Friday 17 February 2012

Dvolver Moviemaker

 is a good website for creating simple videos to present some idea. You choose on of many settings to create the video you like and you can also add music to the video. then, you can send them to as many recipients as you want via email.

this website can be used in classroom context to demonstrate certain ideas in an unusual way. it is perfect for teenagers, and good for young learners. the teacher can teach students dialogue patterns using this website like in this example. also, this can be used to present examples of grammatical rules. then the video can be presented in the classroom. another idea is that the teacher can ask the students to make a video about the topic they had in the class which can be a grammatical rule and they can make a conversation or a short scene using this rule and send it to the teacher for feedback.
this website is limited in terms of the options offered. and it is limited in time and space available for writing so you should be concise and brief.

Thursday 16 February 2012

Jing

Jing is one of the best websites for academic interaction between people. They can share ideas as photos or videos. All they need is to download it for free from the net then you can share your desktop with anyone you choose via the email. this program is good because it saves time in that when sharing ideas you do not need to write them or type them it is enough to show the picture and you can record your voice speaking , as you know speaking is much more interesting than writing. This way helps to deliver the thinking process more easily combined  with the small comments you like to add to make you point clearer.

This program is very useful for teacher
 because it gives students immediate feedback for their homework with the teacher’s voice. At the same time, it saves time for the teacher in marking and correcting the homework and exam papers. It is exciting for the students because they can get personal feedback by the teacher so they can realize their weak points easier. Also, they are able to play it back as many times as they want. The teacher can also use this program with students in another way such as asking students to prepare presentations and then send them to the teacher to be discussed. 

This program encourages students to speak using L2 and listen to the teacher speaking it so it helps to enhance listening also. This website encourages and facilitates distance learning where the teacher and the learner can send each other videos of inquiries and discussions related to the topic to be learned. 

The bad thing about this program is that the student cannot contact the teacher immediately when watching the feedback and as a result cannot ask for more elaboration.

Wallwisher



Wallwisher is an exciting website for sharing ideas and comments. It has an attractive design in which notes are shown in an arbitrary order. It is easy to make  wall and let others post on it. There are many options you have when you create the wall like changing the colors and design of the wall. Also, there is the option of controlling who can post on the wall by choosing the choice of approving the posts before being posted on the wall. Another option is to either let others post without signing in, and in this case you will not know who posted on the wall; or allow posting only when signing in to know the name of who posted. Wallwisher has the interesting feature of being able to post notes, pictures, videos, and even links.

It can be used in the classroom in many ways such as make students guess what the lesson is about after giving them a general idea about it and make them post their ideas on the wall as a warm up activity. Another activity is that at the end of the class the teacher  gives the outline of the next lesson and ask students to have a role in preparing it such as gathering information about the specified topic and they can post what they have found. They can post whatever they feel as related such as photos, videos and links and the teacher can organize them in the lesson.
This website can be used to give a feedback for the course in general or for a specific class so they can have a say in the classroom and feel as a part of it not only as receivers of information.
Nevertheless, this website is not preferred by all teachers because it is somehow chaotic in that ideas are presented randomly and they hide each other and need to be organized and this may consume a lot of time to see all the posts. Also, the source of information is the net only you cannot use your own information or data taken from your own computer. Another thing to be considered is that the participation of all students is not guaranteed.

Monday 13 February 2012

Wordle

Wordle is a funny exciting website. It changes texts into colorful clouds of words. You can make your own cloud choosing your favorite colors, font, and layout. The words appear in different sizes depending on their frequency in the text.

In the classroom the teacher can use this technique as a motivating activity. For example, in the warm up activity the teacher can present a cloud of words related to the context of the lesson and the students guess what the text is about. Another idea is to present a cloud at the end of the lesson and the students can use it to write a paragraph using the words in the cloud. One more idea is to present a cloud for the students which is taken from a certain poem, story, or even a novel and the students' homework is to guess or search for the text the cloud is taken from.
However, this website is not always useful. Sometimes there is not enough time to use this technique in the class. Also, if it is used regularly the students may feel bored of it. The last weak point i want to mention is that it cannot be downloaded; the teacher has to make a screen shot and use it or print it out on paper.

Todays Meet


If you want to share ideas, TodaysMeet is the best website for doing so. It is perfect for sharing ideas in large groups such as conferences. A good space is provided for people to ask questions and inquiries. A room can be created for a time that last between two hours and one year depending on what is needed and all is for free.
In relation to language teaching, this website is helpful for shy students who want to share their ideas. It helps them to have a role in the class interaction and say what they have in mind.
One suggested activity is that the teacher, at the end of the class, can raise a question, then the students post their answers in the room created by the teacher. This is helpful for students because they become able to read each others ideas and develop their own ideas and even to give feedback for each other and negotiate their points of view.
This website is not always helpful because the teacher cannot always guarantee the participation of all students and this may negatively affect some students who may disappear from such tasks and thus become completely isolated from the class.

