Conference presentation videos

Well as you may know if you read my earlier posting 'IATEFL online' I spent the earlier part of this month in Exeter at the 42nd Annual IATEFL conference working with a marvelous bunch of people from the British Council and IATEFL ,

We spent most of the week collecting, collating and editing as much material from the conference as we could and are now in the process of making it available online.


So if you couldn't get to the conference, but would like the opportunity to watch and listen to some of the presentations then go along to: http://exeteronline.britishcouncil.org

You may need to register, but it's fast and free. At present there are about 15 video presentations live and available along with presentation slides, notes and handouts from the sessions. Over the coming weeks we have a further 50 -60 audio recordings to make available.

• Click here to see a complete list of the presentations available

There are also some pretty active forums if you want to network and discuss what you've been watching. I think this must be one of the biggest professional development opportunities available on the web and it's all free.

Hope you enjoy it.

Best

Nik Read More..

Learn English and get fit

I just spotted this rather remarkable example of an English video lesson for Japanese students. It shows some rather remarkable use of music and includes a revolutionary drilling method.

Watch, learn and enjoy!



Try this at home and you might also get fit too.

As someone who has always believed in the benefits of drilling new language, it's great to see that the ancient art still finds a place in our modern world!

But on a more serious note you might find this useful if you're involved in teacher training and want to get some discussion going around the theme of drills.

best

Nik Read More..

IATEFL Online Conference 2008

Well apologies to any regular visitors who have noticed the lack of activity her over the last week. This is mainly because my time over the next couple of weeks is being consumed by one of the biggest meetings of English language teachers in the World. The IATEFL annual conference.


I've been working as part of the online editorial team for the event and there are now some very active, discussion forums going on a whole range of ELT related subjects. Over the next week, the face to face event will begin and when it does we hope to be broadcasting and archiving a whole range of the live events including video and audio of interviews, plenaries and workshops.

So if you don't have the time and money to get along to Exeter UK from now until 11th April, then come along and sign on for the free online conference and get the opportunity to share experiences with teachers from all over the world.

Come and join us at: http://exeteronline.britishcouncil.org/

And if anyone is going along to the face to face event.
Hope to see you there.

best

Nik Read More..

Working in Second Life

For a few months now I've been thinking about writing an article about why I decided to rent an office in Second Life and how my virtual office there has changed the way I work and the kind of business I do. I booted up the MAC this morning to get started and saw this article from Web Worker Daily. Well I guess this will save me some of the bother.

This is a really interesting article from Aliza Sherman about her usual business day in Second Life. Well worth a read.

• Just another day in Second Life

If at the end of it you are still interested in what i do in my office, here's a quick video slide show created with PhotoStory 3.

• My virtual office

Hope you enjoy this and get some food for though from it.

Best

Nik Read More..

Create Projects for iPod

This is a website that on the surface of it seems like quite a good idea. It's called Mogopop and it supposed to help users create and share multimedia projects for iPod.

You have to register (for free) and this gives you your own space (up to 50Mb) to create your own projects. You can create an image and video library them create pages and add or link the media to them, then when you are ready you can publish the whole thing on the Mogopop site for other to download and enjoy.

As well as creating your own projects, you can of course download other people's (if the they are public), but this involves downloading and installing the Mogopop manager (18Mb).

It's pretty quick and easy to install, but you have to be using the right kind of iPod. I wasn't, so I still haven't got any of the projects onto mine, there's also no way of checking out and viewing what you download before you download it, which for me is a huge disadvantage.

There is an education section and there are some promising titles in there. I also liked the interface and it did seem really easy to create projects, but downloading them and viewing them seems to be the main obstacle.

Anyway, I think this is a really good idea and one that students might well enjoy, so I'm going to persist with it for a bit longer. If I have any luck you may well see a tutorial on http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/ in the next few weeks.

I'd love to hear from anyone else who tries / has tried it.

Best

Nik Read More..

Quiz widgets for your blog

A few weeks back I saw this nice and sometimes nasty collection of quizzes which you or your students can take. Many of the quizzes are interactive and when you finish them you get a widget that you can embed in your website showing your results.


Some of the quizzes would make interesting discussion in class. I particularly liked:

• The moon survival challenge (take the quiz then compare your answers to NASA)
• Is your brain wired for creativity
• How addicted to Apple are you?

There are a couple of useful ones for developing vocabulary

• How many countries can you name in 5 mins?
• How many colours can you name in 5 mins?

If your students are all bloggers and have their own blogs you can create blog awards and get them to create awards for each other. Using the fun and serious blog awards widget

Things to be careful of:

• This page is part of an online dating site, so be careful that your students don't start lining up dates while you aren't looking.
• Some of the quizzes could be offensive such as 'How much is your dead body worth?' or 'How good would you be as a human shield?'

There are lots there to choose from though so do have a look.

Best

Nik Read More..

Encyclopedia of Earth

I just spotted this rather useful looking website called Encyclopedia of Earth. It is pretty much what it says on the box and delivers quite detailed information about a wide range of environmentally related topics. It's a growing resource and they are looking for people to contribute.

There is a forum too so students can get involved in discussing some of the issues relating to the articles.

The site looks like a very credible source of free information. A lot of the articles tend to have a US focus, but there's still quite a few that don't.

The language / information level is quite high so this is for speakers with a good level of English, but there's certainly plenty of information, text, images and opportunities to interact that could make this a pretty useful tool. (Terms of use)

Hope you enjoy it.

Best
Nik Read More..