Tech ELT Blog

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Ask your learners what they think

Another of the quotations I used in my IH Barcelona ELT Conference talk last week…

The "quotations" I collect have come from a huge variety of sources, and are by no means all from famous people.

This particular one came from a workshop I did many years ago in which we were talking about working with teenagers. One of the tasks I asked those attending to do was to brainstorm a list of things teens like, making the items as specific as possible (so, for example [...]

Which Web 2.0 tools should you use?

Wordled: What I want from the Web 2.0 tools my learners use

Hi and welcome to my blog to those of you who came to my session on Web 2.0 tools at the Macmillan Teachers' Day in Murcia (April 1).

There are countless Web 2.0 tools around; but, for lack of time, any given teacher can only be using a small proportion of an ever-growing list of names.

But which are the best ones to try out with your learners? I like any tool my learner use to meet most if [...]

Ninging, FBing, Jamendoeing or disappearing… What?!

Here's an opinion expressed I-don't-actually-remember-when, or by who, on the Dogme discussion group:

The horseshoe makers have all but disappeared along with the typists, telegraph senders, row boat men and red wax makers.

Teachers who aren't downloading, podcasting, communicating, blogging, tweeting, buzzing, ninging, FBing, jamendoeing, waving, creativecommonscreating, linking, viewing, exchanging, building avatars with their students will all go the same way, and well, probably, really quite quietly.

Surely that can't be right…?

Related posts: A fun, creative activity: Drawing photos An introduction to social media Linking with another school

The social media revolution

One of those videos that prove to be astonishing successes on YouTube…

Should we be worried, as teachers? Possibly, if we can't think of ways that will harness the revolution — and in ways that will still lead to learning.

See also The (unstoppable) progression of IT

Related posts: A social activity for Halloween An introduction to social media Ken Lee on Bulgarian Music Idol

Cool, Web 2.0 tools

One I picked up in my RSS feed from the excellent TeachingEnglish.co.uk site: an amazing collection of Cool, Web 2.0 tools for schools.

From the same source, another interesting link suggesting a Top 10 Web 2.0 Tools for Young Learners.

Related posts: Which Web 2.0 tools should you use? Great new things from a great ELT site Why is blogging (not) so cool and innovative?

50 Web 2.0 Ways To Tell a Story

Another link, suggested by Ana Falcon, that came to my mailbox in the ELTECS Latin America news list — 50 Web 2.0 Ways To Tell a Story.

I think storytelling — getting your learners to write stories, to tell multimedia stories — is one of the most interesting things you can do in a language class. Apart from the obvious opportunities for learning and using language that such a project provides, it's the creating things aspect of it that attracts me — and it's one of the best possible uses we can make of technology, as it takes much fuller [...]

Will new technology get adopted?

One of my favourite technology blogs is Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk Blog.

From my Blue Skunk RSS feed [explanation] this morning, this chart enabling you to work out the probability that technology will get adopted large scale.

Doug asks, "What are the chances of large scale adoption of (…) Second Life?"

I make that low…!

Related posts: It's not about entertainment, it's about engagement Technology: it's all a question of (the teacher's) attitude Technology lesson planning 101

Web 2.0, Web 3.0…

The term "Web 2.0" gets bandied around a lot these days. It refers to things like blogs and wikis… For a fuller definition, this article on oreillynet.com explains What is web 2.0?

But Web 2.0 isn't in fact so cool any longer, as we now have Web 3.0 as well. PC Mag explains What is web 3.0?

Web 3.0 would include things like Second Life (a virtual world). On the Second Life Educators List, Gary Hayes had a neat explanation of it: To me, evolution of the web order can be defined in single sentences:

1.0 the pushed, one way [...]