Hot Potatoes is a free software whereby you can create your own quizzes in forms of
multiple-choice,
short-answer,
jumbled-sentence,
crossword,
matching/ordering
gap-filling.
You can save the quiz in your computer or put it in the internet. click the picture to the website and download the software in your computer
FIVE types of quizzes
JQUIZ: four models of you to choose: multiple choice questions; shot-answer questions, hybrid question and multi-select questions. Teachers can add feedback as well as a hint in JQUIZ.
JCLOZE: gap filling exercise with the hint
JMATCH: matching exercise
JMIX: jumble words/ letters in a sentence/word.
JCROSS: for creating the crosswords games
My Matching Quiz
Step 1: choose JMatch
Step2: Add a title and put the content in the box respectively on the right and left.
Step3: Go to file---create the webpage and choose a format to be saved.
Standard format
Drag/drop format
you need an account to save the quiz online, but it is very easy.
you can also edit your quiz, insert picture, link, HTML table and add a reading text into the quiz, then create a zip package or just save it in computer or online as you like.
It is a wiki tool for online collaboration. firstly, you need to create a account so as to create a wiki or be invited into others' wikis as an editor or just a reader. Then you can write your texts or insert pictures, videos or links(like a blog) in the FrontPage. Also, you can edit the page whenever you want. One of the fantastic tool is that you can upload any files in the page and visitors can download by simply clicking it in the page(different from blog). After that, to achieve the collaborative work, you can invite others to this wiki by sending them a inviting emails. you also can set permission lever:
Page-level onlycan only access pages you explicitly give them access to. Readerscan view pages, but not edit. Writerscan view and edit pages. Editorscan view, edit, move and delete pages and folders. Administratorsalways can do anything on pages and folders.
People who receive the email will be accessible to this wiki only after they have signed up a PBwiki account through the same email.
If we choose invite people as editors, then they are able to view, edit, move and delete pages and folders. See the wiki we have created in the class, everyone has create their own page :
Through Navigator, we can view others' pages. Absolutely, I can edit their pages and they can also edit mine.
If you click 'Share this page' on the right hand, you can send this page to any emails. Moreover, 'Put this page in a folder' can help you to put the related pages into the same folder.
My classmate Jean Hu and Khadiga give us a presentation on Wiki, and they have selected a article by Zorko(2009): ‘Factors affecting the way students collaborative in a wiki for English language learning’. In this article, Zorko held the view that wiki is:
The Hawaiian "wiki wiki" ="to hurry"(Wheeler et al., 2008:989)
A web-based publishing tool
An easily editable virtual space
Sharing information and knowledge
Suitable for collaborative learning
Collaborative interactions that facilitate effective learning (Zorko, 2009:645))
Also, wikis based on Constructivism and Collaboration. It is because while learners have great control and responsibility over the cognitive learning process whereby they construct new ideas and concepts by making use of their own knowledge and experiences, they also need to work together with two or more learners to achieve a common goal in this scaffold learning process.
Usage and Limitation
it is possibly suitable for long-term project because it underlies the process-focused learning method. Another reason is that all the editing are remembered in the 'history' and wikis are able to protect any articles that revised by any editors, while blog can only show the final draf. It is absolutely also a learner-centred tool that is very different from the Webquests, which is pre-designed by the teacher and has well-organized structure. Therefore, possibly it is hard for teachers to control in case of everything going into disorder or disorganized. Thus, whether for advanced-level learners or English beginners, the design of the TASK is quite important.
To design a task, context and purpose should be taken into the consideration firstly. Context includes lever of the student and the teaching environment. It is arguable that whether wiki is an effective tool for young learners because some maintained that the tool itself is very difficult for children and some also argued that what the teachers need to do is to teach language skills through the collaborative learning rather than teaching the collaborative learning skills. However, the problem lies in the fact is that we cannot design the task appropriately. Obviously, it is unnecessary and unrealistic to ask children write an article in the wiki when they can just recognize very basic vocabularies. However, it can be regarded as a platform for children to construct the knowledge together. For example, we can ask children to study the vocabularies in LearningChocolate and LanguageGuide respectively and create a page named ' clothes', then children can insert pictures and words they have learned by themselves in the page. Also, children study in a different website and possible they can be encouraged search for more vocabularies online can add more information in the page. Thus, the wiki can help young learners to share information together which is more focus on constructing knowledges. For advanced-learners, wikis can be used in the collaborative writing task since learners are always cautious to post and edit texts in the page with serious writing attitude.
So, teachers firstly should convince this tool and then can adopt it into the language classroom according to different learners. Moreover, it is important to motivate and encourage learners to edit others' work, telling them the the goal and purpose of the task is not assess the achievement of a single person but to work together to construct the achievement.
