Change your words;
Change your world!
In my opinion, it is a very good video to show the magic of words.
Wish you all could enjoy it! =)
My Profile
- Chen Yang (Angela)
- Coventry, West Midlands, United Kingdom
- Hello! I am Angela who is studying MA in ELT at Warwick. Welcome! (*^__^*)
2011年4月25日星期一
2011年4月20日星期三
2011年3月23日星期三
A Picture's Worth
Introduction
- I found this wonderful site in Nik's Learning Technology Blog.
- It is an amazing site which collects together images with short essays (300 - 1000 words); and both pictures and essays are sent in by site visitors.
- There's a gallery section where you can browse all the images and essays which have been sent in.
- The feature section has some of the most popular images. There is also a link to Google Maps which will show you the origins of the pictures.
- However, if you want to submit a picture and an essay, you have to send it to the editor / site owner who decides if it is good enough to be published in the site.
Why do I like it?
- This is an excellent source of authentic materials for students to use in class.
- The images are quite attractive and enjoyable; while the essays are not that long and written in very plain English, which is personal, emotive and easy to understand.
- The overall quality of the site content is fantastic.
- Besides, page views and comments are available on this site.
How to use it in the class?
- In my opinion, there are many ways that this site is used by both teachers and students in class.
- For example, the teacher can print out some pictures and essays associated with before class. Then, the teacher can use this materials to carry on a reading comprehension task with students. He or she can divide students into groups, and give each group one picture and essay. Next, the teacher may ask each group to read the small essay and picture, around 15 minutes later, each group will select one presenter to summarize their group's essay to the rest. After all groups finishing their presentations, the teacher may also let students to vote the most impressive picture.
- Another suggestion of using this site is that teacher can play a 'Match Game' with students in class. Again, the teacher needs to print out some pictures and the descriptions which are associated with them. Then, the teacher can either read the description himself / herself, or let students do the task in groups. The main purpose of this task is to motivate students and help them to practice reading comprehension, and meanwhile enlarge their vocabulary input by appreciating the essays written by the native speakers.
- Certainly, the teacher can also encourage students to produce their own pictures and essays after class, and help them to publish their own 'Picture's Worth' on the site.
Some Limitations
- Users have to send their images and essays to the site owner or editor to have a check. That means, users can not immediately publish their work on the site.
- Embed code is needed for 'moving' or sharing the picture and its description in another site or blog, so that more people can have chance to enjoy your pictures and the stories behind them.
VYou - Conversational Video
About VYou
I found this amazing website from Jo Gakonga's Blog. Just as shown in the picture above, VYou is a conversational video website which provides people with opportunities to talk with real people through videos. Below is an example I selected from the VYou.com.
Why is it Good?
- I was firstly attracted by this website's creative way of communicating among people - by recording videos. That is, you type your questions or words you want to speak with the people in strip which is located at the bottom of the video, then, the people in the video will reply you through video recordings as soon as possible.
- Besides, through using this tool, non-native speakers get the opportunities to chat with real English native speakers or Internationals who speak English.
- Furthermore, this website offers a platform for people to make friends around the world, and meanwhile helps them practise English thorough communicating.
- At last but not least, by singing up for a account without charging, anyone can create their own conversational videos, which I think is a good way to practice English and communicative skills. Certainly, it can be also an effective way of being popular in the 'virtual world (Internet)' if your video is interesting and attractive. =)
Suggestion for its Usage
- In my opinion, as this tool may be a little bit time-consuming, and the video maker may not reply the new questions immediately, I would suggest teachers to make a short demonstration of this website for students in class, and leave the time for students to experience it after class or at home.
- After a certain period, like a week or two weeks later, the teacher can spare a class for students to share their experience or any feedback about using the tool - VYou.com, which I think will help students apply it more effectively.
- If having interests, the teacher can also create his/her own account, and upload the conversational video with his or her own style, aiming at setting up an alternative stage to help students solve any studying or living problems after class.
Limitation
- Again, internet access is the basic require to use such amazing tool.
- Another shortcoming could be that the video maker may not reply the latest questions in time, as this tool may not support live or spontaneous conversations.
- Sometimes the video maker may not understand or reply the questions as expected. For example, you ask an open-ending question, the video maker may only answer in very few sentences.
- Although there are plenty channels and topics, not every video is attractive or students may be interested.
- Finally, I think such tool may not be suitable for those whose English proficiency is low, as the some people speaks very fast in their videos.
2011年3月13日星期日
VideoJug - Get Good @ Life
"Welcome to Videojug! With over 60,000 free, professionally-produced 'how to' videos and guides, we provide expert solutions & step-by-step advice on getting good at life."
