Using wikis

In the spirit of sharing ideas, I've decided to say a bit about my experience of using a wiki. Wikis are websites on which the pages can be edited by all the users. They are therefore useful for collaborative writing and serve as a showcase for students to publish their writing on the web. As well as writing, they can upload photographs and audio files. I set up a PB wiki (http://pbwiki.com), which was very easy to use, but if you needed a bit more help there's a great site (http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/) which shows you how (or there's Andy). I used it with an SA2 class to write short biographies about famous Portuguese, to which they added pictures and short recordings. There's a comment button on each page, so you can draw attention to things that need changing, and you can encourage them to read one another's pages,peer correct and make comments. We haven't finished yet, and it was all a bit experimental, but if anyone is interested it's at http://famousportuguese.pbwiki.com. If that doesn't work, get in touch and I'll send you the link. If it does, but you can't see links to the pages in the column on the right, click on 'side bar'.

How to use AUDACITY

Audacity is very easy to use - it's like Microsft WORD but deals with sounds instead of words.

Click the red button to record, the blue button to pause and the yellow to stop. The blue recording line should move up and down (not stay horizontal), then you know you are recording. Rewind to the start with the first button, then hit the green to play. It's pretty easy to then edit it if you want, but otherwise click on FILE | Export as MP3 and save in an appropriate place (the T drive?). This MP3 is the one you can upload to Podmatic

How to create a blog - click on the slides

Websites for Bloggers

The advent of web2.0 means you can now store your files online instead of on your own computer. What advantages does this have? Well, it makes it easy to share your precious stuff with friends and colleagues without actually being in the same place as them. Just send them a link to your host website and they can view all your recent holiday snaps.
For teachers, these hosting sites allow us to make online content, like blogs and wikis, and link or embed files into them. These can be viewed, and created, from any machine with an internet connection, so less time is needed in MMC's.

For audio files, try podomatic or odeo

You can share pictures and photos at flickr and perhaps even better, you can get free photos to use on your blogs from flickrstorm
Bubbleshare allows you to create photo albums and add captions.

To share a video, you could try kaltura

There are more links on similar themes on the right-hand side of this blog - check them out.

Next up is how to use these sites with our classes .....

Introduction to BC Lisbon Blog

Hi Everyone

To kick off with, why not have a look at a couple of blogs I've been doing with my classes. You can see them under the 'Our class blogs' header on the right. If you have any to show, just add them to the list. To do this, click on customise at the top right of the page, then in the our class blogs rectangle, click on edit and add your link.

Also, why not take a look at the links under the 'websites for bloggers' header. Info on how to use these will follow shortly.