Wordsift!

Hello my fellow readers out there!

Have you ever heard about Wordsift?
Let me tell you about it.

What is it?
Wordsift is a useful website to help primarily English language learners and also other language learners to learn vocabulary in an easy way.
It can also be referred to as 'word clouds'! Do you want to know why? Let's see this image below:

So, it looks like clouds of words, isn't it?

Basically, by using Wordsift, users may sort the words into several options provided, which are, 'common to rare',  'rare to common', 'A to Z', and 'Z to A'. 
The most frequent words appear in the text will appear bigger in wordsift while the smallest word is the less frequent word. 

Advantages:
1. Readers can guess the content of the text by knowing the most frequent word appears in the text.
2. By searching the meaning of the vocabulary (words appeared), it is easier for the students to comprehend the text later.
3. Once they click the word, the Visual Thesaurus will show other words that are related to the word searched, including the synonyms and antonyms.

How can we use it in class?
1. As a pre-reading activity
-Before they proceed to reading, students have to use wordsift to get the most frequent words of the text.
-Then, they have to find the meaning of difficult words.
-They are also required to try to guess the content of the text.

2. Make a summary
-It really helps students in their summary if they know the right keypoints used in the text.

Disadvantages:

1. The word clouds cannot be printed
2. The images from Google page may not be filtered, thus teachers have no control
3. The layout cannot be edited. 

Zimmer Zimmer Zimmertwins!

Hello fellow readers.

I have an interesting website that I want to show you today, which is Zimmertwins!

What is it?

Zimmertwins is a website that allows users to create movie clips on their own. As you can see from the website itself, it is very colourful and fun as it is specially designed for children to create and tell their stories in a creative way. It is easy peasy lemon squeezy! Thus it suits children, beginners in ICT and also all users from different age. 

See how interesting is the picture above?

How to use it?

1. First, go to Zimmertwins website. 

2. You can either register or starts to create the movie right away. 

3. In order to save the movie you made, you need to register for an account (once you have finished creating your own movie). 

3. To start the process of creating a movie, choose to make movie from scratch. 

4. Then, you will find four different icons on the right side of the screen which are a bubble, a running man, a smiley as well as a star. Bubble icon represents scenes that involve conversations. Words can be inserted inside the bubble. A running man shows options of action, a smiley shows emotion and a star is for extras stuffs that you can add in your movie.

5. As simple as that,now you can start creating your movie! 

Example of a classroom activity:

Teachers can discuss with their students in deciding the theme for their movies. After a theme is selected, it is better to let the students work in pairs. By working in pairs, they can discuss and develop their ideas together. Communication also takes place through their discussion in creating the best production (movie). Besides, another activity is by adapting the movie from a literature material. For instance, from a novel, students have to choose one plot and create a short movie using Zimmertwins. 

Advantages:

1. Encourages multiple intelligence

2. Develop creative imagination and story telling skills

3. Improve the right use of spoken language through dialogues and also writing skills

4. Develop a sense of ownership in students

Disadvantages:

1. Limited characters given in the options

2. No voice for the characters

3. Requires registration to save the movie

Exploring the new 'Facebook'!

Hi everyone!

It has been a while I haven't post a new entry for this blog. Quite busy with life and assignment. However, as my readers, today you can consider yourself lucky because I want to share something about EDMODO!

As you can see below, Edmodo is almost as similar as facebook!

What's with this Edmodo and Facebook?
As fancy as facebook, Edmodo is the new trendy website for education purposes which provides teachers and students a secure place to connect, collaborate and share content. The design of Edmodo is almost similar to facebook. There are so many things that Edmodo can do in assisting modern teaching and learning process. Do you want to know about it more? Wait, continue reading!
Edmodo is flexible as it has iOS and Android apps available through the Apple App Store and Google Play (respectively).These were made and published by Edmodo developers [using Web API]

How can Teachers and Students use Edmodo?
You will be surprised how much Edmodo can do to help you! (teachers and students). Below are the list: Edmodo can be incorporated into classrooms through a variety of applications. Current uses include 
1. posting assignments
2. creating polls for student responses
3. embedding video clips and other media to support students learning
4. a venue for students and teachers to post messages to one another.

Example of a Classroom Activity?
Example of a classroom activity that I would want to do with my students using Edmodo is experiencing the identity of a literature characters. For example, students will have to choose a character from a novel, then create a new identity (a new profile) of that particular character in Edmodo. Then, in creating the information, students have to understand well about their characters. Not only that, they are also required to interact among themselves (the different characters) basing on the plot from the literature. They can post, comments and share their thoughts and inner conflicts so that everyone will better understand about their personal feelings of the characters and also the intention of the author.

Limitations?
As far as I can see,the only limitation of Edmodo is the competition between Edmodo and Facebook. As facebook has wider connection to socialization, Edmodo may seem less interesting to students. If teachers do not remind students to use Edmodo, they may also forget about the existence of it!