Learn how to integrate new technologies in your lessons with all the support you need.CULTURA EDTECH - a course for tech beginners.MOVING BEYOND - a course for more experienced techies.New Groups start on FEBRUARY 07.See poster in FULL SIZE

Free Online Conference on WiZiQ: CO11 - Feb 4-6, 2011 via kwoutFantastic free online sessions taking place this weekend.Presenters will discuss the following topics:Free Online Conference on WiZiQ: CO11 - Feb 4-6, 2011 via kwoutTo participate, click on the link below, check the session that interests you, and a few minutes before the session starts, click on the link of the session, click JOIN THIS CLASS, and then LAUNCH THIS CLASS.I'm planning to watch two sessions today:1. Blended Instruction w/ Blogs and Wikis for Young Learners (Shelly Terrell and Greta Sandler)2. Language in Motion: Teaching with the Flow (Janet Bianchini)

With the beginning of our semester, we've already started developing little projects with our students. I've got 4 groups of Upper Intermediate students ("I'm the queen of Upper As!) and this semester I plan to propose 10 challenging tasks for them to develop at home apart from doing their traditional workbook exercises.The tasks aim to help students practise LISTENING, WRITING and SPEAKING. Students will also get the chance to learn how to use different webtools to create content, a skill I believe all our students need nowadays.As a plus, students will get  to watch tutorials , in English, to learn how to use the tools. This is what I have in mind: All tasks involve uisng language learned during that week.The platform used for sharing is EDMODO and a school blog.These are the webtools we're going to use: VOKIWriteComicsAudiobooFotobabbleStixyTypewithmeLiveTypingFodeyBitStrips

According to a previous post , this is the result of the first task I proposed to my students.It's pretty simple, students had to listen to a dictation I created on Voki about the topic we were discussing in class that week, had to transcribe it and then send the text to me via e-mail.This is the VOKI message they listened to:The texts I received via e-mail showed me students did a great job understanding the words. I noticed some minor spelling mistakes (Ex: reserch, then instead of them) but most students failed to use the right punctuation marks (full stops, commas, and inverted commas). As a post-activity, I'll be elicitng the right punctuation from my students in class.When asked if they thought the task was easy, medium or difficult, most of them told me they found it easy, however they had to listen to it several times to get the words right. Isn't that what all teachers wish? Lots of listening practice and spelling awareness. Mission accomplished!

It's amazing how many tools cease to exist the moment you're planning to use them. :)How can you find alternative tools? Use SIMILARSITESEARCHSimilarSiteSearch.com - The Best Place To Find Similar Websites via kwoutYesterday I was looking for an alternative to http://www.pageflakes.com/ and found another interesting tool for organizing feeds http://www.protopage.com/

Sharing interesting sites I've come across this week.Click on a letter of the ALPHABET and watch the letters turn into an animal. Cute, great for teaching animal vocab.Watch video summaries of various famous books. EFL teachers can use the videos as a preview to reading or for listening comprehension.Learn idioms in English. Definitions and examples.Type a verb and see it conjugated in various verb tenses.Personalized meeting roomsUse any presentation: yours or someone else'sStreaming live videoGroup chatNo downloadsUnlimited meetings & participantsPrivate or Public

Last Thursday, I proposed challenge #2 which involved students creating a dialogue with vocabulary from the previous units (EDUCATION)Students were asked to use http://writecomics.com  and use a minimum of 5 new words.This is a sample created by one of the students.All the comic strips are being shared at our school wiki (for projects) and will be shared with parents. How will I give them feedback?Well, I've decided to write down some common mistakes and then talk to the class as a whole not mentioning names. Common mistakes noticed: some students don't know the right collocations for scholarship, lots of students forgot to use DID in questions in the past, and some of them invented some expressions using literal translation from Portuguese to English. All in all, I guess they did a good job.

Click on the image to see the newsletter FULL SIZE

Sharing a hand-out I produced for a workshop I gave at UNITRI some time ago. The hand-out (in Portuguese) describes traditional games we might have played in our childhood that can be adapted for learning English.Digitalizar0082 PAGE 2PAGE 3

 I've already used LISTEN AND WRITE in class, however I only noticed I could make my own dictations very recently. These are my first trials. I recorded the audio with AUDACITY (mp3 file) , then uploaded the audio to the site, added the transcript, synched it with the audio (a bit tricky) and THAT'S IT!These are two LISTENING DICTATIONS I've created, the first one I dedictated a text from the course book (Face2Face Upper) and the second are isolated sentences using verbs which require GERUND or INFITIVE.So what is good for me? via kwoutSentences GERUND or INFINITIVE via kwoutWanna learn how to create your own? Watch the TUTORIAL below or this one for HD