ICT in the Languages Classrooms

Domenica MufaleR/Community Languages Consultant

Changing nature of students and education• In order to be informed and active participants in our changing society, students, now and in the future, will need to be self-directed learners, able to identify issues, pose questions, synthesise ideas and develop solutions to problems. • Teacher is no longer the bearer of all wisdom.• The evolution of technology necessitates a continual, ongoing learning process in order to harness it.

Using ICTIn each year, from Kindergarten to Year 12, students should participate in activities that assist in the development of their ability to:

• use ICT to locate, access, evaluate, manipulate, create, store and retrieve information;

• express ideas and communicate with others, using ICT;

• develop an awareness of the range of applications of ICT in society;

• discriminate in the choice and use of ICT for a given purpose;

• develop the confidence to explore, adapt and shape technological understandings and skills in response to challenges now and in the future.

Making Connections with ICT

• ICT is mandated in the K-10 syllabus • ICT provides a different way of learning for the students and an alternative way for teachers to present information and skills • ICT can be more engaging and motivating for students by tapping into their cultural experience and assisting in the development of a sense of personal relevance • ICT can be used as part of the process and product of rich assessment tasks• ICT enriched activities can be used effectively to enhance deep understandings

Moving between ICT

• Word processing - Word, PowerPoint, email, comics• Synchronous and asynchronous communication - E-mail, Instant Messenger, Video conferencing • Internet - information search, web quests, on-line dictionaries • On-line learning - software programs and Internet based language lessons • Teacher and Student centred approaches allowing self discovery learning and traditional teacher focused presentations

www.wordle.net

WordleWordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

Students cannot type in script, however ALT codes can be used for European characters.

Useful Websites

Tagxedo

Note: You can type in Script in this site but Microsoft Silverlight should be installed in advance.

Tagxedo turns words -- famous speeches, news articles, slogans and themes, even your love letters -- into a visually stunning word cloud, words individually sized appropriately to highlight the frequencies of occurrence within the body of text.

http://www.tagxedo.com

Image Chef

Visual Poetry tool

You can use it to: • Inspire creativity • Independent writing • Display • Consolidating vocabulary • Making calligrams

http://www.imagechef.com/

Bubbl.us

http://bubbl.us

Bubbl.us is a mind-mapping product which makes it easy for anyone to start planning and sorting out their ideas through the use of linked text bubbles.

http://en.linoit.com/

Lino it

Online stickies

Microsoft Photo Story • A presentation program you can use to create media presentations with

digital photos• Add transitions, music, narration, and special effects to create a movie • Free to download

Glogster

“Poster yourself”! This is a fantastic website to support writing skills. Students register, then create their own topic-based posters, appropriate to any Stage of learning. They can add their own images, sound files, movie files, text, graphics, etc. Students can type special characters and accents (e.g. è, ß), and Chinese and Japanese are available. Perfect for primary students through to Stage 6.

http://www.glogster.com/

http://edu.glogster.com/

AudacityA free audio editor and recorder that can be used to record and edit sounds.The program has multiple methods of editing including copying, cutting and pasting audio files http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Voki Is a brilliant site allowing students to create an avatar, type in their script and hear the avatar speak!

Students can create their own avatar (choosing character, hair and eye colour, mouth colour and size and clothing, accessories...), even voices...!

http://www.voki.com/create.php

Voice thread

http://voicethread.com/

Using VoiceThread, students can realise the power of voice as a tool of expression.

iTunes• Songs are among the best ways of teaching a language• Download and use ITunes to download songs/music/podcasts

www.apple.com/au/itunes/

Interactive WhiteboardSMART Notebook

http://www.interactivewhiteboard.net.au/

Quia

• 30 day free trial or school subscription • Many activities already created in different languages

www.quia.com/web

• Create 16 types of games and learning activities: Matching game Flashcards Concentration game Word search puzzle

Jumbled words Ordered list activity Picture perfect activity Pop-ups

• Create quizzes with 10 types of questions: Multiple choice True-false Pop-up Multiple correct Fill-in

Battleship Challenge board Columns activity Hangman game

Rags-to-riches game Scavenger hunt Cloze activity Patterns

Initial answer Short answer Essay Matching Ordering

QuizletQuizlet is the largest flash cards and study games website with over 5 million free sets of flashcards covering every possible subject.

http://quizlet.com/

An online flashcard maker and vocabulary learner. You can create your own flashcards, or students can create their own sets of vocabulary (by chapter, by topic, etc.) and then learn the vocabulary through a series of steps and games. You can also access existing games created by other teachers and students (Caution: there may be errors!). All languages available.

