Bombay TV! YEE HAAAA!

mailvu : The connected classroom

^____^

Hello readers!

Connected classroom?

Sounds familiar?

Well, connected classroom is an approach of linking activities in the cl

assroom with outside world where students might be asked to do extended or addition homework for their teachers. For this reason, I am going to tell you about how you can do this by using MailVU. MailVU is a video email that can be viewed by others. Students are able to record themselves speaking about a topic. All they need is a video camera, portable microphone or built in mic in the laptop and internet connection. Using MailVu is easy as A,B,C. Just click,record and send. Video recordings can be up to 10 minutes.

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE WEBSITE: http://mailvu.com/index.htm

How to use it in the language classroom:

Using a 'connected classroom' approach, teachers can encourage speaking outside the classroom by using this activity. For example, students can talk about their favourite football team. They can do it alone, or maybe in groups or pairs where students can make it as an interview or group discussion. Teachers may give introduce the topics in the classroom and students will go home and do it on their own using MailVU. This will directly encourage autonomous learning.

Later, students send their recording via email to teachers where it is now the teachers' responsibilities to listen to the recordings and provide some feedbacks. Another way to do this is, by asking students to do some discussion in groups. Given a topic for example " studying in local universities is better than studying in foreign universities", students can be asked to give their rationale and justification to the topic and send it to other groups. Of course, other groups need to respond to the video

Other interesting ideas that might interest you:

• Students talk about their family members.
• Students do a timeline and talk about each year that they wrote.
• Students may talk about their favourite local food.
• Students may talk about their first memory entering high school.
• Students may talk about the place they would like to visit outside their country.

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT MAILVU:

• It's easy to use. You don't need to sign up. Can use it instantly.
• It has a free version.
• It's good to practise speaking outside classrooms. The principle of connected classroom makes the tool as the perfect tool for classroom lesson.
• The file can be shared via email. You can stay connected with your friends with more interactive way of sending audio mail.

WHAT I DON'T LIKE ABOUT MAILVU:

• Too bad it can't be embedded into blogs.
• Teachers need to consider the external factors in the classrooms such as background noise if they were to do their recordings in the classroom, as it might affect the quality of the sound.

Here is what Russell has to say about connected classroom! enjoy!

Zim Zum Zimmer Twins: Video

Have you ever met Eva and Edgar, the Zimmer Twins? Have you ever met 13, the mischievous black cat? If you haven't, it is time to get to know them because they are funky, fun and entertaining! So, where you can meet them?

http://www.zimmertwins.com/

The Zimmer Twins website provides many children a marvelous experience and opportunity to create their own videos by using these 3 characters. It gets children to use their imagination, brush-up their story-telling skills and become movie directors of their own! By using their own vocabulary items and their schemata or background knowledge about things that happen around them, they are ready to produce an excellent 50 takes of mini-movie. The animation itself is very beautiful and it is based on the cartoon series from Canada.

Below are the snapshots from the website:

Picture 1: This is the interface of The Zimmer Twins webpage.

Picture 2: This is where you begin to create movie. There are many option to choose from.

Picture 3: Start dragging the pictures into the timeline. So can choose from animation, dialogue and many more.

Picture 4: Once you are done, you can save it. But remember, make sure you create your account first before started making the video!

And here is the final product that I have managed to come up with:

http://www.zimmertwins.com/node/1224556

***************************************************************************************

How to use it in the classroom:

Although this tool looks childish and suitable for younger children, but as a teacher, you can make use of this tool with students with beginner or intermediate level of English since it is user-friendly.

Teachers can organise a competition between groups in the classroom, given a time limit and language form ( maybe using a mixture of past tense and present tense). Students must work in a small group of 3 to create their very own mini-video. The winner will be chosen by students in the classroom based on the interesting storyline as well as using the right form. There should be a feedback session where students share their opinions with teachers and teacher should make notes of the suggestion so that it can be improved next time.

Indirectly involve students with communicative task, suitable with the development of teaching and learning using task-based.

What I like about the Zimmer Twins!

• Personalisation.
• Encourage communication to complete tasks.
• It can be useful to develop creativity.
• Learning form in a fun way.
• Very engaging and interactive.

However:

• Once you have published it, you could not change it.
• It only can be shared via email, but the recipient must have their own Zimmer Twins account.
• It cannot be embedded to the Blogger webpage.
• It has word limits.
• Might not be interesting if students do not know how to use technology.

