Twitpoll

twtpoll :: Do you think an eportfolio presented via a blog would appear less professional than via Powerpoint or a webpage? (via @jhengstler)

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Avatar by Voki.com!

I thought it would be fun to have an avatar speak for me here on this blog, so I went to Voki.com and picked one to customize. It was very simple doing the customization and the recording. The first time I used my telephone, and the second time my laptop’s microphone. Both worked very well. My main problem was getting a new code after making some edits. It didn’t want to give me one, so I had to start all over. Then, when I wanted to use my same customized avatar, I couldn’t locate that option. Outside of those frustrations, I like the final result and would definitely use Voki again. Posting the Voki on Blogger was much easier than on WordPress, but once I was able to grab the code and paste it into Vodpod, the rest was a piece of cake!

more about "Welcome to Web 2.0 for ESL!", posted with vodpod

The 12 Days of Technology-Day 12: Facebook, Pandora, & Fun!

On the 12th day of technology, my PLN gave to me:  Fun!  Now, that’s not to say that the other 11 days weren’t fun.  They were, but they were also challenging and at times frustrating as I struggled to get all of my students and computers working together at the same time, at the same pace, and at the same level of proficiency, a little like trying to get all three of my toddlers to nap at the same time, or to get all of us through a sitting for a family portrait without any tears or black eyes. But, no,the 12th day of technology was/is for me!

The first of my “fun” sites is Facebook.  For a long time, I didn’t want anything to do with Facebook. I’d figured I’d already had three e-mail accounts to obsess over 3, 4, (or ten) times daily which was more than enough.  The other issues was that Facebook, originally developed for college students (Harvard, to start with) made me feel like I was treading on my teenage kids’ private property.  But, then when I sent my daughter an e-mail and she didn’t open it, she told me that she rarely looked at her e-mail anymore because she did everything through Facebook.  OK.  There she had me.  I realized then that something bigger was involved in Facebook than just a site the media had conditioned me to believe existed solely for the purpose of giving pedophiles a venue for stalking innocent daughters and sons like mine.  (Yes, I was a guilt-ridden working mother who loved her job but worried constantly about her inadequacies as a mother.)

Anyway, Facebook turned out to be what is was designed to be and more, a means of connecting and staying connected with friends and family, for sharing information, pictures, events, and for networking with individuals and groups both personally and professionally.  Facebook turned out to be perfect for me!

Is Facebook perfect because I use Facebook for all those reasons?  Actually, yes!   I’ve reconnected with friends and family across the globe that I haven’t seen for more years than I care to acknowledge.   I’ve had a ball learning about their families and jobs and moves and high points and even low points, and I’m really happy to be in touch with the people I love regardless of distance easily, unintrusively and 24-7 at the touch of a keyboard!

Of course, there are good reasons to use Facebook with your students (Facebook for Educators, A Teacher’s Guide to Facebook), and there is netiquette that you should be aware of when using social media (Etiquette for the Social Networking Age).  But, I prefer to keep Facebook for me. You can keep it for yourself without feeling guilty.  Think about starting a Ning site to use with your students like I did. (Coffee Break!)  But, go ahead and get yourself started on Facebook.   Take a look at the How to Use Facebook: Video Series.  You’ll love Facebook!

Now, while you’re chatting with your friends on Facebook, catching up on their latest romances, or sharing pictures of your recent cruise,  play some online music!  I like Pandora because it chooses music based on my selections/tastes/moods.  I pick a group or song, and Pandora chooses something similar that it thinks I’ll enjoy. If I like it, I give it a thumbs up and they’ll play it again for me; if not, I give it a thumbs down and that’s the end of it.  For a minimal amount of work, I get a maximum amount of enjoyment!  When I’m stressed at work, and it seems like I just can’t eliminate all the noise, I put on the Pandora classical guitar station I’ve created.  It helps me focus and calms my nerves. Deadlines?  Who cares? Later I might put on a Latin station, or maybe classical rock (yeah, I know my age is showing!)  Whatever I want, I can find it on Pandora.

