Announcify is very easy to use and does not require any advanced technology knowledge. Just head over to Chrome Store and click on the install button. Once installed on your browser you can then just click on the Announcify button and there you go.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Announcify Chrome Extension to Read Text Out Loud
Announcify is a cool Chrome extension that reads out loud every website you are on. This is really a handy add-on for users who feels eye wear after having exposed their eyes to computer for a certain period of time. Let your eyes relax and sit back while Annoucify reads out the text you want.
Announcify is very easy to use and does not require any advanced technology knowledge. Just head over to Chrome Store and click on the install button. Once installed on your browser you can then just click on the Announcify button and there you go.
Announcify is very easy to use and does not require any advanced technology knowledge. Just head over to Chrome Store and click on the install button. Once installed on your browser you can then just click on the Announcify button and there you go.
When There is a Will There is A Way
This post might be a source of inspiration for some of you and I meant it and want it to be like that. I have never opened up to you and showed you who the person you keep coming to his blog is ? Well here it starts with one lesson of perseverance from my modest and decent experience in life.
I strongly believe in the axiom that goes: when there is a will there is a way. It has always been my motto in my life. Here are a couple of examples why I believe in this saying. When I first started learning French, my friends used to tell me ' hey French is hard. It is not like English, it might take you years' and so much similar bubble. For me it was different, It was a language that I wanted to master no matter what it takes and whenever I stumbled upon hurdles and obstacles I kept repeating to myself : why my friend x is speaking it fluently, aren't I just as human as he is? This strategy proved its effectiveness and here I am now speaking a very fluent French.
The second example is when I was about to start blogging which was about 5 years ago . I was going around online looking for templates for my blog. I found quite many and I tried several of them but each time I saw someone else's blog I would want one like his. I knew to change and tweak the design of a template would necessitate HTML and CSS knowledge and I am just an English teacher with no coding experience whatsoever. So after trying hard to find a template that would satisfy my cravings I finally decided to learn HTML and CSS from scratch. It is unbelievably true. It was like a challenge for me. I wanted to create my own template since I could not find one with the ' qualifications' I wanted. It was hard at the start and I used to spend 11 hours glued to my computer screen and after three months I was able to understand the components of the HTML and CSS of blogs qnd websites. Each time I would succeed in creating a valid HTM command or tweak a CSS value I would feel so much happy and high in the seventh cloud. It is the same feeling a student feels after having worked laboriously on a math excercise for several hours before he finally solved it. I lived like that for several months until I finally was able to create my own template. What was really funny though was the reaction of some of my colleagues. They might be just like you now for they could not believe a teacher of English would poke his nose into technology matters. I did and I am glad I did and this blog is a living proof of my successful experience with technology.
It did not stop here with Educational Technology and Mobile Learning Blog. For after I personally designed this blog without spending a penny on it ( you will need to pay someone to do the coding for you if you want to design your blog the way you want and have no HTML knowledge ) I recently published a website that I again personally made and is called The Best of Mobile Technology where I write tips and reviews of free mobile applications. Now that I have a blog and a website I find it hard to keep up with posting four articles on each platform on a daily basis knowing that I am also working on my master thesis in the education department of Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada. Yet it is next to impossible that I would ever change this habit .
Yes it takes to give and I have sacrificed many things in my life especially the social side of it for Blogging, teaching, and Master studies take all my time . Almost no socialising, no kids, no wife but I still enjoy it in my personal way
You might think this is not the life you want. I agree but you need to believe that when there is a will there is a way. You can apply this saying to all other aspects of your life and you can interpret it the way you want but always think of others who need you, they need your time and they need the person who you are.
If you wanted to do something in your life and feel like you can not or been discouraged by others then just go ahead give it a try. Have faith in you, you can do it.........to be continued soon.
I strongly believe in the axiom that goes: when there is a will there is a way. It has always been my motto in my life. Here are a couple of examples why I believe in this saying. When I first started learning French, my friends used to tell me ' hey French is hard. It is not like English, it might take you years' and so much similar bubble. For me it was different, It was a language that I wanted to master no matter what it takes and whenever I stumbled upon hurdles and obstacles I kept repeating to myself : why my friend x is speaking it fluently, aren't I just as human as he is? This strategy proved its effectiveness and here I am now speaking a very fluent French.
The second example is when I was about to start blogging which was about 5 years ago . I was going around online looking for templates for my blog. I found quite many and I tried several of them but each time I saw someone else's blog I would want one like his. I knew to change and tweak the design of a template would necessitate HTML and CSS knowledge and I am just an English teacher with no coding experience whatsoever. So after trying hard to find a template that would satisfy my cravings I finally decided to learn HTML and CSS from scratch. It is unbelievably true. It was like a challenge for me. I wanted to create my own template since I could not find one with the ' qualifications' I wanted. It was hard at the start and I used to spend 11 hours glued to my computer screen and after three months I was able to understand the components of the HTML and CSS of blogs qnd websites. Each time I would succeed in creating a valid HTM command or tweak a CSS value I would feel so much happy and high in the seventh cloud. It is the same feeling a student feels after having worked laboriously on a math excercise for several hours before he finally solved it. I lived like that for several months until I finally was able to create my own template. What was really funny though was the reaction of some of my colleagues. They might be just like you now for they could not believe a teacher of English would poke his nose into technology matters. I did and I am glad I did and this blog is a living proof of my successful experience with technology.
