I hope it works!

12 Language Learning Tips

2011-11-10T19:26:00.000-02:00

Learning a new language can be difficult, but not impossible. No matter how old you are, there are methods and techniques that can make it easier to absorb the nuances of another language. It doesn’t make any difference whether you’re trying to learn a new language for fun, or as a necessity, all it takes is for you to apply yourself. Following are a few language learning tips.

Study Every Day

In order to learn a language efficiently, you need to study every day. If you throw yourself into learning a language, but tire of it quickly and only return to it sporadically, it will prove to be very difficult for you to become proficient in that language. Instead, you should set aside a 15 or 20 minute period in the morning and again in the evening to devote to foreign language study.

Immersion

The fastest way to learn anything is when it becomes absolutely necessary to do so. If you throw someone into deep water, they’ll either sink or swim. Using that principle for learning a new language would mean immersing yourself in the language by limiting your communication to that language. If all you hear is French or Italian and you can’t talk to anyone except in that language, then you’ll probably learn how to communicate quickly.

Set Goals

How quickly you learn a new language depends a lot on your commitment to doing so. Like most things, meeting your goal of learning a new language can go smoother if you set intermediate goals that are more easily attainable. Instead of telling yourself that you need to learn Spanish by the end of the year, set your first goal a little lower--something along the lines of being able to ask for directions or being comfortable speaking Spanish exclusively during a meal by the end of the month. Smaller goals along the way will help you achieve the long-term goal more efficiently.

Teach Yourself

It is possible to teach yourself a second language with no outside help. There are computer programs designed to do just that. Audio tapes work the same way. Simply by hearing the same words and phrases over and over again you’ll begin to pick up the language.

Foreign Language Classes

If you don’t like studying alone, or feel you’ll be able to pick up the language quicker through formal education, then you should enroll in foreign language classes. Most community colleges offer classes in Spanish, French, Chinese, or any number of other languages. If you’re the type that learns better in a formal classroom environment than by listening to audio tapes or interactive computer programs, then doing so will increase your chances of learning the language quickly.

Find a Tutor

A method of learning another language that has proven to work well is to find a tutor. Having a one-on-one relationship with a teacher may help you learn more quickly. An intensive program in a closed environment, without any distractions, will speed the learning process along, especially if the tutor is a good teacher.

Don’t Be Afraid to Be Wrong

When you’re participating in a foreign language class or studying with a tutor, don’t be afraid to give a wrong response to a question. If you’re incorrect, you’ll simply be told the right way to speak the word or phrase and more than likely won’t make the same mistake again.

Practice Whenever You Can

In order to learn a language quickly, you should practice using that language whenever possible. At every opportunity use whatever sentences, phrases, or words that you know in a conversation with someone who speaks the language. In most cases they will be more than happy to point out errors in grammar or syntax and teach you the right pronunciation or application of that word or phrase.

Listen

One of the best ways of learning anything is to simply listen instead of talking. If you’re in an environment where the language you’ve chosen to learn is being spoken, take the time to listen to the people as they communicate with one another. After a while you’ll begin to pick up words and phrases and be able to follow the conversation.

Talk to Yourself

Although talking to yourself is often considered to be a bad thing, it may actually be helpful in learning a new language. In between your formal learning periods you can try repeating words and phrases until you fully understand the meaning of them, and are sure you’re pronouncing them correctly.

Read and Write

Whenever possible take the time to read newspapers and magazines in the language you’re studying. You should also practice writing words and sentences in that language. As your knowledge increases, you will learn even faster.

Be Patient

Don’t expect to pick up all the nuances of any language in a short time. In order to become fluent in another language, you will need to be patient, study hard, and devote yourself to learning at a pace that will help you retain what you’ve learned. If you try and learn too quickly, you could become disenchanted with the process and give up.

Guest post from Pat Singer. Pat writes about accredited online colleges for AccreditedOnlineColleges.com.

How to Prepare for the TOEFL

2011-11-10T19:23:00.001-02:00

If your first language isn’t English, but you want to attend college in an English speaking country, you will probably need to take the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) as part of the admissions process. Some organizations, such as government agencies, scholarship programs, select businesses, and licensing bodies may also require that the test be taken before you can become an employee or be considered for their programs. In short, if you hope to live, study, or work in an English speaking country, you should familiarize yourself with the test. Following are a few tips on how prepare for the TOEFL.

What the TOEFL Tests

If you’re not fairly fluent in English, the test may be difficult for you. It’s designed that way. The purpose of the test is to ensure that students are able to understand and communicate in English well enough to get along in an English speaking country. More specifically, it tests a student’s aptitude in the basic skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Unless you speak and understand the language fairly well, the exam could be hard for you.

Test Content

The Test of English as a Foreign Language lasts approximately 4.5 hours. There are various sections, each timed individually. You will need a passing grade in each section before you can be accepted in most colleges in English speaking countries. There are 6,000 plus schools in more than 100 countries that include TOEFL scores when considering an applicant whose first language is something other than English. The test consists of sections on speaking, which takes 20 minutes to complete; reading comprehension, which takes from 60 to 100 minutes to complete, the listening section, which takes from 60 to 90 minutes; and a section on writing, which takes 50 minutes to complete. The TOEFL is taken in a controlled environment, and you must use a computer. Due to the fact that there is more than one version of the test, it is recommended that you prepare by taking practice tests.

Initial Preparation

Because the test is extremely important for some people’s futures, a number of Internet websites have been developed to help them pass the test by supplying preparation test material. One of the most prominent is www.ets.org/toefl, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping students pass the TOEFL. Another Internet website, www.4englishexams.com, also helps students prepare for the test. There are many other websites that contain information that could be useful to you. If you enter TOEFL, or TOEFL Preparation, into your search engine and follow some of the links that come up, you can learn more about how to prepare for the test. You can also get a free copy of a sample test by visiting the Internet website, www.testden.com.

TOEFL Prep Resources

To prepare for the TOEFL, you should study material that is similar to what will be included in the test by reviewing the format and sample questions. By doing so, you will be able to determine exactly what is expected of you when you take the test. In order to prepare properly for the test, you should do as much research into the TOEFL as you can, and determine what is required of you while you’re taking the test. A public library or an online support group can help you get ready. Some materials are free online, including sample tests, questions, and skill-building exercises. You may also want to join a study group. Such groups can found by posting inquiries on social networks, such as Facebook or Twitter. If you need more help you can hire a tutor. Each section of the test is scored equally, so don’t overemphasize any particular section when you study. If you have trouble understanding any of the sections, you should spend a little more time on that area, but don’t neglect the other three.

Taking the TOEFL

When the time comes to actually take the test, you should do well, providing you took the time to prepare for it, and studied hard. Make sure you arrive at the test site a little early so you won’t be rushed at the last minute. You should also be sure and get a good night’s sleep so you are well rested. Don’t take a cell phone or computer into the test room--all the materials that are needed for the test will be supplied for you. Take your time during the exam, but don’t linger over any particular question. Try and remain calm, and pace yourself.

