A different way to communicate with colleagues
The internet stopped being just a collection of hyper-links connecting static bits of information a long time ago. Today the internet is not so much about storing information as it is about communicating and sharing knowledge in ever more efficient ways. Static websites from academic sources, although still important, have, over time, given way to personal publishing platforms which allow anyone with something to say to, well… say it. Knowledge is increasingly becoming crowd sourced. No longer the few impart knowledge to the many. The many can, for the first time, teach themselves very effectively. But we have had to develop new skills to be able to

MFL Show and Tell
Last Saturday, it was my pleasure to attend and present at the MFL Show and Tell session expertly organised by James Padvis and Joe Dale at the Foxford School and Community Arts College in Coventry. It is truly humbling to meet people, some for the first time, whose excellent work and innovation you have followed over the years. It was also tremendously reassuring and invigorating to depart from the more common conservative attitudes to teaching and learning and enter an atmosphere in which everyone is motivated by the same urge to teach in a way which is relevant, motivating and engaging. Suzi

Xtranormal in the classroom
Technology is like electricity: it’s pervasive, it’s everywhere… it’s useful. We ignore it at our peril.  We wouldn’t expect our pupils to read by candlelight or to write on wax tablets. Equally, we should be encouraging them to use the tools they have available, the tools with which they are familiar if we are to ensure they remain engaged and motivated. Xtranormal is a text-to-movie website which allows you and your students to create short films with your own scripts using very clever text-to speech technology. This means your students write a script and then

Myna: online audio recording and editing
Myna, an audio recording and editing tool, is the latest addition to the Aviary family of web applications, a suite of image creation and editing web applications which allow you to manipulate images to very high standard within your browser. Myna will look familiar to those already using audio recording and editing software such as the fantastic Audacity but it actually reminds me more of Apple’s GarageBand, because of its effortless drag and drop interface and its

A Guide to Annotating using Diigo
This video is also available on Podomatic. You can subscribe to this series of video podcasts in iTunes. Diigo is a social bookmarking site that allows teachers and students to share interesting and useful links on the internet. I recorded this guide to show my students how to use one the most useful features Diigo has to offer: Annotations. Annotations allow you to comment directly onto web pages. These comments can then be saved permanently and used by teachers to share hints an