Wikia Maps - Create Online Maps on Almost Any Image

Wikia Maps is a new map creation tool from Wikia. Wikia Maps has two map creation options. You can use Wikia Maps to create maps in a manner similar to those that you may have previously created in Google Maps. Wikia calls those maps "real maps." The truly cool feature of Wikia Maps is the option to create maps on pictures that you upload. Wikia calls those maps "custom maps."

Custom maps are created in Wikia Maps by uploading a picture or selecting a picture from the Wikia Maps gallery. You could upload a picture of a historical map, a picture from a place that you visited (I'm thinking of my pictures taken from the top of the Empire State Building), or you could upload a picture of a drawing that you made. You can add map placemarks to the image that you upload to use as the basis of your custom Wikia Map.

Applications for Education
My first thought when I saw the custom option in Wikia Maps was that it could be a good tool for students to use to create maps about fictional places they have read about in their favorite books. To do this students would draw a map of what they think a fictional town or fantasy world looks like. After completing the drawing, students would take a picture of it and upload it to Wikia Maps where they can add multimedia placemarks to their maps of fictional places.

H/T to Google Maps Mania. 

Finally! TodaysMeet Now Offers Chat Moderation for Teachers

Yesterday, I shared the news that TodaysMeet now offers the option to create accounts and close TodaysMeet discussions early. Today, TodaysMeet added the option to moderate comments in a discussion.

To moderate comments in your TodaysMeet room simply place your cursor over the lower-right corner of the box in which an inappropriate comment was written. When place your cursor over that corner a "delete" link will appear. Click delete and the comment is gone.

Applications for Education
The ability to moderate comments has long been the feature that teachers have wanted to see in TodaysMeet. The moderation feature along with the new options for creating accounts and closing discussions early make TodaysMeet a better option than ever for hosting classroom backchannel discussions.

As I mentioned yesterday, I have used TodaysMeet to provide my students with a place to ask questions throughout the day. By using a backchannel tool like TodaysMeet my students who have a lot to say don't dominate the classroom conversation. At the same time my shy students are given a place to comfortably ask questions.

ClassDojo Adds Support for Sharing Classes and Sharing Student Reports

ClassDojo, the popular student behavior recording service, has added two frequently requested features. The first new feature allows teachers can to share classes with each other. This allows lets multiple teachers record information about students in the same class. Being able to share classes will be great for teachers who have assistants working with students.

The second new feature allows teachers to share reports with other teachers or school administrators. Teachers in the same school can share students across different classes and view their student reports. Individual students can now move between different teachers and classes, but still build on their progress over time. In other words, you can keep the records moving from year to year.

Lingua.ly Launches an iOS App for Learning a Language on the Go

Lingua.ly is a free service that is designed to help its users learn a new language while browsing the web. The service initially launched as a Chrome app then added an Android app. Now Lingua.ly is available as an iOS app.

The Lingua.ly iOS app creates flashcard activities based on the words that you select from a dictionary or from articles that you read through app. To get started select the language that you're studying (Lingua.ly's iOS app supports English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Hebrew) then enter words by typing them or pasting them into your account. After entering your words Lingua.ly creates flashcards with pictures. The app will read the words to you. After studying your flashcards you can use the app to search for web articles that utilize the words you're learning.