Guest post from Taylor Harris. Taylor writes about online schools for BestOnlineColleges.com.

m-learning - 1 simple idea

2011-09-03T08:17:00.000-03:00

Here is a very simple idea on how to use your students' mobile devices for language learning:

I was teaching a group of advanced-level teenagers in Brazil, in a regular school classroom, with no internet connection, no computer, no projector, no interactive boards, etc. I was about to start the new grammar topic, the different uses of WISH and HOPE, when it dawned upon me that I didn't need any technology because students had a lot of technology right in their pockets.

I asked students if they had either an ipod (or any other mp3 player with a "search" function) or a smartphone with internet connection, and it turned out that all of them had one or the other - and if a few hadn't, they could have worked in pairs or trios. I drew a line in the middle of our chalkboard and wrote WISH on one side and HOPE on the other side, and I asked students to do the following

"If you have a smartphone with internet connection, search for song titles that contain the word WISH or the word HOPE. As you find song titles, come and write them on the chalkboard."

"If you have an ipod, search for the songs that you have on your device with the words WISH or HOPE, and them on the board."

The result was a chalk board filled with many song titles, all of them written by students, based on the songs they carry on their mp3 players or on their internet search. Even better was the fact that everything I needed to exaplain about WISH and HOPE was illustrated on the board, such as using WISH and HOPE as a verb and as a noun, the unreal/regretting aspect of WISH and the probabilistic aspect of HOPE, the fact that we usually use simple past or past perfect after WISH and present or future after HOPE, etc.

Instead of lecturing about this grammar topic, we worked with elicitation based on student-centered song titles. Besides, students were excited about being allowed to use their electronic devices in class!

The following video is an ironic and sarcastic criticism to the dependency teenagers have on mobile devices and on being connected to friends on various social networking platforms all the time, but it is also a picture of our current reality, especially when teaching teenagers, so it's about time we took advantage of it, right?

5 Online (EFL/ESL) Pronunciation Resources

2010-12-16T16:14:00.000-02:00

I'm back! And I hope to be able to get back to blogging more frequently...

For this comeback post, I decided to write about one of my favorite topics:

On my Phonetics and Phonology wiki there are hundreds of resources, including dozens of links
similar to ones posted here, so feel free to drop by and take whatever you want (as long as it is for educational use and with the appropriate references, of course).

Here are my 5 of my favorite online resources for EFL/ESL pronunciation:

Phonetics: The Sounds of American English - This website was created by the University of Iowa and it has a great visual display. The sounds are divided into manner of articulation, place of articulation and voicing (for the consonants); and monophthongs and diphthongs (for the vowels). Once you click a symbol, you can see the movement of the speech organs on an animation, you can break this animation into step-by-step movements/description, you can see a video of a person pronouncing the sound, and you can hear words that contain the sound. It's great for professionals wanting to learn/review the symbols and for students looking for specific pronunciation practice/reinforcement.
Cambridge Pronunciation - Very simple yet useful information in great animations (simulating a movie theater). You choose to work with sounds (which are actually diphthongs), stress (word and sentence), intonation and the phonemic chart.
Another resource by Cambridge, with lots of pronunciation games, is Cambridge English Online.
BBC Pronunciation Tips is a website with videos, charts, videos, quizzes, podcasts, and the three programs that BBC Learning English produced on pronunciation as part of the Talk about English series in 2005. The best of all is that most things are downloadable.
Rachel's English is a website that I have discovered recently. Its greatest highlight is the videos produced by Rachel. The videos are useful for both teachers and students, for Rachel doesn't drone on and on about terminology and theory, but rather shows the subtleties of the movements of the speech organs in high quality videos. You can also connect to her youtube channel and her twitter account.

I hope you enjoy it!

Coming next: Phonetics and Phonology online resources for graduate students and professors.

15 Free Resources for Learning Spanish Online

2009-12-28T12:15:00.001-02:00

If you are interested in learning the Spanish language, you could spend hundreds of dollars on books and software to help you in your endeavor. Or you can learn online. There are many different websites, podcasts, and language learning networks that freely provide everything you can get from books and software. Here are 15 free Spanish language resources to explore:

StudySpanish.com - With over 1,000 pages of free learning materials, StudySpanish.com is an excellent place for learners of all levels to acquire or improve Spanish language skills. The site offers help with pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and much more.

Spanish Language - About.com's Spanish Language Guide offers a comprehensive guide to the Spanish language. Site visitors can browse articles and blog posts, learn Spanish grammar and pronunciation, study Spanish vocabulary, and communicate with other language learners in a community forum.

Effective Language Learning - This site provides nine free Spanish language lessons that can be taken online. Other free offerings include language learning tips, course reviews, and background information on the Spanish language.

Spanish Language Exercises - Hosted by Ursinus College, this web page offers a series of Spanish language exercises. Exercises include the self-check variety in addition to instructor-check exercises.

Coffee Break Spanish - Coffee Break Spanish is a free, award-winning podcast from Radio Lingua Network. Episodes are aimed at beginner and intermediate students and last approximately 15 to 20 minutes.

Cody's Cuentos - Cody's Cuentos visitors can learn or improve Spanish language skills by listening to popular fairy tales and children's stories in Spanish. Users who are having trouble with the translation can order transcripts and additional grammar exercises for a small fee.

Insta Spanish - Insta Spanish, a site that offers a popular iTunes podcast, provides eDocs, Spanish language software, forums, and many other free learning materials.

Lingus.TV - Lingus.TV teaches Spanish through a video podcast that is formatted like a television sitcom. The podcast is entirely in Spanish but subtitles, grammar explanations, and transcripts are provided.

Popling - Spanish language learners who lack the motivation to study may benefit from Popling. This free desktop app displays flashcards at regular intervals so that users can absorb a language while they work on other things.

Livemocha - This popular social language learning site is a favorite among people who want to learn a new language with free online lessons and a community of native speakers. Users can also test their foreign language skills by taking the Livemocha challenge.

iTalki - iTalki is a language learning social network for free language exchanges. Users can participate in group discussions, use self-study materials, and get answers to language questions.

LingQ - LingQ is a unique language learning site for people who want to increase their vocabulary. After signing up for the free membership, users can take an unlimited number of Spanish lessons, join live conversations, make friends in the community, and have writing corrected by native speakers.

Busuu - Bussu is a learning community for people who want to learn Spanish and other foreign languages. The site offers interactive web lessons and a place to practice new language skills.

Hello-Hello - Hello-Hello is a free social language learning site where people can learn to speak, read, and write Spanish (and other languages) while connecting with other people around the world. The site also offers courses and a free flashcard maker.

VoxSwap - VoxSwap is a social network for making friends and learning new languages. Users can connect with native speakers, chat in the forum, and watch free videos from the VoxSwap library.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online college classes for OnlineClasses.org.

15 Places to Find EFL Conversation Starters and Activities

2009-12-21T23:31:00.002-02:00

Practicing English conversation is one of the quickest ways to learn the language. Students who do not have a native speaker to practice with can advance their skills online. There are a number of different sites that provide EFL conversation starters, EFL bots, communities of native speakers, and other forms of conversation practice. Here are 15 places for EFL and ESL students to explore.

