NAU CALL

Wow, this is the clearinghouse for information regarding CALL teacher training. Many good links and interesting information!

My blurb: If you find yourself in the position of teaching basic computer skills, this site is an excellent resource. They have instructional videos on computer basics, like operating a mouse or using a keyboard. The videos can be played with or without subtitles, and include games to practice your newly learned skills. There are four courses: the Webwise Online course, Internet Basics, Computer Basics, and Social Media Basics. There is also a glossary of common computer terms. This is really a very practical website! Their blurb: Online courses on computer basics, internet basics and the 10 hour WebWise Online Course

My blurb: Teacher training videos, for your ongoing professional development. These videos seems to be geared towards K-12 education and are on a variety of subjects. However, there are 391 videos about teaching English, some of those are TESL specific (I noted at least 3 on teaching Listening and Speaking skills). They also have 108 videos on teaching Modern Languages (mostly French and Spanish). Also, they have ideas for using technology in the classroom, under the "ICT" subject. For instance, they have a "Using web-based software to enhance speaking skills" video, and a "Flip Video Cameras" video. Their blurb: Education video resources, lesson plans, inspiration and ideas to use in classroom. Professional development, CPD and training for everyone working in schools.

Want to learn French cooking, while learning French? Forget Julia Child! Go to the Digital Kitchen. This is a task-based learning "ambient kitchen." A computer gives cooking directions in French, and you try to follow them. All the cooking utensils are embedded with Wii-type movement sensor technology, so if the instructions are to stir with a spoon, the computer can tell if you have completed the action correctly. If you leave the oven on too long, the computer can give you feedback. I think this is absolutely crazy technology that could (with a lot of money) be applied to other areas of language teaching. Watch the video on the website. I think you will be impressed. I was.

My blurb: This looks like an easy way to make a screencast. You can then upload the screencasts to twitter, facebook, youtube or your own site. Their blurb: Screenr | Instant screencasts: Just click record. Screenr's web-based screen recorder makes it a breeze to create and share your screencasts around the web. Just click the record button, capture your screen & voice, and share the link. Some people even call it fun!

My blurb: I checked out this site based on Heidi Wright's recommendation. You do have to pay for a subscription, unfortunately, but the newspaper is very readable, the layout is nice, and it comes with teacher resources and activities. Heidi's blurb: I have just finished a research project on a ESOL suitable newspaper called Newsademic. I send my PPT to the company and they sent me a free subscription. They also sent me a link to pass on to friends so they can get a free two month subscription. For those of you beginning to teach or those going overseas, it is cool. The newspaper, which is written for 9-16 year old native English speakers, works with intermediate level and above (we have used articles in level 4 at PIE ) and covers lots of current international topics. No pop culture and intentionally balanced opinions. British or American edition available for spelling. The newspaper comes with two sets of exercises and is delivered every two weeks. The Flesch-Kincaid level runs from 6-11 with an average of 8.3 and the Lexile level runs from 860 to 1150 with an average of about 950-1020. You can make as many copies for your school as you want. To buy a year subscription is $32. Their blurb: Newsademic - a Children's newspaper used for educational resources, home schooling and English study

"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

When I taught Listening and Speaking, I found ello.org to be a really good source for listening passages about all kinds of subjects.

My blurb: How do you use QR codes when students have limited online access? Did you know you can use QR codes offline? This website explains how to use a text feature that requires no online access. I thought this was an interesting option when working in classrooms where students may have varying access to technology. Their blurb: Smartphones during EFL classes? How can that be productive? Raquel Gonzaga is a blog writer in the field of technology resources for ELT classrooms. In this post, she considers how QR codes can be used to involve and motivate students in the EFL classroom.

