English Virtual Community

Though the technology has been around for more than two decades (IWB  was released in 1991), its use has only grown exponentially over the past few years. Fundamentally, an IWB combines a dry erase whiteboard with an LCD projector and is usually mounted on a wall or floor stand. Powered by easy-to-use software, the whiteboard becomes a computer screen viewable by an entire classroom.   The projector projects the content from a onto the surface of the board while the teacher controls the content either with a pointer or a touch of the hand instead of a keyboard and mouse. The combination of software with the projector results in much more than simply a projected image. An interactive whiteboard can be a cost saver as this technology demonstrates how one computer can provide learning stimuli for a whole classroom. This is more cost effective than equipping an entire IT room, or every student with a laptop. Examples of the features available when using an inte...

  View more presentations from Escuela de Lenguas UNLP Ana Marías post: Presentation in La Plata 

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 differ...

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 ...

Edutopia Back to School Guide 2010 Text Version

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

" 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 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: http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/01/03/popplet-looks-like-a-winner-its-wallwisher-on-steroids/ http://2sparkley.edublogs.org/2011/01/05/popplet/

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

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

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

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

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! 

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

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

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

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