically detects the overlaps and stitches them together in one seamless panorama, which can be navigated with your mouse or keyboard to turn up to 360 degrees. Unfortunately, the demo software is only available for Windows at the moment, but you can still make use of those in the gallery.

CleVR also offers a free service for stitching pictures. The great thing about this site is that you can embed the results into websites, blogs and wikis when you're done. Again, no specialist equipment - other than a digital camera - is needed and the results can be impressive. What's more you can "add interactive hotspots to your panoramas. These let viewers click areas in the panorama for more information. They can display notes, photos or video. They can also be used to link panoramas together into a full virtual tour."

Airpano offers 3D panoramas to move around and explore. I would have embedded one but as soon as I tried, the audio played automatically. Check them one for yourself here.

Photosynth is yet another online platform for creating static and interactive panoramas that can be shared a number of ways including by embedding. There is a comprehensive public gallery available if you don't have the time or means to make your own.

Integration:

• There's no substitute for the real thing, but if you can't take your class to a place of interest let it come to you via an interactive panorama; projected or displayed onto a whiteboard with the lights dimmed, learners can be transported to another place entirely - let their imaginations soar
• As a prompt for creative writing, use one of the high res panoramas to zoom in on a smaller object of interest in the background; as you pan out ask learners to note the detail that is added before looking left, right, up and down to complete the picture and the subsequent writing
• Learners can create their own panoramas to accompany projects on places or topics; add audio and text to create interactive webpages to engage audiences on almost any subject
• If you're a bit of a techie - immerse learners in a fantasy world of their own creation; use the background panoramas for green-screen shooting

My Hero Project

This is such a worthwhile project that I just had to share it. The My Hero project has been around for a number of years, and aims to "use media and technology to celebrate the best of humanity and to empower people of all ages to realize their own potential to effect positive change in the world."

The project is a great way to expose your learners to a range of inspirational people (and animals!) and the site is packed full of lesson plans and resources to get you started. If you are looking for a project that really makes a difference, this could be your answer regardless of your subject area or target age-group.

Learners can contribute short films, artwork or essays on the heroes of their choice so it lends itself to cross-curricular approaches and bonus...it's open to absolutely everyone from nursery to university and beyond. Teachers may well feel inspired to contribute themselves and that's all good. Below is one of the short films produced for the project to give you an idea of the moving stories involved.

Again...but slower

Againbutslower.com puts Wikipedia and Simple Wikipedia side-by-side so you can compare the results from each. If used for differentiation where the (EAL?) learners are making the choice, rather than the teacher, it has great value. Also, as much of Wikipedia has not yet been simplified (information on my hometown for example) there are opportunities for learners to create their own entries which will then be accessed by the rest of the world.

Switcheroo Zoo

Switcheroo Zoo is bound to be a hit with your young learners, but I'm already thinking up ways to use it with my teens. The site contains lots of activities related to animals and their habitats. It's a mine of useful information, but the fun starts in the 'Switch Zoo' where it's possible to create new animals from the composite parts of existing ones. Here's a picture of my 3-minute creation: Bengal Gizard!

• Learners can mix up their own animals and then use the animal facts to write profiles for their creations - let their imaginations soar as they practise their writing skills
• Build a habitat most suitable for the animals met on the site
• Let learners take a guided tour to find out more about the animal kingdom
• Use as part of a larger project where learners create a world using Terragen and then visit this site to populate their planets

Terragen

I decided to go ahead and publish this post so you could explore the resource yourself, but once I've had a bit more of a play with the software, I'll update it with more details and ideas. In the meantime, feel free to add your own via the Comments section below of course.

This is hardly a click-and-go type resource but because of its potential, I just have to share it with you. Tim Rylands presented this at the ASB Unplugged conference in Mumbai last week and it was simply mind-blowing. The free software can be downloaded from here and the rest is up to your imagination and creativity as you create your own landscapes on a planet of your choice. While it might be time-consuming, just think of the possibilities!

