tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43293753990006770422024-03-05T08:44:24.502-08:00Anna's reflections and archiveUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger115125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-43068797003978457702015-09-18T06:51:00.002-07:002015-09-18T07:11:10.463-07:00DELTA Module 2 - Course Outline and Tips<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have decided to take the face-to-face option of Delta Module 2 at International House Tbilisi. The blended option with the Distance Delta was way too expensive.<br />
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In <b>Week 1</b> of the course we had one diagnostic observation for which we had to write a full lesson plan. The lesson plan paperwork, self-reflection and the tutor feedback have to go into the Appendices of the first assignment - Professional Development. Before the start of Week 2, we had to submit one part of it (Stages 1 and 2) - 1000 words, which is actually quite doable. In this part of the PDA you are asked to reflect on your beliefs and classroom practices as a teacher, identify your key strengths and weaknesses and suggest an action plan.<br />
<b>NB</b> When suggesting an action plan, bear in mind that you are going to be evaluated on how far you are progressing in whatever there is in your action plan throughout the course. So be realistic with what skills you can improve in about 3-4 weeks.<br />
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<b>Week 1</b> was also the week in which we had to start getting to know our learners to be able to write a group profile and an individual profile for the first LSA in Week 3. The class profile may not be as difficult to write as the individual profile because you need information about your students' learning preferences and styles, their interests and reasons for learning English, their general strengths and weaknesses. So during the first week you may need to design lessons and/or questionnaires to find all this out to be able to write the information in your assessed lesson plan.<br />
<b>NB </b>Decide what your first assignment is going to be about to pay attention to your learners' strengths and weaknesses in relation to your first assessed lesson as these two are also part of the individual profile. Typing up the individual profile takes a long time so start this one earlier just to add new information whenever you learn new things about your learners. For your other assessed lessons, you will be using the same profile, but you will need to change the strengths and weaknesses in relation to the lesson section.<br />
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In <b>Week 2 </b>we had two developmental observations and had to write two full lesson plans and this made it impossible to start writing the first Language Systems/Skills Assignment earlier. I ended up doing this over the weekend and this was a real burden. I thought I wasn't going to make it by Monday morning because for the research you do, you need to design a lesson based on ideas you discussed in your LSA and write a lesson plan. The challenge here is not to mix skills with systems in your main aims. If your assignment is about some grammar area, then make sure that everything you do in the lesson is around that and is in the main aims. Everything else you do, speaking as a follow-up activity or gist reading for guided discovery should be in subsidiary aims. Actually, you don't have to have subsidiary aims, so you can forget about that for systems assignment. I think this week was very stressful for all trainees and some, including me, even started thinking of dropping out. So be prepared for a lot of stress.<br />
<b>NB</b> It would help if before starting the course you already knew exactly which 2 skills and 2 systems you would like to focus on in your LSAs and do a fair bit of reading about those. For skills you will have to choose 1 receptive and 1 productive skill, you cannot do research on two productive skills, for example. For systems, you choose from pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, discourse. Discourse might be too challenging to do, so perhaps you shouldn't think of that one.<br />
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In <b>Week 3</b> we taught out first assessed lesson and had to wait until Friday to find out whether the first LSA was a pass or a fail. The tutors warned us in advance that many candidates fail their first LSA and we should not worry if that's the case. A lot here depends on your post-lesson evaluation: if you can discuss the key strengths ad weaknesses of your lesson plan and lesson execution objectively, say what the learners took away from the lesson and provide evidence for that, and explain how your are going to consolidate on the learning, this will affect your grade for the LSA. I got Pass on both the background essay and lesson execution.<br />
<b>NB </b>To get a pass you need to pass only two LSAs (one skills and one systems), but...one has to be the internally assessed one, the other one has to be the externally assessed one. So make sure that for your externally assessed lesson you save a skill or system lesson that is one of your strengths.<br />
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In <b>Week 4</b> we had to submit our second LSA and were again assessed - this time the LSA was skills and I have to say this one was really difficult to analyse for most of us, the trainees. The thing here is decide on the title of your LSA an stick to it in the analysis. Mine was <i>Helping lower level learners understand authentic texts using top-down processing</i>. So in the background essay I had to define what an authentic text was in the introduction and analyse top-down processing in the Analysis section. I analysed the types of schematic knowledge and top-down processing which needed to be explained in relation to stages of the lesson and types of activities. This all has to be based on the reading you do. I found <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Teaching-Reading-Language-Macmillan-Teachers/dp/1405080051/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1440785969&sr=8-1&keywords=nuttall+reading" target="_blank">Nuttall's book</a> very useful for this. I got Merit for both the background essay and lesson execution.<br />
<b>NB</b> The stress level at this point started escalating. The course became hell for all of us by Friday when we were waiting for feedback. So be prepared for a lot of stress because if you cannot handle stress, you shouldn't be taking the course.<br />
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In <b>Week 5</b> we had a bit of a break. This was the week of Experimental Practice when you choose any approach in ELT that you have never tried before and try it on your learners. You are only observed by your peers and the background essay, lesson plan and the post-lesson evaluation form Part B of your Professional Development Assignment. For a Pass in the Module, PDA has to be submitted and does not have to be a Pass.<br />
This week we had a lot of fun, I have to say. Some of us experimented with Dogme, some with the Silent way, Suggestopedia and strong-end TBL. You need to do the research before you teach the lesson because you need to have a clear idea about the approach/method. You should also write the background essay before the lesson, 2000 words, + you write 500 words of post lesson evaluation which is part of the assignment. I did mine on Dogme and my learners loved it. I decided that Dogme was worth trying out with my own groups back home. I got a Pass for my Experimental Practice paper.<br />
We also had a developmental observation this week for which we prepared a lesson to test one of the approaches we were going to use in one of the remaining LSAs. This was very helpful for us actually although that meant extra lesson plan writing. Still I would highly recommend requesting a developmental observation, which is not assessed, to practise the approach you are going to employ in your LSA 3 or 4, especially 4, as it is externally assessed and it is of utmost importance to pass both parts of it.<br />
<b>NB</b> This week we all started to understand what the second module of DELTA is all about and it became a matter of good time management skills, because if you are bad at that, then the course will be even more stressful for you.<br />
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In <b>Week 6</b> we had to submit LSA 3 background essay and teach the third assessed lesson. I think this week it was less stressful because we were all more worried about the external assessment the following week. In this week the tutors changed TP groups. So the first two lessons and PDA Part A were assessed by one tutor, and PDA Part B and LSA 3 were assessed by the second tutor.<br />
For my third LSA I chose writing and the title was Helping lower level learners writ formal emails. The focus of the lesson was writing emails of enquiry. I found writing this LSA easier than the previous two, because we had our tutor's feedback to base this one on. Again, the Analysis section of the essay was not so easy, and everyone found skills analysis more difficult than systems analysis.<br />
The moods in general were gloomy and everyone was only thinking about the end of the course. Although I got Merit on both - the essay and the lesson, I was a bit worried about LSA 4, perhaps because of the fact that this one was going to be assessed externally and had to be at least a pass on both.<br />
<b>NB</b> It would help if you could think of your LSA 4 well before the time you have to write it. It saves you time and worry. I decided this in Week 4 and did not have to worry about not having ideas about how to stage the lesson and how to deliver it. Some of my peers felt drained by Week 7 and could not come up with ideas.<br />
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In <b>Week 7</b> we had our externally assessed lesson. Although we all found writing LSA 3 easy, everyone was again stressed about LSA 4. And it did seem difficult to write. I think we were all overthinking and wanted to include everything our tutors told us about. But the word limit would not let us do that, of course. After the lesson we were given 48 hours to write the post-lesson evaluation and send it to the main tutor. I think this is a rule for all Delta centres, but I might be wrong. After the last LSA it was really hard to get down to the post-lesson evaluation and all of us felt the same way. We were too exhausted to do anything. But the next day after the external we all partly got our senses back. So I would think that it wasn't just us and many Module 2 trainees feel drained the day of the external assessment as it is way too stressful.<br />
In <b>Week 7</b> we also had to write Stage 4 for PDA Part A and submit it for it to get a final grade of Pass or Fail. I did this one before my externally assessed lesson as I knew that after that I would be more dead than alive to be able to write it. And it proved to be a good idea. I couldn't even reply to my mail that day, leave alone write an assignment. So if you can, try to complete your PDA Stage 4 before your external because after it, you may find it impossible to do.<br />
The last day of the course was about where to next. But I don't think we were prepared to think about any other courses that day. We still need to get our results in two months' time so we are definitely not going to take any courses yet.<br />
<b>NB</b> Don't worry if the external assessor doesn't talk to you or smile. They are not allowed to. So take it as something normal.<br />
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All in all, the Delta course is worth taking but you should forget about life while doing it and you must be prepared to a lot of stress.<br />
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Good luck to everyone who is about to start it. And good luck to everyone who is waiting for the results.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-85357103334177651742015-01-24T11:34:00.004-08:002015-01-24T11:36:20.908-08:00DELTA Module 3 Reading List<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Before my course started, I wanted to read the books necessary for the third module to be prepared but I couldn't find much on the reading list for Module 3. When the course started, I realised how useful it would have been for me to have read at least some of the books beforehand.<br />
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To help other candidates, I decided to share the reading list for the module. Now, apart from the books for your specialism, which you ideally choose before the course starts, there are also books that are a must-have and a must-read for all specialisms. I will start with those.</div>
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The extended assignment for this module consists of five parts. For each part of your assignment, you ideally need to refer to 3-4 books (for your specialism even more), which should go into the bibliography at the end of your assignment. Some books are needed for parts 2, 3 and 4. To write the first part, you need to read quite a few books on the specialism of your choice. I chose Teaching learners online/through distance.blended learning. For this specialism as well as for some others, I will share the book list at the end of this post.</div>
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The <b>second part</b> of the assignment is <b>Needs Analysis</b> of your current or potential group of students. You need to read about learning styles, motivation, needs analysis and diagnostic testing. The books to read are:</div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Graves, K. 1996 <b>Teachers as Course Developers </b>CUP</li>
<li>Graves, K. 2000 <b>Designing Language Courses</b> Heinle and Heinle</li>
<li>Hughes, A. 2003 <b>Testing for Language Teachers</b> CUP</li>
<li>Lightbown, P.M. and N. Spada 2013 <b>How Languages are Learned</b> OUP</li>
<li>Richards, J. 1990 <b>The Language Teaching Matrix</b> CUP</li>
<li>Williams, M. and L.R. Burden 1997 <b>Psychology for Language Teachers</b> CUP</li>
</ol>
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In the <b>third part</b> of the assignment you write your <b>Course Proposal</b> and for this you need to read about the principles of syllabus and course design. The books (in addition to the ones for part two) for this part are:</div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Nunan, D. 1989 <b>Syllabus Design</b> OUP</li>
<li>Nunan, D. 1988 <b>The Learner Centred Curriculum</b> CUP</li>
<li>Harmer, J. 2007 <b>The practice of English Language Teaching</b> Pearson (not on the list but I found it very useful)</li>
</ol>
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In part four of your assignment you need to discuss <b>Assessment and Evaluation</b>. To complete this part, you again need some of the books from the lists above and also:</div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>McNamara, T. 2000 <b>Language Testing </b>OUP</li>
</ol>
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Part five is the conclusion so you just refer to the books you cross-referenced in part one of the assignment, books related to your specialism.</div>
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Now for the specialisms, which are:</div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li> Business English</li>
<li>Teaching young learners/young adults</li>
<li>English for Special Purposes</li>
<li>English for Academic Purposes</li>
<li>ESOL learners with clear specialist needs </li>
<li>Teaching exam classes</li>
<li>Teaching one-to-one</li>
<li>Teaching monolingual classes</li>
<li>Teaching multilingual classes</li>
<li>Teaching in an English-speaking environment</li>
<li>Teaching in a non-English-speaking environment </li>
<li>Teaching learners online, through distance/blended learning </li>
<li>Teaching English to learners with special requirements</li>
<li>Language development for teachers</li>
</ol>
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I am sure you will know a lot more about the specialism you choose, so I would like to share the books which I was required to read for <i>Teaching learners online, through distance/blended learning</i> and the books which I found useful for this assignment. A lot of useful articles regarding online teaching can also be found on the Internet.</div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dudeney G., N. Hockly
and M. Pegrum. 2013. <b>Digital Literacies</b><i>.</i> Pearson</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Hockly, N. and L. Clandfield. 2010. </span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><b>Teaching Online Tools and Techniques, options and opportunities</b></span><span style="line-height: 115%;">.Delta Publishing</span></span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Salmon, G. 2011. <b>E-Moderating:
The key to teaching and learning online</b>. Routledge</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Salmon, G. 2013. </span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><b>E-Tivities:
The key to active online learning</b></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><b>.</b> Kogan Page</span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sharma, P. and B. Barrett. 2007. <b>Blended Learning. Using Technology in and beyond the language classroom.</b><i> </i>Macmillan </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Teeler D with Gray P 2000 <b>How to use the Internet in ELT</b> Longman</span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">MacDonald, J. 2008 <b>Blended learning and online tutoring</b> </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">Gower Publishing Limited.</span></div>
</li>
</ol>
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<span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">As in my research I focused on an IELTS exam class, I can also suggest some books for <i>Teaching Exam Classes specialism</i>. These are:</span></div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">Burgess, S. & Head. K. 2005 <b>How to Teach for Exams</b> Pearson </span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">Baxter, A. 1997 <b>Evaluating Your Students</b> Richmond Publishing</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">Hughes, A. 1989 <b>Testing for Language Teachers</b> CUP</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">May, P. 1996 <b>Exam Classes</b> OUP</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">McNamara, T. 2000 <b>Language Testing</b> OUP</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">Bygate, M. 1987 <b>Speaking</b> OUP</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">Anderson. A. & Lynch, T. 1988<b> Listening </b>OUP</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">Nutall, C. 2005 <b>Teaching Reading Skills</b> Macmillan</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">Tribble, C. 1996 <b>Writing</b> OUP</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">Kelly, G. 2000 <b>How to Teach Pronunciation</b> Pearson</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">Thornbury, S. 2005 <b>How to Teach Speaking</b> Pearson</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">Harmer, J. 2004 <b>How to Teach Writing</b> Pearson</span></li>
</ol>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-4103135740608161522014-10-12T05:13:00.000-07:002014-10-12T05:15:40.566-07:00Zooburst - a storytelling tool<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://zooburst.com/" target="_blank"><b>Zooburst</b></a> is a digital storytelling tool which allows users to create interactive 3D pop-up books. The tool is so easy to use, that teachers can ask their learners to create their own books as well. It has <i>MyClasses</i> section where teachers can create protected spaces for their learners' books, but this feature is not free.<br />
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Having registered, click on <i>MyBooks</i> tab to start creating a new book. This is also the space where all your created books will show. At first you need to title your book and write a description. The latter is optional. What I like about this tool is that you can make the book visible to everyone, anyone with a link or only to yourself. So if you are going to use the book in the classroom, you can set it to "Only me".<br />
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The work area is self-explanatory - you don't really need to be an expert to create a book. To add a picture, you can either do a search inside Zooburst or upload your own photos. When creating the book, remember to save each page you have not to lose any. You can make a maximum of 10 pages but that's enough for a short classroom activity.<br />
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The first book I created was for my students to revise past tenses. I showed them a page at a time and they needed to write a sentence or two describing the picture and connect the description of the first picture with the following one to end up with a story. The students were working in pairs and spent a great deal of time discussing each picture and negotiating the meaning. They all enjoyed the activity.<br />
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Another interesting feature of this tool is that it can be presented online. All you need to do is to print the ZB logo, click the Camera tab above the book you want to present, show the printed logo to the camera and your book will pop out from the logo on the camera.<br />
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Here is what the book is like.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="538" src="http://www.zooburst.com/zb_books-viewer-embed.php?book_id=zb01_5437f3dcb8a8e&bw=600&bh=438&fw=600&fh=538" width="600"></iframe></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-39903771369198548472014-02-23T09:32:00.001-08:002014-05-26T06:19:34.824-07:00E-Book Publishing Options<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Sometimes the coursebooks we use do not seem to contain what our learners need, or the information is outdated and we, teachers, start adapting or upgrading the content.<br />
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E-book publishing sites actually allow teachers and their learners to create textbooks that meet their requirements. Here are 3 of those sites.</div>
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1. <b><a href="http://www.bookrix.com/" target="_blank">BookRix</a></b></div>
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The good thing about this one is that it has an in-built cover builder so that you don't have to create one yourself. There are quite a lot of images to choose from for the cover and it also has a table of content option. These two options make it really easy to create a book. In terms of the book itself, there are two options: either to type the book inside the site or upload a written up book from your computer. Video or any other interactive source cannot be added but you can add images.</div>
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On the negative side, the book is not embeddable which for me is not such a good option. I need to create a book which I can embed into my learners wiki and/or Moodle, because, otherwise, they will not complete the tasks not to make their posts public.</div>
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<a href="http://www.bookrix.com/_ebook-anna-conway-academic-ielts-writing-task-1/" target="_blank">Here's what I got with this tool. </a></div>
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2.<b><a href="http://issuu.com/" target="_blank"> Issuu</a></b></div>
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This site works more or less the same as BookRix but it doesn't have an in-built cover or content options - you will need to create these yourself. It also doesn't have an option of typing the book in-site - you have to upload a ready made book to it but, I think, the book looks a lot better and you can also get an embed code to add the book itself to a site you run for your learners. Th flipping pages also look good.<br />
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Issuu also doesn't support any interactive options, but still it is worth having a look at it.<br />
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This is the same book but published on Issuu this time.<br />
<div class="issuuembed" data-configid="1598498/6735434" style="height: 743px; width: 525px;">
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<script async="true" src="//e.issuu.com/embed.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
3. <b><a href="http://glossi.com/" target="_blank">Glossi</a></b><br />
