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

JING- Generate More Interactions

http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html

What is it about?                                                                    

• Jing is a scree-capture tool, which capture what you do on the screen and also can record your voice at the same time. The most important feature of Jing is that it helps us to store and share the recordings fast and easily. 
• Just click some buttons and you can start your recordings. Your recordings will be stored in your file on the Internet, which won't take the space of your personal computer. You can send your work to anyone by e-mail, and the receiver will get a link to your work.
• It provides us a chance to have a revolutionary change on the way of giving feedback. With Jing, we can give students oral feedback easily. 

Why is it good to language learning?                                     

• In terms of giving feedback by using Jing, teachers can highlight the words or sentences, point out the part they want to comment on, and give and record  the oral feedback. By recording the oral feedback, the amount of suggestion will be much more than the written feedback, the teachers can explain more details, give examples, elaborate their comments, and students can go back to listen to the  comments again and again until they understand.
• It can be used in long-distance teaching and learning. Using Jing, students can ask questions in a more clear way by pointing out the sentences in the text, and teachers can give response right away.
• When recording an oral assignment by Jing, students can redo their work again and again until they are satisfied with their outcome, which give them more chance to practice.

How can it be used?                                                              
For teachers:

• Teachers can use Jing to give students feedback on their composition. Recording oral feedback can include more details and examples, and students can listen to the feedback several times.
• Teachers can use Jing to record the explanation of some questions asked by the individual student and share them with all other students who might have the same question. The question and the points can be shown on the screen.
• After a group presentation, teachers can give group feedback by Jing and email it to all the group members. Teachers can lists both the good part and the part needed to be improved in a Word file and show on the screen.
• Teachers can record what they want students to do before next class as a reminder, which is also an authentic listening material.
• Teachers can videotape students' presentation in class, play it on the screen, comment on it, and use Jing to record their presentation and the teacher's comment at the same time.

For students:

• We can ask students to open a movie trailer on YouTube, mute the trailer, and they create their own voice-over, and record them by Jing as an oral practice. A clip from a movie is also an option. With the same clip, students can recreate different stories.  
• Students can also mute a basketball or soccer game and give commentary by themselves.
• As the function provided by MyBrainShark, students can also record their PowerPoint presentation. It gives students chance to practice and record again and again until they present a satisfying one. 

What are the limitations?                                                     

• If it's a free version, there is a 5-minute length limitation for one Jing recording. However, we can separate one long recording into several short ones.
• Though Jing provides a lot of chances for students to do practice and activities outside the classroom, and a lot of practice time can be saved in class, teachers might also need to spend more time after work to evaluate students' performance. 
• Some students might be used to written feedback and might not accept oral feedback at first. In terms of this condition, we can give them both oral feedback and some written points.  

More Information about Jing                                                

• An on-line training video about Jing. (From Russell's website)  http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/jingInReality/index.html
• A New Direction in Feedback (An article written by Russell) http://www.hltmag.co.uk/dec08/mart04.htm

myBrainshark- Powerpoint with your own voice.

Here is my self-introduction done by using myBrainshark. It's a good way for students to practice their oral and presentation skills.



http://www.brainshark.com/mybrainshark

What is it about?                                                                   

It's a website to help you create an online and mobile video presentations. The special feature is that you can upload documents, PowerPoint files, pictures, videos, etc, and then add your voice in them to become a presentation with your own voice. The file is easy to share and can be embedded in blogs. You can even track the viewings of your files.

Why is it good to language learning?                                    

• Files created by myBrainshark are easy to access. If it's a presentation from teachers, students can review the content anytime anywhere.
• It's a great tool to help students to improve their speaking skills and presentation skills. 
• It  gives students chance to practice English outside classroom and promote learning autonomy.
• The possible authentic audience can increase students' motivation to refine the presentation.

How can it be used?                                                             

• We teachers can use it to produce some extensive learning materials, lectures for remedy learning, or feedback to students' work. Just share the file and students can view the content. It's also quite useful for distant learning.
• Students can have different tasks related to speaking skills by using myBrainshark to complete. It improves students' learning autonomy because they can complete the task based on their own pace and  make it as good as they want. Students who are nervous and shy to speak English in front of the classmates also have a chance to practice.
• Tasks like presenting a tourist attraction, describing a picture, telling a story, sharing a topic, etc, can be included.
• Students can embed their speaking tasks done by myBrainshark in their blogs, and as a learning portfolio, which helps students to see their progress.

What are the limitations?                                                      

• Each recording is limited in 15 minutes for the free version.
• The files can be viewed and shared online but can't be downloaded.