NAU CALL

From the site: Latest update 20th Jan 2013 - These are some of the best free internet resources for education. This page is constantly updated; every time I come across a new piece of software or an exciting website, I list it here. This list is not exhaustive in any way.

This document includes sample checklists for evaluating CALL courseware and websites from the ICT4LT

We'll be looking at these checklists in class.

A collection of resources related to vocabulary learning and teaching, some of which are annotated.

There has been a lot of discussion on the web about how one can create their own Personal Learning Network (PLN). This term represents a purposeful approach to using technology to network with other professionals who share similar professional interests and goals. This article explores a number of technologies that are used for creating a PLN. For staying abreast on recent developments in technology and the use in teaching, I believe that developing a PLN is a must.

This program allows for real-time polling in the classroom. After a class account is created learners can log on with their smartphones, tablets or laptops. Throughout a lecture, reading or any other class activity students can show their understanding or lack of understanding through the click of a button. Presentations can also be embedded as well.

Let's say you end up teaching EFL where you have access to the internet but no online academic site like BlackBoard to use for grading. Or, maybe you just don't like BlackBoard all that much. Engrade is an incredibly useful website in that it serves as an online gradebook for tracking academic performance and attendance. I found out about the site from a fellow GA at NAU whose department had decided that Engrade was simply easier to use than BlackBoard. While you can't upload all the content--readings and such--as you can on BlackBoard, at least as far as I can tell, Engrade does allow you to upload rubrics and word lists for flash cards. It also has a system for warning students similar to the GPS system at NAU. Yet another great feature is that if you're ever required to turn in hard copies of your gradebook or your attendance, you can easily export that information. Engrade is also FERPA compliant for those of you teaching in the US. I used it at NAU last semester, and it worked like a charm. I can't recommend it enough.

Alan, I'm glad you posted this. I piloted the use of this program along with a couple of other EFL teachers when I was in China. We ended up using it during the entire year I was teaching there. It has been a while since I used it, but I remember it being fairly user friendly. It also allowed for the sharing of reports with students. It would be interesting to see what upgrades they have made to it since then, as that was about four years ago. I would second your recommendation.

This blog post discusses how both Google Drive and Evernote can be used to create E-portfolios. Both of these technologies are free and easy to use. For classrooms integrating the use of Ipads, this post has a number of tips on using the Ipad applications of these platforms for portfolio creation online.

Here is another adult education newspaper. It includes grade-leveled articles (ranging from 3-12) written by adult students on topics relevant to adults. I have not personally used this resource, but I know it can be challenging to find relevant and engaging reading materials for adults who are learning to read. Like News for You, this newspaper provides audio files, which I have found to be a nice feature for literacy classes. The site suggests having students listen to short sections and then read them aloud to improve fluency. The newspaper is produced by the New England Literacy Resource Center.

Sorry, this resource isn't free, but if your ESL program decides they can spare just $5-6/week, then both students and teachers can use the same password to access news stories as well as features such as audio recordings of stories, exercises, crossword puzzles, and definitions of key vocabulary. I taught a weekly current events ESL class for adults, and students loved News For You. Each week there are 7 new stories, and several students would read/listen to all the stories before coming to class. I would pick one or two stories to focus on during the 90-minute class. I made my own activities, but students who wanted to could do the online exercises at a library or community center computer. However, because the stories are written for adults who are learning to read (either ABE or ESL students), the content is not as authentic as a regular newspaper. But the fact that it is motivating and accessible to students and encourages lively discussions in class makes it a nice resource.

ProLiteracy has lots of student and teacher resources, but I'm posting a link to the page on using technology. I clicked on a few links and found some ideas for projects that incorporate technology. If you're looking for project ideas in an ABE or ESL program, you may find these links useful. There are also some basic "how-to's" with step-by-step instructions and screen shots that both teachers and students could use to build their technology skills. I have found creating "how-to's" for my students pretty time-consuming, so it's nice to have these available. Finally, there are audio downloads on topics such as using authentic materials and using everyday technology. For a teacher who feels a little uncomfortable using technology, I think these resources would offer some helpful suggestions.

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.

"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.

"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.

