English Virtual Community

Creative Commons in the Classroom View more presentations from Jessicacoates .

This is my first Saturday of 2010 summer holidays, so here I am having breakfast and enjoying Twittering and facebooking. While I was facebooking, I came across an article written by Ana María Menezes about this attractive visual tool called Wondersaid beta. "You can use any simple sentence or twitter account to generate a cool animation . Wondersayings are easy to create , customise and share . No software programs to download (it's all online ), no sign-up or passwords ( save them by copying the link), and all for free . " I have tried it and used it to wish you : made on Wondersay - Animate text with style

Facebook is not just for socializing. There are numerous Facebook apps designed to help you learn English. Let's take a look at some of the popular applications: Language Exchange The Language Exchange application makes it easy to find a language partner based on your personal interests, and the network can actually find you a good partner. The application gives you the opportunity to study languages and learn about other cultures. Learn English with assistance from a partner or from some of the network's volunteers. Luingo Luingo helps you build your vocabulary. Create a custom MP3 of the words you want to learn. You can choose words from hundreds of different lists. Submit your writing and get feedback from people in the Luingo community. After you master English perhaps you'll take on Russian, Finnish, Chinese, and Turkish at Luingo. Dr. Arrogant The Dr. Arrogant application helps you learn and practice English with Dr. Arrogant's fun experiments. Engli...

José Luis Cabello (Spain) invited me to co-moderate the first online workshop in the ITE NING group "Lenguas Extranjeras"  The workshop is in Spanish language. It is free and intended for teachers of all languages with little experience in the use of Web 2.0 tools . It will last 5 weeks and here is the syllabus:  1st Week     Collaborative Web 2.0 tools 2nd Week    Sharing tools 3rd Week     Presentations 4th Week     Asynchronous voice tools  5th Week     Language learning activities using online resources  We use the NING group to discuss about different topics connected to the use of Web 2.0 tools in the language class and we'll have a  chat session per week. We have also opened a wiki to upload reading material and videos.  We bookmark online resources and tweet ideas and opinions using the hashtag #taac. To be continued...

Ronaldo Lima (Brazil)  asked his students to talk about "What makes (your city/country) unique" and they created a response to it using  the online tool : animoto Ronaldo's idea was pinched in by Carla Arena (Brazil) based on some project she had carried out with someone some time ago and it's great to see that the online environment allows for these ideas to be spread. http://finally5b.blogspot.com/2009/04/what-makes-brazil-unique-country.html Two other teachers joined the idea : Sasha (Slovenia) http://rostilj.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-makes-slovenia-unique.html and Mr Stout (Japan) http://mrstoutsblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/toyo-gakuen-university-homestay-english_7990.html Will you and your students be the next?

Cambridge University Press offers in its website a series of videos tutorials which demonstrates how to use an Interactive whiteboard.may help teachers in the use of IWB. To launch the videos, click on this LINK

School 2.0: Future of Education View more presentations from SteveHargadon .

Practicing English with a native speaker or another ESL student is a great way for international students to improve reading, writing, and speaking skills. There are many different sites that make it easy for students and other ESL learners to connect online. Here are a few sites to try: MyHappyPlanet - This online language learning community allows members to message native speakers from around the world. The site can also be used to learn about the English language and culture through videos and member-created lessons. italki - italki is a great place to find ESL partners. Members hail from more than 200 countries and are always eager to discuss and practice English reading, writing, speaking/listening, grammar, pronunciation, and more. MyLanguageExchange - More than one million people practice their language skills on MyLanguageExchange. The site employs the Cormier method of language exchange which groups native speakers of two languages so that they can spend half their tim...

Vance Stevens visited La Plata, and gave a presentation on PLN. More than 20 teachers came to the School of Languages to listen to him.  Among them was Susana Canelo who came from Del Valle (400km far form the capital of the province of Buenos Aires). Here is a picture of us: If you could not attend this event, you can see the slides of the presentation below these lines: PLN View more presentations from Escuela de Lenguas UNLP . And here is a link to the recording in PodOmatic:  PLN: The paradigm shift in teacher and learner autonomy

Latitude 42 Study Findings: Where Else Will Kids Think to Put the Web in the World? from latddotcom on Vimeo .

