Comments on: Guest piece- Start using technology in your classes, or just go ahead and retire!

By: Bob Mudford

Bob Mudford — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:17:24 +0000

Here are some ideas about using the web to create a topical class.

http://teflpedia.com/index.php?title=Create_a_topical_class

Cheers.

By: Alex Case

Alex Case — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 10:22:01 +0000

btw, the next one is called “Turning Teachers into RockStars”, which is at least a very good title

By: Alex Case

Alex Case — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 10:20:33 +0000

Here’s another tech thing that I don’t understand well enough to recommend or not:

http://blog.edufire.com/2008/12/10/the-future-of-education-educonference-1-complete/

They actually asked me to give an online presentation. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Last time I gave a real life presentation I had to get someone to do the PowerPoint slides for me!

By: Alex Case

Alex Case — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:29:13 +0000

Great topical prepositions lesson you’ve got there:

http://benbrahim.edublogs.org/2009/01/22/preposition-so-much-misused/

Never thought about making prepositions topical before.It must be possible to do something similar where students have to choose the prepositions from both meaning and grammar, or guess/ remember the missing time clause from the preposition clue

By: Benbrahim

Benbrahim — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:00:15 +0000

Thanks a lot for the information and the trouble to collect and present all the tools for ease of consultation trial and hopefully subsequent adoption.
I am relatively new to huge media potential in teaching (a Moroccan teacher of English since 1993) .I personally think the media generation is a fact. Teachers have always been part of the learning media(though the digital sway has backgrounded their role ),so unless they adopt the new facilities they will remain out dated and unable to reach their students better . Understanding NTIC and mastering the new media will certainly help teachers maintain authoritative and facilitating impact on students.It will bridge the gap between teaching and students’ real word by touching upon common sense and real life experience. Technology is well established as a daily need and use,so why not be practical and take advantage of the opportunities as they present themselves.
Thank you once more.
Keep clicking

By: Inam

Inam — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 19:30:10 +0000

Lots of thanks for this piece of invaluable information.
As teachers, we do need such software programmes in the process of teaching.

Regards

By: Karenne Sylvester

Karenne Sylvester — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:36:19 +0000

Hey Alex,

Yes Audacity ROCKS!

I have had super results – at first the students say things like “oh, I hate my voice” then they er, come back to class with stories about how they played the CD for their spouses and children and how they feel like radio stars.

Watch out you’ll get addicted and will be scrounging around the web for background noises and may start dreaming of making your own (class) podcasts.

Seriously, though, also is a very excellent tool for anyone preparing business students for presentations. You can record several versions of their speech – concentrate on specific pronunciation issues, do yourself versus others, etc.

You can also use audacity to slow down hard-to-understand authentic material…etc, etc, the list goes on.

Russell Standard and Nik Peachey have both done videos on this topic – though I just learned the steps from random videos on youtube.

Audacity has a good wiki providing user-defined instructions.

Like I said, it ROCKS! (which is a phrase not from my generation I guess but their’s…, I too am pushing the 4…0)

By: Jason West

Jason West — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:16:13 +0000

Nice one Karenne! Great info…you’re absolutely right….but then I was converted some time ago.

I like your suggestion to do it a bit at a time and for some people the number of different applications they think they are going to need to use (the ‘tool kit’ I call it).

For those of a technophobic disposition who want to reach some potential customers quickly http://www.italki.com have just launched a teaching section. They have 400,000 active users a very large number looking to learn English and it is all carefully explained how to get going. They will take 15% off the top but to a) get some paying students quickly and b) find your feet using Skype to teach it is not a bad way to start. They handle the ‘partner/teacher’ descriptive conundrum that so perplexed some commentators about my venture with the Guardian very well. Being a qualified and experienced teacher gives you greater earning power online, not the other way around. Or you can register on http://www.wiziq.com for free and use their virtual classroom and schedule classes and take payment…the world, as one man is due to say in Washington today, is changing.

By: Alex Case

Alex Case — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 11:41:16 +0000

Someone just tried to get me to write a post on this upcoming Second Life teaching conference thingy, but decided to put it in here instead. “Second life” is a euphemism for middle age, yer? Might be interested then…

http://www.slideshare.net/slanguages/slanguages-2009-conference-89-may-2009-presentation

By: Alex Case

Alex Case — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 11:28:14 +0000

That audacity thing sounds really good. It’s just what you need to stand up in front of a class of students with no qualifications or experience and expect them to pay you money just because you are a native speaker.

That piece of software called audacity sounds pretty good as well.

Boom boom! Thank you ladies and gentlemen, you’ve been a great audience

Seriously though, does look very useful.