Picture presentation with Bubblr

What computer tools that you can think of when you have to make a presentation? Microsoft PowerPoint? Any other? This entry, therefore, will show you how we can make presentation by using another interactive medium called Bubblr. Bubblr is a website that allows people to make picture presentations or comic strips by using images that are based from flickr.com. It is free and no registration is needed. Easy and convenient for teachers, students and even anyone from any background fields. 

Website URL: http://www.pimpampum.net/bubblr/

   

How it operates?

• Have a topic of your presentation and you can just insert some key words of pictures that you imagine in a tag box. Pictures that are under that particular tag will be listed and the numbers of it are depends. You can choose any suitable pictures that you think could fit with your presentation.

•  On each picture, you can insert a bubble; whether to have dialogue or even a descriptive sentence that related with the picture. The slides can be added by clicking 'after current' or 'before current' button, depending on how you want to arrange your slides.

• After you have done, simply click publish and you need to fill in the title and your name. By giving this information, you can search for your work in Bubblr archive. You do not have to worry of losing it, it is saved. You can also email your work to other people. 

• You could always change information in your presentation by clicking 'Recycle This Strip' button. 

Below is my version of Bubblr slideshow. Enjoy!

How can teacher use it?

Presentation of topic of interest.

Brainstorm with students some ideas that are appealing to them and some topics like holiday, my hobby and favourite food might be mentioned. This indirectly would make students feel involved in the classroom activity and lowered down the authority of the teacher. Ask students to choose any of the topics that interest them the most. However, you could also be flexible by giving them freedom to choose any other ideas that appeal to them. Encourage students to write sentences and describe a little more about the pictures in the slides. To make it more interesting, you could assign students to present their works orally in front of the whole class.

Correcting ungrammatical sentences.

You could also test students' awareness on grammar rules of language. As a teacher, create a description or narration using Bubblr that contains grammatical errors in each slides. Present the slideshow to the students and ask them to edit and correct ungrammatical sentences as well as noting the reason of the mistakes. Do you remember that Bubblr has recycle button? By only clicking on this button, the content of the slideshow could be changed. Moreover, you do not have to worry about lack of internet-access computer in your school (if you have this problem) since this activity is not only for individual, but it could also be a group or whole class task.
  

What do I say about this website?

Thumbs up points :)

1) Students can use picture to create vision aids about the information in slides.

2) Practice writing short descriptive sentences.

3) Personalisation as activity could cater individual interest.

Thumbs down points :(

1) Not all pictures that we want available in flickr.

2) Cannot reposition the slides which is difficult!

3) The dialogue boxes cannot be expanded and they might block pictures.

4) Limited font and size of it. 

I hope you use it and ENJOY!

ClicknLearn: Play language game!

As a teacher, I believe you might think that teaching grammar rules and vocabulary are not an easy task. Constant teaching of similar methods like drilling and memorization would be boring sometimes. So, how can learning these aspects of language be more interesting and enjoyable? Here, I could help you a bit. Let's come with me exploring this website, ClicknLearn. 

ClicknLearn is a website that provides many language games related with vocabulary, grammar rules and current issues. Here, people could learn not only English, but other several languages as well like French and Spanish. Also, the language games could accommodate many levels from easy, intermediate to difficult. There are also many interesting features in it like sounds with pronunciation of words and colourful pictures, in which I believe could assist language learning. So, let's explore more on this website!     
    

Website URL: http://clicknlearn.net/  


How it operates?

• Once you click on the link, you will see ClicknLearn website. Just click the 'Enter Site' button to view the whole website. A pop-up will come out, so I will suggest that you allow all sites to show pop-ups link beforehand.

• A welcoming words will welcome you on the new link. Choices of language to learn would also be shown and you can choose any language that you want to explore. As this blog is about learning English, I should then proceed with English language.

• Roll over to open a 'Menu' button. Links to various language games would be shown at the upper left corner of the site. Try to look at any category and I hope you will find one that is suitable for your students' levels and interesting enough for them to enjoy.