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Glossi is a fairly simple tool. You use page templates offered on the site. You create your own cover and can search Google for images for your cover or pages you want to create. Video can be embedded easily which makes it a great tool for a flipped classroom. But make sure to save every page you create not to lose the work if something goes wrong.<br />
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The book can be embedded onto a site and is very interactive.<br />
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Here's what I have created on Glossi.<br />
<div id="glossi-embed-96746" style="cursor: pointer;">
<a href="http://glossi.com/AnnaConway/96746-gm-food?eb=AnnaConway" target="_blank"><img alt="Glossi.com - GM Food" src="http://glossi.com/embed/cover-img/96746/media/f3bbf58e3e0043e8b686a889de56298bwpA3yj.png" title="Glossi.com - GM Food" /></a><br />
<a href="http://glossi.com/AnnaConway/96746-gm-food?eb=AnnaConway" target="_blank">Click to view <strong>GM Food</strong> on <strong><big>GLOSSI.COM</big></strong></a></div>
<script src="/static/js/lib/glossy/embed/cover/entry.js?glossiId=96746&eb=AnnaConway&height=573&width=450&tkn="></script>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-81665905808414562912014-01-09T11:36:00.001-08:002014-01-09T11:36:40.100-08:00DELTA Module 1 Tips<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Having completed the first module and taken the exam, I decided to share some tips with those planning to take the course.<br />
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I chose to do the course with <a href="http://thedistancedelta.com/" target="_blank">TheDistanceDelta</a> because the online mode is more convenient for me as I don't have to give up work and travel somewhere to do it and I can also take care of my family while doing the course.<br />
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Initially (the first week only) the course seemed easy enough and we were all quite optimistic about it but then we started doing the assignments (tasks from the exam papers), panic set in and the forums started filling up with pessimistic and desperate messages. Sometimes I didn't even want to check the threads not to lose faith completely. Working full-time didn't help either. So, if you can work part-time while taking the course, it will be a very good idea to do so.<br />
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Although the course is very demanding, there are some things which could be done before and during the course to ease the tension.<br />
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<b>1. Before the course starts</b><br />
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Make sure you read (and even re-read)<br />
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beyond-Sentence-Introducing-Discourse-Methodology/dp/1405064072/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389294036&sr=8-1&keywords=beyond+the+sentence+scott+thornbury" target="_blank">Beyond the Sentence</a> by Scott Thornbury,</li>
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/About-Language-Teachers-Cambridge-Development/dp/0521427207/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y" target="_blank">About Language</a> by Scott Thornbury,</li>
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/A-Z-ELT-Methodology-Scott-Thornbury/dp/1405070633/ref=pd_sim_b_1" target="_blank">An A-Z of ELT</a> by Scott Thornbury (this one is a must-have book for the whole course and you'd be better off almost memorizing the terms in it as good use of terminology will earn you extra points),</li>
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Teach-Pronunciation-Gerald-Kelly/dp/0582429757/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389294272&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+teach+pronunciation" target="_blank">How to teach pronunciation</a> by Gerald Kelly (this one is also very important because knowledge of phonology and phonetics is tested very often).</li>
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This is essential to do because it will help you a lot during your training.</div>
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<b>2. During the course</b></div>
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You will need to refer to <i>An A-Z of ELT</i> during the course, so I would advise buying the book. Throughout both exam papers terminology is tested and you are expected to use the correct terms not the ones you use with your students (for the latter you don't gain any points) and the terminology needs to be spelt correctly for you to get a point - any mistakes and goodbye a valuable point. This <a href="http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/knowledge-database/teaching-knowledge-database" target="_blank">British Council page</a> may also come handy.</div>
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There is a <a href="http://quizlet.com/23233297/cambridge-delta-module-1-terms-flash-cards/" target="_blank">Quizlet set</a> to memorize the terminology and practise spelling and the app is free for Android and iOS so you can install it on your phone or tablet and work with the cards on the way to work and back home. Alternatively, you can create your own set on Quizlet but before the course because during it you won't have much time.</div>
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It is also useful to have <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grammar-English-Language-Teachers-Parrott/dp/0521712041/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389294870&sr=1-1&keywords=Grammar+for+English+Language+Teachers" target="_blank">Grammar for English Language Teachers</a> by Martin Parrot which has grammar tasks for teachers to do and they help a lot in the exam preparation.</div>
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During this time it is very important to read about the development of ELT, the approaches and methods from Grammar Translation to Principled Eclecticism - names of people and approaches taken in each method are very important for the exam. </div>
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Revise testing terminology and what each kind of test tests. This also comes up very often in the exam papers. There is even a task which asks you to analyse a test in relation to a certain learner with certain needs in a certain context. </div>
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Also read this <a href="http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/images/22081-delta-module-one-exam-report-june-2010.pdf" target="_blank">Examination Report</a> to see what the guideline answers are and how you should approach each task. </div>
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And revise terminology of phonology again and again. Analyse anything your students say in English for features of connected speech, assimilation, elision, etc.</div>
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<b>3. Before the exam</b></div>
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Make sure you do a full mock exam under exam conditions to see which sections you need to spend more time on and, in general, to get a feel for the exam itself. Timing is tough for the tasks and you may find that you do not have enough time to complete a task or two. I managed to complete the tasks but didn't have time to check anything at all. This, I think, is one of the toughest challenges in the exam. </div>
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The day before the exam, I revised terminology for phonology and I was right in doing so - most part of the exam tested phonology related terminology and various features of pronunciation.</div>
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And finally, get enough sleep! </div>
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Good luck with the exam!</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-58957427408179434882013-12-28T09:06:00.001-08:002013-12-28T09:07:21.728-08:00The '11 Challenge' Post <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I wonder why the '11 Challenge' started around Christmas time - maybe we have more free time to take the challenge. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Here are the<b> 5 rules</b> for tagging or perhaps tag blogging or blog tagging.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">1. Acknowledge the nominating blogger.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">2. Share 11 random facts about yourself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">3. Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger has asked you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">4. List 11 bloggers. You cannot nominate those bloggers who have nominated you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">5. Post 11 questions for the bloggers you have nominated to answer. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Task 1. Acknowledge the nominating blogger.</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I have been tagged by my dear friends <a href="http://datenglish.blogspot.com.ar/2013/12/the-11-blog-challenge.html" target="_blank">Debora Tebovich</a> and <a href="http://sanjasays.blogspot.com/2013/12/eleven.html" target="_blank">Sanja Bozinovic</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Task 2. 11 Random facts about me.</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">1. I only like shopping for books, DVDs and computers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">2. I really dislike cold weather.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">3. Because I dislike the smell of beer, I mix it with Sprite to drink it and many people laugh at me when I do that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">4. I love my first cup of coffee in the morning.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">5. I love Doctor Who and Torchwood series and can watch the same episodes over and over again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">6. When I was 4 years old I fell into a lake and nearly drowned. Since then I am afraid of water and never learned to swim.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">7. I can play the piano.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">8. I love reading detective stories and at the moment my favourite writer is James Patterson.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">9. I love Chinese food and can cook it too.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">10. I don't watch TV at all. To watch the programs in point 5 I buy the DVDs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">11. I dislike crowds and during public holidays I don't go out. Being in a crowd makes feel dizzy.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Task 3. Answer the questions put forward to you by the nominating blogger.</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>Answers to Debora's questions</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>1.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>How often do you feel exposed to dilemmas as an Educator? How do you work them out?</b><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Every so often. My response to a dilemma largely depends on what the problem is. If, for example, some of my students are lagging behind, I try to understand the reason and address it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>2.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>What plants and flowers do you have at home?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: -18pt;">I have quite a few plants at home but, to be honest, I don't know what they are called. One of my colleagues keeps on giving them to me and I look after them, but haven't even tried to find out what they are.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>3.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>Have you ever got stuck in an elevator?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Yes, I have. This was a very long time ago. This was 20 or 22 years ago. I got stuck in the lift with two of my friends and before the 'rescue team' arrived, we had spent the time doing homework. I thought it was fun. :)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>4.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>What is that lovely childhood memory that comes to you every once in a while?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 21px;">My mum decorating a cake with oranges and tangerines and me secretly eating them off the cake.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>5.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>If English is not your mother tongue, do you ever need to read subtitles when you watch a movie in English?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I did before, like about 10 years ago. Now I don't need subtitles mainly because the main language of communication for me is English.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>6.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>What makes you laugh?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Many things and situations. I actually like laughing and can find something funny in everything.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>7.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>If you could spend a year focusing on research, what would you research? Why?</b><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">What effect online/blended learning might have on children diagnosed with so called ADHD. I still doubt the existence of such a thing and I would like to know if these children could cope with learning better in an online mode.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>8.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>How do you keep track of your digital files?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I save them in Google docs, Dropbox and Diigo.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>9.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>When was the last time you danced?</b><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">On 25 December we were celebrating Christmas in the office. I put some music on and we danced a bit before our lessons started.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>10.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>Who do you admire and why?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">There isn't just one person I admire. I admire those who don't give up if they encounter problems and try to make a difference. Perhaps because I myself don't give up, I dislike it when people break without even trying to do something. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>11.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>Are you good at setting goals? Do you follow a certain process to set your goals?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I think I am usually good at setting goal, although I can be too ambitious sometimes, especially when it comes to doing various courses. I might sometimes choose to take more courses than I can actually handle and then try to complete them. There is n certain process, I think I mainly just prioritize the important ones.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Answer's to Sanja's questions (I might be cheating here by answering two bloggers' questions, but I am trying to save time :) )</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>1. What are you going to do differently in the new year (at least during the first month)?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I am not sure how successful I am going to be but I am planning to get enough sleep. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>2. If you could get a free ticket to any destination in the world, where would you like to go?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">To South America - if I get a free ticket to one of the South American countries, I can make my own way to the others. I would really love to go to Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay, etc.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>3. If you could choose to live all year in one season, would yo choose winter or summer?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I would definitely choose summer, I really dislike winter and the cold weather that goes with it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 21px;"><b>4. What do you find hardest to teach your students?</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 21px;">Assimilated sounds. They find it hard to understand why sounds change, etc.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>5. What do you like about the space you teach (your classroom)?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I think my classroom is welcoming and I really like everything about it. I also like the fact that I don't share it with anyone and can design it the way I like.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>6. Which is the most important quality you look for in a community of practice you belong to?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The most important quality for me would be the openness of the community members and the readiness to share and cooperate. This is how we develop as teachers, I think.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>7. If you weren't a teacher, what would you do?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Not really sure, but perhaps a lawyer as this was my childhood dream.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>8. What is the best way to share what you learn about teaching?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Through blogging and Facebook group. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>9. What do you never go to work without?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I don't have to take anything to work, to be honest, as I have everything I need in my classroom. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>10. Can you think about and share one thing that people usually don't know about the part of the world where you live?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The capital city, Yerevan, although very small, has three micro-climates: it might be snowing in the north of the city, raining in the central part and sunny and warm in the south.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>11. If Santa was to bring you only one gadget you can use for teaching or in your free time, what would you wish for?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Lenovo Yoga 11 IdeaPad - I have fallen in love with it, although I don't really need one.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Task 4. Nominate 11 bloggers</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">1. Dora Bozanic</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">2. Rose Youssef</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">3. Hakan Senturk</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">4. Merve Oflaz</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">5. Elvina Castillo</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">6. Adam Simpson</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">7. Silvia Heshiki</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">8. Sara Rodriguez Arias</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">9. Kristina Smith</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">10. Ana Rivas</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">11. Claudia Carrill</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Task 5. Ask 11 Questions.</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">1. What is your favourite book genre?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">2. Which film have you seen many times and can still watch again? Why?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">3. If you could choose any country to move to, which country would you choose and why?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">4. What's your favourite drink? How often do you drink it?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">5. Which English language course book do you like most and why?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">6. Which web-based tool do you like most and why?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">7. What's the most difficult for you in your job?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">8. What's your favourite place in your town/city? Is there any place you dislike?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">9. If you could change one thing in your house/flat, what would you change and why?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">10. What's your favourite dish? Can you cook it yourself?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">11. What don't you have enough time for?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I look forward to your replies!!! :)</span></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-26303677810190451622013-10-12T14:03:00.000-07:002014-01-03T01:28:39.286-08:00Web-Based Podcasting Tools<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There are different options for creating podcasts, with <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: blue;">Audacity</span></b></a> being perhaps one of the most popular ones. But because the software looks a bit too complicated, I usually opt for web-based tools available for free.<br />
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There are <b><a href="http://www.edtechnetwork.com/podcasting_vodcasting.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">many things</span> </a></b>an educator can use podcasts for. I mainly use podcasts for various speaking activities as the main aim and listening as the subsidiary aim. This allows my students to practise their speaking skills even more. They can tell stories, or continue each other's stories, etc.<br />
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In this blog post, I would like to share some of my favourite podcast tools with you.<br />
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<b><a href="http://audiopal.com/" target="_blank">AudioPal</a> </b>is the only tool that is interactive, i.e. if an AudioPal recording is embedded into a site, it starts playing automatically as soon as the site loads. So a greeting message or a site introduction message could be perfect. It also allows you to record your message by phone which is a nice option if your mic isn't working very well.<br />
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No registration is required and the tool is easy to use. It has record-by-phone, text-to-message, record or upload an MP3 options.<br />
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I think the screenshot is pretty self-explanatory.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg91wAbMYlhbRIDc_7gUbDXzpRilBJLS6cIIQOMUj8w4W7mnbcdN4C4WcjaRA6vjy9Tqr-BGFCjGMC6IybIY8rwBhaKe-Do_-Hppx-TQKrNNRGBt8FhCHk-a0JG-RP8zPwnSGkb43Z4HyQ/s1600/ScreenHunter_34+Oct.+13+00.54.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg91wAbMYlhbRIDc_7gUbDXzpRilBJLS6cIIQOMUj8w4W7mnbcdN4C4WcjaRA6vjy9Tqr-BGFCjGMC6IybIY8rwBhaKe-Do_-Hppx-TQKrNNRGBt8FhCHk-a0JG-RP8zPwnSGkb43Z4HyQ/s320/ScreenHunter_34+Oct.+13+00.54.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.chirbit.com/" style="color: blue; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Chirbit</a><b style="color: blue;"> - </b><b>t</b>his site has some nice options: apart from the usual click-to-record to create a podcast option or upload option, it also allows users to convert a Youtube video into a podcast (Chirbit, as it is called on the site) and you can also convert text to audio just like with AudioPal.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3suoj3JSY6n8cjI0j66F3fDEU4zCEul1HSscOXE1a2rEJls5YMyg7n3zbvxJ3b6-XWYn2UXu_z3IkSJ2iCJSnfksYWxLVN3zUkfZYe9eMxxDCSpFDP9iTn7xSxRx21Xry9YF5ntsHb8o/s1600/ScreenHunter_33+Oct.+13+00.18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="92" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3suoj3JSY6n8cjI0j66F3fDEU4zCEul1HSscOXE1a2rEJls5YMyg7n3zbvxJ3b6-XWYn2UXu_z3IkSJ2iCJSnfksYWxLVN3zUkfZYe9eMxxDCSpFDP9iTn7xSxRx21Xry9YF5ntsHb8o/s400/ScreenHunter_33+Oct.+13+00.18.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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It actually takes a very short time to turn a yotube video into a podcast which then can be embedded into a blog or any other site. There is a commenting option, which can be used with students to discuss a Youtube-to-Chirbit talk. Chribits can also be transcribed something that my students enjoy doing. They say that this improves their listening skills and concentration.<br />