To sum up, I think the website is a good website but it will only be an excellent tool if only teachers conduct the lesson in a creative way. Or else, it will be just any ordinary lesson, making video alone.

my brainy brainshark

Hello my readers!

Reading week has come to an end but that does not stop me from sharing with one of the website which caught my attention few days ago. This website is called the Brainshark. Brainshark is a tool that enables users to turn their PowerPoint presentation slides into an interactive voice-enriched video presentation.

You can upload not only PowerPoints, but also documents, videos, photos and add audio by phone, microphone or MP3. In terms of audio, you can add voice recording, share and talk about it via voice narration. This is indeed a very user-friendly tool which enables anyone to create, track and SHARE their presentations’ links via Blogger (for example) or any other sharing tools.

Check it out!

Here is the link to the websitre:

http://www.brainshark.com/

:: Is it useful for teaching and learning?

My answer would be an absolute YES. I believe in technologies and how it can change someone's way of life. We are now teaching a 21st century students, so sometimes a new approach is needed to keep up with students' level and knowledge of ICT. In addition, it is sometimes a good way to put traditional methods on hold first and give a new approach a chance to make its way in an education system.

The Brainshark website injects a fresh way of presenting ideas. It is not only for teachers to share their ideas and to make network with other ELT educators, but also for students to do PowerPoint presentation on their own whether at home or in classroom. Students can always record their own voice and re-record them until they have come up with a finalised product. They can present it to the whole class and let the teacher and students to become their audience. Then, there should be FEEDBACK session where teachers may want to correct their student's language or maybe comment on the topics that the students have chosen. This, in a way is very good for language development.

What I love about this website?

• FREE
• Easy to use.
• Accessible. Anyone can view the slides as long as it is made public.
• Fun to use it.

What I dislike about this website?

• Time consuming if it is part of classroom activity.
• Might not be suitable for people without internet connection.
• It's limited to Mp3 audio ONLY. should have variety like for MP4 as well.

Sweet Macaron with a taste of Bubblr!

A better version is available at: http://www.pimpampum.net/bubblr/?id=32902

Hello everyone, now that I have my reading week, I have more time to update my blogs. Today, I would like to introduce you to one of the websites that is amazing and easy to use. I remember the first time I tried it in Russell's ICT class, I instantly falling in love with this website. For a person who love photography and English, the mixture of both give a fresh injection to teaching and learning in English. So now, let's dive into Bubblr.

What is Bubblr?

Bubblr is a website for people to create comic-strips by using a photostream, taken direct from Flickr and then make a sequence of pictures where you can add dialogue boxes ( as in bubble shapes). Later, all pictures are saved in the archive. Besides, there are variety of pictures to choose from where you can just key in any words in a tag field (e.g macaron, cakes) and enter 'search'. Students can start from there to build a story using the images that appear based on their selection.

By using Pimpampum Bubblr, a teacher can have his/her students to work and their own before presenting it to the whole class. The key idea to this is to have students to speak in front of the class by presenting their picture stories to others. In addition, students can choose any topic that they like for examples footballs, foods, and animals. This may create personalisation to students as they are able to express their creativity freely.

Here are some of the snapshots taken from:

http://www.pimpampum.net/bubblr/

The advantages:

1. The most important thing for teachers and students is the website is free. It is accessible for all and can be made as part as classroom activity or as a homework for students.
2. Promotes creativity among students. Bubblr has many varieties of pictures to choose from. This will create personalisation among students. It is very important to let students do topics that they love so that students may engage with the activities better.
3. An opportunity to develop communicative skills. Teachers can use it for presentation and have students to present their chosen topics.
4. There is no need to be worried about taking pictures from Flickr because it is a photostream that works as a platform to share pictures legally.
5. The bubble boxes help students to describe their pictures. This may at least give some language input in the teaching and learning session.

The limitations:

1. The aim of the lesson may be diverted as some students might search for inappropriate pictures.
2. It may attract more attention to people with visual learning style. However, it depends a lot on how the teacher is going to carry out the lesson. Therefore, engaging multiple learning styles in one lesson will be more useful for students.
3. It is time consuming. It is better to give it as a homework.
4. Again, it might be problematic for students who do not have any access to the internet.

To sum up, as I said earlier, the website is worth to use. It is a fun way to teach your students about English and technologies. Sometimes we need to try new things and not to rely too much on Power point presentation. I hope you have found something interesting here that can be used to deliver your teaching. It is a hard work for teachers to teach students nowadays since their lives involve so much with technologies. Therefore, we need to be able to make use of the tools available online so that we can keep up with 21st century's students.

Till then, cheers!