WIX.com

I always thought web design was too complicated for me. After reading a post in Larry Ferlazzo´s blog I decided to have a look at WIX and see how hard it could be to create a web page full of effects and animations. It´s not difficult at all. Of course, you have got to have time to explore and play with the several features but even someone like me, with no experience with codes but willing to push and try buttons, can create a really nice web site. That´s really nice!!!

LIVEMOCHA

Livemocha: home.title via kwout

Are you interested in learning languages? Are you a disciplined learner and would love a space where you would be able to have interaction with other speakers and learners of the target language? Are you looking for a free course?

Livemocha is a great site for people who are interested in learning and practising foreign languages. A colleague of mine heard about it through a student of hers who has been using the site to practise English. I, myself, have enrolled in a French course and am planning to start learning Italian as well.

My first French lesson (I´m not exactly a real beginner)went really well. First, during the presentation stage, I had to listen to some sentences + pictures and match the sound to the words, then I had to match the sentences to translations. There are written and oral exercises to do and other people enrolled correct your exercises and give you feedback.

The perfect example of online collaboration where you teach what you know and learn from others who are willing to help you. While doing my French lesson, I received a request from someone learning English asking me if I could help. I could refuse or accept. Why not, I thought. A chat box opened and there I was chatting in English with a chinese girl from Bei Jing who is learning English. I sure had a great time helping her with our conversation.

OUTSHOUTS

OUTSHOUTS allows you to record messages along with songs you select to send to friends via e-mail or even embed in your web page. I liked it. Of course, be careful with the song you select. It´s very easy to use and I gather it might be very nice to receive too. Check it out! Oh, and I´ve become blond again! hahahahaha





HOW can we use it with students?
Well, we could ask students to write messages to friends and send each other a message along with a favourite song.

280slides.com

After reading about this site in Larry Ferlazzo´s blog, a blog I often read, I decided to give 280slides a try. It´s very easy to create a presentation and get an embed code. I advise everyone to try the tour first which makes using it simpler.

ADVANTAGES

• you don´t need to download any program.
• you can have access to your presentation from anywhere you want (provided you have internet access)
• it´s extremely easy to use.
• you can share your presentation with people (via e-mail) , you can embed it in your blog (like I´ve just done), and you can even watch it FULL SCREEN from your blog.
• you can download it to your computer.
• you can download it to slideshare.
  
• It´s FREE!!!!!

DISADVANTAGES

• you can´t add effects to your sentences, so your presentation becomes poorer.
• there are very few available templates.
  

I´ve just read an interview with the creators of 280 slides and they are planning on offering importing options for powerpoint files. That would make it perfect, provided you keep the effects you created in powerpoint. I can´t wait to see what´s coming next.
All in all, I have a very positive feeling towards trying 280 slides again. The clean interface is very helpful and easy.

DUMPR.net (Photo editor)

Why do I keep posting about photo editors? The answer is IMAGES. I believe images are a very important part of blogging and it´s also great FUN (hahahaha). Well, I came into Dumpr in a tweet and decided to explore it. It offers different features from other sites I had seen earlier. Below are some of my trials.


Created with dumpr.net - fun with your photos



A trip to Argentina

Created with dumpr.net - fun with your photos


My picture in an Arts Gallery (children playing with snow for the first time)

Modern Art Museum by dumpr.net

Project: COMICS

A colleague of mine, Flavia, devised a very nice project she developed with her EFL students in Brazil (11- 12 year-old students) who are beginning to learn English.

At the end of every class, she let her students in pairs or groups of 3, work on a comic story they were creating throughout the semester. Each story had 18 images with dialogues.

Now, at the end of the semester, she had students practise the dialogues and then recorded them. My contribution? Well, I just cut out the images and synchronized them all with windows movie maker. So as you can see, it was a project carried out slowly where students were able to use the language they had just learned. Congratulations to Flavia and her students.

Wordle

I have just discovered WORDLE from Isabelle Jones in her blog "My languages". Isabelle Jones teaches French, Spanish and German and seems to be an edutech enthusiast as well.With WORDLE you can add a text or isolated words to the text box and have them mixed up into various ways and colours.

This one, I´m going to use with my Inter B students who have just learned vocabulary related to films. I´m going to ask them to look at the words for about a minute, try to memorize them and then write down as many words as they can.

You can also use it as a lead-in to a lesson about films, show them the words and ask them what the lesson will be about. Any other ideas?
http://wordle.net/gallery/film_vocab

Video: Eating out

This week, during my Basic 1 lessons, we focused on language used to order food in restaurants.

After practising the language in class, I asked pairs or groups of students to create their own dialogues, rehearse and then present to the class. During their presentations, I recorded the dialogues in my mp3 player and had planned to post them in our class blog.

Today, I decided to add all their recordings into one video where I added images to help understanding (with windows Movie Maker). Do you think they´re going to enjoy watching it?

Classtools

I´ve just found out about this amazing site which helps you create online activities based on content you want to reinforce. There are various templates available and below you can see my first trial where I used vocabulary we´ve covered with Inter B students recently. What do you think? Try it out http://www.classtools.net/



Click on the link to see the full screen version and click on PLAY.

Game about Irregular verbs
http://classtools.net/my/quiz42960.htm

Game testing vocabulary about SHOPPING
http://classtools.net/my/quiz17157.htm

Another cool site for editing images

This is a cool site I found in the blog "Thoughts from a Tech Specialist" . It´s called Be Funky and it offers tools I hadn´t seen in any other site so far. YOu can cartoonize pictures, create your avatar, distort images and so on. Very nice!!!