MyBrainShark- a perfect tool to help our students make presentations!

In Greece students usually make their first presentations in front of the whole classroom when they attend secondary schools. They have to speak for 2 or 5 minutes in front of the teacher and their classmates while trying to remain calm, confident and remember what they want to say and in which order. Some shy students do not manage well and when they finish their presentations, they simply feel dispirited and demotivated. It is possible that in the future they might only remember this negative feeling and not the content of the presentation that they have made.

MyBrainShark can help our students gain the confidence they need. It is a free website that allows anyone to create and share video presentations. First, we need to register and choose the free package which contains all the basic features needed, of course if we want we can choose to pay for additional features. Then, we start by uploading powerpoint slides, documents, videos, pictures or other files from our computer and we can add voice narration to all or some of our powerpoint slides. Thus, MyBrainShark's website and our computer's microphone can help us transform our content into a voice enriched video presentation. Finally, we can share our presentation as a link through email or everywhere on the Internet.

How can we use MyBrainShark?

It is easy to navigate and use. Basically, we register and then we have to go through 3 main stages.

• Upload our powerpoint slide
• Add voice to all or some of our slides. We can record ourselves as many times as we wish until we are satisfied.
• Finally, when we are done we can choose the way to share our video presentation. It is really important to remember to make our presentation active so that others can actually see it!!!

Remember: We can edit our presentations anytime.

Here is an amazing website with images that guide you step by step in order to make a MyBrainShark video presentation. 

For those of you who would like to watch a detailed video about how to use MyBrainShark check Russell Stannard's teacher training video.

Why I do suggest MyBrainshark!

Our students need to parctice on one-way form of communication and more specifically on giving presentations. They will have to go through that procedure while attending school and maybe later on in their professional or academic life. MyBrainshark is the perfect tool for them for the reasons below.

• Relaxing way: First, our students will have the chance to practice while being at their homes without worrying that someone judges them.
• Unlimited time: They can record themselves again and again until their are satisfied. 
• A great scaffolding tool which leads to self-evaluation: MyBrainShark allows our students to add voice to each slide separately. Thus, our students will become more conscious about how they should organize what they have to say for each slide and the time they need to present it. Every time they finish one slide they will feel more confident to continue until they actually make their video presentation. Furthermore, MyBrainShark lets us to record a short amount and then stop to play it back. I am sure that most of our students will stop many times to listen to themselves and this can help them raise pronunciation awareness and notice grammatical errors or words they tend to overuse. Finally, our students look at the content while recording over and over again, so it more likely that they will be able to recall it easier while giving the actual presentation in the classroom.
• Self-evaluation leads to motivation: Our students will notice their weaknesses and many of them will seek to overcome these in order to make good presentations. The more they feel that they achieve the more motivated and confident they will become. In addition, this feeling to try more will be initiated by them and not by the teacher so there are better chances to last more. Finally, these presentations will always be there for our students to remind them what they have achieved. They can feel proud of them and we can increase their motivation even more by posting them on a blog or presenting them to their parents and classmates.
• Independent, autonomous and self-directed learners: The final conclusion is that our students might become more independent, they will not rely on us to tell them what they have done wrong and whether their presentations were satisfactory or not. They will have a clear image of their abilities and they will perform better when giving their presentations in class.

Practical uses!

Secondary school students can make presentations about lots of topics. We usually ask them to speak about their pet or their favourite animal. They usually have to gather information about the animal's characteristics and its environment. Basically, we can use every topic of our coursebook if we want them to give a presentation. Another idea is to speak about their favourite singer, actor or athlete. Furthermore, we can ask them to make a presentation about their favourite book or film. No matter which will be the topic of their presentation, we should always remember to guide them. For example, we can ask them to speak about the main characters, the plot and the reasons why they like the book/film.  

Tip: We can divide them into pairs so they can help each other. Sometimes we know that we are stuck and we cannot find a solution and sometimes we think we are on the right track but we are not actually. Our classmate's perspective can be enlightening!

Things to consider!

• MyBrainShark is a user-friendly website however I think that we should train our students for using it. Maybe we should make a video presentation with them in the classroom. So, we will need access on the Internet and computers enough for everyone. 
• If we have many students, we will have to give feedback to many video presentations as well. Of course, our students do not make presentations every day so we can arrange our timetable and have a whole weekend at our disposal.
• Keep in mind that MyBrainShark does not lead to communicative proficiency. There will be no interaction between our students. We use it to help them cope with making presentations. Nevertheless, the achieved confidence and language awareness might indeed make our students more courageous, thus, better interlocutors. 
• One last thing to bear in mind is that some of our students might actually write down everything they want to present and record themselves while reading these notes. However, I believe that even these students while gain a lot because they will also feel the need to record themselves over and over again and they will also notice some of their weaknesses. They will also become more confident and ready for their upcoming presentation in the classroom.

