Pdf to Word

Since I started downloading articles from the Internet for study reasons, I've been struggling to copy and paste pdf into Word documents in order to be able to manipulate the text (underline, highlight, summarize, etc). Unless you own Acrobat Reader Professional, this seemed to be a lot of hard work. I had heard of conversion sites, but had not tried them until today. I googled for one of these and came across one that finally did the trick (and a pretty good one): PDFtoWord. I found it extremely easy to use, accurate, fast and FREE! In 2 easy steps you upload your pdf document, choose DOC or RTF format and enter the email address you want your converted file to be sent to. In a few minutes you get the Word file, complete and well-formatted. I only found a few italicized lines missing from titles. Just check the file you obtain before you delete the pdf.

Web 2.0 in Spanish

I'm doing an online course on Web 2.0 in education and have come across this video from Educastur Blog, which outlines the main features of the second generation of Internet services and offers a few educational uses. You can also download the full text of the video from the website.
Worth taking a look if you are a novice in these matters and proficient in Spanish.

EVO 2009: a great chance to explore multimedia in the classroom

The proximity of a new round of EVO sessions certainly did the trick of sparkling the almost dead ashes of this blog. I hesitated about my chances of doing a decent job in more than one session this year. But then I left my fears aside and decided to join the 3 groups that catered my present interests:

• EVO Video 09 - Planning Video Projects

• Digital Storytelling in ELT Classrooms

• Images4Education - Exploring Images in the 21st Century Classroom

This last session was the last one I decided upon. Not that I doubted the professionalism of the huge group of moderators (including some dear friends) in it or the quality of their proposal. But I thought that maybe I already knew the basics of picture editing so I might concentrate on other skills that were newer to me. But when I explored their syllabus I found there were two things I might like to try. They have based their group on Ning (and I've had almost no experience with it so far) and they have included storytelling among their topics. So I saw the connection of this session with the other two.
I hope to learn a lot and get a lot of ideas from these sessions, so I'm planning to create a wiki to pull those materials and ideas together for future reference, and also include what I've learnt on my own in 2008.

Reanimating the blog

Get a Voki now!


It's ages since I wrote my last post. Why? The usual lack of time would be the easiest reply. I might also argue that so many issues filled my thoughts that I could not choose one to write about. So let's start all over again so that my blog does not die from sustained starvation.

I'll try to make a summary of my worries as a teacher-learner during 2008:
1. I have been trying to find a way to integrate technology in a context where computers and fast connections are not easily available.
2. I have been thinking of ways to develop students' creativity and expression
3. I have been trying to arise students' motivation
4. I have been exploring ways to foster students' higher order thinking and long-lasting learning

These are the resources I have been trying:
1. Projectors
2. Video
3. PowerPoint
4. Graphic organizers

How did all this unfold? Well, I introduced the concept of graphic organizers to my colleagues after I attended a conference by William Grabe at Buenos Aires 34th International Book Fair. I had heard of GOs but I didn't know how exactly they were used. Then I wrote a project to gradually integrate them as a resource for content subjects. I have not been able to use them myself yet, since my students' English language skills are very basic.
But I didn't rest until I found a way to use an innovative resource in my class. So I started learning how to download videos (educational and music clips) and show them on a screen with the school's new projector. This experience pushed my students to create their own clips. There was no time for careful production but I will work on this in 2009. I'm already brooding some ideas which I will discuss in following posts.
Finally, my first love: PowerPoint. One never forgets first loves, do we? I asked my 1st year students (15 year-olds mainly) to create quiz presentations about superlatives. They enjoyed the task a lot and some of them took it very seriously, researching about "the most..." for their presentations. Again, lack of time prevented me from making the final presentation as I had planned.
So one of my New Year Resolutions for 2009 is to go on working on these 2008 outlines. Maybe a more careful planning will help me come with a full-year project that I can carry out and see the fruits of at the end of the year.
This blog will also be a resource to make connections with people working on similar ideas.
Stay tuned!

