Tagxedo

We were looking at ways of promoting language in classrooms recently and this caused me to revisit some of my favourite tag and word cloud generators. In doing so I had a play with Tagxedo once again and wasn't disappointed. Not only can you create a great variety of word clouds, but you can create them in different shapes with plenty of different colours and fonts. This in itself is cool, but the best is yet to come. Apparently you can actually embed the cloud  and it becomes interactive, with words zooming in as you hover over them.  You can't do that with Wordle (my favourite tag and word cloud generator of all times).
Check out my latest Tagxedo.

(This is not the embedded version as I have had little success with this feature, but would love to hear from someone who has gotten it to work.)

Trying out Nota

I came across Nota today on the iLearn Technology Blog. After reading the description of it, I had to have a play. Especially since we have been looking for alternatives for wiki and site home pages.

Nota is an easy to use collaborative work space which is Glog like and more.
With Nota it is easy to import pictures from your various online accounts, including Flickr and Picasa, as well as add message boards, links, shapes and text. It is quite simple to figure out, and can also be accessed through PhotoPeach accounts. If you don't have a PhotoPeach account there is also an option for creating one on the the  Nota site.

Notas embed easily into Google Sites and Wikispaces so the potential for interactive walls (Invite participants) as well as home pages is definitely there.



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Scratch and Millennium Goals

Image via WikipediaThe 8th grade students have initiated their Scratch programming projects this year, with a focus on the United Nations Millennium Goals. Students are very much directing their own learning in this project. Each student has chosen a goal to build a Scratch project around and will also choose the type of project they will create. We look forward to sharing them with you soon.

ABC El Salvador Reaction Grid

The ABC now owns a virtual plot of land in Reaction Grid, which is an online world for students to learn in. The 7th grade and the Reaction Grid Extra- curricular club students are the first to explore and construct in ABC’s new virtual space. For the moment the focus is on creating 3D content that is representative of El Salvador and the ABC.

So far the kids have really enjoyed the work they have been doing, creating virtual content. Our task for this week to is to build the Art Gallery which will house examples of student work from our El Salvador Month Exposition.



Here is the link to our lessons so far.