English Virtual Community

  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...

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 t...

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

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...

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

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...

Part Five - A Conversation About Twitter View more presentations from Fresh Consulting .

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 ...

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 :) 

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: div style="width:481px;"> sesion de Graham by Nelba Quintana Get your own Virtual Classroom

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...

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 comment...

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 langu...

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 F...

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 s...