FV_ProProfs Upgrade

My AR project is using quizzes to improve vocabulary retention in ESL students. I chose to do a short pitch encouraging my employers to by the education version of ProProfs to achieve this goal.

WK4_Reading

This is a mind map of my resources, sorted by topic. As I write my review, I hope this will make it easier to find the information I need.

PE6_GarageBand Guitar Lessons

This is Tim, my guitar instructor in GarageBand. This program is amazing. Your Mac comes with 9 lessons on basic piano and basic guitar. I chose guitar because I happen to have one in my room. The pacing of the lesson was perfect. These lessons are really designed with the beginner in mind. There are also lots of visuals. My favorite part of the program is that each lesson includes a song that you can play along with at the end, so you can practice what you have learned. I only did the first lesson, but look forward to the rest. They are long enough to be educational, but not so long that they become boring. I took guitar lessons a few years ago and loved it. The lessons offered here are a great way to brush up on my skills. If you want to try the piano lessons, you will have to have a piano with a plug to plug it into your Mac. The good thing about this is that you are then able to record songs as well as see directly on the screen what mistakes you are making and how to change them. Over all, the GarageBand suite is a great tool for newbies and advanced users alike.

PE5_Magic GarageBand

While fiddling around in GarageBand, I saw a button that said Magic GarageBand. (Cue Dexter's sister "ooo! What does this button do!) Magic GarageBand consists of 9 present genres, like latin or rock, that you can play around with to create your own song. The song is already recorded, but you can change the instruments used and even add your own instrument to make it unique. I chose Jazz for my song. The pictures included show the preset band provided in Jazz, then what the band looked like after I changed it. For people new to GarageBand, I recommend this tutorial.

PE4_GarageBand

I really enjoy choirs, but it's hard to recreate that three part sound by yourself. So, I decided that that would be my PE4 mission. Could I use GarageBand to record a three part harmony? The short answer is yes. The long answer is that it took lots of fiddling around before I got it to sound how I wanted. Also, I do not know how to upload an audio to Blogger, so I saved it to my iWeb site then posted the link here. Enjoy!

W3_Reading

This weeks article was "Vocabulary Development of English-Language and English-Only Learners in Kindergarten". Since my project focuses on vocabulary retention, I found this very interesting. The study followed 3 different kindergartens (English only, English language learners, and Spanish bilingual learners) that followed a 10 step vocabulary building program. The program focuses on visual and audio input, as well as repetition. Even though the study was of kindergarteners, I have found that ESL students usually benefit from many of the techniques used in kindergarten. In our program, we are definitely trying to incorporate more visuals and more speaking with the students. As we build the core vocabulary, I think we will see the improvement we are looking for.

PE3_Flash

This picture marks the end of my Flash venture. I definitely bit off more than I could chew. Personally, I feel that the videos are not geared towards complete novices like myself. You need to have a bit of a background in Flash for them to be really helpful. Also, the teacher in the videos talks really fast! The class seems to be like, 'Get it, got it, good moving on'. I hope that month 5 of EMDT is not the same speed, or I'm in big trouble.

PE2_Flash

That beauty up there represents my first foray into Flash. I used the poly star tool to create the pentagon and the star. I used the deco tool for the flames and flowers. These flames are not very realistic. However, there is an animated flame tool that is much better. I hope to use it later.

BP12_ OMM Word Sift

The story used in the video was taken from:

Scieszka, J. and Smith, L. (1992). The stinky cheese man & other fairly stupid tales. New York: Scholastic INC.

The art work was created using Stripgenerator.

The screenshots are of Word Sift.

Music from iMovie.

BP11_ Jeet's 'Stripgenerator' review

I love anything that allows me to pretend I have artistic capabilities. Here are my thoughts on Jeet Chadha's blog.

BP10_Ginny's W3 reading

I'm still at a loss for my AR readings. Research is not a strong point for me. At least somebody is on the right track. Here are my thoughts on Ginny Holm's blog.

PE1_Preparing for Flash

For my practical experience, I chose Flash. I had already used the others in the list at some point, where as I have never used Flash. Also, my AR project involves game creation, so learning Flash will come in handy. I started on woopid, but they did not have anything. Lynda has a 7 hr course that I will be taking. This will definitely stretch for the whole 6 entries of my practical experience. I had not used Lynda since I signed up for it the first month, so I needed to find my password. When I found the password, this gave me access to exercise files included with the course. This is great because I will able to actually do each activity as I learn it. By the end of these seven hours, I hope to have a basic understanding of Flash. Wish me luck!

BP9_Word sift

The web 2.0 tool I chose for this week is called Word Sift. Word Sift is a program that allows you to immediately connect text to visuals. This is especially useful to second language learners. Basically, you enter a text into the box and click 'sift'. The program then 'sifts' or sorts the words, excluding words like 'and' 'or' but' etc. It then shows you the words on the screen. The bigger the word is, the more times it was used in the text. When you click on a word, a Google images screen shows up with images related to the word. A 'Visual Thesaurus' screen also pops up giving the word, its definitions and new words related to the word.

Word Sift lets you sort the list of words in numerous ways. For example, you can sort them alphabetically or from common to rare. Word Sift also allows you to mark certain words. You can mark words by subject, or create your own list of words that you would like marked. Word Sift takes interaction to the next level by having a workspace where you can click and drag words and images.

