Bubblr lets you use Flickr images to create stories. Type tags and select pictures into your storyboard. Add as many frames as you need and place bubbles showing the story and the dialogue between the characters appearing in the pictures.
Once the story is finished… publish it! Share it through facebook, send it by email or paste it in your blog or website! It is a good tool to work on given situations appointed by the teacher… for example: “Create a Bubblr with a story related to a situation at an airport”. Type the tag “airport”, or “airport lounge”, or “passengers” and use the pictures you have in the appearing library
Time to say your thoughts instead of writing them down. AudioBoo has been created for users to create short audioclips and publish them online… brief thoughts and ideas to share with the rest of the world, or the rest of our classmates! Our Batxillerat/K12 students can register with their Tweeter accounts, and share thoughts about what they see in a given outdoors route, or what they watch on the TV/Listen to on the radio regarding some specific event, conflict or any other piece of news.
The Guardian have produced an interactive timeline showing the most relevant milestones which have arisen in the Middle East uprisings. A good tool to work time in English, and, of course, to foster oral skills… students can describe the “path” followed by events in these countries where people have risen against dictatorships in the last months.
You can navigate through time and see the different relevant events by country and category: People’s protests, political moves, regime changes and international responses.
Use it in class, or pass it to social science teachers who want to use English in their lessons.
Bombay TV is a nice and catchy website where we can add text to short Bollywood clips… amazing to foster oral and written skills, as well as vocabulary and accuracy.
Choose a clip containing different scenes, with typical bollywood actors and stories… traditional, religious, modern…
Add text into the clip: You can either write it down, record your voice or use the text to speech tool. All three ways incorporate your message into the clip, in text or soundtrack.
Have your students watch the clips, choose the most suitable one and then ask them to add a short story which matches the pictures… easy and engaging!
You can embed the clip or send it to others… share your work!
If you or your students are not Bollywood fans… try B Movie TV… the same interface, but related to those old movies from the 50′s… good fun as well!
Fodey is a simple but catchy webpage that lets you and your students create newspaper clips very easily. Add a made up newspaper, a title for the article, a date… and write. have fun and imagine incredible news. A very good resource to practice vocabulary and writing skills… easy peasy!!
The British Council has produced a very good video which helps people understand the proper terms when referring to the UK, Great Britain, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The website offers some nice follow-up activities to make sure pupils understand the concepts of nation and state within the UK.
