English Virtual Community

Wording by bab.la

2012-01-23T16:58:00.003-03:00

Daniel Johansson from the bab.la team has sent me a mail asking to spread the news about a new product called Wording a very useful tool for those who want to improve their writing.

Wording acts as a correct sentence structure checker. It is ideal for English language learners to improve the use of collocation, diction and syntax in their writing when choosing the appropriate sentence pattern.

For example, by associating correct examples of prepositions with common language usage to give you the best suggestions for the proper preposition.

I would like to remind the reader that bab.la offers students some other tools such as quizzes and games to study/revise the English language.

Link: http://en.bab.la/wording/

Northfield School launches its own magazine

2012-01-11T20:02:00.001-03:00

Susana Giambruni told me that the school where she works, Northfield School, was planning to publish a magazine. She kindly asked me to contribute with an article about IT. I love writing, so I immediately accepted her proposal.

My article was titled: "Do not fear IT" and was specially intended for parents and teachers who still despise and keep off digital technology. I tried to convince the reader that technology is not a calamity, but a good excuse to share adults' time, experience and knowledge with our students or children using the tools they are so fond of.

I sent my lines to Daniela Barbariol, NFS MAG Coordinator, who told me she would send me two copies of the magazine.

I received the copies last week and I was completely amazed not only at the excellent presentation and quality of the copies ,but also at the very interesting project described in the different sections of the magazine NFS offers to the community .

NFS MAG staff has done a very good job and I am really honored to be invited as a contributor.

Congratulations!

Creating Speaking Avatars

2012-01-08T21:09:00.002-03:00

http://www.voki.com

is an excellent tool to develop students' imagination and practise the English language.

Advantages:

It is free and embeddable in blogs and wikis
Registration is optional
Stimulates imagination and creativity
Young learners love it !

Disadvantages:

Students may spend too much time on the avatar's design
You may not record your voice properly
Embedding avatars on blogs may be difficult for teachers and students with weak tech - skills

Possible Activities:

1- Introduce yourself, say what you did last weekend, say your plans for next holidays, etc.
2- Teacher asks questions about a given topic and Students write the answers in the section "comments" in Blogger .

I have used it with young learners and the results were very good. Let me show you some examples:
http://n4icablaplata.blogspot.com/search/label/voki
http://n3-icab.blogspot.com/search/label/voki
http://n2-icab.blogspot.com/search/label/voki

Nevertheless, I highly recommend this tool. If you want to do something different at the computer room, read more about VOKI

If you click on the following LINK, you will find ready made lesson plans to use VOKI.

Celebrating Christmas

2011-12-09T14:54:00.005-03:00

Northpole.com is a child-safe, award-winning holiday site with high-tech, creative features to keep children entertained for free.

Its creators provide a family-oriented, traditional Christmas site to enjoy both tradition and technology. As a result, visitors enjoy animation and conversation simulators using artificial intelligence—all on Web pages is richly illustrated with hundreds of original, detailed, hand-drawn artwork.

The site opens with a panoramic view of Santa’s Secret Village℠. Visitors click on different ‘buildings’ to enter, leading to a variety of activities or stories.*

I hope you find NorthPole interesting and fun.

Merry Christmas!

* Text adapted from the website

The Super Book of Web Tools

2011-10-03T16:27:00.000-03:00

Super Book of Web Tools for Educators

Do you want information about Web2.0?

2011-09-25T09:59:00.000-03:00

International Congress: Conectar Igualdad

2011-09-17T10:54:00.003-03:00

The international congress : "Inclusión Digital Educativa" (Digital Educational Inclusion) took place in Buenos Aires city, on September 1st and 2nd. This congress was part of the of digital inclusion policy promoted by the national program "Conectar Igualdad", which has provided more than 3 million netbooks to students and teachers of the state high school level. This policy is very important for the social and educational future of Argentina.

There was one netbook every two teachers
available work in the hands on workshops given.

Argentinian authorities are convinced that the netbook the student takes home not only will allow him/her to have the possibility of developing the necessary skills to live and work in the information society, but also it will be an important tool to connect the rest of the family to the Internet.

Local and international speakers gave presentations and workshops about different topics : video games, movie makers, copyleft, social networks, IT impact in education.


at Digital Animation Workshop by Carlos Trilnick

at the Workshop Didactic Sequences

Teachers from all the country attended it and some of them showed confidence in the use of netbooks. Some of them recorded the sessions using Audacity, for example. In general, teachers were very interested in sharing expectations, doubts and experiences using netbooks.

Nelba at the entrance of the Congress

Using webtools to develop the 4 skills

2011-09-15T22:11:00.003-03:00

Advantages and Disadvantages of Online ESL education by Natalie Hunter

2011-09-09T19:26:00.000-03:00

While the use of the Internet is becoming fairly standard in curricula everywhere, incorporating computer and Internet use into ESL classrooms is still a regularly debated topic. Although using online school to teach English has many benefits, there are certain obstacles to using the Internet for this purpose. Before a teacher designs an English course integrating technology, he/she needs to take these advantages and disadvantages into careful consideration to determine whether or not such lesson plans are appropriate.

Perhaps the first thing that comes to the fore when thinking about online ESL are the advantages of such a course. Online education is well known for its ability to be tailored to every student's needs, whether it is a matter of time constraints, location, or learning and physical disabilities. It gives students time to think things over without the stress of having to speak up or answer questions immediately in front of their peers. Using the Internet for education also teaches various important skills for the modern world, such as typing and the ability to maneuver deftly around the web and other computer programs.

The advantages of online education particular to learning language are even better. The Internet can connect students to native speakers across the world, and enables them to use English in real situations, such as reading and discussing current events. These courses can integrate chat rooms, email, and even video games to create a highly interactive environment for the students, while simultaneously promoting a high level of literacy. Collaboration and socialization puts a strong focus on student participation, and the degree of anonymity afforded allows students to feel confident about their ability, as well as look up words and structures they may not immediately know quickly without feeling embarrassed. There is also the fact that student interactions are monitored closely, so verbal mistakes can be corrected before they are perpetuated.

These are all quite useful things in the study of any language, but it must be remembered that the internet is a tool, and no tool can fix every problem. A common complaint among ESL teachers is that the Internet can provide too much information, which can lead to confusion and inaccuracies. Resources must routinely be evaluated by their intended audience and the quality of the information. Much content available may also be inappropriate depending on the age group of students, their culture, or their background, so it is important that educators keep an eye on what students are looking at. As well, chatting with native speakers can have a negative effect on reading and writing ability, as many English speakers will make typos, grammatical mistakes, or use acronyms instead of spelling out whole words while texting. There is also the fact that technological difficulty can get in the way of learning. If a student is unfamiliar with using the Internet, or is anxious about computers, these things can easily hinder the ability of a student to learn. If their Internet is slow, they won't be able to hear speech files or talk with fellow students as easily, and that can be a serious problem.

The Internet can be a valuable tool for ESL educators. However, as with any tool, it is important to know its proper uses, and when it should not be used. Evaluate its usefulness in relation to a given set of students, and be aware of its shortcomings.

Homework Assignments using Web 2.0 at the School of Languages UNLP

2011-09-01T09:00:00.001-03:00

View more presentations from Escuela de Lenguas UNLP

Ana Marías post: Presentation in La Plata

Hey , teachers! Use Web.2 tools

2011-08-25T22:12:00.007-03:00

Hello, everybody:

I am in front of the pc screen - where else could I be? - thinking about a title for this post and the lyrics of "The Wall" by Pink Floyd came to my mind when they sing: Hey, teachers. Leave the kids alone. Please, read the title of this post with the tune of the song ;)

Although Pink Floyd and their fans may insist, teachers cannot leave kids alone. Poor little things, they are learning how to cope with the Internet alone because neither teachers nor parents know much about it :(

But I am not going to write about Pink Floyd or music. As I have announced in my previous post, today Ana María Menezes has given a presentation at the School of Languages. If you attended the event, I hope you have enjoyed it and got some ideas to incorporate technology in your classes and stop teaching as decades ago.

She started pointing out the differences between how students used to learn before the digital revolution and how they learn now .

One of the differeces she mentioned was "sharing". Students now share information with their friends ( or contacts? ) using social networks, chats, text messages. I would like to invite the attendees to start sharing their experiences using computers in their classes.

How can we start sharing ?