ESL Partyland - ESL Partyland provides a large collection of materials that can be used to practice speaking English. Materials include conversation questions, complete lesson plans, and suggestions for using conversation questions.

Lesson Planet - Lesson Planet, a search engine for teachers, provides 14 lesson plans and nine worksheets that incorporate conversation starters. Materials are available for both children and adults.

The Internet TESL Journal - This Internet TESL Journal Project provides an extensive list of conversation questions for the ESL/EFL classroom. A guide is also included for students and teachers who will be using the provided resources.

Daily ESL - Maintained by Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab, this ESL site is devoted entirely to conversation starters. Students can practice conversations that they might have in the community, at school, at home, on vacation, at work, or during special events.

The International Center - The International Center in New York provides a list of topics that can be used to engage in meaningful conversation online or within a language class. Topics include ideas for cultural exchange.

ESL Flow - ESL Flow offers a large selection of conversation starters and conversation exercises for English students. The site also provides icebreaker ideas for large and small groups.

Conversation Exchange - The Conversation Exchange provides a nice collection of conversation topics that can be used to increase vocabulary and language skills.

Boggle's World - In addition to providing worksheets and other materials for the EFL classroom, Boggle's World also offers conversation starters, surveys, and icebreakers. More than four pages of EFL activities are available.

ESLgold - Students can find many different sample phrases and speaking situations on the ESLgold site. Materials are available for learners at every level.

English Club - The English Club teaches EFL students how to make small talk using conversation starters, practice conversations, and a small talk quiz.

ESL Fast - ESL Fast is the perfect place for EFL and ESL beginners to practice speaking English online. The site offers a robot tutor and a shopping tutor that are ready to practice 2,000+ English conversations on a variety of topics.

A.L.I.C.E. - After registering for an account, EFL and ESL students can have unlimited online chats with Dave the ESL Bot for up to one month.

EllaZ - The Ella bot is an award-winning robot known for being a very human-like computer. Ella is good at making small talk. She also does well with jokes and trivia.

Lang-8 - Lang-8 is a great place to learn and practice English and other foreign languages. Native speakers are available through the site to help you gain knowledge and prefect your writing skills.

LingQ - LingQ is another good place to practice English conversations and get your writing corrected. The site is home to a large worldwide community that can be accessed whenever it is convenient for you.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online schools for OnlineSchool.net.

10 Free Online Language Translators

2009-12-16T18:38:00.002-02:00

Free online language translators can be very helpful when you come across a piece of text you are unable to translate on your own. These tools also make it easy to learn new foreign words and phrases. Here are 10 places that offer free human, text, and web page translation:

Lang-8 - Lang-8 is a unique site that allows you to learn a language from native speakers. You can write in any language you are learning and Lang-8's native speakers will correct it for you for free.

Babel Fish - This Yahoo! site offers free text translation for a wide variety of languages. Babel Fish can also be used to translate entire web pages. You can translate from the Babel Fish site or download the free toolbar to translate directly in your browser.

WorldLingo - WorldLingo's free online translator can translate up to 500 words at one time. The site also offers a free document translator, website translator, and email translator.

Foreignword - Foreignword is a language site with free online dictionaries and translation tools. Foreignword also offers free translation software, a language search engine, and a forum where you can chat with other language learners.

SDL FreeTranslation - This free translation website can translate text or web pages from one language into another. Completed translations can be emailed to yourself or your friends.

Freelang - Freelang is a good place to find free online dictionaries, fonts for foreign languages, and other useful tools. The site also provides a free translation help service that is supported by human volunteers.

WordReference - WordReference provides an easy-to-use English to Spanish dictionary as well as a Spanish to English dictionary. If you want to use WordReference in other places, you can use the WordReference app on your iPhone or imbed a mini version of the site on your own website.

Translation2 - This free translation site offers an online dictionary, a text translator, a text-to-speech translator, and an IM translator. You can use all of these tools on-site or download them for free to your computer.

Xanadu - Offered through Foreignword, Xanadu is a free language and translation software product. After downloading, you can quickly translate words, terms, or text from one language into another. More than 60 other languages can also be translated with Xanadu.

Livemocha - When an online translator isn’t enough, you can find real people to help you with translations on Livemocha. This social language learning site connects users with native speakers and other people who are fluent in the language you are learning.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online degree reviews for OnlineDegreePrograms.org.

20 Free Grammar, Vocabulary, and Pronunciation Resources for EFL Students

2009-09-08T15:46:00.002-03:00

EFL students looking to increase their knowledge of English grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation can benefit from the many great resources on the Internet. There are quizzes, podcasts, lessons, activities, and much more--all available free of charge. Here is a list of 20 resources for EFL students to explore:

ESL Mania - ESL Mania offers a wide range of vocabulary and grammar resources for adult learners and teachers. Resources include grammar explanations, quizzes, and book recommendations.

1-Language.com - This one-stop language site provides listening centers, flash games, grammar quizzes, word searches, and activities to help students improve their English grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.

ManyThings - ManyThings is a free EFL site that provides quizzes, games puzzles, and random information for improving your English. Within this site, students can find all the resources needed to improve and build vocabulary.

ESL Galaxy - This impressive ESL site offers over 2,368 worksheets for activities and lesson plans. The worksheets within this site can be used to improve grammar, vocabulary, conversations, and pronunciation.

About.com - About.com's Guide to ESL provides a number of vocabulary builders for EFL students. Beginner to intermediate students can find idioms, vocabulary lists, and vocabulary quizzes as well as tools for grammar and pronunciation.

BBC - BBC offers a unique feature to help students increase grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation through the news, video, recording, and quizzes.

English Interactive - This interactive site features vocabulary builders through audio practice. English Interactive also offers links to reading and writing resources.

Eflnet - Eflnet is a site that offers tools for increasing your grammar, vocabulary, listening, and reading skills. The grammar page provides exercises, tutorials, and activities.

VerbaLearn - The VerbaLearn site provides free vocabulary studying techniques. Students will find study saving resources such as audio, video flashcards, puzzles, and review.

ESL Pod - ESL Pod provides free podcasts for improving your English. This site also helps improve your pronunciation and vocabulary through everyday phrases and expressions.

Dave's ESL Cafe - This online cafe offers EFL students several online language learning opportunities. Students can find a help center, hint-of-the-day, phrasal verbs, pronunciation power, quizzes, and idioms.

A4ESL.org - The A4ESL.org offers opportunities for students to increase their grammar and vocabulary through English and bilingual quizzes. This site also provides interesting puzzles and informative podcasts.

Radio Lingua Network - The Radio Lingua Network offers an innovative podcast for practicing phrasal verbs. This is a great way for EFL students to boost understanding and pronunciation.

Using English - Using English offers a large collection of grammar resources for students and teachers. Just a few of the resources students will find useful include a grammar glossary, irregular verb reference, and phrasal verb practice.

Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab - This free listening lab provides 20-minute vocabulary labs for intermediate level learners.

English English - English English provides links to some of the best grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing, listening, and speaking resources.

