Ms. Chai's Presentation of Kinder - B for Teacher Academy

Pow-pow-Powtoooooon!

Learning should be fun, and so is teaching. One awesome way to provide a fun environment in a classroom is by utilizing technology in instructional learning. Powtoon is a fun and exciting tool to apply in our lessons because it has animated videos, text, and pictures that will significantly enhance the learning part in our students. It’s a free web-based application, that for me, is a Powerpoint-Toondoo put together in one tool. So, teachers can present their lessons in a comic strip way and embed a voicethread or videos for more learning.

Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of Powtoon:

Advantages:

Make free animated presentations with embedded videos. Its’ free.

You can add visuals from other media

Add a voice-over

Presentations can be exported and share just about anywhere.

If you’re not a teacher and more on the corporate world, Powtoon is a great tool to use for project presentations compared to a traditional still powerpoint presentation

Disadvantages:

If you want more features, pay for the fee.

It takes awhile to getting used to around the features of making a Powtoon presentation because some tabs or menu doesn’t provide any information about themselves. So, you have to find out for yourself what some tabs are for (not too user-friendly)

Steps on how to create/use Powtoon

Step 1. 

Step 2 & 3. 

Step 4. 

Step 5. 

Parts of Powtoon

Here's my link to my first Powtoon presentation. :) --> Ms. April's 1st Powtoon project

Thank you!! :) 'til next time! 

ToonDoo it!

is a free illustrating tool that allows students and teachers to create fun comic strips. Students can use Toondoo to enhance their art skills while Teachers can strategize a more fun learning environment for classroom lessons with Toondoo's comic strips. I had a fun time making my first Toondoo strip. Each available clip arts can be edited to fit your theme. 

The advantages: 

1. Toondoo is free.
2. Clip arts can be customized to personalize your project. 
3. It's fun.

The disadvantages: 

1. It's a web-based tool.
2. Fee-based to acquire more features of the application.

Here's how to get started with Toondoo! 

Step 1.

Step 2. 

Step 3. 

Step 4. 

Step 5. 

Step 6 & 7. 

Here's my first Toondoo humorous Project: (just click the link below) 

Ms. April's first Toondoo strip

"Dear God, help me complete and pass this course.  Thank you. I love you. Amen" 

Spring Break is Over

WORDLE IT!

Wordle is an application that generates word clouds which are pictures made of words connected with each other because of their significance with one another. You can enter your own word clouds composition or ‘copy & paste’ a documenet about a topic, and Wordle will create the pictures words known as word clouds. It’s a great tool to practice in the educational settings because it helps to summarize key ideas. I personally also believe that Wordle promotes collaborative thinking inside the classroom for individual or in groups.

Advantages:

1. Wordle can be customize in size, fonts, color, and the fun part, shapes!
2. Creating word clouds is super fast. Very convenient!
3. Students can easily understand lessons using wordle as it creates the main ideas or words on a specific lesson or topic
4. It’s a entertaining and engaging way to introduce a lesson or providing activities among students

Disadvantages:

1. Wordle is a web 2.0 application; So, additional safety precautions maybe needed when a student uses this application.
2. Wordle does not save the word cloud you’ve created for your file or on your computer. One has to find a way to save word clouds like printscreen and crop, or you may also want to try screenshot end-product. This is one thing that the creator of Wordle needs to embed in the application.
3. One has to have a supported browser that allows Javascript to run. Java is programming language and computing platform which Wordle needs to generate its word clouds.

HOW TO CREATE WORD CLOUDS IN WORDLE

Below is my first wordle word cloud. :) 

Thank you! Until next time! :)

Keep Calm & Pin On!

    Pinterest is a media platform termed by it’s own founder and CEO as “catalog of ideas”. Registered (a must) users can upload pins (images, link articles, and videos) and compile them as collections known as pinboards. Everything else can be personalized and everyone can interact with other registered members. This is an amazing, useful tool for teachers and students to gather ideas for instructional learning designs and concepts. Share your awesome classroom ideas, too!

Advantages:

1. Pin anything from the web like articles, blogs, images, videos, etc. You can get just about anything from this media!

2. Pinterest has a built-in search engine boost. When you create a board of your interest, Pinterest will automatically boost your search engine result listings.

3. Everything is visually presented. This way if you’re a teacher, it brings excitement and interest in the learning part of the students.

4. Pinterest users are mostly women (65%). Women have amazing and unique ideas they share everyday. This is a great opportunity for us teachers (who are also mostly teachers) and students to find the best ideas in the web.

Disadvantages:

I only have one disadvantage about using Pinterest. There has been some copyright issues because of others’ posting others’ images. Since teachers loves(ssss) to get their teaching ideas online, we just have to be a little careful about pinning others’ images, videos, or articles. 

How To Create a Pinterest Board

Here is one of my Pinterest Board I've just recently created. April's Pinterest Board