flynn089

I've just discovered Wordle , which is a really useful site for creating word clouds. The word clouds are created by entering either a text, URL or del.icio.us user name into a field. The site then generates a word cloud based on the frequency of key words in the text or webpage. Here's what a word cloud based on the URL of this blog looks like. The word clouds are really easy to create and can be printed up for classroom use or saved to a gallery on line. To see how this is done watch the tutorial movie below. How to create a Wordle word cloud You can download a higher quality Quicktime version here (Right click and the 'Save as') Or download for i-pod / i-Tunes here How to use this with EFL ESL students This is a wonderful flexible tool to use with students. Revision of texts - You can paste in short texts that your students have studied recently. Show them the word cloud and see if they can remember what the text was about and how the words were used within the tex...

Phrasr is an interesting new website that allows users to input sentences, phrases or even entire paragraphs and then turn them into illustrated slide shows using Flickr images. All you have to do is type in your phrase and click, you then get an image for each word. If you don't like the image you get then you can change them and when you are ready you just give your work a name and title a click to publish. What you then get is like a slide show of images with words. Here's an example of what it produces. This one is based on the old expression; "You can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink" Here's another based on the first verse of a Shakespeare sonnet (130) Sonnet 130 Once you have created your picture phrase you can either send it to a friend by email or go to the archive and find it to copy the URL. If you want to see just how quick and easy it is to create these then watch this short Flash tutorial movie (800k) How to use this with students...

I've just been looking at a useful websites called Gifup that enables users to quickly and easily create animated gifs / image sequences like the one below. This seems to me a like a really useful way of revising and teaching vocabulary. What are the sports? This is a gif that I created to revise some sport vocabulary. It took about 3 mins to make using images from Flickr. Here's a tutorial movie showing how I made it . (1.2Mb swf) It was very simple and just involved searching around my key topic and selecting a few images. Then a couple of clicks and the site generated my gif and gave me an 'embed code' to add it to the site. (See my previous tutorial to find out how to embed images and video into webpages on your desktop) How to use this with students Collect up gifs related to any vocabulary area you want to teach or revise. Embed them in an html page on your desk top and start a collection. Each time you add new ones send the html page to your students. (They will...

This is a really nice tool that I have just discovered. It's called PhotoSoup and it generates wordsearch activities based on any topic in just seconds. It's very simple and works on images from flickr . You simply type in your topic and the site automatically generates a word grid and image clues. You then have 90 seconds to find all the words. You can get hints and even get it to show you the answers. Watch a short video to see how it's done . (499k swf) How to use it with students This is great for vocabulary revision, especially with higher levels. Students could even learn some new vocabulary from it. It would look great on an interactive whiteboard (IWB) or you could give students a collection of vocabulary themes and get them to work on their own. Good to use as a filler for students who finish early What I like about it It's free Each wordsearch it generates is pretty much unique The timing adds an element of motivation and competition to it It's just so s...

With the growth in interest in mobile learning and the ubiquitous nature of the i-pod among our younger (and increasingly older) students this piece of software looks like a really useful tool we can use to extend learning beyond the classroom. The software I’m referring to is I-Quiz Maker . You can download I-Quiz Maker for free at: http://www.iquizmaker.com/ Once you’ve installed it you can make quizzes using either True / False question types or Multiple Choice questions. The quizzes a very simple to make and you can make as many questions as you like and as many quizzes, as you like. This demo tutorial shows you how to create the quiz This looks like a really useful tool to: help revise and develop your students vocabulary. You can write a vocabulary quiz and up- date it each week with new words that your students have learned get the students to create quizzes for each other and share them set up revision exercises Although there is a bit of work involved in creating the quizzes,...