Hot potatoes

Hot potatoes includes six applications, which enable you to create interactive activities, such as:

1. Multiple-choice
2. Short-answer
3. Jumbled-sentence
4. Crossword
5. Matching/ordering
6. Gap-fill exercises

They can be uploaded to the World Wide Web.

JQuiz:  We can create multiple-choice, true-false, text-entry or short-answer activities. 

JCloze: We can create gap-fill activities.

JCross: We can create crosswords activities.

JMix: We can create jumbled-sentence activities.

JMatch: We can create matching and ordering activities. 

The Masher

It is a tool for automatically compiling Hot Potatoes exercises into units. Imagine that you have five Hot Potatoes exercises that form a single unit materials. you want to build HTML files from all the exercises, with the same colours and appareance settings; you also want to link the exercises together using the navigation buttons, and create and indez file for the unit.

JMatch

The JMatch program creates matching or ordering exercises. A list of fixed items appears on the left (these can be pictures or text), with jumbled items on the right. This can be used for matching vocabulary to pictures or translations, or for ordering sentences to form a sequence or a conversation.

JQuiz

JQuiz an create four different types of question: multiple choice, short-aswer, hybrid ( a short-answer queston that turns into a multiple-choice question after several attemptions), multi-select (in wich the learner has to choose  several of a set of positions, then check the choices).

JCloze

JCloze program creates gap-fill exercises. Unlimited correct answers can be specified for each gap and the student can ask for a hint and see a letter of the correct answer. A specific clue can also be included for each gap. Automatic scoring is algo including. The program allows gapping of selected words, or the automatic gapping of every new word in text. 

Screenshots and screencasts

Screenshot

It is an image taken by the computer to record the visible items displayed on the monitor, television, or another visual output device. You can record the whole screen on par of it. 

That image is converted and saved to an image file such as JPG and PNG format. 

Screencast

It is a digital recording of computer sreen output, also known as a video scren capture, often containing audio narration. 

The term screencast compared with the related term screenshot, whereas shcreenshot is a picture of a computer screen, a screencast is essentially a movie of the changes over time that a use sees on a computer screen, enhanced with the audio narration. 

Software

• Camstudio: Open Source Softewate
• For windors
• Output formats: AVI y SWF
• Jing
• Capture an dimage of what you see on your computer screen. 
• Select any window or region that you want to capture, mark up your screenshot with a text box, arro, highlight or picture caption, and decide how you want to share it. 
• Jing videos are limited to five minutes for instant, focused communication.
• Videos can be shared through social media. 

• Wink
• Open source software.
• Several output formats
• For windows
• You can capture screenshots, add explanations, boxes, buttons, titles etc

• BB Flashback express
• The free vversion just allows just swf and avi files
• For windows

• Web-based
• You do not need any external software
• Just go to the web page and record
• The recording can be shared in social networks.

• Screencast-o-matic
• Direct recording
• Different resolutions can be selected
• Sound is also available. 
• Direct upload to the internet.

Screenshots

It is an image taken by the computer to record the visible items displayed on the monitor, television, or another visual output device. Yoy can record the whole screen or part of it. 

Screencast

It is a digital recording of computer screen output, also known as a video screen capture, often containing audio narration. The term screencast compares with the related term screenshot. 

IWB for the teaching of English

It is a devise used in classrooms as the traditional Blackboards, but it can be interactive as its name claims. It has a lot of functions.

As there is a screen, it has to include video connection (HDMI, RCA,VGA), USB or WiFi Connection. 

It has a great use for the creation of interactive activities, An you can set a lot of kinds of it to present during the lesson. There are a lot of application such as the magnifier or the focus. 

Animating Objects

Every object in the activities can be touched, so they can produce a feedback on the child. The could:

1. Appear and vanish
2. Turn around
3. Get bigger and shorter
4. Get closer or further    

Images, sounds….: Copyright?

As we use files from PDF to PNG, we must respect the copyright. Using images, sounds and videos in the classrooms is not the same than using them in a formal presentation.

 

IMAGE

AUDIO

VIDEO

For video edition Animoto is a great website, where you can find patters for video creation. There you can pick a style for the video, then customize it with photos, videos and text, and to finish you can produce and share. your creation.

Massher is another option which can provides us of what we need for Video creation. 

Most recent approaches

"The study for and study of applications of the computer in language and learning" is what defined the best what CALL (Computer-assisted language learning) is. It embraces a wide range of applications and appraches tto teach and learn foreign languages.

It also extends to the use of the interactive whiteboards, computer-mediated communication (CMC), language learning in virtual worlds, and mobile-assisted language learning (MALL). There are many parts of Spain that couldn’t afford TV or internet connection, so they have to go to another village to get that...

CMC/IWB

Many people are too focused on watch their mobile phones that they miss thing on real life (Instant message, facebook, emailing, social networking), moreover they don’t even know that their information can be caught. Not everything must be based on technologies. 

FLIPPED CLASSROOM

This method consists in a change of mind for those teacher who think education must be found in books. A flipped classroom demands significant learning, so children should be in contact with the topic itself. This idea is a challenge for teacher, due to the difficulties it takes to bring the real world to the classroom. What is the solution? Let's get the children out of the class and let them to see the real world. So this method has the following characteristics:

1.       Flexible environment where teachers create adaptable sites where children can choose when and where they learn.

2.       Learning culture, where the pupil is the centre of the learning process.

3.       International content.

4.       Professional Educator based on feedback and complete evaluation of their tasks.  

What would I do if a have to give a lesson of a particular topic?