Once I figured out how it worked, I immediately saw its value in lessons using short stories. For example, many teachers give the assignment in which students are asked to use words they have learned to write their own story. Students could place their story in Word Sift to get a visual representation of their use of vocabulary. Overall, Word Sift is a great tool for vocabulary building.

(Screen shots are of my sample story in Word Sift)

BP8_OMM ProProfs

W2 Reading

I found a very interesting article entitled "eLingua Latina and Immersive Call Tool Design". It was in the Computer Assisted Language Learning journal that I mentioned last week. In this article, the authors discuss the combination of language learning and computer games used to create the 'eLingua' tool. The game they described sounds very much like the idea I have for my students. It is a puzzle game where students discover words and meanings through interactive activities. I think my next article needs to focus more on game creation. I have the idea, just not sure how to implement it.

(Picture created in PowerPoint using clipart)
BP7_Amanda's Prezi review

DoInk is a great tool suggested by Amanda McGhee. Here are my thoughts.

BP6_Heather's DoInk review

DoInk is a great tool suggested by Heather Anderson. Here are my thoughts.

Star power by cocobook, made at DoInk.com

BP5_ProProfs quiz maker

I happened across this web 2.0 tool under a friend’s comment on Facebook. I think I may have struck AR gold on this one. The ProProfs quiz maker allows you to make your own on-line quizzes. It also grades them for you and shows the results in an easy to read format. At the end, the quiz takers are given a nice little certificate of completion to print out for themselves.

(Screen shot of my ProProfs certificate of completion)

The ProProfs quiz maker is just what I have been looking for. It is free, easy to use and even allows you to add pictures and/or video to your quiz. The pictures and video are the best part, because one of the goals of my AR project was to make an interactive assessment. Using video and pictures, I will be able to show my students things they have seen throughout the week, to help bring it back to their memory.

I am still working on solidifying my AR plan, but this tool is getting me close. My original plan focused on assessment. However, some of my co-workers felt that assessments were not really what the students needed. Many of them brought up vocabulary retention as something that needed help. This tool allows me to combine both of these issues. My idea would be to make a pre-test and a post-test. The pre-test would show what they already know. The post-test would show what they learned. Since I am making the test, I can cater it to exactly what the students will be learning for that week. I look forward to implementing this tool in classes soon, maybe within the coming week.

BP4_ Web 2.0

Close but no cigar.

So, the end goal of my AR project is to either find or create a computer game to help my ESL students with vocabulary retention. As was mentioned in my W1 article, there are not many games out there geared towards language acquisition. Unless Icreate my own, it will most likely be that I combine a site with supplemental materials, as was done in the experiment. While playing around with the web 2.0s I found two interesting sites. Although I do not think they will meet my personal goals, they could be very useful in a language arts classroom.

The first one was a writing tool called Fractured Fairytales, found on gameclassroom.com (http://www.gameclassroom.com/game/45237-3471/writing-summaries/fractured-fairytales). This site teaches children how to use their imaginations to create unique stories based off of ‘originals. The site works similar to an online story map. First, a sample fractured story is given, so students understand the format. Then, after choosing one of three fairytales (Jack and the beanstalk, Little Red Riding hood, or the Princess and the pea), the students are led through a brainstorming session where they make the story their own. The students are able to later look back on the notes they have taken as they write their fractured version of the story. I think this site would be great on lessons about story writing, as well as points of view.

The second site was Ekoloko, an interactive site that teaches ‘green’ habits (recycling, keeping water clean, picking up litter etc.). The proper link is ridiculously long. If you want to see it, I suggest going through the Go2web20 link we were given and click on the game and community tags to narrow down the options. Ekoloko will be the second one. On the plus side, this site is everything that I want my computer game to be. Interactive, with multiple activities that use multiple skills while having one central theme to keep learning focused. Unfortunately, I will not be able to use this particular site in my own classroom because it is in Hebrew. There is a button that enables you to switch to English, but it does not switch everything. As I tried to navigate around the game, pages would pop up in Hebrew. Also, you are able to interact with other players, but they type in Hebrew. So big drawback, language wise. My ESL learners have enough problems without throwing in a third language. Playing withthis site made me realize that I need to narrow my AR scope. As much as I would like to create a game, there just is not enough time at this point. However, the research I do now will aid me in creating the game later.

W1 Reading

I am already woefully behind in these readings. Lucky for me this is a slow work week, so I'll use the extra time to catch up and get ahead. I found the following article in the EBSCO library:

'Learning English with The Sims: exploiting authentic computer simulation games for L2 learning'. Although the study was geared towards university ESL students, it gave me a nice starting point for my own research dealing with younger students. The article was from a journal called Computer Assisted Language Learning. I will use that phrase in future searches to help narrow things down. Anywho, the article was basically about how the class used a combination of the Sims computer game with supplemental materials to create an interactive learning environment. Sims on its own can not really teach a language. However, with the supplementals like vocabulary list and dictionaries, it became a useful tool.

BP3_ Diigo Group

Thanks to Deborah Sanders for the idea of including a screen shot of my invites.

BP2_iGoogleScreenShots

I've got to say, ETC is more than making up for the down time we had in TMD. Here are the screen shots for my PLE. I hope I am able to use them properly to stay organized. Anyone else out there feeling overwhelmed?