Voki------creat your avatar

Voki (http://voki.com) is an audio tool for recording voice and create your own avatar. The voice message can be embedded in website, e.g. blog,like my home page. It is a great tool for students to practice English speaking skill.

Why is this particular tool relevant to language learning?

• All you need to do is provide a microphone, the in-beded one also works 
• Easy to use. No need to download a special software to use it. 
• Motivate students by creating fantastic avatars and embedding their voices. 
• It offers various languages for learners, for instance, Spanish, French,etc. 
• Reduce anxiety. Shy students could be more willing to talk than face-to-face situation. 
• It is also a tool that promotes 'connected classroom' because students can be asked to practice the language in and then outside the classroom.

Some suggested activities

• Embedding voice into your avatar. This kind of technology-assisted way can arouse learners’ interest in practicing speaking and motivate them largely. 
• Teacher can creat their own voki classroom. lesson plan is provided at the home page. 
• Learners can also share their as ‘audio diary’ with others, It is a more creative and interesting way of interaction compared with traditional writing work.

Limitations

• Simple function. It only can be used as practicing speaking skill. 
• Not suitable for all level students.this tool is more beneficial for younger learners to stimulate interests. 
• Students may spent more time on editing their avatars.

MyBrainshark— a good tool for presentation making

What is it?       

MyBrainshark is a brilliant tool that
users can combine different forms of documents (e.g. voice recording, picture, video, powerpoint, podcast) into one integrated form of exhibition.

Some Advantages/Why is it relevant to language teaching and learning?

• The greatest advantage of MyBrainshark, I think,is that it can have audio, video and written documents synchronised.
• This tool can be used to promote distance learning and learning autonomy since they can do it at home or anywhere else if there is network connections.
• It is interesting and motivating for students to give a oral presentation by combining students' own life, for example, their photos or creative pictures, with their oral expression.
• It provides a good opportunity for teachers to make a mini-lecture! 
• It's helpful for students to practice their speaking and presentation skills.
• The recordings encourage students to pay more attention to the accuracy because everyone wants to show a perfect talk to the public.
• Your talk can be embedded, if you like, into another site, like a blog, as I show on my second page"Echo's talk", to share your information with others.

Some approaches to facilitate teaching/learning

• As individual work, teachers can let student make a oral presentation of his/her life,commenting on his/her photos.Or,give personal opinion of an event.
• As group work, students can make a combined presentation together  which also improve their collaborative working skills.
• There are a number of talks already being uploaded on this website, so it can also be used for listening activities to promote learners' listening skills as well.
• Use this tool to add others' voice in order to give a oral feedback.we can send our uploaded written documents to other people to ask their feedback, such as students sent their homework or presentation to their tutor or teachers send their handout to other fellow teachers.
• Teachers can use this tool to make a mini-lecture, thus students can replay several times until they are fully understand.
• Use this tool to make a product. In terms of "Presentation, Practice, Production" teaching model, after giving instructions at class, teachers can ask students to complete a task as the "production" stage at home by using this tool. It not only saves time but also connects inside and outside class!

Limitation

It can only record for 15 minutes. Maybe it's not enough for teachers to give a mini-lecture while it's quite a long time for students to talk.

Why not post our wishes on the wall?

What is it?

As indicated by its name, Wallwisher allows users to build a colorful 'wall' of a given topic and let others post on it. Like an open forum, it is an exciting website for sharing ideas and comments. One attractive feature is that you can design their walls or ‘stick notes’ in an arbitrary order. Not only the text, you can also draw website links, images and even videos on your wall!!

How might it be used in English language teaching?

1. A warm up activity. After giving student a general idea, teacher can make      students guess what the lesson is and then ask them post their ideas on the wall as a warm up activity.

2. To complete a task. At speaking class, teacher can give students a topic, such as, introduce a historical place or a superstar. In order to complete this task, they need to build a wall, posting whatever they like, for example, pictures, videos and website links etc. Assign students in different groups and let them discuss. At the end of the class, teacher can design a presentation stage, making students show their achievements.

3. To collect feedback. If teacher wants to get some feedback, he/she can use this website. In terms of students, they can choose whether leave their names or not. Since it allows anonymous posts, students can make comments and give suggestions without any pressure.

4. Interaction between teacher and student. The students can ask any questions or share whatever they think useful related to a certain lecture on this particular wall and the teacher can answer them by posting a new sticky. Also, some relative videos or websites can be posted as supplementary materials or for further learning. 

5. Long distance learning. Teacher can put the language point as the topic of a wall, and add some videos, pictures or website links that related to this language point. Students can use this wall and learn this language point at home or review after class.

6. For teacher to prepare next lesson. By using Wallwisher to get ideas, interests, teacher could better prepare for next class. In this case, teacher is closer to their students and may be easier to get to know students’ needs.

Benefits

1.It is a great tool for students to express their thoughts and share ideas.

2.It is excellent when Wallwisher is used for a task or project work.

3.It promotes promote learner autonomy and reflective thinking.

4.It is good for students whose learning type is visual one, since the post is colorful and the background is so attractive.

5.Great tool for long distance teaching and learning. Wallwisher provides a connected classrooms, making e-collaboration and e-learning more easily. Learners can collaborate, communicate and connect with their peers and teachers when they are in or outside the classroom.

Limitations

1.The wall cannot be downloaded.

2.Wallwisher has limited characters (only 160) to use give written messages.

