Author Archive for Seth

Interactive White Board for Under 50 Euros

Published
by
Seth
on June 2, 2008
in 50 Euro IWB, gadgets, ict, language teaching, tools and video
. 7 Comments

Affordable interactive white board technology for every school sounds a bit Utopian, don’t you think? I recently found out that maybe it’s more realistic than you might have guessed! I know that pretty soon I’m going to have to tone down my enthusiastic introductions, but I literally applauded the computer screen (like a weirdo) when I saw this.

After recently having spent more than €4000 at our language school on a brand new Smart Board, youIWB for Under €50 -video can imagine that I was just a bit surprised when reading Joe Dale’s blog about a school in Ireland who had managed to make one for under €50. “Rubbish,” I thought to myself. I thought wrong. The Inver National school in Ireland even have a blog to show you the how-to-dos of the whole process.

From searching through the Inver National’s video of the whole process, I found out that it’s the brain-child of Johnny Lee, a veritable genius of affordable and accessible interactive technology. It was at this point that I started clapping :-)

Essentially it’s a very simple idea, which has been turned to good use. Simple ideas are always the best, don’t you think? The €50 IWB uses a Wiimote- the remote control from a Nintendo Wii, which costs €40 from my local supermarket, and an infra-red pen.

The Wiimote contains an infra-red sensor which can track the movement of an infra red light source. Johnny connected his Wiimote to a computer using Bluetooth and with a little bit of programming magic, he came up with some free IWB software to make it all work together. Incredible!

Here is his video on how to setup the IWB:

So I don’t think you need me to tell you how much this could benefit schools in countries where the economy is still developing, but from looking at this, I’d say that thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of schools worldwide have now got IWBs within their price range. That has got to be a good thing, don’t you reckon?

I’ll definitely be trying this out with our school and I’ll be sure to write about it here too. If you want to try it out, watch this space and I’ll let you know how I get on. Send me a comment if you fancy trying to work together on making a Wii IWB, Two minds are definitely better than one!

Real life stories, told in one sentence.

Published
by
Seth
on May 30, 2008
in Lesson Ideas, blogging, efl, language teaching and writing
. 7 Comments

One Sentence StoriesI’ve seen a few simple and easy to use web sites around recently that I’ve thought “That would be a nice activity for a language lesson in a computer lab, or a great humanistic task for blogging with language students.” One Sentence is one of these sites.

The concept is really simple. I’ll leave it to One Sentence’s own blurb to explain:

One Sentence is an experiment in brevity. Most of the best stories that we tell from our lives have one really, really good part that make the rest of the boring story worth it.

This is about that one line.

This is about telling the most interesting or poignant story possible in the least amount of words.

This is about small bite-sized pieces of extraordinary lives and ordinary lives alike… the happy, the sad, the funny, the depressing.

Well, I for one liked the sound of that. Especially when I read a few of the one-sentence-stories that had been submitted. Here are a few of the ones I liked for their poignancy, humour or their touching nature:

callmejackieo

We were going to stay up all night recording experimental music on his computer like John and Yoko, but then his mom came in and told us it was time for him to go to bed.

Less one friend

I hadn’t seen her in twelve years, but my heart still broke when I saw her picture on CNN with “Missing” underneath it.

OregonGirl75

I braced myself, stoic and still as stone, as they wheeled your body into the room, and I didn’t break down until I realized your long hair was still wet from the last shower you took.

Dan Beeston

One day I’ll be angry when she squeezes my toothpaste from the wrong end, but four years in, it’s still endearing.

I don’t think in one short page I’ve ever read so many moving, touching or simply human stories as I did in One Sentence. Reading through the stories, I guess you’ll agree that they are not for a glib, 5 minute lesson filler. I would suggest that you only use the site with students who know each other well, or that get on together. I guess they really aren’t suitable for use with a children’s class either.

So, how can we use this site with our students? It’s actually remarkably simple. Really it is!

  1. First I would ask my students to read trough a few of the sentences on the stories page.
  2. I would then ask the students to work together and tell each other which stories they liked and which they didn’t like. Seeing as they are only one sentence storie you students could probably do this just from memory, even if they are low level students.
  3. If you wanted to extend this activity, you could ask the students to work together and try to orally fill in the gaps to make the one sentence story more like a one or two paragraph story. Either that or you could ask them to write it out on their own. I would then ask my students to work together in groups to re-tell the stories in their new, fuller versions.
  4. Finally, and I’m sure you guessed this from the beginning, I think if you had the right class, you should ask them to write their own one-sentence-story and submit it to the site. It needn’t be as personal as the ones on the site if your students didn’t want to, but I would encourage them to write a true story in keeping with the ethos of the site.