Wondering how to structure a Digital Storytelling class? Trying to figure out what kinds of assignments to give your students? This website is for an ESL Digital Storytelling class at Mira Costa Community College in Oceanside, CA. The course is described, and activity descriptions are provided for each Digital Storytelling project for during a 9 week course (click on the link for Handout under the designated weeks). There are also handouts and instructions for how to use Audacity and Movie Maker. Looking for free images or music online? A nice list of links is on the left side of the screen. I think this is an excellent reference website if you ever plan on designing a Digital Storytelling course for ESL students.

Here's my blurb: If you decide to do a Digital Storytelling project in your ESL class, how do you go about evaluating it? What kind of rubrics do you use? This site discusses 16 types of communication (or genres) and 9 traits for scoring. It provides example rubrics. In fact, it provides a pretty neat rubric customization tool. There are suggestions and sample lesson plans for both formal and informal evaluation, and peer review activities. Quite nice! The resources section contains lots of PDFs about incorporating digital stories into the curriculum. Here's their blurb: DigiTales.us provides ideas, resources and inspiration for families, individuals, schools, organizations, corporations, churches and everyone else ready to discover the power and magic of merging the art of storytelling with the enchantment of using digital tools.

Here's my blurb: This website, hosted by the University of Houston, explores the educational uses of digital storytelling. The site contains practical information regarding different digital storytelling programs, and provides "how to" activities for writing scripts, designing storyboards, and recording audio. There is also lesson planning information, copyright information, and a discussion of rubrics for assessment and evaluation. Here's there blurb: About this Site The Goals of this Website The primary goal of the Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling website is to serve as a useful resource for educators and students who are interested in how digital storytelling can be integrated into a variety of educational activities.

If you do a digital storytelling project with your students, the Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling site linked to a contest for K-12 students to submit their stories and win cool awards such as iPods and has contests for the best stories, and your students could potentially win awards, such as iPod Minis and iPod Nanos, and scholarships up to $8000. Pretty cool motivator, don't you think? Here's the link: http://www.distco.org/

The Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS) is an organization that helps people create short, first-person narratives that educate and/or inspire positive change. The organization hosts a number of workshops on digital storytelling, and distributes stories in a number of traditional and media formats. The website provides information about the organization's mission, features selected digital stories, and connects to a textbook, blog, and newsletter. If you plan to include digital storytelling you your classroom, whether ESL or any other type of class, the CDC looks like a great resource. I was able to review portions of the textbook, and it looks great!

This 50 page article, which was referenced in DuBravac (2013), provides a very thorough overview of corpus linguistics and concordancing for language classes. There is a ton of very relevant and practical information here! This link defaults to a section providing sample classroom corpus activities. My favorite uses a corpus for Tennyson's poem Mariana as a way to engage in literary analysis! Corpus Linguistics, which is dealt with by Tony McEnery & Andrew Wilson inModule 3.4. Section 2.2 of this module includes a brief introduction to corpus linguistics.

This is a MOOC run by PUC-SP (The Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo, Brazil) for learning Portuguese.

Use this website when you want students to poll-in as the class begins. No registration is required; simply create a poll and a text number will show and students can come into class and text their choice. It is exciting, because it gets students to "wake up" as they do something fun.

Well, this is the description that was automatically populated: "Easy online video recording, video email, and video sharing. Embed a webcam recorder on your site for video testimonials. Run a video contest on your site with customized form and video upload tool. A Video API is available to developers who want to add video messaging to their app."

This innovative language learning video game will complement students' classroom English language instruction through interactive 3-D multimedia learning adventures. Trace Effects is geared for players aged 12-16.

An introductory video can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxg-KTJY-RA&feature=youtu.be

Learn a Language with free online language lessons, interactive games, and fun lessons. Learn up to 8 foreign languages with Visual Link Languages. Pick a language and start learning.

This website is neat as it has a updating blog and a culture section for language learning.

A site that lets you create nice eportfolios using templates. Free for educators, but costs $10 per year for students. Still, the sample portfolios are very professional looking. Might be worth it, depending on the age and goals of your students.