Newsy Watch the World s News in Videos Fetched from Several Channels

Newsy is a good website for people who like to keep track of the latest news events in the world. Some people do not like reading news but rather prefer watching it and Newsy can help them do just that. It aggregates news videos from multiple sources and stream then on its homepage. Among the sources Newsy depends on in fetching its news stories are : BBC, CNN, ABC News, Aljazeera and several others. You can access videos from all these channels right from a single page.

You can either watch videos at random or sort them according to the category or tags such as the most popular, the highest rated or highest commented. What is really nice of Newsy website is the fact that above each video you will find the news sources and below it user comments, and text transcript  of the video. It also allows its users to share the videos they watch either using an embeded code or via different social media websites.

YouTube Trends and TiltView are other similar tools that might interest you as well.

Head over to Newsy and give it a try.

Sexually Transmitted Diseases on The College Campus ( Infographic )

Sexually Transmitted Diseases ( STD ) are a huge risk facing our kids and students in different levels including the ones at the college level. This last category is the is  most likely to be prone to this kind of  affection. Risks of contracting SDTs are mainly increased by factors such as lack of knowledge, recklessness, irresponsible behaviours, and incorrect insight. As educators, we can do a lot in sensitizing students about these healthcare challenges and probably change their conduct and render their environment more SDTs free.

Here is a great infographic that covers all you need to know about SDTs. Factors, Numbers, Stats, and Ways to help. Read the infographic attentively and share it with your students  and colleagues. Let us all unite aginst SDTs.

Via: Online Colleges Blog

Urgent A Virus Alert by Microsoft and Norton ( January 20/2012 )

This is an urgent warning for all Internet users  I just got an info from Abbiz Mit who is a website developer, SEO    engineer  and HTML  geek and one of my respectful teachers who introduced me into the world of blogging. He informed of a looming virus that comes in an email to your inbox. The virus is included in  PowerPoint file under the name Life is Beautiful and as soon as you open it your computer system will be crashed and your email password will be stolen from you. Be aware do not open any email from people you do not know. I googled this virus and was surprised to see how many people are talking about it.

Microsoft and Norton have already  issued urgent messages to inform the people about this virus.
Please spread out the world to others.

Here is a screenshot of the warning :

YouTube Leanback Watch Videos in TV Like Way

YouTube Leanbback is a cool tool for lazy people like me. Sometimes it happens that you want to watch YouTube videos and lay back without having to constantly switch between videos and full screen modes. It becomes annoying when you lean back watching a video in full screen but have to get up to change the video and skip to the next one. YouTube Leanback has a solution for you. It will allow you to watch YouTube videos in  chilled TV like way.

As soon as you access YouTube Leanback , videos automatically start playing based on your favourites, your playlist, your downloads if you have any, hisotry and likes and dislikes. It syncs with your YouTube account and start playing videos fectched from it. You can choose which list to watch from the right hand side..
Each video is played in full screen mode with the highest quality possible.. To move back and forth between videos you simply use your keyboard arrow keys . Now you can really sit back ,relax, eat your popcorn while watching YouTube Videos.

Head over to YouTube Leanback and give it a try.

Free tools to create comic strips

Creating cartoons and comic strips for educational uses can be quite  interesting task. It obviously pushes the reluctant students to participate more and rub  the dust off their brains. Students love to work in groups and compete with each other especially when there are motivating incentives for them. One of these incentives is the integration of comic strips into parts of your lesson.

Thanks to web 2.0 technologies , educators and teachers will never run short of new innovative ideas. There are a bunch of free to use technologies that can be used with our students to create an educationaly healthy environment full of both fun and learning. After the success of the article Free Tools to Turn Pictures into Cartoons,  today I am sharing with you another article which is a  list of some awesome comic strip making tools that you can use for free with your students in the classroom. Every tool has been covered in separate post, just click on any title to be directed to its tutorial.

1- Witty Comics

Witty Comics is a cool website. It allows its users to create two characters dialogues. This is a great learning tool for students


 2- Pixton

Pixton is a cartoon creation tool that allows its users to create awesome comics. Pixton has also a growing community that anyone can access to contribute with their own comics.

3- Make Belief

Make Beliefs is another awesome comic strip creation tool. It resembles Pixton for they both provide their users with a variety of tools to edit and generate their cartoons.

4- Chogger

 Choggers has a good editing tool that allows users to create their own cartoons out of imported photos. Users can even hook on their camera and snap images to edit on Chogger. 

5- Cartoon for The Classroom

Cartoon for the Classroom is a great resource of comic strips for educators and teachers. This is a website created by the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists ( AAEC ). It provides a variety of lesson plans based on cartoons created by the members of AAEC

6- Anmish

Anmish is a fun web application. It allows its users to create funny animations using caricatures of political figures.

7- A List of  Free Tools to Turn Pictures into Cartoons

Here are ten useful and free web tools that enable you to turn pictures and photos into cartoons and share them with others.

Doodle for Google 2012 is Now Open

Doodle 4 Google for the year 2012 has already started. Participants are submitting their doodles for the competetion. Students from all over the United States from grade K to 12  are invited to take part They need to contibute with their own drawings for this year's theme which is ' If I could travel in time I'd visit " . Google has some  very motivating prizes for the winners The first doodle will have $30.000for their college and $50.000 for their school plus the winning doodle will also be featured in the Google homepage.

Read this excerpt from Google Doodle page and watch the video below to learn more about Google Doodle 2012.

" Welcome to Doodle 4 Google, a contest where we invite students in the United States to use their artistic talents to think big and redesign Google’s homepage logo for millions to see. This year we ask students to exercise their creative imaginations around the theme, "If I could travel in time, I'd visit…" One lucky student artist will see their artwork appear on the Google homepage and take home some cool prizes--and as a special bonus, the winning artwork will appear on a limited edition of Crayola's iconic 64 box! "

Head over to Google 2012 to learn more.

Witty Comics A Learning Cartoon Tool

Witty Comics is a cool website. It allows its users to create two characters dialogues. This is a great learning tool for students. They love cartoons and comics and are much more inclined to learn via dialogues and interactive  play roles. Teachers can use Witty Comics to create dialogues underlining the target structures they want to teach  and let students act them out. Students can on their part use Witty Comics to create thier own  dialogues and rehearse them in front of their peers. Witty Comics is a good tool to foster students communicative skills and enhance their creative powers.

Witty Comics is free of charge and is very easy to use. It has a simple platform that any one can handle , the only thing you need to do is to register with them and start making comics straight away. Pre-drawn background scenes and characters are already provided and students will only select the ones they want to feature in their comics.