3.It may be hard to read when there are many comments on the wall.

4.Users may waste lots of time on organizing the layout in order to get a clear visual effect. 

QuestGarden

Try to have a experience http://questgarden.com/

What is it?

A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web. (Bernie Dodge 1995). It encourages group work and gets students involves in real-life tasks.There are many free webquest templates on the QuestGarden website.  

QuestGarden members can download WebQuests created by other teachers and use them to meet their specific needs, or they can design one by themselves using an on-line template.

• Click here to get to know more about what is a webquest.

How to make your own webquest ?

• Click here to follow step by step, there is also a flow-process chart in it illustrating how to design.
• Click here if you have not enough time to design. Some steps will help you to choose or adapt.

How can this website foster language learning?

It is quite suitable for teachers who want to create their own materials.

Jing

              

Try to download Jing by free.

• What is it ?

Jing is a very useful screen-capture tool produced by TechSmith. It enables other people to  view what you record on your computer screen as well as hear your voice of explaining at the same time. Another  important feature of it is user can easily store and share the recording.Of course, all of these are free.

• How to use it?

Following video will show you how to use it step by step.

• Why is it good for language learning?

1. In the language learning process, Jing can be regarded as a superb tool for teachers to give feedback. They can mark students' homework online and highlight the mistakes or errors, and then explain in detail. and give and record  the oral feedback. 

2. Compared with traditional written feedback, it is more clarified by using Jing to record an oral feedback since amount of suggestions will be given during recording. 

3. As for lower-level learners, this type of feedback provides them a plenty of time to digest and understand their confusing or difficult problems. 

• How to use it to foster language learning?

1. As for giving feedback, teachers can  point out the part they want to make a comment, either by explaining more details, or by giving examples. Then students can go back to listen the comments and watch the video again and again until they understand.

2. It can also used by students. For example, describe a picture using target language structures or phrases as a follow-up activity after speaking class or draw an outline and demonstrate their thoughts to the teacher before a writing work.

• Limitations

1. It is impossible to give such an oral feedback to each students,especially in a large size class like China. Taking a record one by one is a time-consuming work. 

2.If it's a free version, there is only a 5-minute length for one Jing recording. 

Breaking News English

• What is it?

Based on the current news event, Breaking news English is a teaching material website which is produced by Sean Baville. A variety of completed and well designed exercises and activities are provided, including listening, speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary and grammar skills.

• Why is the content good for language learning?

1.Less preparing, more educating. The materials are designed into different types of tasks, such as warm-up activities, while-reading/writing exercises and after reading  or listening activities.It is very convenient and time-saving for teachers to choose the parts they want and print off as handouts or download the listening file(MP3). Both of them are free.

2.The news and information is up-to-date and quite relevant to people's life, so students will find it meaningful and stimulating to learn.

3.There are a wide varieties of high quality quizzes designed in line with the materials, with which the teacher could use to strengthen  students' language knowledge.

4.There are also some collaborative activities,which can create a more interactive learning atmosphere. During these sort of tasks, students may feel relaxed and be willing to engaged.

• How might you use it in a teaching context?

1.Select a chunk of activities related to a certain topic or lesson to do warm-up activities and brainstorm with the learners.

2.Select a relevant activities to expand students vocabulary,such as matching games. Also,it can be used as an interesting testing program.

3.Put the students into pairs or groups to do some reading comprehension together.For example, the quiz activity.

• Limitations

1. This is a fixed genre which can lead to a narrow range of vocabulary learning.

2. As to the audio clips, they are almost recorded by the same person reading at the same speed. Thus, students may rely on this accent.

3. Less considerations taken into students' personalities. If a student dislikes news as teaching material, he/she may feel boring.

TodaysMeet

   Click TodaysMeet to have a try

• What is it?/what does it do?

Todaysmeet is a simple but effective tool to create a website chatting room for communication and interaction in class. Without limitation of area, this website is extremely suitable for group discussion, even at home . All the participants can spontaneously ask questions, share ideas, and give feedback. 

• How to use it?

the following video shows how to use it.

• Why is this particular tool to language learning?

1. Interactive class. It is an excellent web tool that can build your own BackChannel space for conversation not only between teacher and learner but also between learner and learner. By using this tool, the whole class is like a kind of interactive community.

2. Convenience. There are few limitations of time and space. It can be used as long-distance online learning tool. In addition, it is cost free.

3. Engagement. It is difficult to get the students who are very shy or in lower language proficiency level to engage in discussions, answering questions or other teaching activities. However, by using Todaysmeet, shy learners don’t need to speak in public any more so that they can be motivated and more willing to take part in group work or discussion. On the other hand, thanks to no interruptions, more time is given to lower-level students to think and share their ideas during interactive communications.

4. Benefit for learning vocabulary.Using Todaysmeet to communicate online is an effective way to practice and review vocabulary since participants need to type the right words to communicate.In such case, students’s spelling skills are improved.

• How can it be used?

As for a certain topic or question, students can use Todaysmeet as a platform to give opinions, exchange ideas, and give feedback immediately. Also, teacher can join in their discussion, and make a comment. 

In terms of learning vocabulary, teacher can ask student to review the old words by typing them correctly.

It also can be used outside classroom. For example, students can use it to have a group discussion through this virtual room. Becides, students can use it help each other recall what have been learned today as a reflective thinking after class. This is a collaborative way which can create a friendly learning environment.

• Limitation

Limits of 140 characters of each comment.