The Flashcard Maker from CEO has been around a while, but it is one of those really good free tools that keeps getting better. It enable you to create and print your own flashcards which include text, phonemic script and images that you can type in and add. You can then use these for a range of activities in the classroom.
To create flashcards, the first thing you do is go to: http://www.cambridgeenglishonline.com/Flashcard_maker/ and choose the size of the flashcards you want to create. you can choose from either one A4 size card to 8 cards per A4 sheet. Next, you can either draw your own image or select one from the image library. To add an image you just click on the name of the image you want from the image library and click 'Apply' and it appears on the flashcard.
Next you can add your text and lastly, use the small phonemic typewriter to add the symbols. Then all you have to do is click on print and you have your flashcard with phonemic script.
This is a great tool to use with EFL and ESL students.
You can create simple flashcards with images and phonemic script of the nouns.
You can get the students to create the flash cards themselves, as the phonemic typewriter also has sound so they can hear the phonemes as they type them.
You can create some cards with just images, some with just word and some with just script and create a great matching activity.
You can create flashcards with pronunciation mistakes and see if the students can spot them. You can create flashcards with one image and two different phonemic spellings and see if students can say the correct one.
If you really like this and think it's useful, there is even a version for iPad / iPhone which has lots of activities built in along with the ability for students to record and compare their own audio of their pronunciation. The app version isn't free though I'm afraid, but it is quite cheap at £1.79 in the UK. You can some screen shots here.
Hope you enjoy this and make some useful flashcards.
For a while now I've been using Posterous in class and in training sessions to help show teachers and students just how easy it can be to create a blog. (Basically, all they have to do is send an email to post@posterous.com with the title of the posting in the subject line and the text they want in the email along with and media as attachments and within minutes they'll get a link back to their published posting.)
No, though with the combination of Posterous and AudioBoo, the process of publishing audio directly to the web within minutes has just got easier too. AudioBoo is a great free platform for publishing audio online. You can either go to their website and start recording straight away, or you can download a free app either to your Apple device or Android smart phone. The site really does enable almost single click publishing once you have registered and set up your profile, but better than this it can be synced with a Twitter account, Facebook profile or blogging account so that any materials you record go directly to your network.
Publish directly from the classroom I've found this really useful, particularly as I have the app installed on my iPad. This means that I can wander round class recording my students and then click a button and have their recordings published directly to my blog with seconds. Then I can go to the blog later and build review tasks around the materials or students can go to the blog pages and comment on each others' recordings.
With students Having this ability to instantly record and publish students' speaking can be very powerful, particularly when using a task based approach, as students are often reluctant to review and repeat speaking tasks that they have already done once. However, knowing that their speaking will be recorded and published gives them the extra motivation to repeat tasks, focus on what they have learned and concentrate on achieving a level of accuracy.
Setting all this up is very simple. Once you have your Posterous blog account, register on the AudioBoo website, create your profile then go to settings and click on 'Post to other sites'. There you can decide which services you want to synchronise your AudioBoo account with. Then you just start recording and publishing.
AudioBoo and Posterous together can help you to build a powerful and versatile publishing platform for your students work and they are both free, so why not give them a try.
Well like a lot of people I’ve bought an iPad over the summer and I’ve been having my first taste of shopping for apps to extend the capabilities of the iPad. I’ve also been having a look at how some of these can be used for language learning, so I thought I would share with you a little bit of information about the first few apps I’ve tried.
Forvo For those of you who don’t know Forvo, it’s a marvelous pronunciation dictionary site which is collecting together audio examples of of the pronunciation of different words from languages and speakers all round the world. The app works as a simple pronunciation dictionary which you can carry with you in class and whenever a new word comes up, you can get an example pronunciation form it. For many of the more common words in English you can get multiple examples from different speaker (male, female, UK, US, Australian etc.)
The app could be really handy for use in class, especially if you aren’t confident about your own pronunciation or your students want to study a particular accent. The app runs on iPhone or iPad. You’ll need to have a connection to download the pronunciation examples and unfortunately there isn’t any capability to record and upload your own examples (you’ll need to go to the website to do that), but it’s still a pretty useful tool.
Dragon Dictation This app is from the makers of the popular Dragon voice recognition software and as you would expect it is designed to recognise your words and transcribe them as text. It works pretty well too, though it does make some mistakes which you then have to correct. You can correct the errors by typing in the corrections or tapping the surface where the error is and trying to say the words again. This would be a good way to get students working on their speaking skills and correcting errors in text. It’s also a very handy tool if you don’t like typing a lot as once you have created a text on it you can either copy or send it by email or post it straight to Facebook or Twitter. You don’t need a connection to use the voice recognition part, but you’ll need to be connected to share your texts. It also works best if you have an external microphone for your device.