In comments (* see below this post), write about what you feel when you take your students to the computer room. Do you feel nervous or confident? Why? What type of activities do you ask them to do using the computer?

Sharing our feelings will be very good for all of us because we will learn together : )

*If you do not know how to leave a comment in Blogger, watch this video

Another Webhead is visiting La Plata

2011-08-22T17:15:00.001-03:00

I am very happy because Ana Maria Menezes is visiting La Plata next Thursday, August 25th. She kindly accepted my invitation to tour the city and give a presentation at the School of Languages:

Homework Assignments using Web 2.0

Web 2.0 has influenced the way we teach. What about homework assignments? Do you assign the same kind of homework you used to have as a student decades ago? Homework can involve much more than reading and writing.

She will share a project Ishe has developed with 3 groups of students during the first semester of 2011 at a language institute in Brazil. During the semester, EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students apart from doing their traditional homework, also had to carry out tasks in which they used recently learned language to develop dialogues, comic strips, recordings, animations and much more.

BIODATA: Ana Maria Menezes

EFL teacher and teacher trainer in Brazil. Head of the EDtech department of Cultura Inglesa Uberlândia. Helps teachers integrate technology with their classes by facilitating two online courses: “Cultura EDtech” and “Moving Beyond”. Writer of two books dedicated to language teachers: “Webtools applied to teaching” and “Developing the 4 Skills using Webtools”.

video: a future made of screens

2011-07-03T18:56:00.001-03:00

Nominated !!!

2011-05-07T19:24:00.012-03:00

I am very happy because last week I received a mail from bab.la language portal and the Lexiophiles language blog. They told me that EVC has been nominated for the Top 100 Language Lovers 2011 competition!

EVC is in the category Language Learning Blogs which focuses on blogs discussing technology as part of the language learning process.

Last year, this blog got the fifth position among the Top 10 Language Blogs thanks to the votes of its followers.

Will you vote me this time? Vote for English Virtual Community by clicking on this link

Digital Inmigrants are still alive

2011-04-17T11:48:00.000-03:00

This is the fifth year I develop a blog for adults with an intermediate level of English and I still find students' resistance to use ICT resources as learning tools.

What make things even more disappointing is the fact that teachers are not very eager to use the blog either. This does not happen with teachers with ESL courses for kids. I was worried about this bad predisposition and asked blog developers from other schools about their experiences and they told me they have the same problem.

Why do we have this problem with adults? I met Graham Stanley on chat and asked him for a piece of advice. He reminded me about the gap between digital inmigrants and natives. After Prenski's article "H. Sapiens Digital: From Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom", I thought this gap has disappeared but it has not. Kids and teenagers can spend nearly the whole day in front of the PC because they do not use it only for doing school homework, but also for having fun. so they enjoy working with computers and other tech gadgets mainly cellphones. Whereas adults use computers for work, so blogging or doing interactive activities may tire them. Adults will avoid screens and go back to books, pens and sheets of paper because that is their familiar way of leaning.

What shall I do? As regards students, I will be patient and try to present innovative activities in the blog. Activities which may call their attention because they are different from the ones they do in class. As regards teachers, I will give them ideas about how to use the web2.0 resources to engage students and try to go with them to the computer classroom to make them feel more confident.

Any suggestions? Feel free to leave your suggestion in comments. Thank you :-)

Working with laptops

2011-02-28T22:39:00.001-03:00

Back to School Guide

2011-02-13T09:27:00.000-03:00

Edutopia Back to School Guide 2010 Text Version

Make your own poster

2011-02-01T18:47:00.001-03:00

I would love to design attractive posters to inform teachers, students or parents about the activities at school. Although I may have many ideas, I am not very familiar with photoshop or any other advanced digital image editing application :(

If you have the same problem, let me tell you that there is a free web tool for educators that may help us: Juxio. Its simplicity allows people to easily create posters for display. It offers very complete HELP section with video tutorials, FAQs and hints.

Once you have chosen a template and edit your "Jux", you can print on your local printer. Or you can save it as a pdf file and send it by mail.

http://www.juxio.co

Need a Class Website?

2011-01-23T10:46:00.002-03:00

"Classroom Update " is a system designed to allow teachers a way to post homework assignments, class announcements, and more in minutes a day.

The website offers a way to keep parents and students informed of assignments and other events at school. Have a look at this video to have a better idea of what it is about.

http://www.classroomupdate.com/index.php

Popplet - Web Beta and iPad

2011-01-06T12:28:00.003-03:00

Popplet is an application for the web and iPad, where you can collect, curate and share your ideas, inspirations, and projects.

It is a combination of wallwisher, glogster and field for webspiration which offers a lot of possibilities: users can type, draw, upload images , embed videos or draw in the virtual “post-its” called “popplets".

Advantages:

Teachers can use it for collaborative work
Popplets can be connected
It doesn’t have an limit on the number of characters you can use.

.At the moment is in beta and you need to request an invite.

Here is a video explaining how it can be used.

http://popplet.com/

Related posts:

Creative Commons in the Classroom (slideshow)

2010-12-29T08:54:00.000-03:00

Creative Commons in the Classroom

View more presentations from Jessicacoates.

Wondersaid

2010-12-18T10:25:00.001-03:00

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

You Can Use Facebook to Learn English

2010-12-08T11:35:00.002-03:00

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.

English Cafe

This English language community let's you sign up for teacher time, provides online lessons, and tests your knowledge through online quizzes. You can also share experiences with other people. You have access to daily English lessons, flashcards, videos, and online chat. The English Cafe also offers useful learning tips and gives you access to the English Cafe blogs.

Globish Challenge

This application offers a Globish Challenge word game, which includes about 6000 words from the English language. Improve your vocabulary while playing a game, and you can even win prizes! According to the application's author, Globish is not a language in and of itself but rather the common ground which non-native English speakers adopt in the context of international business. The author reports that Globish is a natural language as opposed to a constructed or artificial language.

with these applications, one can learn English and meet some new fiends at Facebook! If you know someone trying to learn English, let them know about these helpful applications.

Brian Jenkins is an expert on a number of topics related to careers and education, and has been writing for BrainTrack.com for two years.

Online Dangers for Children and Teens

2010-11-28T12:25:00.010-03:00

Yesterday La Nación newspaper published an article about online dangers for children and teens. According to a survey conducted by LoJack and Chicos.net , 56% of Argentine children between 12 and 15 years have shared personal information with strangers in a social network. And 29% have admitted that they have had direct contact with people they met through this medium.

The article points out that banning surfing the net is not the way to prevent cyberbulling or sexting. It is advisable to teach children to share neither personal information online about themselves not their family without parental permission. Adults should help kids become aware of the risks they may have if they use and interact with teachnology - PC, cell phone or webcam- without responsibility.

Further reading:

Internet Safety for Elementary School Students Handbook

Workshop Nov - Dec 2010

2010-11-26T17:40:00.006-03:00

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...

What makes your place unique?

2010-11-14T19:29:00.000-03:00

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?

Changing Education Paradigms

2010-10-14T13:41:00.006-03:00

How to Use an Interactive Whiteboard (IWB)

2010-09-22T18:33:00.002-03:00

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

Celebrating Spring day using Tag Galaxy

2010-09-21T11:29:00.002-03:00

Today we celebrate Spring and Students' day in La Plata Argentina. Luckily, nature is present in my city in all its parks- there is one every 6 blocks and streets, We can smell the perfume of the orange trees along 47th street.

Students meet and have picnics and at night there is a popular concert at Moreno Square.

Creating the future for education (slideshare)

2010-09-19T21:39:00.003-03:00

School 2.0: Future of Education

View more presentations from SteveHargadon.

Online Websites to practice English by Karen Schweitzer

2010-08-24T12:14:00.002-03:00

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 time speaking in one language and half their time in the other language.

Busuu - Busuu offers a worldwide community of native English speakers. You can practice speaking with other members by using the site's interactive video chat. If you need writing practice, you can also write a short amount of text and request that other users correct it for you.

Palabea - Palabea is an international community of language learners. You can use the site to talk to native English speakers in an online exchange, share content, or practice writing and grammar skills.

Unilang - In addition to providing many free language learning resources, Unilang offers an online forum and web chat where you can discuss and practice English writing and speaking skills.

SharedTalk - SharedTalk is a language exchange network with members from all over the world. You can practice with native English speakers using the site's voice chat and text chat features.

