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Saturday 24 January 2015

WordSift

WordSift is another kind of  free word cloud.

Though it is not attractive compared to Wordle, it is more academic and provide more interesting opportunities to engage with vocabulary.





One of the advantages of this tool is that the the data can be sorted by A to Z or Z to A, for example.

Another advantage is that, if you click a word, it can create a mindmap related to the word on the "Visual Thesaurus" with images on the left hand.

Here is an example. I clicked on the word "love".




If you place the cursor on the thesaurus, its definition(s) will appear. If you click on a word in the thesaurus, it will show a new thesaurus display beginning with the word you have selected. The users can go further and learn about the words more.

As this is less entertaining and attractive, WordSift would suit learners who want to learn about the words more deeply. I would enhance learners' autonomy, only when they are motivated to some extent. For, as all information is provided in English, some learners might be demotivated or less interested because of the lack of basic English knowledge.


Here is the link to WordSift.

http://www.wordsift.com/

The text I chose is from the official website of the musical - Les Miserables.

http://www.lesmis.com/uk/

Wordle

Wordle is an online tool for generating "word clouds" from texts that you like. A "word cloud" or "tag cloud" is a visual representation for text data.

You just choose text you would like to show and Wordle will give a word cloud.

Here is an example.




You can have your learners guess what the text is about or identify the topic. The most frequent words are showed in bigger size.

Font, layout and colour are easy to change. It is easy to make the text attractive. Wordle provides learners with a good opportunity to engage with vocabulary.

If you put one sentence,



it can be an exercise of putting words in the right order.

If the classroom is equipped with enough computers connected to the Internet, learners can choose their favourite text and create a word cloud. They can have their classmates guess the topic or make some grammar questions for their classmates to answer.


It is attractive and could provide a good exercise, however, some learners might find the text distracting or the text can make some people feel sick because of its layout or colour. It would be difficult to get attention for a long time.


Here is the link to Wordle. Give it a go by clicking "create". You should install and activate Java.

http://www.wordle.net/

The text I chose is from the official site of the musical - Les Miserables.

http://www.lesmis.com/uk/

Quizlet

Quizlet is an online learning tool. It's basically free of charge and you can create various quizzes.


You can embed what you have made on your blogger by looking at "More".




This is what I made to learn French from English.




The images are already there. You can add your own voice but you have to pay for the service.

You can also print it out for those who don't have access to the Internet.




This is another set to learn some British Expressions... pronounced in American English...




The learners can choose study modes. They can try some tests as well as games.


This can be used not only to entertain learners but also to provide them with serious questions. Thus, it can suit a wide range of age groups, levels, and needs of the learners.


Although this is a useful, quick, and fun tool, the teacher should be aware of the objective of learning and provide them with relevant questions. As it is hard to know who has tried and who has not, the set should be worth trying!


Here is the link to Quizlet.

http://quizlet.com/

Duolingo

Duolingo is a free language learning tool. It also helps with the translation.

You can log in and start learning languages you would like to learn. Language choice depends on your mother tongue. If you are a native speaker of English, you have nine choices. However, if you are a native speaker of Korean, Chinese, Japanese, or Italian, etc., only English learning is provided. You can still choose English as your site language and learn languages in the list below.




Duolingo invites you to start learning. You can learn in your pace.





You can learn anywhere anytime as it is available on smartphones.

It can record the result of your learning and you can carry on your learning.




Duolingo is interactive. You can add your friends to compete with.




One of the problems is that it sometimes provides wired sentences or questions seem difficult because of the lack of context.

For example, when learning French, I encountered a question;

"Select the mission word.

________ sont des garçons."

I should choose a word from "Ce, Ils, Vous".

I got it wrong by selecting "Ils". The correct answer was "Ce".

However, when asked "select all correct answers",

the correct answer was "Ils sont des garçons."


This is a interesting learning tool. You will be provided with various types of questions. However, getting wrong answers because of the lack of context or relevant explanations could be sometimes frustrating.


Having said so, overall, I think this can help learners to study autonomously unless they don't get frustrated by some types of questions.


