ELT through ICT: Ideas

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

9:27 AM -

Email,Ideas,listening,Presentation,Video,Visual

V-Mails?!?

Introducing the all new Mail Vu

Email, sometimes written as e-mail, is simply the shortened form of electronic mail, a protocol for receiving, sending and storing electronic messages. Emails has gained popularity with the spread of the internet. However, as technology develops, from a boring written email, main sending have develop to video mail. If you are pondering what is a Video Mail, it is a tool to send a recorded video of yourself, as if you are writing an email to a receiver. Instead of writing long messages, you are able to talk live in the video, save it and send it as an email. There are a few websites that offer such services, and one of the websites is Mail Vu. Below is a link linking directly to the website and a picture of how the website looks like:

http://mailvu.com/

How Can I Use It for Educational Purposes?

Unlike AudioBoo and Brainshark, Mail Vu not only allows recording of the users voice, it also allows the actually video to be taken. Users will be able to show emotions and body language as well when recording the video. However, users wont be able to do it Brainshark, where the PowerPoint presentation will be played during the recording.

Teachers can use this feature to good use. One of it is by having the students to sent video mail to the teacher as homework. Students can record their response to a argumentative based question and answer it using Mail Vu, and sent it to the teacher's email address. The teacher then can reply the video by sending a Mail Vu back to the student. Besides that, group work can be done by using Mail Vu as well. Students can gather in front of a webcam and record the activity that should be done by the students, such as group presentation or role play. Teachers must be creative in creating lessons and activity which involves Mail Vu, so that they can put Mail Vu to full use and in the same time, practice the speaking skills of the students. Below is a picture of how to send your Mail Vu to a receiver.

Advantages

It's free
Allows video recording and sending it to other receivers by sending it directly to the receiver's email.
Allows users to connect with family and friends, disregarding the location, time and distance
Allows a new form of activity, called the connected classroom, as it allows users to connect to each other despite the location of the learning take place.
Allows language learning to be done at the school or at home, and can be sent instantly to the teacher via V-mail.
Motivates the students to learn language as a purpose is provided to use the tool and students are able to speak freely, without any constrains from the teacher's monitor.
Allows retaking the recording if the student is not satisfied with the previous recording.

Disadvantages

If users wish to use other services, they need to pay for it.
Recorder video could not be embedded into any social websites such as blogger

Thursday, November 10, 2011

5:39 AM -

Ideas,Presentation,Sticky Notes

No comments

Say It, Paste it!!

Voice your thoughts through the magnificent device - The Wallwisher

By the name itself, the original function of this free public website is to enable people to wish during any celebration, such as birthday wishes, anniversaries or other type of wishes. However, people got to know that this website is useful too for education purposes. This is because, basically, online visitors are able to 'paste' a comment to the wall by double clicking on the wall and typing in text. The online stick notes is a very useful tool as people around the world can voice their opinions or advises on the wall based on the main topic of the wall. The stick-notes may include pictures, you-tube videos, Power Points, Excel documents, and also PDF files. However, the creator of the wall must set to 'public' so that the public viewers can add their comments on the wall.

How can I use it as an educational tool?

As stated on the above, WallWisher is a website that allows viewers to voice their comments on stick notes on the wall. There a few ways how a teacher can make full use of this website not only to teach students language, but also to make language learning an enjoyable process. One of it is by making a wall for the students to voice their thoughts and ideas during class or giving the students time to think, and 'paste' their ideas on the wall at home. All the teacher have to do is to create a wall for the students to view and comment on. Below is a link to Wallwisher and how to use this amazing free website:

http://www.wallwisher.com/

Register

This website requires the users to register themselves for using the tool, but the registration is free. All the user have to do is supply his or her email address, and Wallwisher will send a password to the address inserted. Below is an example of the registration page:

Create a wall!!

Congratulation, you have successfully created your own account for this amazing website. The next step is to learn how to create a wall. After we are logged in, all the user have to do is click on the 'Build New Wall' option, and the users will be taken to the setup screen, as the example below. In the setup screen page, the user is able to add a title, a subtitle-text and a corner picture as well for the wall. In the wall URL, the teacher or user can insert any URL ending as all walls will commence with www.wallwisher.com/wall/(URL ending). As a reminder, in the privacy settings, if the wall is for the use in class or for students, do tick on everyone on both 'who can view' and 'who can post sticky notes' in the setup screen page.

Below is an example of a wall full with comments on sticky notes:

This website is very useful in language teaching as well as getting ideas from students. The flexibility of this website has made this website famous not only among educators, but also to the public. These are the advantages of using this website:

Creator can view and delete any inappropriate messages.
Creators are able to highlight important points during presentation or discussions in class.
Student will be able to voice their ideas and thoughts using computers and will not be demotivated as some students may feel awkward to voice their thoughts in the class
This website is free.
Students can insert comments at home.

There are too disadvantages in using this website. This is because the creator need to regularly check on the wall for spams and flamed messages on the wall. The other disadvantages are:

Posting inappropriate messages that will annoy or offend other viewers.
Internet and computer facilities is always a need.
Wall may have too many posts, causing lags from users to log into the webpage.