Call Newsletter Volume 2 Number 2 October 2008

CNA-Q CALL E-Newsletter October 2008 In This Issue Tips and Tricks About Us Submissions Wanted

Links

Volume 2, Number 2

Dear colleagues: Eid Mubarak! Happy Thanksgiving! Welcome to our second collection of interesting CALL materials for this semester. All websites are working at press time—but remember, the Internet is a moving target. No need to save this document to find the websites—they will be available permanently from the department’s CALL page, courtesy of Susan Curtis. See “EFL-CALL Resources Website,” on the College’s Intranet home page. Or just click the link here.

Server 9 - EFL CALL Resources

Web Pages

Ed Technology (TLC)

Here is a collection of tools from UBC for making learning objects. Whether a given tool actually works seems hit-and-miss, but there are some interesting ideas here. http://www.learningtools.arts.ubc.ca/

Templates & Tools (TLC) CNA-Q Library CNA-Q IT Tutorials

This site could be great for teaching students vocabulary to describe people. It takes a photograph you upload, and distorts it to illustrate various adjectives: happy, angry, ugly … I even got it to make me look young and thin (on the right)! Requires registration. http://www.moonjee.com/ Here’s a screen-video-capture utility similar to CamStudio, but completely online. You can, for example, make a short video to show students how to operate a certain program or use a given web site. http://www.screentoaster.com/ Here’s a quick demonstration video: http://www.screentoaster.com/watch/demo – Rebecca Hatherley

Here’s a slick-looking web site just getting off the ground, a sort of Facebook for ESL students. Might be worth keeping an eye on. http://www.englishcafe.com/?q=home – Rebecca Hatherley

With this website, you can enter a vocabulary list, and the site generates games, cloze exercises, and spelling quizzes. Requires registration. http://www.spellingcity.com/ For those wanting to create learning objects, this web site offers a variety of free tools, including two for ensuring SCORM compliance. http://www.simplelearningcreator.com/index.cfm While the US election is still on, amuse and confuse your students by playing this video, featuring them as US Presidential candidates. They’ll listen to every word! http://www.tsgnet.com/pres.php?id=379346&altf=Fvhfof&altl=Dbnqcfmm&lap=2

Here’s a sample of the result: http://www.tsgnet.com/pres.php?id=46832&altf=Kbtpo&altl=Spmmt George Mason University is developing an online accent archive. This could be useful for exposing our students to the different Englishes they will encounter in the real world of work in Qatar. If you have QuickTime installed on your computer, you can hear a transcript read in any number of different accents. http://accent.gmu.edu/index.php Here’s a tip for after hours: having trouble knowing where to go for your next vacation? At this site, you can get quite a lot of free advice from fellow-travellers before having to spring the cash for a copy of the relevant Lonely Planet guide. Be nice and add your own experiences for the next vagrant. http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page

Tips and Tricks This website has lots of video tutorials on popular software packages and tools like PowerPoint, Flash, and PhotoShop. It’s like

having Rebecca Hatherley right there in your computer! http://www.teach-ict.com/videohome.htm – Rebecca Hatherley

And as if that weren’t enough, here’s another MS Word tip from the real Rebecca Hatherley: Problem: Overlapping Graphics

Note the white background of one image here obscures the second image. Fix: You can create a transparent area in most pictures. 1. Select the picture in which you want to create transparent areas.

2. On the Picture toolbar, click Set Transparent Color. (To display the Picture toolbar, click Customize on the Tools menu, then click the Toolbars tab, then click Picture.) 3. Click the color you want to make transparent. The white overlapping background is now gone.

About Us CALL stands for Computer-Aided Language Learning. We on the CALL committee have a mandate from the department to aid and abet you in using educational technology in your classroom. We currently comprise two committees: software evaluation and materials development. If you are interested, we would be delighted to have you join us in this cause.

Current Members: Steve Roney (chair), John Allan (chair, materials development), Sheldon Chisholm, Douglas Culbert, Susan Curtis, Scott Dagilis, Darlene Liutkus, Cheri MacLeod (TLC liaison), Scott Webber Rebecca Hatherley (Academics liaison), Dan Rieb Larissa Conley Linda Earl Alan Vallely

Submissions Wanted If you have a tech tip to share, or know of an interesting and relevant website, please send it along to [email protected] for inclusion in a future issue. A big thanks to those who contributed to this issue: Rebecca Hatherley, Steve Roney.