Livemocha - One of the world's most popular language learning sites, Livemocha provides ESL learners with the opportunity to teach and learn from other members of the community. You can either practice a structured conversation exercise with a native speaker or submit a writing or audio sample for feedback and correction.

PhraseBase - PhraseBase is a social network for language learners. The site makes it easy to connect with a native English speaker who is interested in learning your language and willing to trade knowledge.

Huitalk.com - Huitalk.com is an online community that allows members to easily meet and practice English and other languages online. The site also provides book recommendations, reviews of language schools, and other useful resources for ESL learners.

Lang-8 - Lan-8 is a multi-language community with members from around the world. After joining the site, you can write in English and send your work to native speakers who are willing to correct it for you.

LingQ - Language learners who sign up for a free account on LingQ can join live conversations, have their writing corrected, and communicate with other members of the community.

AddLang - AddLang makes it easy to find native English speakers and practice chatting online via Skype, MSN Messenger, AOL Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger. The site also offers a forum for members who want to discuss anything relating to the English language.

English as a 2nd Language Forum - The English as a 2nd Language Forum is a good place to meet and chat with ESL learners and teachers. Forum topics include homework help, learner's discussion, teacher's discussion, pen pals, word games, and exercises for learners.

Dave's ESL Cafe - The student discussion forums at Dave's ESL Cafe has nearly 80,000 members. These forums are a good place to practice your English writing skills and receive help from ESL and EFL teachers.

UsingEnglish.com - The online forum at UsingEnglish.com is perfect for ESL students who don't necessarily need a formal language partner but do need advice on writing, pronunciation, English phrases and slang, or aspects of speech and accents.

Parapal - Parapal offers a virtual reality chat room and chat library for ESL and EFL students. The chats can be used to practice language skills or ask questions about English writing, grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about pharmacy technician certification for PharmacyTechnicianCertification.com.

Vance Stevens talking about PLN in La Plata, Argentina

2010-08-15T10:04:00.003-03:00

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

What do Digital Natives want to do with their computers?

2010-08-13T10:36:00.003-03:00

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

Vance Stevens and PLN in La Plata

2010-08-05T08:53:00.009-03:00

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

SHARE Convention 2010

2010-08-01T10:47:00.005-03:00

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

Video Education Today and Tomorrow

2010-07-25T14:04:00.001-03:00

To play with kids

2010-07-25T13:36:00.002-03:00

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 :-)

Winter thoughts

2010-07-23T11:40:00.009-03:00

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.

NEWS

2010-07-16T09:56:00.001-03:00

Using Glogster

2010-07-10T19:37:00.000-03:00

If you have visited the section About me in this blog, you can see that I have added an interactive poster using Glogster.

Well, Stannar Russell a principal lecturer in Multimedia/ICT at the University of Wesminster and has done a video tutorial to help you with Glogster tools. Click on the link below the image to watch it :-)

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/glogster/index.html

Poster-Street. com = Free posters for your school, office or home!

2010-07-02T22:47:00.003-03:00

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 registered :-)

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 embedding tool.
Thank you, Poster-Street!

Oh, by the way. I have chosen this poster to illustrate this post.

The British Council in Second Life

2010-07-02T08:52:00.001-03:00

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 here: http://teen.secondlife.com/parents/safety

More important:
Graham Stanley is in charge of this project! You can contact him for further info at graham.stanley@britishcouncil.es

Do you use Google?

2010-06-17T10:12:00.009-03:00

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

EVC is celebrating !!!!

2010-06-02T13:26:00.002-03:00

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!

Let's play

2010-05-17T10:09:00.005-03:00

Playing to Learn? on Prezi

Top 100 Language Blogs 2010 competition

2010-05-13T16:19:00.001-03:00

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!!!

Nelba on the air

2010-05-13T15:58:00.006-03:00

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 picture of the event.

Selected Material provided by the British Council

2010-05-07T07:37:00.000-03:00

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

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.org.uk/try/activities

Lesson plans

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/lesson-plans/environmental-problems
Related content: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/lesson-plans

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/lesson-plans/how-green-are-you

Related content: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/lesson-plans

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/lesson-plans/save-water
Related content: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/lesson-plans

Teaching children

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/teaching-kids/internet-safety
Related content: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/resources/children

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/teaching-kids/using-learnenglish-kids-whole-class-group-or-individual-work
Related content: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/resources/children

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/teaching-kids/using-videos
Related content: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/resources/children

Does school kill creativity?

2010-04-09T16:08:00.002-03:00

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?

What has happened with cellphones this decade?

2010-04-05T19:56:00.000-03:00

Via: Cell Phones

Trados without Fear I

2010-03-29T16:18:00.010-03:00

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 to Thursday, 5 - 8 p.m.

NOTE: The session is contingent to a minimum enrollment by April 8th, otherwise it will be cancelled and all payments will be refunded.

Current overview of CAT tools

2010-03-25T09:15:00.002-03:00

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 working without at least a CAT tool. The ability to work source and target in a single document and the segmentation that presents you with a single unit at a time for translation are worth the investment in time and money. Segments provided by translation memories can then be reused and even shared with other colleagues!

Several key aspects CAT tools were covered in the presentation, including translation memories, the segmentation of texts, the meaning of new, fuzzy and repeated segments, terminology management, document analysis and alignment. This was followed by a practical demonstration of the above concepts in a SDL Trados environment. The presentation was closed by a brief description of the leading products in the market such as SDL Trados, Wordfast, Déjà Vu, MemoQ, MetaTexis and Across.

I am thankful to the participants in the presentation for their excellent feedback and by their intense interest in the subject, and to IPEI, whose facilities provided a friendly and cozy environment for the event.

Haydée Incicco

haydee@two2tango-translations.com

Don´t miss Haydée's next talk at IPEI on Friday 16th April at 6:30 p.m.!

A Vision of 21st Century Teachers Video

2010-03-14T19:13:00.001-03:00

Comedy Club in La Plata

2010-03-09T09:48:00.011-03:00

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

Reflections of an ICT coordinator

2010-03-07T21:31:00.013-03:00

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 mailing list to be in contact with their students, how to use the calendar and google docs, how to open an e-group and how to chat. Another thing I showed them was how to use word processors, online dictionaries and mailing for writing activities.

Blogs and Wikis

According to the age and level of language, I developed blogs as extra material resource or students worked in a wiki as a collaborative writing space. In these cases, students found it difficult to be so active using Internet tools. Students are sometimes lazy and prefer to depend on their teachers to solve language problems , e.g. to spell a word.

Projects

The ICT area is developing at both schools, we have some projects for 2010. Training courses for teachers to make them feel confident in the use of digital technology, a blog project involving different courses at a pre-intermediate adult level, go on blogging ( See examples HERE) and chat sesssions with sister classes at teenager level.

If you read this post and would like to start a sister class project, contact me to : nelbaq@gmail.com

Creating Colourful Mindmaps Online

2010-02-19T18:13:00.010-03:00

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 as an aid in study and writing.

The elements of a given mind map are arranged intuitively according to the importance of the concepts, and are classified into groupings, branches, or areas, with the goal of representing semantic or other connections between portions of information. Mind maps may also aid recall of existing memories.

There are many mind mapping software available online, but now we are going to describe a free simple application: bubbl.us

• BUBBLES

Each bubble where you can introduce text or link presents different options to choose: You can choose the colour of the bubble, if you want to add a “sibling” or a “child” balloon.

COLOURS

It depends on why you are doing the Mind Map. A quick mini-Mind Map in one colour clears and facilitates the thinking process, but you should bear in mind that information is to be remembered, considered over time, looked at and enjoyed - then colour (one of your cortical skills) GREATLY enhances its effectiveness.

KEY WORDS

In standard notes, a very small percentage of words are really important. These are called key words. They are usually nouns or very strong action words that bring back the precise images and events that you want to remember. You should practice selecting them and see if they are the best ones for recall for you.

SHARE AND WORK WITH FRIENDS

Once you have started your mind map, you can share it with your students or colleagues by clicking on the “sharing” tab and sending them an invitation to their email accounts. You can choose between the “Read Only” or “Full Edit” options. In the first case, they can visualize the mind map, but cannot alter it. Whether in the second, they can visualize and edit it.