Here is the link to Duolingo.

https://en.duolingo.com/

Saturday 17 January 2015

SMARTNotebook

This is the software that comes with the interactive whiteboard from Smart Technologies. This is a very useful, interesting and interactive tool.The teacher can do a lot more things on the board and make the lesson more interesting, interactive and exciting.

Here is the link about how to use the SMARTNotebook provided by Russell Stannard.

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/e-portfolios-iwbs/interactive-whiteboards.html


It will be surprising to see how many activities this tool makes accessible and realisable. This also provides teachers with opportunities to get students involved physically as well, which might help enhance language learning acquisition. The teacher can use the properties or images that are already installed or even add new things according to their needs.

As this is "interactive", it reacts to our action. We can move letters on the board, make them bigger or smaller. It is easy to write, put coulours, add some shapes or erase them. With the help of sounds, images or videos, this can provide an authentic context for language learning.

The biggest problem, I think, is all about facilities, whether the school/institution has rooms equipped to use SMARTNotebook in the classroom. As far as I know, it is quite impossible to have each room equipped. The teacher needs to carry a laptop, a projector and an interactive whiteboard and set them up before the class begins. It takes more than 5 minutes to be ready while there is only 10-minute break between classes. Furthermore, it is also unlikely that there is enough interactive whiteboards for each teacher to use.

Teacher training is another issue for this tool to be pervasive.

As for the target learners, I think this is more suitable for young learners than for elder learners when it is used to encourage them to interact or move their bodies.

Regarding the use of this, it will be likely that the teacher will tend to speak a lot as s/he is supposed to give instructions. However, it would be better if the teacher could invite students speak, express themselves in the target language.

Jing

Jing is a tool which allows you to capture a image or a video and to add your voice instruction over it. You need to download it but it's free of charge.

This is useful when you want to show Internet pages, videos or any documents with your voice guidance. Unlike my brainshark, it doesn't allow you to put your voice instruction slide by slide or page by page, but once you select the area you would like to capture, you can go any pages or sites. It keeps recording the pages and your voice unless you stop recording.

I tried capturing a Youtube video and adding my voice over it. Below is one of the famous scenes from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.




I recorded my voice over this video using Jing. Once I finish recording, Jing sends me a link of the page where the the video with my voice is found.

http://screencast.com/t/dO1BdtLe

I can send this link to whoever I would like to share with the video.

I should know more about how Jing works and what it can do. I think it would be better it could allow us to see the original video and the video with our voice. Or maybe any possibilities to embed the voice-added-video on Blogger??


Here is the link to Jing.

http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html

This is the link to the training video provided by Russell Stannard.

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/screen-casting/jing.html

Triptico

Triptico is a tool that teachers can use to make the lesson more game-like one. It is designed and created by David Riley.

Triptico could be suitable for a wide range of age groups, levels, as well as subjects. The teachers can make the questions easy or difficult depending on the their needs or according to the interest or levels of their students. Not only language teachers but also any teachers of any subjects can make good use of this tool.

The teacher can ask a student to answer the questions in front of the class. Also, s/he can project the materials on the screen and invite the whole class to answer the questions.

The teacher should take the learners' age, levels or even genders into consideration. I find it useful when it is used as a warming-up activity as it provides learners with quick activities. I assume it can gain students' attention very easily, however, the excessive use can make learners bored or make them think that it is useless especially when the learners are older than 15/16 years old or when they consider entrance examinations for high ranked universities. Also, the older girls become, the less interested they become in this game-like activity (of course it always depends on the learner groups).

Downloading is free. Once you download it, you can choose activities from the menu screen. It can make funny sounds when they get a right/wrong answer.




You can also choose your favourite TIMERS or SELECTORS.

Here is what I have made using "What's the Question?". This activity helps learners to build the question by looking at the answer. The teacher are invited to make groups.




It took more time to think about 12 questions than I expected. One reason for this is that I didn't have a clear image of the learners. It will be important to include questions which can help students to remember what they have leanrt as well as questions which will be helpful for their following learning. The teacher also should be aware of the interest of the learners.


