Scoop.it!

Scoop.it!

Google is an answer to all problems, questions and information. But endless hours of surfing relevant data can be quite tedious and tiring. Scoop.it! is a FREE web tool which allows you to collect all the information relevant to your 'topic' and suggests materials related to your field of interest.

So, Scoop.it! allows users to collect and store content in one place and also share it with others either through social websites or e-mail.

Scoop.it! can be extremely handy for teachers to gather and store content of interest as a repository for self use. The teacher can also make use of Scoop.it! to share pre or post class reading materials with students to either familiarise them with a topic to be soon done in class or an in-depth information after the topic has been introduced and discussed in class.

Scoop.it! is very user friendly. Lets take a look at it:

Sign-up to create an account:

  The FREE version only allows the user with 2 social accounts, whereas upgraded versions through purchase can give an access with multiple social accounts:

 The topic is the field you are interested in and the keywords are the elements user is interested to gain content about. For example, the topic is English Language teaching and keywords are: writing skills, tasks, speaking skills, ict tools for teaching, reading skills, task based learning, etc.

Scoop.it! will suggest the contents related to the keywords. The user can browse through the content and then scoop the one of interest.

The user can also share the 'scooped' contents with others :

I  feel Scoop.it! is a bank, reservoir and a repository of all the materials that cater to the needs of the user which can be accessed very easily. However, the most can be utilised after buying the features it has to offer.

Following video will help you understand the tool better: 

Write in and let me know what you think about this tool.

Voki

Voki: Give a face to your voice

With animations and 3D effects taking over the world, here is a tool which allows you to create an avatar for your voice. With the help of Voki, a teacher can create an avatar of self and give voice to it. It can be used to give instructions or homework to the students. 

The teachers can make use of Voki with the students for the practice of speaking skills. It motivates the students to practice the piece they are to record and then enjoy creating and assigning an avatar for it. Once the avatar is created and the voice is recorded, it can then be shared with the teacher or the entire class. The voki can either be published on a social media website such as Facebook, Blogs, Edmodo, etc or emailed to the receiver.

Using Voki is very simple and easy, and yes, it is for FREE! However, very long recordings cannot be made. The free version allows you to record for 60 seconds and an upgrade by purchase gives 90 seconds in total. Therefore, a teacher has to be very careful in assigning speaking tasks bearing in mind the limitation of time per recording.

Click on 'Create' to create your avatar and record your voice. Although there is also an option to write a text which will then be spoken by the inbuilt Voki voice as per the text.

Once the avatar has been created and the recording is made, it can be published.

A sign-up helps to create an account and store all the recording made using Voki.

I made use of Voki by assigning a homework task to the students.

I just made a new Voki. See it here:

Voki also offers two additional features, that is, Voki Classroom and Voki Presenter. A user can have an access to these features only once the feature has been purchased.

I really enjoyed creating the task using Voki, as the character or avatar designing was quite fun.

Here is a video to show how Voki can be used:

I hope you and your students enjoy this tool, as much as I do. I look forward to your thoughts!

Blogs

Bloging: Embrace the new culture

Blogs or Web Logs have been around for a few years. But ever thought this online tool would ever be used for educational purposes, especially language Learning??? Well..Well..Well!! ICT never fails to surprise us with enumerable uses of itself!

Blogging has become a 'culture' in itself and now enjoys a high status in the field of language learning and teaching. In the age where everything is 'instant', technology has surpassed the formal written communication through pen and paper as most of it takes place either through text messages, chats, emails etc. Therefore, to address the need of the hour, it is important for teachers to make their students move beyond their notebooks and use the web for practicing writing skills.

Blogs are easy to set up and use. The teacher can make use of blogging in several ways to make the students practice writing skills. The teacher can either have individual blogs set up by the students where they carry out written tasks, weekly viewed and assessed by the teacher, or create a class blog, where all students of a class can contribute to a particular task and have peers assess or comment on each others contribution. Blogs foster high order thinking skills. The students practice and frame their piece of writing a number of times before publishing it on their blog. Since they know their contribution will be viewed by peers, they make efforts to produce high quality work through the use of expressions, vocabulary, etc. The process of reading peer's contribution or blog and commenting on it generates collaboration which helps in exchange of views, ideas and thoughts. 

Blogging also opens the horizons of the students as it helps people to connect not only from same class, school or city, but also from different countries, nationalities, beliefs, etc.

With enumerable advantages of blogging, one cannot ignore the fact that only those students can make use of this tool who have an access to computer and internet. Those students who do not, resort to the old style of pen and paper.

Since, google is a famous website, its blogging website called 'Blogger' is commonly used by bloggers using their gmail or google+ id and password. The creative element allows the bloggers to create and design their blog according to their likes and taste. 

Russell Stannard's tutorial can help you learn and use blogger with your students:

Quizlet

Quizlet: 

Learning new words by reading an article or newspaper or from dictionaries is an old and mundane practice and somehow, I can't really imagine 21st Century learners doing so. I came across this brilliant website named Quizlet which enables teachers to create activities and quizes helping their learners learn and test vocabulary in a very interesting manner. 

