Colleagues' presentations on lesson ideas

Strategy #1: Music Friday

• using mixpod

• where students will need to research a song or artist and present to the class

Strategy #2: Make kids make their own introduction on audioboo and embed on their own blog, get kids to visit other people's blog. Then T do a jeopardy game in class to test people 

Strategy #3: Xtranormal video

• different language, and different accent available
• quick pace; can use pauses to slow down

Day 10 Presentation Tools

Reading Discussion

• use powerpoint for multi-literacy purposes (e.g. videos, audio)
• presentation skills

Hook for introducting using Powerpoint effectively 



Powerpoint replacement or enhancement

1. Graphing papers

* storyboard creation

2. Pecha Kucha & Ignite

* 20 slides, 5 seconds for each slide
* can be used to challenge students to give presentations that create a dynamic run-through on a theme
* websites provide some examples
* at the events Ignite presenters share their personal and professional passions, using 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds for a total of just five minutes

3. Google slides

* MS Powerpoint can be imported into Google Slides which allow embedding
* only downside is losing transitions

4. Sliderocket

* great templates
* classy presentation show
* only need gmail ID
* when searching for images, automatically credit them for you (when cursor hovers over image during slide show)

5. Mixbook

* Scrapbooking - some people make scrapbook with Powerpoint. Painful process!
* Free to use
* can collaborate as a class
* can print and store a copy in the classroom
* students tend to love the artistic design opportunity if use for a project and presentation

6. Image Generator

* unsophisticated way to have photoshopped effects

7. Tagxedo

* the generator makes an image through positive and negative space use

8. Prezi

* I have found this prezi by a blogger who is interested in exploring using prezi to teach vacabulary.

Day 9 Collaboration through Technology

Discussion of Reading:

• difference between group work / collaboration / co-construction
• group work can be high stake for some students - e.g. carrying loafers 
• strategy: perhaps give a check mark for group bit of work (e.g. researching the function of the heart), then assess individually (e.g. through a test)

Some tools for collaboration through technology (Yay!)

1. TitanPad

• e.g. T writes down categories beforehand - can save beforehand if T has account, Ss brainstorm vocabs under each category) Warning: allow silliness for the first 10 minutes
• e.g. T can write first half of the conversation, and have students come up with the second half
• After all, can export as a document in the end

2. TodaysMeet

• I don't really find this app useful. 
• It's used in conferences for a real time discussion

3. Board800

• play charade
• how is this necessarily better than using a whiteboard?

4. WallWisher

• create "rooms" for different groups
• arrange words into verbs, nouns, adjectives
• can save if have account
• cannot export. To save = take screenshot
• embeddable

Day 8 Toolbox!

This thing allows you to customise a webpage (mainly getting rid of irrelevant things) before you print. Cool tool!

Day 7 Podcasting

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PODCASTING
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1. Create sound file (podcast) through Garageband, Audacity, or Mynah (Gordon recommends but all flash-based support will be discontinued on September 2012)
2. Upload sound file to audioboo and embed onto one's blog OR
3. Upload sound file to Dropbox and add students to share group

*************
CROWDSOURCING PRO-D:
*************

• Listservs
• A mailing list that serves as a forum. Examples here.

*************
TO EXPLORE
*************

languagepod101 (free trial for 7 days) Advanced Spanish study ! My login details is in my email.

Day 6 Vocabulary Building + Translation and Grammar Checking

Discussion of Reading

• Students are going to use online translators anyway. Better to teach them how to use them properly (use shorter sentences, being aware of nuances of language)
• Jeff's blog post: giving up one self; not translating word for word from the native language
• Interesting idea suggested in the article: inserting a passage from the target language into babelfish and help students become aware of the potential pitfalls
• Analogy of Judo: not becoming stronger than your opponents, but knowing your opponents' weaknesses 

Vocabulary

• Languages with pronunciation on mp3 - IE languages
• WorldBook has some visual vocabulary things - pick the French version and once inside, there's a Spanish tab to change everything into Spanish
• Visuwords - ESL only. Can be used to teach etymology
• Visual Dictionary (Merriam - Webber) with 3D pictures - ESL only
• IB Realia - Photos from native country for authentic language teaching (no Spanish yet) [Google "images from Spain"] :) 
• Alternative realia source - The Realia Project (search Spain)
• Create flash cards on Quizlet - Ways of using: 1. Free account allows maximum 8 people per group where they can compete against each other 2. apps for most device 

*** useful embed code for any webpage: <iframe src="http://www.google.com" style="width: 90%; height: 300px"></iframe> " Make it big enough so the flashcard shows, and students can play the thing on your blog! ***

• Build a Jeopardy game or browse through other people's

• Rather elementary vocabulary, but different ways of testing good for perhaps time filler. A word is read out, we click on the object the word was referring to, the object disappear. Digital Dialects.