English as a Second Language - This site, created by Rong Chang Lee, Ph.D., offers a huge collection of podcasts, quizzes, games, and dictionaries for EFL students. A good pronunciation builder is the pronunciation page of this site which includes videos, exercises, tongue twisters, and software.

ESLTower.com - ESLTower.com offers printable and interactive grammar and vocabulary exercises for EFL students. These fun and easy resources provide the perfect opportunity for EFL students who are learning on their own.

EnglishClub.com - The EnglishClub.com offers free audio pronunciation builders. This language site also features grammar, vocabulary, listening, speaking, reading, and reference resources.

ESL Resource Center - This site, designed for English learners and teachers, offers lessons and exercises for improving grammar, reading, vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation, and listening skills. Students can also find resources for converters, games, and articles.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes for OnlineColleges.net.

Dictionaries

2009-09-04T10:55:00.003-03:00

After several months without baeing able to blog due to time constraints, I'm glad to say I'm back!

With so many possibilities of online dictionaries, it's simply impossible to write a blog post that is not extremely limited, so the following tips are based on my own personal opinion and more ideas, tips and links are more than welcome!

Dictionary.com

What I like about this one is that fact that it gives you the definitions of up to 10 different online dictionaries on the same page. Like most online dictionaries, you can also hear the words and see phonemic transcriptions. With the same style, you can also access thesaurus.com.

Visuwords

This online dictionary gives you a beautiful visual diagram of words definitions and their relations, like synonyms and antonyms, collocations, related words, derivation and much more (not to mention how cool it is to see the diagram being formed). With the same approach, there is also Lexipedia and Visual Thesaurus.

Howjsay

A very popular and easy-to-use speaking dictionary. If like this one, you might also enjoy Oddcast Text-to-Speech tool and Kako Messenger Text-to-Song tool (this last one is really funny).

Embedding

Finally, here are two dictionaries that can be easily embed to your website, blog or wiki. Accessing their websites you can get the html code and the dictionaries will look like this:

Cambridge Dictionary:

Slang Dictionary:

Technophobia

2009-02-24T10:02:00.004-03:00

It's easier to give training sessions to people already involved with Educational Technology because you can start your presentation showing the tools and making people enthusiastic by being an enthusiast.

However, whenever I am going to deliver some session to the general ELT public, I try to begin showing them that there is no need to be afraid of technology. There are always those reluctant teachers who think those tools work only with you because you are young, you know the technolgy, etc...

To help these teachers feel a bit more confident, I try to show them that there has always been and there will always be "technology". The thing is that we don't see the technological appliances we use in our daily lives as technological anymore, we simply "use" them, and the same can happen with webtools, as long as we are not afraid and reluctant about trying them.

Here is a video I usually show in the beginning of my training sessions because it
humorously expresses this very idea:

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFAWR6hzZek)

My colleague Karenne Joy Sylvester has written a very insightful post about this topic too, illustrating these ideas with a personal story of her childhood.

Getting serious on Twitter

2009-02-13T11:33:00.006-02:00

I created my twitter account last year, but didn't really pay much attention to it. One of my new year's resolution, though, was to begin twittering more seriously, so here is a little report on my first month tweetering more seriously.

Getting (seriously) started:

What helped getting serious about twittering was downloading a desktop application. It is definitely not convinient to keep updated with your twitter by trying to be connected to the website all the time. Also, the desktop applications have more feaetures and with easier and faster navigation.

Ironically, I got application suggestions using twitter. @carlaarena suggested twihrl, and @dudeneyge recommended tweetdeck. I tried both, liked both, but ended up choosing the latter, which made my following life much easier and more active.

An important detail: before downloading any of these applications, you have to download and install Adobe Air.

Extra connection:

Something that can also add extra connection is syncronizing your tweets with your facebook status. On facebook, search for the twitter application and allow it, then every update you post on twitter is automatically sent to your status on facebook.

This way, I could get two partners for an online project who read my tweet on facebook and commented on my status asking how to get involved.

Twitter in education:

In this one month twittering more seriously, I could learn about many tools, watched many interesting (and amny funny!) videos, got some ideas and could share and help a little too.

There were two tweets so far that particularly called my attention: one from @sethdickens, sharing this 50 ideas on using twitter for education blog post; and another retweeted by @tweet4education, sharing this Nineteen interesting ways to use twitter in the classroom presentation.

You're no one if you're not on Twitter:

Finally, what inspired my to write this blog post was a link to a youtube video sent via twitter by @jamesclay, from which I listened for the first time to the song "You're no one if you're not on Twitter", by Ben Walker, which is very funny and so true.

So listen to the song, read the lyrics and, if you're still not on twitter, I suggest you begin seriously thinking about becoming someone...

I you would like to join my Twitter network, I'm ronaldojunior there.

Hornby Summmer School - Sán Nicolás Argentina

2009-02-06T16:36:00.006-02:00

The British Council, through the Hornby Educational Trust, funded one more Latin America Regional School, held in Sán Nicolás, Argentina, between Jan 21 and Jan 30, and whose topic was Mind the gap: new technologies and teacher training.There were almost 30 participants from 7 different countries in Latin America, all enthusiastic about learning more web tools for language learning/teaching.

The 10 days of hard work were wisely led by Gavin Dudeney and Nik Peachey and I was glad to be a participant and presenter, which was a great role: learning a lot and also sharing.

I delivered a session about blogs, wikis and google docs and was happy to see many participants creating their blogs and wikis and sometimes including them in their final Action Plan. Here are some of the blogs and wikis created by Hornby 2009 participants:

BLOGS:

Carla Forlin - Brazil
Carina - Cuba
Celeste - Chile
Deise - Brazil
Higinio - Mexico
Marcela - Argentina
Marlene - Chile
Pedro - Cuba
Raul (ning cmmunity) - Colombia
Roberto - Mexico
Betina - Argentina

WIKIS:

Hornby2009 playground wiki - for participants to test pbwiki
Hornby 2009 wiki - created by Andres - Colombia
Roberto - Mexico
Teens in the Americas - created by Analia (Argentina) and Elizabeth (Colombia); intended to put together cross-cultural projects within Latin American countries
TDP training - created by Elizabeth (Colombia)

Besides exploring web tools that can be used to enhance language learning/teaching, the participants were able to build/expand their networks. I am hopeful that many projects will be developed due to these 10 days spent together in Argentina.

I would like to thank the British Council for this opportunity and complimment the BC office in Buenos Aires for the impeccable job organizing this Hornby School.

Read more about Hornby Regional School 2009 in Argentina.

Screencasting with Screentoaster

2009-01-27T14:16:00.005-02:00

I have just learnt about screentoaster with Nik Peachey and here is my first screencast experience. The video has a very basic tutorial intended to help some of the participants in the Hornby 2009 Regional School in Argentina.

Screentoaster creates a flash video which can be shared by url or embedded. They are currently working on a possibility of uploading the video to youtube and downloading it in avi format.

The biggest advantages for me, though, are: you don't have to download anything, all the recording is done online and everything is free.

So enjoy!

Real-English videos

2008-11-07T15:07:00.003-02:00

I have just become a fan of Michael Marzio's website, which features ESL/EFL lessons using "authentic and natural videos of people speaking real English on streets accross the globe".