• In every language games, scores will be given and this could indicate how much we have understood about language aspects that are being taught.

A 3 ESO, Intermediate language game about searching for Wally.

How can teacher use it?

>>As a supplement for the main lesson

Having a single lesson on grammar points and vocabulary is just not enough to ensure students' understanding. So, teacher could use ClicknLearn as an extra activity to introduce the lesson or strengthen their comprehension on the previously taught lesson. Search and choose any games that are related with the lesson and have students to complete it in groups or pairs.   


>>A medium to practice autonomous learning

Teacher could encourage students to browse ClicknLearn and explore the language by themselves outside the classroom. As this website is full of language games, students from any levels of proficiency with different levels of motivation towards learning language, would possibly be interested to explore and learn language. When they are learning by themselves; making errors, understanding language forms and listening to pronunciation, students are gradually practicing autonomous learning.      

What do I say about the website?

Thumbs up points :)

1) Variety of interesting language games!
2) Can cater all level of students.
3) A platform for autonomous learning.
(When students make mistakes, they would continue to use try and error method and also search for answers' hints by clicking help. These are all made by themselves and hence, encourage them to be independent on their own learning.)

Thumbs down points :(

1) Some levels are not functioning or under construction. It would be better in the future I hope.

I hope you use it and ENJOY!

Brainshark: The Power of Voice

Have you ever experienced: 1) limited time to finish all the lessons? 2) difficulty to give feedback to each and every students' works? 3) lacking of activity that could assess students' speaking skills? If you have these problems, or at least one of it, let's come with me and I will share with you a website that could solve your worries.

Brainshark, a new innovation of slides presentations, is a website that allows people to insert their voices into a static content slideshow of PowerPoint Presentation, video clips, documents files and collection of photos. Create, share and track online and mobile video presentation are the important elements that serve as the basis for Brainshark's formation. It is a free website but a registration is required to get you started.         

Website URL: http://www.brainshark.com/ 

How it operates?

• Since Brainshark has various functions, it is thus better to hear an aural and visual presentation on how to use it rather than reading all lengthy instruction. So, here is Brainshark tutorial with Russel Stannard. 

Have an idea on how it operates? Just in case you want to see an example of it, below is my own version of Brainshark presentation. Enjoy!

How can teacher use it?

Presenting the lesson

It is sometimes difficult to finish all the lesson due to time factor. So, by using Brainshark, you could cover any extra items and make a presentation that includes slides, pictures as well as audio explanation to students. Moreover, some aspects of lessons that have been taught in class would be very important for students' future challenges like examination and interview for higher education. You could then present these language aspects through Brainshark and this could give students opportunity to refer back to the lesson and learn it more intensively. 

Practicing and assessing speaking skill through presentation 

Students' speaking skills could also be fostered through Brainshark. Assign your students to create a presentation of any topic of interest by using this website. Plus, you should encourage students to imagine that they are presenting their works in front of the audience and insert any conversation items that portray a possibility of two ways communication. For example, ask students to post questions or use some word chunks like "are you with me?" and "do you guys feel excited?". Although this depends on students' imagination ability, but still by making them use the language, the familiarity towards the language structure would be enhanced and indirectly helps them improving their speaking skills.

At the same time, this presentation could also be a record to assess students' speaking skills. You could check students pronunciation, sentence making, creativity in relating slides with audio record and so on. Note down any mistakes that students made and try to improve it in the next lesson.   

A medium for giving feedback

Feedback on students' works is important to enhance learning. You might be so used to written feedback, so, how about changing it a little bit and give an oral feedback instead. Therefore, through Brainshark, this type of feedback could be presented. Similar like the written one, you should highlight good qualities as well as errors that students have made in their works. Suggested solutions and explanations on how the works could be improved should be given too. Students, hence, would take note on which aspects that should be improved and which one should be retained.

What do I say about this website?

Thumbs up points :)

1) A new way of presenting information that could be useful for many language activities. 

2) Enhance students' speaking skill.
3) Allows room for assessing students' speaking ability. 

4) Develop confidence on using language to speak.

