Showing posts with label presentation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label presentation. Show all posts

[WK9] MailVU: The Floor is Yours!


farahismail
Hello everyone!
Free tool for everybody! Come here and see!
Click on this image for the link!

What is it?
MailVU (mail you can view) is an online service that allows users to do private video messages via webcam which up to 10 minutes and they can send them to anyone that they want by inserting the recipients' emails and a short text message.

How does it work?
# Through these 3 easy-peasy simple steps:
  • Click on the record button to start your video message
  • Record yourself speaking. If you are not satisfy with the video, you can redo it again and again.
  • Send to others via emails. You cannot embed the video.
For further training on this tool, just log on to Russell Stannard's great website

How can it be used in the classroom context?
Currently, the most popular idea in integrating MailVU into the language learning environment is via "Connected Classroom" concept in which teachers need to think wisely on how to connect the lesson that has been taught in the class with the homework that will be given at the end of the lesson. The good continuation will help teachers to achieve their teaching objectives while learners can also enjoy their learning outcomes. There are several activities that can done by using this tool such as:

i) Interview: 
  • In class: 
- Teachers can introduce the language structure, vocabulary and functions that can be used for interview to learners plus showing example of several interviews from YouTube (students get to see the models in terms of the way the interview is carried out, the body postures and gestures using by the interviewer and interviewee)
 - Learners work in pairs, discuss about the topic for the interview session and how the interview could be done (in terms of  listing the questions that will be asked and the suitable answers for particular questions)
  • Outside the class:
- As learners need to record the interview in pairs using MailVU, they can do it anywhere they want as long as internet connection and webcam are available (home, internet cafe, self-access centre)

ii) Puppet / teddy bear show
  • In class: 
- Teachers bring realia such as puppet (eg: Pinocchio) or teddy bear and initiate the discussion by asking learners' favourite story during childhood 
- Teachers explain how a story should be constructed (opening, climax, ending etc)
- Then, learners work in pairs, telling each other about their own favourite story 
  • Outside the class:
-Learners need to do story-telling individually at home by using realia (puppet / teddy bear) and record it using MailVU. Then they need to send the link to the teachers and peers to get some feedback and comments.

iii) Cooking show
  • In class:
- Teachers share her recipe of making 'Nasi Lemak' through written handouts that are distributed to learners so they can take note on the particular structures used (imperative form, sequence connectors) and vocabulary on the ingredients and measurement
- Teachers ask leaners to think about their own favourite food and try to list down the ingredients and the steps that might be included
  • Outside the class:
- Learners check whether they have produced the correct recipe by searching it on internet or by simply asking to their mother. 
- Using MailVU, learners start their 'show' by stating the ingredients involved or just by simply drawing them in a piece of paper or show the images from the net to the audience. 

iv) News-broadcast
  • In class: 
- Teachers bring some of the newspaper article of various sections (local news, world issues, sports, fashion) and distribute them among learners who are already grouped (4-5 per group)
- Teachers ask learners to look out the structure for writing news.
- Teachers play the example of video containing news-broadcast from several sites (BBC, YouTube).
- Learners pay attention to the speakers' tones, speed and voice projection 
  • Outside the class
- Learners need to find news article and record themselves speaking through the role of news presenter.
- Learners send the video recording to teachers and friends

What are the advantages?
1. It provides free account! 
2. Foster autonomous learning in which learners learn on their own space and pace through homework that has been assigned by the teachers (do-it-yourself activity)
3. An easy-to-use technology that can be used by anyone that has basic computer skills
4. An alternative to make sure students are always taking part actively in learning even though outside the classroom environment (beyond the physical constraints of bricks and mortars)
5. Enhance students' speaking skills through various activities that can be carried out using MailVU
6. A good way of compensating the insufficient time for practicing speaking in the classroom 
7. Using the video recording, teachers could diagnose problems / learning disabilities faced by students in speaking (especially the beginners or the shy learners who are rarely speak in the class) in terms of structure that they use, pronunciation or vocabulary and teach the correct use of them in the class (blended learning)
8. Encourage collaborative and cooperative learning where learners work in pairs or groups in order to complete the task, thus capitalize on one another's resources and skills (peer teaching)
9. Learners might feel less anxious to record themselves as they can redo the recordings until they feel satisfy with the final product. This will create motivation in appreciating their own work.

What are the limitations?
1. Limited access of internet and computers. 
2. Even though computers are available, learners need webcam to make the video
3. Teachers might take times to assess the each of students' performances and give feedback (in terms of workload)
4. The video cannot be embedded into the blogs and cannot be downloaded as well

Further suggestions:
i) Vocaroo: a free on-line voice recording service which basically functions just like Internet voicemail. Users can record their voice and send the file to others through email. Unlike MailVU, they can be embedded into blog, can be published to the website and can be downloaded as well. However, it can only record the voice message and not the video's like MailVU can do.

ii) Bubblejoy: a tool that enables you to quickly create and design custom video cards that are easy to share with others by simply using your webcam

~Because English is FUN! :) ~
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[WK6] Brainshark: No muss, no fuss!


farahismail
Hi everyone!
Brainshark is 'haunting' for you for this week! A tool that is very easy and simple as ABC! 123!