I teach EFL in Brazil, where students have limited access to authentic and meaningful input, so I found Mike's videos to be very helpful for this teaching context. All videos have at least two versions, one with and another without closed captions. Also, all videos have grammar/vocabulary activities. And the best part is that everything is FREE.

It was only today that I watched one of his videos for the first time. I was looking for some interesting online resources to teach "clothes" to beginners when I found his lesson 38 video in youtube:

I watched the video three times because, besides giving me ideas for my class, this video kept me thinking about about two concepts language teachers deal with: communicative language teaching and correctness.

The first one, communicative language teaching, came to my mind when I noticed that most people in the video, when asked "what are you wearing?", were somewhat surprised by the question, and some of them answer the questions laughing a little. This happens because the question "what are you wearing?" is not communicative, because we never ask someone we are looking at what they are wearing for the simple fact that we can see what they are wearing. However, in our so-called 'communicative' classrooms, we keep asking these not-communicative questions over and over: "what's your name?" (already knowing the student's name), "where is the book?" (everybody seeing it is on the table), "what am I doing right now?" and so on. With this video, though, we can expose students to the real reaction real people would have to our classroom questions. It is a way of getting a little away from the "let's pretend" environment typical of language classrooms.

Concerning the concept of correctness, I could also find in this video a reason for rethinking our concepts of what is correct and is incorrect in the target language, especially for non-native teachers teaching in a non-native country, which is my case. In a clothes lesson, when students started describing what they are wearing, something I would focus on would be the quantifiers. If they said "I'm wearing a T-shirt, scarf, hat, shoes and jacket", I would probably correct them and have them say "I'm wearing a scarf, a hat, a pair of shoes and a jacket". But why, if that's not necessarily how people would say it? With these real-english videos, though, we can, again, expose students to the real language real people use.

ProProfs vs Script-O

2008-09-14T10:40:00.005-03:00

This month, my friend Erika Cruvinel and I are leading a discussion in the group Learning with Computers about creating and designing online exercises. In this first week, I'll help participants create quizzes using two tools which I consider to be simple to be used yet extremely helpful: ProProfs and Script-O.

I had alraedy used these tools, but haven't created anything new there for a few months, and, to my surprise, ProProfs has included a very interesting feature: the option of embeding the quizzes on webpages. Usually, these online exercises creating tools only give you a url for your quiz/exercises, but proprofs has just made the embeding option also possible. So now, I may link my quiz, the way I used to do, like this:

Vocabulary Quiz

Or I cancopy the html code and emebed the quiz to my blog, wiki or any other webpage, like this:

Of course each tool has its own advantages, and there is something that I prefer in Script-O, which is a larger variety of question types. Whereas ProProfs only has 3 types of question (multiple choice, fill in the blanks and essay question), Script-O has 7 (true/false, single answer, multiple answer, simple cloze, fill answer, short answer and matching). Check out this example of a quiz created with Script-O.

So, it's up to the user to explore the tools and choose which one is most suitable for his/her needs. I, personally, like using both of them!

Stay tuned for my next comparison: Quia vs Hot Potatoes

You can also follow our activities for the Learning with Computers group by visiting our wiki, where participants will also fill in a table with advantages and disadvantages of each of the 6 online exercises creating tools we will explore in September.

Meme

2008-05-19T09:18:00.003-03:00

Last week I learned what MEME is, and on the same day I was memed twice and today once again, so I finally decided to answer all three memes (two are the same) on the same post.

Quoting Larry Ferlazzo, the first one to tag me, "Meme is a term used to describe a question or series of questions that a blogger asks another. Usually, a blogger “tags” several others to respond."

Both Larry and Bertha tagged me with the same questions, and Carla Arena also tagged me, but with just one question. So I'll answer the questions here and then write a little reflection about it.

Larry and Bertha's questions:

What was I doing 10 years ago? Since I'm 25 years old, 10 years ago I was in the first of the 3 years of Brazilian high school, in Military School.
Five things on my to-do list today: answers these memes, tune up my bike, write a post for the adolasl2 blog (which belongs to the youth group my wife and I coordinate at our church), grade some essays, continue preparing material for the practical writing course I'll pilot in a few weeks.
Snacks I enjoy: pão-de-queijo (the literal translation would be "cheese bread", but it is not bread...)
Things I would do if I were a millionaire: HELP, in all possible ways, but only people who really needed it.
Three of my bad habits: procrastinate correcting and grading essays, use the computer for too long without stopping to stretch, not eat as much fruit as I know I should.
5 places I have lived: uh, boring answer, only Brasília (but planning on having this the list grow soon...). Boring because it's only one place, because Brasília is GREAT!
5 jobs I have had: English teacher (that one is enough...)

Carla's question:

How's my blogging related to my business? The original idea of this blog was to test things I was learning while taking the EVOnline session Becoming a Webhead in 2007. Later I started posting about new tools which I discovered, and now I feel that I have also been doing some reflective blogging - as this post will become in the next few lines. As a language teacher it is crucial that I be in touch with the most updated kind of language: the online one. Most of my students are connected, so I have to be connected too; and the ones who are not, I can help them be; after all, a language teacher not only teaches a language, but opens doors to new places, new cultures, new contacts, so why not new connections and networks too?

My reflection

At first I didn't feel like answering the questions , especially the first ones, because I thought they were too personal and would change the tone of my blog. But then I decided to go over the questions and answers again to make my mind whether I would go on with this Meme thing and, to my surprise, there was a lot of profit from it. The most important were:

learning a bit more about the people I read;
learning that there are people who read me (and are apparently willing to learn more about me);
strengthening my connections; and
(the most important) building new connections, i.e. at the end of a meme people say who they would like to hear from, this way I could discover some interesting blogs to begin reading and could even discover blogs of people I know but never knew they had a blog!

Who I would like to hear from:

Since I'm answering two memes on the same post, I'll tag people this way: I'll invite the 5 people Bertha tagged (Nina Liakos, Illya, Hala, Maria Cláudia, Susana Canelo) to answer Carla's question, and the 5 people Carla tagged (Cris Costa, Mary Hillis, Gladys Baya, Vance Stevens, Bee Dieu) to answer Larry and Bertha's questions. But please, do not feel obligated to respond.

Living collaboration

2008-05-14T09:36:00.006-03:00

I have just had an unexpected and inspiring experience in the online world regarding collaboration.

Together with my colleagues Carla Arena and Erika Cruvinel, I'm involved in the piloting of online courses for Casa Thomas Jefferson, the English Institute I work for in Brasília, Brazil. In a couple of weeks I will begin piloting our brand new online course, Practical Writing; thus, after designing the course and thinking about the tools to be used, I decided to have, among others, a class blog and a class wiki.

I could easily create my practicalwriting blog at blogger, but when I was going to create my practicalwriting wiki at pbwiki, I discovered someone had already created one. I visited the wiki and saw that there was very little content added and that the last changes had been made 3 moths ago. So I contacted the owner of the wiki, hopelessly asking her if she could delete that wiki for me to use the domain.

