Showing you're here on Earth

Isn't it amazing how our lives are changing?  Who would have thought that next Tuesday, thousands, or maybe millions of people could be taking a selfie and posting it online.

Will you?

NASA want to make a global selfie.  They are asking people to take a photo of themself, holding a printable sign or to mark their spot with rocks, drawing on the sand, or whatever.

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/GS_SIGN_English.jpg

Then, you upload the photo to facebook/flickr/instagram or twitter.

NASA will then create a global selfie portrait - a mosaic image and a video and share it in May.



It's a long way on from the first reported selfie:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/first-ever-selfie-amazing-pic-3218544

Selfie has only just made its way into the dictionary but, as this picture taken in 1839 shows, people have been doing them for a long time.

In fact, this has been hailed as the first ever selfie.

Amateur chemist and photography enthusiast Robert Cornelius, from Philadelphia, took the self-portrait in his family's silver-plating shop in the city.

There was no remote shutter release on the primitive camera - a Daguerreotype invented by Frenchman Louis Daguerre - so Robert had to scamper in front of the equipment after removing the cover on the lens.

He wrote on the back of the photo: "The first light picture ever taken. 1839."

Considering that he was making history, he doesn't look all that chuffed - maybe it was because he had to stand still for up to 15 minutes for the portrait. Or maybe it was because he had an inkling that some celebs would one day make the selfie such a self-indulgent yawnfest.

Robert's picture is kept in the Library of Congress  in Washington DC.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/first-ever-selfie-amazing-pic-3218544#ixzz2zJuZSkSg 

Free online level tests

I am amazed by the wealth of materials that Cambridge English are adding to their Youtube channel and their different websites.

Yesterday, I received an update email telling me about new resources that have been added to Youtube and the website. I immediately forwarded it to schools locally because I thought there were so many interesting bits and pieces in it.

Firstly, the online test for Young Learners.

This is a great addition to the suite of online tests that are available on the website.  It means that there are now four different tests available, for different age and interest groups.                                       

And then, the email shared a resource that I had already accessed myself last week when I was preparing for my seminar in San Sebastian:  

The great thing is that not only do we have the videos, but also the Examiners' comments on the candidates' performance.  This is so useful for us - it helps us get our level of assessment right and really clarifies what candidates need to do.

Many of you will be on holiday this week and/or next.  It's gloriously sunny here in Santander today and I hope you're having great weather too!  Enjoy!!

Lifelong learning of lexis

I was looking through the stories in a newsletter I receive from Designtaxi and noticed one of the headlines - not particularly because of the story, but because of one word in it:

Adult Website Crowdsources Ideas

It was the word 'crowdsource' that caught my eye.  I may have seen it before, but I certainly hadn't 'noticed' it before.  

tweakyourbiz.com

'Noticing words' is something that I have included in several talks that I've given.  I can even remember my first 'noticing' experience.  I was in the back of my parents' car.  I can't remember exactly what the conversation was about, but my mum said 'He must have been...'.  I recall asking myself: 'Is that 'must of' or 'must have'?'  The budding linguist was alert!

Back to 'crowdsource'.  I checked the exact meaning in the Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary and this is what I found:

crowdsource

verb [I or T] /ˈkraʊdˌsɔːs/   /-sɔːrs/

› to give tasks to a large group of people or to the general public, for example, by asking for help on the internet, rather than having tasks done within a company by employees:The company plans to crowdsource the translation of its new web app.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/crowdsource?q=crowdsource

http://en.paperblog.com/content-creation-how-you-crowdsource-your-efforts-751657/

Crowdsource' is apparently a very new word, and is related to another word:  outsource

outsource

verb [I or T]     /ˈaʊt.sɔːs/   /-sɔːrs/

› If a company outsources, it pays to have part of its work done by anothercompany:Unions are fighting a plan by universities to outsource all non-academic services.Some companies outsource to cheaper locations to cut costs.outsourcing     /ˈaʊtˌsɔː.sɪŋ/   /-ˌsɑː-/ noun [U]›The management guaranteed that outsourcing wouldn't mean job losses.              

http://www.mamumediallc.com/storage/bigstock-Outsourcing-Word-Cloud-Concept-29451263.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1363786585051

Outsourcing and crowdsourcing  are two portmanteau words - words by joining together two words, sometimes with no letters being omitted when they're joined like these two.  In other instances, some letters are omitted, like brunch, Spanglish, sitcom.  

On the other blog I'm involved in, we wrote about portmanteau words in a post and created an exercise.  

I've just started a board in pinterest with illustrations of portmanteau words.  My aim is to add to this and my other teaching boards there.  Just need to have 30 hours in a day to do all the things I'd like to!!!!

