Tarsia Maker

I've written a lot about Tarsia puzzles in the past, and have also made a lot!  There is now a new Tarsia puzzle maker on the block, which I have just been checking out.  It's called Tarsia Maker.

As you can see from this screenshot, there are four different puzzle shapes available:

1. little triangle - 9 pairs
2. big triangle - 18 pairs
3. "lozenge" - 11 pairs
4. hexagon - 30 pairs

You click on the puzzle shape you want to make, and then it's just a question of typing in your pairs of words or phrases.  You can toggle easily between the boxes by using the Tab button.  Once you've finished typing in your words, just click "Export to PDF" and your puzzle is ready.  The PDF includes the puzzle solution and a link to your puzzle if you want to retrieve and edit it.

So how does it compare to the Formulator Tarsia?  I've compared them and listed the advantages and disadvantages of Tarsia Maker.

Advantages	Disadvantages
Web-based – no need to download and install any software Much easier and less time-consuming to type in your words and phrases You can use the “shuffle” button to change the position in the puzzle of your pairs of words/phrases and randomise them.	Only one font (although it is a clear Arial-type font) Only 4 puzzle types Not possible to have red-herring or extension words/phrases on the puzzle edges Not possible to add images The PDF provides the puzzle and its solution but not the table that Formulator Tarsia provides. Not possible to create dominoes or “follow-me” activities

It looks like there are more disadvantages than advantages, but the advantages are significant and the program's convenience goes a long way to outweighing the disadvantages.

If you're interested in making Tarsia puzzles to use in language lessons, don't forget to have a look at my guide Ideas for using Tarsia.

Everything you need to know about Tarsia, calligrams and minibooks

Recently I have added some more free resources to my online shop.  They are a series of pdf "Everything you need to know about..." guides.

You can choose from:

• Everything you need to know about Tarsia in the language classroom
• Everything you need to know about calligrams in the language classroom or
• Everything you need to know about minibooks in the language classroom

Each resource is a compilation of posts from this blog and other documents that I have made to support these topics.  I thought it would help you to have everything in one place instead of having to search through various sites.

Sketchnoting 2 - Experimenting

Since I last wrote about Sketchnoting I have been reading and experimenting.  I have collected links and examples on my Pinterest page and read Mike Rohde's Sketchnote Handbook, which I would really recommend.

I have also bought some new kit:

I have a Moleskine cahier (mauve one on the left) which has tall, narrower pages, an A5 blank notebook from Paperchase (white one in the middle) and some cheap exercise books for writing and drawing ideas and "things that I like".

I also have some Maped Graph'Peps (on the left) for writing and drawing in different colours and some Tombow brush pens in grey shades (on the right) for adding shade and shadows.  For the main writing I have been using Pilot fineliners.  I also have a pack of Crayola Mini Supertips in my pack for colouring in larger areas.

These are the sketchnotes that I am pleased with:

I am not so pleased with these two.  I'm not entirely sure why, but they were better and more useful in my head:

I have been persevering with SketchBook+ on my tablet, and have got the hang of zooming in and out.  However I still can't make on my tablet anything like I can draw by hand, and it takes a lot longer.

I'm looking forward to the Language World conference at the end of this week, to be able to do some "live" sketchnoting.