Vance Stevens is visiting La Plata! He kindly accepted my invitation to give a presentation. He will speak about "PLN ( Personal Learning Network): The paradigm shift  in learner and teacher autonomy"  at the School of Languages. When? at 12.30 p.m.  next Wednesday -August 11th .  Free entrance but you should book your place in advance by phoning 0221 423 6672

Last Thursday 29th and Friday 30th, I attended the fifth congress for teachers of English organized by SHARE. It took place at Regente Palace Hotel in the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Omar Villareal kindly invited me . Thank you, Omar! Important institutions sponsored SHARE convention such as the British Council, the Fulbright Commission, AACI among others. This annual event offered a varied programme of high academic standards. The SHARE team is leaded by the Villareal family: Omar, Marina, Martín and Sebastián. I was told that more than 30 people work hard to carry out this successful event and that teachers from all over the country come to get inspiring ideas and share knowledge. There were presentations from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and a very complete exhibition area where I met Gustavo González and Mady Casco.  Visit SHARE website to join its e-magazine: http://www.shareeducation.com.ar/index.htm

Hello everybody,  Word World a very interesting website for kids to practise and/or learn vocabulary . If the kid`s choice is right, the word is illustrated with an image.  Word World has sound so kids can listen to the pronounciation of the words presented. It also offers the possibility of colouring and printing images. It is very easy to navigate. Young learners will love Word World ! Oops! You need the URL... click HERE :-)

Hello everybody, We are on winter holidays in Argentina and I have more time for thinking about my activities on the net and feeding my curious soul by surfing the web. One of the conclusions I arrived is that I have stopped blogging long posts because I don´t have much time for writing  :-((  I microblog in Twitter and Facebook everyday! Today, I came across this material edited by my Brazilian colleague , Ana María Menezes. Ana has gathered a series of videos related to ICT in education. Thank you, Ana for sharing this material :-)  PS: The following collection of videos is a bit heavy, so it may take some minutes to download.   Build your own custom video playlist at embedr.com

Some time ago - about a month, I think- I came across Poster-Street.com which  provides web users with motivational, funny and thought provoking material. The visitor will find high-quality posters that were well-designed and easily accessible. Once at the website, you will be able to   download and print the poster you like! It is not necessary to get re gistered :-) Poster- Street people say: " We’d love to hear from you. Your feedback and comments inspire and encourage us. Your experience and ideas help us make this site better ." and it is true!!! Let me tell you: When I visited the website for the first time, I was fascinated. I really loved the posters, but could not find the possibility of embeding the posters in my blogs - I manage educational blogs for two schools. Consequently, I wrote to Poster-Street asking them to give us, bloggers, the possibility of embeding their work. And today they sent me a newsletter and found out that they have included an embedd...

Today is my free morning and I am enjoying surfing the net, facebooking, twittering and of course, blogging! Unfortunatelly I cannot blog as often as I would like to due to my duties as ICT coordinator and teacher trainer. I have been pretty busy but really happy. Exploring Second life is one of my postponed activities. By the way, I have found some information about the British Council in Second Life at http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/second-life What can you  do in the British Council Area in Second Life? When you are on the British Council island, you can: learn English in different ways meet new friends throughout the world have fun solving puzzles and problems learn about the UK improve your computer skills This is very important: It's free for all teenagers 13-17 years old Accounts are provided only to users when proof of age is given to the British Council Provided accounts are strictly for use by teenagers Second Life guidelines for teens can be found...