What is it?
This is a very interesting software to make the presentation interesting as users can transform their online static content such as PowerPoint documents or other types documents into voice-enriched video presentation.With a few clicks, we can easily create a narrated video to be shared with anybody.


How does it work?
# Sign up the account


# Upload the presentation / documents
# Add your voice narration via phone or microphone on your computer
# You can preview the recorded voice. If you are not satisfied with it, just click the 'discard' button and record it once again. Then lastly, click 'save' button to record the narration for the next slide.
# View your presentation! Your Brainshark presentation is e-mailed to you as a link, in which you can also e-mail to others. Whenever someone views your presentation, the viewing reports will be updated.

This is how my account looks like
To get a clear picture of the steps, just log on to online training video: Russell Stannard's great website!

How can it be carried out in the classroom context?
# Suitable to be carried out outside the classroom as a self-study at home or do-it-yourself session
# Teachers preview the entire process through the online training video or hand out
# Teachers ask learners to create a multimedia presentation about certain topics and add the narration to explain them. For example: 
  • Teacher gives a topic based on the learners' favourite places in Malaysia. 
  • Context: By using power point presentation, learners need to act as a promoter of the place and try to persuade people to go there
  • Teacher can suggest the learners to insert some pictures or video (combination of different type of media) based on the scenery, food and activities that can be done there as a part of promotional strategies
  • The learners need to add narration that explains the reason they like the place and share with the class  (kind of digital story-telling)
# Once uploaded, teachers and other learners can view/review the presentations online at anytime.
# Teachers give their feedback on the students presentation

What are the learning styles that involve?
i) Blended learning: 
- combination of traditional face-to-face classroom methods with computer-mediated activities. 
  • In this case, teachers and learners might have discussion in the classroom at the beginning of the class and when it is coming to the activity, learners need to use computers to do the task. Teachers will evaluate the presentation anytime and anywhere as it is produced online and give their feedback in the class.
ii) Gardener's Multiple Intelligences
  • Intrapersonal Intelligence: Learners who prefer to work alone and feel shy to talk in front of the audiences will be beneficial in this task as they can speak in front of their computer or laptop without the presence of anyone.
Who are the learners?
# Secondary school students whose the age range is from 16-17 years old (in Malaysian context)
# This site is also suits all levels, even for the beginners because if they are not confidence enough, they can construct their sentences first before trying to record it. The presentation that can be done in front of their own laptop or computer without the presence of audience also can avoid them from being nervous and this will reduce anxiety and boost their motivation to speak.

This is the example that I have produced on my own:



What are the advantages?
1. A good way of getting students to speak confidently in their target language, especially for the shy one thus improve their speaking skills
2. Turn a simple and kinda boring typical presentation into an interesting and high impact one where it can be beneficial in the future (in careers like business, education etc.)
3. It is free and a lot of basic features is in free packages
4. Better yet, the multimedia presentations can also be viewed on mobile devices including smartphones and iPads.
5. The presentation could involve a combination of different media such as PowerPoint slides, documents, photos, background music and voice narration that can be added via phone or computer microphone from a continent away.
6. Presentation can be shared through email or users can simply post it on a social networking site like Facebook. It is also easy to embed it on our own website or blog, or even publish a copy of it on YouTube.

What are the limitations?
1. Limited capacity of uploading individual content files: Only up to 200 MB for each person
2. Process of discarding the narration that might be repeated many times when learners do mistake in their speaking somehow will make the speaking activity less genuine as it is planned.
3. Limited access: It can only be used plus the presentation can only be viewed if the computers and internet access are available

Further suggestions:
1. Slideshare: SlideShare is another online presentation tool that has both free and paid options. With the free plan your presentations will include ads, but you will get unlimited uploads. Paid plans start at $19 per month and offer additional features like no ads, private uploads, analytics, and buzz tracking to see who is sharing your content on sites like Twitter and Facebook.

2. Slideboom: Slideboom's free account allows to upload up to 100 presentations. You can share presentations, audio, video and animations using Slideboom. Compared to Slideshare, Slideboom allows you to have private PowerPoint sharing within your free account.


~Because English is FUN! :) ~
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[WK1] Dvolver : Fun, Easy & Attractive.


farahismail
Hi everyone!
This is my first entry for my blog. Lets see what I have this time!


In the 'ICT in ELT' class during the first week, Russell has introduced an amazing website that is very interesting and fun which is:


What is it?
A simple moviemaker website that allows users to create their own animated movies and write their own dialogues. Users can choose the backgrounds, music, scenes and characters from the options given in the website.

