Saturday, September 28, 2013

Have you Tried to Draw Like Picasso?

 

Picassohead is a lovely digital tool that allows users to create their own masterpieces using famous features drawn by Picasso. Teachers can use such an amazing website to unleash their students' creativity and bring the magic of arts into their classes. 

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Humanizing Your Online Class

This title completely captured my attention when I first saw the announcement of the webinar by Michelle Pacansky-Brock. I always stress the importance of the socio-affective touch between students and their instructors. In this digital era, it is considered the key behind any successful learning. Knowing more about students, what, how, and why they learn inevitably lead to an enjoyable and memorable experience. Students also want to know more about their instructors and connect with them for extended interaction. The question is "How to use digital tools to humanize this relationship?

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Let Pictures Speak!


Blabberize is a web 2.0 tool that allows users to upload a picture, draw a "mouth" on that picture, and then record or upload a sound clip to make it speak or sing along with the sound. 

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Chat on the Fly using TLK.io

Thanks to Kaushalya Mandaliya, I managed to embed a live chatroom on my blog. You can create your own using TLK.io [talk·eeo]. It  is a web chat that is open to anyone and channels are owner-free. It seems so easy to use and embed into websites and blogs. I love to use it with my students.They always need instant feedback when working on new projects. However, the public feature is not secure. Anyone can join the discussion and write their messages. The only way to create a little bit private chatrooms is to choose complex names using numbers, letters and character, so spammers can't see them easily. This tool is a little bit new and of course they will add more features in the future. Let's wait and hope!

Monday, September 2, 2013

Check THREE Promising Courses by Coursera

Coursera launches many courses on September 2013. There are just three courses that catch my attention. My only criterion of choice is watching the instructors' introductory videos. You will not believe it. I know that these short videos are not enough to judge the quality of the whole experience, but they have a very great impact on learners before starting their journey of learning. Please check this great article by Sarah Linden to know more about the reasons behind using video introductions rather than text-based ones when creating your online courses.

Kindly explore each course info and choose what you need and add to your expertise: