Make Your Collages Interactive by ThingLink

Retrieved July 23, 2013 from here

is a free and user-friendly digital tool that provides users with the ability to turn any image into an interactive graphic. It enables you to create multiple “hot spots” on specific parts of an image and turn that image into a multimedia launcher. You can include video, record audio or provide a link to any website with the click of a button. You can easily embed an interactive ThingLink graphic into any blog or website. ThingLink is a truly amazing tool that allows users to pack a lot of content into a normal space (Susan Oxnevad, 2012). To create your own interactive images, here is a great tutorial shared by our instructors in the GE4L Micro-MOOC:

GE4L Store of Tools and Resources

In this post, I will collect all the resources and tools being mentioned during the 4-week GE4L MOOC either suggested by the instructors or my colleagues:

Game Elements for Learning

Retrieved July 2, 2013 from here

Another learning adventure just starts on Canvas. It is the Game Elements for Learning (GE4L) professional development Micro-MOOC. It introduces us to game thinking and design, game elements, and a variety of opportunities to gamify and play games. What attracts me is its clear objectives and the short time it takes (Just a month). Having a look at week one, we have a lot of things to do such as trying new tools, creating avatars, tweeting (#GE4L), blogging, attending webinars facilitated by gaming experts, playing game elements, discussing ideas, and sharing experiences. Moreover, I notice a lot of gamification features like points, leaderboard, ambassador badges, and many more things that we will see in the coming weeks. I hear that there are a lot of surprises.I'm looking forward to learning more about games, gamification, and how to create my own products. 

My e-dventures of Writing

Retrieved June 20, 2013 from here

Crafting an Effective Writer: Tools of the Trade is another amazing adventure that I have just completed on Coursera. It was offered by Mt. San Jacinto College, and instructed by Lorrie Ross, Lawrence (Larry) Barkley, & Ted Blake. The course was broken into five weekly units with each unit spanning one week. Each weekly unit had the following items: video lectures, in-video quizzes, readings, journal writings, discussion forums, peer reviewed writing assignment, and weekly quiz. Our first week started with a video by Lorrie Ross giving us some tips on how to become a successful online leaner. We spent the whole week reading the syllabus, taking the course guide quiz, checking the weekly materials, creating a success list, and a calendar as an effective way to organize the work. Then, we introduced ourselves in the discussion forum. It was just as an exploration tour for learners in order to be familiar with the platform of Coursera. By clicking each week on the sidebar, one can find all the required activities and assignments with links, benchmark dates, credit points, and estimated time to complete them. This well-designed format helped us a lot to be more organized, and saved a lot of our time. Here is a screenshot of week 2 activities:

The Power of Peeragogy

Retrieved June 19, 2013 from here

I have just completed one of the most well-organized online courses on Coursera "Statistics: Making Sense of Data" that was offered by University of Toronto, and instructed by Alison Gibbs, & Jeffrey Rosentha. It was about statistics and how to make use of this field in our lives. As any course I took on Coursera, we watched video lectures, took quizzes, completed, and reviewed assignments following model answers prepared by the instructors. What makes this course different from other learning experiences is its well-designed format, clear objectives, and high quality content. In addition, the To-Do-List provided on the top of the sidebar helped us a lot to know more about each week's tasks and assignments, and it saved our time and efforts. In contrast, I dropped another Coursera course running at the same time "Inspiring Leadership through Emotional Intelligence" because I didn't know what tasks and readings I should do in each week although the instructor was very creative and had a powerful impact on people. 

Become a Digital Storyteller!

Retrieved June 12, 2013 from here

Glogster EDU is a social network that allows users to create free interactive posters, or Glogs. A "Glog", short for "graphics blog", is an interactive multimedia image. It looks like a poster, but readers can interact with the content. Glogster EDU provides an online environment to design interactive posters. The user inserts text, images, photos, audio files, videos, special effects and other elements into their glogs to generate a multimedia online creation. Posters can be shared with other users on the site, embedded in external wikis or blogs, and shared via many social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Glogs can also be exported and saved to computer-compatible formats (see more here). 

Mapping with Google

Thanks to +Roz Hussin, I would like to share a free online course offered by Google these days. Mapping with Google course starts June 10 and ends June 24, 2013. It is a self-paced, online course where you will watch videos (or read text lessons) and apply the skills you learn. During this course, you will be able to collaborate with a worldwide community of learners and experts in the class forum, Hangouts, and via Google+. Course completion requires an internet-enabled desktop or laptop computer. By the end of the course, those learners who are able to complete required projects using what they have learned can earn a certificate. 

 

Prezi: Bring your Presentation to Life

Retrieved May 10, 2013 from here

Prezi is a cloud-based presentation software with a zoomable canvas that allows you to create visually captivating presentations that lead your audience down a path of discovery. It is a virtual whiteboard that transforms presentations from monologues into conversations: enabling people to see, understand, and remember ideas. With a few clicks, you can bring life to your presentations adding text, images, videos, background music, files (pdf, ppt, pptx), diagrams, symbols, links, and choosing a lively template. You can zoom in and out to attract attention and inspire your audience. You can share your Prezis with your friends to edit as a collaborative work or let the conversations go using the comment box. You can present online or download a portable version to use it offline. I think that Prezi can add a different taste to your presentations. Students will like because it addresses most of their learning styles and helps to extend their attention span.

