flynn089

When Microsoft start giving stuff away for free, it always makes me curious, and when I spotted this free LCDS (Learning Content Development System) a while back I decided to download it and give it a try. If like me you've never had the patience (or the time and money) to really master a tool like Flash, but like the idea of creating interactive materials that can run online (SCORM compliant to run in an LMS), then this could be a handy tool for you. I spent the best part of a day working out how to use it and creating some materials with it for a teacher training session and by the end of the day I had two 'modules' each of 4 -5 different activity types combining images, audio, video and swf animation. Considering that I hadn't used this before and I had to actually write all the materials to put into it, I think that's pretty good for just one day, and having put the time into learning the program, I'm pretty sure that my next efforts will be much quicker. Wh...

For me, one of the main blocks to really developing online language learning courses has been the inability to supply real communicative speaking practice. VOIP software like Skype has certainly pushed the bounds of what is possible, as has the development of more effective web based video conferencing platforms, but in my opinion the biggest step towards making this possible has been the developments made in virtual worlds like There.com and Second Life which not only enable the use of voice, but can also help students to develop an understanding gesture and spatial relationships while speaking. For anyone interested in giving it a try, here are four basic tutorial videos to help you get started with how voice works in Second Life and how you can use it for pair and group work. Setting up voice This video shows you how to activate the voice client and make sure that the quality of your sound is good. It also shows you how to select the correct input and output devices for sound i...

Social networking is one of the key concepts that is driving Web 2.0 these days. With the opportunities social networks offer for collaboration and communication, this is certainly something we as educators should be thinking about being involved in. In this tutorial I'd like to show you how to create your own social network on Ning, just by following 7 steps. I've published these as a downloadable PDF with screen shots, so that you can print them up and follow them / share them. 7 steps to creating a social network>> (944k pdf) Perhaps though, more importantly it's worth thinking about some of the issues, and pros and cons surrounding the use of social networks. Some advantages of creating your own network. Control over the content You can make sure nobody posts anything inappropriate or irrelevant. Control of who joins and the ability to block or ban people You can protect your members, ban anyone who doesn't behave or just limit membership to people you want t...

Anyone who uses their whiteboard for ELT / EFL classes will know what a really useful teaching aid it can be, so how about using one with your distance learners? In Part 1 of this series on Skype plugins, I looked at how and where to find and install plugins for Skype and I also looked at how to use Pamela to record audio materials and interviews with Skype. In this posting I'd like to have a look at an online collaboration tool called Yugma which allows you to share files, share your desktop, make live presentations and have a shared online whiteboard all running along side your Skype application. This quick tutorial takes you through some of the basic features. You can download a version for your computer in Quick Time here . Or Open the tutorial in a new window here . How to use this with ELT / EFL students Well I think this is definitely a distance learning support tool rather than some thing to use in the classroom / multi media lab with students. It could be ideal...

Yes and why not? Seems hard to see how this would be accomplished but it certainly does seem to be the case at the Listen and Write - Dictation website. What's more it seems to have been done in a pretty impressive way too. This site features quite a number of audio files all of which can be accessed through quite a cleverly designed dictation activity. The users get to listen to parts of a sentence and they then have to type in the words of the sentence to a text field which only allows the words if they are correct. They are able to listen over and also get some help by setting the activity to auto complete the words as they type them in (cuts down on the frustration for EFL students of not being able to spell what you can hear). The other nice aspect of it is that you get a score as you go and so you can work against yourself to try to improve the score. But where's the Web 2.0 bit? Well anyone who registers can link to an audio file for use in the activities. As a register...