Lexitronics

Here’s a site that some of you may enjoy investigating further:

http://www.valodas.com/

A student needs to register, but it is free.  You then download the software (it is PC-based, with Windows, Linux and Mac versions.) The students then indicate their native language and the target language (there is an L1 English to L2 Turkish option, as well as an L1 Turkish to L2 English option.)  A ‘target list of words is then downloaded (there are levels, e.g. basic or higher.)  The system keeps track of the words they are learning, and if the learner can copy and paste a text into a ‘profiler’ which will identify words that they know, and suggest words that they should learn.   So, this could be used for simplified texts (e.g. simple Wikipedia) or authentic texts.

In terms of English, our Common English Lexical Framework might provide a focus for students to use this tool to help them ‘boost’ their vocabulary knowledge.  The nice thing is that each user has their own ‘deck of cards’ and therefore can build their own vocabulary according to their needs and abilities.  It has testing options, spelling tests, and the option to analyze a text according to the words that the student actually knows, which are powerful features that the other flashcard systems don’t have.

Here are the screen shots of the ’system’ – http://www.valodas.com/index.php/Help/Screenshots.html

Lexitronics Ways with Word Courses at: http://lexitronics.org

The walls of our classrooms are finite, but the walls in Web2.0 go on forever…  It made me think of a really simple Web2.0 tool called Wallwisher.  WallWisher posters can contain any media element: picture, graphic, video, audio, etc.) and, furthermore, it’s free.

Here is an example of a WallWisher ‘project’ I used with my students  — the task was a ‘warmer’ to get them to share ideas about places that they like in Cyprus.  Some didn’t have any favourite places in Cyprus, so they chose to feature their favourite places in Turkey.  Doesn’t really matter…you’ll get the idea if you look at http://wallwisher.com/wall/cte319-favs

Walls are free to create.  Students can create their own walls as well (possibly a way to share images, etc. related to a content topic? Pictures related to sports, biology, history, religion, etc.)  There is no interactivity as in VOICETHREAD, but it is really easy to set up and all a student has to do is double-click on the wall to post something.  They have a limited number of characters to type in (which most students would find easy to stay within) and then they can include a link to a website, picture, video, etc.  Possibly a good way to get students on the road to collaborative activities.  The only real work in terms of the teacher is to set up a blank wall.  However, once students figure this out, you could just delegate that as well, and each student could take turns being a ‘wallwisher’ organizer (and moderator, as no doubt a few students would attempt to do something silly on the wall.)

In the end, if you did want some kind of visual for the classroom, you could print out the page.  Or simply show it on the smartboard at breaks, etc.  As with paper-based posters, it seems that students quite like to showcase their creativity.  Published their ideas on a WallWisher wall is a good outlet for this kind of creativity…sort of like a graffiti wall.

Lexitronics Ways with Words Courses at: http://lexitronics.org

Lexitronics is being represented at the 10th ELT Convention at METU in Ankara by Steve, who is delivering the research paper he and John put together on the eReader approach. Here is a potted version of the presentation:

eReader: bridging the lexical chasm in course books and graded readersSteve is also running some eGrowth sessions, one hands-on workshop on Lextutor, and another two e-share sessions on WORDLE and ANIMOTO.  You can see the session notes at http://polaris.ncc.metu.edu.tr/egrowth.

It’s new, it’s dynamic, it’s vibrant, it’s Lexitronics TV brought to you by BLIP. And the first programme is now on air at:

 http://lexitronics.blip.tv/

Today’s post is simply a message from Mark Davies, with links to, and information about, his very interesting looking corpus site:

This email is being sent to registered users of the corpora at
http://corpus.byu.edu , and its purpose is to let you know about some new
collaboration tools at this portal. These new tools allow you to:

1. Find and contact users of the corpora who are from the same country,
region, or city, or who have the same objectives as far as corpus use.

2. “Annotate” any of your searches (and their results), and then share
these with others, such as students or colleagues (and search the notes
from others).

3. Create short corpus-based “projects” for student use or to get feedback
from others, and search and use the projects that others have made.

4. Find published articles or conference presentations that are based on
the corpora

5. Find out some simple ways that you can volunteer to help others

6. Join a new Google group for corpus users, and share experiences and
insights with others

These features will allow interested users to “synergistically” work with
the more than 8000 registered users of the corpora. We invite you to spend
at least a few minutes at the new site and see what’s available.

Related to #4 above, many of you have used data from the corpora (COCA,
BNC, TIME, OED, or the Spanish and Portuguese corpora) as the basis for
published papers, conference presentations, theses, etc. If you haven’t
already entered references to these, would you *please* take a minute to
copy and paste that information now. You can do this via the ‘Publications’
link at the website. Thanks.