Here is the link to Triptico.

http://www.triptico.co.uk/home

Wednesday 14 January 2015

Embedding Youtube videos on Blogger

There are a lot of interesting and motivating videos on Youtube. You can embed videos on Blogger. This allows you to invite your learners to your blog page and provide them with an equal opportunity to look at what you would like to show them.

Of course you can create your own videos or lecture sites with different tools, however, sometimes it is simple and helpful to introduce already made videos.

Embedding Youtube videos is very easy.

On Compose page, click "Insert a video"and choose "From Youtube" and type key words. That will bring you the video you are looking for. Just click on the video you would like to upload and press "Select".

I tried with a trailer of Les Miserables-The Musical, as this is my favourite musical. The novel is also great by the way...

Here is the video from Youtube.




It is always problematic that learners, especially the young or teenagers, will be exposed to inappropriate videos or contents on Youtube. It would be better if students as well as parents could have opportunities to know about the dangers/traps of the Internet.


My brainshark

My brainshark allows you to upload Powerpoint slides or Word documents or even make podcasts. It's free for signing up and basically it's free of charge. You can add your voice instruction to help your learners to follow your lectures/presentations. The students can also record their voice and listen to their recordings. It can serve to listening, speaking, and would be useful for writing and reading as well.

It allows you to make comments on each slides. It's easy to edit once you understand how it works.

The audience can leave comments, which encourages interaction between the producer and the audience.

Although this is a great tool, as is often the case with other tools, the teacher should spend quite long time preparing the materials and giving feedback to the students.


Here is a powerpoint document I made just to see how my brainshark works. The content is rubbish and my English is rubbish, very embarrassing, but I could somehow manage to make slides with audio guidance. Please be nice and kind if you listen to it!!!


 



Here is the link to my brainshark.

http://www.brainshark.com/mybrainshark


This is the instruction given by Russell Stannard. He can tell you how to use this step by step.

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/video-youtube/mybrainshark-part-1.html

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/video-youtube/mybrainshark-part-2.html


Voki

Voki is a free online language learning/teaching tool (*not fully free). This allows you and your learners to make your own avatar easily. Even novice user of technologies like me have no difficulties to get started. Your avatar can speak, can move its eye glance. The teacher can create a Voki Classroom, upload voice messages, and interact with the learners.

This is especially suitable for young learners but could interest all age groups. As the majority of children today are supposed to play video games, Voki would be a good opportunity to get their attention.

Although creating his/her own avatar is fun and attractive, managing online classrooms requires a lot of work to the teacher, and keeping the learners' attention would be another one.

Here is my first avatar. Some options are not open to those who are not signed in for VOKI CLASSROOM or VOKI PRESENTATER.



Here is the link to Voki.

http://www.voki.com/

Here is the training video provided by Russell Stannard, who is teaching us about the use of ICT in language classrooms.

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/audio-podcasting/voki.html

Monday 12 January 2015

More about fluency

About Fluency

Being fluent in target languages is one of the major objectives of language learners.


Here is a blog link that a friend of mine recommends.


Fluent in three months


http://www.fluentin3months.com/blog-home/


This is written and organised by Benny Lewis, an Irish polyglot.


He provides us with several approaches to be competent at any language.


You can hear from people who succeeded in speaking foreign languages.


You can also join the Forum and have discussions with people from all over the world, which might inspire you more to language learning.

Thursday 8 January 2015

Using ICT in language classrooms


Using ICT in language classrooms

Why is it useful?

That can help make classrooms more interactive and communicative. Each student can participate in the activity and there will be more teacher-student interaction as well as student-student interaction. The activity will be more diverse and interesting as there are a lot of learning materials from all over the world in the internet.




What do we need?

Facilities will be important. One computer for each student at least. Also the class size will be important because one of the benefits using ICT could be the possibility for the teacher to address each student. Less than 15 students might be ideal?


What might be dangers?

Teacher's attention to each student and to student-student interaction will be crucial because students might insult each other or there will be bullying. The accessibility to certain websites should be limited and controlled by the teacher.