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Here is an example of a Youtube video turned into a Chirbit.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="NO" src="http://chirb.it/wp/gG7m3P" width="380">If you can not see this chirbit, listen to it here http://chirb.it/gG7m3P</iframe><br />
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<a href="http://www.podomatic.com/login" style="color: blue; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">PodOmatic</a><b style="color: blue;"> </b>works more or less the same as the previous ones. With the free account you get 500MB of storage and 15GB of bandwidth a month. So not too bad.<br />
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There are many options for sharing the recordings: you can embed the podcast into a blog or a wiki, you can send it to someone's email address, you can share it on many social networking sites. The episodes can aslo be downloaded. So if you are worried about storage, you can just download the episode and then delete it from your podomatic page.<br />
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You can also follow other educators and use their recordings, with their permission of course.<br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://vocaroo.com/" target="_blank">Vocaroo</a> - </span>this one is probably the easiest to use. All you need is to go to the website and you are ready to record or upload an audio message.<br />
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As you can see, the tool is pretty easy to use. just Click to Record and start speaking.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Fco_EfGOSgi8mZp9OZiA8JPrykLeKmbFR-LRAGlJ5rtD5ooql3eiUejr1Rn_56ZW7LWNdQbqSOdB7Ipa5Oeh5KqeSVapeYdn9YdSIzttDDHZC9vr1XD8yoZ_eHHP2tQDZDxMdfuw26g/s1600/ScreenHunter_28+Oct.+12+23.14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Fco_EfGOSgi8mZp9OZiA8JPrykLeKmbFR-LRAGlJ5rtD5ooql3eiUejr1Rn_56ZW7LWNdQbqSOdB7Ipa5Oeh5KqeSVapeYdn9YdSIzttDDHZC9vr1XD8yoZ_eHHP2tQDZDxMdfuw26g/s320/ScreenHunter_28+Oct.+12+23.14.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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After you have finished recording, you can listen to it and save or if you dislike it, you can re-record. Then all you need to do is to click save and then you get the options seen on the screenshot below.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIG8SBeMXLgTKmXi8EHZE2OMIVw6z91YquanaN66ZC8CGO_xDkd_-ao2L-3PxRSVmDetJxUw-FWjPKawuWFZGVhlgVOpUPd5LmTPzmrm9gH4vLF8InUTLPN1J6jhO-YgwtU1DrfE8yxWo/s1600/ScreenHunter_29+Oct.+12+23.15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIG8SBeMXLgTKmXi8EHZE2OMIVw6z91YquanaN66ZC8CGO_xDkd_-ao2L-3PxRSVmDetJxUw-FWjPKawuWFZGVhlgVOpUPd5LmTPzmrm9gH4vLF8InUTLPN1J6jhO-YgwtU1DrfE8yxWo/s320/ScreenHunter_29+Oct.+12+23.15.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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You can share the recording, email it to the person it is intended for or simply download it.<br />
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The best thing about Vocaroo is that the recordings on the site are not searchable so we don't have to worry too much about privacy.<br />
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<a href="http://www.voxopop.com/" style="color: blue; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Voxopop</a><b style="color: blue;"> - </b>This tool is the same as the other ones but it is also different in that it is really good for group discussions. A teacher creates a talkgroup and invites students to take part. This could be a discussion of a burning issue or a piece of breaking news. Learners listen to what their teacher has to say, then in the same group they record their own opinions and listen to each other's ideas. Here again we have integrated skills practice: listening and speaking. If the students are required to read the news before they can take part, then they also improve their reading skills.<br />
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This is what a talkgroup looks like.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX6upIpKx3yfCtE5Oga4pcwLd2GdzVA1bZt0RoNdwiP98ZiBgk-swWrbaMAihLlOH40HJ6d9JalsDoCs1TNcSLoUky1ln1WnK9F8YZOYzb1MwMZCY3KtFoQxQM7oeYnS39BECkOPH-cmk/s1600/ScreenHunter_31+Oct.+12+23.31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX6upIpKx3yfCtE5Oga4pcwLd2GdzVA1bZt0RoNdwiP98ZiBgk-swWrbaMAihLlOH40HJ6d9JalsDoCs1TNcSLoUky1ln1WnK9F8YZOYzb1MwMZCY3KtFoQxQM7oeYnS39BECkOPH-cmk/s320/ScreenHunter_31+Oct.+12+23.31.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I myself use this tool a lot with my IELTS students. They record their replies and then I record my feedback in the same talkgroup. This makes it easier for each student to track their progress and not get lost in lots of different links.<br />
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There are only two drawbacks: 1. the talkgroups are not embeddable, and 2. you do not receive notifications about new posts; you have to log in every day to see if there is anything new or not. Even so, I really like Voxopop. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-50451565858892604632013-05-10T07:31:00.002-07:002013-05-10T07:32:03.105-07:00Web-Based Collaborative Whiteboards<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Some of my Pre-Intermediate adult students told me the other day that there are some grammar points that they would like to revise with me because they couldn't understand them on their own. Not to spend class time on this (we have been given only 62 hours to cover a level), I started looking for web-based whiteboards. I tested some that I found and invited my students to join the online lesson. This was in the evening and everyone was at home, so it was easy for them not to think about work and concentrate on the lesson. I used 3 of the tools to compare and share with you plus 2 extra ones to look at.<br />
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1. <a href="http://demo.drawitlive.com/whiteboard/agdhenBkZW1vchMLEgpXaGl0ZUJvYXJkGJeQtwMM" target="_blank">DrawVille</a> - this is a very simple tool and doesn't require registration. All you need to do is to type in your name and click on Start Drawing. Once you are in, you can send the link to people you want to join the lesson and wait for their names to appear in the 'users' list. There is also a chat room which I used to answer my student's questions. (For this lesson I invited 1 student because he was the only one who had questions about adjectives and adverbs.)<br />
At the end of the session the whiteboard looked like this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh28Kv2PvABk8APJwdmrRP0Nxytf_xBAOwYHdM95p7fbw-f4sekSjS617ORNABX3SzhD_h-UHsL8baHvvMr1PsYzL1HtXRrpEBEz7R_ir20HjSaIuVW7Q1tCm_ANUQQYOr_05lmDN_H1Es/s1600/Adverbs+and+adjectives.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh28Kv2PvABk8APJwdmrRP0Nxytf_xBAOwYHdM95p7fbw-f4sekSjS617ORNABX3SzhD_h-UHsL8baHvvMr1PsYzL1HtXRrpEBEz7R_ir20HjSaIuVW7Q1tCm_ANUQQYOr_05lmDN_H1Es/s400/Adverbs+and+adjectives.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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While I was typing in the explanation, my student used a black marker to draw my attention to points that he wanted clarification for or examples of. We also used the chat room to discuss what was being explained. Here's a screenshot of some parts of the chat.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPAoANFzD0dgyP_WWZa3R5nNTv5CQ1xvSzGVCXsajCAyRj00bBuPbXcvB-r6ajx2y3O_MqPyq3Icsg7l6mgrZMnb0NjI1-c6c71jdx4OEQ5XE1TT4uGFgOsAfivUI3k2Z6Yf2XiZ7oywU/s1600/Drawville1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPAoANFzD0dgyP_WWZa3R5nNTv5CQ1xvSzGVCXsajCAyRj00bBuPbXcvB-r6ajx2y3O_MqPyq3Icsg7l6mgrZMnb0NjI1-c6c71jdx4OEQ5XE1TT4uGFgOsAfivUI3k2Z6Yf2XiZ7oywU/s400/Drawville1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnw8e1C5vQqDBcIwlNRFjE-sMpv0B9NTihBdPAPPn-9QYHvbOeJJbus-dITTQpibPE3UTLG8YZAQ8WuReRUlRHX8DpudA84nbJS92KZ6UHEnlVfEwS9cnqFmpB9xch5VPrENFgFHbYCHM/s1600/Drawville2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="131" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnw8e1C5vQqDBcIwlNRFjE-sMpv0B9NTihBdPAPPn-9QYHvbOeJJbus-dITTQpibPE3UTLG8YZAQ8WuReRUlRHX8DpudA84nbJS92KZ6UHEnlVfEwS9cnqFmpB9xch5VPrENFgFHbYCHM/s400/Drawville2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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My student really enjoyed the lesson and the whiteboard and to experiment with it he wrote 'Thank you' in a circle, which you can see at the bottom of the whiteboard. To save the lesson we both clicked on "Export drawing surface", which allows saving the surface in JPEG. Now if need be, I can upload or share the lesson with other students in the future.<br />
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2. The next tool is <a href="http://www.scriblink.com/" target="_blank">Scriblink</a> which again doesn't require registration. You only need to run Java on your computer and the whiteboard loads immediately. This tool has a chat room too. It also has maths formulas so it might be of interest to maths teachers too. There are options for grids and image upload, which is quite useful. I think I can simply make a screenshot of a piece of writing sent by a student, upload it to the whiteboard as image, invite a student to the session and go over mistakes in the writing task. Because this tool has 5 whiteboards in 1, I can also use the other ones to explain grammar in which that particular student made the most mistakes.<br />
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I used this tool to explain Present Continuous.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8N7ESQGpn0PIhAOAbF3hwGs5PIjORWKC42Zlmt6AYfzQW2PnxTHZhhHNt5oFcXPlNglSxz-K6PO7Gw8b2ZyL-wIwi_4tW0Ztq4xyP3-lmugzPiDtQrg6ZUgegxFh-3_XGjifGxL3-2HU/s1600/Scriblink.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8N7ESQGpn0PIhAOAbF3hwGs5PIjORWKC42Zlmt6AYfzQW2PnxTHZhhHNt5oFcXPlNglSxz-K6PO7Gw8b2ZyL-wIwi_4tW0Ztq4xyP3-lmugzPiDtQrg6ZUgegxFh-3_XGjifGxL3-2HU/s400/Scriblink.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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The save option here only sends a link to your mailbox from which you can later access the lesson. So I just took a screenshot of the lesson, to be able to upload or share it.</div>
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3. The third one is <a href="http://www.cosketch.com/" target="_blank">CoSketch</a> a multi-user online whiteboard. It doesn't require registration and all you need to do is click 'Create new sketch' and you are ready to start. There is a chat room, and it can be hidden if need be. This site is also connected to Google Maps which makes it possible to teach Geography as well. It is easy to write/type or draw on the map. Thus it can also be used for giving directions from one place to another in one city. For a sample map, I created this one:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXMkXiCwUiKcrxZALYjGNEAGWWyoCwquDXMgIXB9sDhXpM8017yEb5OyO4CPo96CXj2MAdJY1UkG8cUXU_WuKqH0P0mZVAeVValsMZt0rnlX-F_hUYqSUSVs7D5B3_1L-ZPQBOTXefVQ0/s1600/CoSketchMaps.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXMkXiCwUiKcrxZALYjGNEAGWWyoCwquDXMgIXB9sDhXpM8017yEb5OyO4CPo96CXj2MAdJY1UkG8cUXU_WuKqH0P0mZVAeVValsMZt0rnlX-F_hUYqSUSVs7D5B3_1L-ZPQBOTXefVQ0/s400/CoSketchMaps.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Exporting is disabled for maps, but a screenshot solves this problem.<br />
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However, what I used this tool for was just an English language lesson. But here I asked my students to match normal and strong adjectives by drawing lines.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbNNmbRoa1u5FDmlHV4NG0OqQBQwU-WUShXwV0If3V2sD9I72IUaMbQjdwtagztTiPnurzT7I5fjdk15GF1HRfJ4QHjT1yMtAc5v19TRqLzdEDQKYH1iXZJubYpGVe0TT2OLWbq3WexZw/s1600/CoSketch.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbNNmbRoa1u5FDmlHV4NG0OqQBQwU-WUShXwV0If3V2sD9I72IUaMbQjdwtagztTiPnurzT7I5fjdk15GF1HRfJ4QHjT1yMtAc5v19TRqLzdEDQKYH1iXZJubYpGVe0TT2OLWbq3WexZw/s400/CoSketch.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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The board then can be saved as an embeddable image. However, I just made a screenshot of the board again to save it as a JPEG file. This one is also a very nice and useful tool.<br />
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4. One of the extras is <a href="http://www.twiddla.com/" target="_blank">Twiddla</a>. The reason why I put it into extras is that it doesn't have many options for the free account. However, on the website it says that after registering, if you send an email to them from an .edu account (or similar), they will provide you with the Pro account for free, which is really nice. The tool is the only one among the ones I have had a look at that has a webconferencing (voice communication) option. It also has mathematical formulas and 2 different grid options. The board can be saved as an image and then re-used. Twiddla is really worth looking at.<br />
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5. The last one is <a href="http://www.scribblar.com/index.cfm" target="_blank">Scribblar</a> but I didn't test it, because it seems that the free version doesn't allow a lot of freedom. However, you might find it useful.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-20943309059754438082013-04-21T12:23:00.002-07:002013-04-21T12:23:58.298-07:00Free Captioning Tools<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Captioning tools allow uploading images and adding speech bubbles to them. I think using this tool can add a lot of fun to lessons, especially when we want our learners to create and/or tell a story.<br />
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One option would be to find images on the internet that could somehow fit into one story and then ask learners in groups to add speech bubbles to each image. Then they could compare their stories and vote for the best one.<br />
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Another option could be to ask learners to bring their own digital photos (these could be holiday photos, family photos, etc). Learners could work with their peers' photos and add speech bubbles to them.<br />
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I am sure each teacher will come up with more lesson ideas and I would love to hear/read your ideas.<br />
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Anyway, down to the tools. To test the tools I decided to use my own photo with a simple "Hello!" message.<br />
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The <b>first</b> tool I would like to talk about is <a href="http://en.speechable.com/" target="_blank">Speechable</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6A5NDDHJlun_2GmjzduNzvGDBy7cKoUV5rpyn0z1cUzeycA4xz0ry3Vv2xTCybiLCQIFuylXdTqhv75rpSsdgfDrr9VkXWCjZBl_BJfl6a5lyhtunOUKBN2krMFXRIlM9xKYNH3Ald_E/s1600/Hello+Anna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6A5NDDHJlun_2GmjzduNzvGDBy7cKoUV5rpyn0z1cUzeycA4xz0ry3Vv2xTCybiLCQIFuylXdTqhv75rpSsdgfDrr9VkXWCjZBl_BJfl6a5lyhtunOUKBN2krMFXRIlM9xKYNH3Ald_E/s200/Hello+Anna.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
The tool is free but requires registration. However, it takes only seconds to register and you can either upload an image from your computer or type in the URL to the image you want to be uploaded. When the image is uploaded you can doodle (draw/write) on it, add a speech bubble or just add a text. For doodling there is a great selection of colours, The text box can be moved around the image and placed anywhere you like and the writing can be in any colour. For speech bubbles you can choose among four types of bubbles, size and colour of text. After saving the image, you can go back to it to edit it. There doesn't seem to be an embed code, but by right-clicking the image you can save it onto your computer. Options for sharing in social networking sites are all in place.<br />
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The <b>second</b> one is <a href="http://www.superlame.com/" target="_blank">SuperLame</a> and it is a lot of fun to use.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPdmklAWlw6P5wPRWp16T0FyZlLnpAErnISfU7V4tYGnWUXOItg2dRFZVsc3bAO1bEQJPyrr1IEXkS8MzFgFqeSbR7mAoUAFvgLwRbf_0qKaJkNP2S5gF1beONYK_JzNRCiRx0Rw4hfis/s1600/mySuperLamePic_e20b6f5cbd69d8a4f5614ce533e4372a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPdmklAWlw6P5wPRWp16T0FyZlLnpAErnISfU7V4tYGnWUXOItg2dRFZVsc3bAO1bEQJPyrr1IEXkS8MzFgFqeSbR7mAoUAFvgLwRbf_0qKaJkNP2S5gF1beONYK_JzNRCiRx0Rw4hfis/s200/mySuperLamePic_e20b6f5cbd69d8a4f5614ce533e4372a.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
This tool doesn't require registration and is free. The best thing about it is that it has an onboarding (guidance) system. A little arrow at the top of the screen guides you through the process of creating the captions. It also has an option for adding what it calls 'Sound FX' and I just added all the possible sounds on offer to my image to let you see what you can have. The options for sharing here are either to email the image or to save it. But I don't think this a big problem. As long as you can save it as an image, you can upload it wherever you like.<br />
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The <b>third</b> one is <a href="http://diy.despair.com/" target="_blank">DIYDespair</a>. </div>
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This one also doesn't require registration and is free. All the options are on the right-hand side of the image screen. However, this one doesn't have the fancy options of the previous one. The title and the captions can only go under the image and not onto it. But still, I think, some older learners may find the tool enjoyable. All the available options can be seen on the image below. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmnTMszcJnskPYvc7b8beqT_61pD3Uapn_SAnxIv2dOat7pVf2XoPCgZLr2lPWMmyaBmcFAHb3jgYR1tePFIgyeOE_PHklck4NZfTtNeNPv7jp9JZ7MrV9yFfQjtgwMrTnQ8-HKnU42T8/s1600/Hello+demotivate.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmnTMszcJnskPYvc7b8beqT_61pD3Uapn_SAnxIv2dOat7pVf2XoPCgZLr2lPWMmyaBmcFAHb3jgYR1tePFIgyeOE_PHklck4NZfTtNeNPv7jp9JZ7MrV9yFfQjtgwMrTnQ8-HKnU42T8/s400/Hello+demotivate.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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The <b>fourth</b> site is M<a href="http://bighugelabs.com/motivator.php" target="_blank">otivator</a>. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfZcu6zz6zPmNqtj_nmOvFxqdCoJDHl5yh9L184HWdG1C9Q435ik59qE48WdWhHjhqAP1p34nff_YAFlmxW63KBehctIBhO0GXKp5ZdDueZETirZuvRxmFRx1lOS2XjanUpwaHoU-rK4M/s1600/motivatorAnna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfZcu6zz6zPmNqtj_nmOvFxqdCoJDHl5yh9L184HWdG1C9Q435ik59qE48WdWhHjhqAP1p34nff_YAFlmxW63KBehctIBhO0GXKp5ZdDueZETirZuvRxmFRx1lOS2XjanUpwaHoU-rK4M/s200/motivatorAnna.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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The name is the opposite of the third (Motivator vs Demotivator) one but it functions in the same way. No registration is required and it is free to use. But there are too many adverts on the website, so I don't think it is very good for children in case they click on the links advertised. The options are again next to the image screen and the captions can only be placed under the image not on it. In terms of sharing, it is again either email to a friend or download. </div>
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And the last tool is <a href="http://www.pimpampum.net/bubblr/" target="_blank">PimPamPum</a>. It doesn't require registration and is free to use as all the other ones. However, I didn't create an image with this one because to create a caption you need to add images from Flickr and as I don't have any uploaded images on Flickr and didn't want to use other people's images, I decided to give it a miss. But as many of you may have accounts on Flickr, I thought I will share this one with you too. I found <a href="http://www.pimpampum.net/bubblr/?id=47583" target="_blank">a sample caption</a> for you to see what can be created with this tool. I like the fact that it allows creating slideshows which makes the storytelling even easier. I hope you like it too. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-5537300426442947532013-04-11T13:51:00.004-07:002013-04-11T21:30:27.862-07:00IATEFL Interviews 10 April<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2013" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="Liverpool Online"><img alt="Liverpool Online" border="0" height="213" src="http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2013/sites/iatefl/files/pages/iatefl-liverpool-banner-330x220.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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I decided to spend the evening watching some of the interviews because there are quite a few that I haven't watched and I wanted to watch at least some of them.<br />
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The first interview I watched was with <a href="http://jamiekeddie.com/" target="_blank">Jamie Keddie</a> whom I really like for his enthusiasm and ideas. Jamie is also the author of a very good book called <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Images-Resource-Books-Teachers-Keddie/dp/0194425797/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365709430&sr=8-1&keywords=images+jamie+keddie" target="_blank">Images</a>.<br />
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Jamie starts the interview by telling a story about a seal and a polar bear and actually because he didn't finish the story in his interview I got on his website and found <a href="http://lessonstream.org/2011/11/21/breathing-holes/" target="_blank">the lesson plan and the video</a> for it because I wanted to find out how the story ends. I assume that's the whole point of videotelling (a technique which combines traditional story telling with video): making the listener want to find out what happens next. I did! <a href="http://lessonstream.org/" target="_blank">Jamie's website</a> has more lesson plans for any teacher interested in doing some videotelling in their lessons. <a href="http://www.disabled-accessfriendly.com/" target="_blank">The website</a> Jamie recommends looking at at the end of his interview does have some interesting material.<br />
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Next interview I watched was with <a href="http://jeremyharmer.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Jeremy Harmer</a> and I love him a lot. Jeremy says that he is interested in finding out whether there is a relationship between the way people practise music and the way people practise a language. I also became interested in the question and did some Google searching. I found quite <a href="http://www.fluentin3months.com/language-is-like-learning-a-musical-instrument/" target="_blank">an interesting article</a> which is written by Benny Lewis who asked about the similarity between language learning and learning to play a musical instrument on Twitter. Some of the replies are really interesting.<br />
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Jeremy Harmer refers to research which shows that the length of practice doesn't mean much if the practice is not deliberate, i.e. involving full concentration, problem solving, involvement and engagement. If we think of that then we may actually find that when we do something because we have to do it, we do not remember much of it later. This is the case with language learning in Armenia where many teachers ask their students to memorize texts which they do just to repeat the texts in the lesson but two days later they forget what it was that they memorized. Jeremy Harmer says that a little homework which would require problem-solving could benefit a learner more than a lot of homework which they would probably do while watching TV. I totally agree!<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="349" id="viddler-3cb78eff" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="//www.viddler.com/embed/3cb78eff/?f=1&offset=0&autoplay=0&secret=77463972&disablebranding=0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="545"></iframe>