Finally, some of you may be interested to know that we recently received a
large grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (www.neh.gov) to
create a 300 million word corpus of historical American English (c1800-
present). For news on this and other items, click on ‘History’ at the
corpus portal (http://corpus.byu.edu).

Again, thanks for your interest in the corpora. As mentioned, we’ve now
become a large community of users — more than 20,000 unique users per
month, and more than 8000 registered users. We hope that these new features
(and upcoming corpora) will help you in your research, teaching, and
learning.

—————————

P.S. If you want to contact us, please do so via the ‘Feedback’ link, and
not as a reply to this email. Please be aware that this week — as the new
portal is being introduced — it may be a few days before we can respond to
any questions. Finally, if you wish not to receive any more emails from BYU
(though we send less than one each year), log in at the portal, and then
select ‘Profile’ and then set ‘Receive emails from BYU’ to [NO].

ANIMOTO is a great tool, elegant in its simplicity.  All you do is upload a bunch of pictures, then choose some music, and then sit back and let ANIMOTO produce a professional quality video.

• The basic service is free, but limited to only 30 second videos (about 12 to 15 pictures fit nicely into such a sequence.)
• They do have an educational option, which you can request, which gives you free access to the professional options-unlimited clip length and the ability to download the movies to your computer.

Here is a simple example of an ANIMOTO I made about Saint Hilarion Castle, one of the historic sites in North Cyprus:

The basic version on its own has some very good applications for teaching English as a foreign language.

• I wanted to get the perspective on this tool through some fresh eyes, so I set an assignment for my third-year ELT class in Instructional Technologies to share a bit about their lives with the group by creating an ANIMOTO.
• I then asked them to reflect on the experience and comment on its potential use with their future students.  Here are some of their responses and examples of ANIMOTOs.

I think animoto activity is a good way to motivate my students. for example, I can make a video of my students’ assignment, and at the end of the somestr, I can show their learning progress. I mean, with putting their writing assigments on the video, ı can say that at the beginning of the somestr you had these kind of problems for writing, and now you don’t do the same problems, and your writing ability has developed. Plus, animoto can be reminder of our activity during the class and a video can be a memoriable gift for the students

Another student reflects:

I think creating video is beneficial to make our classes enjoyable, different and memorable. Also it helps to motivate our students when they feel the classes are boring. Because it triggers students to listen to the teacher and to be careful about what the subject is. Also it warms the atmosphere in the class by creating a sincere dialogue between the the teacher and the students. I say sincere, because watching a video during the class may relax the students and they can speak more confidently, relaxed, and openhearted.

And one more:

1. I loved it, really really loved it. I will definetly use it with students. if you ask why, because I can know my students better and learn their lives as you do I can figure out their characters from their photos and treat them as they deserve. 2. Absolutely, I began to love this lesson much more. And my stress, unwillingness was dissepeared. Because it is realy fun. it is something emotional ,it is a piece of their life, entertaiment. I tried to make lots of videos… as I said before I loved it

And a final reflection on ANIMOTO as a tool for EFL teaching:

I think using animoto with students can be really fun.They will fell confident about the course when the theacher asks them to create a video to introduce themelves to the class.

I could use it with my (future ) students to give an impression that the course will be enjoyable and they will also contribute to the course with their own creations.

Judging the response I got from these teachers-in-training, tools like ANIMOTO do have a place in our repertoire of tools we can use to engage our students.

It’s taken a few centuries, but the end of paper as we know for reading is near. Don’t believe me…watch this 5 minute video clip and you’ll find out. And with Oprah Winfrey throwing her weight behind Amazon’s KINDLE, the days of the printed page are indeed numbered…don’t believe me?  Watch this promotional video.

Are you having little success in trying to convince your line managers that your school should use MOODLE?  Perhaps they would understand what MOODLE is all about in terms of day-to-day teaching if they watch this video from Teacher Tube.  Click this link if the embedded player below doesn’t load.

I’ve often wanted to create a ‘word cloud’ of high frequency words from a text that I want to use in class. I love the BNL2709 vocabulary profiling tools on Tom Cobb’s Lextutor website, but students find tabulated data boring and hard to interpret.  So, when I recently came across the WORDLE website I was very excited. What is more, it is terribly easy to use as you can see from the voicethread below:

WORDLE is the brainchild of Jonathan Feinberg, who has made it freely available on the Internet.  Thanks Mr Feinberg!  Here is an example of a wordle of words from quotes taken about teachers’ attitudes towards new developments in educational technology.  When do you think these quotes were made?

Read the rest of this entry »