flynn089

I recently spotted this very interesting site called Vyou.com which exploits video to create asynchronous conversations. I find it interesting because of the simple way it creates presence. As you can see below, it looks like the person (me in this case) is waiting ready for your question. All visitors need to do is type a question into the text line below the video and the creator will get a message with the question and post a reply. You can try it if you wish by posting a question to me. I'm not sure yet how long it will take for me to answer though. This is very quick and easy to set up. You just go to the site and register for free, then once your registration is validated you record two short video clips. One is the one you can see above and another for unanswered questions. As questions are answered they appear below the 'waiting' video. It's also a bit like Twitter in that you can 'follow' people and build up a group of followers. These people all recei...

Back in November 2008 I published Part 1 of a series of articles intended to explore the use of WebCams in education. I have now finally got round to writing Part 2 which is a collection of 20 activities EFL ESL teachers can do with their students. Here are some links to useful free video communication tools that you could use for these activities. MailVu is a simple to use app which runs in the browser and enables students to record a short message which can be sent by email. EyeJot is another simple video email app which also has a mobile version. Skype is of course the mainstream choice for synchronous communication. Oovoo is a Skype competitor which also enables the recording of video interviews by capturing both interviewer and interviewee. I want this ebook 20 WebCam Activities 1. Chinese - video dictation - whispers - Use the video email feature to record a short text. Send it to the first of your students. Ask your student to write down the message and then record it thems...

This series of postings are the result of a training presentation I was asked to deliver for Moroccan teachers of English in Kinitra on 15th December 08. To prepare the session I looked back at many of the postings from my blogs over the last 18 months and thought about some of the changes that have been taking place in the way online video sharing has developed. I've split the materials from the session into four sections. Online Video: For Language Development Online Video: As Communication Online Video: As Knowledge Resource Online Video: Authentic Genres These are by no means conclusive. With the spread of broadband access the potential for education and for language teaching and development and autonomous teacher development is huge, but still as yet largely under exploited as the discussion that followed my session highlighted. Some of the potential problems we highlighted were: Inappropriate content Dead links Teacher preparation time Blocked sites Lack of connectivity Anywa...

Over the past couple of years online video communication has been transformed, not only price and quality, but in ease of use and accessibility. This tool has great potential for extending the reaches of our classroom and opening access to much better support for distance learners. Video conferencing Video conferencing was once a very difficult and expensive activity that required specific software, hardware and in many cases an expensive account with a service provider. You can now do video conferencing for free using software like Skype or free web-based services like Tokbox Tokbox doesn’t require any downloads. You just create a free account and then star connecting with other users. You can do this by sending them a link to a conference. Using Tokbox you can: Make live (synchronous) video calls from your computer either to one person or a small group. Record video messages (asynchronous) and send the by email Create a series of public broadcasts that anyone can access. Here is a v...

It's amazing how you can spend ages looking for something you want and then when you find it a whole bunch of other things come along with it. That seems to be the way things have happened for me with video conferencing. I found and posted about tokbox last week and then came Bubble Comment this week which I wrote about on my Quick Shout blog , and now Bubble Joy! Bubble Joy is a way of sending short (60 seconds) fun video messages to people. Click here to see the live video message (only good for the first 50 visitors) They have a selection of message cards and you just record your video message to go in the middle using a webcam and microphone. The whole thing is very quick and easy to do. So why use this with EFL / ESL students? It's good listening and speaking practice It's good fun and easy to do It's communicative It's creative It's free, easy to use, doesn't require registration Nice selection of cards So how do we use this with our ESL / EFL stud...

It's not often that you look at a product and think 'Ah! That's exactly what I've been looking for! And it's free!' But tokbox does seem to be that kind of product for me. For some time now I've been looking round for a suitable video conferencing type application and while there have been a few that look okay, like SnapYap which I reviewed a week or two back, when I saw tokbox this morning I realised that here was a video conferencing tool that had exactly what I wanted and a bit more. Here's a quick video demo of what it can do. To view the demo in a new window click here (3mins - 3.5Mb) Download the demo as Quicktime movie (5Mb) Download the movie for i-pod (7Mb) So what do I like about it? It's free and doesn't require any downloads. I was registered and signed in without disclosing any personal information (apart from email address) within less than 3 mins of finding the site! It has a range of ways to communicate including group v...