I can hardly begin to list all the uses Terragen could have for extended project work or PBL, but here's a few to kick things off. In my ideal world, I'd use it for a long-term cross-curricular project with various groups coming back to the created world through the year for various learning activities. Anyway, individual subject teachers could create a world and then fill it with anything relevant. For example:

• Historians could produce areas which are portals to the past and use the backdrops as green screens for recording events
• Geography - countless ways to interact with landforms and other geographical features before exploring the impact that the peoples you decide to populate the planet with; combine with Google Sketchup for even more
• Art - use your eyes and imagination!
• English / Language Arts - lots of opportunities for descriptive and narrative writing; if non-fiction's your goal, is there anything in the world that couldn't be linked to an entire planet?

Simple Booklet

Simple Booklet offers a very straightforward way of publishing a range of formats from reports to newsletters, portfolios to presentations and more. What's worth blogging about is the incredibly clean-lined and intuitive interface. It may not have the whistles and bells of (for example) Prezi, but you can see how quick and easy it is to use without the distraction of lots of features.

Integration:

• Learners can publish any written work (stories, explanations, presentations etc.) and then embed it anywhere they like from blogs to websites to wikis to social networks...
• The published booklet is tablet-friendly so it can be accessed from laptops, PCs and 'pads' - even younger learners will be able to use the interface

Getting Organised

Evernote is a popular tool that allows people to create, edit and share notebooks with text, audio, video and other media. I've been using it for a while now and was surprised to find that I hadn't posted about it, so here we are. The fact that it can be accessed with any mobile device makes it a great way to keep things up-to-date. Although I don't use it with learners (yet!), I have found it invaluable as an alternative to Post-it Notes and a great way to organise bookmarks, digital media and other resources from around the web. Have a look at how teachers make use of it here. Fortunately, the helpful team at Evernote has also provided these resources so you can fully explore the applications of Evernote in the classroom.


Trello is another helpful tool that allows a group to organise the various elements of projects by assigning different responsibilities to individuals and then allowing them to update their progress in real time. This video gives a general (not very education orientated) introduction to the functionality but it's easy to see how it can be used for groups to collaborate, perhaps even providing a more modern take on Gantt charts?

Edusim Virtual Worlds

I've never been into 3D virtual worlds; my initial fumblings with Second Life were rather underwhelming (no doubt due to my own impatience in mastering the tools), so when I came across Edusim I didn't have high expectations. However, after watching a couple of the videos on their site and then finding a couple more on Youtube, I began to get excited. Why? Well, the videos show primary kids using the interface with ease and the examples given immediately sparked off ideas of how I'd use this in my own classroom. At the moment, I think primary teachers have the advantage in being able to launch the use of Edusim through a concentrated block of time, but secondary teachers could create cross-curricular collaborative projects to really take this to a whole other level.

Integration:

Colonise an imaginary world and then fill it with everything from:

• Libraries holding histories, myths, legends and other texts related to the world (English/Language Arts)
• Fill the terrain with interesting geological features (Geography)
• Environmental management systems (Geography, Economics, Maths)
• Creatures based on life forms studied (Sciences)
• Galleries showcasing works (paintings, illustrations, film, song) from this other world (Art, Music, Media)
• Buildings created from Google Sketchup (Art, Design Tech, ICT)
• Additional villages where they speak other languages (MFL)

The possibilities are as limitless as your learners' imagination!

Tildee

Tildee is a site that offers everyone a space to share what they know. You can add videos, voice and pictures to create your 'how to' and then share it with anyone by sending the link.

Integration:
Learners, groups and teachers can create tutorials on many things to demonstrate understanding or provide instruction for others. For example:

• how to tackle a particular math problem (or anything else that requires 'working out')
• how to be a great learner
• how to deconstruct a character from a work of literature
• how to study effectively
• how to play a certain sport
• how to read a map
• how to prepare for an exam
• how to understand a work of art

Talking Pictures - Voicethread and Yodio

Voicethread has been around for quite a while and has a user-friendly interface. Learners can upload pictures and add voiceover, as well as doodling and other features. I've used it a few times with different groups as an alternative way to present and my learners have given positive feedback on the experience. Now you can also find inspiration on how to make the most of Voicethread from the project library which is organised by subject area. The resulting Voicethreads can be shared, embedded and commented upon. Additionally, there are lots of ideas of how to make the most of it in the presentation below.

(As an alternative, Yodio is another free, easy-to-use service that allows users to upload pictures and then add voice to them. Voice can be uploaded from MP3 files or you can call the (US) number to send your voice straight to your account.)