I know I could use other wiki hosts, like wikispaces or wepaint, but I really like pbwiki and feel comfortable with it, and, for my surprise, the next day I received a message from this American teacher living in Korea, Alissa Hartig, saying that she tried deleting the wiki but that pbwiki informed her that, if she deleted it, no one else would be able to ever use that domain again.

I obviously thanked her a lot and told her I would use another host, then, on the same day, she sent me an email thread she had with pbwiki support - through Rachel Penning, who was so helpful - asking them to transfer the ownership of that wiki to my pbwiki account, and they did it!

So now I have my practicalwriting wiki at pbwiki and, after exchanging some messages with Alissa, she (and her Korean students) will be special guests in the Practical Writing course, interacting with my students through the blog, wiki and, who knows, maybe some lifelong communities. I'm sure my Brazilian students will be eager to learn more about Korean culture.

I wrote this post to register this amazing collaborative Korea-Brazil experience, to thank Alissa Hartig once again, and to encourage everyone to believe that there are good-spirited, noble people willing to help us out there.

Let Alissa be an example of educator to us all!

Animoto: education program

2008-04-25T10:35:00.003-03:00

Reading Larry Ferlazzo's blog, I learned about Paul Hamilton's post, where he also mentions three other bloggers who all talked about this great opportunity animoto has just given educators.

I have already blogged about animoto because it is a great website that puts together photos and a song in a very modern flash-like presentation. The thing is that the free version only lets you create 30-second videos, and in order to have an all-access account, with which you can create longer videos, you have to pay.

Well, the good news is that animoto has just announced the animoto education program, which gives all-access codes to educators and their students, as long as they promise to keep animoto updated on the innovative ways students use this tool.

Here is an example of an animoto video I have created with the pictures of our school's (Casa Thomas Jefferson) Teachers' Day celebration (Oct. 15, 2007). Turn up the volume!

Some more google discoveries

2008-04-23T08:38:00.003-03:00

I'm a big fan of Google. I love gmail, orkut, blogger, google general search, google image search, google maps, google docs, google reader, google page creator, picasa and youtube. And every now and then they add something new in the even more button, and, as a result, I have recently added two interesting features to this blog.

The first one, I found navigating the even more page: it's a customized search engine within my blog. With custom search, you can easily create a google-like search box that will search within a specified domain, in my case, my I hope it works blog. After you create the search engine, you can embed it to any page using the html code given, and the result is something like this:

The second one is something so simple, but that I had never noticed until I read about it in Sue Waters' blog, more specifically in her post "I've gone widget crazy and need help to control widget addiction". I have always wanted to have a blogroll of the blogs I read in my I hope it works blog, but I had never seen this option in blogger and felt I could not keep it updated if I just created a list of links. Then Sue Waters shows her readers that Google Reader offers this option (you know when you feel like, "why didn't I think of this before"?). All you have to do is click "manage subscriptions", then select the tab "tags", click the RSS symbol of the folder from which you want to create a blogroll in order to make it public (the RSS symbol turns red), then click the link "add a blogroll to your site" - voila, you just copy and paste the html code and you'll have an always-updated blogroll (like the one on the right of my blog), because every time you add a new subscription to that folder, the new blog will appear in the blogroll.

TESOL 2008 - NYC

2008-04-10T19:15:00.007-03:00

I now teach at the very school where I learned English: Casa Thomas Jefferson, in Brasília, Brazil. I have never lived abroad and I use to tell my students that all my English is Casa Thomas Jefferson English, which they find surprising. You see, students (and many teachers!) in EFL contexts have this (sad) belief that you can only master a language if you learn it in the country where it is spoken, and I have always been proud to be a living testimony of the contrary. I like to talk about strategies with my students (especially advanced, and pre-Michigan and pre-TOEFL ones), and every time I start talking about it, I like to say that it is totally possible to be fully competent in a language even learning it in Brazil, as long as you put the right amount of effort into it.

Nevertheless, I know that, even though living abroad is not the only way to acquire a foreign language, having experiences abroad can only add to a teacher's knowledge, maturity and expertise. Well, I still haven't lived abroad (not yet!), but Casa Thomas Jefferson (CTJ) has helped me have an 8-day experience in New York City by providing me with a grant to attend the 42nd TESOL Convention.

The trip had two big positive points for me:

1. Interacting with people in New York City has made me learn a few new words, taste a few new dishes, listen to different accents and reflect upon some of our practices. The first reflection that took my mind was the concept of competence. I have already read a lot about this concept (Noam Chomsky, Dell Hymes, Michael Canale, Michael Canale and Merill Swain, Lyle Bachman, Almeida Filho, Allan Davis - to mention a few), but walking in the streets of New York a couple of days before the convention, and talking to an Egyptian taxi driver, buying hot dogs from a Pakistani guy, having a Russian waitress wait our table, or checking in at the hostel with a Puerto Rican man (not to mention the other nationalities staying in the hostel...) has made me reflect again about what communicative competence really means. Let's take pronunciation as an example: I love pronunciation, I am writing my master's dissertation about pronunciation teaching, and I believe I have good pronunciation, at least better than that of all those people I mentioned before. However, they all communicate perfectly! With their accents, or sometimes even wrong pronunciation, they can all live and work in the United States and have far more interactions with native speakers (thus getting a lot of input and consequently learning more words and expressions) than I do. Even in the convention this question sprang to my mind again, when I listened to Dr Suresh Canagarajah give this amazing talk but saying things like deve'lopment, which we so frequently correct in our Brazilian students' oral production. Of course I'm not insane (or naive) enough as to say that because of all this we shouldn't worry about pronunciation. I'm just glad that I could experience firsthand what I have read in so many papers: that communicative competence has many aspects, and what makes a speaker competent is a comprehensive, balanced and principled use of all features of communicative competence.

Another reflection that came to my mind is how close we, EFL teachers, are to teaching what is actually used in real life situations. Having an informal conversation with my friend Carla Arena,
we both agreed that there are some things that text books present and that are not the most common or most frequent linguistic sample used in real life. She has been living in Key West for almost two years and told me that she noticed that people used much more phrases like "take care", "have a good day", "see ya" or "have a good one" (which I have never seen in text books) when she was leaving a place than "good-bye" or "bye", which are so abundant in our classes.

Among the many amazing experiences, I just have to write about this incredible one: on Tuesday, April 1, I was in a hurry, a bit late to meet some friends for dinner, but in the middle of my running I just had to stop to listen to this excellent vocal trio singing in the Grand Central Station:

2- The convention was amazing. I was able to attend lots of interesting, insightful and resourceful presentations that will help me both in my CALL function at CTJ and in the writing of my master's dissertation. Listening to some people whose work I have been reading (like Elaine Tarone and Suresh Canagarajah) was very encouraging; meeting some of the Webheads in Action f2f for the first time was a blast; and simply walking in those hallways and knowing that there were close to 10,000 language teachers in that place willing to enhance their teaching was absolutely thrilling. I also had the chance to present a project my colleague (and coordinator of CTJ) Isabela and I carried out last year about "blogging the writing process" in the Electronic Village Fair.