The teachers can introduce new words to the students, help them learn and then test the learners on them all for FREE.  The teachers (using as a teacher option) and students are required to do a basic sign-up for creating an account.

Although the tool is free, however, its advance features such as using your voice to pronounce the word) require a paid subscription.

Once the teacher has made the account,  the quiz can be made and shared with the class online on Quizlet itself.  

Quizlet allows students to practice the vocabulary in different ways such as: Flashcards, Learn, Speller and Test.

The easy to use website also allows the teacher to keep a check on the progress of the class, that is, which student used which activity to learn and practice, the time and date of practice, the score of the test, the overall performance of the class, etcetera.

I find this tool very interesting and would like to use it as another way of flipped classroom as a weekly activity, such as, 10 new words per week, introducing wordlist on Mondays and taking a revision on every Friday.

The following video can help you view and use Quizlet :

Hope you like this tool! Try it out and let me know how it was.

Edmodo: 21st Century Learning

Edmodo: 21st Century Learning

Edmodo is a FREE online collaborative tool which is highly interactive. For a language teacher, it helps to create a virtual classroom for the students to connect with their peers from class, city, country or across the globe. Since this tool incorporates social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter, students much fancy working on it. 

There are various features that this tool provides such as sharing information, content, demonstrating ideas or a lesson, conducting activities, etc. But, I have to say, I have two of my favourite features that this tool has to offer. First, the tool enables the teacher to set up quizzes and test assignments to check students' knowledge and understanding on a particular topic taught or as a pre-session of a topic to be taught. What makes this feature interesting is that the teacher can allot a deadline for the completion of a particular task or assignment. Once the deadline is set, the students cannot submit their work post the deadline time. it also helps in providing instant feedback to the students on the quiz they participated in or the assignment that they turned in. 

Second, the teacher can create a repository of all contents and materials that need to be shared with the students. Once the teacher sets up an account and loads the materials, the materials can directly be accessed from the account rather than depending on a particular computer or system. Therefore, no matter what system the teacher uses, once he/she is logged into the Edmodo account, he/she can access the materials from the folder created where all uploaded files are stored. 

The students can share information and materials from websites, YouTube, blogs, etc on Edmodo. 

There are two ways of setting up an account on Edmodo, one as a teacher, the other, as a student.

I have a student account on Edmodo, and once signed in, it looks like this:

The layout of Edmodo is similar to that of Facebook, which is quite easy and appealing to the students.  I, as a student, participated in the quiz set up by my teacher during Edmodo training, which appears on the homepage of my account:

The homepage also displays all the materials shared by the teacher with his/her students:

On the left side of the screen appears the name, groups, communities and parent code. When a teacher sets up an account, he/she creates a special code for a particular class. The code is then shared with the students which they use to enter into the Edmodo group created by the teacher for that particular group or class. This code can also be shared with the parents for them to know and stay updated with the progress of their child or class. In this snapshot, you can see the code for the particular training session I was a part of: m58vaj

The category of group shows the class or group that I belong to and the community displays the institution where I study. 

If you click on the group name, here Professional Practice, you are automatically taken to the activities conducted in that group, such as, posts, folders, members.

If you select folders, you are directed to all the materials shared by the teacher with the students for that particular class. The students can access these materials anytime, from anywhere, by simply logging into their Edmodo account.

I absolutely love this tool and this is definitely one of my personal favourites, as I can make use of Edmodo either before conducting a session in my class (by introducing the topic, giving pre-reading task, a pre-session quiz) or a follow-up session after class (quiz, assignment, discussion).

This tool is a must try, however, the teacher must know that such sessions add up to the existing work load and also bear in mind that not all students will have access to technology (computer, internet connection) to be a part of the virtual class.

The following tutorial by Russell Stannard can help you use the tool more efficiently:

I look forward to reading your thoughts, comments and experience!

Lyrics Training: Listening was never such fun

Lyrics Training: Listening was never such fun

One of the biggest challenges I as a teacher have ever faced is to have my students patiently with utmost attention participate in the listening activity. I have observed a number of times that the students get distracted, withdrawn or lose interest while performing the activity and it is very important for the teacher to hold their attention right till the end in order to complete the task.

And when such activity is given to them as homework, I am quite sure and prepared that it might not be done by the students. And so, while I was browsing the internet for some teaching materials, I chanced upon this website called 'Lyricstraining.com' and seems that this website is a sure shot answer to my problem- practice listening with music. WOW! 

Lyricstraining.com is a highly interactive music website containing songs along with their lyrics in 7 different languages, English being one of them.

The user has an option to sign up for an account but the website can be used directly even without a sign up. The songs are categorised under various genres, the user can click on a language, genre and a song of his choice and can start practicing.

HOW?

