Storify, a tool that has been used by news agencies, PR companies, bloggers and others inc the White House, has now been released to the public. Check out As it happened on the BBC and this example to get an idea. As well as the news it can be used to make narratives from vids, tweets, images as well as websites.
Read more or just watch the intro video:
Similarly you could have a look at Storyful
Tuesday 26 July 2011
Saturday 16 July 2011
pictory
Pictory is a(nother) online photo journal providing some thoughtful photos with accompanying texts to encourage students to produce some meaningful work, check it out: pictory blog here pictory site here
You could perhaps introduce the theme of personal experience and/or the task of students interviewing their family or friends with Susan Dirgham's 3 minute photo story.
(if you're feeling ambitious don't forget we have moviemaker)
You could perhaps introduce the theme of personal experience and/or the task of students interviewing their family or friends with Susan Dirgham's 3 minute photo story.
(if you're feeling ambitious don't forget we have moviemaker)
Friday 8 July 2011
Good & reliable suggestions for lesson plans and class activities using visual stimuli
If you're looking for innovative and well-prepared lesson plans that use visual/video stimuli, try:
- Kieran Donaghy's Film English website
- Jamie Keddie's LessonStream - which you can search by subject & level
Also, don't forget the LearnEnglish website - particularly video-based listenings such as the Word on the street series, I wanna talk about. They come with online activities that work really well on the IWB. Just used this one on Learning languages as an assessed task for an Advanced A class. They wrote the answers to the task first in their notebooks and then we checked them by completing them on the IWB.
Also you can find quirky videos like this one on YouTube about David after the dentist (specially if you've got quirky friends who constantly post links to them on facebook) and, for example, get students to write their comment about the video, randomly distribute them in the class and ask the students to try and identify who wrote the comment.
Thursday 7 July 2011
Another one for vocabulary building: Memrise
This could be an alternative to your class vocabulary bag with the advantage that students can access it from home.
Once you've registered with Memrise you can create your own vocabulary list which you do by adding descriptions/definitions and images. Once you've built up a list, you can play games (and invite your friends to join in with you) that are designed to help you fix the new vocabulary in your brain.
Once you've registered with Memrise you can create your own vocabulary list which you do by adding descriptions/definitions and images. Once you've built up a list, you can play games (and invite your friends to join in with you) that are designed to help you fix the new vocabulary in your brain.
Interesting ideas for homework
Homework to do lists
Help students to identify what they have most problems doing and the language skills they have most problems with. Then get them to create they're own to do lists based on what they think they need to practise.
They can do this online with an easy-to-use resource called doitdoitdone.
Nik Peachey describes the process really well in this blog post and also gives suggestions for activities that students will find useful and interesting. (There are more suggestions for good homework activities on the same blog.)
Get your students to email you the URL of their homework to do list. You can then get them to set themselves their own homework and cross it out on their list once they've done it. To check they've really done what they say, ask them to describe in the next class/ or get them to note down what they did specifically and to comment on how useful it proved to be.
English Attack!
This is a new website. According to their blurb: "English Attack! creates real innovation in English language learning by promoting discovery and learner autonomy instead of the traditional linear lesson based method; and focusing on "learning by doing."
I've just checked it out and it does seem to be better than most with songs where students can listen to/watch the video and fill in gaps, plus a whole range of vocabulary games. Another idea for more interesting homework
Help students to identify what they have most problems doing and the language skills they have most problems with. Then get them to create they're own to do lists based on what they think they need to practise.
They can do this online with an easy-to-use resource called doitdoitdone.
Nik Peachey describes the process really well in this blog post and also gives suggestions for activities that students will find useful and interesting. (There are more suggestions for good homework activities on the same blog.)
Get your students to email you the URL of their homework to do list. You can then get them to set themselves their own homework and cross it out on their list once they've done it. To check they've really done what they say, ask them to describe in the next class/ or get them to note down what they did specifically and to comment on how useful it proved to be.
English Attack!
This is a new website. According to their blurb: "English Attack! creates real innovation in English language learning by promoting discovery and learner autonomy instead of the traditional linear lesson based method; and focusing on "learning by doing."
I've just checked it out and it does seem to be better than most with songs where students can listen to/watch the video and fill in gaps, plus a whole range of vocabulary games. Another idea for more interesting homework
Friday 1 July 2011
alternatives to wordle?
wordle clouds are all over the place for two very good reasons: wordle looks good and is very user friendly, but there´s a few things you can´t do with it such as shape the clouds, get the words to fill a shape, put words within words, nor for on your blog is there any interactivity (click, move around on each below to compare that aspect) so here are a few free alternatives for comparison:
Tagxedo (if you cannot see this that is because you need microsoft silverlight installed*)
Tagul
worditout is very easy to use and you can fill all of that rectangle instead of editing away that white space in wordle (if you're fussy). but it looks very dull, not such a problem for worksheet photocopies however. on the web it has a built in google search link for each word.
*tagxedo looks funky on the web and has gained in popularity due to the growing library of shapes available. Despite that and the fact it has plenty of features two things need bearing in mind; one is that it's moving towards paying subscribers with reduced features available for free users, and the other is that silverlight is required. The 'Powered' by tagxedo tag is unforgivably naff too.
of the three, tagul is my personal preference and a prospective challenger to wordle: you can shape, edit embed as a flash object, download as an image etc etc, in short it looks as good as wordle with far more features. the only very minor snag is the need to be signed in.
To conclude, if you want to embed on the web then all three are worth consideration as alternatives to wordle having the advantage of interactivity as well as filling the shape. If you want more than rectangles for the web or photocopies then check out tagxedo and tagul.
Tagul
worditout is very easy to use and you can fill all of that rectangle instead of editing away that white space in wordle (if you're fussy). but it looks very dull, not such a problem for worksheet photocopies however. on the web it has a built in google search link for each word.
*tagxedo looks funky on the web and has gained in popularity due to the growing library of shapes available. Despite that and the fact it has plenty of features two things need bearing in mind; one is that it's moving towards paying subscribers with reduced features available for free users, and the other is that silverlight is required. The 'Powered' by tagxedo tag is unforgivably naff too.
of the three, tagul is my personal preference and a prospective challenger to wordle: you can shape, edit embed as a flash object, download as an image etc etc, in short it looks as good as wordle with far more features. the only very minor snag is the need to be signed in.
To conclude, if you want to embed on the web then all three are worth consideration as alternatives to wordle having the advantage of interactivity as well as filling the shape. If you want more than rectangles for the web or photocopies then check out tagxedo and tagul.
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