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Friday 15 July 2011

ImageChef

I love word clouds, WordItOut (which allows you to link tags/words), Tagxedo(which also generates shape clouds) and Wordle(which lets you design colour schemes) to name a few, but I had forgotten about ImageChef until today when I stumbled upon it again. ImageChef allows users to create word clouds in various shapes including their own initials, using different colours and backgrounds, much like other applications. While it limits users to only two colours, one for words and one for the background, the initials options struck me as interesting. I could see it being used in Life Skills for example with students brainstorming words that describe themselves or a friend and creating a cloud in the form of their initials to match.

The beauty of the system is that once the cloud is created it can be embeded! I love embed code and plan on using ImageChef this coming school year with students when working on their digital portfolios, having them embed their personal word clouds in their wikis or Google Sites.

Here is one I did on my reflexions from ISTE 2011.

ImageChef Word Mosaic - ImageChef.com

Storymaker

I am always on the lookout for new digital storytelling resources. There are so many different options out there. Two web applications that we use are Kerpoof with our younger students to create storybooks and ToonDoo with the older students to create cartoon strips. Today I came across StoryMaker while perusing my Diigo notifications. It may not be new but it is one I have not seen before. It is certainly fun to use, with its predetermined drag and drop characters, scenes and props. Dialogue as well as a written story are both possible. The final product can be printed off or downloaded as a pdf. Unfortunately I couldn't find embed code for the storybook, which would have made it a real contender for the work we do with the younger students. One way around this would be to upload it to Google docs or scribd to generate the appropriate code.  On a positive note, an account is not required to use the application and download books, making it an easy tool to use with any class.

Here are a couple of pages from my first book.

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