Thumbs down points :(

1) Practice speaking with no real audience might affect the real feeling of talking in front of people.

I hope you use it and ENJOY!

Podcasting Using Vocaroo

Thinking of conducting new, interactive and technology-based listening and speaking activity? How about using Vocaroo to resolve your problem. Vocaroo is an online voice recorder that allows people to record short messages, share it via email or embed it to various websites and social networks site like Facebook and Twitter. Although its usefulness in language classroom seems vague,  but if teacher knows how to manipulate it, this tool could be a convenient help for students language development.

Website URL: http://vocaroo.com/

How it operates?

There is nothing to worry. The steps are all easy.

• Make sure that you have your microphone connected to your computer or turn on your internal microphone. Once you browse the website, just click 'Click to Record' button in the green box and you can start recording your voice messages.

• When you have finished recording, you can listen to the message. If you are not satisfied with it, just click 'Retry' and you can record it all over again.

• If you are satisfied with your work, you could save your voice message and embed it onto your blog or any internet tools. The embed code will be given at the page. Not only that, you can also email your recording to anyone and share it to any social networking site like Facebook and Twitter.

How can teacher use it?

As it is a podcast-based device, it is portable and convenient. Teacher could record voice messages and share it with students through class blog, social networking site or even email. Due to that, some language activities could be conducted using Vocaroo.


Record an Ending of Story

Teacher could do 'continuing a story' activity by recording an unfinished narration using Vocaroo. This record would then be posted to class blog where students could have access on it at any time. Students then need to end the story by recording their voices to Vocaroo and posted it on the blog or email it to the teacher. Here, students could practice their listening and speaking skills at the same time.

Assess Pronunciation

Vocaroo could also be used as a medium to assess students pronunciation. Assign students to read aloud a short text into Vocaroo, post it to teacher's email and teacher then would listen to it and point out any mispronunciations or incorrect stress of words. The feedback on the correct pronunciation or at least nearly correct one, should be given afterwards and it depends on the teacher whether to give it individually or collectively. depending on students' condition.  

Writing Short Journal

By assigning students to record a short journal of their daily or weekly activity, students's fluency of language  could be improved. Students are free to express themselves in any way and I believe there would be many conversation language be used in the recording. As this tool could be regularly used, teacher can check students' progression and gather overall information on what aspects of language should be further improved.   


What do I say about this website?

Thumbs up points  :)

1) Vocaroo is portable and easy to use device; a convenient tool for language teaching.
2) It is free with no complicated step!
3) You can share and embed the recording to various mediums; emails, Facebook, Twitter, and Blogspot.

Thumbs down points :(

1) Recording is limited only up to 5 minute-sadly it is really short.

I hope you use it and ENJOY!

A wordcloud named Wordsift

Have you ever heard of word cloud? I believe many of us have seen one but not sure that it is a word cloud. So, what is a word cloud? It is an attractive arrangement of randomly positioned words, where the most frequent-used words are bigger than the others. Many websites provide free service for this word arrangement but on this entry, I will emphasis on Wordsift. This website allows people to insert a text, maximum of 65K words (which can cover a long essay!) and convert it into word cloud form. The words could also be explored through pictures, thesaurus and their uses in sentences. Isn't it interesting?  

Website URL: http://www.wordsift.com/

How it operates?

• Wordsift needs no registration and you can easily insert your text in the blank box provided in the website. Then, click 'Sift' button to start visualizing the word cloud.

• The word cloud that will be presented excludes words like article (a, the, etc), pronoun (she, he, etc), connectors (and, but, etc) and prepositions (in, on, at, etc). The most frequent words that are being used will appear bigger than the others.

• Words can be sorted according to common to rare, rare to common, A to Z and Z to A. It gives more flexibility on how we want to manage those words. The cloud could also be made to disappear or reappear by clicking 'Squish Cloud' and 'Unsquish' button respectively. Moreover, a workspace could also be created below the cloud by pressing 'Create Workspace' button. 