These are just a few words to exemplify what I have gained from enjoying every single minute of my first experience abroad. The truth is that I could write about growing as a language teacher from the simple things I did, as analyzing the subway map to choose my routes, to the excellent opportunities I had, as listening to renowned scholars in my area.

Check out my New York Albuns:

NYC + CTJ and Webheads

NYC - Sightseeing

NYC - Museums

Voicethread and Splashcast - my own examples

2008-03-18T18:26:00.007-03:00

Some weeks ago I wrote a contrastive review of Voicethread, Splashcast and Qlipboard, and now I've decided to post about my own personal and real experience using these tools with my students this semester (1/2008).

Larry Ferlazzo has come up with the great idea of a Sister Classes Project, where some teachers from different countries (8 countries are involved so far) develop (inter)cultural projects/presentations with their students and publish them at the Student Showcase blog for everybody's appreciation. Since I was already beginning a students' blog project with my 2 EFL advanced groups in this first semester of 2008, I was more than glad to join the Sister Classes Project. I also took this chance to spread the word about Brazil and to have my own personal student-generated voicethread and splashcast presentations.

What can't be denied is the power that tools such as these might have:

To prepare the first presentation, I first uploaded the pictures chosen by the students, and, two days later, took them to our school's computer lab for them to record their voices. In the mean time, without advertising the presentation to anyone, we already got our first comment, and it was from a regular voicethread user, not an English teacher and not an English student.
This gave a unique chance to tell my students that the project they were getting into was extremely meaningful because it would be out there, on the internet, for actual audience to appreciate, which made them really thrilled about it!

As soon as they recorded their voices, I published the presentation in the Students Showcase blog and, after some three weeks, I took them to the computer lab again so that they could answer the questions left to them by project partners' students. In order to get them evem more motivated about the project, I asked them to guess how many times they thought their presentation had been viewed so far. Most of them said a number under 100, and only one student was bold enough to guess 120. When I told them that their presentation had been viewed 426 times (on March 24. Today, March 25, it has been viewed 18 more times!), they were astonished and, I believe, began to feel the power of publishing on the internet.

I also hope this whole experience will give them a better sense of authorship and readership, for they are producing English (writing in their blogs and speaking in the presentations) for a real audience that is beyond the classroom walls, something difficult to reach in an EFL context. I also hope to help them see that this is the purpose of learning English, after all: to communcate!

Here are the presentations:
Feel free to leave voice, video or text comments in the shows!

This first presentation
was created by my teenage students using voicethread, and it is about the cities they considered to be the 5 most important cities in Brazil. This presentation was published, among other places, in this Student Showcase blog post.

This second presentation
was created by my adult students using splashcast - actually we recorded using Audacity and then I edited a video using Windows Movie Maker and finally uploaded it to Splashcast. It is about students' favorite vacation spots in Brazil. This one hasn't been published in the Student Showcase blog yet because I still need to add two more students' recordings.

Add Favorite Vacation Spot to your page

New Scribd

2008-03-11T11:59:00.003-03:00

I have already written a post about Scribd one year ago, but I have to confess that I never needed to use it since then. But now I learned that they have improved their system tremendously.

Sribd is a web 2.0 tool where you can upload and share virtually any kind of document (doc, ppt, pps, xls, pdf, ps, odt, odp, sxw, sxi, jpg, jpeg, png, gif, txt and rtf). Besides reading the uploaded documents, visitors can also leave comments, which are notified to you in your scribd account, or via email - you choose.

What I really liked about this new scribd generation is the fact that they provide us with the html codes of any document uploaded to be added to your website, blog, wiki etc. Here are two examples of how scribd documents look when embedded to a blog. I have just uploaded them and notice that the uploading process is extremely fast!

The first one is a Microsoft Word document (.doc) with a song exercise for advanced EFL/ESL students to practice crimes/law vocabulary. The second one is a Microsoft Power Point presentation (.ppt) that I created and used in December of 2007 for a workshop I gave to public school teachers in Recife, Brazil about the uses of IT in the classroom. The slide presentation looks like the ones uploaded to slideshare, so I'll probably write another post soon contrasting these two tools.

Example 1 (word document)

Example 2 (powerpoint presentation)

Evoca + skype

2008-02-27T11:27:00.004-03:00

Hello everyone!

I have just learned that evoca has a new feature - a skype call recorder. I know that it is possible to record skype calls using Audacity (some people report having difficulties recording both ends of the call) and powergramo, but recording a call with evoca was extremely simple.

All you have to do it create an evoca account and add evoca-skype-recorder as your skype contact. When you are in a call, you add the evoca contact to the call, and that's it! Your call recording will be stored in your evoca account. The first time you use it, you have to confirm your evoca account through a link sent to you through a skype message (it takes a few seconds).

Here is my first skype call recording, it's me and Nina Liakos:

The only pitfall is that you can only record up to 15 minutes for free. To record more than that you have to go pro in evoca and pay $29.95 a year.

Which wiki? Which blog?

2008-02-19T17:26:00.004-03:00

Following the idea of my previous post - a contrastive review of voicethread, splashcast and qlipboard -, here goes a contrastive analysis of wiki and blog hosts, but I won't do it alone...

During BaW08, I came up with the idea of having two collaborative google spreadsheets, one to compare blog hosts and the other to compare wiki hosts. So I set up the spreadsheets and wrote my impressions (following the idea of positive aspects in blue and negative ones in red). Then I sent an invitation to Bawers, for them to include their impressions too, and some of them did. Now I would like to open this discussion to all webheads and anybody else who ends up here. The idea is simple: write your impressions about the hosts already there, add any other host you would like and start writing the first impressions, and add your name as one of the contributors. Also feel free to use the spreadsheets in your classes, workshops, presentations, talks, or for any other purpose you would like, after all, this is the webheads spirit.

The spreadsheets' names - blog combat and wiki combat - were inspired in a kind of article a cars magazine in Brazil (4 rodas - 4 wheels) publishes comparing cars from different brands, for example Volkswagen Golf vs. GM Vectra GTI.

Here are the links:

Read the blog combat

Read the wiki combat

Contribute to the blog combat

Contribute to the wiki combat

Voicethread x Splashcast x Qlipboard

2008-02-18T18:35:00.016-03:00

Voicethread, Splashcast and Qlipboard are all tools that unite pictures and voice in slideshows. In order to compare them, I created a virtual tour around Brasília (my hometown) in each one of them. The tour is the same: same pictuers and same narration, because the idea was to really compare all the features offered. So here are the results followed by my review. Positive aspects are in blue and negative ones in red.
If there is any wrong information here (or extra information which I did not initially include), it was probably because I didn't explore the tools fully, so feel free to tell me and I'll readily update the reviews.

You can also check my own personal examples using voicethread and splashcast with my EFL students in the first semester of 2008.

Enjoy your tour!

Voicethread:

The easiest to use. Dashboard is really user-friendly, with simple functions like upload and record.
Comments can be left in voice or text forms
Voice comments can be added with a cell phone too
Comments are attached to specific pictures
Comments are added to the original narration
Pictures can be uploaded from your computer, flickr, facebook or you can just type their urls
Besides pictures, you can also upload videos and documents
Powerpoint/impress slides can be easily uploaded
You can embed full-sized or small-sized versions
There is comment moderation option
It lets you doodle with the images, but only while you're recording
You can create only 3 threads for free in the same account
You can only add voice by recording online. You cannot record first, add effects, treat the audio and then upload the mp3 file.
Visitors need to sign up for a voicethread account in order to leave comments.