Other online music stations that I’d recommend for you to check out are Blip.fm and Lastfm.  They, like Pandora, are social in the sense that you share your music with followers, and you can follow someone else’s music.  Maybe you feel like watching some music videos.  Whatever music you’re up for, you’ll find it on one of these online stations.

So, my twelve days of technology:

1. Twitter; 2. Blogs; 3. YouTube; 4. Del.icio.us and Social Bookmarking; 5. Google; 6. Wallwisher; 7.  Jing; 8. Wordle; 9. VoiceThread; 10. SlideShare; 11. Glogster; 12.  Facebook and Pandora

I’m grateful to my PLN for bringing me all these gifts, and I hope that through these 12 Days of Technology articles, you, too, will find a gift to share.  Peace and happiness to all of you!

The 12 Days of Technology-Day 11: Glogster

On the Eleventh Day of Technology my PLN gave to me-Glogster.  When I first heard about Glogster, I thought, “What a bizarre name!”  With Glogster, you create glogs.  While I still think the names are somewhat bizarre, the tool is not.  It is an amazing and powerful tool for developing interactive posters, allowing for creative displays or presentations that can combine traditional learning with music, text, pictures, and even video.  Students can integrate media they love into their work to make projects uniquely their own.  To protect students from unseemly content, Glogster created the EDU portion of its site.  There students can still make their learning dynamic, and they can safely share it locally with classmates and globally with other English language learners and even with their family and friends back home.

So why would I, an ESL instructor of adult students, have my students use very limited class time to work with Glogster? I’d use it because Glogster is a simple-to-use web tool that allows my students the opportunity to explore, learn, and dialog about technologies integral to 21st century learning, technologies they will need to understand and benefit from if they plan to continue their education; additionally, for my students who are parents, they will be better prepared to assist and support their children’s learning.

What skills will they learn with Glogster? They’ll need to upload media including pictures of their own or from sites such as Flickr or Picasa, they’ll embed self-made or downloaded video from YouTube, TeacherTube, or SchoolTube, they’ll record themselves speaking and embed the audio in the glog, they’ll search for information to post on their glog using Google Scholar and they’ll create text using Microsoft Word. When they’re finished with their poster, they will link it to the department’s student Ning page to share with their community of learners.  Will this help them in their quest to communicate more effectively?  Will it be worth our precious class time?  You bet!

Following this article are links that have been shared by educators to get us started using Glogster:

Detailed Tutorial on Glogster EDU

Glogster Tutorial

How to Use Glogster

Glogster

SJCCTeacherResource Wiki

Glogs: Virtual Online Posters

H1N1 Glogster

Glogster EDU-SchoolTube

Extreme Makeover: Web Addition

The 12 Days of Technology-Day 10: SlideShare

After a brief hiatus from blogging, it’s time to write about my PLN’s 10^th Day of Technology gift – SlideShare.  While I am grateful for all 12 gifts, SlideShare was the first web 2.0 application that showed me how we as teachers and learners across the globe could share our work and pool our intellectual resources while still being technology neophytes.

SlideShare is a free media site where people in all lines of work can share their presentations and documents.  It is a place to gather ideas and inspiration.  It is a place to get feedback on our own creations. It is a place to build on others’ work and have others build on ours.  It is a place to find collaborators.  It is a cloud in which to save our own presentations either privately or publicly.

As an ESL teacher, SlideShare has given me access to grammar explanations, “how to…” presentations, cultural presentations, and nearly every other kind of slide presentation I’ve needed.  I have found works that are superbly done both in content and presentation, and others that need improvement.  This variety in quality has given me inspiration as well as that little push to go ahead and see what I can develop solo or with my students without feeling like I’m jumping in way over my head.  Now I am watching the quality of my presentations improve as I am able to study what others are doing-through SlideShare.

Blogger Richard Byrne (Free Technology for Teachers), in his November 22, 2009 article, “12 Ways for Students to Publish Slideshows Online” includes an excellent “how to” slide presentation for using SlideShare.  If you are interested in finding out more about SlideShare and other venues for you and your students to use to publish your presentations, you will appreciate his article.

Go ahead, jump into SlideShare, and see what you and your students can create as a legacy to their learning and as resources for future students.