DNLE Brought Out the Best in Me!

Retrieved May 9, 2013 from here

I'm Azhar Youssef, an Egyptian EFL teacher who teaches high school students in a village. Learning adventures are only what I seek for since I became a teacher. Completing my post graduate studies helped me a lot to research and try out things to make my students happy while learning. My whole professional teaching life completely changed when I was nominated to take a 10-week online course offered by Oregon University titled "Building Teaching Skills through the Interactive Web" and instructed by Prof. Deborah Healey in 2010. This course was about how to integrate technology into curriculum. We were introduced to many tools that can make a difference in our classes. Once I got involved and found my way in the Nicenet platform, I started to help my colleagues as I always do. One of them called Roxana commented on my last post: "You became my trouble shooter. I am very thankful for all the pieces of advice you gave. They really worked." Helping people and drawing smiles on their faces is one of my dear things that I love to do in my daily life. As a result to my hard work during these 10 weeks, I was also nominated to attend the E-Teacher Scholarship Program 2011 hosted by Maryland and Oregon universities. This 3-week program was another amazing learning experience where I managed to meet 26 colleagues from all over the world face-to-face at UMBC. Really, I never forget all those sweet memories we spent together learning, discussing, creating, evaluating, presenting and finding time for chatting and laughing. I came back home with a strong desire to create a new life for my students. I used all  what I learned previously to encourage them to be more innovative and responsible citizens who are able to serve their country. They created  a wiki through which they invite tourists to visit Egypt again after the 25th Jan. Revolution. They won the First Place in the Regional Forum held in Jordan 2011 and also participated in the Global Forum held in Washington DC, 2011 to showcase their achievements. I was also Featured on Microsoft website to tell the whole world how a teacher with limited facilities can make a difference in her classes. 

Tasking Writing

Develop Your Students' Composition Writing Skills Using Task-Based Learning is my first book published by Lambert Academic Publishing. To view its details, please click the image below:

 

This book deals with a very important area of learning English as a foreign language. EFL students spend a hard time struggling with the written tasks. They always suffer from many problems when writing. That's why I selected this area to study and suggest some easy-to-follow solutions for other teachers. 

Different but not Less

Retrieved Feb. 10, 2013 from here

Task 3 in the Neuroscience in Education session caught all my attention this week (4th). This is the first time to hear about Temple Grandin. Googling this name, I found her an autistic scientist, professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University, designer of livestock handling facilities, consultant to the livestock industry on animal behavior, inventor of the "squeeze machine," a system which tightly hugs people to relieve stress, bestselling author, speaker and more. Although she is an autistic person, she found her way to excel and innovate using her gifts and special visual thinking skills. The questions that come to my mind while reading about her are "Who is behind her success? Who pushed her to do all these things? What kind of motivation does she have; inner or something comes from outside?"

Anita's Story and Memory

The third week of Neuroscience in Education session was about attention and memory. We first watched two interesting videos showing how our attention works when we expose to many stimuli at the same time. 

Part 1

Part 2

Know your Students before ...

Retrieved on Jan 29, 2013 from here

Here we are in the second week of Diffimooc. I still admire Twitter live chats and tweeting all what we do and share what we read. The task of this week is to explore tools that might provide me insight into the learners in my classrooms and how might I use this information. Lee Graham shared a lot of resources that can help us to get started our exploration journey. Among the tools that she shared is SurveyMonkey which is an online tool for creating surveys of 10 questions for free. I use it frequently with my students when creating new online classes to identify their needs and skills before they get involved. Ready-made questionnaires and tests of interests, personality or multiple intelligences are also great tools to know more about what students have so I can modify my teaching style and approach to match their expectations. As teachers, we don't know what is going on in our students' minds. These tools can help them express what they can't say to us directly. However, we shouldn't only rely on such inventories, surveys, questionnaires and tests because some students don't respond honestly or they don't have the ability to identify their goals, wants and needs. We can also use our eyes as Joshua emphasized in his post. Observing students while they are working on activities, working in groups, or presenting their products provides us a lot of spontaneous and honest information about them.

Microsoft! Are you ready for MOOCing?

Retrieved on Jan 29, 2013 from here

I never forget Microsoft Partners in Learning experience 2011. It was a hard way from a marginalized village in Upper Egypt called "Sohag" to the Global Forum held in Washington DC. 2011. Microsoft provides educators with a variety of free tools that can address their students' learning preferences, in addition to great opportunities for training and growing in the field of teaching using technology. The Egyptian Team of Microsoft Partners in Learning exerts huge efforts to encourage teachers to know more about this digital culture face-to-face or online. Microsoft Partners in Learning Network is another great space to connect educators to share tutorials and activities, and find opportunities for professional development. I completed some online courses and seminars offered in the "Professional Development" Tab like "Windows in Classroom". IT Academy Program also provides a series of courses that helps educators to build a theoretical background as well as finding some applications and solutions to the challenges they might face when integrating technology into their curricula. 

Do you have Tonys in your Classes?

I started week 2 of the Neuroscience EVO 2013 session by watching the video of Tony. First, I would like to thank Mary Hillis for her narration to the story and Cleide Frazão for drawing these amazing images. This story is taken from a book by James E. Zull titled "The Art of Changing the Brain". Let's watch this video or read the excerpt below and then discuss what is behind Tony's problem.