Getting ready for EVO 2008

Once again, starting on January 14th, TESOL is sponsoring a new round of free six-week online workshops for language teachers all over the world. This year there are over a dozen different and appealing sessions for you to choose from:

• Advanced Tips & Tricks for Successful Online Teaching and Learning
• Becoming a Webhead
• Blogging For Educators
• Effective Lesson Planning
• EVO Video 2008: ESL/EFL Video Slide Shows and Vlogging
• Exploring the Big Apple,Byte by Byte
• Getting Started with Drama in Your Classroom
• Getting the Most out of Web 2.0 for ESP
• Integrating Technology into Adult ESL
• I Got Rhythm: Music in the Classroom
• Research on Web 2.0 applications to English Language Learning
• Social Media in ELT
• Teaching with PowerPoint

I joined EVO sessions for the first time in 2006 and have been involved in online communities of practice since then. I discovered a new motivating way of improving my teaching and gaining innovative ideas. I can’t stress enough the helpfulness and humility of every participant and moderator that I came across on the first sessions I took. In 2007, after a steep learning curve I was invited to moderate Blogging for Beginners, which was a tough but rewarding job. It taught me how to design an online course, anticipate potential pitfalls and prepare material to cope with participants’ needs. And above all, how teamwork can ease off anxieties and bring out a better outcome.
This year I’ll be collaborating with the blogging session (Blogging for Educators) once again. I hope to learn a lot under the leadership of Carla Arena, and an intercontinental team of experts: Carla Raguseo, Erika Cruvinel, Mary Hillis, Nina Lyulkun, Ana Maria Menezes, Cristina Costa and my dear friend Gladys Baya, who have put together a first-rate syllabus and a whole lot of rich and state-of-the-art material.

I’ll focus on two topics mainly: aggregators and tagging on the one hand and microblogging, which is still a mystery for me.
What I find engaging in these sessions?

• Teamwork
• Solidarity
• A safe environment
• Expertise
• Communication
• Encouragement
• A sense of community
• Kindness...

Who can ask for more?

Join us!

Talking photos!

This is a new and funny tool I learned about thanks to Moira Hunter who blogged about it in her own blog, "Multiliteracies"and posted a comment to the EVO_Moderators group. With PQ Talking Photo you can choose a character or upload your own, easily animate its eyes and mouth and add an audio script. The only drawback I find is that you can't record or upload your own script, which would be great to make students talk and make their own little speeches. You must be able to do that with the full version for sure.
Moira says they are offering this tool for free for bloggers until Jan.15th but I can´t find the announcement on their website.

Convert any photo into a talking character! Receive a copy of PQ Talking Photo by just blogging it! ($59.90 value for Free).

Limited time offer: you must blog before 01/15/2008. Your blog cannot be newly created and must have at least 10 previous posts.

Anyway there's a free online demo for you to try.

Annual Meeting at Escuela de Lenguas

Escuela de Lenguas, the language teaching institution that depends on Facultad de Humanidades of the University of La Plata, celebrated a new anniversary with a round of conferences on Saturday 22nd September. The talks were grouped into four different topics. I chose Educational Technology (of course!). Not only did I choose that set of conferences because it's my favourite topic, but because I knew Nelba Quintana would deliver one of the talks and I wanted to see her. Liliana Simón, a colleague that I met at Facultad de Informática when we were attending the seminars of our Master's, would also make a presentation. Good opportunity to know what other colleagues are dealing with.

The first three talks were by a group of French teachers: . They have fostered an agreement between the University of La Plata and l'Université de Poitiers to use an online course and LMS developed by the French university, DEFI, to teach advanced French to Argentine students. The French will provide the online platform, technical assistance and content. Argentine teachers will tutor the students. This is the first step towards more localized content in the future, once the contract is over. The curriculum has a strong oral component with written and recorded feeedback.


