MIND42, YOUTHINK, BRAINSHARK, AND GOOGLE.

Teachers always are looking new resourses to enhance lesson planning now we have the opportunity to do it. Technology is changing, and offers us new tools to give quality in our classes. As you know students are running with technology, and as teachers we need to do the same. Here I have a list that can be useful for improving your classes with your students. Mind42 is an online mind mapping application that allows users to visualize their thinking using the proven mind mapping method. Mind42 allows you to manage all your ideas, whether alone, two some or working together with the whole world. Features about mind42: It allowsyou the ability to insert images from URLs; Real-time collaboration and editing, utilizing the Google Talk gadget; The ability to add notes to branches, etc. Youthink is a blog for sharing stories and ideas on how young people are shaping the fight against poverty and the future of development. This tool can help your students to practice writing, and at the same time they can improve their grammar. Brainshark is an application that allows users to create video presentations. Brainshark is a valuable tool for educators because it enables voice-overs, is interactive and free. Brainshark can be used to: Add sound to PowerPoint presentations. Share documents and explain their meanings. Share photos and give vivid descriptions. Go over important passages in texts. Provide a more personal interaction with online students. Give online lectures...etc! As you can see brainshark allows you to do many activities. Google is one of the five most popular websites in the world. Google is a web search engine that lets you find other sites on the web based on keyword searches. Google also provides specialized searches through blogs, catalogs, videos, news items and more. You can share extra information with your students to let them know that there are more explanation about the topic. Also, you can provide images and different thing that will help them to learn more. We have different options to improve our lesson plans, but all you have to to is study more about the new tools that technology provides you. Take advantage of it, and share what you want with your students.

Advantages and Disadvantages of youtube

Firt we need to know what YouTube is. You tube is a video-sharing website which users can upload, view and share videos. Youtube uses Adobe Flash Video and HTML5 technology to display a wide variety of user-generated and corporate media video content, including video clips, TV clips, and music videos, and amateur content such as video blogging, short original videos, and educational videos, In our case this is the more important advantage to use this tool because we want to share with our students different and original videos. Also we can recommend some channels for having an extra explanation about different subjects and topics. Students can look for extra explanation by themselfs. They just type what they are looking for to have the most appropiate video. Unregistered users can watch almost any kind of videos, and registered users can upload an unlimited number of videos. This is great because you do not need to pay for it. It is for free. Videos considered to contain potentially offensive content are available only to registered users affirming themselves to be at least 18 years old. This is a disadvantage because you cannot have control on teenagers while they watch inappropiate videos, sometimes there are videos in which people expose violence. This affect peoples mind, but we cannot avoid that they watch them, unless you are sure they have parental control at home. Advantages : Fast and easy video sharing Privacy features Quick access to various videos Safe browsing Easy rating and feedback system Disadvantages : No parental control Limited copyright infringement notices Video length is limited to 10 minutes No restriction on comments (language, racial slurs, violent threats) Video size is limited to 1024 MB As we can observ youtube is a nice tool, but we need to be careful when using it.

Hot Potatoes as a tool to teach children, teenagers, and adults !

Nowadays, technology has provided many tools to improve education at school. One of the advantages of using technology is that we can implement it with children, teenagers and adults. Hot potatoes is a great tool for creating online quizes and activities for students. Teachers just need to learn how to use it. This tool is practical because hot potatoes has their own format to create the exams. Teachers type the information in the correct spaces, and the program makes the rest. Hot potatoes can be used for all kind of learners. What teachers must do is: to adaptate the kind of information, images, instructions, and so on. I have learned that children, teenagers and adults enjoy lessons if you teach them implementing any kind of technology. They feel more relaxed at the moment of developing this kind of activities. You as a teacher can provide a clue to help them to remember a piece of information. You can variate your activities by using this tool because you select the kind of quiz you need for your students, or you select the more convenient for your studebts.