• As being mentioned before, words in the cloud can be more explored through several other mediums:

     

          1) First of all, we can have thoughts about a word by looking at the      

              images related with it. Through the use of Google Image Search, 

              images that will be displayed are to the utmost relevance with 
              the words.    

          2) Next, a word web thesaurus is also provided to explain more 
              about words. Synonyms and antonyms will be displayed and this 
              would help people to understand the meaning of words by 
              associating them with other words. 

          3) Sample sentences from the text input are also being given in order 

              to aid understanding of the use of words in sentence level. The  
              key word is marked with green. From this feature, people can 
              easily spot and analyse different meanings of same word and how 
              it is being used. 

How can teacher use it?

Pre-reading activity

This website could be used as a tool for pre-reading activity. It is important to expose students with the theme or context of the reading text so that they might have some expectation on what will they encounter later. Therefore, by using Wordsift, students can see which words are frequently used and they can imagine what the text is about. This consequently helps to create students' interest in reading activity. 

Guessing A Story

        Another activity that you can do is guessing-a-story activity. Gives students several familiar topics, asks them to choose one and write an essay out of it. When they had completed their essays, bring them to computer lab with internet access and ask them to insert their essays into Wordsift. With a partner, students need to predict others' stories and try to make their own story based on the word cloud. After they had done, ask students to compare and contrast their stories with the original one. Here, students are likely to communicate with each other, hence, might improve their speaking ability.

        Since having a lot of computers with internet access is difficult for some teachers, another option should be made. You could proceed with guessing-a-story activity but this time only you write the story. This activity, therefore, is a whole class activity where students only refer to teacher's Wordsift in order to make story of their own. You can vary the activity by asking students to work in groups and share their stories with other members.  

What do I say about this website?

Thumbs up points :)

1) Students can improve their vocabulary by exploring pictures of words, its thesaurus and how it is constructed in sentences.

2) One of the tools for pre-reading activity.

Thumbs down points :(

1) The design is too simple and limited.

2) Some pictures displayed are not related with the word clicked.

I hope you use it and ENJOY!

Intervue and Respond!

When carrying out speaking activity in class, do you get the opportunity to listen to and observe each of your students? I believe it is quite difficult to do so. Therefore, how can you observe their speaking ability? Come and let’s go to Intervue and you will see how this website can help you solve your worry. Intervue.me is a website that allows people to post any questions on the server and gather short video responses from anyone with a webcam. It is free and you can use this website to interact with your students. 

Website URL: http://intervue.me/

How it operates?

• In order to post questions and respond with a webcam, you need to sign up and be a member first. Only by giving your email, display name and password, you can already create an account.

• Click on ‘Create new’ button to start posting questions. Once you click on it, some options are being given regarding the privacy of your questions (whether video responses can be seen by anyone or only me, whether people can comment on it, etc). Once you have decided, you can easily post questions by filling in the title and questions related.

• If you intend to specify your respondents, you can share and invite specific people to respond on your questions via email. Also, you can simply add more questions in the future.

    

How can teacher use it?

Gathering students' respond

As a teacher, you can ask students to respond questions that you post in intervue. The topic would be more reliable and engaging if students are familiar with and have interest in it. It is better if students themselves choose several topics and vote for the best one. Topics like holiday, the most embarrassing moment, dreams and role models could be some that students might be thinking of. By giving students power to choose, it is possible that they might have a lot more to say rather than topics that are too language focus and not related with their life. 

What do I say about this website?

Thumbs up point :)

1) Students can do oral practices.

2) Real language for communication is used especially when engaging topics are given- responds are like telling a story to someone.

3) It helps introvert students since it is more private (not one-to-one communication).

Thumbs down points :(

1) Students are not communicating like in real life situation where there should be interaction at least between two people.

2) Respond is limited only for one minute-not much can be talked about.

I hope you use it and ENJOY!

Be creative with Storybird

Finding it difficult to encourage students to write? How about using this tool, Storybird as a start to solve your worry. Storybird is a website that gives students (or even adults!) opportunity to write comic strips using collection of images that are drawn by various free artists around the world. Through pictures, students can be inspired to imagine and explore the story behind each of it and produce a storytelling of their own. Interestingly, this website also allows people to collaborate in pairs and share their ideas together in one piece of work.   