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The last interview that I watched was with <a href="http://vickysaumell.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Vicky Saumell</a>. She is a teacher who encourages the use of technology in learning. Vicky talks about getting learners work published online (wikis, blogs) and getting teachers and learners from other countries to comment on the published work so that learners know that there is going to be some interaction and their work will not go unnoticed. One project that she talked about sounded quite interesting - a type of videotelling but done by learners. I actually even found<a href="http://isfa.wikispaces.com/Art+Stories%20" target="_blank"> the wiki </a>that Vicky was talking about. The amount of work that Vicky's students have done is impressive. Vicky also mentions online projects with other countries, the benefits of which I know from my own experience as we did <a href="http://annaevo.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-school-project.html" target="_blank">one</a> with a school in Uruguay last year and are doing another one with the same school in Uruguay and a school in Brazil this year.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="349" id="viddler-e4423fdb" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="//www.viddler.com/embed/e4423fdb/?f=1&offset=0&autoplay=0&secret=40563128&disablebranding=0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="545"></iframe></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-1456722711081141522013-04-09T00:45:00.003-07:002013-04-09T05:49:19.888-07:00Second Day of IATEFL Liverpool<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2013" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="Liverpool Online"><img alt="Liverpool Onlinee" border="0" height="200" src="http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2013/sites/iatefl/files/pages/iatefl-liverpool-banner-250x250.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
I started the day first by watching the interview with Deborah Healey who has arrived from the USA and this is her first time at IATEFL. I really enjoyed it because she was talking about use of technology and games in teaching. My cup of tea, really.<br />
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The basic point that I agree with is that teachers shouldn't tech the classroom without thinking about how their learners will benefit from it. We should have the learner in mind whenever we incorporate technology in the lesson plan. Nik Peachy actually asked a question that I always get asked by teachers: if learners play games, how do we teach grammar? As I have already discussed in my previous posts, we can teach many things through games: grammar, vocabulary, writing, speaking, etc.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA1O0abRlI3seW2rIt6rRW4pbB-Nqv7fWSuQn6XgNAhFVWbsFZweYePsMrV1eVCxU2Sj49KACbjUDOFU_9gBTlgDdE7KiASJQb5KMXLrUwYhmyDm5AsPUDI4-nSoIBUAdLlhRQoUZqAE4/s1600/ScreenHunter_06+Apr.+09+16.23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA1O0abRlI3seW2rIt6rRW4pbB-Nqv7fWSuQn6XgNAhFVWbsFZweYePsMrV1eVCxU2Sj49KACbjUDOFU_9gBTlgDdE7KiASJQb5KMXLrUwYhmyDm5AsPUDI4-nSoIBUAdLlhRQoUZqAE4/s320/ScreenHunter_06+Apr.+09+16.23.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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At this point I was already getting the feeling that I was at IATEFL. Next, I watched <a href="http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2013/sessions/2013-04-09/plenary-session-david-crystal" target="_blank">David Crystal's plenary talk</a> with 309 people online. Not too bad, is it? (I will not go into the plenary because by the time I decided what to blog about Graham Stanely already <a href="http://blog-efl.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">blogged</a> about it). There must have been more people in Liverpool, but the online audience was also big. Unfortunately, I couldn't participate in the online chat, which was very lively, because I had some students writing tests and didn't want them to think that I was chatting and ignoring them, which might have been true.<br />
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Next thing to do was to get on Facebook to see what was going on. Some friends shared photos from presentations that they attended, some mentioned their own presentation. I wished them good luck. Marcos Benevides shared the link to <a href="http://www.protopage.com/saumell_iatefl2013" target="_blank">Vicky Saumell's presentation</a> which was very nice, because now I might even think that I was there as well as Hakan Senturk and Burcu Akyol.<br />
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Next I read our roving reporters <a href="http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2013/sessionreport/all" target="_blank">Sanja Bozinovic, Branca Segvic and Addeh Hovassapian's reports</a> on teh sessions they had attended and got a full feeling of being in Liverpool. Now I get down to teaching feeling completely happy. :) Later in the evening I know that I can watch some of the sessions and some more interviews, read more reports and see more photos. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-73986217538377124002013-04-08T12:24:00.000-07:002013-04-08T13:07:13.743-07:00First Day of IATEFL Liverpool - Interview with Gavin Dudeney<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2013" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="Liverpool Online"><img alt="Liverpool Online" border="0" height="133" src="http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2013/sites/iatefl/files/pages/iatefl-liverpool-banner-330x220.jpg" width="200" /></a>
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The first day of IATEFL in Liverpool and I am on the <a href="http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2013/" target="_blank">IATEFL online</a> website reading roving reporter's blog posts and watching some interviews. Actually you don't have to be in Liverpool to be able <a href="http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2013/sites/iatefl/files/pages/liverpool-online-promotion-v2.pdf" target="_blank">to enjoy the conference</a>. I know that being there is better but not knowing anything at all is worse.<br />
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I was hoping to get away from my lessons to watch the livestream of LTSIG workshops but,unfortunately, I didn't manage to do so, which means that I will be watching the recording of the workshop. But that will do.<br />
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So the first interview I watched was with <a href="http://slife.dudeney.com/" target="_blank">Gavin Dudeney</a>. Gavin and his team are responsible for the online presence of IATEFL conferences and I have to say they are doing a great job. It only takes a second to log into Facebook and Twitter to know all the news related to IATEFL. It is easy to find out who is a presenter and which hotel they are staying in, where they are having lunch or what places of interest they are visiting. This sounds odd as one may think why someone would be interested in this, but, strangely enough, that gives you a feeling of being part of community and being present at the conference even when you are far away.<br />
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Gavin mentions that when 6 years ago they started the online part of IATEFL, everyone thought that people would stay at home and just watch it online, but I don't think this will ever happen. Gavin is right in saying that the face-to-face meeting with people who you know virtually or meet just once a year is a completely different experience. For those who couldn't go for whatever reason it is a good place to keep up with what is going on and still participate by posting comments or blogging about it. For those who did manage to go, it is a good place to organize meetings with friends after the conference as the conference hall is huge and you may actually be there for a week and never see somebody you know that is there.<br />
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Gavin also mentioned the book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Digital-Literacies-Listening-Research-Resources/dp/1408296896/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365448988&sr=1-1&keywords=digital+literacies" target="_blank">Digital Literacies</a></i> that I have pre-ordered being on sale at the conference which actually made me want to be there just to get it because I will only get it by the end of May. But well, I suppose it is worth waiting for.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-11536115744970870052013-04-07T01:48:00.000-07:002013-06-09T09:45:22.729-07:00Word Cloud Generators<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Word clouds have become quite popular tools for visualizing texts. Words in the cloud are single word tags, that show how frequently a word has been used in a text which is useful for understanding main ideas or concepts. Words that are bigger in size and thickness are the ones that are frequently seen in a text.<br />
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When we hear <i>word cloud</i> we mainly think of Wordle, but there are many more word cloud generators that could be better or worse than Wordle. So why not give them a try?<br />
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1. <b><a href="http://www.tagxedo.com/" target="_blank">Tagxedo</a> </b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaEbE6lfBDQXT7TAz_i-WptLYaP9lj3FNHTZyF5klafwPwpakO7dMFHe4UzmmtadWXCAvgkXtIncHxLxUIsEuK9ZOJuzcNErlAAyQuHcVQeS0LwpQ1A2ESvHLw7y3lYeAAW8lcAuB2Rv0/s1600/tagxedo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaEbE6lfBDQXT7TAz_i-WptLYaP9lj3FNHTZyF5klafwPwpakO7dMFHe4UzmmtadWXCAvgkXtIncHxLxUIsEuK9ZOJuzcNErlAAyQuHcVQeS0LwpQ1A2ESvHLw7y3lYeAAW8lcAuB2Rv0/s200/tagxedo.jpg" width="177" /></a></div>
The site doesn't require registration. You start by typing/pasting in a URL, or a twitter/Del.icio.us ID, a keyword in the news or RSS. Then you choose the shape, layout, font and theme and click 'submit'. After the word cloud has been generated, you see a panel with more editing choices. When you are happy with the cloud, you can save it as JPG or PNG in different sizes or simply share it on the web.<br />
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2. <b><a href="http://www.abcya.com/word_clouds.htm" target="_blank">ABCya!</a></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9pJPi6YMRMaoHeL4ToOSp0UeUJiLPelrf7nj_o_WHgkL4qFARfKyF3r5kgfv1McuWyj4fwJ0dnhuYpdEdtB121H5IqCeVty7OLbdlKW3-JcjE0idWh4E3oY4duPvSf_2qvawMLd3vAzc/s1600/ABCya.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9pJPi6YMRMaoHeL4ToOSp0UeUJiLPelrf7nj_o_WHgkL4qFARfKyF3r5kgfv1McuWyj4fwJ0dnhuYpdEdtB121H5IqCeVty7OLbdlKW3-JcjE0idWh4E3oY4duPvSf_2qvawMLd3vAzc/s200/ABCya.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
A nice tool which doesn't require registration. You simply type or paste in the text and it creates a word cloud. This site doesn't accept links to articles that you would like to create a word cloud of. There is no choice in shapes but layout, font and colour can be selected. The generated word cloud can be printed immediately or saved, but in this case don't forget to add what format you want the image to be saved as. for example, I just add .jpg after the name of the file to save it as JPG image. If no format is specified, the image doesn't open.<br />
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3. <b><a href="http://worditout.com/" target="_blank">WordItOut</a></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvwYKOJD3NDp8AgH2P0PoG_IhCsCgyfS6Y99QdqvtdUv_4roRXBvxhn3xOGuBxvPo1W92PyKVPvrj8qIU2ohmPEmIb1Toi5jS9sBAY72iIv2ctfiwrci2NWw40OghuIzGarmRS0Z-2QoQ/s1600/WordItOut-Word-cloud-184462+(1).png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvwYKOJD3NDp8AgH2P0PoG_IhCsCgyfS6Y99QdqvtdUv_4roRXBvxhn3xOGuBxvPo1W92PyKVPvrj8qIU2ohmPEmIb1Toi5jS9sBAY72iIv2ctfiwrci2NWw40OghuIzGarmRS0Z-2QoQ/s200/WordItOut-Word-cloud-184462+(1).png" width="200" /></a></div>
The site doesn't require registration but when you have finished creating your word cloud it asks for an email address to which a link to your word cloud is sent. You just click on the link and can either download the image or share on various social networking sites. There doesn't seem to be an embed code but a picture can be uploaded onto any site, so that doesn't really matter.<br />
Font, colours and size can be customized, but there is no choice of shapes and the layout of word tags is only horizontal.<br />
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4. <b><a href="http://tagcrowd.com/" target="_blank">TagCrowd</a></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ATjTSONvfGn6EQyKYardVHkdEMvpW0P6kOCtZelS4O8R700cJp09LFQi1cgqXqYczc0me2yN54gzXxxL2haJuhI-9rB95R-3uajkWGZipIxMvcG7iHw90yF1DzCD05JjGkdPNQqwwzQ/s1600/tagcloud.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ATjTSONvfGn6EQyKYardVHkdEMvpW0P6kOCtZelS4O8R700cJp09LFQi1cgqXqYczc0me2yN54gzXxxL2haJuhI-9rB95R-3uajkWGZipIxMvcG7iHw90yF1DzCD05JjGkdPNQqwwzQ/s200/tagcloud.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
This tool doesn't require registration either. Word clouds can be created by either typing/pasting in a text, pasting a URL or even uploading a file which is quite handy. However, the word cloud created cannot be customized: there is no choice in font, colour, layout or shape. All word tags are horizontal on white background and of different shades of blue. The word cloud can be saved as a PDF file, but not as a picture. It can be printed and HTML code is also provided (but it doesn't embed an image, just a list of words), to add a sample image I had to make a screenshot of the cloud.<br />
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5. <b><a href="http://tagul.com/" target="_blank">Tagul</a></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZrRmGQNLSIidOQA6f-pInJe0WNOF9syY0PNlC_GNSDtfjo_OHGfbw-KtasMocKVLIuVTCiF4hp8jveQm581xVdcDsLgY08_pZtpE3Al93d5v9ac-n0UikIZ-LzuZaRZI1uVPikwHa0Gw/s1600/tagul+blended+learning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZrRmGQNLSIidOQA6f-pInJe0WNOF9syY0PNlC_GNSDtfjo_OHGfbw-KtasMocKVLIuVTCiF4hp8jveQm581xVdcDsLgY08_pZtpE3Al93d5v9ac-n0UikIZ-LzuZaRZI1uVPikwHa0Gw/s200/tagul+blended+learning.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
You have to register first before you can start creating word clouds, but this is not a long process. You are sent a password which you can change after logging in.<br />
To create a word cloud, you can either enter the text you want or the URL of the text you need..Next thing to do is to choose appearance, font, colours and click 'Visualize". When the image appears, you can manually edit tags to get rid of articles, modal or auxiliray verbs, etc. After saving the changes, you need to click on 'Grab and Share'. Here you can either download the image as a picture file, print, get the HTML code or the link.<br />
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6. <b><a href="http://www.imagechef.com/ic/word_mosaic/" target="_blank">ImageChef</a></b><br />
<a href="http://www.imagechef.com/ic/word_mosaic/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"> <img alt="ImageChef Word Mosaic - ImageChef.com" height="200" src="http://cdn-img1.imagechef.com/w/130407/6a099e10fba49a79.gif" width="200" /> </a><img border="0" height="0" src="http://c.gigcount.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEzNjUzMjE2ODA5NDYmcHQ9MTM2NTMyMTcyNzE5MiZwPTExOTMxJmQ9c2tldGNocGFkbW9zYWljJmc9MSZvPTQwMDQ*/N2VhMTBiNTQ4YjE5MjZhNTk4YzY2M2IwN2Zj.gif" style="height: 0px; visibility: hidden; width: 0px;" width="0" />
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You don't have to register with the website to be able to create word clouds. However, if you want to save your creations onto "My stuff", you should. The site allows creation of not only word clouds but also of visual poetry, banners, sketchpads, etc. Before you start creating a word mosaic, you can choose a shape, a background and word colour and font. You need to type or paste in a text (but a small one, it doesn't work with longer texts) and the word mosaic will be generated. You can choose the size of the image, you can share it on almost every social networking site, embed it and grab the link. By dragging the image onto your PC desktop, you can also save it as a picture file.<br />
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7. <b><a href="http://www.visualthesaurus.com/vocabgrabber/" target="_blank">VocabGrabber</a></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQS6wf3icubutB99jV46YeBdCAh2-dRKGP2cFYDP4hy5OC6_7eInQkDu-Kt-NpXKFWOzQqYW5YgjJduUDWg3d2hiakbVePwPvaJxEBqV0T9tXxBQma9IP2v2GUcPAmJ5bN-kGhCxl1z_c/s1600/vocabgrabber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQS6wf3icubutB99jV46YeBdCAh2-dRKGP2cFYDP4hy5OC6_7eInQkDu-Kt-NpXKFWOzQqYW5YgjJduUDWg3d2hiakbVePwPvaJxEBqV0T9tXxBQma9IP2v2GUcPAmJ5bN-kGhCxl1z_c/s200/vocabgrabber.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
This is a very useful tool for language learners. It doesn't require registration. All you have to do is paste in a text and click 'Grab Vocabulary'. It creates a word cloud a screenshot of which can be seen on the left.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUpwU_828mp7v1XgTH1pdVlG8zZqffm5ot2r1q5-3wHNXTSz17LptRcRNfHKurB8y97k0xKLs4066WI092H3WnP7WQrdtenOB5JL1jF3WKMd7qK-rhcK8Nwl-O5cmgyaWqm7YlEZuR9BI/s1600/vocabgrabber-wordlist.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="127" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUpwU_828mp7v1XgTH1pdVlG8zZqffm5ot2r1q5-3wHNXTSz17LptRcRNfHKurB8y97k0xKLs4066WI092H3WnP7WQrdtenOB5JL1jF3WKMd7qK-rhcK8Nwl-O5cmgyaWqm7YlEZuR9BI/s320/vocabgrabber-wordlist.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
It also shows how many words have been found in the thesaurus and allows you to create a wordlist.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibYjLE-z3EozhWeyiaiBhYnVBzDqGSjlKCIdCtMLtW1t5OlJv7i0HRyEdzK6OD4vqrJbduS9yHFxL7NfISqWh96WhTDGL1Z9fknE50nCjm-MN5_ChE-ppWADybjSuA8c2Rwf-XWkEpPR8/s1600/visual+vocabgrabber.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="110" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibYjLE-z3EozhWeyiaiBhYnVBzDqGSjlKCIdCtMLtW1t5OlJv7i0HRyEdzK6OD4vqrJbduS9yHFxL7NfISqWh96WhTDGL1Z9fknE50nCjm-MN5_ChE-ppWADybjSuA8c2Rwf-XWkEpPR8/s200/visual+vocabgrabber.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
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And the beauty of it is that the word cloud created is interactive. When you click on a word, the site creates a snapshot of a visual thesaurus for that word;<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW43WSXNs37Hs1ZH0pmyHf9TFsFds-Wvey4EldUINRlKqZz04Hgjo4jazXPoJUyMxeZq30zgN6QeSqXlVzzkjUv9-ZHgb4WETu07VEhqn62qfAB0PTjvNQ__y-72s1EAV8Kpu_0Z2fmcc/s1600/vocabgrabber+definition.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="127" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW43WSXNs37Hs1ZH0pmyHf9TFsFds-Wvey4EldUINRlKqZz04Hgjo4jazXPoJUyMxeZq30zgN6QeSqXlVzzkjUv9-ZHgb4WETu07VEhqn62qfAB0PTjvNQ__y-72s1EAV8Kpu_0Z2fmcc/s200/vocabgrabber+definition.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
provides the definitions of the word;<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh3orv3ONBrvc76YrhJBll2FcGPiSPDj6PH2RBuHYuA04wPKhoHPrL7dIyq5K2SUgNkfL9heCTiC9TjUeb_7X2QGE7h59Qg0UgUM3rmOnNIcz7UhbY84JB6AuY3LMqpT45koFZt5hP5uM/s1600/vocabgrabber+examples.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh3orv3ONBrvc76YrhJBll2FcGPiSPDj6PH2RBuHYuA04wPKhoHPrL7dIyq5K2SUgNkfL9heCTiC9TjUeb_7X2QGE7h59Qg0UgUM3rmOnNIcz7UhbY84JB6AuY3LMqpT45koFZt5hP5uM/s200/vocabgrabber+examples.JPG" width="150" /></a></div>
and gives sample sentences with that word in them.<br />
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8. <b><a href="http://www.tag-cloud.de/" target="_blank">TagCloud</a></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiesoraDmDFT8KQvwv2voj8VRWwNDTvEWM33bLwfQGlU6A_UMQyBEu1zGAPA06RF_4tOAQFxouLHioC7AGSmBdt7UXnNyFheEmKGoBOwCB_MAISbI8BKDK2K4tKAMduwtCJeL-Rci_znqY/s1600/tag-cloud.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="98" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiesoraDmDFT8KQvwv2voj8VRWwNDTvEWM33bLwfQGlU6A_UMQyBEu1zGAPA06RF_4tOAQFxouLHioC7AGSmBdt7UXnNyFheEmKGoBOwCB_MAISbI8BKDK2K4tKAMduwtCJeL-Rci_znqY/s200/tag-cloud.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
No registration required to use this site. You cannot type in a text, you only have to paste the URL to convert whatever is on the site into a word cloud. The result is a very nice looking flash word cloud that can be downloaded as a zip file. I have taken a screenshot of the cloud because it cannot be added to the blog as it is, i.e. a flash word cloud. It also provides an embed code, but it only comes up as a list of words as can be seen below.<br />
<a href="http://learning/" onmouseout="this.style.color='#b28bd2'" onmouseover="this.style.color='# b6b0'" style="color: #b28bd2; font-size: 20px; text-decoration: none;" title="Count: 10">learning</a> <a href="http://resources/" onmouseout="this.style.color='#8cfd89'" onmouseover="this.style.color='# b3558'" style="color: #8cfd89; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;" title="Count: 3">resources</a> <a href="http://blended/" onmouseout="this.style.color='#e03396'" onmouseover="this.style.color='#3ff720'" style="color: #e03396; font-size: 25px; text-decoration: none;" title="Count: 21">blended</a> <a href="http://approach/" onmouseout="this.style.color='#6646d8'" onmouseover="this.style.color='#bc94db'" style="color: #6646d8; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;" title="Count: 6">approach</a> <a href="http://face/" onmouseout="this.style.color='#c0ca9d'" onmouseover="this.style.color='#b58313'" style="color: #c0ca9d; font-size: 21px; text-decoration: none;" title="Count: 12">face</a> <a href="http://classroom/" onmouseout="this.style.color='#d0b0ae'" onmouseover="this.style.color='#1b3c08'" style="color: #d0b0ae; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;" title="Count: 3">classroom</a> <a href="http://instructional/" onmouseout="this.style.color='#eba615'" onmouseover="this.style.color='#e8ce24'" style="color: #eba615; font-size: 21px; text-decoration: none;" title="Count: 12">instructional</a> <a href="http://materials/" onmouseout="this.style.color='#25386b'" onmouseover="this.style.color='#e2f3b9'" style="color: #25386b; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;" title="Count: 4">materials</a> <a href="http://course/" onmouseout="this.style.color='#80b63a'" onmouseover="this.style.color='#969f36'" style="color: #80b63a; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;" title="Count: 4">course</a> <a href="http://time/" onmouseout="this.style.color='#fe18ea'" onmouseover="this.style.color='#4caa8d'" style="color: #fe18ea; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;" title="Count: 4">time</a> <a href="http://online/" onmouseout="this.style.color='#9067c4'" onmouseover="this.style.color='#2f4f78'" style="color: #9067c4; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;" title="Count: 6">online</a> <a href="http://addition/" onmouseout="this.style.color='#38d5b2'" onmouseover="this.style.color='#85a00b'" style="color: #38d5b2; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;" title="Count: 3">addition</a> <a href="http://used/" onmouseout="this.style.color='#5e3863'" onmouseover="this.style.color='#639e7c'" style="color: #5e3863; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;" title="Count: 3">used</a> <a href="http://state/" onmouseout="this.style.color='#c03cba'" onmouseover="this.style.color='#6679a4'" style="color: #c03cba; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;" title="Count: 3">state</a> <a href="http://blend/" onmouseout="this.style.color='#efd97c'" onmouseover="this.style.color='#af3bbe'" style="color: #efd97c; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none;" title="Count: 5">blend</a> <a href="http://students/" onmouseout="this.style.color='#aff26f'" onmouseover="this.style.color='# 1b8d'" style="color: #aff26f; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: none;" title="Count: 7">students</a> <a href="http://content/" onmouseout="this.style.color='# b50e5'" onmouseover="this.style.color='#a2654f'" style="color: # b50e5; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;" title="Count: 3">content</a> <a href="http://higher/" onmouseout="this.style.color='#e25c6f'" onmouseover="this.style.color='#3ceff8'" style="color: #e25c6f; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;" title="Count: 3">higher</a>
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9. <a href="http://www.youareyourwords.com/" target="_blank"><b>YouAreYourWords</b></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnC6AR3ug1lY_Kp0HwJKAO-j4GwJbhf2GodgBV0OD1oAZZU5XYOWoNjavTKavuKm5yBCydBLJtvmwa-8zuILz5Lhuuo_SKjEHOCxRJN2_pr7lgBPULt8DSr8T3Ok9j__j_b9Xyd0jkzUw/s1600/myportrait.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnC6AR3ug1lY_Kp0HwJKAO-j4GwJbhf2GodgBV0OD1oAZZU5XYOWoNjavTKavuKm5yBCydBLJtvmwa-8zuILz5Lhuuo_SKjEHOCxRJN2_pr7lgBPULt8DSr8T3Ok9j__j_b9Xyd0jkzUw/s200/myportrait.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>
The site doesn't require registration. All you have to do is to upload a picture whcih you want to be the background of your word cloud, then paste the text and choose colours from a limited range. You can also choose the font. You can then share your word cloud and/or download it as image. The product looks nice, but I am not so sure about its use in education as it is a bit difficult to read the text.<br />
