Let us Now Praise Famous Women

This is a post that I have been trying to find time to write for over a year now and the urge and urgency to write it has grown every time I go to conference and every time I hear a few irritating comments.

The comments usually fit into one or more of these categories

• Where is all the new talent?
• Why aren’t there more women speakers around?
• Well technology that’s for the guys.

I think that more than anything, after this years' IATEFL conference these kinds of comments should stop once and for all.

So I’ve chosen focus this post on just a few of the many great tech savvy speakers, teachers, tweeters and of course women from this years conference.

Shelly Turrell & Ozge Karaoglu
One of the great presentations that everyone was talking about this year was by Shelly and Ozge.
Ozge based in Turkey and Shelly based in Germany were reporting on a project they created between their classes of young learners. They shared the results of their work and information about the kinds of tools and the issues involved in running a project of this kind with young students.

• You can find out more about that project here: Engaging Lower Primary Students Through Web2.0 Tools
• You can also watch Shelly being interviewed about the project at: Interview with Shelly Turrell

Shelly publishes her own blog ‘Teacher Reboot Camp’ which focuses not on technology, but on the pedagogical exploitation of technology with students. So be sure to check that out.

• She is also one of the most prolific EFL tweeters with a huge following on Twitter, so if you are thinking of growing your PLN then her twitter page would be a great place to start.
  http://twitter.com/shellterrell
• She also has her own video channel on YouTube where you can find loads of interesting clips to view:
  http://www.youtube.com/user/shellterrell

Ozge also has her own blog 'Ozge Karaoglu’s Blog' where she writes about and reviews Web 2.0 type tools for learning with a particular focus on using these tools with young learners.

• You can also add Ozge to your PLN and start following her on Twitter:
  http://twitter.com/ozge
  

Marisa Constantinides
Marisa was just one of the stars of this years’ Pecha Kucha presentations (20 slides in 6.40 minutes). You can watch the Pecha Kuchas here: IATEFL 2010 Pecha Kucha

• Marisa also has her own blog ' TEFL Matters' where she publishes information on language teaching, teacher education and new technologies. Marisa is a teacher trainer and also runs a busy teacher training school in Athens. Among the things you can find on her blog are links to her recent presentation on animating course books with digital materials and some of her reflections on being an online teacher in a virtual world.
• You can also add Marisa to your PLN and start following her on Twitter at:
  http://twitter.com/Marisa_C
  

Burcu Akyol
Burcu was also one of the star presenters at this years’ Pecha Kucha event and she opened the event with 20 slides of 20 seconds about how Twitter had effected her professional life and its impact on conference events such as IATEFL and the recent ISTEK International ELT Conference (27-28 March 2010 ) which she helped to organise in Turkey.

• Burcu also publishes her own blog 'Burcu Akyol's Blog' on a range of teaching and ELT related topics and I can highly recommend it particularly if you are looking for somewhere to find information about building your PLN.
• Yes you’ve already guessed that she too is prolific producer of tweets, so be sure to add her to your network.
  http://twitter.com/burcuakyol
  

Petra Pointner
Among Petra’s striking contributions to this years’ IATEFL conference was her presentation 'What students can get out of Twitter' on her use of Twitter with her students. Petra talks in this interview about how she became interested in Twitter and how it has impacted on her professional life. Interview with Petra Pointner

• You can watch the whole of her presentation online at:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zOCVqfg4FU
• You can also add Petra to your PLN and follow her on Twitter at:
  http://twitter.com/TEFLPet
  

Karenne Joy Sylvester
Last but by no means least is Karenne Sylvester. Karenne’s presentation was on working in educational online communities and she explored some of the issues involved in being an e-moderator and working online with learners.

• You can also see Karenne doing, what for me was one of the highlights of the entire conference, her Pecha Kucha presentation on the history of the English language.
• Karenne also writes her own blog 'Kalingo English' which explores many of the pedagogical issues surrounding the use of educational technology with a particular focus towards business English. It’s a great read so do check that out.
• You can also follow her on Twitter at:
  http://twitter.com/kalinagoenglish
  

So here are just six of the many great women who were presenting at IATEFL this year. I have picked these six, not just because they are women, not because they blog or tweet and not because they use technology, but because all six are primarily great teachers and educators with great ideas that they want to share and because they critically apply their knowledge of education to the way they exploit technology with their students.

