Great to see this guy from an English school in France interviewing people on the street, and then adding captions to the video. This one is part of a series focussing on homeless people, on the beach in Miami. Interesting to compare the two women’s opinions here. Here’s the first in the series, with interviews of Santa Claus, whose residence is South Miami Beach. From (Real English MPG.)
Adult learners are starting to get into Self-Publishing (aka blogging). and Barbara Dieu, a Brazilian educator, has set up an Exchange for ESL students around the world. With two colleagues, she has found a way to gather and re-publish the writings of students who have blog journals in their ESL classes. (This re-publishing is known as ‘aggregation’.) The site is called Dakita (i don’t know why), and the collection of student writings you’ll find in The Orchard (or The Exchange). Worth a look, especially if you’re thinking of using blogs Read More …
Now if you know me, you’ll know that i am a keyboard junkie, my fingers can fly across the dvorak keyboard, and if i have to use a mouse, give me a trackball anyday. However when teaching people in the community to use standard Qwerty keyboard and mouse, i wish the future would get here faster. I know there are ‘tablet pc’s for people who can afford them (ie not ACE), but what i’m really wanting is something more like what Jeff Han demonstrated last year .. the multi-touch visual Read More …
Here’s a reference guide for any students in Adult Literacy classrooms – how to navigate your way through buying a computer, a “plain English resource”. The site is based in the US, so no local shops for Australians, but it could be a good place to start for groups considering a similar activity. The group was given a task to find the best value computer for under $1000. Certainly seems a good idea for a classroom activity.
The Australian Flexible Learning Framework has put out their monthly “Flex e-news” for February, and there’s plenty going on. This time of year, details about available project funds, but also interviews. Have a listen to Alex Hayes interviewing Jo Kaye. Alex and Jo worked with the NSW Learnscope teams last year.
I’ve been thinking about this: How do people use web-based resources in their classroom? I’m sure the answer is “plenty of different ways”, eg.: Blended Learning: group activities involving discussion around a theme or text, followed up by a link to a web site. Blended Learning: in a face-to-face class, use a digital projector to engage a whole group with web-based learning activities … Ask learners to search for resources and share links (either in a face-to-face group, or in an online course). Provide links in a self-access, or independent Read More …
Over at Preston Reservoir ACE, we’re slowly setting up an intranet. Anyone on the site can set up their own “blog” (diary, or journal). This could be useful for reflective learning in the classroom: teachers could encourage students to post thoughts on their own learning progress. There’s so much going on in the world of learning- with- technology, that it would be great to involve the wonderful teachers at PRACE even more. I’m hoping this place will help us share our knowledge more effectively. We’re using moodle, the popular, open Read More …
Wow! Take a look at this collection of flash writing tools from Read Write Think dot org i’ve only tried the “Bio-Cube” so far, but was impressed when the printout revealed an actual cube that the student can cut and glue into the shape of a cube.
Looking back at all the feedback we’ve had from the Beach site, one of my least favourite comments was this one: “There are some very good points in this website but as a teacher I have been told that I cannot use terms such as ‘Christian name’ and ‘Surname’ because it is offensive to some. Therefore I would like to see the offensive racist comment ‘When Europeans first invaded Australia’ removed from your web site. I am sure your point could be made just as simply by stating ‘When Europenas Read More …
When spammers attacked our “English at the Beach” website, on both the Guestbooks and the Feedback Survey pages, we were experiencing the “New Chicago-style Web”. “We used to call the Internet a sort of Wild West. Now it’s more like Chicago in the 1920s with Al Capone,” says Prolexic President Keith Laslop. Writing up my research on the web usage server logs, i needed a definition of ‘botnet’. While searching, i came across an intriguing article in Wired late last year, which outlines an attack on Six Apart’s Type Pad Read More …