Learning Kids Games: microblogging

Showing posts with label microblogging. Show all posts

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Ask & Answer Video Questions

Much as I don't like appearing on video I do like web based video tools and Plank.ly is one that caught my eye recently. Plank.ly is an asynchronous Q&A site which allows users to ask and answer each other's questions either by text or video.

It's very easy to use, you just need a webcam and to set up your account. Once you have done that you can integrate it with Twitter or Facebook (though I would advise that you wait to see how useful it is first) and you can start inviting friends or students to follow you and invite them to leave questions for you. It's a good idea to get started by getting Plank.ly to ask you a few random questions, so that when visitors come there is something for them to see. This is very simple to do. Once you have created your account, go to the 'Inbox' and click on 'Ask yourself a random question'.

Once the questions appears, you can answer it either using text or video, just by clicking the icon on the right.

Clicking the video icon will launch the video recorder window. You'll need to click on 'Allow' so that the Flash plug in can access your camera and microphone.

Then you just click on 'Record' and start recording your answer to the question. You can try again if you don't get it right first time so don't worry too much. If you like your recording, just click on 'Use' .

All of your video answers are collected in your 'Activity stream'so you can go back and edit or delete them later.

The next thing to do is either start inviting friends through Twitter or Facebook, or if you prefer just send the URL of your stream to people who you want to ask you questions. The they can either submit a questions by text or record a video questions for you. You can see my stream and try it at: http://plank.ly/NikPeachey

The activity stream is a little like Twitter in that you can start to follow people or they can follow you, so you can start asking and answering each other's questions and see what questions other people have been asked.

How to use this with students

I think this is a great 'ice-breaker' especially for an online class where students don't really get to meet each other and are often working in different time zones.
It's also a great way for lower levels to get some online speaking practice for homework and the fact that they record their answers will be interesting when they come to look back on their progress. Also great for you to help assess their progress too.
It's also a nice way for new classes to get to know you as their teacher. This can be really difficult in bigger classes with lots of students, so this can add a nice element of 1 - 1 contact.
Questions and answers are the fundamental building blocks of language, so this is a great tool for checking out students' grammar and their ability to formulate questions and answers in any particular tense, so great online controlled speaking practice too.

Potential problems

This is an open site, so students can be 'found' by other people, so think about what age groups you use the site with. If you are following the students, however, you will be able to see who they are interacting with and as all accounts are registered you will be able to track back any bullying or abuse that may happen.

I hope you enjoy using this with students and by all means do leave me a question if you want to and I'll do my best to answer it. http://plank.ly/NikPeachey

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Wednesday, June 10, 2009

When Twitter isn't Enough

I know that everybody loves Twitter at the moment and microblogging and other 'micro genre' are generally growing in popularity, but there are times when 140 characters or 12 Seconds aren't enough, and that can be pretty frustrating, so Write4net looks like a pretty handy tool for anyone who doesn't want to compromise on what they have to say, but still wants to deliver the message to their Twitter following.

It looks quite simple to use and you don't need to register, though you do need to put in your Twitter information (or be logged in to your Twitter account) so that it can post to your Twitter feed.

You just add a title, write your text and add some hash tags if you feel the need. Then start writing your text. You can format the text, add images, have external links and embedded video etc too if you want to go that far.

Then when you are ready, just click to publish it and broadcast it to your following.

Write4net creates a page for your posting and then your Twitter followers can click through to it. The page gives you some interesting stats too about how many people click through to the page and view your posting. Always handy to know this kind of thing.

Here is the actual page if you would like to check it out. Shidonni Introduction

Write4net sells itself as being an alternative to a blog, and in the end it looks a lot like a blog, but it is really quick and simple and allows you to get a good degree of media rich information out to your Twitter following, though do be sure to add a good instructive title so that people know whether they want to click through or not. This is how my test posting appeared.

If you are hooked on Twitter and use it a lot with students or get your students to use it a lot, this could be a really useful way of giving a bit more depth and scope to your interactions. It is really quick and easy.

You could start using it to deliver media rich assignments with images and video, without having to go to very much trouble. Your students could also leave comments on the text (the comments will also be tweeted) , so there are some nice simple features here.

On the whole I think this is a pretty useful tool, but I don't think it will be replacing my blogs quite yet. I hope you enjoy it.

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Sunday, November 30, 2008

Edublog Awards 2008

I'm always really nervous about submitting blogs for awards, because I look at and learn from so many and it's so easy to over look something great and to offend someone who is left out. Anyway, I've done my best to suggest a few here that I think are really fantastic and which I've personally benefited from, so by some way of thanks here are my nominations for the Edublogs Awards for 2008.

Best individual blog
It was really hard to decide on this category as almost any blog could go here, but I think EFL | 2.0 deserves to be included here for both its really well written and well considered content and for the great visual design of the blog
http://maberui.webs.upv.es/

Best new blog
I really like Life is a Feast because of the great name and what in conveys about the writer's attitude towards education, but also because it is so clearly a documentation of real classroom use of technology with students. There's also some great humour and examples there.
http://www.lifefeast.blogspot.com/

Best resource sharing blog
Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL
This blog has to be here for the sheer volume of material covered alone. The postings are extremely regular, everything is well categorised and stored so as to be easily accessible and what is there is great quality. I can't think of any blog that comes close to competing in this category (Apologies to other blog writers)
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/larry-ferlazzos-english-website/

Best teacher blog
I think Box of Tricks is another great site that so clearly draws on real classroom experience of using technology with students. The content has real depth and insight as well as being informatively written. Also really well designed.
http://www.boxoftricks.net

Best educational tech support blog
Okay, so MakeUseOf isn't designed to be an 'educational' tech support blog, but I have to sat that when I need support finding out about the different tech resources available and how to use them it's the first place I go and usually the last, so ...
http://www.makeuseof.com/

Best educational use of video / visual
TEFL Clips is a site that I wrote about recently on Quick Shout. I've chosen this one because it has complete, well written lesson plans that use authentic materials from YouTube. Great resource and some very creative plans.
http://www.teflclips.com/

Best educational use of a virtual world
My choice for best use of a virtual world goes to The Consultants-E and their Edunation islands. There is such a great variety of activity there and loads of free space and especially for the free teach tools.
Edunation Island

Best class blog
I found it really hard to decide on this last one but finally chose Aiden's English Advertising Class. I particularly like Aiden's English Advertising blog because she gets her students to share the storyboards which give an insight into how they created the materials.
http://english-ad.blogspot.com/

Hope you enjoy these blogs and many thanks once again to the creators for their hard work and to the literally hundreds of other bloggers who work hard everyday promote a world where people can have a better education.

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Saturday, July 26, 2008

The 12 Second Video Answer to Twitter

I've been having a quick look at a new alpha site which could become the video version of Twitter and Plurk. The site is called 12 Second TV and as the name would suggest allows users to creat a feed made up of 12 Second video clips. The site has only just gone to public alpha and I haven't had a chance to try it out as I'm still waiting for my invitation.

Looking at some of the clips that are there already, I don't really see anything much that i would subscribe to, though I think the idea is good and sound and this certainly has potential.

Looking forward to giving it a try.

Hope to have more to report soon. Update: Since writing this I have published a more in depth report witrh examples and teaching tips here on my learning technology blog.

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