Its pretty easy! Once the song is selected, the user is asked to select the level of the activity and then asked to play the game. The video of the song is played along with the lyrics flashing under the video. The user needs to keep up with the pace of the song and fill in the words missing in the lyrics. If the user misses to hear or understand the word, the left icon can be clicked for a replay of the line. If the gap is filled with the correct word, it is marked with a short green line and if an incorrect letter is put for the word, it does not accept and thus will not progress to the next line. Even after repeated attempts, the user is not able to fill the gap with the correct word, the answer can be checked by clicking the icon on the right side. And this way, the song progresses to the next line and following the same steps the user completes the listening activity until the end of the song. The score, gaps, hits  and fail can be checked which appears on top of the video. 

Lets take a look at the snapshots to understand how it looks:

(The karaoke version simply allows the user to sing along the song with the help of the lyrics flashed on the screen).

I feel this a great tool that can be used by a teacher to encourage her students to practice listening skills at home. The students are not only spoilt for choice in selecting the songs as the website is updated with the latests songs but also get to enjoy the music and alongside practice the skill. 

This definitely seems to become the most enjoyable homework that students will not complain about.

The only thing that is leaving me amazed and thoughtful is about this wonderful tool being absolutely FREE! 

Russell Stannard's tutorial on using Lyricstraining can help you understand the website better:

Have your students sing along, practice and enjoy. Like always, I look forward to your inputs and feedback.

myBrainshark: An everlasting impression of your presentation

myBrainshark: An everlasting impression of your presentation

Ever thought of your PowerPoint presentations and documents speaking for themselves? or a talking photo album? 

myBrainshark is a tool that helps you lend your voice to present, practice, narrate or demonstrate ideas and all of this for FREE. This tool originally was created for business enhancement but is now used across the world for teaching and learning.

It has a quick, easy, hassle-free sign-up which enables you to create an account and explore all possible ways to make your presentations in the most effective way possible.

myBrainshark helps students to practice and record their speaking activities and share them with their teachers and classmates. Peer and teacher feedback promote collaboration and through the feedback the students can reflect and act; thus generating learner autonomy. The sign-up account stores all the contents created by the user, which acts as an audio-visual portfolio of the user. Through this tool, the students can practice and hone the skills of public speaking and presentations.

Teachers can use myBrainshark as an element of 'flipped classroom' by creating materials and adding their own voice to it. The materials can then be shared with the learners. This allows teacher save classroom time on introduction or explanation of any topic and can rather concentrate on the students' application and practice of the lesson. This further helps teachers check learners' understanding of the topic.

Lets take a look at Russell Stannard's myBrainshark tutorial and see how this tool works:

I hope you and your students like this tool. Do experiment and share your experience with me!

                                                               

Triptico

Triptico:

I was recently introduced to a very exciting ICT tool which could boost the motivation of learners in language learning. This tool is highly interactive, creative and thus engage and motivate learners in participation (individual or class) of activities.

The audio-visual appeal of the tool creates a great impact on a learner's 'desire' to learn more.

Triptico is a games and quiz based website which enables teachers to create activities with the motive to engage students in fun based learning. The tag line of the website itself suggests 'Inspiring Imaginatve Teachers' and thus helps teachers to develop audio-visual enabled tasks.

https://www.triptico.co.uk/home

(The homepage of the website shows a brand new website coming up for Triptico, I'm all excited and geared up to see the 'newness' it has to offer.)

The website offers a few features, free of cost, on trial basis, however, a subscription can enable a teacher to the optimum use of all the features that the website has to offer. It also has a blog which highlights and explains any new feature added to the website. 

While exploring the website and after downloading Triptico Plus on my system, using the 'Free Resource' option, I came across a very interesting quiz called 'Whats the Question'. 

The quiz allows the teacher to form questions and pin the correct answer to it, however, when the quiz is played with learners in the class, the answers are shown to the learners, inviting them to come up with the appropriate question tagged to the answer shown. The 12 questions are categorised under 3 categories of marks 10, 20, 30 and the computer picks the turn of team or participant to participate. If the question guessed is correct, the participant scores the marks designated to the question, but if the guess is wrong, the marks are randomly distributed to other team members by the computer. Therefore, the game is played in all fairness. Whats more? Sound effects of 'Yeaaaaaah' as cheer to the correct answer and ' Awwwwwwwwh' for the incorrect answer help in building the competitive spirit and environment in the class.                                                                                                        

The quiz is very easy to create, as the application navigates you into building the activity. Once the quiz is made, it can be saved as a 'text file' on the computed and then uploaded in the application.
The teacher can make use of this activity only in those classrooms which are wi-f- enabled, since the application does not work offline.

I created an activity called ' Know your University Better ' where answers where supplied to the students and they were to guess the appropriate questions. However, a quiz of targeting any aspect of language learning can be created such as phonetics, vocabulary, etc.

The following snapshots can give you an overview of the quiz:

 Once the quiz is made, click on the save option.

Select 'Save as Text File' and save it on the system. 

Then, Load the quiz by clicking on 'Load' option. Your activity is ready to be played in the class.

I really hope you like this tool and you along with your students enjoy the learning through such activities in class. Do write in to share your feedback with me.