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.