Mobile Air Mouse This is a really clever little app that transforms your iPad, iPod or iTouch into a remote touch pad controller and keyboard for your computer. That might not seem like such a big deal, but what it means is that once you have the free software installed on the main computer in your classroom, any student that has Air Mouse on their mobile device can take control of the computer, write or draw on the board and interact with your learning materials without leaving their seat. This duplicates a lot of the functions of an interactive whiteboard and slate, so it might also save some money. There’s a free version and a pro version. The app runs through your wireless connection.
Flipboard Flipboard is my favourite app so far. It is a type of feed reader for the iPad. The really great thing about Flipboard though is that it converts the feeds into a magazine type format that you can then easily browse. This is particularly useful for feeds from things like Twitter, which can be very reader unfriendly and I’m now getting a lot more information a lot quicker from Twitter than I previously was using a desktop based app. So this is a great app for keeping up with your PLN as well as finding images and text to use in class. Flipboard is also free, so that’s another big bonus, but you will need a connection while you are using it.
MeeGenius This is an app that has been developed to support the website (or could it be the other way around) MeeGenius contains a collection of illustrated books for primary level kids. The books have audio accompaniment and words are highlighted as the kids listen. Great to get younger learners reading and listening in English. The app isn’t free but it’s very reasonable priced (especially compared to buying the books) and it contains 12 free books 6 of which are ready installed and 6 more that you need a connection to download. If you want more books after that you can buy more.
SonicPics This is a handy app that allows you to add audio to images or sequences of images and then export them as video files. There is a free version that allows you to create videos of up to three images and 10 mins recording time, or you can buy the pro version and make unlimited sequences. This is really handy for grabbing screen shots from your iPad or iPhone and adding audio to them or for adding audio to photographs. Describing pictures and images is a handy way of getting students to practice their speaking and the videos can then be exported for sharing.
I hope you find some of these apps useful, and if you don't yet have an iPad, I hope they give you some idea of the enormous potential that these tools have.
The purpose of the survey was to ascertain the level of awareness and openness to mobile learning among English language teachers. I also wanted to find out to what degree and how teachers were already using mobile learning both in their teaching and and professional development and to establish whether they would be willing to pay for and use mobile content. The survey also collected information about the teachers’ existing access to mobile services and the kinds of device they are using to get access to mobile Internet.
The survey was carried out during June and July of 2010. The survey was answered by over 500 English language teachers.
The results of this survey were collected online using a web based survey site called SurveyMonkey.com. The online survey was distributed through:
My Twitter Network (3k teachers world wide)
The British Council’s ELTeCS list (15k teachers world wide)
A number of email based ELT discussion lists (these are long established lists from around the world. They are teaching rather than technology focused)
The respondents are likely to be early technology adopters as they are mostly people who are already involved in some form of online teaching network. However the majority of the networks used to distribute the survey were not focused on the use or discussion of technology in teaching, but are mainly forum to discuss mainstream teaching.
ePub Bud is a free tool for creating books for the iPad. It does this in a number of ways. Either you can send a book to the company and they say they will digitize it for free, you can upload an existing digital copy and it will be converted on the site, or you can use the WYSIWYG interface to write straight into the site.
I tried uploading my Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers manual from the PDF format and this is what it came out like. You can download it from here if you are lucky enough to have an iPad Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers iPad edition
The process of uploading it was pretty simple. Once you are registered you just click on 'Upload', locate the file in the usual way and click again to upload it. Once the file is uploaded, it takes a short while to convert it to the format for iPad.
When it has been converted the status will change from 'unprocessed' to 'Converted to ePub'. You can then share the link with anyone who wants to read your materials or book on their iPad. You can set privacy status on the file and add tabs and index it. You can even edit the file once it's uploaded using the on site WYSIWYG.
This is a great way to convert content for use on the iPad. It doesn't have to be books of course, you could also use it for worksheets, or notes for your students or books or stories they have created themselves.
It's also worth checking out the books that are already there too as there is quite a collection. The focus seems to be mainly on children's books at the moment. Have a look in the 'browse' section and see if anything takes your fancy.
Next, you can either draw your own image or select one from the image library.
To add an image you just click on the name of the image you want from the image library and click 'Apply' and it appears on the flashcard.
Next you can add your text and lastly, use the small phonemic typewriter to add the symbols.