Something important when using wikis:
1. Disorganization of wikis : it is developed step by step
teacher need to create the scaffolding (for low-level learner)
2. Create chance for communication but students try to use mother tough
3. Cautious construction of work : Not using friendly
4. compared with blod :
blogs: personal; fixed entries; better for opinions, reviews; good for autonomy; sequential; see the fact
wikis: communal; editable entries; better for facts,summaries; food for collaboration; not fixed sequential;see the procedure(for teacher's feedback)
references:
Zorko, V. 2009. 'Factors affecting the way students collaborate in a wiki for English language learning'. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology. 25(5), 645-665.
Wheeler, S. Yeomans, P. and Wheeler D., 2008. 'The good, the bad and the wiki: Evaluating student-generated content for collaborative learning'. British Journal of Educational Technology. 39 (6), 987-995
Using Vocaroo, you can easily record your voice and send it to people via mail.
What you need are a microphone, a internet-connected computer and an email account. There is no time limit for the recording and you can re-record it if you don't like it. You can also post your recording in the internet by embedding HTML code.
For students: improve their speaking skills by podcasting their recording. Activities can be mini-presentation, answering a specific questions or self-reflection; self-reflection on the pronunciation.
For teachers: giving spoken feedback to students; spoken instruction about the homework or the assignment.
chances for everyone to speak: students can podcast their ideas in the internet about a same topic, teacher will randomly play the recordings in the class and collect students' ideas. It can motivate everyone in the classroom to speak out.
This is a website that can visualize your text. paste or type into the box and it will automatically show you the frequency of word that used in the your text, according to the size of the word. (if one word is bigger than the other, it is used more frequent used than the one).Moreover, the button of 'from rare to common' and 'from common to rare' will show you the frequency of word that used in English, not only limit in your text.
The website also connect these words with the visual resources and examples where you can find the thesaurus relationships connected to the word. CLICK the word, and it will show you the visual thesaurus and the place of the word that is used in your text. Let me give you an example:
paste the text above in the box and you will see:
it is the 'from common to rare' model. As we can see in the box, 'word' is the most frequently used in the text and also it is more commonly used than other words in the daily life.
Also, you can see the visual thesaurus, the word in the sentences of the text, and the position of it.
on your left hand, there is a search bar for you to find a picture that relate to the word.
The word 'Thesaurus'
Value
Focus on the vocabulary and relate the vocabulary to the text context
visual aid(picture) for vocabulary learning
Help to understand the main ideas of a text according to the frequency of the word
Teach vocabulary according to the frequency of the word in English and level of the students.
Usage: reading and vocabulary learning
Reading skills of prediction and grasping the 'gist' : guess the main ideas before reading the text according to the 'wordsift'. it can be used as a warming-up activity for the reading task
Learning vocabulary from the text: this tool help teachers to pick up the word in the text. Students can learn the word not only base on the traditional dictionary but also on the text context. Teacher can also 'wordsift' more authentic article so that to find the usage of the word in 'real-life' world.
Teacher can search the 'word' picture which will be used in the per-task to arouse students' interests to learn.
Limitation:
For upper-intermediate or advanced learner, some words are not necessary.
Without explanation, students may misunderstand the vocabulary. After all, it is not a dictionary.
There are some real gems in Ozge's latest blog for Valentines Day. However, some of them are not only useful for you to express your love to your lover, but also offer you, as an English teacher, an opportunity to change your traditional teaching way in the English language classroom.
1. The first one is BooKr, in which you make your own photobook; you choose a title for it and you search images based on tags (from flickr) and you drag and drop them in the book pages. You can add as many pages as you want and you can write a description or title underneath them. Then, you can publish the book for the rest of the users to see, you can send it to your email and embed it to your blog.
Here is my photobook:
In the language classroom, we could have students create their own books and write about them developing the feeling of learners' involvment and at the same time offering an opportunity to practice their writing and speaking skills (could work in pairs or small groups). Also, teachers can use this, creating their own book and giving to the students to work with. Also, teachers can upload pictures of the classroom on flickr and have students make their books using them, writing about their reflections at the very end of the course.
Also, there are others' comments on BooKr: (classroom discussion)
Bookr is a site for creating your own photobook. Starting with searching pics from flickr's enormous database you can upload them to your photobook(everyone's photos could be uploaded in Flickr). Add the title and the author's name and then add subtitle description. Some of its features include blog sharing. It could be used as an excellent tool for short and simple projects for younger learners. An interesting project could be a creation of a photoalbum of their favourite pet or their family or their favourite job. A presenattion could follow so all the social and language skills are practiced.
