Friday 24 June 2011
Sunday 19 June 2011
Saturday 14 May 2011
Monday 28 March 2011
MeeGenius
Meegenius is a website for kids. It provides a nice collaction of online books and stories that come with audio playback, word highlighting, and personalization. It could be used by children whose language is English.
Why can it be used in language classes?
It is interesting and motivating.
It s full of nice pictures which can attract children attention to learn.
It provides authentic material for language learning.
It helps to improve childrens' reading and writing skills.
The languae is simple and comprehensible for children to understan
Children can listen and read the story.
How can it be used in the class?
A teacher can ask the children to listen to a story which could be chosen by the children themselves. After listening, the teacher can ask the kids to retell thestories to each other. Then, he can tell them to draw pictures describing the story.
Limitations
It can be difficult for younger children to navigate the site. They need their parens or teachers' help.
Not all books are free.
Monday 21 March 2011
Animation
Xtranormal is a briliant website that allow you to create text to speech animated movies. What is great in this site is the range of characters and backgrounds that enable users to create different situational dialogues. It is simple to use and enjoyable.
Why is it good?
- It is free , enjoyable and easy to use
- It is suitable for collaborative work
- It makes students creative and it helps them to think and construct
ideas and knowledge - It assists students to use language in different contexts
- It coild develop students' writing, listening, pronunciation, and vocabulary
- Teachers can use it to create materials for their students.
There are various ways to use it in the class. Students can create dialogues in different contexts.For example, after finishing a lesson on my favourite place to visit, students can go to xranormal and create a scene or a movie trying to convince other students to visit their favuorite place. Students can work in pairs to set a dialouge and then they show the class their work. You can also get your students to create a short story or choose a poem and present it to the class by using xranormal. A teacher can create a clip with grammatical errors and ask the students to watch, find the mistakes and correct them.
The limitations
It is not 100% free. You may need to pay for choosing some characters, otherwise you can not publish your movie. Some students may not use it in apporporiate way and for educational purposes.
This video shows you how to use xtranormal
Tuesday 8 March 2011
What is it?
Zimmertwins is an incredible site that enables you to make a movie. It is a simple and interesting site for language learners to make an animation. It can work well with younger learners. It has three characters in t a cat, a boy and a girl. There are four categories one for writing a text, if you like. The second one is about actions such as laughing or running, while the third one is about emotion. The fourth one is
Why is it good for language learners?
I think this site is very beneficial for younger learners because it is presented in a form of cartoons which can motivate students and make them eager to continue playing and creating animations. It also helps to develop students' writing skills. It is a good stimulus for writing texts. During creating a movie, a student will construct ideas and knowledge which leads to creativity. Since it can be published, students will be accurate about their grammar and spelling. Students can use it to learn some action verbs and adjectives of emotion.
It could be used in class or at home. It could be used to support textbooks. For example, after finishing a lesson about adjectives of emotion, Students can go to zimmertwins and create movies describing the emotion of the characters.
For limitation
You can not embed or share the movie that you created. You need to have an account to save the movie. If you want to show the movie to your friends, you need to go to your account and copy the link.
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