Videojug.com (2006-2011) http://www.videojug.com/ [Accessed on 13/03/2011]
The video below is selected from the website Videojug.com, and it presents the festivals and events in the capital city of Canada. Yes, you may got the clue, it is Ottawa!
Good Points and Usage
- This video contains plenty festivals and activities which are special and meaningful in Ottawa, Canada, which are very attractive and interesting.
- With beautiful images and showing real people's activities in Ottawa, Canada, watchers can be easily motivated and attracted, especially for those who have the different cultural backgrounds.
- It is a very short video which I think can be used as warm-up or listening comprehension activity in the class. For example, if the lesson's theme is about 'Festival', then in my opinion, this video can be played at the beginning of the class, as a motivator, stimulation or listening practice, teacher can ask the students to listen for gist or main idea, like how many festivals and activities are mentioned in the video, and what are they? Having finished talking about the video, teacher can motivate students by asking them to think about the festivals in their own country or hometown.
Limitations
- Internet access is the basic requirement.
- To watch this video or use it as a in-class activity, either watchers or students need a higher level proficiency in English, as the introducer speaks in a speedy pace.
- Perhaps, not everyone is interested in the festivals and activities in Ottawa, Canada.
2011年3月10日星期四
Flash Quizzes for English Study
About Flash Quizzes
Flash Quizzes is part of the Self-Study Quizzes website, aiming at providing learners with various quizzes to help them improve their comprehension and skills (eg. vocabulary, grammar, and even culture aspect and so on) of English.
The sample quiz selected is about verb forms practice. In the following, I would like to discuss about it through the aspects of its advantages, disadvantages and usage.
Advantages
- As shown above, the sample quiz is about verb forms, which contains 8 questions in total.
- It is very easy to follow. Just click 'Start' and you can begin the quiz. (Sample picture is presented below.)
- Apart from the convenient control, the immediate feedback is also among the features of this flash quiz. (Below is the demonstration if you got a wrong answer.)
- As the quiz only includes 8 questions, it will not take too much time if the teacher applies it in class for students.
Usage
- As mentioned previously, since this quiz does not take too much time, in my opinion, it can be used as a exercise for review in class.
- Teacher can use it to check whether students grasp what have been taught, by doing this small quiz with students together, or leave this quiz to students to do it individually or in pairs.
- If the computers are limited, or there is no computer in the classroom, I suggest the teacher print out these 8 questions in one paper, then use it as a in-class test. Perhaps it might be an alternative to check what the students have learnt.
Disadvantages
- As mentioned previously, if the classroom does not have any computer or the computers are not enough for students, then such quiz may not be employed in class.
- There might be not adequate questions for students to practice, as in my opinion, only 8 questions can not cover all aspects of verb forms.
- While feedback is provided for each question, it still needs further explanation for those wrong answers.
Self-Study Quizzes for ESL Students - Vocabulary Quiz
Introduction
As shown on the title, 'Self-Study Quizzes' is a free-access online quiz website, which is particularly designed for students and learners who study English as a second language. There are various types of quizzes on this webpage, such as grammar quizzes, vocabulary quizzes and even bilingual quizzes. Furthermore, all these quizzes can be applied by both teachers and students or learners themselves. In the following parts, I will choose an easy vocabulary quiz as a example to explain how to use it in class or for learners themselves.
Vocabulary Quiz Sample - Months of the Year
- This quiz selected is an easy vocabulary quiz referring to the 12 months of a year. As shown on the image above, this quiz contains 12 questions and after each question, users will get an immediate feedback to show whether their answer is right or wrong. In my opinion, the immediate feedback is considerable and helpful for learners to figure out the mistakes they made.
- The questions are designed in a very creative way with newstyle which can easily catch users' attention and arouse their interests.
- Besides, quizzes are designed with different kinds and levels of difficulty, so learners can choose the type and difficulty level of the quizzes according to their own needs.
How to adapt it to class?
- As the selected quiz only contains 12 questions and it will not take too much time, teacher can use it as a warm-up or wrap up exercise in the class.
- As a warm-up task, it may help teacher motivate students with its creative way of asking questions.
- If taking it as a wrap up exercise, this quiz can help teacher to check how much have the students learnt from the lesson.
- In addition, the website 'Self-Study Quizzes' can be introduced to students or learners as a practice tool for their self-study.
- Certainly, teachers can also use it as a source of in-class exercises or tasks.
