Saturday, March 5, 2011

SlideShare: sharing ideas


SlideShare is a website where you can search and view thousands and millions slides of presentations in various topics and contents from people all over the world. 



  • Type your interests in the search bar, and you will see a list of slides that people have already post. 
  • you can email the slide to you and your friend and you can get the HTML code as well to embed the slide in your blog; if you signed up an account, you can also download the slide and add it into your Favorite. 
  • If you want to create your slideshow, you need to upgrade your account and it is not free.


Value:
  • People present their brilliant ideas and organize these ideas well in one slideshow. They are great teaching and learning materials.
  • Clear, simple and pointed with pictures(visual aids), making some complex concepts can be easily understood.
  • Teacher can inspire their ideas by others and also can make their own slides for students.
  • There are lots of topics related to the business. Good materials for ESP.


Usage:
For teacher: 
  • some of them are good teaching materials; some of them can inspire their thinking. Anyway, for teachers, it is a good place for them to prepare their lesson materials and content of the class.


For students:
  •  It is a good place for advanced students to self-teach or extend their study outside the classroom.


For classroom: 
  • Good place for brainstorming. It is a place for sharing where can inspire students' thinking. Better for pre-task; 
  • Reflection: Students can also make their own slides on the topic or knowledges which they learn in the class and present them to their classmates or embed them in the class blog.


Limitation:
  • If I search for 'fast food', most of the slides focus on the food industry and health. Thus on the one hand, we can discover the 'focus' of the public on the specific topic so that to improve our sensitivity towards the world; on the other hand however, for young learners, what they need to know is what is 'fast food' and what happen to 'fast food' which can not found in SlideShow. So maybe the website  is not suitable for them.
  • I am worried about the copyright of the slides. 


slideshare about Podcasting 
 


Tuesday, March 1, 2011

JING: ScreenCapture



JING is a free software that can record what you do on the screen and your voice(video, picture,text,cursor). After recording, you can download it into your computer or post it in the internet. You will get a URL and simply send it to others via mail, then the receiver can see your recording. 


You can download the software here: http://www.techsmith.com/jing/



what is JING? 


Value and Usage   

  • Giving feedback: correcting the students’work  
           see more in Russell's TTV:  http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/feedback.html
  • Clearer
  • Expand and elaborate more easily
  • Useful ‘listening’ material
  • Just like having you next to me
  • Combination of sound and visuals
  • Large essays: explain elaborately

How students can use JING? (audio as well as the screen)

  •        Film dubbing in pairs
  •        Students’ feedback
  •        Bruch stories (describing pictures)
  •        Present the process
  •       Speaking activities
  •        Peer correction
  •        Exploration & Evaluation of web tools
  •        Response to Teacher’s feedback
  •        Self-evaluation
  •        Translation
  •        Reading & Grammar activity
  •        Presentation of Bookr and Bubble



Limitation
  •        The problem: Compressing and time limit (5 minutes )
  •        Loss control: not too much information (focus on specific area)