I’ve submitted my own story. It was nice andsimple to do. just go to http://www.onesentence.org/submit/ type your name, an email address and your story and off you go.

Can you find mine?

Seth.

Fring - Skype calls and more from mobile phones

Published
by
Seth
on May 28, 2008
in gadgets, ict, language teaching, tools and voice
. 2 Comments

Many language teachers who use ICT and web 2.0 technology in their lessons , especially those involved in distance learning, will be aware of Skype. It’s a handy way to make calls to many countries around the world at rock bottom prices (as low as €0.017 per minute, pretty good heh?) What’s more, if you and your friends all have Skype on your computers, you can chat for free for as long as you want.

I’m sure lots of teachers have also heard of Gmail and the Google Talk service that Google provide too. Twitter is another useful tool for teaching up and coming service that many people have been talking about recently.

“Eh, so what’s all this then, a list of silly names?” I hear you ask :-) No, nothing that droll.

Fring is a wonderful little program that combines all of these chat tools (or silly names depending on your point of view) together in one place. What’s more that place is your mobile phone.

“What?! My mobile phone? With Skype, Google Talk etc all installed on it?”

Yep, absolutely. No more expensive mobile phone voice calls, no more over priced sms and what’s more you can have proper text chats just like you do with MSN messenger etc (which btw is also included in Fring.) Now hang on, is this too good to be true? Well, if you have a 5 year old mobile phone, it might just be. If, however, you have a newer “Symbian” phone or a fancy iPhone (as I think the lucky Carla Arena has) you will be able to use Fring.

“So how do I find out if I can use this Fring thing with my phone?”

Fring has actually been around for more than a year now and is slowly, but surely increasing in popularity. There are many more phones that can now use Fring, and they aren’t actually all the most high tech, whizz-bang models. Have a look at this list of Fring phones to see if yours is on it. There are loads of them from many of everyday manufacturers, not just the fancy iPhone types too! :-)

“Wow, my phone is on the list, surely there must be a catch somewhere?”

Actually yes, there is. Fring uses the data connection on your phone (your phone’s internet connection.) If you pay a lot for the amount of data you use on you phone, Fring is not for you. However, f you have a free (or cheap) data plan, or if you have a wifi connection on your mobile (like the iPhone) then Fring could be a great idea for you.

Fring for Teaching?

Imagine all the things you or your students could do with Fring. You could organise quick and simple conference calls no matter where you are (no waiting by the computer just to chat to your students.) You could organise regular 10 minute text chat sessions with your students, again you could be anywhere to do this (teaching English from the pub is closer to becoming a reality!) Fring is also slowly starting to introduce file sharing via your mobile too, so you could send a picture or Powerpoint file to your students pre-lesson, then get them to discuss it in a group text chat.

I’ve been using Fring for almost half a year now and I’ve had no problems with it at all. There are two things that I love about Fring: the fact you aren’t tied to a computer and the fact that it rolls so many chat and voice services into one. I’m sure it will take a little while for us to regularly start using it with our students, but in the meantime it’s a great gadget for us cash-strapped tech-teachers to enjoy!

Do post a note here if you try using Fring on your mobile. I’d love to hear of anyone who’s used it with their students too!
All the best,
Seth.

Teaching Technology For Technology’s Sake?

Published
by
Seth
on May 21, 2008
in blogging, ict and language teaching
. 6 Comments

Nelba Quintana Webhead and English TeacherNelba Quintana, a professor of English and a fellow Webhead has started off a really interesting discussion at the moment and one that is dear to my heart: in her blog, she is discussing the pros and cons of introducing language students to tools like “Technorati.”

Personally speaking I passionately believe that technology should be the medium and not the message when we are teaching languages. By that I mean that our students should be introduced to web tools and activities by their language teachers only if they have a direct relevance to language learning. It could always be argued that there will be lots of incidental learning going on when our students use tools like Technorati, but I don’t think this is good enough. I believe in the “C” (communication) part of I.C.T., not the “T” (technology) part so much.

IMHO we language teachers should be encouraging our students to use all this wonderful technology that allows them additional opportunities to communicate such as, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and so on. In general what my students in Italy lack is the chance for real, authentic practice of the language they are trying to learn. Anything that can give them another opportunity to do this is a real bonus if you ask me. Anything that doesn’t, well it doesn’t mean that it’s a waste of time, but I don’t think it should be our job to be introducing our students to these sorts of tools.

I will be really interested to see know what you guys think about this. Should we as language-teacher-techno “gurus” introduce our students to all ICT tools? Leave us a comment to let us know your opinions.

All the best,
Seth.