English-Guide.org is an incredible website, albeit it looks like it is designed for children. That said, if you're teaching children English learners, great; you're all set to go. If you're teaching adults, this site could be used as a respite from the intensity of intensive English programs. While many of the resources on the site are language learning games that take the form of drill-and-kill exercises, not all of the material is so rudimentary. For instance, the Career/Business section under Listening links to many listening passages at elllo.org (another useful site for listening and speaking teachers). On elllo, learners can listen to business passages, such as one on personality traits and answer comprehension questions. It would be tempting to let a class full of learners loose on this site to see what resources they would gravitate toward. The major categories of resources Vocabulary, Listening, Grammar, and Others, and within these categories, like I mentioned, there are both games and more sophisticated exercises at the learners' fingertips.

Some of us discussed pecha kuchu last semester in Dr. Stoller's foundations course. It's a method of presentation that literally translates to "death by power point." The idea came about because people were getting so bored at large conferences when presenters were going on and on about there research. This style of presentation allows each slide to be up for 20 seconds and the total time is 6 minutes and 40 seconds. Presenters were not allowed to go over this allotted time. Students in Dr. Stoller's class last semester were given 5 minutes to present on the research we did all semester. Personally, I found it difficult to present all the information I wanted to, but I also was surprised by how much I could actually fit into five minutes. So how does this relate to language learning/teaching? Pecha Flickr is a program that allows you to type in a tag word, like fish or dog. Then, it will pull up different pictures on Flickr that are tagged with those words for 20 seconds at a time. Students could give a mock presentation or even be writing sentences for the 20 seconds each picture is shown. This is a creative and fun way to get students to think on the spot using random pictures. Although I feel this would be a fun and creative way to get students thinking, I would be cautious using this because some of the pictures are tagged inaccurately. For example, I typed in fish as the tag and the second picture was a couple kissing. However, this might be a unique way to bring in slang and informal language. Kissing with a fish face?

Since Power Point has lost some it's wonder, especially among younger students, teachers can use Prezi, which is a similar tool used for giving presentations. Prezi is similar to Power Point, but it provides a new and interesting tool for students to explore. Presentations created using Prezi can also be published to the Prezi community for other users to see. This could take some of the hassle of the teacher having to load everyone's presentations before class because they are all available through a website instead. Personally, I find Prezi more confusing than Power Point. However, I haven't dedicated much time to learning how to use it properly. I'm sure if I educated myself on using it correctly it would be worthwhile.

EngVid is a collection of short English lessons posted as videos. Learners watch the videos on particular topics instructing them how to use the English language correctly. Each video is marked for certain proficiency levels. Additionally, the site features about seven consistent teachers. For learners who enjoy the style of a particular teacher, the learner can explore other lessons taught by that teacher. Because the English lesson is in a video form, learners can move the cursor back and forth to have content repeated. And because the topic of the video is at the learner's discretion, the learner may feel like he/she is getting individualized instruction that is not always available in larger classroom settings. The most beneficial aspect of the site are the quizzes that learners can take after viewing each lesson. These lessons ask students to apply the information presented in the videos. That is, instead of being comprehension questions about the lecture, the learners must use the particular language features being discussed.

English Daily is an interesting site for English learners because of its vast array of resources. For learners who have an interest in learning about English idioms, learners can discover the definitions of idioms and read examples of them in context. To learn about English language culture or for practicing reading fluency aloud, the Movie Lines section of the site contains portions of dialogue from popular movies. To practice comprehension questions, the comprehension section allows learners to read a passage and to answer questions about it. While the website has many advantages and may appeal to younger learners and business professionals alike, the presentation of the content is not very aesthetically pleasing, and the site is full of advertisements that may distract learners from the content they are attempting to learn. Additionally, the site is not very interactive beyond the news section that allows learner to listen to a news story and to complete cloze exercises. Furthermore, the answers to exercises are presented on the same page as the exercises themselves, so clearly a learner would need to be rather autonomous to use the site effectively. To fully incorporate the site into a classroom, a teacher would benefit from creating supplemental materials such as a learning log in order to track student learning.

Draw something is another game that is kinda like words with friends. One person draws a picture and sends it to their friend who then has to guess what the word is. The game gives you multiple letters to choose from, that form the word with some false letters in there too, so its not just completely random guessing which helps considerably. This game has the same limitations that Words with Friends has although I believe that it can be used with intermediate levels of learners because the letters to the words are provided when guessing and also there are different levels of words one can choose to draw.