Download Youtube.com videos

Great tools to get resources from Youtube.com:

Download Youtube.com videos quickly to your PC

Download Youtube.com videos into MP3 files

How to embed Flash properly in HTML

Came across this link recently when I was pulling my hair out as all my flash movies kept appearing on top of everything else including menus and image:

How to embed Flash properly

New on SlideShare: How to use Adobe Flash in Teaching

How to use Adobe Flash in Teaching

View more presentations from ahrenfelt.

New on SlideShare

How Comprehensive Was The Nazi Police State

View more presentations from ahrenfelt.

Create videos using Movie Maker: great hooks, no complications

This is a quick hook that could be used for studying life in Britain during the Second World War and raises many issues about evacuees. I made this a few years ago to show teachers how easily you can create impact using images and music.

Great books on flash game developing

Recent books added to 'Great Books' section of www.InnovativeICT.net:

Gary Rosenzweig

If you have basic knowledge of Adobe Flash but do not have time to master the more complex elements of the software and still want to learn how to create great games then this book really does the job well. Gary Rosenzweig's book is straight forward and explains everything clearly and in an interesting way. The book is very pedagogical and goes through the essentials step-by-step and covers a range of different games and activities that can be mdofied and used in the classroom for example:

• Jigsaws


• Paddle and Racing games


• Memory activities


• Platform games


• Drag & Drop


• and many many other

Gary Rosenweig has recently come out with a new book ActionScript 3.0 Game Programming Universitywhich is a superb addition to the keen Flash enthusiast. His website is also a brilliant resource to take your Flash skills further.

There are other great books on creating Flash Games which are equally useful. Some of these are more complex for the beginner but they do provide the reader with outstanding files which easily can be tweaked to suit your own classes. For example:

Macromedia Flash Professional 8 Game Development with CD-ROM by Glen Rhodes: although you would benefit from reading Rosenzweig's book before tackling this one, G. Rhodes' book on developing games in Flash does go through the basics of ActionScripting and the files you get are excellent!

Nintendo Wii Flash Game Creator's Guide: Design, Develop, and Share Your Games Online: this is a cheap, fun book which shows you how to create games which you can play on the Nintendo Wii - excellent idea!

There are so many books on flash gaming out there but these really move you in the right direction if you wish to develop games for your own students.

Great links to make your site stand above the rest

Folio on broken links
How does Google 'look' at my pages? How do they link? - TouchGraph

Post to your blog using Firefox

Good SEO tips for beginners

How to maintain rankings for 'old' pages

Personalised Search according to TED

Speed up your broadband connection NOW!

"Microfilters are used to eradicate crackling on your ADSL enabled phone line by preventing the ADSL signal reaching your telephone handsets. You will need one Microfilter for each piece of telephone equipment connected to your ADSL enabled telephone line, including your Sky box."

iPlate greatly enhances your broadband connection - fantastic reviews. I just bought one after reading it on a Twitter post by D. Belshaw (Thanks!).

I'll post my own review when I get it installed (see post below).

How to install iPlate: speed up your broadband connection

Cool online tools to use with your students

I have compiled a brief list of websites that Ive been using over the past few weeks which are superb to use with all Key Stages:

Great Online Tools

I will keep updating this page. There are many fab tools to go up there still of course, like classics such as Bubbl.us, Twitter etc.

Powerful Twitter-ing tools

This is a great list of tools for those that use Twitter to stay up-to-date with whatever you want to stay up-to-date with like ICT, teaching etc.

Twitter Tools

Y8 Comic book: What should they do with Louis XVI?

Here's and example of what I will do with my Y8 class later on today:

French Revolution: What should they do with Louis XVI? by innovativeict | www.toondoo.com

It will be their job to finish it.

French Revolution activity using online comics

This is one of my earlier attempts at using ToonDoo.com - a bit crazy about this website at the moment..hence 100s of posts : ) .

French Revolution: What shoudl they do with Louis XVI? by innovativeict | www.toondoo.com

Use ToonDoo.com with A-level students

Here follows a few examples of what some of my A-Level students did with ToonDoo.com:

Year 12

Tom and Dan

The 1953 berlin uprising_your doing it wrong by tshadow | www.toondoo.com

Sarah and Becky

Becky + sarah Uprising 1953 by sarahturner | www.toondoo.com

Josie and Harriet

1953 Uprising by Josie and harriet by JosieandHarriet | www.toondoo.com

Alex and Heather

The BerliNUprising by ahrenfeltsangel | www.toondoo.com

Andy

Ryan

Tom

Dan

Year 13

Ria

Assess who made the greatest contribution to russian economy? by riabush | www.toondoo.com

Wordle.net ideas?

Some of my students have been playing around with Wordle.net and it's looking rather good. We discussed 'war' and 'conflict' and the class came up with a series of different words they felt summed up these two concepts. Here are a few examples of what they have come up with:

Example 1

Example 2

Online comic books

Online tools such as Pixton.com can provide teachers with an opportunity to really engage students, challenge whilst at the same time ensure that they progress. These type of websites also allows exam groups to think about:

- audience
- purpose
- context
- argument

There are similar websites available like ToonDoo.com. This particular website allows the user to quickly register and then produce high-quality and varied comics in only a few minutes. Although there are very few differences between Pixton.com and ToonDoo.com, the latter offers more in terms of usability, graphics and sleekness. I have used both sites with both GCSE and A-Level groups with great results .

ToonDoo example for A-Level History

Thank you Meera for this website:

Who made the greatest contribution to the Russian economy: Witte v Stolypin by innovativeict | Create your own Cartoon at www.toondoo.com

Another comic: A-level Russia

I'm trying to see if students can modify and re-publish my earlier version, which would speed up the process a bit. They probably want to do their own version though : ).

Using comix strips in teaching

Thanks Tom Stafford for this cool idea. using Pixton.com with exam classes. Here's my first contribution:



A bit cheesy but hey - hopefully it'll work with my AS group tomorrow morning...

Great Educational Websites to use with your students

Fantastic websites to use with students from starters to main activities, check it out:

KartOO I really like this site as it give students a visual of how search term link together and which sites link to a particular word or phrase. Here's an example.





Visuwords: This website allows you to look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. You can then produce a diagram of those associations as well as, if you're geeky, install the software on your own site! This is an example of the word 'freedom'.




Wordl.netThis interesting website was passed onto me from Tom T (thanx!), and it's essentially a 'collage' tool; excellent for presenting ideas and visualising concepts : ) .