Call Newsletter Volume 2 Number 3 November 2008

CNA-Q CALL E-Newsletter November 2008 In This Issue Web Pages Training Software Projects Tips and Tricks About Us Submissions

Links

Volume 2, Number 3 Dear colleagues: Welcome to our third action-packed collection of 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. Older newsletters are also stored on SharePoint here. CALL committee minutes are here. Remember that this newsletter is an internal document. If you want to forward it to friends outside the college, please delete any references to passwords exclusive to college faculty. --Steve Roney

Server 9 - EFL CALL Resources

Web Pages

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

Some serious fun for writing class: have students make their own comic strips. http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/ --Dan Rieb If that isn’t enough to get your students excited about writing, try this: an online tool for making animations. http://www.animasher.com/ And here’s a similar alternative. http://goanimate.com/go/ These can also make a fun listening or reading exercise for your students. Get creative! View a quickie sample animation here: http://goanimate.com/go/movie/0gxWo7zHPIXk

Don’t tell anyone about this site. Students might learn English online without us. They can enroll on four levels of English courses, find language partners for practice, and set up a Facebook-type profile and social network. On the other hand, it makes a great homework assignment that just keeps on giving. http://www.livemocha.com/ --Rebecca Hatherley Here’s a different sort of dictionary, one that graphically shows the relationships between words. Consider it for new insights on assigned vocabulary, or as a thesaurus for writing assignments. http://www.visuwords.com/?word=word --Rebecca Hatherley One of the biggest problems with developing final fluency in a second language is unfamiliarity with cultural allusions. If you have not grown up on the culture, you are likely to miss them, and they can be important to meaning. Here’s a tool that might make things easier for our Arabic-speaking students: you pour in an English text, and it automatically generates images and hyperlinks, mostly from Wikipedia, to supply background. When I poured in the text of ―In Flanders Fields,‖ it illustrated it with a picture of poppies, and linked to a biography of John McRae. Great for preparing reading assignments for class. http://www.zemanta.com/demo/ – Rebecca Hatherley

Different file types can be maddening—especially for video and audio files, where there are so many different standards. Here’s a web page that will take your file, convert it, then send it back as an email attachment—with luck, just in time for the next class. http://www.youconvertit.com/convertfiles.aspx – Rebecca Hatherley

Training These two sites show you how to use a variety of popular programs and resources:

YouTube, Camtasia, PhotoShop, Flash, and more. Designed especially for teachers: http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/ http://www.multimediatrainingvideos.com/ --Andrea Comeau This site is not free; but it may be of interest to those hoping to upgrade CALL skills online. They offer courses in various classroom technologies and, perhaps most interesting, the new Trinity College Certificate in Teaching Languages with Technology. http://www.theconsultants-e.com/ --Andrea Comeau

Software Want to know what software and other language teaching resources the CALL committee is looking at? We’ve posted our recent evaluations on SharePoint here. If you feel any of these packages would be of special value to you in the classroom, or conversely, if you think there is a cheaper or better alternative, please let us know. Email: [email protected] Herewith, brief summaries of the packages, with links to more information: Content Generator Lets you create two dozen flash-based interactive games without programming. http://www.contentgenerator.net/ The Oxford Picture Dictionary Interactive Includes games, flash cards, and randomly-generated tests on target vocabulary, based on the popular text. http://www.esl.net/oxford_picture_dictionary_cdrom.html http://www.esl.net/oxford_picture_dictionary_cdrom.html# about

Flip Mino A very portable camcorder, about the size of a cell phone, that can be used to record up to one hour of video, playable on any computer—making it easy, for example, to doublemark speaking exams. http://www.theflip.com/products_flip_mino.shtml#scene=sceneMain http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1ufqiMAkv8

VoiceThread A collaboration tool allowing you to post images, videos, audio, and text; previously reviewed in these pages (April, 2008; volume 1, number 2). http://voicethread.com/

Projects The CALL subteam for materials creation, under John Allan, has launched a new project. The goal is to demonstrate the full spectrum of CALL authoring materials to the EFL faculty, while reintroducing some of the CALL software we have installed in the labs. Planned steps: 1. Identify CALL authoring resources available to EFL faculty at CNA Qatar –Duhail 2. Agree on one sample learning objective (vocabulary list or grammar point, for example) 3. Create sample learning objects using authoring programs. 4. Compile all objects in a demonstration. 5. Present to faculty and management. Sound like fun? Contact John Allan ([email protected]) to get involved. --John Allan

Tips and Tricks Problem: You work at “CNA-Q,” not “CAN-Q”

Many of you are only too familiar with the AutoCorrect feature found in Word—you type ―CNA-Q‖ and Word helpfully (not!) changes it to ―CAN-Q‖ for you. How can you escape? 1. Open Word. 2. From the menu, choose Tools  AutoCorrect Options. The AutoCorrect dialog box appears, as below.

cna

scroll here delete button

3. Scroll down the first column until you find ―cna‖ 4. Click on ―cna” and you will notice that ―cna‖ and ―can‖ will appear in the ―Replace:‖ and the ―With:‖ box 5. Click the <delete> button. Now when you type CNA-Q, it won’t change. Saving time with AutoCorrect: Tip #1

I often type the word teacher, when I really need to use instructor. I use AutoCorrect to help me out. teacher

instructor

In the ―Replace:‖ box I type ―teacher” and in the ―With:‖ box I type ―instructor”. Now every time I mistakenly type ―teacher” AutoCorrect will automatically replace ―teacher” with ―instructor” for me. Saving time with AutoCorrect: Tip #2

I often have to type the word ―mathematics”. It’s a long word, so I can use AutoCorrect to type more efficiently.

mth

mathematics

1. I think of a short form for the word mathematics that is easy to remember and to type: ―mth‖.

2. I type ―mth‖ in the ―Replace:‖ box and ―mathematics‖ in the ―With:‖ box. 3. I click the Add button and then the OK button.

Add button

OK button

4. Now, every time I type ―mth” it is replaced with ―mathematics”. What words to you have to type and retype all day? --Rebecca Hatherley Problem: It’s almost Christmas, and you can’t find decent Christmas cards, labels, and stationery in Doha at a decent price

Do you have 1) a (free) Google account and 2) a colour printer? Problem solved. Check out the Holiday-themed templates free online at: http://docs.google.com/templates?category=21&sort=hottest&view=public

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 Shairon Burton

Submissions

 Please consider the environment before printing this newsletter.

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: John Allan, Andrea Comeau, Rebecca Hatherley, Dan Rieb, Steve Roney.