Tech+Tools

//This page contains a list of tools that students and teachers can use for creating both low-tech and tech-infused stories, as well as productivity tools that will assist in the process.//

=Creativity Tools=

Audio Creation
- Text-to-speech: type your text in the box, select from m/f native speaker voices in many languages (including LCTLs), adjust speech rate and voice shaping, then download your file

- Excellent, free audio recording & editing software

- Create 3-min. audio files from your browser or mobile, publish, Tweet, etc.

- Take any image, add a mouth to it, record something for it to say, and watch it become a moving conversationalist!
 * [|Gargoyle with a headache (French)]
 * [|La casa inteligente]
 * [|El sacapuntas del futuro]
 * [|Spoke German Story (Einstein)]
 * [|German 3 Architect]
 * [|Chinese (Guy)]
 * [|Chinese 12.2.11 (Giraffe)]

- Upload photos, record a message, and share


 * [|Apprendre le francais (Tips for learning French, written in French)]
 * [|Delia (Mi monstruo tiene)]
 * [|Deutsch 1 LMS (Talks about culturally authentic report card in German)]
 * [|Final Francais Oral - Parte 4]
 * [|Fingers for Spanish (Emotions)]
 * [|Meine Famille (German)]
 * [|My Fotobabble (Gustar + Foods)]
 * [|Nachito (Mi monstruo tiene)]
 * [|Nicole's Casa]
 * [|Plan Parte 1 (La salud)]
 * [|Un peu de phonétique]
 * [|Was isst du Mittag?]

- Record your speech, it turns it into music and even alters your voice in some cases

- Students can upload an image (such as artwork), create an avatar, and record their own voices telling their stories using their cell phones or iPads

- Click, record, share

>
 * [[image:VoicethreadInK12EducationLogo.jpg link="http://voicethread.com/"]] - Easy way to connect photos and voices--particularly useful for emphasizing language without ignoring visual (in FL classes, for example). Would also be great for capturing family history
 * [|Chinese Radicals]
 * [|Voicethread Project Sample in Spanish]

- Speaking avatars


 * [|Edgehill College Spanish Blog (Ben describe el medioambiente)]
 * [|German Voki]
 * [|Japanese Voki]
 * [|Voki poèmes]
 * [|Voki Project] - Helpful example of project directions for Spanish
 * [|Voki Project Samples] - In Spanish

Blog Creation
- Great place for students to share their writing with authentic audiences. Display allows readers to follow individual student work, or to see all work from a particular teacher's class.
 * [|Animal Reports]
 * [|4th Grade Kidblog]

Book Creation
- Create free photobooks from copyright-safe Flickr images and a template

- Create e-books that can be read by any e-reader

- Create and share photo scrapbooks online (you can also print them)


 * [|Linguafolio Español]
 * [|Comida española deliciosa]
 * [|Las comidas de España]
 * [|Bienvenida a la ciudad de Memphis]
 * [|Mi viaje a Utah]

Brainstorming
- Allows threaded brainstorming

Brochures
[|My Brochure Maker] - Brochures

- Very intuitive interface for creating booklets and brochures (similar to Issuu)

Comics & Cartoon Creation
- Students can create their own Peewee comics by mixing and matching backgrounds, characters, props, adding text, and printing their creations user:chericem1

- Allows students or teachers to use comics and different characters with different emotional body language...You can create stories and apply text and thought bubbles. It goes up to 4 frames, but to do more than one, you can simply create 2 individual sets. It allows you to print and email them after!! But be sure you do! The site does not store them once you've closed the browser!


 * [|Spanish 2.2 (Little Mermaid)]

- Comic generator site lets you select from a number of different characters, change their emotions, overlap elements, rescale things, etc.

- Comic strip creation site that will take Chinese characters (and translate them) - courtesy of Aaron Bray

- A phenomenal site with stock characters that will appeal to students and allows them to create truly original work user:chericem1

- Step-by-step interactive comic creation template from //ReadWriteThink//

- A really nice site that lets you drag and drop characters, props, and even speed lines, etc. into comic frames. You can position things in front of or behind other things using the buttons at the bottom. Very intuitive and kid friendly. Be sure to click on all the buttons (Suggested by [|vidgan1])
 * [|Deutsch II]
 * [|Francais bande dessine]
 * [|Francais HW]
 * [|Mayan Civilization (in Spanish)]
 * [|Me gusta escuela]
 * [|Wir lernen deutsch]

- Comic creation software
 * [|La biblioteca]
 * [|Writing Assignment 1 (Introductions - Spanish)]