The first thing must be done is focusing on the question I’m given and not answer it quickly. After that I should know what the topic is, so I can look for information and the resources needed, but before this we must plan how I’m going to treat it.  Knowing what we are working with is important as well. I plan what I’m going to say and then I design the way of exposing, the less words the better presentation it is and more attention I get.

The final product must be presented, so the communication is the main point, moreover we have to know to make a good presentation, this is why audiovisuals are really important (The myth of inspiration is not valid for foreign language teaching). Everything must be planned, so I can’t rely on imagination.

AUDIO-PLAYER

At earlier ages, languages are acquired by listening and having a lot of exposure to the language. Listening don’t require to understand each word but the main idea.What do we hae to consider about this device?

1. Most textbooks were supplemented with audiotapes to carry out listening activities.
2. Some activities can be practiced at home thanks to them.
3. There is a lot of material especially pubished for children.
4. Nowadays they are being replaced by CDs and DVDs.

VIDEO AND CAMERAS

1. The use of VTE and Cameras have been really poor in classrooms.
2. We all know the power of attraction of TV sets due to movement and sound are motivating.
3. Probably, the best way of making something interesting is by creatingboth teacher and children their own devices,
4. There is a lot of ways of integrate the pupils such as playing roles, investigation or discussions about the final product.

TV SETS AND COMPUTERS

1. The connection between a TV set and a computer is, nowadays, simpler than ever before.
2. Most TV sets have a S-VHS, VGA or HDMI connection.
3. At the same time, DVDs are today highly affordable, with all the advantages they provide.

Spain was not still a member of the European Union by 1981, year that a programm for English learning became very popular: Follow me (BBC Learning) which was destinated for both adults and teenagers and it tried to give a new listening English learning perspective.

By the same time, there were a digital breach between the underdeveloped countries, where technology was unavailable for most population; and the developed ones, where any media and technological device was at fingertips. Nowdays the breach is increasing. 

AUDIOVISUALS

Computes, mouse, keyboards, tablets, projectors, etc.

We have a lot of resources for a correct technological development, but we don’t take advantages of them. ICT can motivate children and teachers as well, so working together is the best way possible.

What are Audiovisuals?

They are devices that can create a more detailed world of education, which can provide a truly focus of attention. Which of the do we know that has been applied at Schools?

1. Overhead project, which helping itself by mirrors projects images from a transparent sheet.
2. Audio player, which everyone has in its memory as that small device that our English teacher brought to class and spent more than 10 minutes plugging it in and looking for the correct lesson.
3. TV set that provided entertainment for children when they were boring of books and traditional lessons.
4. Video player and cameras.

They are old-fashion ones. Nowadays we have the digital blackboard, which combines them perfectly. 

How can we apply ICT to English Education?

English studies can take advantages from all technological resources we have at our fingertips:

·         ICT can be introduced in quotidian English lessons.

• ·         Didactic Units can be designed using ICT and focus on them.
• ·         We can create videos or sounds focused on English learning.
• ·        There are lots of applications and websites that can help to English learning thanks to the great variety of exercises and activities they offer (Hot potatoes, Clic, etc).
• ·         Social network can be useful due to the connection they have with the whole world and the possibility of join the children together, so they can keep in contact constantly.  
• ·         We can do free-resource searches for English teaching and learning that can help to introduce both the teachers and students to the digital world and make them self-conscious of how important ICT are. 

How are ICT treat at Schools?

Nowadays ICT has developed to the point of being a real important thing in the classroom, but unfortunately as a theoretical concept that has nothing to do with reality in current schools, where technological devices looks to be obtained from the last century.

Every classroom has a digital board used as a screen for projections and computers as paperweights because children don’t know how to use them due to their antiquity…Come on! They have better ones at home! There are a lot of useful devices that can be used to improve what our pupils learn.

The first day a little object was given to us to discover what it was and no one could guess it was a tiny portable projector. Imagine how harmed people are from the educational system that none of seven grow-up people could find out what that device was for.

But not all the problem is from what our government can provide us as teachers. Many schools have a lot of resources for technological development, bur unfortunately, the main guide of education, the teacher, is not prepared for managing with modern technologies. Are they scared of using that? Do they think it will not be useful for teaching? or… Is easier to teach as we have been taught in the past?

To sum up, if we want to become teachers, we have to change our minds and adapt our methodology to new ICT, otherwise we’ll be convicted to repeat and repeat a wrong system that has nothing to do with the world we know today. 

Welcome to my own Kingdom of Learning

TIC, TAC, TIC, TAC… Life is continually evolving in a technological way, but unfortunately not everyone follows the same direction. Education, as many other entities, has included many devices to provide a development for both children and teachers, which has not come yet. Ok, let’s say is a good idea, any class has a great amount of laptops, but they are just like paperweight for pupils.

New technologies must be introduced in any moment at school and in any lesson, as a resource for getting our students’ attention and make them conscious about how important and useful ICTs are for quotidian life apart from games they know on their tablets.

You can travel by Google Maps. You can read lots of stories from e-book just carrying a thin device. You can communicate with people all around the world and meet their cultures. Whatever you want, can be done and this is what this blog is about.

WELCOME TO MY OWN KINGDOM OF LEARNING