EMBED YOUR MIND MAP IN YOUR BLOG OR WEBSITE

This possibility is very interesting if you have a blog or website because you can illustrate your online space or make the ideas you want to express in your post clearer with this tool. You can also save your mind map as an image and use it in a power point presentation or to illustrate any printed material. Here is an example. If you place the cursor on the image and scroll the ball of your mouse the mind map will get bigger or smaller and you can even move it! Try:

British Council Teaching Material for Kids

2010-01-27T10:22:00.003-03:00

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 HERE

Learning a Language in Two Weeks?

2010-01-26T12:01:00.001-03:00

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

2010-01-22T09:44:00.000-03:00

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 their place of residence. (Argentina is quite a big country very different geographic areas)
Offer the teachers the corresponding tools to teach in the knowledge society.
Collaborate in the reduction of the digital gap.
Create networks between the government and the private institutions

Educ.ar Pedagogic Project (2003-2008)

Taking the idea of in a constantly changing world, he who stays in the same place goes back, educ.ar team was conscious of the urgent incorporation of the digital and mass media literacy to education. They considered that TV, Internet and other mass media should be related to school.

Results

To mention some of the achievements, by the end of 2008, educ.ar developed 20 different titles in CD-Rom format, offered e-learning courses, trained 13,000 teachers to use different Web2.0 tools (weblogs, wikis, webquests, forums, podcasts, collaborative tools, etc.), 800 computers were recycled and redistributed .

Nativos Digitales- a book to read

2010-01-15T16:52:00.006-03:00

Last November I had the pleasure of attending a presentation given by Alejandro Piscitelli at Virtual Educa Congress. His presentation, massively attended by specialists on Information and Communication Technology (ICT), was about digital literacy and the Argentine Education system.

It was really moving, sometimes ironic and sarcastic. Alejandro showed some acid humour when he opened his presentation with a slide showing an oven and the phrase “We are in the oven” (1) and continued describing with rich vocabulary the educational system resistance to put the use of ICT into practice.

(1) It stands for the Spanish local colloquial expression “estamos en el horno” which means we are in a really difficult situation.

Piscitelli’s book

Alejandro wrote, among other titles, "Nativos Digitales" (2). Although I had already read quite a lot about the topic in English, I decided to buy his book to know more about his opinion after having heard him at Virtual Educa. Luckily, I was not disappointed at all. I found Piscitelli’s style energetic, powerful, to the point, controversial; it not only gives information and describes conflicts, but also inserts questions to reflect upon. Nativos Digitales is, in fact, two books in one because the author enlarges facts and statements with very complete quotations to support his ideas making the text hypertextual.

(2) “Digital Natives” in English

The prologue was written by Francis Pisani and the text divided into three sections and 12 chapters is absolutely not for newbies due to a lot of technical language and references presented in a frantic rhythm.

Briefly, Section I states the reason why new generations’ (born after 2000) way of learning is different from their elders. Nothing escapes from the author’s attentive eyes which analyze all audiovisual media manifestations from video games, TV series, movies to the net, of course; Section II is really enlightening and challenging when Piscitelli clearly describes the teachers’ skills necessary to be a good professional in the XXI century, and Section III describes how digital technologies have affected society, economy, philosophy, art. Nativos Digitales ends with a complete bibliography referring to material in Spanish as well as in English.

Who is the author?

Alejandro Picsitelli is a university professor who thinks that in a constantly changing world, he who stays in the same place, goes back. Consequently, looking at the future and with the coming of digital technologies, he has become well-experienced in the use of ICT in education. Since 1996, he has been in charge of the course of studies Taller de Procesamiento de Datos, Informática y Telemática (Workshop on Data Processing, Informatics and Telematics) at the School of Social Sciences, University of Buenos Aires, where he and his students work on the Facebook project.

In 2003, he was in charge of the re-launching of educ.ar – the educational portal of the Argentine Nation – which had been 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. Piscitelli considers his experience in educ.ar as the most challenging in his life.

Video to think over

2009-12-28T11:11:00.002-03:00

"A vision of students today" video has been recorded by the Digital Ethnography group of the Kansas University. They also recorded " Web 2.0... The Machine is Us". Enjoy it:

All about Twitter + Handbook for Teachers

2009-12-28T09:07:00.008-03:00

Part Five - A Conversation About Twitter

View more presentations from Fresh Consulting.

How to learn or teach online using a free platform

2009-12-26T14:52:00.008-03:00

It is not easy to find the right time for training teachers in technology. Teachers are usually very busy teaching, marking tests, filling reports, correcting homework or preparing classes. So, Saturday mornings or some evenings are the only possible meeting time, but these are not the most popular times. Teachers – usually women – also have a family, dinners to prepare or children to look after, so virtual meetings may be an interesting possibility to solve this problem.

WIZIQ is a web based education platform powered by teachers who continually improve it in response to its users’ feedback. This collaborative web conferencing environment is amongst the best online teaching solutions in the world, and it integrates the following set of online tools: synchronous (happening at the same time) and asynchronous teaching through virtual classrooms, online tests and a content sharing and messaging system.

Pros: Wiziq is absolutely free of cost for teachers and students; it enables participants to communicate synchronously using audio/video or only audio broadcast or through text chat; all classes are automatically recorded and you can download the recordings; pdf, doc, xls, ppt or flash files can be uploaded easily; teachers are in full control of the environment: they can share the online interactive whiteboard (IWB) with multiple tabs, simple click start and stop functions and full-screen sharing; teachers can allow students to speak or activate their webcam,

and they can also disable the chat to make students concentrate on the class.

Wiziq members can participate in community discussion forums where they get connected with members from around the world, participate in discussions, learn from the experiences shared by other members and/or ask questions and get answers in community discussions. The platform also has an official blog where users can read about its latest updates.

Another interesting resource is the fact that teachers can create tests and students can attempt and get their score. One new feature is that images can be uploaded and included in tests now. Here is the link to an example for testing basic English level: http://www.wiziq.com/online-tests/460-basic-english-test

Seeing that this platform has so many advantages, I decided to try it myself with a group of co-workers (four). I would play the teacher’s role and they, the students. I invited my students via mail a week in advance the virtual class in order to give them time to get registered. This is very simple from Wiziq website http://www.wiziq.com/. Once the user has completed some enrolling steps, one is ready either to give or take a course.

I set a date and then sent an invitation to my “students” with the link to the corresponding virtual classroom. I prepared a class with slides to make it more interesting, but when the date came and I wanted to upload the slides in advance, I realized I made a mistake: I did not book the classroom 10 minutes before the starting time, so I did not have access to it till the exact moment. This fact is important to have in mind to avoid losing time: reserve the classroom some minutes before your class in accordance to the material you are going to use, slides or weblinks, or for other reasons such as socializing or checking audio/video.

Another thing to make it clear in advance is how long the class will be and which netiquette rules you will follow to make the class more organized. Remember you will give a virtual class and in spite you can see your students if they have a webcam, you cannot solve some situations as you do in a face to face class. For example, you can see students are not following or understanding you very well from some face gestures. Working as an online teacher is quite different from working face to face. You are not just doing the same thing using a digital tool. Online classes have their own characteristics (Perhaps this is a topic for another article).

The final thing I would like to recommend is to have a set of headphones – not speakers- and a microphone to get the best kind of communication. The incorporated microphones of a laptops or netbooks seem not to have the best quality for this particular purpose although they may be exceptions, of course.

Summing up, I can say the results of my first experience as a teacher^* were very good. My colleagues did not find much difficulty even though they are not digital experts. We used our webcams and microphones and the platform did not collapse during one hour class, but I must point out that it takes some seconds to change the mic or web permission to students. It is advisable to use mics in turns so as to avoid sound interference. I could uploaded slides and display them very easily and played on the IWB. The platform saved a copy of the class automatically. Wiziq may be considered an inspiring resource for creative teachers and curious students with little time for face to face classes.

* I have used this tool as a moderator in the Social Networking Congress (visit this link http://englishvirtualcommunity.blogspot.com/search/label/socialnetworking ) as well as participant in many online events.

Practise your English at Christmas

2009-12-22T09:19:00.000-03:00

Isn´t this website cute?

2009-12-18T11:25:00.001-03:00

I am taking an online workshop leaded by Nik Peachey and this morning, while I was checking mails coming from my workshopmates, I came across this Web 2.0 tool which looks a really interesting storymaker called StoryBird

StoryBird is really simple and speedy. You must get registered (it takes a couple of minutes), and after exploring it in a few seconds, you can start writing. The artwork available is great. Have a look and tell me your opinion in comments :-)

Storybird Quick Tour from Storybird on Vimeo.