Some limitations
- Again, the basis of using this quizzes website is Internet access, so for those schools or classes without computers, such wonderful tool may not be applied.
- While there are many kinds of quizzes on this website, and the sample vocabulary quiz selected here is attractive, there are still many other quizzes which are not suitable for in-class practice.
- Not all quizzes are designed with feedbacks, so users or learners have to choose the quizzes carefully.
2011年3月3日星期四
Wordle - Beautiful Word Clouds
About Wordle
- Wordle is a free online tool for generating “word clouds” from text that users provide.
- The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.
- Users can tweak their clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.
- The images created with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.
- Below are sample images I created with Wordle:
Wordle.net http://www.wordle.net/ [Accessed on 03/03/2011]
Features
- The most attractive feature of Wordle, in my opinion, is that it can highlight the most frequent words in a text, especially a very long one, which I think can help readers grasp the gist of texts.
- Prominence words can be laid out in various colours and layouts, which very attractive and easy to catch people's attention.
- Users can edit the layout, colour and language according to their own interests with Wordle, which indicates the tool's convenience and consideration for users.
- Users can type either texts or the links of texts' source to create their own Wordle texts.
Usage
- In my opinion, this tool is better to be used for learners in their reading practice, as the highlight words will provide them with the key words in the texts.
- Besides, by using Wordle, learners can grasp or guess the main idea of a text through the frequent words, in turn, they can predicate the theme or gist of the text they are reading, which help them develop the ability of predicating and guessing.
- This tool can be applied as a stimuli by teachers, to catch students' attention before their reading, because the colorful layout can easily attract students' eyes.
Limitations
- Internet access is required.
- Too short texts are not suitable.
- There is a problem to save the word cloud creating by Wordle into the computer.
2011年2月27日星期日
Hot Potatoes
What is Hot Potatoes?
Hot Potatoes is a freeware which people can use in any purpose and project they like. It contains six applications, enabling users to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching or ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web.
Values
- It provides users with the opportunity of creating their own projects, exercises and tasks. The more interesting and amazing point is that users have chance to design their own feedbacks for each step or the whole task when they are using this tool to produce their own projects.
- Hot Potatoes offers options and samples on task's type for users, whcih is easy and convenient for any exercise or task's producing.
- For starters, tutorials and resources on Hot Potatoes are provided on the homepage. What is more, many users contribute themselves in creating the tutorials and useful materials in their mother tongue, such as Chinese, Spabish, English, Danish and French and so on. In my opinion, producing different language version of turotials can help Hot Potatoes quickly and widely spread around the world.
How to employ it in class?
- A whole lesson can be designed to teach students how to use Hot Potatoes, as long as they have interests.
- Teacher can demonstrate a sample first, then, students can create their own exercises or tasks. Pair work or group work could be better.
- Once each group finishs thier tasks, teacher can arrange them to do other groups' tasks and give feedbacks if time permits.
- Actually, my course tutor arranged one lesson about Hot Potatoes a few weeks ago. Most procedures I mentioned previously are from her lesson. While creating the task was kind of pressing but exciting, in my opinion, that lesson indeed provided good chance for me to gain a general idea on Hot Potatoes, and I also got the chance to practise how to use it.
Some Limitations
- While the application is free, it is not open-source. Users have to download the software online and install it into their computer before they use it.
- Certainly, internet access is required.
- Besides, some unexpected problems might happen, such as failure in uploading pictures necessary for tasks, or something else.
2011年2月26日星期六
QuestGarden - Where Great WebQuests Grow
Overview
- The introduction of QuestGarden below is 'borrowed' from the website: http://questgarden.com/author/overview.php [Accessed on 26/02/2011] I hope it can help you to gain a better comprehension.
- QuestGarden is an online authoring tool, community and hosting service that is designed to make it easier and quicker to create a high quality WebQuest. No knowledge of web editing or uploading is required. Prompts, guides and examples are provided for each step of the process. Images, worksheets and other documents can easily be attached or embedded in the WebQuest, and users have complete control over the appearance of the final lesson.
- QuestGarden is modeled after a community garden with all the resources needed to bring great WebQuests to life. Users are encouraged to comment on each others' work, to share links and images, and to build new WebQuests on existing ones. Rather than starting from scratch, users can bring a WebQuest written by another member of the community into their workspace, modify the content or appearance to suit their needs, and use it with their own students.
- Attribution to the first author is maintained, and authors are notified when another member of the community makes an improved or modified version of their work.
Why is it Good?
- As mentioned before, as an online tool, QuestGarden can help people to produce great WebQuests with high quality.