Picture source: Shutterstock

I higly recommend MyBrainShark because it can make our students eager to make presentations. No more sad and desperate faces! Let's help our students feel confident and enjoy every activity in our classrooms!!!

 Printscreen from MyBrainShark                                                                      

 Picture source: Shutterstock

Quizbean can make our students more independent!

It seems to me that we tend to focus on how to make our students independent through more engaging speaking, reading, writing and listening activities but when it is time to teach and practice grammar we use techniques like drilling, quizzes, multiple choices, fill in the gaps. All these activities are great and might make our students proficient in English. However, I have the sense that it is more like testing rather than practicing grammar. For example, when it comes to quizzes students rely on their teachers to give them feedback which sometimes they do not even notice, they just see the mark on their paper. Thus, I was looking for a web tool that allows us to create online quizzes and gives our students a sense of independence while using technology.

Quizbean immediately captured my attention because it is free and easy to navigate and use even for elementary students. It is a platform that allows us to create simple quizzes that our students have to complete online. Once we have created a quiz our students can head over to Quizbean and try it out. 

But how Quizbean does make our students more independent and why do I love it?

The most important thing is that our students get instant feedback on each question they answer, thanks to Quizbean's Instantscore feature. Namely, students while taking the quiz they will be able to see a running total of their score and percentage. This will help them pay attention to their mistakes as well as keep them focused throughout the quiz. Furthemore, Quizbean allows us to add exlpanations of the correct answer for our students to see immediately after answering each question. This can leave an impression on our students which can help them remember the correct answer. Moreover, we can add images to all or some of our questions making our quiz more interesting and vivid. All in all, quizzes generated by using Quizbean are interactive and engaging, our students do not wait for the teacher to give them the feedback which usually takes long but in a way they self- assess themselves and have the chance to see where and why they were wrong. 

How does Quizbean work?

Quizbean is free and registration is not required, however I suggest you to sign up so as to easily manage and share your quizzes. 

• First we visit Quizbean's website and after we sign up, we have three options: "Create a class", "Create a quiz", "Add students" . Namely, Quizbean lets you to add students quickly to your dashboard and assign them to classes.(Image 1). 

Image 1

• Let's choose to create a quiz. Then, we have to pick our quiz type. It can be either "Multiple Choice" (our students will have to choose the correct answer from many options) or "This or That" (our students will have to choose one answer between two options) (Image 2).

Image 2

• Let's choose "Multiple Choice". The next step will be to give our quiz a title and then we can add our first question. We can add as many questions as we need! (Image 3)

Image 3

• So, we click on "Add your first question" and then we can type in the question and the answer choices. Be careful to type in the correct answer first. Finally, we can add an image and an explanation. Our first question is now ready and we can add more questions. Once we have made our quiz we can click on "Save and continue" (Image 4).

Image 4

• Then, we have two choices either to click on "Send my Quiz" or "Save and send later" (Image 5).

Image 5

• If we click on "Send my Quiz" we have the option to randomize our quiz and to set an expiry date for it. The feature of randomizing the order of our questions will prevent our students from cheating (Image 6).

Image 6

• Finally, we click on "Step 2: Define Recipients" and we can send our quiz either to the whole class or to individual students. Adding classes and students is really straightforward! You do not have to worry about it! We also have the possibility to share our quiz via email, Facebook, Twitter, etc and copy its URL link. Here is an example that I have made!!!

• Two last features also important are Quizbean's reports cards. Our students can see their final score after completing the quiz (Image 7) and these results are sent immediately to the teacher's dashboard, so you can see who has taken each quiz and their score all on one screen. This can help us keep track of our students progress and realize their weaknesses.

Image 7

How can we use Quizbean in and out of classroom?

• Grammar and Vocabulary practice and revision: We can use Quizbean to make multiple choice, True or False or This and That quizzes and practice grammar and vocabulary like I have done in my example.
• Post-reading: We can also make quizzes to check our students understanding. For example, we can have critical questions related to a text that our students read in the classroom or at their homes.
• Another idea is to make quizzes about characters or storylines in our coursebook. We can make questions about particular characteristics or actions of these characters.
• Self-assessment: they are perfect for preparing our students for upcoming tests. This will help them to focus on the basic points and feel more relaxed and confident. 
• For further engagement we can ask our students to prepare their own quizzes, for example they can make a quiz with similar questions to those they have answered wrong. They can send it to us and we can distribute it to their classmates.
• For fun: We can make quizzes about everything for example about movies, songs, topics in news, facts . For example, we can ask them to listen to a song and complete a quiz or ask them questions about topics they do not know and let them guess. In this case, let them know that their score is a matter of luck. If they do not score well, they simply should not try gambling on this particular day. Maybe this can help them realize that sometimes bad scores do not mean anything at least they have tried and the next time they might do it better.