If you are fond of children's literacy and literature, you cannot miss this blog:

Do you like this PC?

2009-12-16T11:48:00.000-03:00

While I was twittering this morning, I came across a video about a very interesting computer. I am planning to include it in my letter to Santa :)

An example of Augmented reality: "Sixth Sense"

2009-12-15T20:28:00.005-03:00

If you are reading this post, you must be fond of technology. If you are fond of technology, I guess you must be interested in science fiction. Aren´t you? I am. I loved reading Bradbury or Issac Assimov or watching Star Wars and Matrix saga as well as AI (Artificial Intelligence), not only for their special effects but because I like having a look at a possible future.

Years ago, the gap between science fiction and real technological achievements was quite big, but this gap seems to get smaller and smaller. The speed at which technological advances are taking place is really amazing: in 2004, we were talking about Web 2 as something incredible and today we are talking about Web 4: augmented reality, mirror worlds, virtual worlds and lifelogging.

The issue of this post is a mixture of movies and TIC. Do you remember the movie "Minority Report" starred by Tom Cruise? Do you remember Tom Cruise using a computer by clicking on the air? Well, at TEDIndia, Pranav Mistry demostrated several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data - including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper "laptop."

Pranav Mistry is the inventor of SixthSense, a wearable device that enables new interactions between the real world and the world of data. Doesn´t it remind you of "Minority Report" movie?

Enjoy it! Oh, by the way, please don´t keep your mouth open in astonishmet for a long time, a fly can get into it and flies don´t taste nice :D

Virtual Educa 2009 in Buenos Aires (better late than never)

2009-12-04T13:13:00.003-03:00

VIRTUAL EDUCA 2009 : What are teachers doing with technology in Latin America?

At the XIV Iberoamerican Summit of Heads of State and Government (San Jose, Costa Rica, November 18th-20th, 2004) approved the assignment of PROGRAM FOR VIRTUAL EDUCA Iberoamerican Summit. San Jose Declaration, signed by the Heads of State and Government of the twenty Latin American countries, states in clause 36: "We warmly welcome the inclusion as a project officer from Ibero-American Summit Virtual Education Program, an initiative that exemplifies the relevance strengthen the distance education and the use of new communication and information technologies in our region".

Virtual Educa is a converging space for the exchange of experiences and the implementation of projects linked to the Society of Knowledge. It organizes international annual forums, and in November 2009 it took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The hosting university, UCA, which is situated in a very beautiful and fashionable place, organized the event very well.

I attended it with great expectation because educational institutions and specialists from all Latin America were gathering there and some online friends (Pablo Bongiovani, Dolors Reig) . Most participants were well equipped with their laptops, netbooks or smart phones which they used for blogging, taking notes or communicating with colleagues via Twitter.

(Pablo Bongiovani and me)

As Information and Communication Technology (ICT) manager of the a school of languages, I was anxious to share my experience in the forums and learn about the latest ed tech trends in a workshop I was enrolled.

The congress started with workshops on different topics. I attended the workshop about “Metaverse” - a complete new word for me- given by Ruth Martínez . Although metaverse was coined by Neal Stephenson (1992), it is used to refer to the four dimensions of virtuality: Augmented reality (AR), Lifelogging, Mirror Worlds and Virtual Worlds.

Augmented reality refers to all the gadgets used in the classroom to expand the real world, i.e. an interactive whiteboard. The goal of lifelogging is to share with your contacts what you consider important: photos, websites, music (Flicker, Twitter). A mirror world is a virtual replica of the real world along multiple dimensions (Google maps). A virtual world consists of a virtual environment where people can interact and socialize via avatars. The most popular one is Second Life.

On the following three days, different universities (UNED, UOC, Monterrey University) showed how they organized their online graduate and postgraduate courses. All of them pointed out the importance of articulating and managing the three basic areas involved in online projects: technological area, educational area and material designing area. They also noted the fundamental role of tutors in online courses. Collaborative work is also significant. Learning will be possible if there is 50% of dedication on the part of the students and 50% of the tutor’s work.

I am quite familiar about using technology in language learning, but Virtual Educa gave me a clear idea of how Spanish speaking countries are incorporating digital technology in the curricula of different educational proposals. I really enjoyed the event and now, I am looking forward to attend Virtual Educa 2010 in Santo Domingo.

Webliography:

About Life logging http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2007/02/lifelogging_an.php [Nov.,2009]

About Mirror Worlds http://emergic.org/2009/05/26/mirror-world/ [Nov.,2009]

About Augmented reality http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/augmented_reality_heres_our_wishlist_of_apps_whats.php

Graham Stanley was present in VI Education Session

2009-12-01T17:12:00.001-03:00

Graham Stanley spoke about the educational use of Twitter via Wiziq. We had some technological problems, but fortunately Miguel Mendoza (Venezuela) helped me online.
Thank you, Mike!!!

The session was a completely new experience for the audience - around 25 teachers of different languages - who were not very much familiar with the use of Web 2.0 tools.

Here is a link to Graham's presentation. Enjoy it:

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sesion de Graham by Nelba Quintana

Get your own Virtual Classroom

Material for Teaching Children provided by the British Council

2009-11-26T17:24:00.002-03:00

In the story "Circus Escape" an elephant escapes from the circus and runs off into town. The elephant meets Billy and saves him from a fire. The story is aimed at learners who already have a basic knowledge of English, and practises narrative tenses in a story context. Circus Escape is an online flash-animated story for young learners on the British Council's site for young learners LearnEnglish Kids.

In the classroom there are many ways of exploiting activities to help children practise their English whilst developing their creativity and imagination by writing poems, stories, reviews, etc. You can find them HERE

5 Free Online Resources for Young English Language Learners

2009-11-19T09:23:00.001-03:00

Learning a new language can be a fun and exciting experience, especially for younger children. The key is to keep them interested in what they are learning. Fortunately, the Internet provides many free games, flashcards, songs, books, and other resources that can entertain, engage, and educate young English language learners. Here are 15 resources worth exploring:

ESL-Kids.com provides worksheets, flashcards, games, and songs that children can use to learn English. The site also features an In Class section that demonstrates how to use these resources.
Starfall With this fun interactive English game site, beginning students can practice their ABCs and reading. Starfall is primarily for first grade children but works well for pre-K to second graders.
BarryFunEnglish is an elementary student English learning site. Through this site, you will find worksheets, games, vocabulary builders, flashcards, listening and PowerPoint presentations. The PowerPoint presentations offer a fun, interactive way to practice vocabulary. Students should get registered to have access to the activities.
Wacky Web Tales website offers younger learners silly fill-in-the-blank stories that are designed to teach young learners about sentence structure and grammar.
The International Children’s Digital Library features a huge online collection of books for children. and teenagers learning ESL. The library allows you to read books in English that pertain to different cultures. The books are easily searched through illustrated buttons or text. The website may be also used to understand how an online library is organized. Use your creativity to explote this site!

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online degree programs for OnlineDegreePrograms.org.

Social Networking has finished or has just started?

2009-11-12T08:32:00.003-03:00

Last Sunday, Social Networking Congress 2009 finished its first session with great success. Abotu 699 participants from all over the world met on line to listen to ICT specialists and participate in MOODLE forums.

The organizing team worked hard and as a testimony of this work you can have all the information about what happened in this event in a MOODLE platform, forums where to interchange knowledge and experience, and a blog. If you were not able to attend the sessions, do not worry. The videoconferences were recorded and and available at http://avealmec.blogspot.com/

Personally, I was very pleased working with so good professionals and warm people. I learned a lot about how to organize and moderate an online event. I hope ARCALL and AVEALMEC will continue working together in projects like this one.

Social Networking Congress 2009

2009-11-05T19:55:00.038-03:00

Yesterday Social Networking Congress started with enthusiasm and a very good response from the audience. Around 40 people per session attended the 4 videoconferences the very first day. The speakers were Nicky Hockly, Riza Zinstejer, Paula Ledesma, George Simens and Carla Arena.

I would like to point out the energy moderators have and excellent work they did. Evelyn Izquierdo (Venezuela) moderated all sessions!!!!

Today, Friday 6th November at 18.30 GMT , Vance Stevens' presentation will take place. It is titled "Modeling Social Media in Groups, Communities and Networks". I will have the pleasure to introduce him. Vance is Webhead's creator and inspiration of many teachers around the world. Thanks to his dedication and support ARCALL was created. Don´t miss it!!!