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10. <b><a href="http://www.wordle.net/" target="_blank">Wordle</a></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMsM7Vf0QnnLdenyzC5T1C_26DLRqc6FzUPsF3JtyvTfOOHPHwbNWlnEkcWOmQW9sbynyjDxp1OaJBKIT_NPGMce6mAt95AilX6n96Uf8p-9f6PR59LEW1Vqk7WziupfdT1AI5pNLQow0/s1600/wordle+image.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="136" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMsM7Vf0QnnLdenyzC5T1C_26DLRqc6FzUPsF3JtyvTfOOHPHwbNWlnEkcWOmQW9sbynyjDxp1OaJBKIT_NPGMce6mAt95AilX6n96Uf8p-9f6PR59LEW1Vqk7WziupfdT1AI5pNLQow0/s200/wordle+image.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
This site doesn't require registration. The downside is the size of the embeded image - it is very small. To solve this problem, you can either click on 'print' and then save it as a PDF file, or, alternatively, you can make a screenshot of the image after saving it to the public gallery.<br />
Another problem with this site is getting word tags using a link. If the site, the URL of which you have pasted into the bar, doesn't have Atom or RSS feed, Wordle cannot create a cloud. However, pasting in a text usually bypasses this problem.<br />
Font, size, colours and word tag layout are customizable, but the shape cannot be selected.<br />
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And finally, a Slideshare user vreed17 has added a presentation with 40 ideas for word cloud use in education.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="356" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" mozallowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" src="http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/2477205" style="border-width: 1px 1px 0; border: 1px solid #CCC; margin-bottom: 5px;" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="427"> </iframe> <br />
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<strong> <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/vreed17/forty-interesting-ways-to-use-wordle-in-the-c" target="_blank" title="Forty Interesting Ways To Use Wordle In The C">Forty Interesting Ways To Use Wordle In The C</a> </strong> from <strong><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/vreed17" target="_blank">Vreed17</a></strong> <br />
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<b>Credits:</b><br />
Word Clouds generated using the article at <a href="http://weblearning.psu.edu/blended-learning-initiative/what_is_blended_learning" target="_blank">PennState</a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-75545733882146302292013-03-24T05:13:00.001-07:002013-03-24T11:50:49.754-07:00Critical Review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This post is a summary of the video lecture on how to write a critical review by Professor Comer. I have also found a few links that could be useful for the assignment completion.<br />
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The stages in writing, which are recursive and overlapping, are:<br />
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>Pre-drafting</b> - deciding what you are going to write and thinking about the project</li>
<li><b>Drafting</b> - writing actively</li>
<li><b>Revision</b> - re-thinking what you have to write</li>
<li><b>Editing/Proof-Reading</b> - polishing</li>
</ul>
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At<b> pre-drafting stage</b>, many things can be helpful. You may choose to do one of the following:</div>
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>reading,</li>
<li>researching, </li>
<li>note-taking,</li>
<li>analyzing,</li>
<li>outlining,</li>
<li>discussing with others</li>
<li>planning.</li>
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.<b>Revision stage</b> includes re-organizing, deleting, adding, re-thinking; and <b>editing</b> is all about checking writing for spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes, clarity and appropriate choice of vocabulary.</div>
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But before one starts even thinking about writing a critical review, one needs to read whatever they are supposed to be reviewing critically. The first thing to do is just to read the text to enjoy it, and then go back to it second or third time and do marginal annotations. One may want to circle the main idea and underline the significant concepts. The latter may be different depending on what the purpose of the writing is. It may also be useful to note down the key terms in the text. While reading one should also marginally annotate the questions and emotions (anger, confusion, etc) that arise during the reading process. One should also read carefully to identify any contradictions or ambiguity there might be in what the writer says throughout the text.</div>
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Professor Comer showed an example of marginal annotation which looked like this</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikUF6-A7FqGuXQKTq5J_MgiMo1iDnT2oO_PmDOqtmgqQZYt5U3uEr_epTPXhYMCiaCsLY6vRW3GoQY2Q1U4uktZ8O9Qu7y-MRbjehHWigJmTj6EkeNLKT7vStNJEFAyYB5AXyA_riB91s/s1600/ScreenHunter_29+Mar.+23+16.00.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikUF6-A7FqGuXQKTq5J_MgiMo1iDnT2oO_PmDOqtmgqQZYt5U3uEr_epTPXhYMCiaCsLY6vRW3GoQY2Q1U4uktZ8O9Qu7y-MRbjehHWigJmTj6EkeNLKT7vStNJEFAyYB5AXyA_riB91s/s400/ScreenHunter_29+Mar.+23+16.00.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Screenshot of Prof Comer's Video Tutorial</td></tr>
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Professor Comer also advises to pay attention to any questions posed by the writer because if the writer thought of asking that question, it was significant for him/her and readers should think about why that question was so significant to the writer. </div>
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It may also be useful to talk about ideas with others to make it more generative and help yourself think more deeply about the text you are reading. The screenshot below shows what questions you may want to discuss</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifEubdFvqdVU6gV0BCUFsrw_6XqXhVNRSFJFpy6rMVJA-Ei_sDJHoLEZnJgcea4buFofTtltR4vnQy7lTofpkUHJgt0GknXAi8DvF8Ta179B71rE6k4AnhAciq8apcyuFB-ZFA1_5waXo/s1600/ScreenHunter_30+Mar.+23+16.07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifEubdFvqdVU6gV0BCUFsrw_6XqXhVNRSFJFpy6rMVJA-Ei_sDJHoLEZnJgcea4buFofTtltR4vnQy7lTofpkUHJgt0GknXAi8DvF8Ta179B71rE6k4AnhAciq8apcyuFB-ZFA1_5waXo/s400/ScreenHunter_30+Mar.+23+16.07.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Screenshot of a Video Tutorial explaining the discussion stage of the project.</td></tr>
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Optional Reading<br />
<a href="http://www.lc.unsw.edu.au/onlib/critrev.html" target="_blank">Writing a Critical Review</a>, University of New South Wales<br />
<a href="http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/book-review" target="_blank">The Book Review or Article Critique</a>, University of Toronto<br />
<a href="http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/reading-and-researching/critical-reading" target="_blank">Critical Reading Towards Critical Writing</a>, University of Toronto<br />
<a href="http://www.open.ac.uk/skillsforstudy/active-reading.php" target="_blank">Active Reading</a>, Open University UK<br />
<a href="http://www.princeton.edu/mcgraw/library/for-students/remember-reading/" target="_blank">Active Reading Strategies</a>, Princeton University<br />
<a href="https://academicskills.anu.edu.au/resources/handouts/writing-critical-book-review" target="_blank">Writing a critical book review</a>, Australian National University<br />
<a href="http://twp.duke.edu/writing-studio/resources/writing-for-specific-disciplines" target="_blank">Thompson Writing Program</a>, Duke University<br />
<a href="http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/12.1/binder.html?reviews/mbrown/index.htm" target="_blank">A Review of Online Learning</a><br />
<a href="http://www.swinburneonline.edu.au/files/pdf_documents/sample_critical_review.pdf" target="_blank">A Review of Alone Together</a><br />
<a href="http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/aallu/resources-good-crit-review.pdf" target="_blank">What makes a good critical review</a>, Monash University<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-74332146195199562442013-03-23T12:29:00.000-07:002013-03-23T12:29:54.692-07:00Part 5 - Gamification Design<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
According to Prof. Kevin Werbach design thinking is a general approach to addressing challenges which is particularly useful in gamification. In recent years there have been a lot of discussions about the concept of <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/1139331/ideos-david-kelley-design-thinking" target="_blank">design thinking</a> and it has been stated that design thinking should be a process that businesses engage in for any purpose. <br />
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So what does design actually mean? Prof. Kevin Werbach gave us his synthesis of different viewpoints of many people that highlights some of the major aspects of design thinking.<br />
1. Design is purposive: it has a goal. It's not about making something beautiful or creating a process that does a certain thing. It's about trying to achieve some objective and everything in that process has to tie into that objective. And the design of a gamified system has to constantly refer back to achieving that goal.<br />
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2. Secondly, it's human-centred; it is designed around people. So it's about coming up with solutions for people, which means that we have to think about the experience people are going to have; real people who want to achieve something real in their lives. Design thinking is about pushing for the experience and keeping in mind what that experience actually looks like to people. We have to remember here that the experience of the player is not the same as the experience of the designer.<br />
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3. Third element of design thinking is balance. The idea is that we need to have a balance of algorithms and creativity to address people's experiential needs and not to miss opportunities for creativity and innovation because those tend to lie outside formulas. But we should also focus on what's in the middle: focusing on what we do when there is some data, but insufficient data to give us a clear structured algorithm. And this often involves <a href="http://www.niu.edu/phil/~kapitan/abduction.shtml" target="_blank">abductive reasoning</a> developed by Charles Sanders Peirce. Essentially, this is about inference from insufficient information. So, we don't have enough information to reach a judgement but we've got a rough explanation; we start with the best explanation we've got and then we make an inference from there. So we try and jump from there and make that abductive leap using intuition but basing it on some kind of foundation.<br />
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4. Finally, design thinking is iterative, it inherently expects that we are not going to get it right the first time, but we are going to have to try, fail, learn and try again. Thus iteration means doing the same thing multiple times but improving over time through the process. So you start with a rough prototype, then you play test it by letting some real people actually try and play with it. You observe what the experience is like, how game mechanics works, how the rules work, etc, and based on that you iterate and improve.<br />
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Prof. Kevin Werbach and his colleague Dan Hunter have developed a 6-step process for implementing a gamified system + questions and tips we should bear in mind in order to develop a people-orientated ganified system:<br />
<b>Step 1</b> - <b>Define</b> your business objectives. What is this system designed to accomplish? What are its goals?<br />
<b>Step 2 </b>- <b>Delineate</b> target behaviours. What is it that you want people to do? Gamification is about encouraging people to do certain things. Thus, you need to start out with an understanding of what those things are.<br />
<b>Step 3</b> - <b>Describe</b> your players. Who is going to use the system? What do they like? How can the sstem respond to the different kinds of player that you have.<br />
<b>Step 4</b> - <b>Devise</b> your activity loops. There are two types of loops that move the action in a gamified system forward. They are engagement loops and progression loops. This is where you structure the core micro and macro level game play aspects. (to be discussed in more detail)<br />
<b>Step 5</b> - <b>Don't forget </b>the fun. Fun is important. The system has to be engaging.<br />
<b>Step 6</b> - <b>Deploy</b>. Use the right tools for the right job. Use the right elements and the right structure. Put them into place in the gamified system. <br />
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The first step in the gamification design framework is to define business objectives. Now, business objectives can be about anything but not about players accumulating points and badges. These should be the goals that the gamified system is supposed to accomplish. Points and badges are the way the system works; they are the intermediate step that the system puts in front of the player. So what we need to think about here is what the ultimate goals are and what will define whether the system is a failure or a success. So how to catalogue business goals for a gamified system? Prof. Kevin Werbach offers a few concrete steps to take. Firstly, make a list of all the business or other (education or health) goals you want the system to achieve. List everything you can think of and be as specific as possible. Then rank the list: number the goals you mentioned according to to their importance, trade off the ones that are in conflict against the others that are really important to you. Next step is to cut out the ones that are not really your business objectives. You should be left with the most important goals, not the means to achieve something, like badges or points, which are part of game elements. Next get rid of everything that is not an ultimate business objective. Finally, justify each remaining objective. By doing this we generate a list but we also can start to see what needs to be resolved and what needs to be play-tested through the process as the system is designed.<br />
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Step two is to delineate target behaviours. This is what you want your players to do and it is important again to be as specific as possible. And again you need to figure out what the success metrics are. In other words, what will tell you that the gamification project was a success, what will let you decide that you achieved the goals. If there are any conflicting points, do the same as with business objectives - rank them. Finally, decide what the analytics are. What are the ways of measuring the path towards the success metrics by virtue of the activity on those target behaviours. There is a variety of different analytics to use. For example, <a href="http://www.gamesbrief.com/2011/10/daumau-engagement/" target="_blank">DAU (daily average users) and MAU (monthly average users)</a> And this is a ratio of these two numbers. The ration can tell you how engaging your site is and how many returning users there are. The second analityic is called <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JoshWilliams/20110928/8543/Virality_20__Developing_Games_for_Facebook_in_the_New_Viral_World.php" target="_blank">Virality</a>. This is the rate at which people refer their friends to your site and those come t see it. Finally, another one is virtual economy. And this is about how much activity is happening on your site, what the level of usage is and how much interaction there is. So, all of this tells us a lot about how the system is operating.<br />
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The third step is to describe your players. The basic starting point will be to learn about players' age, where they are from, income level, etc. This would be useful for marketing strategy. Psychographics can be useful here too. What do you know about their behaviour? What do they like to buy? However, this will differ depending on who the gamified system is for: your employees or customers. But a very important aspect to learn about your players is what exactly motivates them. As a starting point what can be said about the different types of motivations that the players have? This is important because as it has been said before gamification involves motivation. Finding out what motivates players can help to create a system which will allow various forms of accomplishments. So, how to define different kinds of players in a gamified system? A solid starting point here would be Bartle's Player Type.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx55FLD7NpZNy5NdsX5eD12aOHFr0RtDT4bXARhNigF6z2rbE-NYryo596sxcfbZ1TFsO-a9KvjcwoNfrDShNSAu8pamOfZ_-MNrv7V2r734LETEnjyGkoEfBjkdX-NvJteXe2gq9x_QQ/s1600/Bartle+Model.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx55FLD7NpZNy5NdsX5eD12aOHFr0RtDT4bXARhNigF6z2rbE-NYryo596sxcfbZ1TFsO-a9KvjcwoNfrDShNSAu8pamOfZ_-MNrv7V2r734LETEnjyGkoEfBjkdX-NvJteXe2gq9x_QQ/s320/Bartle+Model.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Screenshot taken from <a href="http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm" target="_blank">Players who suit MUDs</a><br />
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When Richard A. Bartle was studying early multi-user dungeons, he discovered certain recurrent patterns and four broad types that he could fit players into. Although the model is debatable, it has proven to be very durable. Players may be one or two of the types depending on a system. They may also change category/type from game to game.<br />
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Achievers - want to overcome obstacles, to achieve something, probably get recognition for their achievements;</li>
<li>Explorers - want to interact with the world, want to see what is possible within the system, want to explore and try out;</li>
<li>Socializers - want to interact with other players (as opposed to interaction with the world), want to be in teams, want to chat, want to be part of community, for them social experience is more important than achievements;</li>
<li>Killers - they don't just want to win, they want to destroy other players, they want to impose themselves on other people, want to be in control of the situation, want to feel that they are the ones that keep the group alive. </li>
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So, it's important to think about how these categories can be applied to any kind of situation that is going to be gamified.</div>
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Now to the next step:<b> Activity Loops</b>. Loops here are structures that are repetitive, recursive, branching off in different directions. Prof Werbach looked at two types of activity loops: <b>Engagement Loops</b> and <b>Progression Loops</b>. "Engagement loops operate at micro level - individual user actions. Progression loops operate at macro level - broader structures of activity throughout the course of he game." The engagement loop is about giving the player some reason to be motivated enough to take an action. If the motivation isn't strong enough to lead to action, another motivator will come up until the user takes an action. As soon as the player starts doing something, they get immediate feedback, because it is important to give a clear feedback (points or badges, for example) to what the player is doing. Seeing the level of their achievement can in itself become a motivator. This is why it is a loop. The action produces feedback, the feedback becomes a form of motivation, the motivation leads to more actions. A gamified system should be designed in a way that the loop takes place. And a well-designed gamified system will keep that process moving so that each piece reinforces the other pieces.<br />
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A gamified system also moves forward through so-called progression loops. Basically, these are the steps that a player needs to take to get from start to finish. But because the whole journey may seem too overwhelming and even scary to the player, the journey has to be broken down into smaller parts: challenges, completing which the player will eventually get to the finish line. So, this is one kind of progression loop where the player moves from start to finish through intermediate steps which are designed in a way that the player has a sense of relative ease of individual steps; the player has a sense that each task is doable and achievable. The player can see the next step and the ultimate goal seems more within reach which can also motivate.<br />
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Another way to think of progression loops is as a player's evolution in the game, the player's development from a newbie/novice to a master. This is typically done through rising and falling action. So the first step is onboarding: the process of getting the players to the point where they know how to play the basics of the game on their own, preferably within the game itself. Then they start moving up to a higher level and at some point they need to have a rest. If the difficulty of challenges constantly increases, it might be too challenging to complete the steps and get to finish. Players need a break, an easier task to complete after some difficult ones. Basically, the difficulty level should go up and down, up and down and then they can get a really hard task, typically called boss fight, which is a demarcation point of getting to the next level or segment of the game. This is also an opportunity to demonstrate mastery over that part of the game. After boos fight, players should get some more rest and continue their journey. The challenges should, of course, vary not to make the game boring.<br />
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So, a well-designed gamification system will have a well-structured engagement loops that ensure that feedback pushes towards motivation which pushes towards action, etc. It will also have well-structured progression loops which get the player from the early easy stage to the hardest stage of mastery through a set of processes that allow them to progress through the game.<br />
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The final elements of Prof Werbach's gamification framework are fun and deployment of appropriate tools. It turns out that it is easy to lose sight of fun element in a gamified system, especially if there is a heavy focus on PBLs (points, badges and leaderboards). This doesn't mean that PBLs cannot be fun, but because they are external motivators, they might not be fun at all times. A gamified system needs to be a bit more engaging than that. It should possibly have some puzzles, problems, surprises, etc. It should try to address different types of fun that players would be interested in. I talked about the types of fun in <a href="http://annaevo.blogspot.com/2013/01/part-2-game-thinking.html" target="_blank">a previous post</a>.<br />
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The final step in the design process is to deploy appropriate tools. In my previous posts I have talked about the toolkit that Prof Werbach shared with us. There are about 30 tools to use and this shows the richness of the palette that a gamification designer has to work with. You can't design the system until you have asked all the right questions and come up with provisional answers and then, after this has been done, we still need to sit down and think about the different options and tools that can be used and then pick the most appropriate ones for the aim. After this we will have to play test the system, improve and play test again. The system will need more improvements until we have a system that works for real people.<br />
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Further Reading<br />
<a href="http://scottnicholson.com/pubs/meaningfulframework.pdf" target="_blank">Scott Nicholson</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4YP-hGZTuA" target="_blank">Smart Gamification</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2pnD2ZsEYs#t=43m13s" target="_blank">Google Ignite</a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-15110778278244355572013-02-23T13:38:00.002-08:002013-02-23T13:38:25.008-08:00EDCMOOC - Artefact - Final AssignmentI have decided to embed my artefact on my blog as I have all my reflections for Digital Cultures and E-Learning here. This way I can keep everything in one place.<br />