Quest Garden




Quest Garden Garden is suitable for teachers who want to create their own materials. It encourages group work  and engage students in tasks taken from real life.
 Through Quest Garden teachers can create their own webquests depending on the level and interests of their students. There are several stages for designing a task so the student can go through several processes to achieve the end goal.
The exciting thing about this site is that tasks can be presented with pictures or videos which can be attached easily from the web or from the teacher's own data. This website  also encourages autonomous learning because while designing the webquest, the teacher can provide links as resources for extra reading.

What is good about this site is that the teachers can make use of other teachers’ webquests and even provide a feedback for each of them.

How can this website foster language learning?
The teacher can create a webquest through which the tasks are based on using the language. Different processes require different language skills. For example, speaking and listening can be a part of the group work and reading in L2 happens when  providing the texts and the extra reading in L2. The students can be assigned homework depending on their work though the tasks. Thus, learning happens indirectly through student's fulfilling in tasks taken from real life.
However, this website is not always helpful because it is time consuming. The designer should have a lot of time to design a webquest because he should always consider the students need and interest and gives a high importance to the aim or goal to be achieved. Also, not all webquests provided can be depended on because not all of them are of good quality so this also requires the teacher a good time to evaluate and choose the suitable webquest. One last point to be added is that this site can lead to the distraction of student's attention in that students can be distracted from the main task while surfing the net and discovering the links provided.
the following link is a lesson I designed for students who are about 14 years old. It is a lesson about planning a trip to London.

http://questgarden.com/138/09/1/120127052138/ 

Sunday 29 January 2012

Marco Polo


Using videos in classroom helps to motivate students and encourage them to talk in class. There is a number of sites from which the teacher can choose a video. One of these sites is Teacher Tube 
 I have chosen a video from this website about Marco Polo the famous traveler who had his journey through the silk road. This video is very suitable to be used in classrooms because it is less than six minutes long what ensures enough time for the teacher to repeat the video for the student to watch more carefully and discuss it with them. It is suitable for students in the intermediate school who have a previous knowledge of English. The teacher can start the lesson by introducing the new vocabulary. After watching the video, the teacher can engage the students into a group discussion by asking few questions about the video.


Thus, this  video helps students to improve their listening skills while linking the linguistic information with the visual information in addition to the speaking skills which are improved through the discussion. Also there is the historical information that they can get by understanding the video.


Monday 23 January 2012

Lyrics Training


I like this particular website because it is interesting. Learners can learn language while listening to songs and having fun.

This way be used in classroom where the teacher plays the song and ask the students to fill in the blanks. This exercise can be done as a warm up activity or an activity at the end of the lesson. Students find it interesting to listen to music and learn language through songs. This way can also encourage autonomous learning. Learners can listen to the songs on their own and fill in the blanks. They also can choose the level that suits their proficiency .
This website enhances listening and vocabulary learning. It also improves reading since students have to read fast while filling in the blanks but it cannot be the main source of language learning because it is not enough. It does not discuss the main aspects of language properly like strategies of reading and listening, grammatical rules, etc. This website is useful to improve or enhance language learning.

Sunday 22 January 2012

Breaking News English

Breaking News English




This website is helpful for teachers of English. It provides complete English lessons accompanied with the exercises and their answers.

The teacher can find in this website various English texts in both written and audio forms about various subjects. Also, there are different exercises accompanied which are divided into warm-up before the reading or listening, exercises while and after reading and a post reading and listening activity.

The teacher can adapt the text with the facilities available in the classroom. The teacher can assign some of the exercises as a homework and do some of the online activities in the class as a group work or pair work.

The teacher can divide the class into groups of four or more then ask them to do one of the exercises and the one who finishes first is the winner. Thus, encouraging the use of the target language in classroom and students can learn through communication. This kind of exercises are different from the traditional way of teaching language and it can increase motivation for the learners.

However, if the classroom is not equipped with the suitable facilities like the computers, the teacher can printout the activities and ask the students to do them in the classroom in groups.

Despite that this website includes listening and reading, the main focus is on vocabulary. It depends on teaching vocabulary through reading and listening without giving any direct attention to grammar. This, sometimes, can cause problems for students when using language outside the classroom or apart from the tasks given.

Friday 20 January 2012

Language Guide

Langauge Guide


This exciting website helps learners to learn different languages through different colorful pictures and mp3.
this website is good for different levels of learner as it has more detailed pictures for advanced learners. Also there is a variety of options related to different groups of vocabulary and it provides a discription of the grammar of language as well,in a addition to the reading part.
The learner can learn new vocabulary through listening to the pronounciation of the words with the help of the pictures. Also, there are exercise provided for the learner to enhance learning.
However, this website is limited in terms of the number of languages to be learnt and it is also limited in terms of material provided for each language such as a wider range of vocabulary is provided for English and French but not for Japanese. besides it is the case for grammar in that grammatical rules are provided for some languages like French but not for others like Turkish. Moreover, this website focuses mainly on listening and speaking more than the other skills of langauge like writing.