Call Newsletter Volume 2 Number 5 February 2009

February 2009 In This Issue Web Pages Purchases Projects Tips and Tricks New Software About Us Submissions

Links

Volume 2, Number 5 Dear colleagues: Welcome to your monthly reminder of all the options you have for using the computer in the classroom—our fifth thrilling collection of CALL materials for this academic year. 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 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 Ed Technology (TLC) Templates & Tools (TLC) CNA-Q Library CNA-Q IT Tutorials Abdulmanan Nur’s Staff Training Page

Web Pages DailyBooth: Young people, as some of us may still remember, are social by nature. They are also busy defining who they are. This site takes advantage of both to encourage some writing practice. Students post a picture of themselves every day—easy with a webcam— and add a journal comment. http://dailybooth.com/ --Cheri MacLeod Ning: Social networking is big; some say it will take over the web. Others say that it can do everything you need in terms of course management. One problem: you have no control over content. But now there’s Ning, which allows you to create your own culturally safe social network with your own rules. http://www.ning.com/ --John Allan Cybertower: Cornell University lectures may be a bit advanced for our students; but for what it’s worth, many are now available free on the web.

Rebecca Hatherley’s CALL Wiki

Useful for note-taking practice, for example. They also give you a glimpse into the future of learning—they make good use of all the latest tools. http://sandstone5.cit.cornell.edu/ --Susan Curtis

Dipity: Just when you thought you’d gotten the hang of blogs, someone invented something better. The perfect term project: get students developing timelines in which they can imbed text, pictures, and video. http://www.dipity.com/ --Rebecca Hatherley Podcasting is a great way to encourage students in their speaking skills, using a project-based approach. Or make your own podcasts to help them with listening. It is all surprisingly simple. Here are a couple of tools to get you going: Podomatic hosts your podcast and tracks your listenership for free. http://podomatic.com/ Jellycast will do the same for a flat fee of £10 for a lifetime membership. http://www.jellycast.com/ ELTGames. Beyond the cyberworld, returning travelers say, there is another vast area called the ―real world.‖ The web also offers selections of non-computer-based resources, suitable for this domain. This site, for example, features some good EFL games using something called ―paper.‖ http://www.eltgames.com/

Purchases We’d like you to have your own say on what CALL resources the college purchases. To that end, we have put our reviews of packages currently under consideration on SharePoint here. Please have a look. Or click on the title in the list below, to view the publisher’s own web page: Content Generator

InspireData

Voicethread

Oxford Picture Dictionary

Quia Web

Interested in any of them? Then go to our online survey here, and let us know. Would you use these? Do you have a better idea? Or another recommendation you’d like to make to the committee?

Projects Rebecca Hatherley has launched a wiki (a collaborative web site) for useful internet education tools of all kinds. Please use it for your own needs, and please consider contributing for the benefit of colleagues. Check it out here. --Rebecca Hatherley

Tips and Tricks Here’s everything you ever wanted to know about graphic organizers. Usually the most efficient way to present information, they are now far easier to create, thanks to the internet. Click the links for more. Inspiration (our installed graphic organizer software) To open Inspiration on CNA-Q computers: • Start – All Programs – Inspiration • If you need guidance, from the Inspiration Starter page select ―Find a template‖ or ―Learn to use.‖ TeAchnology Graphic Organizer Worksheets Education Place Graphic Organizer Worksheets

Teacher Vision Graphic Organizer Worksheets Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators at Discovery Education Graphic Organizer Worksheets Lee’s Summit School District Create Custom Graphic Organizers CoBaLTT Create Custom Graphic Organizers Graphic Organizer Lesson Plan Education World: Research Note Taking Made Easy --Cheri MacLeod

New Software The library has added to its big bag of CALL tricks. Here are the latest: Visual Thesaurus. For people who think visually, Visual Thesaurus is ―an interactive dictionary and thesaurus which creates word maps that blossom with meanings and branch to related words.‖ Some feature include: meanings and example sentences given when students roll over a word meanings are color-coded to indicate parts of speech students can hear how words are pronounced (both American and British pronunciations) NoodleTools. NoodleTools is an integrated note-taking and citation program, allowing students (and other researchers) to extract information from research sources, organize it, and automatically produce proper citations. When logging in for the first time, users must create a personal ID to keep their work separate from that of others at the College. Choose ―Create a Personal ID‖ from the registration page. Password information is available from the library’s online databases site. Both these packages are available from the library’s web portal here. Click on ―Online databases‖ from the ―Quick Links‖ list on the right. --Pat Sutherland

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) 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 Eleanor Kenny (ex officio) Jack Rigg (ILC liaison)

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: Cheri MacLeod, Susan Curtis, Rebecca Hatherley, John Allan, Pat Sutherland, Steve Roney.