Glogster is a tool that can be used in a variety of ways. It is a place where students and teachers can "blog" their ideas visually. Teachers can assign projects in which students post images, text, videos, and audio to express their viewpoints on a particular topic. The sample below was used for a technology tool training. It does require the Adobe Flash Player. Teachers can create glogs with the free version, but some features will be disabled. Students who are 13 and older can create their own student accounts and link to a teacher's account with an assigned teacher code (teacher will have to give students the code). A fee is only required if the teacher wants to set up a class in order to assign projects and comment on student work. See screenshot of student registration.

Vocaroo is an audio tool that can be used to create mini recordings which can be downloaded to a computer as an audio file or embeded into web pages, wikis, blogs, etc. No registration is required which means that elementary students can use it without the concern that an account needs to be created. This is a great tool for targeting the proficiency level descriptors of the English Language Profiency Standards (ELPS) or simply for practicing speaking and listening. Of course, teachers should still be cautious about keeping their students' information confidential and should provide guidelines for their students when posting text, graphics, and audio (e.g. not to post personal information such as full name, school, address, etc.) in order to comply with CIPA (Children's Internet Protection Act).

Some ways students can use Vocaroo in the classroom are
1) present 30-60-second summary of a story
2) present an audio infomercial of a country or some other topic
3) practice reading sentences to improve fluency
4) practice speaking sentences/phrases in a foreign language

Try using the widget below. You can save your recording if you wish.