Creating pictures with words

Tried out this tool as suggested in a discussion list:http://www.wordle.net/(For more on how to copy and paste into a blog, which was a bit difficult see Nik's blog: http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/09/using-word-clouds-in-efl-esl.html)

Allows you to create images with words - it gets the words you type in and randomly creates pictures.
Thought this might be useful in the classroom doing the following:
- type in a few words - use the word pictures to create a story (if done orally could be a great challange);
- instead of creating your run-of-the-mill word webs, create a Wordle image in order to revise lexical groups;
- visually attractive for a blog entry to stimulate a discussion
Alternatively you can work with complet texts. Copy and paste the whole text into the dialogue box, run the Wordle and use this to:
-present text taken from internet site such as the BBC World news -ask sts to look over the words and identify the current event the words refer to. (Good for more advanced sts).

The power of interactive whiteboards

It's been two years since we adopted IWB's (fondly referred to as e-boards) in all our classrooms at Cultura Inglesa. In 2008 I participated in a Promethean-led panel presentation at IATEFL where I presented our teaher training project during the first year we introduced the IWBs. The feeling then was that IWBs were a mystery and somewhat of a challenge to some and for those who had implemented them, a great discovery. The room was devided between those who believed in it's potential and those who were very sceptical. Indeed, one of the things that stood out was that language schools which had simply stuck to using the materials produced by international publishers inevitably ran into the possiblity of creating a very teacher-centred lesson and, not to put it too bluntly, perhaps a boring lesson. The materials in most cases were complete copies of coursebooks. And I really think that that is the issue we understood quite early on when we did our research and decided to adopt the IWB. We needed to take the activities we produced as a publisher a step further and nedded to encourage teachers to do tha same when they produced their own material.

The IWB does indeed allow for interactivity provided teachers and learners accept a new challenge in terms of teaching/learning roles and provided we begin thinking of the course syllabus in a slightly more open manner, acknowledging that there is indeed room for extemporisation in the language class and goin beyond whta is trditionally done in an EFL classroom. The role of the teacher as educator rather than just as an EFL teacher is something that emerges from this new cenario.

So, what was my great surprise to see that at this year`s IATEFL the tide had sort of turned and an attack of sorts was aunched against IWB's by prominent EFL/ESL experts. See what they had to say in the IATEFL discussion forum: http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2009/forum/iwbs-are-useless-discuss

So this set me thinking. As we are about a group of 700 teachers using IWBs on a daily basis I thought we could begin thinking about the following question: How interactive is the IWB?

Please feel free to post comments in this blog and perhaps provide links to your own blogs in which you show some examples of interactivity. Perhaps some of you have you tubes showing your work? Post the links pelase. Alternatively join my Twitter:http://twitter.com/vbenevolofranca where I asked the same question. But I'm also interested in examples in which you think the IWB actually reduced interactivity. Let`s share these issues and see where we get.
Check Graham Stanley`s Twitter to see some ideas of interactivity he found: http://twitter.com/grahamstanley

How to start Twittering

If you wish to learn how to create a Twitter account and how to get things going, here are a few quick steps.

1) Access the Twitter homepage http://www.twitter.com/
2) Select the Get Started icon and complete with your details.
3) You can skip the page in which you search for friends. You can do this later.
4) Once you’ve created you twitter account, be sure to access Settings in order to add details such as your bio, then access the Notices to determine your reply settings and so on. Don’t forget to add your photo or any other picture. You can also eventually alter the design of your Twitter page.
5) All that’s left is to find people you’d like to twitter with and happy Twittering!

Getting started

The objective of this blog is to share with you some of my experiments and findings related to technology in the EFL classroom. I have a great interest in all things technological, but I must confess I'm not by nature a very tech savy person. But I can't help feeling there are so many tools we could start using effectively in the classroom that the idea of this blog arose as a way of showing other teachers that even less technologically-minded people can acutally use technological resources effectively and it's not too difficlt to pick things up if you have a go.

So one of the first things I'd like to share with you all is the great importance of trying things out for yourself. I decided to start off my experimentation by associating my Twitter account (http://twitter.com/)with my Facebook to see how the dynamics of this partnership happened. Funny thing Twitter! Who said it was only for media craving stars!!! The idea behind this micro-blogging social network is that your messages are limited to 140 characters - how perfect! It helps us to be concise, to the point and send pics, tweets, urls and other links quickly to whoever is following us. It can be informative, or a fun way to share thoughts, feelings etc.
Once you have your own Twitter account, as well as following your own friends and colleagues, how about following other EFL experts such as Jeremy Harmer (http://twitter.com/Harmerj) or Scott Thornbury (http://twitter.com/thornburyscott)?
The next few posts will look into pedagogical possibilities using Twitter.