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!

Storybird Time!

Reach for the Star on Storybird
Have you ever heard of Storybird?  Storybird is a service that uses collaborative storytelling to connect friends, teachers-students and also families. Two (or more) people create a Storybird in a round robin fashion by writing own text and inserting pictures that they select. After that. they have the option of sharing their Storybird privately or publicly on the network. The final product can be printed, watched on screen, embed to a blog, or shared through a worldwide library.

How does it work?
Someone starts a Storybird by writing a few words (for title and then the stories) and grabbing a few images. For the images, a few options of arts is available to choose from. All of the pictures are interesting and colourful. Students can choose images to fit their storyline.  Then the other person takes a turn, adding more words and pictures. They can do it sitting side-by-side or across places.

1. Working in pairs, students have to collaborate and write a story. It can be any genre of story. 
2. They then publish and embed the story to class's blog where everyone can read. 

Strength?
1. It promotes imagination, literacy, and self-confidence in students. According to the website itself, 'children who play with words and pictures early in life tend to score higher in cognitive and aptitude tests later on. They read and draw more, and are better able to understand concepts and ideas. Plus, they become comfortable with the act of creation: turning nothing into something. In an idea-based society, that’s a key advantage' (Storybird.com).

2. Students are encouraged to write more in an enjoyable way. The task is not demanding as they can work in pairs. 

3. Develops a sense of ownership.

4. Teachers can assess students' writing skills and teach them on the frequent errors made. 

Weakness?
-Not that I know of- :)

p/s: Above is an example of the story I made with my partner: Nuras. Enjoy!

Week 5: Vocaroo

Online recording software >>

Effective communicative language learning may not take place without practicing to use the language. Typical problem faced by students in rural secondary schools in Malaysia is to speak using the second language; English. Basing from my personal experience, most of my English teachers only focused on how to teach us to write well. This happens because language teachers are struggling to prepare students to face the exam-oriented system in Malaysia due to washback; the effects of language testing on teaching and learning. Hence, speaking skills are less emphasized in classroom teaching. As a student, I felt demotivated to speak in English as there is no encouragement and motivation for me to speak the language in class. 

And for this week, Russel has introduced us to a very useful website, Vocaroo!

What is it?

 Vocaroo is a simple and super easy way to record your voice and create podcast. When you click on the link of the website, it will straight away bring you to "Click to record" button. Isn't it the simplest? You do not have to sign up or anything to record your voice.

How can it be used in class?

First of all, there are two options that you can do after you're done recording your podcast:

1. You can send it to your friend/teacher/lecturer (through email)

2. You can post on the Internet and embed it to your blog. 

Teachers can use Vocaroo to teach and assess students' speaking skills weekly. 

1. Teachers assign students to podcast their journal voice recording. Students are free to talk about anything that they want.

2. They are required to send it to their teacher and then embed it to the class blog.

3. Teachers will respond to the podcast with another podcast, by teachers themselves.

4. Comments on strength, weakness and how to improve is made in the recording.

5. Basing from the frequent language errors made by students, teachers will teach in class and revise, as well as show the students how to use the language well next time. 

Strength?

1. Formative assessment to assess students' speaking skills

2. Encourage students to speak outside the classroom

3. Students may have a platform to impress teachers and friends with their topic and way of speaking. 

4. Students have the opportunity to speak outside of the classroom setting (where some students may perform well outside the class as in the classroom setting they will feel nervous)

Weakness?

1. Internet connection may be hard to get in rural areas

p/s: Above is my example of podcast. Enjoy! :)

Week 4: My Brainshark!

This week, we have been introduced to Brainshark. 
 Above is my example of presentation using Brainshark. Do you enjoy it?

WHAT IS IT?
It is a very brilliant tool where people can create on-demand video presentations quickly and easily. On-demand communications involves people sharing and accessing information at different times on their own schedules, such as via email, social media or online video.This website provides a high impact and low cost means of communication. It also enable viewing activity and collect interactive feedback from your audience. Therefore, with the help of this tool, one can measure how impactful his/her presentation is. Presentation can be in power points, photo albums, podcasts and many more.

Brainshark is often used by Marketing, Sales, Channels, Training and HR to deliver on demand communications to internal and external audiences, and to better engage and communicate with prospects, customers, partners and employees.

How to use it in class?

1. Teacher introduced the website and its key benefits and uses.

2. Teacher demonstrated with the students to create a content of a presentation. For example, about their family or pet.

3. In pair, students are required to create a presentation. Audio, music or anything can be added to make the presentation more interesting. Grammar,word stress and etc. are expected to have in the audio recording.

4. Teacher and students pick the best presentation and do reflection on the activity.

Benefits?

1. Students and teachers can always refer to the records of presentation to assess learners' progress in learning

2. Train students to practise their presentation on their own, and less intimidating as there is no real audience. 

3. Teacher can save lots of time especially when there is time constraint in listening to each of the students' presentation.

4. Great tool for distance-learning.

Weakness?

1. When it is overused, sometimes it might not really help students to build their confident level as there is no real audience when they are presenting.

2. Teachers cannot view students' facial expression and body language while presenting. They are the important elements in a good presentation.

3. Without the teachers supervision, students may not pay attention to the presentation.

4. Not all computers have a good sound system for students to record their audio.

Below is another example of my presentation using audio recording. Enjoy!

Using Bubblr: Presentation on Greenland

Today, we learnt to use another interesting tool which is Bubblr.

It is a tool that you can use to make your presentation using images from Flickr. You can also add on bubbles to make your presentation more interesting.

How would I use it in class?
1. First, teachers show students an example of a presentation made using Bubblr.
2. Then, teachers introduce the tool and how to use it. Step by step information can be given on a piece of paper as well.
3. Teachers give freedom to students to make their own presentation using any pictures that they prefer.
4. Teachers present the best presentation made by the students in class.

Why it is good?
1. Train students to write comprise and precisely.
2. Helps students to organize pictures and ideas in a presentation.

Limitations?
1. Not many interesting pictures available
2. Limited space to insert the bubbles.
3. Not interesting- no music or animation