- By using this tool, teachers can adapt any WebQuest to meet his or her own teaching context.
- QuestGarden provides learners and teachers with various patterns to help them create their own WebQuests.
- This tool is not difficult to learn and use, so it is very convenient for learners to use.
- Task-based teaching methods can be greatly illustrated by WebQuests on QuestGarden.
How to apply it in class?
- Based on one sample of the pattern 'Travel Plan', I created a WebQuest called 'Travelling in UK' myself, with the purpose of improving students' ability of doing research and teamwork in the process of preparing their group presentations. Below is the quick shoot of the WebQuest.
- As the task I designed needs a great deal of online research, I panned to take at least 3 lessons for students to do it.
- In the first lesson, teacher can introduce the task to Ss and help them to solve any questions referring to the task. If time permitted, teachers can also help Ss decide group members.
- In the second lesson, teacher need help Ss check the progress of their research and preparation, and give further instructions on preparation for the next class.
- In the final lesson, the entire class time should give Ss for their presentations.
- It was the first time for me to make a WebQuest, so it may not that ideal and perfect. In my opinion, this attempt help learners to improve their ability of doing research and giving presentations at least.
Shortcomings
- Either WebQuest or QuestGarden, Internet access is required.
- As most tasks are not that easy, Ss with high level of proficiency is needed.
- Not only creating a WebQuest, but accomplishing one is time consuming.
2011年2月20日星期日
Learning Chocolate - Learning Vocabulary As Eating Chocolate
What is it?
Learning Chocolate is a web site aiming at helping learners to memorize vocabulary in an easy and efficient way, by using pictures, sounds and games. Just like enjoying eating chocolate, learning vocabularies can be enjoyable as well.
The picture below is an example from the Learning Chocolate website.
Good Aspects
From the example, it is not difficult to notice that this tool combines vocabularies with both pictures and sounds. Just click the speaker symbol, the pronunciation will be heard. In my opinion, attractive pictures can not only illustrate the words, but also draws students' attention on learning vocabularies.
In addition, this tool can help students with their ability of independent or autonomous study, because it is very easy to control.
Furthermore, the context of the vocabularies is provided by vivid images, which can help learners link words with its meaning and usage.
At last, vocabularies are categorized on the Learning Chocolate website, so students can learn vocabularies in a more systematic way.
How it can be used in the class?
- I think, considering this tool's convenience and flexibility in use, such website can be applied in class and introduced as homework for students.
- In class, on the one hand, it can be used as a warm-up or review exercise to help teacher check whether students have grasped what has been taught. On the other hand, it can be also regarded as a warp up or review exercise to help students enhance what they have learnt.
- After class, this tool can be distributed as homework for students to preview or review, as apart from pronunciation, some relevant exercises are included on the website as well.
Limitations
- Internet access is required.
- Various levels of vocabularies are contained in one picture, which is not convenient for learners to learn new vocabularies according to their own proficiency.
- Some abstract words like 'Time' may not be illustrated by specific pictures.
2011年2月17日星期四
TodaysMeet - Talk. Listen.
TodaysMeet - Talk. Listen.
It is a tool that can be used by teachers and students in and after class. By creating a certain room on 'TodaysMeet', both teacher and students can share and exchange their opinions on a certain topic immediately. In my opinion, it is a very convenient tool to use for language learning.
Why is it good?
- It is a free tool on Internet, which means everyone can use it at anytime and any place.
- Very easy to utilize and control. Just follow the brief and clear instruction showing on the screen, anyone can create a room, where people can talk with each other by typing their ideas with words.
- Ideas, opinions, and even questions can be presented and collected on the screen immediately. Meanwhile, communication may realize among participants.
- Users can decide the deadline of the virtual chatting room they create. That means, any data in the room will not exist permanently. Users need not worry about the leaking of any confidential messages contained in the room, as long as they set the proper lasting time (2 hours at least, one year at most) for the room.
- It can be a good way for brainstorming, by collecting participants' ideas.
How to use it?
- Teacher can use it to collect students' ideas on the topic taught in class.
- It can be used as a tool in the group or pair work - collecting and discussing group members' ideas.
- By looking at others' opinions and ideas, students can learn something from their peers, which collaborative or cooperative learning can be realized.
- Since it dose not take too much time, in my opinion, teacher can use this tool at any time in the class. At the beginning of a lesson, it can be applied as a stimulator. During the lesson, this tool can be used as a test to check whether Ss understand what have been taught. At the end of a lesson, teacher can employ create a room for Ss to share their reflection on the lesson.
Limitation
- Internet access is required.
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