Do you use technology in learning?

Today's post is to share a call for research projects.  There isn't much time to apply to take part in the programme  (the deadline is March 17th - only 4 days away) But it looks interesting and it might fit in well with what you're doing.

Cambridge University Press is launching a new programme to support and encourage teacher research for ELT. The theme for this year’s programme is Digital Pedagogy, using technology to help learning. We are looking for five projects to give initial support to, and one special project which will lead to a joint presentation at IATEFL International Conference (UK) in 2015. If you have an idea for a project please use the attached pdf to apply. We apologise for the short notice - the deadline is the 17th of March - but you don't need to give a lot of detail at this stage. The key points could be expressed in around 500 words. Note that if you have any problems with filling in the pdf, you can put your answers in a Word document. 

Cambridge monitor

Hello again from Alcalá de Henares!

(note: I'm not in the above photo because I'm taking the picture of our lunch table at the beautiful Parador!)

In one of our sessions today, the Cambridge Monitor was mentioned.

I received an email about the Cambridge Monitor just over a week ago.

What is the Cambridge monitor?

It's basically a survey of 1,700 Spanish speakers and their attitudes to English, their level of English and learning English.

There are 98 infographics, tagged with one of 19 labels (false friends, apps, errors, celebrities, etc.)

Here's one of the infographics you can find on the site:

It makes me think of some years back when I was in a village in Cantabria, listening to three 8 year old girls singing a Spice Girls song.  They had no idea what they were singing (I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want...) but were making a very good job of imitating the Spice Girls!!!

Check out the infographics on Cambridge Monitor - some interesting and amusing facts are reported!

Edudemic - looks promising

As so often happens when I click on a link in an email, I then start moving around the web, discovering great sites and resources.

Today being Monday, I got my regular linked in update email.

I clieked on the link and on the update page in Linked In, was attracted by the heading of an article:

The Current State Of Mobile Learning In Education

This topic is, of course, often in the news, but today it seemed particularly relevant.  I have just returned from a weekend riding with my husband on our Harley Davidson motorbike along the 'Ruta de Santiago'.  Also on the route were about 25 other people from all over Spain, France, Belgium, Italy and Finland.  

Having studied French at university, I was called on to interpret for the people from France and Belgium several times.  Over lunch on Friday, I was talking to Alain from Belgium and we got to talking about education.  He told me about a school in Belgium where as from this year, all students are required to come to school with an ipad.

I ended up on a great site called edudemic.com.

This is the wordcloud for the areas covered on Edudemic

TRENDING TOPICS

adobe android Apple apps classroom college design edtecheducation facebook featured google guest guideharvard How To infographic iPad iphone jobslearning magazine math microsoft Must-See Posts online online learning schoolsscience sharing Social Media students study teachers teachingtechnology textbooks tips tools Trends tweets twitter video Videosyoutube

Wordcloud, edudemic.com

As you can see by the sizes of the different words and categories, there are a lot of articles about 'How to'.  I often type these words into a search engine to find the answer for a recipe, a craft or a presentation.

I have found so many interesting-looking features on edudemic that I know I will be spending time today looking at some of them and have already bookmarked the site under 'Technology' on my computer.

Have a great week!

Learn and play!

As I write this post, my computer is playing some jazzy music to me.  Why? Because I've just been trying out Academy Island!  What exactly is that, you may ask?  It's a game!  I'll paste the description provided by Cambridge ESOL (I couldn't describe it better myself!)

What is the game about?

An unknown alien life form who landed on earth today has had to learn the English language to get by in a range of social situations... Don't panic, it's just the plot of Academy Island – a new social media game from Cambridge experts designed to help learners improve their English language ability.

Where can I find the game?

Academy Island is a free educational game aimed at English language learners. It’s available from the University of Cambridge ESOL Examination’s (Cambridge ESOL) official Facebook page – which currently has over 120,000 fans.

What do players have to do?

Players of Academy Island have to progress through different difficulty levels by helping the alien use English in a range of situations such as shopping in a bakery and visiting places such as an art gallery and library.

Who wrote the game?

A team of language experts from Cambridge ESOL who work on the actual exam papers came up with the questions and tasks to ensure they were pitched at an appropriate level for learners of English. They worked closely with TAMBA – an award-winning digital marketing agency who specialise in social media games. Players who take on the Academy Island challenge can post their scores on a global leader board through their Facebook profile.

From what I have seen (I haven't had time - yet! - to visit all the places on the Island - the language level is quite high - I would say that for students preparing for Cambridge English: First and above.

Try it out and post your results!

Recording students describing photos

Hello again!  Sorry I've been 'missing' for a few days but life has been even more hectic than usual this week!  And it hasn't been for a lack of ideas to share with you on this blog, believe me!  I have a file full of materials and lots of links saved in my 'For later' file on my computer.

