flynn089

Recently, I have been asked quite  few times about IWBs and which ones are best etc. My usual answer is 'none' and then I have to explain, so I thought, instead of explaining I would write this post so that I could point people towards each time they ask. So this is my classroom set up of preference and these are the key components. 1. Data projector - I'm not really bothered which one as long as it produces a good screen resolution (There's a reasonable article here on how to choose one: How to Buy a Projector ) 2. A Laptop - My preference here is for a MacBook, but I can understand why some people find that extravagant and don't feel they are worth the extra financial outlay. Personally, I think they are worth the extra money, because they work faster and so save time (the most valuable commodity we have) and because they are pretty durable(The Apple products I've owned have lasted at least twice as long as their PC counterparts I've had and are still go...

If you enjoy working with images with your EFL students, especially on an IWB (interactive whiteboard) or a data projector, then PicLens is exactly what you need. PicLens is a plugin (small program) that works within your web browser (there are versions for Firefox, Safari and IE 7) and it converts many of the standard image sharing websites, like flickr , Photobucket , Google Images , Yahoo Images etc. into "3D immersive environments"! To understand what that mean have a look at this short flash video tutorial which shows how to use PicLens. Click here or on the image to view the movie (5Mb Flash) OR Download a version of this movie for i-pod / i-tunes here At the click of the mouse the normal 2D web pages are converted into a wall of images which you can explore and enlarge. How to use this with ELT students on your data projector or IWB Pull up a wall of images and describe one while your students try to guess which one it is. Then get a student to describe an image an...

Love them or hate them, you have to admit that Google does offer us all manner of useful free tools. One of my favourites is Google Maps, especially useful on my odd trips to London (when I never seem to be able to remember my A-Z!) So, I've been thinking about how we could use this 'real world' tool to help our EFL students and to develop their abilities to give and understand directions. It's actually quite simple to use. You just go to http://maps.google.co.uk/ or http://maps.google.com/ Click on 'Get Directions' and then enter your start point and destination. Click the Google logo below for a quick video tutorial that shows some of the features. Click for flash video tutorial (1.4 Mb) So how can we use this with students? Choose a location and destination and get Google Maps to create your directions, then print up a map of London with the two destinations on and ask your students to mark the route on the map. A variation on this would be to have the ma...

This is a really handy little tool which is doing the rounds at the moment. It's called CuePrompter and it's an online Teleprompter. For those not in the know, a Teleprompter is a tool used by news readers, TV presenters etc to help them remember their lines. They read it from above the camera. This one is very simple to use and you simply cut and paste your text into the field, choose screen size, text size and colours and click a button and you are off. Once you have your text up on the screen you can then choose the speed that the text moves at and also do a few interesting things like having the text reverse or having the text as a mirror image! This video shows you how it is done How to use this with students This could be really useful to push your students reading speed and gist reading. Many students find it very difficult not to focus on every word of a text and get stuck when words come up that they don't know. With a tool like this, you can literally force the...