Abstract of the Session: Modelling Social Media in Groups, Communities and Networks

This presentation intertwines two threads:

(1) an examination of social networking as practiced distinctly in groups, communities, and networks.

Drawing from experience coordinating a teachers' community of practice for the past decade, I will illustrate the evolution of what was initially a group into a community of practice, and how social media enables one CoP to interact with others to become part of a distributed learning network.

and

(2) the notion that teachers must be trained not only IN the use of social media, but THROUGH its use.

Recidivism is a problem in technology training for education; teachers can be shown how to use social media, but unless they use it themselves they unlikely to change their practices. There is evidence that teachers trained in programs where their instructors used social media (modelled it) are more comfortable with technology than when their instructors did not themselves use these tools. This presentation suggests how teachers can interact with numerous communities of practice and distributed learning networks where other participants are modelling to and learning from one another optimal ways of using social media in teaching.

Last modified: Friday, 6 November 2009,Taken from:
http://avealmec.org.ve/moodle/mod/resource/index.php?id=4

ARCALL first Online Congress

2009-11-01T12:14:00.005-03:00

After nearly two months of work , ARCALL is proud to announce the opening of its first online Congress together with AVEALMEC.

The organizing team has worked very hard: preparing the material, website, MOODLE platform content, WiziQ sessions.

Today the forums have been opened. I will be moderating the forum about Commuties of Practice together with my dearest friend and colleague Evelyn Izquierdo.

I hope you will enjoy the experience.

Very Interesting Online Material for October

2009-10-18T20:38:00.007-03:00

My birthday is on Oct 24th. I have always considered that date important... not only because it is my birthday but also because it is the anniversary of the United Nations.

But now I have another reason to celebrate:350

What is 350?

350.org is an international campaign dedicated to building a movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis--the solutions that science and justice demand. Their mission is to inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis.

The website is translated into different languages, so it may be a very interesting source of inspiration to develop a lesson plan to make our students work with the net.

Let's share: If you read this post and make a lesson plan using 350.org website, you are invited to send it to me by mail. I will upload it here.

Social Networking 2009 Conference

2009-10-01T15:20:00.005-03:00

I am delighted to inform you that from November 5-8, 2009, ARCALL and AVEALMEC will be running the Social Networking 2009 Conference.

This open-knowledge event will be completely online and free and it is aimed at elluminating ELT practitioners to grow in the use of social networks as learning development tools.This event is being jointly organized by ARCALL and AVEALMEC , two Latin-American associations, one based in Venezuela and the other in Argentina, interested in promoting the use of ICT in the language classroom.

For this event, we invited conference speakers from different parts of the world:

George Siemens -Canada
Etienne Wenger -US
Vance Stevens -UAE
Nik Peachey -UK
Charalambos Vrasidas and Maria Solomou -Cyprus
Nicky Hockly -Spain
Erika Cruvinel and Ronaldo Lima –Brazil
Rita Zeinstejer and Paula Ledesma -Argentina
Nellie Müller Deustch –Israel
Carla Arena –Brazil
Graham Stanley –Spain
Jennifer Verschoor, Evelyn Izquierdo and Erica Cruvinel –Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil

During four days, our guest speakers will be sharing their experiences and expertise with participants and will help us grasp a better picture of how social networks can be used in the language teaching and learning field. We will be discussing about the concepts and theories around social networks, communities of practice and the Web 2.0, as well as about the use, advantages and drawbacks of social networking tools.Join us and participate in this amazing learning experience! http://avealmec.org.ve/

Spread the word! Let´s get socially connected!

E-greetings from,

The Social Networking 2009 Team

ARCALL: Jennifer Verschoor,Nelba Quintana,Carla Raguseo

AVEALMEC: Teadira Pérez, Miguel Mendoza, Elvina Castillo, Evelyn Izquierdo, Nahir Aparicio, Maricarmen Gamero

Teaching activities provided by the British Council

2009-09-25T23:09:00.009-03:00

I am very happy to announce a new set of

material provided by the British Council:

Teaching children

1) "Circus escape" is an online flash-animated story for young learners about an elephant which escapes from the circus and runs off into town.

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/teaching-kids/circus-escape

2) There are many activities on the British Council’s site for young learners which you can use with your learners to help them develop their writing skills. They range from writing poems, making stories, reading and sending book and film reviews and sending ecards to family and friends.

On this page you will find tips for using and exploiting the activities in the classroom: Play with Poems, Story Maker,Write a review and Send an ecard

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/teaching-kids/get-writing

3) Superheroes is an exciting topic for young learners. On this page you will find tips for using and exploiting the materials in the classroom including an extremely motivating interactive game called "Style a Hero"!

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/teaching-kids/superheroes

Do you like music?

2009-09-17T10:13:00.008-03:00

I was scrolling Twitter messages when I came across "Inudge" . I studied piano at a School of Arts and used to be a teacher of music at a kindergarten level. I love music, so I was curious about this widget. Listen to what I compose by clicking on the play button. Do you like it?

What is Inudge?

It is a virtual-instrument widget designed for self-expressive online music making & sharing. It’s fun and simple to use and you don’t need to know a single thing about producing music to make your own individual songs in minutes!

How to publish your work on line

2009-09-16T10:40:00.010-03:00

If you are looking for an online publisher, try http://issuu.com/ where you can explore a world of publications by people and publishers alike. You can also collect, share and publish in a format designed to make your documents look their very best. Issuu is a popular destination for quality publications on the web. We can give your readers the possibility of reading your previews or entire archives.

Read more in an article written by me at Lost in Technology

Edublogs: Join The Student Blogging Challenge

2009-09-09T23:03:00.007-03:00

This weekEdublogs has got some goodies for you - a student blogging challenge and the chance to win one of 16 free Edublogs Supporter accounts!!!! And one for the teachers...

About the Student Blogging

Challenge Edublogs's last blogging challenge had over 1000 students, from 15 countries, aged 6 to 18 years old, writing posts, commenting and getting to know about each others cultures while improving their blogging skills and connecting to a global audience.The growth of the students’ blogging skills during each challenge is totally amazing and inspiring; check out these examples of student work.

Challenge Categories

This time the Challenge Categories have been expanded into two separate categories; both designed to improved student skills.Students (or classes) can choose to participate in either or both:

Better Bloggers Challenge – emphasis on better blogging, improving your blog design and connecting to a global audience

Better Commenter Challenge – focusing how you write comments, whether you are trying to continue conversations through comments and how to write posts that invite lots of comments.

The reason why Edublogs has added the comment challenge is an important part of blogging. It’s often where most learning happens. Unfortunately educating students on effective commenting practices is hard. They hope to change this while also providing new tasks for students who’ve participated in previous challenges.

Want to know more? click on this LINK

Free Hi-Tech Language Learning Tools

2009-09-04T22:24:00.024-03:00

This is the second part of the post written by Karen Schweitzer who kindly offered herself to contribute to this blog.

Thank you, Karen for this contribution!!!

MIT Open CourseWare - The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) offers dozens of free foreign language and literature courses through their OpenCourseWare site. All of the courses are self-paced. Many include audio, video, lecture notes, assignments, reading lists, exams, and other downloadable study materials.

Cramberry - Cramberry offers many hi-tech web-based flashcards for English language learners. Users can also create their own flashcards and track online progress.

Popling - Popling is a way for language learners to learn without actively studying. This desktop app pops flashcards onto a computer screen at regular intervals so that users can learn new English vocabulary words while completing other computer tasks.

Visual ESL - VisualESL.com provides a wide range of interactive video activities for English language learners. Activities are available for learners at every level.

Scriblink - This free online whiteboard works well for learners who want to collaborate online. The board is completely private and only open to those who are invited. Features include built-in chat, VOIP conferencing, an image uploader, and a wide range of dynamic tools.

Audacity - Audacity is free software that can be used to record and edit sound. This open source product is perfect for language learners who want to create audio study materials.

Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online colleges for OnlineColleges.net

Blog Day Event

2009-08-29T09:58:00.002-03:00

To see more information about this event in Spanish, click on:

http://www.diadelblog.com/

Nik Peachey speaking about Web 2.0 for EFL

2009-08-25T10:25:00.005-03:00

Nik Peachey is a freelance learning technology consultant, writer and teacher trainer. He specialises in learning technology and social media for language development and teacher training. He was here in Argentina last January as a coordinator and teacher trainer for Hornby School (More about the event in this blog? Click HERE)

We can see and listen to him in a YouTube video speaking about Web 2.0 for EFL.
The following is a recording of a presentation he prepared for teacher trainers in Morocco.
Enjoy it.