Limitations to bear in mind! 

Quizbean is an up to date web tool. Our students are used to Internet, TV and technology in general which is overwhelmed with images alternating fast. Thus, they might find it easier to concentrate on an online quiz rather than on traditional paper quizzes. However, the latter has one important advantage. We are able to touch and hold them. We can write notes on them or simply go back to them when we need to revise. There are students who usually do not do this and for them Quizbean's Instantscore and Report Card feature is their chance for feedback. Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that there are students who would like to have their quizzes printed so that they can have access to them whenever they are in need!

Other drawbacks are that they are completed online, thus, we need Internet in our classrooms and computers for all of our students. In case that our students have to complete them for homework, we might hear excuses like "I couldn't access the link". Of course, these students can say something similar for traditional paper quizzes for example "I couldn't find the quiz in my bag, my classmate next to me might have taken mine as well." Finally, Quizbean provides only two types of quizzes but that's why there are other types of activities.

I do suggest Quizbean because I find it unique and up to date. I am sure that our students will love it! Let's give it a try!



Printscreens from Quizbean

Lyrics Training- an alternative way of picking up English!

Sometimes traditional textbook based listening activities can be boring for our students. In addition, listening exercises are never enough. So, let's try out Lyrics Training, an amazing free website which allows our learners to practice their listening skills through listening to YouTube music videos. It is a user-friendly and amusing site. Basically, we watch a music video while the lyrics appear underneath and we try to fill in the gaps (according to the level we have chosen) line by line. The website is very well organized and there is a growing amount of content available in English. The most important feature is that it is very interactive in the way it works, we can repeat lines or skip words etc. I believe that it is one of the most interesting websites on the Internet and it will be very popular among our students because they love listening to YouTube videos and singing the lyrics of songs.

Basic tips on how to use Lyrics Training!

• We visit Lyrics Training website and then we have to choose between 7 languages. We are interested in YouTube music videos with English lyrics, so we will choose English (Image 1).

Image 1

• We can search for a particular YouTube music video by typing its title in the search bar or we can choose a song from the sections provided on the home page (Now Playing, New Lyrics, Top Lyrics (Today) (Image 2).

Image 2

• Once we have chosen our song we can choose the level of difficulty (beginner, intermediate, advanced, expert). The level of difficulty (game mode) will decide how many words will be missing from the lyrics appearing underneath the video which our students will have to fill in. Then we can start the game, Bear in mind that if our students want they can choose the"Karaoke" option. This will display all the lyrics while listening to the song (Image 3).

Image 3

• Our students will have to fill in the missing words line by line. If they get stumped, they have 3 basic options they can listen again to the line by clicking on the "backspace" button. This will allow our students to listen to the line as many times as they want until they can come up with the word. Once they type the word the song will carry on playing automatically. Another choice is to use the arrow icon at the left corner so that they can listen to the previous line which may help them contextualise the missing word. Finally, obviously sometimes our students might actually cannot find the word. In this case they can skip the word by clicking on the "Tab" button (Image 4). Interactivity is the most powerful thing about this website. Our students can now have control over listening activities.

Image 4

• Moreover, our learners can see the score, the time they needed to find the words, how many words they found and how many they skipped. They can share it with friends on Facebook, Twitter or send it via email. Finally, registration is not required but students can sign up so that they can keep a record of their scores.

For more details you can watch Russell Stannard's teacher training video-Lyrics Training.

Some ideas about how to use Lyrics Training in and out of classroom!

In classroom
We can use Lyrics Training for warm-up or pre-listening activities.

• First we need to find a song that suits our needs, our lesson's topic. For example, if our lesson's aim is to practice past simple and "used to", we can choose a song with lyrics consisted of verbs in past simple and have our students listen to it by choosing the "Karaoke" option while writing down these verbs. Then, we can write everything on the blackboard and continue with our warm-up.
•  Apart from grammar points, Lyrics Training can be useful for introducing vocabulary. If our lesson's topic is the importance of protecting our environment we can use The Cranberries song "Time is Ticking Out" to introduce our students words like 'ozone layer', 'consequences', 'radiation' etc. This can be the starting point of brainstorming and discussion about environment.

Out of classroom

I believe that the real power of Lyrics Training website is what our learners can do with it outside the classroom. This site is perfect for independent study. Our students can listen to as many songs as they wish!

Why Lyrics Training website is great for independent study!

I guarantee that every human being listens to some kind of music, rock, pop etc. