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Contents contributed and discussions participated by Dan Isbell

Dan Isbell

ESL with Renaud - 1 views

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    This is the blog of a EFL teacher in Japan who has a technology focus. He introduces some pretty good CALL tools and also provides some lesson/activity ideas and resources that you can use yourself. He's got some really interesting ways of using video and shows off some neat things with a WiiMote.
Dan Isbell

A teacher's complete guide to using Google Voice to collect classwork and homework - 2 views

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    This blog post describes how to set up Google Voice for students to use in classroom assignments or homework. It's a very low tech demand on students; all they need is a phone. The teacher would have easy, computer access to a virtual voicemail archive of all the student messages. It's probably easier than using VoxoPop and seems like it would be pretty easy to make spoken homework assignments a reality, plus there are probably some neat in-class applications as well.
Dan Isbell

Using corpora to (in)validate claims about idioms - 0 views

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    Found this interesting blog post about how you can pretty easily use corpora to validate claims about idiom frequency. I think this could be a useful technique for evaluating certain kinds of textbooks as well as selecting fixed expressions for your own teaching content/materials.
Dan Isbell

elllo - 1 views

shared by Dan Isbell on 26 Jan 13 - Cached
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    "Learn real English language from English speakers around the world on elllo with free listening, reading, and vocabulary activities and downloads." Elllo is a library of over 1200 ESL listening passages. One really nice feature of the site is representation of many varieties of World Englishes (Inner, Outer, and Expanding Circle speakers are featured). The site is fairly low-frills, but I find that to be a good thing- it's very easy to go directly to what you want and use a listening passage for your own purposes. I wrote a longer evaluation for my CALL blog this week, which you can find here: http://dancallblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/evaluating-call-resources.html
Dan Isbell

Using Cellphones in the Classroom - 1 views

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    This is an excerpt from an International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE) publication that shares some case studies and a lesson plan for employing cellphones in the classroom. Students use texting, blogging, QR codes, and call into a Talk Radio style voice blog (podcast/webcast kind of thing).
Dan Isbell

Wikipedia - 1 views

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    Simple English Wiki is in the same format of the Wikipedia we know and love, but entries are written in a somewhat simplified manner, making them more accessible to ELLs. It also encourages article creation and editing, without the much higher linguistic/stylistic standards of the mainstream Wiki. I've recommended this to ELLs before as a resource, and I've modeled searches on it in class to show that they really can digest the material.
Dan Isbell

Learn something new every day - Memrise - 1 views

shared by Dan Isbell on 24 Jan 13 - No Cached
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    Memrise is a site similar to Quizlet. For language learning, you can build vocabulary decks and then the site gives you a variety of quiz-type activities to review them. There is some multimedia support (pictures, and sound, if I remember right). It uses a metaphorical "garden" for you to track your progress with each item. An instructor (or individual) can compose a custom deck and share it with students. Also, students (or any other learner) can add information to the vocab item- more definitions, mnenomics, example sentences, etc. I haven't had the chance to use it with a class, but I've played with it for my own language learning. Like most flash card type schemes, if you can make it a habit, it seems to be effective.
Dan Isbell

BarryFunEnglish | Fun ESL Classroom Games, Custom Worksheets, Printable Flashcards, and... - 1 views

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    BarryFunEnglish is a site aimed at ESL/EFL for younger learners. It has a good number of boardgame style games that can be quickly set up and customized- this is the chief advantage for using the site over a traditional version of Monopoly or Battleship. Coupled with a large display (i.e. projector, large TV), classes of up to ~12 students can be included in playing the game without too much downtime for any one student or team. You can set up custom vocab lists, but it's limited to the vocab items in the site's database, so you're mostly limited to beginner level English. Having used this at my past job teaching young EFL learners, I will say that it can be tempting to use it as a crutch- don't just play a game for the sake of playing a game, or killing time. I'd also recommend varying the games you use and definitely make use of the customizable vocab lists. Still, a huge part of being a child is playing games with other children, and linguistically, that means game playing can help develop a lot of the meta-language that children use for games.
Dan Isbell

AnkiDroid Flashcards - Android Apps on Google Play - 0 views

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    "Memorize anything with AnkiDroid! HELP FOR UPGRADING FROM 1.x: https://code.google.com/p/ankidroid/wiki/Upgrading AnkiDroid lets you learn flashcards very efficiently by showing them just before you will forget. It is fully compatible with the spaced repetition software Anki (including synchronization), which is available for Windows, Linux and MacOS. Study all sorts of things wherever and whenever you want." Many of you may have seen an Anki icon on your desktop in the PIE or another place on campus, but it's definitely worth noting that there's a mobile app that works very well. I'm an Android user so I've posted a direct link to the app there, but it is also on iOS. What's really nice about AnkiDroid is that you can create decks of flashcards (with some nice bells and whistles, including sound, if you choose) on your desktop/laptop, which is a little more convenient, and then download the deck on your mobile device. An instructor can make a deck for a class (or an institution) and any student with the mobile app and the name of the deck can find it and download it. I've personally used AnkiDroid for learning Korean, independently as well as creating decks to supplement a class I was taking. I feel like the mobile app works better for reviewing cards than the desktop program, because reviewing flashcards fits in those perfect little chunks of free time when you're riding the bus/subway or waiting for class to start, and these days you (or students) will always have your phone with you, but probably won't always have your desktop with you at those times.
Dan Isbell

JeopardyLabs - Online Jeopardy Template - 0 views

shared by Dan Isbell on 22 Jan 13 - No Cached
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    "Create your own jeopardy template online, without PowerPoint. Or browse the pre-made templates created by other people!" This is a handy site that allows you to build custom Jeopardy games, and it's all hosted online. I personally used this when teaching EFL young adult literature and it made for some really nice review games. Also, a lot of user generated content is publicly available, so if you happen to use a popular piece of literature, there might be something pre-made that you can use on short notice. It's also very easy to share content you create with coworkers or reuse it the next time you teach the course. Jeopardylabs is 100% free, and you can certainly do more than novel review themed games with it.
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