Are Social Networks Dangerous? Part II

2009-08-14T22:29:00.011-03:00

After having uploaded "Are Social networks Dangerous? Part I, I started looking for further information about the attack to the use of social networkings such as Facebook, Hi5, Myspace, Sonico, etc. carried out by Televisa. The funniest thing is that Televisa did not mention their own social network, called Gyggs and that J.L. Dórigo has an account in Facebook!

Articles in Spanish related to the topic:
· http://www.periodismodeverdad.com.ar/2008/10/29/la-verdad-sobre-facebook-hi5-myspace-sonico-etc-etc/
· http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/533846.html
· http://cyberholocausto.blogspot.com/2008/08/lopez-doriga-un-peligro-hi5-facebook-y.html
· http://lapoliticamexicana.blogspot.com/2008/08/lpez-driga-quiere-que-cierre-mi.html

Then I asked some collegues who are ICT specialists for their opinions. Most of them agree on the necessity of using Facebook because it is a popular tool, specially among young people:

“I have avoided FB for a long time but this has become almost impossible. If I want to stay in touch with my younger family members and relatives, FB seems to be the best way. They don't read email..."

Although they like the way Facebook keeps them in touch with friends, family and/or students, they insist on the fact that, as with every online application, caution should be used when using social media sites.

"Anytime anyone invites me to take a quiz or send a gift or plant a flower or whatever--zap! I block it."

Here is a website which tells you about 10 privacy settings you can use to use Facebookmore safely: http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/02/facebook-privacy

I will be posting more about the use Facebook soon from the Net generation point of view. And what about you? Do you have a Facebook account? What for?

15 Free Hi-Tech Language Learning Tools by

2009-08-13T09:05:00.010-03:00

This post was written by Karen Schweitzer who kindly offered herself to contribute to this blog. Karen Schweitzer, Business School Guide for About.com, writes about online colleges for OnlineColleges.net. Thank you, Karen for this contribution!!!

"Incorporating hi-tech learning aids and applications into a study regimen can sometimes make it easier for language learners to learn and retain new information.

You can order many of these products for a cost from catalogs or from companies who provide such services. You can also find free options online. Most of the free options work just as well as the paid options and can be used indefinitely without incurring any costs.

This list provides information about 5 free online tools that can be used for language learning. ( I will be including more online tools suggested by Karen in future posts, don´t miss them ) :

1- FreeRice - Language learners can give free rice to hungry people by playing this English vocabulary game from the UN Food Program. For every multiple choice vocabulary question that's answered correctly the UN donates ten grains of rice to hungry people.

2- RIA - The Center for Language Education And Research at Michigan State University provides many free rich Internet applications (RIA) for language learners. The applications can be used to record, upload, mix, and broadcast audio.

3- Palabea - Palabea is a social language learning network where learners can chat with native speakers and improve their writing and grammar skills with hi-tech online tools.

4- SharedTalk - SharedTalk is a language exchange network that provides free web tools for language learning. Members of this free community can find language partners, voice chat, and text chat online.

5- MyHappyPlanet - MyHappyPlanet was created for language learners who want to connect with other learners and make friends online. Users can take free lessons online and find language partners all over the world.

Are Social Networks dangerous? Part I

2009-08-09T10:57:00.004-03:00

Some days ago I got a mail pointing out the dangers of networks. The mail quoted the attack to the use of social networks such as Facebook, Hi5, Myspace, Sonico, etc. carried out by Televisa.

Televisa said that social networks are not safe because they provide information to kidnappers. The Mexican journalist Joaquín López Dórigo criticized the security measures of social networks due to the kinapping of an important businessman’s daughter. A video about facebook came to the e-mail I mentioned before which I found really scary.

What are Nettops?

2009-07-30T16:20:00.012-03:00

Computers are constantly changing. We can find a wide variety of sizes, colours and utilities in the market. After the success of the ultra-portable netbooks the nettops arrive!

What are "nettops"? They are desktop PCs with small cabinets, modest performance and low costs, that seek to revitalize the segment of desk equipments. The idea is to offer it to those who are neither gamers nor video editors or people who need to do any other task which require a powerful processor.

The tiny cabinets directly integrated to the monitor are the attraction, besides they are ultra-silent spend less electricity and require less cooling.

Are you thinking in getting one? They are already available here in La Plata, Argentina. Local shops are offering MSI nettops for about u$s700.-

Online Resources Provided by Publishers

2009-07-06T12:17:00.015-03:00

Last Saturday June 27th I attended a seminar about How to Assess Young Learners carried out by Prof. Analía Caldiz (MA Discourse Analysis, ICAB staff member) at Instituto Terrero.

On this ocassion I had the opportunity to meet the representatives of three important publishers: Ticiana Neder (Longman), Carolina Coppa (Oxford), Mabel Manzano and Fabián García ( Richmond). I asked these representatives for online interactive material.

Longman offers a four module course called Teacher Development Interactive which provides professional development and an internationally recognised certification from Hunter College, City University of New York. Jeremy Harmer is one of the facilitators ; an internationally hosted online learning and assessment system for English courses designed to go hand in hand with Longman’s texbook series; iTests, and dictionary widgets which you can add to your blog.

Among Richmond Publishing brochures, I got the one belonging to the “New Framework” book series. Ben Goldstein – teacher at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Barcelona- is the main author of Framework. Students as well as teachers can visit a website http://www.webframework.net/ where there are web activities for sudents and extra support for teachers.

Finally, Oxford has a very complete website at www.oup.com/elt with a very intersting link for Students. If websurfers click on “Go to Students Sites” (on the left column of your screen- pink link) , all Oxford text books appear with links to online self check activities classified not only according to the text book but also to the different units of each book. Oxford also offers Online Practice Tests to prepare students for their English exam with online practice tests at: http://www.oxfordenglishtesting.com/ Click on "Read More" on the paragraph titled Online exam practice tests, a new window will appear with Practice tests and Placement test

Fantastic!

Top 100 Language Blogs 2009 nominated this blog

2009-07-01T13:22:00.012-03:00

The Top 100 Language Blogs 2009 is the largest language blog competition and is hosted annually by bab.la and Lexiophiles. It is aimed at finding the best blogs related to languages and awarding language-loving bloggers. This year there were 473 nominated blogs from 26 different countries in four categories.

I am very happy to announce that this blog has been nominated for the "Top 100 Language Blogs 2009" competition!!!

Due to the amount of blogs they have created categories. (Language Learning/Language Teaching/Language Technology/ Language Professionals) English Virtual Community blog is in category Language Technology.

Voting will start on July 8 and close on July 27 . Winners will be announced on July 30.

Thank you very much for this nomination! It means I am doing things well.

Thanks to all who have inspired me these years and who follow this blog :-)

My experience as an ICT coordinator PART ONE

2009-06-20T09:37:00.006-03:00

At present I am working as ICT coordinator. I am supposed to help teachers using Web 2.0 tools in their ESL (English as a Second Language) classes and it is not an easy task! I have to deal with two problems:

1- Students are already motivated to use digital technologies because they belong to the "thumb" or "digital" generation, but they think they are only going to play intereactive games at the computing lab. In Argentina, Digital natives associate Internet with having fun: chatting with friends and playing interactive games since the school has not incorporated computers and the Internet as a learning tool, so I have to make them realise that we are going to work and practise the Second Language (SL) - English in this case- using computers.

2-On the other hand, teachers are still "digital immigrants" and they are , in a way, reluctant to include computing and Internet in their classes. :-( Some of them are completely technophobes and others are a bit interested but they do not have a clear idea how to use Web 2.0 tools and are "tied" to ready made material Cd-ROM.

I am facing two different situations, let's see how I will cope with them. If you read this article, please leave a comment about the situation in your place.

P.S. Don´t miss the comments made to this post by experts from different countries!

II Session at Profesorado ISFD 97

2009-06-13T09:45:00.010-03:00

Yesterday the II Session about ICT organized by Prof. Patricia Guzmán took place at Profesorado ISFD 97 in La Plata (57St between 8 and 9). This time most of the participants (mostly students) have certain knowlege of the Internet and its tools, so there was more interaction between the audience and me - more questions- since they are already using some Web 2.0 tools.

