Kids' Vid: Video Production for Students

This is an interesting site for those of you with no video production experience. Now, I'll warn you that this has nothing to do with video software and how to get videos on your computer. You'll have to get that somewhere else. However, it does have a lot of good advice on HOW to video and some hardware tips.

I think that this is a good resource for younger students and, possibly, even their teachers :)

New Zealand students may 'text-speak' in exams - CNN.com

I'm among those thinking, "Are you all nuts"?

I understand that this is a valid mode of communication. I understand that it is important to allow students to express themselves. However, text-speak is likely no more than a blip on the screen (no pun intended). It will likely be disappear as technologies shift.

I think that they will look back on this and cringe.

What do you think?

Dan

Report: Number of students taking online courses rises - CNN.com

Hey, look! You're part of a trend :)

75 ESL Teaching Ideas (I-TESL-J)

This is an interesting piece. Take it or leave it, there's a bunch of good ideas in this list.

TalkAndWrite.com

TalkAndWrite is a plugin (an extra feature) for Skype. Two people have to have the application installed on their computer. If so, then you can collaborate on a document.

This isn't like working on a Word document. It is more like working on an electronic whiteboard. You can type using a textbox if you'd like and you can draw freehand using a view different 'tools'. The result can be saved as an image (.jpg or .png) or as a TalkAndWrite document.

It seems like this would be best for brainstorming or discussing concepts that would best be drawn out for the other user. I also think that you could probably bring up pictures to interact with.

I haven't been able to use this yet, but I just installed it on my computer. I just haven't found a willing partner. If you are feeling adventureous and would like to test this out with me, let me know.

Back to School with the Class of Web 2.0: Part 1

Another great post that I wanted to pass on. This list would keep me busy for a month checking out, it's nice that Solution Watch did it for me.

I'm sure that you can find some useful tools in this list.

Fantasy Congress - Where People Play Politics!

This was just too cool not to pass on. Most of you are likely famililar with Fantasy Football. Well, this is Fantasy Congress. You get to pick 4 congresspeople (is that the right gender neutral plural form?) to be on your "team". You then get points based on how much of their legislation gets passed, which is weighted differently based on some criteria that I don't know.

This would be great with any civics class, but would also be neat for a topical lesson on American politics for a language class. Even for foreign languages, there's nothing your students will have to do more of in a foreign country than talk about American politics :)

Voicemail on your Blog

I added a little item to the blog today. I thought that it would be neat to test out. It is a voice comment system from a company called Mobasoft. The level at which I'm using it is free, but they do have other paid service options.

The name of the application for now is MyChingo (http://www.mychingo.com), but I have a feeling that the company is working on a replacement system called MobaTalk (http://www.mobatalk.com/). MyChingo allows users to leave audio messages on a Web page (blog). In my case, I have made these comments public. But you can choose to make them private so you are really the only person who will hear them. Might be a neat option for some activities that you run. Might be neat to work into a WebQuest if you are so inclined and it serves a purpose.

Give it a try if you have a microphone.

By the way, MobaTalk looks like it will be much cooler with audio, video, and text. Hopefully they'll make it so you can have sub-systems for individual posts. Now I'm just dreaming :)

Dan