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I am looking forward to your comments.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="400" src="http://prezi.com/embed/si3mbuckwczp/?bgcolor=ffffff&lock_to_path=0&autoplay=no&autohide_ctrls=0&features=undefined&disabled_features=undefined" width="550"></iframe><br />
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View on <b><a href="http://prezi.com/si3mbuckwczp/future-of-education/?kw=view-si3mbuckwczp&rc=ref-11292014" target="_blank">Prezi</a></b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-18156088442642232372013-02-22T12:19:00.000-08:002013-02-23T11:16:35.464-08:00Transhumanist values or are they?<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">The more I read and watch, the more questions I seem to have. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">While reading <i><a href="http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/values.html" target="_blank">Transhumanist Values</a></i> and <i><a href="http://humanityplus.org/philosophy/transhumanist-declaration/" target="_blank">Transhumanist Declaration</a></i>, I kept on wondering whether we are going to become some form of a robot. Do we really want to be viewed as species that can be "remold in desirable ways"? I don't really think I want to. Why do we need to apply medicine and technology to overcome our basic biological limits? Aren't these limitations what makes us who we are? Are we trying to become superheroes or something? Isn't this going to create more problems for us than solve any? If we all start living longer or dying later (which is the same thing), where are we all going to be living? I am not really sure but, I think, transhumanism raises more questions than answers any. The idea of <a href="http://www.metanexus.net/essay/h-wrestling-transhumanism" target="_blank">"uploading our consciousness onto computers and leaving our body behind"</a> is terrifying. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Now if we view Robbie in a transhumanist sense then we can say that it/he (nor sure which one) is more human than non-human. But is it/he really? So, it/he feels lonely, it/he misses his friends, it/he wants to 'die' on Earth (motherland). Does this make it/him human? It/He has a body of metal (basically, not made of meat) and a metal mind. Is this what we are going to become in the future? Robbie wasn't born, it/he was made/created - that already doesn't make it/him human, does it? It/He claims it/he made a choice of religion, but why would it/he choose religion? Possibly as a gratitude to its/his creator(s) who perhaps was(were) a Catholic? I don't believe that it/he could have made the choice consciously. The interesting part for me in the film was Robbie made-up world, where it/he invented friends of its/his kind and they together fix things and <b>learn from each other</b>. An AI understanding the importance of collaboration and learning from others - that's amazing! Not all humans understand that, so is Robbie better? </span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="275" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/40524878" style="background-color: transparent;" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe></div>
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<a href="http://vimeo.com/40524878">Robbie - A Short Film By Neil Harvey</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user7603107">Neil Harvey</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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Now Gumdrop is a bit different because she doesn't have the metallic voice of Robbie. If I was just listening to the film, not watching it, I would have thought that it was a human being being interviewed.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/A7sjoI5QjBY?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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Ok we may have new kind of species living around us, but I still wouldn't say that they are human beings. Well, for me they are not. We will have to learn to live with them and treat them fairly as stated in the Transhumanist Declaration. But will we be saying that they are human? Gumdrop is funny with a great sense of humour, but she is still a robot. I would like to befriend her, but I am afraid with the appearance of her species, many people would want to enslave them.<br />
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The next film actually made me depressed.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="213" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/51138699?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ff005a" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe> </div>
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<a href="http://vimeo.com/51138699">TRUE SKIN</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/h1chung">H1</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.</div>
As far as I understand, there are more problems with the idea of transhumanism in this video than solutions. "Nobody wants to be entirely organic (oh, really?!), or get old, or die". In my opinion, it is OK to use transplants if one lost a limb and needs a replacement to be mobile, but using artificial legs or arms because they are non-organic is beyond my understanding, I am afraid. Are we going to make artificial 'spare parts' fashionable and continue the present trend of judging people by their possessions? But it is not simply some gadgets, it is going to be parts that people have installed? What is better about that?<br />
It is interesting or depressing to see that even in this transhumanist vision of the world, there are still homeless and sick people who do not seem to have a hope for a better life. Does that mean that even in this new world we are not going to address these serious problems?<br />
"...for whatever you can afford" - which, to me, means that not everybody is going to be able to afford these parts which will widen the gap between the poor and the rich even more. In addition, people in this society look horrifying and utterly unreal to me, so are the ones who decide not to have these implants (possibly because they want to be 'organic') going to become outcasts? That doesn't sound like an improvement, does it? Or is it just me?<br />
The ability to "back up your memories and implant them back into new you" may be useful in education because many things that we learn at school are forgotten if not used and the ability to remember what you have learnt may be good. But that sounds very much like a computer which backs up the data to restore it if it crashes. If we are going to live forever, can't we study the same subject again?<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9TEdGbvtnc&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">Avatar Days</a> - World of Warcraft has been one of the most popular games for quite a while (it aparently surpassed 10mln registered users in 2011) and, I think, many people play it to escape the reality. One of the players actually says that he is the same in the game as in real life, but some others I think would choose to act differently from what they do in real life. The other players in this video talk about making decisions that they are unlikely to make in real life. So maybe this is what they want to experience and the game gives them that chance.<br />
And it's not just that. There is also a mention of recognition and reward which are so rare in real life. And this is true. Games provide this opportunity thus making people want to play more and more. They also seem to allow people feel better about themselves. Although I am not really very keen on non-stop gaming, I think that playing a bit a day will not do any harm.<br />
Jane McGonigal actually believes that if we play 3 hours a day, we may be able to make the world a better place. Her talk is really thought-provoking and she claims that it is possible to save the world by turning the task into a game.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" mozallowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" src="http://embed.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="560"></iframe>
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I would also like to share Seth Priebatsch's talk because he talks about the application of game dynamics to life situations, such as schools. Accrding to him school is a game but it's not very well designed.</div>
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<b>The game layer on the top of the world</b></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" mozallowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" src="http://embed.ted.com/talks/seth_priebatsch_the_game_layer_on_top_of_the_world.html" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="560"></iframe></div>
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I would like to believe that if well thought-out and thoroughly planned education will be possible to improve to cater to the needs of modern children by making it more desirable for them. I hope that it would also help to eradicate bullying and stop favoritism. The system wouldn't favour one kid over the other. It would just give fair rewards and progression. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-70224668213019491092013-02-16T14:25:00.001-08:002013-02-23T11:18:33.288-08:00E-Learning - Utopic or Dystopic?To be honest, I didn't really see any connection with education in Toyota's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6Pb_tmPKGk&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">Real Deal advert</a>. An avatar buying a car, or whatever he is doing, from another avatar doesn't look very real. "There is nothing real in this town, just pixels, pretends..." What is he then? Is he real? Didn't look real to me, just like anybody else who is supposed to be unreal.<br />
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E-learning doesn't really have to be that. Can we really expect a schoolchild to be disciplined enough to study fully online? Not many will, I think. If we are talking about school education, then what is wrong with flipping classrooms? I use technology to enhance my learners' learning experience and to provide them with some extra activities that they can do if they choose to. In many cases they do because they feel that it helps them to improve their grammar and vocabulary, their writing, listening and reading skills. They feel that there is individual approach because there is always a message from me, their pages bear their own names, and we meet 3 times a week. So what is wrong with that? Yes, there is a mixture of technological and natural, but I simply don't see it as a negative development. In contrast to what Lowell Monke claims in his article <a href="http://educationnext.org/thehumantouch/" target="_blank">The human Touch</a>, I see a great improvement in my students' writing skills.<br />
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In the second video, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5bkniCUAow" target="_blank">Heart to Heart</a>, Adam's need to talk to his wife face-to-face about something important is re-asserted here, which matches what Steve Kolowich discusses in his article <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/03/29/lms" target="_blank">The Human Element</a>. However, I think, there is some information missing in the article. What level of education is the drop-out level high? Is it about free courses or paid ones? The drop-out level seems to be high in free online courses, because many people register just out of interest, they don't really warm up to the course, or they can't manage their time effectively enough to complete the course. What I would really like to know if the drop-out rate is high in distance MA courses. Many people who choose the online option do so because they need the degree and they either work, or cannot afford the ever-increasing fees of universities. Do they really stop the course having paid for it partially or in full? The notion of building online presence has been around for quite a while and I agree with that. It is always nice to hear your tutor's voice or see what you lecturer looks like like it would happen in a classroom setting where you also get to know what your tutor/lecturer/professor likes or dislikes: little human things about a person who teaches you. And this can be done in an online course through Social Forums or Google Hangout, etc.<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzFpg271sm8" target="_blank">World Builder</a></div>
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The film made me go through an array of emotions from happy to sad. Do we say that technology has manipulated my emotions? As human beings we do react emotionally to what is happening around us, be it technological or real.<br />
The man's loved one is in a life-threatening condition and he is dreaming about things he would do for her if she survived whatever has caused her condition. Isn't it what we all do when things go wrong? Don't we all dream about things we would do if they were different? Doesn't it make us feel different? So why call what the man does emotion manipulation by technology if all he does is he dreams but using holographic tools.<br />
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And the last clip <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfPdhsP8XjI&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">They're made out of meat</a> made me laugh to be honest. If we view the aliens as iPhones and iPads, then it seems that aliens are some of the meat's dream. Now the question that wasn't of interest to the aliens was that animals are also made of meat, does that make them human too?<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqVVKBR5_Oo" target="_blank">Defining Humanity - Steve Fuller</a></div>
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"Have we always, sometimes or never been human?"<br />
<a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/human" target="_blank">Merriam-Webster Dictionary</a> defines human as<br />
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If we think of 'human' in terms of the adjective then it seems that anything with a human trait could be defined as human. And this is how I think Prof Fuller sees it - just as an adjective. What do we do with people who behave in an inhumane way? Do we brand them non-human? Many people do horrible things, but what shall we call them? Aliens? Isn't that in itself a form of discrimination? Maybe we could classify them humanity into kind and unkind to make it easier to define human?<br />
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Wouldn't ability to feel, to love, to hate, to laugh or to cry be human only characteristic of humanity, especially the last two? Isn't it biological enough evidence not to claim that the Bible is the only reason we know we are human and that there is no biological reason for this? As far as I remember from Biology classes at school humans are the only species that walk upright. Isn't it a reason good enough?<br />
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I believe that technology can help us fight against discrimination. Since the day I started using Facebook and taking online courses, I have made many friends from around the world and am more aware of their real problems and worries than ever before. News is biased or it is not what really happens, the Internet helps us connect with others, network and get to know other cultures.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-90779405147541029992013-02-10T22:11:00.000-08:002013-02-23T11:17:44.707-08:00Wikis, blogs and playlists - DNLE Assignment 1<br />
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The tools that I decided to evaluate are wikis, blogs and playlists. I think these are most commonly used tools in education.</div>
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There are a few <strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">blogging sites</strong>: <a href="http://wordpress.com/" target="_blank">wordpress</a>, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/" target="_blank">blogger</a>,<a href="http://edublogs.org/" target="_blank"> edublogs</a>, <a href="https://posterous.com/" target="_blank">posterous</a>, etc. All of these blogging sites offer free accounts as well as paid ones. Blogs are online diaries which can be used by educators and students to write their reflections upon what they have learnt or what they have taught and what could have been done differently. However, the use of blogs is not limited only to that. Posterous and Blogger are probably the easiest ones to set up but if one has trouble with it, there are a lot of video tutorials on Youtube which teachers and students can watch to overcome the problems in setting up the blog. As the tutorials are freely available online, I don't think there is a need for special training. As the content of blogs is user-created, educators should first check it for credibility and accuracy before referring their learners to it.<br />
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Positive aspects:</div>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">easy to set up and use;</li>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">there is a lot of support available on the Web in the form of video and written tutorials;</li>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">they can be made public and private, which is a great fetaure in education;</li>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">they can improve the blogger's writing skills.</li>
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Negative aspects which can be overcome and turned into positive ones:</div>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">pages on blogs are static and all the posts go to the home page;</li>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">posts and comments are not moderated before they are posted so there is always the risk that someone will post something inappropriate and only the administrator of the blog can delete the post, which means that offensive comments will be visible until the administrator sees them;</li>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">the teacher will have to decide when to delete a comment as this may be viewed as abuse of freedom of speech by the learners.</li>
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As with blogging sites, there are quite a few sites that offer free wiki spaces for educators. These are <a href="http://pbworks.com/" target="_blank">pbworks</a>, <a href="http://www.wikispaces.com/" target="_blank">wikispaces</a>, <a href="http://www.wetpaintcentral.com/" target="_blank">wetpaint</a>, etc. The content in wikis is also created by users but in contrast to blogs, wikis are mainly used for collaborative writing. Wikis are not very difficult to use and there are online video tutorials available. However, it may be a good idea to conduct a short training course on how to create a wiki for educators so that they are comfortable with creating one.<br />
In terms of pricing and school logo inclusion, schools can choose the <a href="http://www.wikimatrix.org/" style="color: #007fcc; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Compare them all">wikimatrix site</a> to choose the wiki that is most appropriate to their needs.</div>
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Positive aspects:</div>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">great tools for collaborative writing;</li>
<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">page history is available so teachers can reverse a page back to previous times;</li>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">as many pages as needed can be created.</li>
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Negative aspects:</div>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">pages can be deleted by mistake;</li>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">when doing team writing, an individuals ideas are incorporated into one whole and success is down to the team not the individual, which may demotivate the individual who came up with most ideas;</li>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">if a not hosted wiki is chosen, then a special training is required for the person who will be responsible for wiki hosting and maintenance.</li>
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I cannot find many sites that offer playlist creation services. The only one that I know of is MentorMob which allows users to create playlists of subject-related video and articles and to create quizzes related to the content. The playlists and embeddable and can be embedded into a blog or a wiki that schools or educators run for their learners (a <a href="http://annaevo.blogspot.com/2012/07/mentormob-for-exam-takers.html" style="color: #007fcc; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">mentormob playlist</a>). The tools is free and the support from the team is great. They respond to email within one day and are very helpful. However, educators have to watch the videos and read the articles they add to the playlist to make sure that content is reliable and accurate.</div>
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Positive aspects:</div>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">easy to create;</li>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">can be embedded into a blog or wiki;</li>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">learners can add content to it too.</li>
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Negative aspects:</div>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">quizzes sometimes are not saved the first attempt and created questions are not saved so users have to write them again;</li>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">playlists are collaborative and any user can add content to it which may not be reliable. However, this can be deleted;</li>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">if a playlist is long, users may become demotivated and may not want to go through it.</li>
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In my opinion, every digital tool has advantages and disadvantages. If handled with thought, the tools can add value to education.</div>
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This work was chosen to be among <a href="http://dnle.stanford.edu/content/1-evaluation-3-learning-environments-or-technologies" target="_blank">the best</a> for the first week. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-14139143232115429072013-02-09T11:59:00.002-08:002013-02-23T11:19:06.374-08:00On Utopias and Dystopias - Part 2In the introduction to this week's activities we were warned that "some videos were evocative and sometimes disturbing" but I couldn't imagine how true that was until I watched the first one.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/jZkHpNnXLB0?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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The advert displays very utopian visions of technology, in my opinion. Some parts of it seemed worthwhile to me, but some looked quite daunting.<br />
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In terms of education, I think, this should work. We can see how involved and engaged the children in class are. To refer back to last week's reading <i>Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants</i>, I am prepared to accept the fact that if technology is correctly incorporated into an education system, we may see better results in the future. Currently many kids complain about Maths, Chemistry, Physics, etc being boring. However, with the help of technology studying these subjects could be made more interactive and informative. I personally believe that this is a positive development. What makes me especially happy is the fact that teachers are not left out of the learning process even in such a technologically advanced world. On the other hand is it going to be possible for everyone to have these devices or the majority are going to be left out?<br />
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Another thing is environmental concern. I am not so sure about this kind of development being good. The solar panels on the roof of the school are good, but what was in the forest/park before the glass for educational field trips was installed? Are we going to cut out more trees to improve education?<br />