Languages Online

http://www.education.vic.gov.au/languagesonline/

PowerPoint Games

• Sale of the Century• Who wants to be a Millionaire• Mystery letter/word • Reveal a picture• Wheel of Fortune• Jeopardy• Twenty Questions

http://people.uncw.edu/ertzbergerj/ppt_games.html

http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/PPT-games/

JeopardyLabs.com

JeopardyLabs allows you to create a customized jeopardy template without PowerPoint. The games you make can be played online from anywhere in the world. Building your own jeopardy template is a piece of cake. Just use our simple editor to get your game up and running.

http://jeopardylabs.com/

Hot PotatoesThe Hot Potatoes suite includes six applications, enabling you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web.

http://hotpot.uvic.ca/index.php

Classmarker

http://www.classmarker.com/

ClassMarker allows you to add your own tests to be taken online and graded instantly and accurately.

DvolverIs a great site to get students creating a mini animation. Students can: • choose backgrounds, scenes, characters, music • write the script which will appear in the speech bubbles• give the animation a title • name the director (themselves) • students can write one (or several) scenes and change the characters • email the movie to you or classmates! The site is very easy to use and can be used immediately.Note: Students cannot type in script, however ALT codes can be used for European characters

http://www.dvolver.com/live/moviemaker.html

Goanimate

http://goanimate4schools.com/public_index

http://goanimate.com/

Go Animate! enables students to make their own cartoons and animations, choosing characters, scenes, props, soundtracks, special FX, etc. It is a great tool for encouraging students’ writing skills and embedding ICT. European characters can be inserted using the ALT codes.

KerpoofKerpoof's multimedia software is used by kids worldwide to create original artwork, animated movies, stories, greeting cards and more. The site is meant to be fun, but we're serious about its educational value. Elementary and middle school teachers can use Kerpoof in many ways to enhance classroom activities while meeting a range of educational standards.

http://www.kerpoof.com/

Lesson ideas: story-telling, talking about the cultural aspects .

Xtranormal

http://www.xtranormal.com/

Xtranormal Xtranormal is a text-to-movie website which allows you and your students to create short films with your own scripts using very clever text-to speech technology. This means your students write a script and then feed it into Xtranormal to produce films with characters enacting it.

Animoto

http://animoto.com/features

Animoto provides an array of tools for creating video slideshows in your classroom from your photos, video clips, and music..

http://animoto.com/education

Note: You can use your own images and photos to create a video.

ToondooMake a comic strip.

http://www.toondoo.com/

This is a comic strip generating tool. It is very easy to use as no sign-up required. You can type and tag in Script.

The above is just a minimum of what you can do in the site. Your students might be able to be more creative and artistic if you show how to use tools. Here is the link to video tutorial: http://stripgenerator.com/video/

STRIPGENERATOR

http://stripgenerator.com/

Pikistrips

http://www.pikistrips.com/

Students create comic strips using their own photos and write descriptions. Not for scripted languages (note: students can type in script but, when published, the script will disappear). Note: Students need to sign in and upload own images, so preparation required.

Pixton

http://www.pixton.com/uk/

Pixton provides a visual writing tool. From fully posable characters to dynamic panels, props, and speech bubbles, every aspect of a comic can be controlled in an intuitive click-n-drag motion. Comics can be published and shared, enabling classmates to view and comment. Languages available: Arabic, Chinese, French, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Spanish (+ ALT codes can be used).

StoryJumper is a place to create and discover stories for kids.

StoryJumper

www.storyjumper.com

Lingt The Lingt editor is simple enough for anyone to use while remaining flexible enough to allow implementation of almost any spoken or written exercise. You can create:

spoken dialogues dictations pronunciation practice oral examinations or diagnostics reading practice image or video commentary your own inventions

Lingt allows students to listen to teachers' and their own recordings as many times as they'd like, making it perfect for pronunciation and comprehension exercises.

http://lingtlanguage.com/

StorybirdStorybirds are short, art-inspired stories you make to share, read, and print.Read them like books, play them like games, and send them like greeting cards.

http://storybird.com/

http://mfl-storybirds.wikispaces.com/