**Digital Storytelling**

- Very simple, easy-to-use interface allows you to upload or draw images, add text, record your voice, then play and even embed your story
 * [|El partido de fútbol] (Spanish with drawings)
 * [|Enhörningen och den magiska regnbågen]
 * [|La belgique] (French with sound effects and one photo)
 * [|La familia Rose] (Spanish with photos - class recording in background)
 * [|La leyenda de el armadillo] (Spanish with photos - no sound)
 * [|La viva de animales] (Simple Spanish with photos - no sound)
 * [|Les vacances en Holland] (French with culturally authentic photos and a native speaker)
 * [|Mi persona favorita] (Spanish with photos)
 * [|Sagan om det lilla hjärtat]

- Electronic template for creating stories--allows linking to social media

- Students can select illustrations from real children's picture book illustrators, then use them to illustrate their own, original stories. Diacritical marks must be cut and pasted in (via Word, for example)


 * French Examples
 * German Examples
 * Italian Examples
 * Spanish Examples

Generators
- Create crazy zoo animal avatars, then have students write stories about them

- A blog that attempts to provide ideas of things you can create using free, web 2.0 tools. Many would be excellent ways to tell stories

Graphic Organizer Creation
- Create a hamburger diagram

- Choose a 2- or 3-circle Venn diagram, then change the labels, add notes, save, and share

- Free social concept mapping tools that allow you to collaborate, attach documents and images, etc. (requires registration)

- Create diagrams, graphic organizers

- Free, collaborative concept-mapping

= Use this generator to create a target diagram, then save and share

Infographic Creation
[|What is an Infographic]

[|Reasons Your Brain Craves Infographics]

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- Create infographics from templates or from scratch, then share them

- Create interactive infographics (with audio, charts, graphs, images, text, and video) from templates, then share them

- Use existing data or upload your own to create infographics from templates



- Create infographics w/ drag & drop

iPad Apps
- A lengthy list of applications

- Allows you to select, crop, and organize photos, record a story as a voiceover, then save and share via iPhone or iPad. (More info. on [|Shadow Puppet])

Journal Creation
- Free, online, collaborative suite of office tools (forms, presentations, spreadsheets, word processing)

- Online journaling that allows you to attach photos

Wikispaces - Use a wiki to remove writer's block--allows you to make continual changes to your text, to move things around, and to keep a constant outline of the various sections of your writing in view via the navigation bar. If you cut a section, but think you might want to use it later? No problem--just make a "parts pile" page, paste the deleted section in, and find it later. Also removes the "Word crashed and I lost everything" phenomenon. Everything you type is captured in the history (as long as you save frequently), and you can always revert to a previous version of the paper if you change your mind midstream. GREAT for collaborative authoring as well.

Magazine Creation
- Create your own magazines

- Create your own, digital magazines
 * [|Charoná]
 * [|Rik, el niño sin imaginación]

- Very intuitive interface for creating booklets and brochures (similar to Issuu)

- Create flippable magazines or reports for free (from uploaded PDFs)

Newsletter Creation
- Create newsletters with photos from templates and host up to 10 online for free at any given time

Photo Effects
- Create badges, billboards, CD covers, collages, cubes, jigsaw puzzles, magazine covers, mosaics, movie posters, trading cards, and more

- Make coloring books and other interesting things from photos, save as JPEGs and use as illustrations for assignments or worksheets

- Very robust, online photo editing site

- Dress up photos with interesting frames and your own captions, then save and share

Pop-up Books
- 3D, augmented reality pop-up books

Portfolio Creation
- Visual portfolio-like app

**Poster Creation**

- Free, multimedia poster-maker. Set up student accounts for educational use.


 * [|All About Me Project (Spanish)] Note that students can include their own voices!
 * [|Spanish Vida Sana Project]
 * [|Spanish 3 Instructions]
 * [|Joan Miró]
 * [|Pablo Picasso]
 * [|Les freres lumieres (French)]
 * [|Linguistics Poster (University Level)]Glogster can be useful for helping university students prepare research for poster sessions at conferences

- Create motivational posters by adding your own photos and text

Presentation Creation
- Create dynamic, non-linear presentations (similar to Prezi) with this flash-based tool (allows you to organize using layers like Photoshop)

- Quickly create slide shows with captions, text, photos, and quiz questions


 * [|La famille] - Slideshow that uses possessive adjectives, family vocab., and famous people to create a fictional family in French
 * [|Fotos del espacio] - Slideshow of photos of black holes, supernovas, etc., labeled in Spanish
 * [|Polar Bear Quiz] - Interactive quiz about polar bears and their habitat
 * [|¿Vida o sida?] - Slideshow about AIDS in Spanish (note, some images may not be suitable for classroom use
 * [|Y ahora . . . qué?] - Slideshow about aging in Spanish

- Create dynamic, non-linear presentations and concept maps


 * [|Storytelling]

- Allows you to audio narration onto a slideshow

- Upload ppt presentations to share with others

Rubric Creation
- Edit existing rubrics or create your own

Screencast Creation
- Free screencasting (requires free download)

- Easy-to-use, no download required, 5 min. limit

Script Creation
[|Create Your Scenario] - Generates simple playscripts - especially good for elementary

Social Media Creation


- An online community similar to Twitter, but designed for use in education

- Generate fake text messages

- Create fake Tweets using this generator

Tag Cloud Creation
- Type in text, it generates a tag cloud you can print on t-shirts

- Make tag (word) clouds in different shapes - Upload your text (or the URL of your blog) to make tag clouds in all sorts of very detailed shapes - Make your own tag (word) cloud media type="custom" key="4970681" ([|Why Wordle?])