Splashcast:

Easy, but not as easy as voicethread. Dashboard is not as user-friendly because it offers more options, like designation of channels and players (which you need to create in order to get the html code).
Pictures can be uploaded from your computer, flickr, or you can just type their urls
You can record online or use any other audio recorder to make an mp3 file to be uploaded to one specific picture later
Besides pictures, you can also upload videos and documents
Comments are attached to specific pictures
Comments can be left in voice, video or text forms
Unlimited number of shows can be created for free
Comments are stored in a separate "comments" area
Visitors don't need to have a splashcast account in order to leave comments
You can't doodle with the pictures (which might be good...)
There is no comment moderation option (but comments can be easily deleted)

Qlipboard (online version):
The most traditional one is the offline version, which I

It lets you doodle a lot with the picture, with pen, highlighter and text options. You can also change the colors of your drawing and texts
There is no need to sign up for an account
It allows only voice comments
The most limited one because it doesn't create a slideshow connecting the pictures, but just one picture with voice narration

The idea of this review is not to make one tool look good and the other(s) bad. I believe their particular features fit different purposes. So the choice of which tool to use in an activity lies in the goals of the activity.

Creating comic strips

2008-02-12T11:15:00.001-02:00

Pixton is a website that allows you to create comic strips. The fun thing is that they let you change some features of the stick characters and, in the advanced editing options (which doesn't mean "for advanced users" for it is very intuitive and user-friendly), they also have some very cool pre-set objects and backgrounds that can be added to the scenes.

Check out this one I created for Baw08ers that feel overwhelmed with the quantity of tools suggested and explored. You can also remix my comic strip!

A little more on slideshows

2008-02-11T15:38:00.000-02:00

This one was suggested by webhead Rita Zeinstejer.

GifUp is a "gif animation" and "avatar generator" website. What I particularly liked about it is the fact that it creates a nice photo slideshow with pictures taken from your webcam, uploaded from your computer, or searched from any website (a flickr search is already included).

In this example, I used the "Create an animation from Flickr images" option. I typed the word "Brasília" (my hometown), clicked on the pics I actually wanted in my animation, and that's it! My animation was ready with html code and a link to advertise my animation. I probably spent some whole 2 minutes doing everything.

Photo slideshows

2008-02-09T12:29:00.000-02:00

Here goes my first update in 2008!

Working with Carla Arena and Erika Cruvinel at Casa Thomas Jefferson as one of our website content managers, one of our jobs is to cover the events that happen at our school and publish them in our website. For a long time, we have been using free photo slideshows to do this, for example slide (my favorite), bubbleshare, picture trail, rock you (I know JA loves this one) and others. Here is an example of a slideshow of our Thanksgiving celebration we created using slide:

However, in mid 2007, through the LWC group (Learning With Computers), I discovered animoto - a website that creates a more modern photo presentation, and all you have to do is add the pictures and choose a song from their song bank (or upload your own song). Animoto already has a group of effects that are added to your video according to beat of the song used. You can create an unlimited number of 30-second videos for free, or pay (not much) to create longer videos. Here is an example of a video I created about CTJ's Teachers' Day party (Oct. 15, 2007). Turn up the volume:

After you create the video, you can send the link by email, get the html code to embed it (just as I have done here) or download it and use it any other way you would like.

Have fun!

I'm back!

2008-02-09T12:19:00.000-02:00

Hello world (again)!

It's good to be back. I created this blog exactly one year ago as I was taking my first EVO session ever - Becoming a Webhead 2007. I created it as a place to test the tools we were working with, and now, as I am engaged in Becoming a Webhead 2008, reading people's blogs and wikis made feel like taking blogging more seriously. I've worked a lot with blogs with my students in 2007 (check links on the right), but I never had my own personal blog, so I decided to make this one my own personal weblog for edutech and other EFL/ESL experiences and issues.

Questions, comments, criticisms, suggestions and advice are all more than welcome. Also feel free to to subscribe my blog to your reader for I'm determined to keep it updated.

And if this is your first visit to my blog, don't forget to add yourself to my frappr map.

Pronunciation

2007-08-24T08:41:00.000-03:00

Learning pronunciation can be painful...

Yackpack

2007-05-31T10:34:00.000-03:00

Yackpack (www.yackpack.com) seems to be a website where you create network of friends with whom you can exchange voice messages. The thing is that you can record a message, send it to yourself and then get the html code to embed the message to your blog/site. Here is my first test using yackplayer:

Let's share documents!

2007-03-09T13:59:00.000-03:00

Scribd is a site to share documents. You upload your document and people can see it through a kind of pdf reader. It seems cool.

Check out thisexample of a very funny slideshow I found there.

Some good Brazilian music for you

2007-02-23T13:52:00.000-02:00

I already knew yousendit.com to send heavy files, but with my new friends, baw07ers, I have discovered a new one, it's called bestsharing.com and to test it I have uploaded my favorite album from my favorite Brazilian singer/musician: Ed Motta - the album is "As Segundas Intencões do Manual Prático." If you would like to have this album, feel free to download it at http://tinyurl.com/23228n

And don't forget to leave some comments!!!
This album will be available for downloads for 30 days.

Teachers love music, don't they

2007-02-22T14:48:00.000-02:00

Hey guys, Isabel Perez suggested in her synchronous session this site Radio.Blog.Club - and it is wonderful because it treats the songs just like youtube treats videos, i.e. you can get an html code for the song you want and simply add the player with the song to your blog, wiki, site, etc. For example, here goes the song played wile I walked down the aisle on my wedding day (yes, the groom also walks down the aisle in Brazil) - but with no singer, just the band and a saxophone... listen, imagine and cry... =)

Online Activities Week

2007-02-22T14:26:00.000-02:00

Week 5 was dedicated to the online activities creators, and I had a lot of fun!

Here are some of the activities I have created, feel free to take them, and use the voting box to say which tool you liked best.

I also created a survey at Survey Monkey: Answer it and have fun!

Voice Week

2007-02-22T14:11:00.000-02:00

I don't know if it is because I am a musician, but I simply LOVED the voice week!!!

Here are the links to two threads I have participated in. So listen, have fun and join in:

Gabjam with Moira and others

Chinswing thread on Stereotypes

springdoo test

Web 2.0 video

2007-02-22T13:39:00.000-02:00

This video was shared by Mônica Veado and it is fascinating, beautiful and scary at the same time, don't you think?

Welcome to my test!!!

2007-02-21T16:51:00.000-02:00

Hello everybody. This is a blog created to test the things I have learned (or maybe have been learning - I am sure this is going to be an everlasting ongoing process =)) at BAW07. So feel free to surf around the tools, and PLEASE leave comments, send me an e-mail, or make any other kind of contact (I'm just afraid smoke signals and the batman call won't be very effective).

That's it! Have fun!