Website URL:  http://www.storybird.com

How it operates?

• In order to start writing comic strips, you must have your own Storybird's account. Not to worry, this website is free and you do not have to spend a penny. Once registered, you can customize your avatar and improve your understanding of this website by reading some of the guidelines.

• Now, let's jump to making a storybird. You can choose pictures by two means. First, you could browse the 'story art' by looking at the title and its sample of pictures. There are a lot of them and you could reload the page until you find one that interests and inspires you. The next option is that you can choose image collections by clicking on themes. There are various of them such as dream, vacation and musical. Through this way, you can be more focus on what to search for and have the idea on what you would write afterwards.

Theme: travel (toy train by shishir naik)

• Do you find one that you like? So, let's start the story telling. There would be various pictures that you can pick from to start your story. The picture can be positioned at the right side of the page, the left side and even to the full page. A writing box is also provided so that you can insert your writing. If you have done with your first page, you can always add a page to continue your story. Perhaps, along the story line, if you dislike one of the page that you have made, you can just remove it by clicking 'remove a page' button. As easy as that. 

• The story could be a two-person's work too. By clicking the 'menu' button, you can invite someone to collaborate in creating a story. Just insert the recipient's first name and email, and your invitation will be sent. When your partner accept your invite, you can take turns in finishing your piece.

• When you have satisfied with your work, you can then publish the story by clicking 'publish story' button at the 'menu'. Your story will be automatically saved as private where only you and some people you choose can read it. If you want to make it public so that other Storybird members can read it, you can change the setting and select 'Public' in the privacy menu.                 

• Writing Storybird is fun but you can also have fun by reading other's piece of work too. Just click 'Read' and many Storybirds will be listed out for you to choose. You can enjoy someone else' story and perhaps learn their style of writing at the same time. It is like killing two birds with one stone, right?   

This is the link to a story that I have made with my friend, Eind. Enjoy!

How can teacher use it?

Write narrative writing

        Teacher can use this as a tool to encourage students to write narrative writing. You may divide students into pairs or let them work alone depending on their level of confidence in writing as well as their familiarity to work with other people. It is also important to check students' works and you can do so by asking them to send their story to you via email.   
    

        The writing activity could be more interesting if you create a competition among the students where the winner would be acknowledged and rewarded. As a teacher, you could use your full authority in judging their stories and decide the winner by yourselves. However, you could also include students in choosing the winner as well. Choose the top three or five from all the stories and ask students to vote one that attracts them the most. You might also encourage students to voice out their opinions on their choices.

What do I say about this website?

Thumbs up points :)

1) Students can practice creative writing by narrating a story.
2) Interesting pictures.
3) Enhance cooperation and good communication in pair works.
4) Ownership.

Thumbs down points :(

1) Limited pictures. (Idea could be restricted by lack of suitable picture to suit the writing).
2) Sharing ideas might lead to students losing their own creativity and tend to follow the one who dominates. 
3) The file only can be shared and not embedded unless you upgrade your membership (we have to pay basically).
I hope you use it and ENJOY!

Dvolver the moviemaker

What excites you more? Writing a dialogue on a plain paper or writing it on a website where you can choose your own backgrounds, places and moving characters? I bet the latter is your choice. This is all made possible in, an interactive website suitable for all (students and adults) to express ideas through dialogues and making it into movies. Only by following the steps, you could be a producer of your own.

Website URL:  http://www.dvolver.com/moviemaker/index.html

How it operates?

There are several steps that you need to follow. It’s so easy that you just have to click the button ‘next’. 

• The first step gives you several choices on what backgrounds and skies do you want for the video. It depends on your creativity on how to mix and match these two. 

• Then, you can proceed to choosing a plot related with characters’ movement. Four choices are given; rendezvous, pick up, chase and soliloquy. Some words are difficult? Don’t worry. There are also visuals of what the words portray and it really helps the process. 