It did not stop here with Educational Technology and Mobile Learning Blog. For after I personally designed this blog without spending a penny on it ( you will need to pay someone to do the coding for you if you want to design your blog the way you want and have no HTML knowledge ) I recently published a website that I again personally made and is called The Best of Mobile Technology where I write tips and reviews of free mobile applications. Now that I have a blog and a website I find it hard to keep up with posting four articles on each platform on a daily basis knowing that I am also working on my master thesis in the education department of Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada. Yet it is next to impossible that I would ever change this habit .
Yes it takes to give and I have sacrificed many things in my life especially the social side of it for Blogging, teaching, and Master studies take all my time . Almost no socialising, no kids, no wife but I still enjoy it in my personal way
You might think this is not the life you want. I agree but you need to believe that when there is a will there is a way. You can apply this saying to all other aspects of your life and you can interpret it the way you want but always think of others who need you, they need your time and they need the person who you are.
If you wanted to do something in your life and feel like you can not or been discouraged by others then just go ahead give it a try. Have faith in you, you can do it.........to be continued soon.
The Proper Use of Citations and Referencing for Teacher
Referencing is one of the important skill in education as a whole.Including facts or pieces of information into an essay or a thesis is not done haphazardly but obeys a certain set of rules that are conventionally agreed upon. If there is no respect of proper referencing then the whole work might be rejected because it has plagiarism. This is the clearcut difference between a plagiarised work and the properly cited one. In the earlier, the writer copies a whole chunk of text and use it in his work making it look like it is his/her without accrediting its owner while in the latter, the writer uses borrowed content from someone else but by giving back credit to its original source.
Teaching our students how to reference their essays and work is not an easy job for there are a couple of things that we need to know first before we go ahead into the explanation processes. We should make a clear distinction between these forms of referencing styles.( This is a snapshot taken from Citethisforme )
One of the most used referencing styles as displayed above is the Harvard and APA. To learn more about these styles there is a website called Citethisforme. This website is a citation generator for Harvard and APA. It allows you to generate and organize your citation with a single click. It also offers tips about plagiarims and citation, Check it out it is a real treasure for teachers and students too.
If you want to look for plagiarised work in your students essays and works then try using Plagiarism Checker in Education
Watch this tutorial I made to Learn more.
Teaching our students how to reference their essays and work is not an easy job for there are a couple of things that we need to know first before we go ahead into the explanation processes. We should make a clear distinction between these forms of referencing styles.( This is a snapshot taken from Citethisforme )
One of the most used referencing styles as displayed above is the Harvard and APA. To learn more about these styles there is a website called Citethisforme. This website is a citation generator for Harvard and APA. It allows you to generate and organize your citation with a single click. It also offers tips about plagiarims and citation, Check it out it is a real treasure for teachers and students too.
If you want to look for plagiarised work in your students essays and works then try using Plagiarism Checker in Education
Watch this tutorial I made to Learn more.
Video Resources for Teachers.
I know all of you use video materials in their lessons but the question is are you really equipped with the right video resources to fetch your videos from ? Searching for a video on a search engine might take you into an ocean of results and junk websites. That is why educators need to always keep a list of 'trustworthy' video platforms that they can use to find educational videos to use with their students in the classroom. I have been covering quite many here such as TedTalk, Youtube for Schools, Youtube Teachers, Youtube Education, Explania,....ect.
Explania is one of my favourite platform when looking for tutorials and step by step guides. If you are a teacher then you must check out that website you will definately find materials to help you in your teaching. As a matter of example, I found out a video about Tsunami. Even though the clip is very short yet it offers a wealth of easily understandable information about how Tsunamis are created and the effects and damages they befall upon a place they hit. Check out this video to learn more.
Tsunami Infographic from Shal on Vimeo.
Explania is one of my favourite platform when looking for tutorials and step by step guides. If you are a teacher then you must check out that website you will definately find materials to help you in your teaching. As a matter of example, I found out a video about Tsunami. Even though the clip is very short yet it offers a wealth of easily understandable information about how Tsunamis are created and the effects and damages they befall upon a place they hit. Check out this video to learn more.
Tsunami Infographic from Shal on Vimeo.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
YouTube Released Three Great Channels for Teachers,Educators, Students
Youtube is the video platform number one online. Whenever you want to look for videos online Youtube instantly comes into your mind. Even Google search engine includes Youtube videos in its search results which means that the importance of this media outlet far exceeds what you ever think.
