Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary App

Prezi - the best presentation-maker

Now that we are all working on our projects and presentations, I would really like to recommend you a fantastic presentation-maker site. Prezi.com is not only a wonderful replacement of PowerPoint, but also fits into our seminar's main topic - it is a social site which allows us to work online on our presentations in teams!

It was developed by a Hungarian architect, and as the wikipedia puts it: " Prezi is used as platform for bridging linear and non-linear information, and as a tool for both for free-form brainstorming and structured presentation. Text, images, videos and other presentation media are placed upon the canvas, and can be grouped together in frames."

To mention but a few important aspects: It allows presenting both online and offline; it is highly visual, we can pan and zoom, it is structured in a "2,5 D" space; we can import any media; there are pre-made templates if we are short in time; and most importantly, we can work on our presentations together on it!

So feel free to visit prezi.com, it is a major help in constructing our research!

On the interactive whiteboard

Something we have very little time to discuss, as it is not in the focus of the present class is using interactive whiteboards (IWBs) in the language classroom. Árpi has already posted on this and now I found an interesting blog entry reporting on research findings in connection with the IWBs.

You can read the article here.

Should mobile phones be banned in schools?

Mobile learning is the next topic I would like to discuss in class. Recently, I have read an interesting blogpost on whether mobile phones should be banned in class or not.

You can read it here.

I really like blogs, as reading the article itself is just the beginning. Make sure you read the comments as well - and feel free to ad yours, too.

Text-speak

As I can recall, we have talked about how kids sometimes use written abbreviations when they speak. The phenomenon seems to be a global one since Ben Trawick-Smith, a Seattle-based blogger, has also experienced it, and he wrote an interesting blog post that you can read here.

Just for fun #2

English language education as seen in WoW, after the jump. :)

Just for Fun

A photo I found on the Internet:

Source: coolerthan.me

Psyched in 10

This is an interesting article on an award winning e-learning course. I watched this module myself, and I have to say it was very entertaining and interesting, it is on Psychology and about 10 minutes long, so do it if you have some free time. In the article there is an interview with the creator, he talks about how and why he made this course.
Try the course if you can, just click on the picture!

Celebs Who Twitter

If you are interested in the life of famous people, do not think it twice to click here.

Our connected world

I just wanted to show you this funny picture about the world we live in. :)

Twitterese

I have read an interesting article in The Economist on whether Twitter has a negative effect on language. Although not a linguist, Ralph Fiennes expresses his negative feelings about this issue. Hmm. Probably he did not see the interview with David Crystal ;)

Twitterese, however, is a word I like a lot :)

You can read the article here.

Activities for the Interactive Whiteboard

The classroom we have our classes in has an interactive whiteboard, which seems to be a great tool, especially for a course like ours. For me, the interactive board was a novelty; I had not seen one prior to this social media class. The youth of today may well be accustomed to having interactive whiteboards, but I am old. Schoolteachers, however, are usually even older, so they are likely to need some sort of guidance as to how to use this brilliant device. The video below is about a book that helps teachers exploit the opportunities that an interactive whiteboard offers.

Did you notice that Budapest was mentioned in one of the example sentences? Alas, it happened to be an incorrect sentence.

Social media making university lectures more interactive

Here is an article which talks about using social media in lectures to make them more interactive.

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/04/turning-a-college-lecture-into-a-conversation-with-coveritlive103.html

Using Facebook, Hoot.me as a Study Tool

I found this interesting article about Facebook application Hoot.me that is connected to studying.

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/10/using-facebook-hootme-as-a-study-tool284.html

Blog entry worth reading

Please read this blog entry by a teacher of English in Chile. He explains how connectivism effects his teaching and how he uses his PLN (Personal Learning Network).

Profesor Baker's blog: a bit of everything

He refers to George Siemens whose ideas on connectivism have a great impact on education:

Salman Khan: Let's use video to reinvent education

This is the presentation I mentioned during class. Let me quote the Ted description:

"Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help."

Also, here's the link for his academy: Khan Academy

Say Something in Welsh

I am aware that the focus of our seminar is learning English with social media, but I must share a gem I have found: Say Something in Welsh.

This website claims to teach you Welsh simply by making you repeat phrases you hear. I cannot decide whether one can really learn a foreign tongue this way, but it seems fairly efficient as long as speech is concerned. I managed to repeat the phrase “I like speaking Welsh,” but I am positive that speakers of Welsh would have had a hard time repressing their desire to laugh upon hearing me. Nevertheless, the aforementioned website is worth checking out.

Using 'Txting' to Teach Native Languages

In found an interesting article about text messaging and social media, how it helped students to learn native language.]

read here

Group blogs

We have agreed to form small groups and research particular  topics within Social Media and learning learning. The groups agreed to do some background research on their topics and decided to set up their own research blogs.

The group blogs will be available form the class blog, in the block on the right. The first one is on Twitter, please follow these blogs, too.

Interesting article

According to a recent article, social networking helps students perform better.

Read the article here.