NAU CALL

I found this article on NEA's website (which I recommend on it's own). The topic is using social media to enhance the classroom. We've talked about most of the technology in here, but the applications of the resources are focused to younger learners and flipped classrooms. Google Docs are used with middle schoolers to prevent them losing track of the documents. Google forms are used to speed up quiz grading, and cell phones are used to help facilitate meaningful (and safe) field trips. If you are considering a K-12 career, this article might help you be on the cutting edge in interviews and in the classroom. Finally, at the end of the article, you'll find links to other online technologies to try. Happy tech-ing!

This platform allows teachers and students to link relevant information, including images and webpages, to virtual images to enhance memory and increase recall.

The peg system is a technique for memory improvement in which you associate words, phrases, really anything with already familiar items.

Soundcloud is a website where students and teachers can upload their audio files for others to listen to online. The best part is that people can leave comments at specific points in the recording that pop up as the recording is played. This way students are able to get precise feedback and encouragement at the exact moment something happens.

The list contains 570 word families which were selected according to principles. The list does not include words that are in the most frequent 2000 words of English. The AWL was primarily made so that it could be used by teachers as part of a programme preparing learners for tertiary level study or used by students working alone to learn the words most needed to study at tertiary institutions. The Academic Word List replaces the University Word List.

BITC is a system for collecting interlinear texts and is especially designed for group collaboration.

If anyone's interested, you can watch sessions from this year's IATEFL conference (which begins next week) live.

I'm not sure if anyone has posted this already (so forgive me if this is a repeat!), but basically Tumblr is like a blog hybrid that allows you post just about anything (as the site states: "Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos from your browser, phone, desktop, email or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colors to your theme's HTML."). The site is very creativity-oriented, and seems like a potentially very useful online resource for students to express themselves creatively, to write and publish for a real audience, to gain exposure to cultural dimensions of the target speech community, and to enhance their digital literacy.

This is a corpus of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). The texts come from spoken interactions between nonnative speakers of English in ELF contexts (i.e., when speakers from different L1 backgrounds must use English in order to communicate).

This is similar to Skype, but less expensive to use. You can video chat with up to 12 people at the same time for FREE. Nour

This is a great website for finding games for your ESL students! Enjoy, Nour

Hello Guys, I do not know if you remember Dr. Stoller mentioning this website in class. This is a great tool for a project-based learning. Enjoy! Nour

This website is built by a Spanish teacher at NAU. Her idea is to have many authentic video clips that show how native speakers speak.

This course you must pay for, but it uses mind mapping to associate language with pictures for easy recall.

This website helps people to remember, or rather not forget language through a process of being reminded at different stages rather than through daily repetition.

Much like Super Memo, Memory Lifter has learners put information in "boxes" that are to be opened at different stages so that the information has a chance to sink into deep memory rather than surface memory. It is free.

This is super cute! Definitely a K-12 resource.  So, with Class Dojo, the teacher projects a class of little monsters on the screen. Each one corresponds to a student. The teacher can give praise (a +1) on screen for being on task, participating, or other positive things. On the flip side, the teacher can also give corrective feedback that displays a -1 by the student's monster. This program also allows the teacher to take attendance, create student behavior reports, and share student reports with parents. Another great feature is the random button, in which one student's monster is selected. This could be great for calling on students to answer questions. I think this would be really motivating for students because it's like a mirror that the whole class can see. However, I can see it being a big adjustment for teachers at first. It might also damage students' face to be reprimanded on screen. I like how this application focuses on behavior, rather than linguistic ability. I think some students benefit from additional feedback on their behavior.

This is a fun little program to aid in classroom management by using a computer microphone to detect the volume in the classroom. If you have a particularly noisy room, the bouncy balls will go crazy, which will clue students in to their noise level. I think this would be fun for K-12 or maybe preschool. I think it might be odd for adults, unless you have a really quiet group and you want them to be louder. They could try to make the balls bounce by using louder voices.

This site, though the interface is about as awesome as Compleat Lexical Tutor, provides a simple self-study tool for academically-oriented students. This resource is appropriate for TOEFL and IELTS preparation, as well as advanced IEP courses. The benefits of this website are the inclusion of a pronunciation and definition for each word, as well as gap-fill exercises to practice using each word in context. The major limitation of this site is that the exercises are only gap-fill.

This site provides a wealth of information about technology for classroom use, as well as current discussions about technology and resources for teachers. I think K-12 teachers should subscribe to the newsletter to stay informed about what's going on in the field. I've been skimming the site, and so far, I've come across interesting research about the use of games in the classroom, as well as serving diverse populations, like special Ed through technology. The strength of this site is it's breadth of topics, but the weakness appears to be the amount of time sorting through everything to find what you want.