Part of the Cool Sites weekly series!
As a little girl, I made Christmas gifts for my father. He preferred them over bought gifts. Well, at least until I can afford box seats for the Dallas Cowboys games. Making gifts can be difficult for children who have to beg a parent to buy them the materials and disguise this so one parent does not find out. However, web 2.0 tools have made this task a bit easier. If your children, students, or you still need to make some gifts for the holidays here are a few free websites to help!
Animoto
This video site has amazing multimedia tools and Christmas templates to help you make inspirational videos. You can sign up for a free educator account to access premium tools for your students, but you should do it now. It took a month for me to get my account. Here’s my video greeting for you!
Vimeo
I’ve made my family various Christmas videos throughout the years, but who can beat the quality of Vimeo. You can also embed videos on a website, blog, or wiki. Vimeo provides me most of the inspirational videos I include in this blog, because many of the videos come with a post detailing the story behind the video. The Chiarastella (bright star) video illustrates an Italian tradition told through the drawings and music of 22 eight-year-old students. A few days before Christmas the children go caroling with a star-shaped lantern and sing for money. The better they sing, the more money the children receive.
Chiarastella from Raffaella Traniello on Vimeo
Mixbook
Create stories, photo journals, and more! Look at this incredible Christmas story illustrated and written by Hunter.
Scrapblog
Has many templates and tools to make your holiday message look like a scrapbook! Check out the holiday greeting created by Akela.
Even More Holiday Goodies
Hundreds of other holiday web 2.0 tools and websites are mentioned in the links below:
- 10 TED Talks to Download for the Holidays
- Best Places to Learn About Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa by Larry Ferlazzo
- Holidays in the Month of December by Cybraryman
- 10 Ways of Sending Your Holiday Greetings by Ana Maria Menezes
- Xmas via Web 2.0 by Ozge Karaoglu
- To All Things Christmas by Janet Abruzzo
- Christmas Games for English Language Learners by Digital Play
- Christmas Multimedia Lessons for English language learners by ESOLCourses
- Conversations at Christmas (a lesson plan for English language learners) by Kalinago English
- A Guide To Christmas in the US for the Brits by Vicki Hollett
- Six Gift Ideas by Lindsay Clandfield
- Advent Calendar Series by Anne Hodgson
Challenge:
Make a homemade holiday gift for someone!
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