Bookr is a tool that you can use to create your photobooks using flickr images. Once you drag on the images you like, you can add some texts, or comments. You can also adjust the position of the image (up and down), and you delete the images if you are not happy with it. After you finish the photobook, you can embed it into your blog or your website.
Students can create their own photobooks about their hometowns or any place they went to and introduce them to their classmates.
it is convient for students/teachers to make presentations. There are plenty of resources that students can refer to when they try to find their pictures. It is easy to find pictures that you want and drag it into your photobook.
BooKr: This is a tool that allows us to create our own photobooks by combining pictures with texts. There is a large data base for pictures. For instance, you can choose your topic and include it on the cover of your book. In addition, you can describle the photos or even create a whole story. The site can arise student's interest and ccreativity.
2: the second one is Bubble Joy This site gives you the opportunity to create your own video greeting card. It's free and easy, you record yourself using your webcam and you can add a message and send the link to the one you want via your email account. Very easy and straight forward. Just one minute available for recording, pretty short.
In an ELT class: you can broaden the field of greeting to whatever you want, it could be a means of sharing information between students or recording oneself talking about a topic for a minute and sending it to the teacher as homework on speaking (practising speaking under time limits - for exams for example).
Classroom discussion:
A site to create your own greeting card. Requires a webcam and imagination. Record yourself speaking up to 60 sec(short for a speech enough for a wish!!). Ideal for using it with younger learners to practice their speaking skills. Self recording is beneficial for both the learner and the teacher. In the end you can add a background and sent the link via e-mail or tweet the link.
It is the website that help you make the short time vedio and produce the web link that you can send to your freinds through email.
As for the ELT classroom activities, it can motivate the students at young age to practice their speeking for real life use. The teacher can design a task to ask the students to make a wishing vedio. The students need to decide what to say with their pairs( practice listening, speaking and communicative skills ).Then they make the vedio together. By doing this, ss are motivated to practice.
3. the last one is Acapela TV It is a funny website where you can just choose a character (mainly an animation one) you like and type a short text.After that, the cartoon will repeat what you've just said in a humorous and funny way!
There is a variety of languages to choose from as well as different accents like American and British ones;
Students can use this as dairies to practice their speaking skills.
Here are some interesting video websites people recommended at Sync In:
Vimeo: 'An amazing alternative to Youtube which provides you high-quality videos with perfect image and sound. You have a variety of searching options for nearly every subject. There is also a tutorial section (called Video school )where you can find instructions of how to create and film your own video either for educational or non-educational purposes. For educational purposes, students can be assigned a task of making a film and at the end of the process, a prize like Oscar can be given .'
'This website is an amazing website that provides a varity of authentic materials, the latest news, and up-to-date information from different parts of the world. You can use it to know what's happening in your country. It has many categories, such as Entertainment, Sports,and Technology. You can download daily podcast. Some of the videos have subtitles, They also provide transcripts. The teachers can use the transcripts to explain something important for students to learn. Students can use it to know the latest news about their favourite celebrities.'
'The Week in Rap is a weekly summary of news headlines in the form of a short rap video. It provides lyrics, so students can read, listen and watch the video at the same time. You can suscribe to the Week in Rap. You can share the video with others. You can leave comments which are good for writing. You can also embed the episode in your blog or in your website.'
'http://freevideolectures.com/ provides a content for English learners. While they are wathcing the lectures of a certain area, they get to know the vocabulary including some terminology related to the subject. A site with video lectures in various subjects.A useful site to find materials for CLIL and EAP teaching contexts. Good collection of video courses.
http://www.kidsknowit.com/interactive-educational-movies/index.php is a site for children to learn about the world while learning English at the same time. Differnt topics such as food chain, and all kinds of fish, are provided and vivid colorful piactures and slow audio explanations will attract the kids to learn.'
' 1Academic Earth is a birllian website. It offers online courses from the world top scholars. Learners can choose the video according to their interest. They can download the transcripts, blackboard lecture notes, mp3 and video. Also, they can get the information of the course, the course book and some recommended readings.
2 Englishcentral : a great website to practice speaking. It provides authentic videos with subtitles. Learners can record their own sounds and compare to the original one and get feedback. By comparing, they can concentrate on the weak pronunciation and see the expert help video and make more practice. '
In my our group, we have chosen
schooltube :a site that allows students to view and share their videos with others in their own channel (choose who you want to network with). Students can take control of their learning by creating or watching videos.
ted: the site that gives teachers the opportunity to learn from the experts on different fields and get updated information on what is going on in the world of technology, entertainment, business, science, design etc.