This time I spoke about Collaborative Learning and gave ideas about how to use Google docs ( documents, spread sheets and presentations) and blogs in our professional life and classes.

We had the pleasure of having Ticiana Neder, Pearson Education S.A. Representative SGBA among the audience. She brought interesting educational material and fantastic presents for the audience. One of the books Ticiana gave to participants was How to Teach English with Technology by Gavin Dudeney which I do recommend for all those who want to learn about the topic. I was given a Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture! Thanks , Ticiana and Pearson for your presence and the valuable gifts you gave us.

Unfortunatelly I did not take my camera to take pictures of the event and upload them in this post. I will next time Wed June 24th : The topics will be Social Networking, Twitter, Facebook, Ning and bookmarking.

Recommended BLOG: http://isfd97ingles.blogspot.com/

The Thumb Generation

2009-06-03T10:56:00.003-03:00

Teenagers are called the thumb generation. Guess why? because they are typing text messages on their mobile phones most of their time.
Multitasking is nother characteristic of digital natives. Do you want to read more about this?
Read this interesting article by clicking on : http://ow.ly/aOuQ

Guide to Setting Up an Ergonomic Computer Station

2009-06-03T10:53:00.004-03:00

Have a look at this link if you are planning to set up your computer station properly.
http://ergonomics.about.com/od/office/ss/computer_setup.htm

A Congress on ICT applied to Language Learning in Cordoba city

2009-05-29T15:47:00.015-03:00

I was in Córdoba city (Argentina) on May 27th, 28th and 29th because the local university organized a 3-day-Congress on ICT applied to Language Learning. Teachers from different parts of the country attended the event.

The papers were about different topics: use of blogs and forums, webquests, Collaborative Learning, Moodle platform, distance learning, moodle platforms.

I found particularly interesting 6-hour-workshop about "How to introduce teachers to the use of ICT in their classrooms" given by Mgtr. Víctor Sajoza Juric who gave us some useful guidance about this issue.

Now let me tell you about my experience in the city. I had the fortune to be in Córdoba on "El Cordobazo" (See more info in Wikipedia) anniversary. The city seemed to vibrate at the rhytm of the drums played by the workers who marched along streets carrying Argentinian flags in the memory of their lost co-workers who died or suffered persecussion during the military dictatorship.

Some teachers and I also took a short tour to the Jesuits circuit. The Jesuits were one of the first congregations who arrived to Argetnina in colonial times. They were very organized and tried to convert natives into catholicism peacefully. They built the very first university and a national school. Cordoba University was the third one opened in South America after the Mexican and Peruvian ones. It is even older than Harvard University. Unfortunatelly, the Jesuits were considered revolutionary by the King and the Pope, and were expulsed from these lands (More info in Spanish: http://www.vallepunilla.com.ar/jesuitas/) The Jesuit block has been declared World Heritage by the UNESCO.

See photos below. If you put the cursor on a photo (don´t click), you will get its caption ;-)

Feel free to leave a comment.

BubbleShare: Share photos - Find great Clip Art Images.

II Sessions on Distance Education at UNLP

2009-05-22T17:30:00.011-03:00

On May 20th and 21st, the Second Session on Distance Education took place at the National University of La Plata (See photo).

University teachers from different colleges gathered at the Rectorado building to interchange their experiences using ICTs.

On June 20th, the first session I attended was the one about intellectual rights on the Internet. The speaker was María Clara Lima. The topic was obviously very, very interesting.

That same afternoon my colleague from the School of Languages, Silvia Enriquez, described her experience using blogs in the course "Language III" in the English and Translation language course. Silvia Enriquez and I had the pleasure to talk and share our enthusiasm for ICT tools with Alicia Tedesco

I spoke about my experience with the Writingmatrix Project and the experience of using blogs as supporting material for the English Intermediate courses of adults and teens.

On the second day, the speaker in the pleanary session was Mg. débora Scheider ( UBA/Virtual University of Quilmes) who presented a number of topics to reflect upon such as the competencies required to be a successful online tutor, how much time a teacher is supposed to devote to an online class, what kind of the interaction is ideal for an online course, etc.

Most participants were very pleased with these sessions and all ask the organizers - Alejandra Zangara and Alejandro Gonzalez, among others- to repeat the experience next year.

Teacher Training Course at ESCUELA NORMAL SUPERIOR N°3 "ALMAFUERTE"-

2009-05-19T09:47:00.003-03:00

Yesterday I started a three session teacher training course at Escuela Normal Superior N°3 "Almafuerte"- ISFD 97_Profesorado de Inglés organized by Prof. Patricia Guzmán - Head of the English Area of the Englsih Courses at Escuela Normal Superior N°3 .

I had the pleasure to have as participants some colleagues of mine such as : Prof. Anahí Cuestas (Escuela de Lenguas Coordinator of the English area), Prof. Silvana Barboni (teacher at Profesorado de Inglés) and Prof. Silvana Fernández (Literature specialist and teacher at ICAB)

The session started with an introduction to ICT (Information and Communication Techonologies). Then we started exploring Google tools : mail , chat and calendar.

The audience consisted of digital immigrants with different levels of computer literacy. Some of them were curious about what blogs and wikis are, and the advantages of having an account in Facebook.

Next sessions will be on June 2nd and 12th.

Teaching English Material provided by the British Council

2009-05-07T07:22:00.010-03:00

I have the pleasure to announce that The British Council has offered me to publish their material in this blog. I hope it will be useful for your classes.

Interactive Whiteboards

2009-05-03T10:20:00.011-03:00

"All that glitters is not gold" may be applied to Interactive Whiteboards (IWB).

Today, I have read an article by Gavin Dudeney which has arisen a debate on IWB. Gavin is not very enthusiastic about this tool ;however, below his post (click HERE) there are some other experts' opinions - Graham Stanley's, among others - who are not so pessimistic and mention the point that "Training is indeed the key to using the IWB".

The big danger using IWB is using this kind of tool only to show Youtube clips (a bit like buying a Jaguar just to take a trip to the corner shop).

Personally , I completely agree with Graham. If schools want to incorporate new technology to language classes, teacher training is essential. Oh, but the teacher trainning should be given by an experienced teacher, not the IWB maker.

Career Strategies Congress

2009-04-28T22:48:00.008-03:00

The III National Conference for Teachers of English was held in Concepción del Uruguay from April 22nd to 25th. Teachers from different provinces (Tucumán, Corrientes, Formosa, among others) attended to different presentations at the new local auditorium. The event was fantastically organized by Ma. Laura Perrotta and Roxana Embon.

I met Gustavo Gonzalez - vice president of APIBA (Asociación de Profesores de Inglés de Buenos Aires) and vice president of FAAPI (Federación Argentina de Asociaciones de Profesores de Inglés) - who delighted the audience with his energy, videos, music and magic - yes, he performed some magic tricks.

I also met Fabiana Parano (photo) who spoke about how to tell a story in L2 and performed "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe.

I also spoke with Mady Casco about her material concerned with the first episode of the TV, her series "LOST" and her experience as teacher trainer.

I spoke about Worldcall 2008, presented ARCALL and spoke about mobile learning.

The final raffle was amazing. I think everybody got a present from the different sponsors even a training course in England and another in South Africa. Can´t miss this event next year!

LAN Parties

2009-04-02T23:21:00.006-03:00

I went to a Design Exhibition in Buenos Aires last weekend and bought a magazine where I found an interesting article about LAN parties.

What is a LAN party? It is a temporary gathering of people together with their computers, which they network together. These local area networks (LANs) come in various sizes, from very small (two people) to very large (more than 10,000 people.

The Sweedish DreamHack Winter 2006 entered the guinness book of records because it was the biggest in the world : 10,638 laptops connected to the Net.

According to the sociologist, Ana Wortman, Professor at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) :"We can compare LAN Parties with a congress held by technology fans."

LAN Parties may have different aims. Some are organized by companies and have economic aims; however, others are held just for the fun of sharing with friends. The latter ones may be held in a garage or a house.

Some of the biggest events are Campus Party ( Valencia, Bogotá and San Pablo), Assembly Demo Party (Finland) LAN.Co (Colombia).

There was a LAN Party 2008 in Montevideo, Uruguay in May 2008. In Argentina there was one called Maximo LAN in Centro Costa Salguero last year.

More about LAN Parties. Click HERE