Karenne Joy Sylvester - Kalingo English blogger- uploaded a post called " Do you use Google ?". Of course, I do! I am very fond of Google for the variety of tools it offers and besides, it is developing new ones everyday. I find Google a fantastic tool for professional life. I am familiar with mailing, blogging ;-) , google docs, calendar, video chat, images and Google Wave. Karenne has found slideshow which goes through some of Google applications and tools , plus examples of how she and others have been using the different functions and products. Here is the link to watch the slideshow. We'd love to learn more from you about what, how and why you've been using them, so do please share comments and thoughts. P.S Surfing the net I came across Rita Zeinstejer slideshare presentation . Have a look:   Google Apps In The Clasroom For Tesol 2010

Dear EVC followers  As I told you in a previous post, last month  EVC blog was nominated in the category ‘Language Technology’ in the Top Language Blogs 2010 competition. Now, I am very happy to tell you that a mail from Priscila on behalf of the bab.la and Lexiophiles team has appeared in my mail account and I would like to share it with you: " Congratulations from the team at bab.la and Lexiophiles! English Virtual Community blog has been voted number 5 in the category ‘Language Technology’ in our Top Language Blogs 2010 competition. This year we received 495 nominations and nearly 21,000 votes. You should be really proud of yourself for pleasing so many readers!"  Thank you for your constant support! 

Playing to Learn? on Prezi

I had received a mail from the bab.la and Lexiophiles team telling me that this blog has been nominated for the Top 100 Language Blogs 2010 competition. Please, vote for this blog, if you consider it deserves it by clicking on the logo below. A new window will appear. Scroll it down till you can select English Virtual Community blog. Thank you!!!

Yesterday, I had the pleasure to participate in an online radio programme called " En tu Idioma " ( In Your Language ) which is on  the air every Wednesday at 7 p.m. I was invited by Carolina Skoppek to speak about Technology applied to English Language Learning. Viviana Ameijenda, Head of the English Department of the School Esteban Echeverría , was also present. The programme lasted about 45 minutes and we talked about - among other things - the origin of this blog,  how I started working with digital technology applied to the language learning, my work as coordinator of the ICT Area at the School of Languages and my experience in Japan where I attended WorldCALL 2008. Then, Viviana spoke about the use of Interactive Whiteboards and how her school incorporated this new tool in  the English class.                            Here is a pictur...

 I am very proud to upload selected material provided by the British Council  for this blog. I hope you find it useful :-) Methodology articles http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/portfolios-elt Related content: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/methodology http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/public-speaking-skills Related content: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/methodology http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/music-visualisation Related content: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/methodology Teaching activities http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/activities/working-biographies Related content: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/activities http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/activities/it%E2%80%99s-1200-oclock Related content: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/activities http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/activities/who-it Related content: http://www.teachingenglish.o...

In this video you will listen to Ken Robinson talking about how the present educational system neither prepares young people for the future nor encourages creativity. Can you leave a comment about your opinion? Do you agree with Robinson? Are you doing anything in your class to avoid killing creativity? Are you stuck to academic education?

Via: Cell Phones

IPEI is proud to announce the second talk of the year on “ Trados without Fear I” (in Spanish) , featuring graduate teacher (UNLP) and experienced freelance translator Haydée Incicco . WHERE? at IPEI’ s premises in la Plata, 46th Street Nº 421 betwwen  3rd and 4th St. WHEN? on Friday 16th April, 2010 at 6:30 p.m.,  and it is addressed to teachers, translation students and freelance translators into all languages willing to learn how to use this productivity tool. -  Workbench: Creation of a translation memory, languages, system fields - Trados toolbar buttons. Basic setup. Substitutions. Translation memory options. -  Concordance. Background translation memory. -  Segmentation: new, fuzzy and exact matches. -  TagEditor. Powerpoint, Excel, html files. -  Practical demonstration: Analysis, translation and cleaning up of a file. Looking forward to seeing you at our event!!! More information at info@inglesipei.com.ar Registration: from Monday t...