For me this is of key importance and significance. Technology was a huge feature of this years’ IATEFL conference and it’s very easy to be blinded or pulled along by the technology, but in the work of these six women there is for me some sign of the beginnings of a state of normalisation of technology in language teaching. A state when we can move past talking about technology and get back to talking about teaching of which technology is just a normal part and an enabler in that process of learning. I'm sure that time of normalisation will still be a long time coming, but it's great to see that at least it's beginning.

Related links:

• IATEFL Online 2010
• Twitter vs Plurk
• Social Networks and the Web 2.0 Revolution: Part 2
• Create your own social network 7 steps
• Naming My Sources: Part 1
• Naming My Sources: Part 2

Best

Nik Peachey Read More..

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.

Related links:

• Subtitling your video clips
• Tutorial: Using Videos from YouTube
• Exploiting a Video Viral
• 12 Second Video Clips for EFL ESL
• Sending Bubble Joy to your EFL / ESL Students
• Microblogging for EFL with Plurk
• Great Video Commenting Tool
• Video conferencing for EFL
• Send Free Video Messages

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Nik Peachey Read More..

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.

Related links:

• 12 Second Video Clips for EFL ESL
• Social Networks and the Web 2.0 Revolution: Part 2
• Karaoke with a Social Network
• Microblogging for EFL with Plurk
• Create your own social network 7 steps
• Social networking for language learning

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Nik Peachey Read More..

Bring the News into the Classroom: Online Presentation

I've just been enjoying a recording of a live Adobe Breeze presentation given by Sean Banville from Breaking News English. Sean was presenting and being interviewed by Jurgen Wagner of Fremdsprachen und Neue Medien

This is really well worth a watch, both in terms of the content, Sean is veteran EFL ESL podcaster with a real passion for his work, but also in terms of how the online presentation works with a live online group audience.

I found this really enlightening, partly because it was the first time Jurgen had attempted this and you can see how they are thinking on their feet to solve problems, but also because I'll be doing a similar thing myself in Second Life soon.

Nice one Jurgen. Look forward to seeing more of these.

Related links:

• Becoming a citizen journalist
• Video conferencing for EFL
• Make your own chat room

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Nik Peachey Read More..

Multimedia Vocabulary Website

Babbel is one of the few really effective vocabulary building websites that I've seen on the web. It's actually a social network and can help you to make friends for language exchange etc, but the core of the site is it's interactive multimedia vocabulary building exercises.
These work with words being presented along with images and the sounds of the words. The exercises then move on to recognition of the sounds of the words and then you have to spell out the words for the images as you see and hear them. I know this all sounds a bit PPP (Present, Practice, Produce) but for EFL or MFL students working alone, I still think there is some value in this.
The site isn't only for learners of English, but also has exercises in Italian, French, German and Spanish.

This is one of the great strengths of the site because it draws on students from more languages, it makes it possible for students to connect with and practice their language with users from the target language.

As always it would be wise to be careful with this and to protect your students' privacy etc, but there certainly is some potential here and I do like the design of the vocabulary building activities so for that alone, it's worth the free registration.

Hope you enjoy it.

Related links:

• Multi Player Vocabulary Revision
• Multimedia wordsearch
• Animating vocabulary
• Games With a Purpose and a Social NetworkImprove your Vocabulary and send Aid to Children

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Nik Peachey Read More..

A Virtual World for Facebook Users

Do you want to show your virtual EFL ESL students images, videos from YouTube or just chat with them all within a 3D environment that runs in your web browser. Well now you can.

I've just been playing with Vivaty a new 3D virtual world that runs from within your web browser with only a minimal download (4.5Mb).



The strange thing about it though is that it runs from within Facebook!

Despite this it's quite good and quite easy to set up and customise. You can also easily add pictures or videos to your own personal room. Within a few mins I had managed to add a TV screen to my room and configure it to play a video from my YouTube channel.

Here's my avatar watching me doing a video presentation!

Once you've downloaded the 4.5Mb program and installed it, you simply log into your face book account and your room appears at the bottom of your profile page and you just click to enter the room.

There are also a selection of other rooms that you can visit if you want to meet other people to chat with.
Vivaty certainly doesn't have the rich graphics and degree of customisation that you can get from something like Second Life, but it is a much smaller download, runs in your browser (Internet Explorer only - Sorry MAC only users!) and or use with EFL ESL students, it is much safer (that's if you trust Facebook to protect your privacy!).

For me though, the strongest thing in its favour is the potential to watch, share and chat about videos whilst in a simple online environment.

