Storybird

Storybird provides a selection of great images to choose from and is very easy to use.

Sign in, choose an artist by taking a look at the styles available and write!

I had a go at making a short poem and found it great fun. It is a great finale for children's story or poetry writing and can be published online too.

I can see myself using this with my class back in Spain. Loved it!

Which path, little princess?

A great site for writing with YLs

Me again,

Just came across this via twitter (it's great, join in!). It's a fantastic site.

Have a watch of Russell Stannard's (web legend) intro video here.

This is Russell site, it's well worth a visit: Teacher Training Videos

Technology in school contexts: teacher site

An example of video clips from Learning and Teaching Scotland. Although UK based, there is a wealth of resource here that you can browse. This is one from the podcasting series Voice thread and vokis

Each clip brings with it associated tagged clips as this one does.

There are various interesting clips showing IT use with younger learners. This one about e-twinning between primary children in a Scottish primary and a Polish school. E-twinning

Interesting comments by teacher about the project which she describes as happening 'outwith' the classroom, although very 'controlled' within - relates to the points I have made about careful planning and sequencing of activity that moves beyond the classroom walls.

Integrating tools

I was reading your views on blogs as personal and/or class tools and fully support the view that there must be hundreds of abandoned spaces out there! We do have to ask why bother!

I suspect in terms of blogs for learning, first of all the attributes of the tool itself need to be fit for purpose (eg your own use of the wikis and blogs for the webquest were your decisions. I have to say this is the first year that groups have defaulted to these collaborative tools rather than use the forum!). Yes, we're back to that word collaboration yet again:-)

Wikis clearly facilitate collaborative text construction in a way that blogs don't. The ease with which text is uploaded and reviewed is a definite attribute for creative projects, I feel. Maybe this is their strength and uses exploiting these features would seem to be logical. I do wonder if some wikis are more intuitive than others? I find myself reacting quite quickly to the 'look' of the tool and this can impact on my decision to make it a home for anything I do. You used different ones for your webquests - any thoughts on this, especially if that was your first encounter? I guess we could ask the same for most tools where we have choices, including blogs, but wikis seem to be a particular case in point:-)

Blogs clearly provide for discussion, but also seem to form a neat space for both sharing, archiving and display and I've seen various examples of them being used in this way. Along with the ability to tag entries, this seems to be again a specific set of attributes to act as a selling point.

This is a neat site that I explore with my UG class of primary school teaching assistants here in Manchester:-) In fact here are examples of blogs, podcasts, wikis all in one place - and in a primary learning context! Sandaig Primary school

What strikes me is there is no that much commenting and I felt this could be encouraged more (eg see the book review blog) but lots of 'display' - and clearly this can be seen by the children's parents too.

Here also is a nice example of Ning used in a global project around specific tasks that are aimed to make children more aware of others' voices around the world. Check thelink to the wiki from this main page for monthly tasks and uploaded projects Voices of the World

See what you think - oriented towards younger learners of course.
Diane