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I went on to watch the next video in the series <i>A Day Made of Glass 2 Unpacked</i>. As the explanation of the advert is given by a Corning employee, it is very utopian and does not address problems such as deforestation and technological disruptions. The questions that I had when I was watching the first video still stand: What happens when the Internet connection is disrupted? How is the glass wall installed? Will more trees be cut out to install it? What happens to the environment or the animals?<br />
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The next film, although with beautiful views and lovely colours, made me think that this is not a very good prospect for the future.<br />
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People even interact with each other through technology. I mean they can just ask the person next to them instead of sending information requests or ordering something. A child communicates with her mother via technology. She seems to be happy. But is this really what children want? Do they really want to have digital mothers or fathers?<br />
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And then the translating glasses. To me it seems that the message in the film is you won't need to study a foreign language because technology will translate any for you. I hope in the future we are not going to rely on our devices to do everything for us. Otherwise we will end up learning only how to use our gadgets. If the first film really appealed to me, the second one made me think that this is a world that I wouldn't like to live in.<br />
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However, I do have a question regarding both films. What happens if the Internet connection is bad or if the city is hit by some sort of natural disaster and there is no electricity? Do we stop living until all that gets sorted out?<br />
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The next film to watch was <a href="http://vimeo.com/46304267" target="_blank"><b>Sight</b></a> which I had already watched for the <i>Gamification</i> course on coursera as a task to identify game elements applied in gamification. So when I watch this film, it makes me think of gamification. This is just a made-up world where people wear lenses which allow them to see through the other person, look up their profile, give scores, get virtual coach advice, etc. However, I see a fault in this vision. Before we play a game, we learn the rules of it. Especially, in computer games we mainly follow the stages of onboarding, scaffolding and then mastery, but the woman in this video does not seem to be aware of any of this happening. An unfair game, don't you think? The ending is especially unpleasant. How comes that the man can stop and rewind a situation and the woman cannot? To me it's simple - the man is playing a game only he knows about which is already not a game but is some kind of fraud.<br />
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Points, badges, feedback (part of gamification or computer games) have their own role but I don't see this to be applied to real life. Again the same artificiality as in the previous two films.<br />
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<a href="http://futurestates.tv/episodes/charlie-13%20" target="_blank"><b>Charlie 13</b></a><br />
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This film looks more like Big Brother to me or maybe Orwell's 1984. In a way this is a bleak representation of the future. However, it also gives a glimpse of hope that there will be some people who will resist and fight for their freedom. At present we have people who, to protect their privacy, do not set up an account on Facebook or any other social networking sites, which in itself seems to be an indication that people understand that, apart from having benefits, technology presents a threat to people's privacy and sense of autonomy. In a way, I think, there are people like Charlie now too.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzryBRPwsog" target="_blank">Plurality</a></b><br />
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We seem to be going through science fiction week. Another film and another reminder of Big Brother (the poster says <i>"Beware Big Brother Bentham"</i> ) but this time with some time travel involved.<br />
I do understand that many of the technological devices that we have nowadays are invented thanks to science fiction films. However, I hope that time travel is not going to happen.<br />
There have been a lot of talks that certain agencies keep a tag on people using social networking services and collect their data, it is also believed that social network providers, and not only, store user data for infinite period of time and that even deleted messages or profiles are not really deleted: they are there in the cloud. The same seems to be true about information on our mobile phones: phone call and SMS data appears to be kept by certain organisations. This all is, in a way, present-day surveillance in action. Recently I read <b><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9698071/Saudi-husbands-alerted-by-text-if-their-wives-leave-the-country.html" target="_blank">an article</a></b> about women in Saudi Arabia being monitored through their mobile phones and if they are trying to leave the country without their husbands, the latter receive an alert. I thought this was appalling but this is the reality we are leaving in. It horrifies me to think that the same can start happening in other parts of the world. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jun/09/schools-surveillance-spying-on-pupils" target="_blank"><b>Another article</b></a> discusses surveillance at schools and states that we have become fixated on crime, security and violence. We try to fight for freedom, human rights, etc but can we ever really gain those? For some reason, I don't think so anymore.<br />
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Now the next talk was more related to e-learning, in my opinion.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIzA4ItynYw" target="_blank">Gardner Cambell Keynote</a></b></div>
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The idea of opening education appeals to me a lot. New form of education is emerging and as it is new, as it is opening, there will be problems and faults obviously, but as the time passes, it is possible to improve and develop and give many people a chance to study in collaboration with each other and be in control of their own learning. It is believed that we can learn better when we collaborate, because we learn from each other. Isn't it what many of us try to achieve in a classroom setting by dividing students into pairs or groups to complete a task or to discuss something? As Gardner Cambell says in his talk: "My network is helping me to learn".</div>
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After such a depressing set of films (apart from the last one) watched this week, I still would like to hope that the education system could benefit from a certain amount of technology constructively incorporated into a curriculum.<br />
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<b>Sources:</b><br />
Kevin Werbach - <a href="http://gamifyforthewin.com/2012/11/the-art-of-gamification/" target="_blank">For the win</a><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-72030438345935154402013-02-01T11:24:00.001-08:002013-02-23T11:19:36.328-08:00On Utopias and DystopiasThe first week of the course started and I already feel that I am learning a lot. It's not that I didn't know much about the subject, it's just I feel that I am having what I thought about confirmed.<br />
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Digital culture and digital education have often been described as utopian, i.e. creating highly desirable social, cultural, educational effects; or dystopian, i.e. creating extremely negative effects for society, culture, education.</blockquote>
It seems to me that both these claims are extremes to a certain extent. In my opinion, although there are negative sides to digital cultures (not so sure about negative effects of digital education), the advantages still outweigh the disadvantages and we should try to use technology to our advantage. I do understand that this may become an obsession. However, this is not just true for digital technologies; it can also be applied to any non-digital aspect of life.<br />
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The films that we were assigned to watch and discuss mostly represent dystopian views. However, I do have some arguments against.<br />
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<b>Film 1 - Bendito Machine III</b><br />
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There are quite a few environmental problems due to our obsession with technology. We always want the latest gadgets even when there is nothing wrong with our 'old' ones. The biggest problem with this is the issue of recycling and air pollution, but I hope that at some point in the future it will be possible to recycle or re-use all parts of devices thrown away b people. (Too optimistic? Maybe)<br />
The social implication is the lack of interaction among people. In this film, for example, although they sit together in front of their new TV, they do not seem to communicate with each other because they are too busy watching the programs. The TV has become their God and they worship it but do not appear to care much about people being killed by broken TV, etc.<br />
I wouldn't say members of the tribe have any choice in terms of selection of their TV set: they just get what they are given. But they could choose not to watch it, for example, and spend more time together, but they don't. So what they possibly would want to be able to choose, they cannot; but what they could choose to do, they don't seem to want to.<br />
The characteristics of the piece of technology presented in the film seem to match the ones in our life. The device is getting bigger with each model, it is becoming more complicated to use, some unnecessary features are added (Do we really need to drive a TV?), and it also sees to become easier to break. Basically what we have today is the same: too many things that can go wrong with our tablets, phones, notebooks, etc.<br />
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<b>Film 2 - Inbox</b><br />
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I wouldn't necessarily call the relationship between the film characters utopian or dystopian as I don't think it is highly desirable or extremely effective. Their relationship could be both positive and negative, depending on what happens afterwards.<br />
The red bags are representative of Facebook chat to me which is hated by many but also loved by many others. The bag in this film shows ease of sharing, which could be a utopian account but could be a dystopian one as well. This would depend on what is being shared and how desirable that is for the recipient. In this case it is obvious that the girl really wanted something magical to happen which would change her life. And when she got what she longed for, she went for it.The meeting in the shop possibly was not part of her dream, that's why she ignored the guy first.<br />
To conclude, I could only say that if used in the right way this could be utopian, but if abused/misused could also be dystopian.<br />
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<b>Film 3 - Thursday</b><br />
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In this film the message conveyed about technology is that its work is easily disrupted by natural forces and that because of technology people have got completely separated from nature. We seem to be depicted to become helpless when technology fails us and even our free time is spent in a "technological" way. We appear to have lost the ability to interact and enjoy simple things, such as a walk in a park. I think the loss of the birds, who, in my opinion, represent nature in general, has been the greatest as they have lost their homes and the environment they were used to. I think the birds have the agency in this film as they seem to be able to act in the world regardless anything whereas people are completely helpless. <br />
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<b>Film 4 - New Media</b><br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://vimeo.com/33193443">NEWMEDIA</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/moli">MOLI</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.</span><br />
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This film actually reminded me of a Doctor Who Episode called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_the_Cybermen" target="_blank">The Rise of Cybermen</a> in which people are shown to have a new digital device which is attached to their ears and enables them to download all the news from newspapers into their brains. People are controlled by this device but do not know it.<br />
Just the same as in this film. People live completely surrounded by technology. Technology is their religion just as it is in the first film Bendito Machine III.<br />
Quite a dystopian account, but I don't think this is likely to happen to us to the same extent as in this film. I hope that people will be able to understand that obsession is a negative state to whatever object that obsession is directed.<br />
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To follow the suit of mainly dystopian views I have found another video <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qvv_gUlgkKQ&list=UUm_Sdj7q6j9utpGjxdnMtKQ" target="_blank">on Youtube: Doomsday: Lost Home</a><br />
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This film again expresses the dystopian view that technology has an extremely negative effects for society. It is thought that we will be defeated by technology created by us. But in my opinion this is a very far-fetched scenario of our future. I mean look at the state of the environment in this film. Environment is not as polluted now as it is shown in the film but we are already trying to develop sustainable ways of living. Are we really going to stop doing that? Are we really going to completely forget about nature? I have faith in human beings. I don't think we will. What do you think?<br />
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I understand that we are worried about our future in the world of technology, but it doesn't have to be as bad as presented in some of the films above, right? I think if we can incorporate technology into school curriculum (as I am in education, it is easier for me to refer to this field) as some universities have already done, we would be able to meet the needs of modern children and teenagers who grew up with technology and are used to it.<br />
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As Ignacio Estrada said: "If a child can't learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they can learn."<br />
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<b>Sources and Further Reading:</b><br />
<a href="http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol6/issue2/fisher.html" target="_blank">On Utopias and Dystopias</a><br />
<a href="https://spark-public.s3.amazonaws.com/edc/readings/chandler2002_PDF_full.pdf" target="_blank">Technological or Media Determinism</a><br />
<a href="http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol9/issue3/dahlberg.html" target="_blank">Towards Non-Reductionist Methodology</a><br />
<a href="http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=5909&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html" target="_blank">Technology is the answer</a><br />
<a href="http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/569/490" target="_blank">The automation of Higher Education</a><br />
<a href="http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/prensky%20-%20digital%20natives,%20digital%20immigrants%20-%20part1.pdf" target="_blank">Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants</a><br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(philosophy)" target="_blank">Agency</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-66733078514187520082013-01-13T08:25:00.000-08:002013-01-13T08:25:02.230-08:00Present.meThe first tool of the year that I wanted to discuss is <a href="http://present.me/" target="_blank">Present.me</a> which I heard of but didn't use until this year's EVO session. This tool was used for introduction by one of the moderators of Moodle for Teachers sessions and was embedded into the course Moodle. It looked really good and, most importantly, it built the online presence of the moderator so nicely. I find this crucial for an online course.<br />
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All you need to do to get started is either to create a new account or log in with your Facebook or Google account. Then you can choose the account type you like. See the screenshot below:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLBE4xAT_XlHUYCFD8oWleM0-r5Ww6RIPMv6lSh1B2rw8PC72Us5kgu1f9D8mZaIkUkWBlUO1S_lfcwbrAngdX0ukWTxyBtVZczydjfumnJbG6uUT3R1-l5dGY0ks2T6BDNAbCgRjjzdY/s1600/ScreenHunter_26+Jan.+13+20.09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLBE4xAT_XlHUYCFD8oWleM0-r5Ww6RIPMv6lSh1B2rw8PC72Us5kgu1f9D8mZaIkUkWBlUO1S_lfcwbrAngdX0ukWTxyBtVZczydjfumnJbG6uUT3R1-l5dGY0ks2T6BDNAbCgRjjzdY/s400/ScreenHunter_26+Jan.+13+20.09.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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What I like about this tool is that it offers a few options for a presentation. See the screenshot below:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf5ZJsFyzQEQee1cHEL9unPxPiteaRgKEKd9oMBt7CgJ8f6OylzlDtdtRslEMk95p-pre2HisJn0oryRMfGDnF8JQma2Qgj6IC-e6JVzf5-yY5_MV3UCHfQMHTv7oJDcaE47525aHRZQA/s1600/ScreenHunter_28+Jan.+13+20.15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="141" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf5ZJsFyzQEQee1cHEL9unPxPiteaRgKEKd9oMBt7CgJ8f6OylzlDtdtRslEMk95p-pre2HisJn0oryRMfGDnF8JQma2Qgj6IC-e6JVzf5-yY5_MV3UCHfQMHTv7oJDcaE47525aHRZQA/s400/ScreenHunter_28+Jan.+13+20.15.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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In order to be able to upload a video or audio file, you need to have a paid account. However, with the free account you can record your own audio or video using Present.me's services which is even better, I think. To start preparing your presentation you need to click on 'Make a new recording button" as shown in the screenshot below:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdR4rM2AYX9TjSHyFSu5jbrMkcSKvjn-o2MwS6x_2DPXhbQYk2VHDUAGPcAzWqIT_sP-sBEtGba_J7zfq0hGjnF2Avcdl46DK451DRRc3BgYpNXzTztT0KOA9u4r8xvtc2PSg0TKCMV7o/s1600/ScreenHunter_27+Jan.+13+20.12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdR4rM2AYX9TjSHyFSu5jbrMkcSKvjn-o2MwS6x_2DPXhbQYk2VHDUAGPcAzWqIT_sP-sBEtGba_J7zfq0hGjnF2Avcdl46DK451DRRc3BgYpNXzTztT0KOA9u4r8xvtc2PSg0TKCMV7o/s400/ScreenHunter_27+Jan.+13+20.12.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Then you need to upload your ready-made presentation either in PPT, PPTX, PDF or Google Docs format and then either make a video recording of your explanation or talk or audio recording. While recording your talk, all you need to do is to click the arrow at the bottom of the screen to move from a slide to a slide which does not interrupt the recording itself. </div>
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I think the tools is really helpful not only for online classes but also for flipped classrooms or blended classes. Teachers of different subjects can use the tool to make their PowerPoint lessons or Word (converted into PDF) lessons into a more personal teaching session.</div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-44909099645646448992013-01-09T04:57:00.000-08:002013-01-09T04:57:57.339-08:00Part 4 - Psychology and MotivationNow about psychology and, in particular, about motivation which are central to what makes gamification effective. Psychology needs to be discussed as people don't entirely know what makes them do something and motivation is complicated as people are complicated. We are not motivated by the same thing all the time but we are motivated by different things at different times. So we need to think about our players, about different ways to motivate them and about how to deploy motivation in a systematic way.<br />
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Prof. Kevin Werbach mentioned two major traditions in psychology: <a href="http://woknowing.wordpress.com/2010/10/12/behaviorism-vs-cognitivisim/" target="_blank">behaviorism and cognitivism</a>. Behaviorism is about looking at behaviours, looking at what people do. Cognitivism is about mental states, what's internally going on in people's heads. Both of them are very relevant for gamification.<br />
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Now behaviorism says that when we look at a person we know that there are feelings , thoughts and emotions inside but we cannot focus on those internal mental states as they are not scientifically testable. So the behaviorist program is to restrict ourselves to what is external which is called <a href="http://www.personal.psu.edu/wxh139/bahavior.htm" target="_blank">the black box</a>. The idea is what we can test is what goes in from outside and what comes out. Although behaviorism has some limitations when we focus on gamification, it is still instructive for some aspects of gamification design.<br />
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The basic notion of behaviorism is two things. One is stimulus. Something which happens externally creates a challenge, opportunity or reaction and that reaction is called response. This is when we can see or observe a certain type of behaviour and that is why this is called behaviorism in response to stimulus. This was first tested by Pavlov in what's called <a href="http://www.learning-theories.com/classical-conditioning-pavlov.html" target="_blank">classical conditioning</a> where he rang a bell and got the dogs to salivate. The idea in Pavlovian conditioning is that the stimulus is instinctively related to the response. So when the bell rings, it automatically produces this response of salivating whether there is food coming or not.<br />
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A more important kind of conditioning is associated with B.F.Skinner and is called <a href="http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html" target="_blank">operant conditioning</a> which is about feedback loop. There is a stimulus and there is a response and based on this pattern there is learning. Subjects learn; they see the consequences of their actions and the consequences actually matter.<br />
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So these experiments have the notion that in certain cases people will respond to stimuli and will learn to make associations between two things especially if there are rewards. Observation is important here. We should observe what people actually do. If people respond to to stimulus in a certain way, we should learn something from that. Moreover, feedback loop is important. When the person involved sees some feedback, it produces some response and a process of action. Feedback tends to motivate behavior which is very important for gamification.<br />
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Now let's look at FarmVille which managed to create what is called an appointment mechanic. The idea is that people know that they have to go back to their farm at certain times to water their crops otherwise the crops will wither. So FarmVille got people to learn, as a matter of habit, learning to regularly check their farms This is a behavioral kind of approach which worked well for FarmVille.<br />
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Although behaviorism talks conditioning and providing rewards, some benefits that seem valuable even though they are not tangible or worth any money, rewards are still only one piece of the game mechanics. Rewards are powerful and significant in gamification but they should not be the only thing to use in a gamified system.<br />
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But why are those rewards so powerful? This is related to brain chemistry, something called <a href="http://www.dnalc.org/view/812-The-Dopamine-System.html" target="_blank">dopamine system</a> - the structure of brain associated with pleasure and learning. Our brains release and reabsorb dopamine in response to certain activities (usually things that find rewarding or just surprising. It causes a learning process and makes people want to engage in the activity. Again this doesn't always work or doesn't always work for everyone, but when it does work it is the hit of dopamine.<br />