Related links:

• Google's Lively Competitor with Second Life?
• 3B Village 3D browser
• Machinima with Moviestorm
• Looking at There.com
• Materials design for Virtual Worlds
• Immersive Image Environments
• Teaching Speaking in Second Life
• Creating multimedia stories

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Nik Peachey Read More..

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.

Related links:

• Social networking for language learning>
• Build your own Facebook Apps>
• Create your own social network 7 steps>
• Creating an Online Classroom

Best

Nik Peachey Read More..

Transcribed Videos for EFL ESL

EFL / ESL students really enjoy watching video clips but often find authentic materials difficult to cope with due to the variety of accents and the speed with which native speakers communicate.

Yappr offers a good solution to this problem with a huge collection of transcribed video clips. As students watch the clip, they see the script appearing in a window alongside.

The videos are separated by level; easy - medium - hard and are also categorised by theme, such as sport, cartoons, nature etc. There is a 'sexy' category too, but this is mainly made up of music videos and commercials and I don't think there is anything particularly 'adult' about it.

You can watch all the movie clips without registering, but if you do register there is a social networking element to the site and you can also get involved with uploading and transcribing videos for the site.

This is a really useful tool for students and teachers. It would be nice if you could turn off the transcription and try to get students to work it out for themselves first, but if you wanted to do this, you could just find the same clip on YouTube and then send the students to Yappr to check their transcription.

Hope you enjoy this.

Related postings:

• Using Product Reviews
• Iconic teen video
• Tackling political issues
• Video debating website
• Advertisement Project
• Using 'How to' videos

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Nik Peachey Read More..

Social Networks and the Web 2.0 Revolution

Social networks and what has been described as 'Web 2.0' are having a prfound influence on the way we can 'design' and deliver online learning.

As part of an ICT training course I worked on recently I delivered a short opening presentation entitled 'Social Networks and the Web 2.0 Revolution'. I was later encouraged to record this presentation by Jurgen Wagner for his 'Info Blog' and you can either view the presentation there at:

• http://fremdsprachenundneuemedien.blogspot.com/2008/07/nick-peacheys-gastbeitrag-social.html

Or watch a YouTube version below.



By publishing this presentation, I'm sharing my opinion and my perception of the way things have developed and I don't presume to be an authority in this area. When i watch the pesentation I can already see that there are some flaws in the way I've expressed or portaryed my understanding of the situation.

I would welcome any comments or different perspectives on this, so please do feel free to drop me a line / comment.

• You may also be interested in looking at my posting Create your own social network 7 steps which includes a step by step guide to creating a social network using Ning.
  

Thanks

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Nik Peachey Read More..

Twitter vs Plurk

I checked out Twitter some time ago and couldn't really see what all the fuss was about. Embarrassingly, after signing up for an account people started following my Twitter even though I wasn't posting! I've also been hearing so many people raving about Twitter that I thought maybe I should give it another chance.

At the same time I've started getting interested in Plurk.com which on first impression I actually prefer, as It seems to have more scope for delivering rich media (embedding video etc into postings) and also because I like the visual time line aspect of the design.
Anyway, I've decided to experiment by using both for the next few weeks and see what happens.

If you'd like to sign up and join the experiment, by all means sign on using the links below.

• You can become my friend on Plurk by clicking here>>
  Or
  
• Just go see my Plurk time line got to: http://www.plurk.com/user/nikpeachey
  

And / Or

• Follow me on Twitter by going to www.twitter.com and search for Nik Peachey
  Or
  
• Do something far more productive with your time!
  

If you do follow one or both of these I'd love your feedback here in the comments section.

Hope this doesn't turn into the most boring experiment ever.

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Nik Peachey Read More..

Build your own Facebook Apps

App in a box is a really interesting site that claims to be able to help you build your own Facebook applications within 5 minutes.



The site offers to help you build 5 different types of applications at the moment. These are:

• Text
• Mp3
• Video
• Image
• Any combination of the above

They also have 3 new ones planned

• Link to information on other social networks
• A count down to an event
• A quiz type app

If you are keen on getting students using social networks like Facebook and want to connect that to other work you are doing without all the hassle of learning lots of programming skills, then this looks worth a try.

I haven't tried it myself yet, so I'm not sure if it does all that, but will post something ( maybe even with a tutorial on http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/ once I have.

If you try or have tried it, by all means post a comment below and let me know how you got on.

best

Nik Read More..