My first experience as a trainer was extremely rewarding. I named the presentation "Current overview of CAT tools”   ( Computer-assisted translation tools ) and it led the participants on a bird’s eye tour of the basics of Computer Assisted Translation, the tools that help professional translators to increase productivity, save time and offer consistent terminology in the work delivered. I started translating many years ago in the prehistory of the translation era, that is, with rudimentary tools: pencil and paper, and I delivered many a translation written on an electric typewriter (those were the modern times!), but I was an early adopter of every new tool offered by the technology that make the life of translators easier. I remember my first computer with a RAM of 128 K, the first text editor, my first printer... Then in 2002 I learnt about CAT tools and my passion for these started. What was pioneering then is a must today, as it is hard to imagine a competitive translator ...

Would you like to... Act in English? Gain more fluency? Practise the language in a creative way? Make your teaching more appealing? Have lots and lots of fun? Then, join our Comedy club!  Coach: Irene Bianchi    (Actress- Drama Teacher- Literary Tranlator- English Teacher) When? Saturday mornings What time? 11 am- 12.30 pm Where?  At 46 Nº 421 between streets 3 & 4 Registration: comedyclub@inglesipei.com.ar

As I announced in this blog , last year I was appointed as ICT coordinator at two schools of languages. The experience was really enriching and with great satisfaction I can say that authorities  and teachers are much more interested in digital technology than they used to.  One school opened a  full equipped computing lab and the other changed all the computers for new ones! The beginning Things were not easy. I found a bit of resistance on the teachers' part. They used to think they would have more work for the same money. In a way, it is true that teachers should devote some extra time to update their professional skills or get familiar with any  new teaching material. I insisted on the importance of applying digital technology to language classes, but what was more important , I demonstrated it to them.  From simple tools to more complex ones I started showing them the advantages of the three portals : Google, Yahoo and Hotmail. How teachers can use a m...

Mind maps are diagrams used to represent radial thinking – a natural function of the mind - which involves writing down a central idea and thinking up new and related ideas which radiate out from the centre. Mind Mapping (or concept mapping ) can be applied to every aspect of life where improved learning and clearer thinking will enhance human performance, specially in education for brainstorming, organizing ideas or studying. It is very useful to develop visual memory. Characteristics The subject of attention is crystallized in a central word. The main themes of the subject radiate from the key center on branches. Branches may hold a key image/word printed on the associated line - details radiate out. The branches form a connected nodal structure.  • Why using a mind map? To clarify your thoughts, organize information, communicate clearly or take in information a mind map can assist. Mind maps may be used for different purposes: visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and...

Luckily some new material selected by  the British Council is available in this blog. Let´s start with a very interesting  short topic-based videos where our young students can listen to children talking about their lives on the British Council’s NEW LearnEnglish Kids site for young learners. As you can see the window is visually attractive and user friendly for kids. When you click on the photo of one of the kids that appear on the screen, a video starts running. You can exploit the video extensively and/or let your students explore other listening material at their own pace: You can also print the script of the video and full colour activities with corresponding answers in pdf format. Don´t forget to make your students vote for the video! Students can answer to the personal questions in comments, introducing them to online participation. I hope you and your students really enjoy this online website ! Further ideas to exploit the website? Click H...

This is a very good post in LexioPhiles site about how you can improve your language learning process. The link is : http://www.lexiophiles.com/english/learning-a-language-in-two-weeks-really I hope you like it

educ.ar   is the educational portal of the Argentine Nation created with the support of the Martín Varsavsky Foundation in 2000, but after the economical and political breakdown which took place in Argentina in 2001, the portal needed to be reorganized. In 2003, the re-launching took place in the hands of Alejandro Piscitelli who considers his experience in educ.ar as the most challenging in his life. The aim of educ.ar re-launching was to work for and with Argentine teachers on digital literacy. An initial team of 23 specialists helped teachers and heads of educational institutions to get familiar with the use of ICT. Thus, the portal became one of the most respected online providers of educational contents and was the first educational national portal in Latin America. Actually, it has about 1,450 million of users and about 2,000,000 hits per month.   Educ.ar Mission   To generate opportunities for all the inhabitants of the Argentine Republic to learn no matter ...