DigitaLang

Last summer I wrote a post about a n IWB that costs just €50 that the technology guru / geek Johnny Lee had invented using an infra-red pen and a Wii remote. I was really excited about it thinking that maybe this could help many more schools get IWB technology into the class.

I made myself the €50 IWB, I tried it out a few times last summer and I must admit the results were not all that encouraging. I didn’t think much more of it until recently when I “met” a guy called Chris Hill (thanks to my friend Enza via Twitter). Chris is a big evangelist of the Wii remote IWB. This started getting me interested again in the project. I’ve been looking again at my Wii console think “Should I drag you back to the classroom? The answer now, I think is, yes, I will.

My desire to try out the Wiimote IWB again is because Chris has written a handy and comprehensive FAQ on the Wii IWB drawing on his experiences and sharing solutions to the niggly little problems teachers might find when trying to set up their own Wii IWB. Here’s a quick snippet of his post:

How much does it cost? / Is it really only $50?
The controller for the Nintendo Wii is for sale throughout the United States for $40. [It costs about €50 in Europe - Seth] You can build an infrared pen for $5-6.  The software is free to download.  The cost of the computer, projector, and Bluetooth adapter (if your computer does not have built-in Bluetooth) are not included in the $50.

I can’t make my own infrared pen.  Can I buy one?
Absolutely.  Do a Google search and you will find several options starting as low as $6.

Do I have to modify the Wiimote? / Can I still use it with my Wii?
No / Yes.  The Wiimote connects to the computer via Bluetooth, the same way it connects to the Wii.  You don’t have to open the Wiimote, break it, or reprogram it.  So, if you (or your kids) have a Wii, you can use the equipment you already have for both purposes.

How do I get started?
Download the free software (Mac version or PC version), build an infrared pen (see my demo) or buy one online, connect to the Wiimote via Bluetooth (open your Bluetooth devices, push the 1 and 2 buttons on the Wiimote, add the device) , run the software, calibrate it (push the “calibrate button,” click on the targets), and you are done.

And Chris has loads of other great advice in his post as well as elsewhere in his blog. Definitely worth checking out if you’re interested in trying out the Wiimote white board!

All the best,

Seth

Wiimote Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/yerahg/551627536/

Social Media – Blogs, Podcasts, Photo sharing,  Video Blogs (Vlogs) etc – as we know these can be really versatile tools to use with our students.

This video by Lee LeFever from the fantastic Common Craft explains why the “Social” part of social media is bringing new life to publishing while allowing small, content publishers (our students?) to have meaningful interaction with other students and their readers/listeners/viewers via the comments system. If you’re looking for a simple explanation of all this, you can’t go wrong with this golden oldie (from 2008!)

If you have lower-level students you can also find a subtitled version of the video on the Dot Sub website.

I had an excellent website link passed on to me by our colleague @ipcjones via Twitter the other day. It tells you  how to embed stuff into your blog, Moodle or other web page (that means to add extra, or external stuff into your blog or other web page – if you have a look at the end of this post you’ll see my delicious  links which I have “embedded” into this post. )

The guide is pretty simple to follow and they reckon they can help you to:

“Learn how to embed almost anything in your HTML web pages from Flash videos to Spreadsheets to high resolution photographs to static images from Google Maps and more. “

http://www.labnol.org/internet/how-to-embed-in-html-webpages/6365/

I had a quick browse through the page, it looks excellent! Well worth a look for all those of us who were thinking about adding Twitter, Delicious, mp3’s or other content to a blog page. 

Here’s an example of “embedding” my favourite web links from delicious:

Have fun adding or rather “embedding” stuff into your blogs!

Best,

Seth

I’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.

Well, I decided to take the plunge and shift my blog over from the fantastic Blogger to Wordpress.

Blogger has been a great home for the last two years for the various mini-blogs and out-of-class projects I’ve been doing with my students. I now feel like I have outgrown Blogger for a number of reasons, even though it is a great service. These are a few of the reasons I decided to leave Blogger in the end:

• Now that DigitaLang is getting more teacher-training work, I wanted a more professional looking website that integrated my blog seamlessly with the other content I wanted to have online (a contact form, a summary of the work we do etc.)
• Wordpress is is just as good at being a content management system as it is a blog. Wordpress now manages my whole website. I can add or delete pages and change the content from any internet connected computer. Before I had to use ftp and other complicated tools.
• I wanted to have more flexibility with my blog so that I could be as creative as I wanted and not have to work within the limits of Blogger. For example, I am planning to create a space where I’ll upload technology-based language lesson plans in the new blog. I probably could have done this with Blogger, but it would have been complicated and I doubt if it would have worked smoothly.
• Blogger has lots of clever little add-ons (widgets) that do clever things and make your blog look more interesting. Wordpress has more and they’re open source too!

All in all, I’m really pleased with how the new blog is shaping up. There is still a lot of work to do yet, there have been several technical hiccups, but I’ll leave that for another post

All the best,

Seth.