Timeline Creation
- Create embeddable timelines that include photos, audio, videos, etc.

- Create collaborative timelines with text, photos, and videos. You can also choose a type of album, answer questions, and it will generate it for you

Timers
- Online Stopwatch - Use this to monitor group work, to count down how much "English Break Time" is left, etc.

Video Creation
- Upload photos, select your music, and then it will turn them into videos
 * [|Rubric for Assessing a Digital Storytelling Project] (Scroll down to p. 2)

- Create animated videos from stock characters, images, music, and effects, or upload your own and lay them in tracks. Students have to type text into Word and then copy and paste it in order to get diacritical marks.
 * [|Chinese III Dating Story]
 * [|Episode 1 Scene 2: La tourmente]
 * [|Mi rutina]
 * [|Revolution Francaise]
 * [|Spanish Project]
 * media type="custom" key="11618260"

- Select specific segments from YouTube videos for viewing

- Video editing in a browser (collaborative if you pay)

- Free audio/video editing software you can download and use to make mashups

- Create mini, animated videos (or greeting cards) from stock elements


 * [|Camila y Gozo] - Sample conversation between 2 roommates made in Xtranormal (in Spanish)

**Website Creation**

- Free, online website creation

- Create free flash websites

**Whiteboard Creation**

- Collaborative whiteboard

- Put your own text on a Post-it note image

[|Wallwisher] - Collaboratively "graffiti" by posting "stickies" on this online "wall"

Wiki Creation
Wikispaces- Make your own wiki!
 * Bishop Blogs
 * DHS Espanol
 * Digitale-schule - Create separate pages for small group work to guide students in dividing up project responsibilities, gathering necessary information, and working through the writing process
 * Español 3: Wesley - Display individual student work
 * Intercultural-it-aus - Converse with students from the target culture and [|discuss cultural perspectives] using chat, discussion forums, or Skype
 * International Collaborative Wiki - Jerusalem - Facilitate joint explorations of literature and culture (among students in Canada and Jerusalem in this case)
 * KWR-Deutschwiki - Create galleries of student work that demonstrate the growth of students' language skills
 * Learning Latin America
 * Le français, le FLE, les TICE . . . - Comics in the target language
 * Loveland High School Professional Learning Communities Wiki Workspace - Facilitate professional learning communities
 * Madame Krause's Wiki - Cultural video
 * MadameSpace

= = =Filesharing & Conversion Tools=

- Free online hosting and file sharing

- Requires download
 * [[image:savvyscholar/DropboxLogo.png caption="DropboxLogo.png" link="https://www.dropbox.com/"]] ||
 * Dropbox ||

- - Free file conversion from one format to another

- Al lows you to link a file and send it without registration or software download.

- Upload documents to share with others - Similar to Divshare, but with an expiration time (from 30 minutes to 1 week). Super simple interface. Easy for technophobes.

- Extremely simple interface. Simply browse for your file, type in the e-mail address of the recipient, and click Send!

- Convert documents to PDFs while maintaining hyperlinks

- Send large files to others using this service

=Productivity Tools=

- Create your own booklists, reading groups, challenges, and reports (similar to Goodreads)

- Allows students to calculate accuracy, self-correction ratio, etc., when reading aloud

**Reference Tools**




 * [[image:http://www.google.com/images/logo_sm.gif link="http://www.google.com"]] || [|Language Tools] ||

== = = - An online dictionary, available in many languages, with links to discussion forums about usage in various contexts

= **Search Tools** =

// -// Create a customizable search page using icons

= **Tech Terms** =
 * [|Glosario básico inglés-español para usuarios de Internet]
 * [|Glosario Bilingüe de Internet]
 * [|Tech Terms]
 * [|More Tech Terms]

=Video Manipulation Tools=

[|Applian FLV Player]

- Pull the audio from any YouTube video here

- Show specific segments of YouTube videos

- Upload up to 500MB of video, then bookmark particular segments within it or allow others to comment on it

- Open source video player that will play almost anything

- Copy and paste a YouTube link into the window. It allows you to view the video on a plain white or black screen without ads or suggested videos at the end.

- Download and convert YouTube videos

=Videoconferencing Tools=

- Hold videoconferences with colleagues from around the world for free

- Free collaborative meeting software (requires download)