To see how it works via an on-line training video, we can log on to Russel Stannard's great website, one of the most outstanding websites for teaching and language learning through various web tools.


How can it be used in the classroom context?
# At the beginning of the class, teachers provide brief tutorial or model and instruction sheet on how to use this tool
# Teachers ask learners to work in pairs and create their own movie. Teachers need to decide whether the topic is theme-free or based on certain issues.
# For example, in the literature class, teacher can assign task to learners to do the summary of every chapter in the novel that has been used as a part of the syllabus where they need to pick up one each (one pair for one chapter) and transfer the information into dialogues in the movie.
# As every movie created has a link, teachers can ask learners to send the link to them and their peers' emails.
# Teachers can choose which movie is the best, show it in the class and write some comments.
# Teachers can also get feedback from the students on how to improve the movie especially in terms of content.
# Apart from that, teachers can publish the links on their blog, create a poll and make learners vote for the best.
# To vary the learning styles, carrying out the role-play based on the movie can be a good follow up activity

What are the learning styles that have involved?
In this case, it involves the implementation of Flemming's VAK:
1) Visual: Learners can enjoy seeing and exploring the characters, contexts and scenes in colourful animation type
2) Auditory: Learners can hear the sound provided, involve in discussion with their peers and listen to the explanation of the instruction, lead by the teachers.
3) Kinaesthetic: Learners can try to act out the movie that they have produced.

Who are the learners?
# Secondary school Malaysian students whose mostly first language is not English
# Intermediate and advanced levels of English as they are believed to be already equipped with the sufficient level of English, some vocabulary to be used plus knowledge from the previous experience in learning English back in their primary school.
# Age range: from 13 - 17 years old.

However, this should not be seen as a barrier that denies the lower level learners' opportunity to learn as teachers can also play their roles in providing assistance for example, at the beginning of the class, teachers can work together with them and come up with an example of the movie, then later show it in the class. This will engage learners' attention to the actual task. Then, students can be asked to work in pairs and try to produce their own movie using their own vocabulary.

Apart from that, it is also worth for the teachers to provide hand out containing the steps involved, just to guide the learners who are not really good in using computers. For example:

View more documents from RitaZ

The example of the end product:
The movie below is produced by me and my friend, Vee Vien during the ICT class:


What are the advantages?

1. It is fun and great for motivation
As the learners at the age of 13 years and above are usually enjoy watching movies, this tool can arouse their interests towards learning English and deviate from the usual chalk-and-talk traditional teaching method. They will have so much fun creating and even more fun watching the end product. They will also get excited by the prospect of actually producing something that they could show or send to family and friends, thus perceiving English as an interesting and worth subject to be learned.

2. Create the context
This tool is equipped with different sections such as backgrounds, characters, sky and plots that can be chosen by students thus providing them the contexts and make them focus on what they are going to do for each step.

3. Enhance students' creativity
This is possible in the sense that students can express their own thoughts and ideas especially in creating the plot needed for the story line of the movie. As students are given such opportunity, in this situation, to pick up the characters and construct the dialogue that they want, the element of freedom is taken into action and this also helps to personalise the lesson .

4. Develop writing skill
To some extent, this is a great starter to get learners to write because normally, some students struggle putting ideas into words. This tool does not require them to write the dialogue in very long sentences. As learners are expected to write accurate dialogues of the characters in the movies, this tool can become a good review of spelling, sentence construction, question word order, reported speech and reported question and natural conversational language.

What are the limitations?

1. Inappropriate use of English
As students can choose their own dialogue for their own movie, they might resort to the use of inappropriate vocabulary, colloquial language or slang that they have heard before from their previous experience in watching movie or film.

2. Time-consuming
It is a bit time-consuming especially for the learners who are struggling to make up their own dialogue for the story.

3. Limited context
Regarding the content, the criteria given is limited, for example only two characters will be involved for each scene. This somehow prevent learners from expanding the ideas of the story.

4. Inappropriate context
As most of the Malaysian students are Muslims, there are some scenes and characters that are not really suitable for the students to use in lesson. For example, in terms of their appearances, plus the characters' clothes are not really designed in a decent type. Therefore, if students use this tool at home, their parents might be misunderstood of their action.


Further suggestions:
If the learners are already mastered the lesson, teachers can expose them to other methods of do-it-yourself animation to be tried at home, thus fostering autonomous learning such as:
i) Xtranormal: A text-to-movie website in which there are more options and contexts are involved, thus engaging learners with the art of movie making.
ii) Go! Animate!: A web application that let users to generate fully animated cartoons and for learners who are keen on comics, this tool is a worth choice to be opt for.

Bear in mind, all tools that have been mentioned above appear to offer their application FREE! Therefore, grab this opportunity to vary your teaching and learning styles.

~Because English is FUN! :) ~
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