• IMAGES

• Search by a text, bookr then scour publicly available images from Flickr and create a book for you 

• Live Mocha - free membership for all benefits? 
• TRANSLATION
• A list of bookmarklets from google translate to embed on browser. Pick the language to be translated into 
• Spanish spellchecker - still work without signing up

Day 5 Graphing Technology & Digital Reading, e-Magazines, and Newsource

Stylus and draw pad (e.g. Bamboo for mac), then use on:

• http://drawonthe.net/

where you insert a URL, or by dragging a javascript onto bookmark and start drawing on anywhere on a page.

Dicussion of reading

• L2 reading: some people claims that there should be 90% or 95% of functional reading level, or students will get frustrated
• If that lacks challenge, find something students find interesting (contents) but challenging (language level)

eBooks and eReadings and how to make them or access them

• archive.orgarchive.org - it aims to archive everything that has been published on the Internet (google's doodles?)
• Waybackmachine - find pages that have been taken down that they could have crawled 
• We Give Books, Oxford Owl - picture books for primary-aged students
• Tumblebooks - 30 days free trial. Includes Spanish books read out (in a South American accent) [speak to teacher-librarians to find out if the school district has a subscription - they might!] or access through vpl.ca here !

To convert an article or website into a epub / mobi (Kindle) format (instead of looking at the ads, or even pdf which is a captured picture)

• dotEpub

eMagazines

• Readability bookmarklet, or "reader" which is automatic on the right hand side of the URL (can be used on any website without the "print version" button, to clean up all the jazz including ads and formatting)
• Wow!!!!! Links to semi-authentic magazines in Spanish through EBSCO 
• 24Hours in Spanish hola24h
• Today's newspaper front page from all around the world: Newseum

*To convert different ebook formats to adjust to proprietary devices*

• Calibre is a free downloadable software

Day 4 Music in the Classroom

 http://www2.sd38.bc.ca/~GPowell@sd38.bc.ca/LLED480D/FOV4-000B8880/day04

• The irrelevance of a language without its culture (e.g. Esperanto)
• TEFL website that wants you to subscribe in exchange of lesson plans that use music. Can be modified for any languages!
• Spanish track list on MySpace
• Music notator service (free?) for musical groups to compose a piece of music

Resources on Spanish music

• Language Tutoring Service
• Lo mas TV
• Formespa
• Miscositas

Day 3 still...

Creating Screencast !!!

Intervue.me : T can pose a question, Ss record in front of their computer. The videos go to the T's private account and only T can view them.

Day 2 Audio in the Classroom

Students' online footprint
How to protect students' identity online when we ask them to create a blog? For the blogs of the teacher educators, we do not post their contact details or too much immediately identifiable details. Some school districts, in fact, allow photos of students to be posted online, as long as a release form is signed.

Discussion of the Day 1 article
Elisabet shares her experience of learning English. There was no native speakers in her learning environment. Elisabet notes that her listening skills nowadays still depend on the speaker. It is important to be strategic about the kind of listening materials to assign students of the appropriate level. Some say that materials need to be level appropriate, while others say that they need to be one step beyond the current level of students.


Content

• To insert something like a "Word of the day" gadget, go to insert gadget in Blogspot's "layout", insert HTML/JavaScript

Example: go to Learn Japanese: get your own widget, some websites will allow you to customise the widget. Now update this post, before you go to insert the widget.

• Listen a minute (ESL)

When it comes to audio files that do not come with an embed code, use this code and insert the link of the audio file

<blockquote><EMBED height="20 CHANGE IF YOU WANT" SRC="http://www.listenaminute.com/a/accidents.mp3" VOLUME="50" loop="false" controls="console" AUTOSTART="FALSE" width="300"></embed></blockquote>

• Audio-Lingua (European languages with Euro standards)

Example: C1 Spanish, female voice