MailVU- Speak up and Show yourself in English

http://www.mailvu.com/ 

What is it about?                                                                    

Click, record, and sent. With the three simple steps, a webcam, and a microphone, you can record your own video and share it with your friends through e-mail. It's not specifically designed for language learning. You can use it to record your greeting to say hello to your friends far away. However, it is indeed a good tool that can be used in language learning and teaching. 

Why is it good to language learning?                                     

Language learners can use mailVU to practice English speaking skills. The feature that it's easy to sent the video file through e-mail creates more interaction between teachers and students after school. Students can also practice what they want to record again and again until they are satisfied with it. It's also an excellent tool for distance learning.

How can it be used?                                                               

For teachers:

1. We can use mailVU to record short weekly lesson to our students, just like a video podcast. Students can both learn language knowledge and practice listening skills.
2. We can use it to give comments to students' work or presentation if there is no time in class.
3. We can answer students' question through mailVU in distance learning or virtual classrooms. 

For students:

1. Different kinds of speaking activities can be designed for students to complete through mailVU, like show and tell, story telling, or introducing a friend or a family member. Students can show the things they want to talk about, the picture book, or the person in front of the webcam. Students can complete the task at their own pace and feel more confident to speak English since they can always do it again. It raises students' confidence and also learning autonomy.
2. Students can also be asked to do an interview with their classmates or practice broadcasting a piece of news, record it, and sent it to the teacher.
3. With movable webcam, students can even record a short play as a team and share their work with friends.
4. Singing English songs is usually used in class to motivate students to learn and also help their pronunciation. Teachers might ask students to sing a complete English song as a task. MailVU can help shy students to sing aloud without worrying that they need to sing in front of the peers.
5. Teachers can also ask students to keep a reading diary through talking and recording the summary and their feedback. 
6. Students can even take turns recording their own weekly video podcast for other classmates to listen.

More Information                                                                   

• Russell mentioned mailVU when he was interviewed at IATEL about the Connected Classroom.  http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2012/sessions/2012-03-21/interview-russel-stannard

Bubblr and Bookr – Tell Stories with Photos

Bubblr

Bookr

What is it about?                                                                    

• Both Bubblr and Bookr are projects based on the images from Flickr. Flickr is a website providing people space to upload and share their photos. People can tag or label their photos. Some photos are shared as copyright-free when used for non-profit purposes.
• Using key words to search for the needed Flickr images, users can create their own photo strips with words in bubbles on Bubblr, and photo books with stories on Bookr.

Why is it good to language learning?                                     

1. Language learners can be motivated to read the English photo strips or photo books.
2. By creating their own English photo strips or photo books, language learners can practice writing monologues, dialogues, sentences or paragraphs.
3. In Taiwanese College Entrance Exam, students are asked to write a story based on a comic strip containing four pictures. Bubblr and Bookr are good tools to create similar writing tasks for students to practice writing a story.
4. Students can share their Bubblr or Bookr works on blog, and they can get peer-feedback, which can give them a sense of achievement.

How can it be used?                                                               

1. We can use Bubblr or Bookr to introduce a topic, a grammar rules, or a sentence pattern. With the images as visual aids, learners can be motivated to learn,  understand the concepts easily, or memorize the rules for a longer period of time. Here is an example from the archives. A teacher created a strips to teach prefix and suffix.
  Example1
2. We can also use these two tools to make vocabulary cards or mini picture dictionary to help learners memorize the new words.
3. By using Bubblr or Bookr to create comic strips or story books, learners can practice their English writing skills. Here is an example from the archives. The user used Elmo as the main character to create a story.                                                                                                                                        
  Example2
4. We can also ask students to use Bubblr or Bookr to do a presentation, like introducing the traditions of a holiday from their own country, promoting a trip to a place, or introducing their own city, their favorite singers, etc. One work from the archives shows the St. Patrick's Day in Ireland.
5. After getting feedbacks on their works, the learners can recycle their strips on Bubblr, correct the mistakes, and then publish a new version.

What are the limitations?                                                      

• Though the photos provide visual aids to motivate learners and the photos are tagged, sometimes it takes a long time to find the photos related to the specific topic. Without enough instructions, learners might spend too much time searching for photos that fit their needs and forget to focus on the language they should learn and practice. 
• There are some works that are not appropriate for young learners or teenagers  in the archives. 

TodaysMeet- An Interactive Space

http://todaysmeet.com/

What is it about?                                                                    

• TodaysMeet is a virtual room for people to share their opinions, discuss, ask questions and give feedbacks. The host/ presenter/ teacher can create a room and all the participants can spontaneously post their ideas in the room. It creates an interactive community.

Why is it good to language learning?                                     

1. It provides an interactive and cooperative space for language learners to use the target language to communicate. When brainstorming, students can discuss and build up the ideas together through TodaysMeet. There is interaction between students and the teacher, and also among students.
2. It creates a friendly learning environment. By using this space, teachers can show their willingness to hear opinions or feedback from students. The students who are too shy to speak up in font of the whole class can express their thoughts through typing words.
3. It breaks the limitation of space. It can be used in long-distance classes or a joint class connecting two classes from two different countries.

How can it be used?                                                               

• In class

1. In writing class, it can be used to help students to brainstorm their ideas or collecting relevant vocabulary they want to use in their writing. Students can also do cooperative writing in the virtual room. They can make up a story by taking turns to write a sentence.
2. It can be used as a tool to check students’ reading comprehension by questions and answers.
3. It is also a good tool to review the vocabulary. Students need spelling skills to type the vocabulary.
4. At the end of the class, students can review and share what the main points they learned today.

• Outside class

1. Students at home can have group discussion in the virtual room after class. The teacher can also join in the discussion or give them suggestions.
2. Students from classes in different countries can have interaction in this virtual room. Teachers can set up discussion topics and students can use target language to exchange their ideas involving different cultures.

What are the limitations?                                                      

1. When using the virtual room in discussion or brainstorm, students might neglect or ignore other people’s ideas because the information flow is so fast. New ideas keep coming out and some overlapping or repeated opinions might occur. A host is still needed to organize and list the ideas.
2. Some students might keep silent and not involve in the discussion.