Learning Kids Games: lanuage learning

Showing posts with label lanuage learning. Show all posts

Monday, November 17, 2008

Language Learning through Communal Video

LangoLAB is a great new slant on language learning through social networks. It combines the power of YouTube type video sharing with social networking and adds a few great tools that enable users to create their own vocabulary flashcards, comprehension questions, transcripts and share general comments.

What's more, it's not just for English, so it's leveraging the power a much larger and more linguistically and culturally diverse community.

There's quite a variety of videos to choose from and if you register you can add your own using a webcam, upload or embedding from YouTube. The videos that have been added have transcripts that appear under the video as they play and that are broken down into sections at the side if you click to see the transcript. (There's a tutorial on their blog here showing how to upload a video)

As you watch you can also click on the words from the transcript and get definitions and create your own flashcards with definitions or translations to help you remember and revise the words.

You can also create notes and ask questions about the videos and answer other people's questions. In this way user work together to to negotiate meaning and to help each other understand the content and create learning activities for each other.

Personally I think LangoLAB is a great idea and a wonderful way to learn a language. If the site develops an enthusiastic community, then I think it could be a huge success and provide a really useful tool for people of all languages who want to learn and share.

On the down side, what I can't see is any information on privacy and what they are doing with my personal information, email address etc, so if those issues bother you, then it might be worth staying part of the passive community until this is sorted out. Either way I still think this is a useful tool.

Hope you enjoy it.

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Nik Peachey Read More..

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Killer Apps in Second Life

Well anyone who keeps up with this blog on a regular basis will know that last Sunday (26th Oct 08) was my debut as a chat show host in Second Life.

Firstly I have to thank Gavin Dudeney from The Consultants-E for being my first guest and of course for sponsoring the series which will be taking place on his Edunation Island. Here's a quick clip of Gavin telling me about his 'Killer app' in Second Life and how he got pulled into working in Second Life.

The experience of being the show host was actually very enjoyable, even if somewhat surreal, with a native American appearing in loin cloth in the middle of the coffee table and at one point a young girl avatar running through the wall and into the audience!

Gavin was a very informative guest and talked about some of the difficulties and challenges of teaching language in Second Life as well as some of the amazing potential that virtual worlds offer for education.

We hope over the coming few days to be able to make the complete audio available for anyone who missed the event and wants to hear what Gavin had to say. Here are just some of the questions that Gavin answered:

What goes on at Edunation Islands 1 - 3 and what kind of people / institution are setting up business here?
Who comes on your TT courses? What’s thee typical profile?
The course uses Moodle with SL. Why the combination and will SL make Moodle redundant?
Could you tell us about the free teaching tools you’ve created?
Do you think SL is a viable place to for commercial language schools to make money from teaching?
Is communication in virtual worlds a new ‘genre’ of communication? Are the skills needed different?
It's often said that online learning isn’t suitable for beginners. Can beginners learn languages online in SL?
How can you over come the sense of coldness and lack of reaction while teaching in SL?
How should languages be taught in SL? Should schools be replicating classrooms?
What future developments would you like to see? What would you ask Linden Lab to develop to make language teaching more effective?
Is there a ‘killer app’ or characteristic that made you want to dedicate so much time to SL?
Have you thought about SL competitors and which ones would you consider shifting to?

For anyone thinking about getting involved in Second Life Education then check out the information on The Consultants-E website where you can find out about their training courses for teachers. Also worth checking out is Gavin's Blog That'SLife.

Hope you enjoy the clip. More later.

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Nik Peachey Read More..

Thursday, October 9, 2008

New Social Network Creation Tool

I've been having a look at a new social network creation tool called SocialGo and I have to say it has a couple of very tempting features, especially for creating language learning networks.

I've been using Ning for a number of projects, (See my posting on Create your own social network 7 steps ) but thought I'd have a quick look at SocialGo and see what it has to offer. I registered with the site and managed to create a new social network platform in just a few minutes.

My first impressions were that it was very similar to Ning. It seems to provide the same kind of basic structure and ability to add in similar gadgets etc.

For me though, one of the killer features in its favour is the ability it offers to support user interaction through synchronous text and video chat. I haven't tried this out yet, as at present I'm the only member on my network, but if it works I would give serious consideration to building a social network for students to support my Daily English Activities blog, as it would provide a great place for students to upload and share their work and give some peer feedback and encouragement to each other.

My only reservation so far, is that some of the premium features (which will cost) are at present being offered on the free beta platforms that people create, so I don't want to end up with either a big bill or having to disable popular features later.

Anyway, I think SocialGo is well worth checking out. Hope to be able to post a follow up to this in a few weeks / months. Would appreciate comments from anyone else who tries it out too.

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Nik Peachey Read More..

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Social Networks and the Web 2.0 Revolution: Part 2

Back in July08 I published a presentation on my YouTube channel called 'Social Networks and the Web 2.0 Revolution'.

The presentation attracted quite a lot of attention and comments, one of the main one being a request for the links to the sites I mentioned in the presentation.

So here are links a a quick summary of the sites I mentioned. Inclusion in this list doesn't necessarily imply an endorsement of these sites. The presentation was intended to be informative of what is happening in the world of Web 2.0 and language learning and what is becoming possible. When exploring these sites I still recommend that you be aware of the cautions which I mentioned at the end of the presentation.

Anyway, hope you find these interesting.

Big Think is a video debating website that allows users to exchange opinions on some of the major issues of our time. To get tips and teaching suggestions for this site go to:
http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/01/video-debating-website.html
Flickr is an image hosting and sharing website that allows you to create an account upload your images. You can also search the huge database of images. The creative commons section is particularly useful for teachers looking for images to use in online media or teaching materials.
Games With a Purpose (GWAP) is a fantastic gaming website that has a variety of different ‘intelligent’ games which can be played collaboratively or competitively with online partners. To find out more see:
http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/05/games-with-purpose-and-social-network.html
Teacher Tube is a video sharing website dedicated to teachers. It allows teachers to upload video and accompanying materials. It provides a ‘safe’ and friendly environment for educational sharing.
http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2007/04/teachertube.html
Sound transit is a wonderful site that allows users from around the world to share the sounds of their culture and environment. To get tips and teaching suggestions for this site go to:
http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/03/soundscapes-from-soundtransit.html
MonkeySee is a video sharing website for people who want to visually show how to do something. It contains a wide variety of tutorial and lesson videos from teaching dance, how to play musical instruments, through to developing business skills or even how to build a sandcastle. To get tips and teaching suggestions for this site go to:
http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/01/using-how-to-videos.html
Podomatic is a site that enables anyone to produce and record their own podcast show. The site also hosts the audio or video media.
280 Slides is an online presentation tool which enables you to develop quite complex slide show presentations and either download them or host and play deliver them online.
Voice thread is a unique site that allows you to post images and add accompanying audio. User are then able to add audio and text comments to the presentation. To get tips and teaching suggestions for this site go to:
http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2007/09/interactive-presentations.html
Babbel is a vocabulary building site that enables users to develop their vocabulary through multimedia image recognition. The site also has a social network perspective.
Voxswap is a simple social networking site that allows users to log in and teach each other languages.
Guardian Languages is a site that puts language learners in touch with native speakers so that they can get help with their language development. It uses VOIP and video conferencing. Potential teachers can charge learners for lessons.
Palabea allows any speaker of any language to become a teacher and learner. Teachers can set up their own online classrooms and import multimedia materials to share with their students.
CourseLab provides free software which teachers / materials writers and developers can download to create their own multimedia course materials. The software provides a range of interactive activity types. Tasks are easy to construct and no programming knowledge is required.