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If we talk about rewards themselves, firstly we should say that there are different ways to give rewards and there are many things that can be rewarded, so effective gamification will think about what can be rewarded, what kind of behaviour the designer want to reward and what the different options are. The goal is to give players/users a set of meaningful choices and a set of options to make the system feel more engaging. Secondly, there are different categories of rewards and one typology of different kinds of rewards is called <a href="http://www.psych-it.com.au/Psychlopedia/article.asp?id=439" target="_blank">Cognitive Evaluation Theory</a> which comes from Richard Ryan and Ed Deci. What they developed is a typology of different kinds of rewards that can be used to motivate behaviour. One distinction that they point out is between tangible and intangible rewards. The second one is between expected and unexpected rewards. If the reward just happens, it is a surprise and our brain loves surprises which means that expected rewards are not so cool to our brain. The third set of distinctions is what rewards are dependent on: whether you get a reward without even doing anything, or you get one for simply engaging in an activity, or the reward depends on the completion of an activity, or rewards can be performance contingent, when the reward is given because the task has been done well.<br />
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In designing gamification the key is to think about different possibilities for rewards and decide on the most effective ones that will motivate players/users and will ensure that there is a meaningful and rewarding experience for those players/users.<br />
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Let's move on to reward schedules which refer to when the reward is given as opposed to what it is or what it is based on. Behavioral studies suggest that the structuring of reward schedules has significant implications for the psychological reaction that the rewards produce. There are several possible reward schedules. One is continuous reward. It is given for every incidence of the action - it is automatic. The other kind of reward is a fixed ration reward when a reward is given when something happens a certain number of times. The third kind of reward is fixed interval reward (let's say after each second unit of a course). The fourth category of rewards is variable rewards which is on no fixed schedule. The other three kind of rewards, although they still have some psychological value, can become predictable, and thus dull, as the brain can pick up the pattern. But this last type is the most interesting out of all of them because as we said before our brain loves surprises. However, this type of reward should not be given for doing something that nobody can do, because then it would make it unachievable and players/users may just give up before they can get this type of reward.<br />
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However useful behaviorist approach is, there are some serious limitations to it. One of the problems with it that it leaves out what people think or feel or what is going on in their heads or what really motivates them when they act in a certain way. Now game thinking, we said, is about putting the player in the centre, but if we take a purely behaviorist approach, we might move away from the notion that the player is a human being, so this focus on rewards tends to have some problems as well.<br />
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One of the problems with this kind of system is that it may be designed to manipulate people, to make them do things they may not necessarily want to do. It may become like an addiction to them, which is already not a good thing. If we can design a gamified system that may addict people on this rewards system, then that does not mean that we should. Prof. Kevin Werbach compares this kind of behaviorist approach to that of casino owners.<br />
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The second problem with this is what is called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill" target="_blank">Hedonic Treadmill</a>. The idea here is once we start focusing on giving people rewards in order to give them pleasure, we will have to keep doing it. Because if people learn to respond to rewards, they are only going to respond to them. And as certain rewards get familiar or boring, we will have to come up with new rewards: make them more interesting, more challenging. So this can put a significant burden on the designer. There are <a href="http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/10/3/272.full" target="_blank">some studies</a> which look into what actually happens when dopamine system is activated. The studies showed that the dopamine system is not really about rewards, it is about anticipation of rewards.<br />
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If a gamified system focuses too heavily on rewards, it tends to miss some other kinds of benefits that can be delivered through a gamified system. PBLs are about status and not everyone is interested in or moved by that. We do things for many other reasons: social reasons, altruistic reasons, tangible reasons; so these need to be exploited as well.<br />
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The alternative to behaviorist approach is Cognitivism which focuses on opening up the black box to find out what really motivates people to behave in certain ways. In order to understand this, we need to distinguish between different kinds of motivation and rewards. In particular, we need to think about two broad categories called <b>Intrinsic</b> and <b>Extrinsic</b> Motivation.<br />
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Intrinsic motivation is about doing something for its own sake, not because there is any external stimuli, but because we find it rewarding, engaging, fun, or motivating. Here we are not focused on the consequences or any other kinds of benefit that we might get.<br />
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Extrinsic motivation is about doing something for some other reason rather than the activity itself. The reasons may be different: it could be money, fame or fortune; or it might be because somebody asked you to do it and you value the person so you do it for them. <a href="http://www.gamification.co/2011/10/27/intrinsic-and-extrinsic-motivation-in-gamification/" target="_blank">Gabe Zichermann </a>talks about four kinds of extrinsic reward motivators which he calls SAPS: <b>S</b>tatus, <b>A</b>ccess,<b> P</b>ower and <b>S</b>tuff. Status as a motivator is what makes us think that it is cool, this is done with leaderboards in particular. Access is about getting access to something that other people don't have: content unlocking could create the feeling of gaining access to something. Power enables users to do certain things that was a result of their activity: for example, edit other people's posts or submit posts bypassing moderation. Stuff is about tangible rewards, real things that the user can get in response to their actions. However, motivating these are, we still need to keep in mind the problems discussed above.<br />
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The biggest danger of rewards system is that it can actually demotivate by crowding out intrinsic motivation that was already there as it acts like an extrinsic motivator. This is sometimes called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect" target="_blank">over-justification effect </a>and it's a danger in any kind of system that uses rewards: a substitution effect where the intrinsic motivation goes away and is replaced by a less effective and problematic extrinsic motivation of rewards. The studies discussed in the link for 'over-justification effect' demonstrate this quite well.<br />
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In the 1970s Ed Deci and Richard Ryan developed the basis for <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11392867" target="_blank">Self-Determination Theory</a> - a comprehensive theory of human motivation which, through many studies, has shown that people are not necessarily always motivated by rewards and, in fact, intrinsic motivation is a more powerful and more effective way to encourage people to act in certain ways. <br />
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The screenshot of Prof. Kevin Werbach's video lecture explains the spectrum of motivational types.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLomFBdhjKZ8Kn4BcXUAOmR1_UJ_81-fH-vEcTIzsLHhPfDGu9sAaBJLpgQj4EGd0_iKQgk9HYq7hVgf4FsJCwY2NDkILM_UjK7IrZY4QqOpinaFGeO1qkJF3PWXNfalWqaLgfZ_aDqRY/s1600/ScreenHunter_61+Jan.+09+10.45.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLomFBdhjKZ8Kn4BcXUAOmR1_UJ_81-fH-vEcTIzsLHhPfDGu9sAaBJLpgQj4EGd0_iKQgk9HYq7hVgf4FsJCwY2NDkILM_UjK7IrZY4QqOpinaFGeO1qkJF3PWXNfalWqaLgfZ_aDqRY/s320/ScreenHunter_61+Jan.+09+10.45.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<b>Amotivation</b> is when the users have no motivation whatsoever, they are totally indifferent to the activity.<br />
The broader category of extrinsic motivators is in the middle.<br />
<b>External Regulation</b> is when users don't really want to do something or maybe they are indifferent to it, but they do it because someone tells them to do it.<br />
<b>Introjection</b> is when we take external motivators and make them our own, mainly because other people will think that I am cool.<br />
<b>Identification</b> is when we take external motivators and make then our own but not because it is important what other people will think, but because we can see some value in it. This is when it is somehow aligned with our own personal goals.<br />
<b>Intrinsic Motivation</b> is when the users do the activity for the pure reason of loving it., because it is rewarding in itself. This is the strongest motivation because it takes nothing external to get them to do the activity.<br />
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Now all of these may come useful in gamification, but what we should think about is how to utilize these different kinds of motivations appropriately and how to push towards approaches that are more dependent on intrinsic motivation. Under self-determination theory, there are three characteristics of intrinsic motivation: three factors that when they are present suggest that the activity is worthwhile. One of these factors is C<b>ompetence</b> which is about a person's sense of ability, the sense that they are accomplishing something, solving problems, overcoming obstacles. The sense that they are achieving something within the activity. The second one is <b>Autonomy</b> which is about a person's sense of being in control. Users should feel that it's them making the choices. And the third one is <b>Relatedness, </b>the sense that the activity one is doing is somehow connected to something beyond themselves that could have some meaning, sense or purpose. <a href="https://www.fitocracy.com/" target="_blank">Fitocracy</a> demonstrates this quite well.<br />
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We were offered to read two books if we wanted to learn more about Self-Determination Theory.<br />
1. <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/184767769X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357736022&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Drive</a> by Daniel Pink<br />
2. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Glued-Games-Video-Spellbound-Directions/dp/0313362246" target="_blank">Glued to Games</a> by Richard Ryan and Scott Rigby<br />
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Further reading:<br />
<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/06/the-perfected-self/308970/" target="_blank">David Freedman</a>, <a href="http://naggum.no/motivation.html" target="_blank">Alfie Kohn</a>, <a href="http://codingconduct.cc/Meaningful-Play" target="_blank">Sebastian Deterding</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-29845721816439436092013-01-05T10:00:00.000-08:002013-01-05T10:10:56.307-08:00Part 3 - Game ElementsNow to game elements. According to Prof. Kevin Werbach, game elements are regular patterns that appear in any game. They can be extracted from a game and applied to a gamified system. When you try to create a gamified system by introducing game elements to it, what you are trying to produce is a certain kind of experience which is not the same as the game itself. The best example of a gamified system would not be the one that uses the most elements but the one that uses them most effectively.<br />
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Prof. K. Werbach has developed a framework for gamification elements in a form of pyramid which can be seen on the screenshot of the professor's video lecture. The notion of the pyramid is that we have a few dynamics, a larger number of mechanics and even a bigger number of components.<br />
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At the top of the pyramid are the game dynamics. These are the highest level conceptual elements in a gamified system. These provide the framing for the game. So, for example, <b>constraints</b> which offer meaningful choices and limit players' freedom; <b>emotions</b> which games can produce ( from sadness to happiness); <b>narrative</b> - the structure that pulls together the pieces of a gamified system; <b>progression</b> - the journey that the player takes; <b>relationships</b> - people interacting with each other.<br />
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At the next level are the game mechanics. These are the elements that move the action forward. Some of the game mechanics are <b>challenges</b> - some goal to reach; <b>chance</b> - something that makes the result random; <b>cooperation</b> and <b>competition</b> to have the notion of winning and losing; <b>feedback</b> - very important for players to see how they are doing as this drives them to continue; <b>resource acquisitions</b> - things like rewards, things that can be sold/bought or exchanged.<br />
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Finally, game components are at the lowest level of the pyramid. The examples of the lowest level are examples of elements higher up. So, for example, achievements, as opposed to the general idea of challenge, giving the player some rewards attached to doing a set of specific tasks - that is the achievement; or avatars/badges - specific visual representations of those achievements, etc.<br />
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There are some game elements that are more common than others and are more influential than others in shaping typical examples of gamification. These are represented by the acronym <b>PBL</b> - <b>p</b>oints, <b>b</b>adges and <b>l</b>eaderboards. However important these three are, gamification should never start and end with these three only. <br />
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<b>Points</b> are a way of determining how well someone is doing in the game. They can show the relative position of one player against the others or define winning. They can connect up with rewards as well as provide feedback and/or display progress.<br />
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<b>Badges</b> are visual representations of one's achievements/level. They are button-like graphic that go on a profile page or some place where other players can see them. <a href="http://openbadges.org/en-US/" target="_blank">Badges</a> can represent anything and motivate a certain behaviour. Badges also function as credentials and they are a status symbol. (For more information about badges read <a href="http://planet.openbadges.org/" target="_blank">here</a>).<br />
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<b>Leaderboards</b> are about ranking. The feedback these provide is on competition. Not to disappoint their players a number of social games have introduced personalized leaderboards where players see their name in the middle not at the bottom of the leaderboard. Another option of this is friend leaderboards where one competes against their friends not against complete strangers. Think of the leaderboard in FarmVille on Facebook for an example of this. However, learderboards can also demotivate or make them less willing to engage because of the stress they put on players.<br />
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But game elements are only a starting point for gamification. By just randomly throwing them into a gamified system, one won't be able to make it fun and engaging. What makes the elements successful is the way they are put together and that often involves resources some of the higher level. If there is a heavy emphasis on PBLs, rewards may be overemphasized. Rewards are not the same as fun; they aren't wrong but if they the only thing then there is a danger that the system will not generate the necessary level of engagement and may not actually draw in people with different kinds of motivation.<br />
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Further Reading - <a href="https://sakai.rutgers.edu/access/content/group/af43d59b-528f-42d0-b8e5-70af85c439dc/reading/hunicke_2004.pdf" target="_blank">MDA Formal Approach to Game Design</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4329375399000677042.post-9857853457501684092013-01-05T01:24:00.003-08:002013-01-05T01:27:53.637-08:00Part 2 - Game Thinking After leaving Google the founder of Dodgeball Dennis Crowley created FourSquare which was a similar platform to Dodgeball but it was also different from it. While Dodgeball wasn't very popular, FourSquare became really popular and we can see many people nowadays checking into places through Foursquare. What made it so popular was the fact that Foursquare was gamified, unlike Dodgeball which didn't offer any incentives to its users whether they checked in or not. You could see where your friends checked in but there was not much else you could do. As it didn't offer much variety, it didn't seem to engage people as much as Foursqaure did. However, Dodgeball was very social and allowed users to compete against their friends and to see where they were. But what Foursqaure did was to create a sense of progression by implementing a concept called Mayorships. There are also badges that indicate users' status and their progress and/or leadership. Foursqaure also built a system which made it easy to notify friends on Twitter or Facebook about one's progress which created the sense of competition and made the act of checking in more fun. They also introduced special purpose badges and leveling up for checking in at a conference or a health club ot at an airport a few times. It is still just checking in but now it has become a more varied activity. (More on this <a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/foursquare-seeks-to-turn-nightlife-into-a-game/" target="_blank">here</a>)<br />
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A takeaway from this story is to view a business problem or a problem in any other context in the same way that a game designer would think about the challenge related to creating a game. So whatever your goal is and whatever problem you have to solve, think about that as a game. If it were a game that participants were playing, what would you do?<br />
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Start by thinking about people involved in your system as players. This means that you should build your system around your players who should be in the middle of the game, because to players the game revolves around them, it's no way about who built it or what purpose it is supposed to serve. So your business should be built in a way that your players are at the centre.<br />
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Secondly, your players do not only need to have a feeling that the game revolves around them but they also need to feel that they are in control. So think about how to create a system where players feel that they are in control and they can make their own choices.<br />
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Finally, the goal of a game designer is to create a sense of play for a specific purpose. Play is a feeling of free motion with a set of constraints and the purpose is to get the players playing and keep them playing.<br />
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Now about some basic design rules. First of all there is the face that players need to be involved in a conceptual journey, i.e. their walk through the game needs to have a beginning, a middle and an end and ideally in some sort of progression. Basically the steps are onboarding (getting the player into the game), scaffolding (providing the necessary training) and mastery at which players feel that they have achieved and/or accomplished something. (There is a very clear example of this in <a href="http://www.popcap.com/games/plants-vs-zombies/online" target="_blank">Zombie vs Plants game</a>.) Secondly, there should be balance - not too hard, not too easy; not too many choices, not too few choices, etc. Balance is something that a game needs at every stage. Third design rule for gamification is to take something that is not game-like and make it feel game-like by creating an integrated experience. (Read <a href="http://technorati.com/technology/article/review-turntablefm/" target="_blank">a review of Turntable.fm</a> to get a feel for this).<br />
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While creating gamified systems it is important not to forget about the aspect of fun which is what makes playing engaging and makes us want to continue doing whatever it is we are doing. So the categories of experiences that we would create the feeling of fun are as follows:<br />
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<ul>
<li>winning,</li>
<li>problem solving,</li>
<li>exploring,</li>
<li>chilling out,</li>
<li>teamwork,</li>
<li>recognition,</li>
<li>triumphing,</li>
<li>collecting,</li>
<li>surprise,</li>
<li>imagining and daydreaming,</li>
<li>sharing,</li>
<li>role playing,</li>
<li>customization,</li>
<li>and just being silly.</li>
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Nicole Lazzaro, a researcher and a game designer, talks about <a href="http://xeodesign.com/whyweplaygames.html" target="_blank">4 Keys to Fun</a>, 4 different kinds of fun that appear in any game-like context. The first kind of fun is EASY fun which is about relaxing, chilling out and hanging out with friends. This doesn't have to be taxing. The second category is HARD fun; fun which involves challenges, problem solving, mastery, completion, etc.The third category is PEOPLE fun which is about interacting with others, teamworking, socializing, basically fun that requires other people. Finally, serious fun; fun that is about doing something that is meaningful, that is good for the planet, for the family of the player, for the community. (More on this read <a href="http://www.xeodesign.com/xeodesign_whyweplaygames.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.)</div>
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Four different kinds of fun and not necessarily mutually exclusive. When we think about introducing fun to a gamified system, we cannot just focus on one or two aspects of fun; we should keep all four types in mind not to miss the opportunity to engage all our players and make things fun using the other categories. (Marc LeBlanc identified 8 kinds of fun about which read <a href="http://8kindsoffun.com/" target="_blank">here</a>.)</div>
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To sum up this extended discussion about fun, it can be said that fun does not happen on its own - it has to be designed. Fun isn't always easy - it can be hard and serious. Finally we should look to exploit as many kinds of fun as possible to make things motivating and engaging.</div>
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Examples of fun in non-gaming environments are:</div>
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Volkswagen's Fun Theory with <a href="http://dailycrowdsource.com/20-resources/projects/312-sweden-tests-speed-camera-lottery" target="_blank">the lottery for non-speeding drivers</a>, or their <a href="http://www.thefuntheory.com/piano-staircase" target="_blank">piano staircase</a>, or <a href="http://www.thefuntheory.com/worlds-deepest-bin" target="_blank">the deepest rubbish bin</a>, or LinkedIn's Progress Bar. And this is what gamification is about - finding fun aspects and using them to create an environment that moves people towards an objective. </div>
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