YouTube is very important in education and anyone who has been following what I blog about in the section called YouTube for Teachers would clearly know this fact. Both students and teachers are having constant recourse to its content but unfortunately there are some misconveniences with including materials straight from there. Sometimes videos are accompanied with vulgar language in the comments below it and sometimes improper videos showing nudity are displayed in the featured playlists on the right side.
We do not want to subject our students to such hazards that is why many developers have created tools to help you control what to display and what not. I have covered several web tools that can help you do that such as , Quiet Tube, ViewPure, EmbedPlus, Safeshare TV, and Youtube Safe . Anyway, today I am intoruding you to three official Youtube channels that are made specifically for teacher and educators. These channels belong to Youtube and contain safe and student friendly materials that you will definately like to explore.
1- Youtube for Schools
This is a channel Youtube has created to help educators access thousands of free high quality educational videos in a very secure and controlled learning environment. It requires a sign up or you can use your School's Google account to log in and if you do not have a Google account for your school you can sign up for free one here.
Watch this video to learn more
2- Youtube for Teachers
This is another educational channel created by Youtube to provide educationally relevant videos. It has content organized and classified according to different topics. there are seven topics namely: Elementary, Middle School, High School: Algebra, High School: Functions, High School Geometry, High School: Number and Quantity, and High School: Statistics and Probability.
Each topic has a wide range of videos.
3- YouTube Education
This is my favourite one for it has videos pertaining to different categories, there are lectures, tutorials, documentaries and so forth. These are the main topics it features:
University
Primary and Secondary Education
Lifelong Learning
Engineering
Mathematics
Science
Business
YouTube is very important in education and anyone who has been following what I blog about in the section called YouTube for Teachers would clearly know this fact. Both students and teachers are having constant recourse to its content but unfortunately there are some misconveniences with including materials straight from there. Sometimes videos are accompanied with vulgar language in the comments below it and sometimes improper videos showing nudity are displayed in the featured playlists on the right side.
We do not want to subject our students to such hazards that is why many developers have created tools to help you control what to display and what not. I have covered several web tools that can help you do that such as , Quiet Tube, ViewPure, EmbedPlus, Safeshare TV, and Youtube Safe . Anyway, today I am intoruding you to three official Youtube channels that are made specifically for teacher and educators. These channels belong to Youtube and contain safe and student friendly materials that you will definately like to explore.
1- Youtube for Schools
This is a channel Youtube has created to help educators access thousands of free high quality educational videos in a very secure and controlled learning environment. It requires a sign up or you can use your School's Google account to log in and if you do not have a Google account for your school you can sign up for free one here.
Watch this video to learn more
2- Youtube for Teachers
This is another educational channel created by Youtube to provide educationally relevant videos. It has content organized and classified according to different topics. there are seven topics namely: Elementary, Middle School, High School: Algebra, High School: Functions, High School Geometry, High School: Number and Quantity, and High School: Statistics and Probability.
Each topic has a wide range of videos.
3- YouTube Education
This is my favourite one for it has videos pertaining to different categories, there are lectures, tutorials, documentaries and so forth. These are the main topics it features:
University
Primary and Secondary Education
Lifelong Learning
Engineering
Mathematics
Science
Business
Moglue Easily Create and Publish Ebooks
Moglue is an online platform that allows its users to create interactive ebooks and release them on iOS and Android devices. It is available for both Windows and Mac. The service is completely free and is easy to use. No need for any programming knowledge because Mogule has built in apps where you will only upload the content and there you go.
With a simple drag and drop interafce, any user can easily start exploring their creativity by uploading and sharing their own ebooks. I believe this is a great tool for teachers and students. They can use it to create their own ebooks no matter how big or smal they are. Students can share their work with each other or publish in the classroom blog.Moglue will definately boost their creativity and imagination.
Head over to Moglue and give it a try.
Watch this video to learn more
With a simple drag and drop interafce, any user can easily start exploring their creativity by uploading and sharing their own ebooks. I believe this is a great tool for teachers and students. They can use it to create their own ebooks no matter how big or smal they are. Students can share their work with each other or publish in the classroom blog.Moglue will definately boost their creativity and imagination.
Head over to Moglue and give it a try.
Watch this video to learn more
Novels On Location Find Novels on Google Maps
Novels on Location is a great web service that allows its users to search for and find fiction works based on thier geographical settings. This is a smart use of Google Maps technology to find literature works. The service is very easy to use and have a very user friendly service. It does not require any registration or software download. As soon as you are on Novels Location page you can straightforward start locating novels by clicking on the placemarks that you see or if you have a name in your mind you can use the search bar on the upper right hand corner of the site to search for it.
Novels on Location is ont only designed to provide you with novels and other literary works but also lets you contribute with your own titles. To do so , you need to select the geographical location and then enter the title and author of the book you want to share.
Head over to Novels on Location and give it a try.
Novels on Location is ont only designed to provide you with novels and other literary works but also lets you contribute with your own titles. To do so , you need to select the geographical location and then enter the title and author of the book you want to share.
Head over to Novels on Location and give it a try.
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