Then Liliana presented the concept of Web2.0 and some social webtools and the audience discussed the assumption that children are technology natives and we adults are technology immigrants. In her second talk she shared how she is using the online platform developed by Facultad de Informática of the University of La Plata, webUNLP, with her 1st year students of the English teacher training university school. Unlike the previous case, which consists of a purely online course, the content on webUNLP would be complementary to the regular f2f classes and would only comprise one of the units of the syllabus.

Lastly, Nelba presented the Writing Matrix project and showed some participant example blogs, and her experience encouraging blogging among the Escuela de Lenguas students. Nelba did an excellent job promoting blogging among the audience and her enthusiasm sounded real and catching.

The Top 100

These "Top" lists have always called my attention. The Top 100 films of all times, The Top 100 books you should read, The Top 10 beaches in the world, and so on, represent the favourites of a group of people big enough to be taken seriously. With the proliferation of technology, a similar list of web-based tops was bound to appear sooner or later.




PC Magazine people have compiled the Top 100 Classic Web Sites list. They say it is their "definitive list of the best that the Internet has to offer in 2007." This list is the result of the magazine staff's 2007 bookmarks and comprises well-established websites that are "generally best-of-breed in their respective categories." You can download the full list directly to your bookmarks if you click here.

Some of the categories in this list comprise:

• Web applications
• Social Networking
• Music, Movies, TV
• Search
• Info and Reference

But, if you haven't found anything new on this list, you may want to have a look at the Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites.

You'll see a large collection of Web applications and tech sites, excellent blogs, offbeat social networks, and, as always, a handful of addictive Flash games for those slow days at work.

Some of the categories for the Undiscovered Websites list:

• Info, Reference, and Search
• Music
• Reading
• Tech: Download and DIY
• Web Apps

These two are oriented to the general public, but teachers might find the following list more useful. The TOP 100 TOOLS FOR LEARNING 2007 was compiled by the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies. This center was created by Jane Hart to research about e-learning trends, technologies and tools and share resources on learning technologies.

109 education professionals responded to an invitation to share their 10 favourite tools for teaching and learning. Some names ring a bell: Andreas Büsing and Ramona Dietrich (Webheads), Stephen Downes, Larry Ferlazzo and Ana Maria Menezes (Learning with Computers) and James Farmer (Edublogs).

They have used these lists of personal Top 10 Tools to compile:
TOP 100 TOOLS - a list of the most popular tools for personal learning as well as creating learning

THE LEARNING TOOLBOX- the Top 100 tools categorised by type of tool. This list is particularly useful because teachers can take advantage of others teachers' recommendations when starting with a new web application. The categories are grouped under the big titles of "Personal" and "Producer" tools.

If you have unlimited time and curiosity you can also check the ever-growing Directory of Learning Tools, which has reached the number of 1,705 tools so far. These range "from traditional course development tools through 21st century (E-Learning 2.0) collaboration and sharing tools as well as tools for personal learning". The good news is that two thirds of them are free. This list is based around three big categories:

• Content Development & Management Tools
• Communication, Collaboration and Sharing Tools
• Personal Learning Tools

To get a daily taste of the newest on the web, Jane keeps her personal blog Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day, A daily item of e-learning interest selected by Jane Hart of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies.

If I had to choose the 10 favourite websites found or used extensively this year, I'd mention (in a aleatory order):

1. Zamzar
2. Feedblitz
3. Blinklist
4. You Tube
5. Slideshare
6. MyBlogLog
7. Skype
8. New Blogger
9. Outlook 2003
10. PbWiki

What are your favourite websites of 2007? Any discoveries worth sharing?

Another e-mail subscription service

Blogging and sharing brings a lot of rewards. Thanks to a comment Hala left in my previous post, I decided to visit her blog and leave her a comment in return. But before I did so, a widget in her sidebar called my attention. It's ChangeDetection, an e-mail based notification service you can add to your blog or website to let visitors know when your page changes. What's more, they can monitor a page under certain conditions, for example if they want to be notified only if text has been added (or removed), or if added/removed text contains specific words.
It looks pretty similar to FeedBlitz, which I use and like a lot. Will have to explore further to see if there are any differences.