Appear.in: a free video chat room

This post is an account of my first test with the website APPEAR.IN , which allows you to video chat with up to eight people for free. https://appear.in/

How does it work?

As usual, I was super excited to try it out. I created my own room TESTINGANA, copied the link and sent an invite to my PLN on Facebook.

A few minutes later, I got my first visit, an American lady (I didn't get the chance to ask her much as she only dropped in to say hello). Then, Cíntia Rabello, an e-friend, an e-colleague, I had never had the chance to talk f2f accepted my invitation to try the room. Thank you, Cíntia!

As no one else joined us and we wanted to see how the webcam images looked with more than two people, Cíntia got into the room with another device. We talked a bit about her PHD experience in England which I had been following via Facebook and also checked what was possible to do with the site.

Two Brazilians together..... our conversation was in Portuguese, of course. I also tested recording a part of our conversation with QUICKTIME on my Mac. I guess the same kind of recording (a screencast) would work with SCREENCAST-O-MATIC or JING.

 

What did I like about it?

1. It's free.

2. There's no need to log in or to have an account.

3. It's not necessary to download anything.

4. A simple interface, just click and talk.

5. The chat room also provides a text chat space.

How could we use this site with students?

- To meet with a small group of students.
- If you have a big group of students you can organize groups of 8 who could get together on different days to practise discussing a topic or even chat using English.
- A group of students could interview a foreigner or an expert in a field.

How to use a PINTEREST board to spark up conversation

It's amazing the kind of stuff people curate in PINTEREST boards.

This week I came across a board called HISTORY - TOOLS OF THE TRADE which inspired the idea I'm sharing in this post. http://pinterest.com/AmylynnRichards/history-tools-of-the-trade/

As you can see from the image, the board is a collection of old stuff we used years ago. It's quite funny in fact to remember what they were used for.

The idea I had for an activity is the following:

- As I teach teenagers, the idea would be for them to discover different objects people used in the past (from the pinterest board) , read about it, ask their relatives if they had one or even if they still have one. Learn about it.

- In a following class, students could present to the whole class or small groups the chosen object (either using the image from pinterest or showing the real object if they have it), talk about what they have learned from their research and conversations with relatives.

- They could even create a joint post for a blog where each student would write about their findings.

Language: USED TO,  names of objects, verbs in the past.

Skills: reading, speaking, listening, writing. ALL.

Chat robots - practising conversation

This is my second post about chat robots. I was reminded of them by Ozge Karaoglu during a presentation and decided to have a second look at them.

Of course chat robots can never replace f2f interaction, but using chat robots in class or showing them so that students try them out at home can be quite fun.



This is a chat robot (Maggie) created by
Cartoon EnglishTV

You type in the questions and you can read and hear Maggie answer them.





Morpheus is another good robot to try.








Athena is another chat robot which moves her lips as she speaks.



Nik Peachey has posted a lesson plan using a chat robot site called Virsona. The difference is that you can chat to the virtual characters of famous people in the past. Nik's lesson plan.


Another bot suggested by Susana Canelo
http://lauren.vhost.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=f6d4afd83e34564d