• Next, you can now choose characters of your interest. The characters, all with their own look, are given their characteristics, likings and ages. Choose what you like. 

• You can now proceed to inserting dialogues. There is a limit on 100 words per line (which is very long!) and you can easily add new scene to your movie! 

• To make it more interesting, why don’t you put a background song to your movie? There are up to 15 songs that you can choose and it depends on how it suits with your situations.

• All is ready and what more other than choosing your title design, movie title and director’s name (which is you!). It is your creativity to decide which design and what title that you think would be attention-grabbing.

• Finally, you can preview your movie and adjust it (if you want to) and send it to anyone you wish.     

Here is the sample of moviemaker that I made. 

  

How can teacher use it?

Write creative writing

This website can be a platform for students to show their creativity in creating dialogue and choosing a suitable background for it. But beware, as a teacher, you need to give guidelines on how to use this application. You wouldn’t want any particular topics (the inappropriate one!) to be discussed right? So, teachers could give students some topics that are interesting, contextualised and appropriate so that they know what to write and plus it is perhaps one of their experiences in life. You can also check the works by asking them to send their final piece to your email.  

What do I say about this website?

Thumbs up points :)

1) Students can practice language for real-life purpose (conversation).

2) Enhance creativity.

3) Interesting tools (graphics, colours, movement).

4) Fun and enjoyable.

5) Students can learn from visuals.

6) Easy and user-friendly.

7) Ownership (students have their own piece of work that they can proud of!).

8) Attract introvert students.

9) Contextualised learning.

Thumbs down point :(

1) Characters might be too exposing (not suitable for young children).

2) Limited of characters’ movements.

3) Unsure about the correctness of dialogue. 

4) The most prominent issue-must have internet connection!

I hope you use it and ENJOY!

Lyricstraining? Let's sing!

            Tired of the too educational and formal-like listening activities? Do you want to make them more relaxing and exciting? Lyricstraining is the answer for your worry. By using songs, students and even adults could improve their listening skills and at the same time enjoying their ever favourite songs. Apart from English, this websites also allows students to learn other languages like Dutch, Spanish and France. With videos of songs provided (Youtube-based music video), students just need to listen and fill up the missing lyrics. Isn’t it easy?

Website URL: http://www.lyricstraining.com

How it operates?

             This website is convenient for students of age 13 and above or in other words those secondary school students. There are three stages of difficulty; beginner, intermediate and expert, where the suitability depends on students’ levels. For the first two stages, students need to fill up some of missing lyrics with some others are provided while the expert stage requires them to complete the whole lyrics by themselves. 

             But what if you cannot grasp the lyrics? Not to worry. The songs will stop playing and wait for you to fill the lyrics up. If you want to listen again to the lyrics you missed, just press ‘backspace’ button and it will replay it for you. Yet you haven’t got it? Press ‘tab’ button then and automatically, the lyrics will appear. The scores will be shown at the end of the song and you can see how much you have achieved!

How can teacher use it?

             
Enhance listening skills

            Teacher can use this website to enhance students’ listening skills and this is more convenient to be carried out in schools with adequate facilities, particularly computers with internet access. Students can fill up lyrics individually with their own individual pace and less pressure from their peers. 

             Don’t be disappointed if your school lacks of many computers to accommodate all of your students. With only one computer or maybe your own laptop, you can still use this website in the classroom by carrying out variety of spelling quizzes.

        

            What is interesting about lyricstraining is that students can practice listening to songs in their own free time! Not only in school, they could practice their listening and spelling at home and even in the cyber cafe (it is something beneficial to do instead of playing games!). This would indirectly encourage autonomous learning. 

What do I say about this website?

Thumbs up points  :)

1) It’s easy and free!

2) Students can choose any songs they like. 

3) Encourages independent/autonomous learning.

4) Students can improve their vocabulary as well as listening skills and   

    spelling.

5) It gives students different focus and not only on textbooks.

6) It accommodates students with various proficiency levels.

7) It can be carried out in class or even in leisure time.

Thumbs down points  :(

1) Students might easily be distracted with the videos.

I hope you use it and ENJOY!