So, let's make a start on one of them!

As I told you recently, I gave a talk at the TESOL Spain 2012 Convention.

As well as giving my talk, I was able to attend a few sessions.  The first one I went to a Keynote presentation given by Russell Stannard.  Here he is in action:

(Thanks Donna Koniholm for the great photos you took at the Convention!) 

I've been reading articles and tips from Russell Stannard for a long long time.  Quite deservedly, his website http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/  has won lots of awards.

For a quick (3 minute) presentation of the site by Russell himself, I recommend watching this video.

During Russell's TESOL presentation, the tool that really caught my eye was MailVU:  http://mailvu.com/.

This allows you to record video clips on a computer using the microphone and webcam and then send them to an email contact.

Here is Russell's description of the potential use of this site for language teachers:

… you can get the students to do recordings of themselves speaking in English at home … and then sending those recordings to you, you can then listen to them and obviously give them some feedback on their oral performance…

Watch Russell explaining this site here.


So, of course, me being a Cambridge ESOL teacher and teacher trainer, I thought:  What a fantastic tool to practise the 1 minute talking about photos tasks in the Cambridge English: Preliminary, First, Advanced and Proficiency Speaking Tests!!!

Let's consider how you could go about this:
For homework, tell students which photo(s) you want them to talk about and the question you want them to answer in relation to the photo(s)

For example,

Here are your photographs.  They show people spending their free time in different ways.  I'd like you to compare the photographs and say what are the advantages and disadvantages for the people of spending their free time in these different ways.  

Source:  First for Schools Handbook

You send students a link to MailVU by email.  They open the link, record themselves doing the task, and send you the clip by email.  You watch it and can give them feedback (by return of email/record a video of yourself talking about their performance/discuss the clip with them in class (maybe while you both watch the video).

I believe it has fantastic potential for working on this part of the Cambridge ESOL speaking tests!

If you try it out, please let us know about it!

Take a disposable camera and......

I am always on the lookout for photos to use in class.

So when I read the other day about 'Camara Obscura', it caught my eye.

If you are in London on Saturday, 10th March (I won't - I'll be in the Universidad de Deusto giving a seminar at the TESOL Spain National Convention.  Hope some of you might come along to it!!!

Well, as I was saying, if you are in London on Saturday, 10th March, you might get the chance to take part in Camara Obscura 2012.  The organisers will be leaving 10 cameras around London, then they will give hints via Twitter regarding the location of each camera.


If you have Twitter, you can follow this event here:  Twitter: _camobscura




What will happen next?  Probably something similar to what happened in 2010:

On August 18th 2010 a disposable camera was left in the middle of Covent Garden. Labeled with instructions to take a photo, relocate and leave behind for the next person, Camera Obscura began its journey around the UK.

43 days later it returned. 

From Covent Garden the camera soon found its way across London towards Chipping Sodbury in South-West England then, nearing the end of its journey, it was taken on a boat tour of Beachy Head in Eastbourne.

http://www.cameraobscuraproject.co.uk/

And this is where I think the project and its outcomes could be useful for us teachers.

The 2010 photos have been posted on flickr here.

There are 24 photos.

Here is photo number 1:

Ways that you could use the photos from 2010 in class, maybe:

1  Give out all/ a selection of the photos.  Without showing them to each other, each student describes their photo.  They have to decide if any of the photos are of the same people/were taken in the same place, etc.
2  Divide students into groups of 4 or 5.  Give them one photo each.  They have to find similarities and differences between their photos.
3  Show students photos 18 - 24 (but without the numbers).  They have to decide on an order for the photos and say or write the story of their day (they are one of the people on the boat) and where they found the camera and what they did with the camera afterwards.


There have been similar projects in different parts of the world.  Here are two of them:

http://theplug.net/28/strangerphotos.htm  (Camera tied to a park bench in Georgia, Atlanta, USA)

http://theplug.net/38/strangerphotos.htm  /In Tokyo)

Would YOU volunteer to be on a photo like these?

It's Valentine's Day!

Just thought I'd write a quick post to share a video with you all on this day, February 14th.




It's called Social Media Saves Valentine's Day.

How times have changed!!!!

And did you see the Google start up page today?  Valentine's Day definitely the theme!

 I like the fact that the message I got was no amount of gifts can beat sharing things with people you love!

(If you are reading this post after February 14th, the Google Doodle will no longer be on the Google page, but you can see it on Youtube here.)


To see Google's previous start-up pages for this day since 2000, click here:  http://www.networkworld.com/slideshow/30502

Have a great (Valentine's) day!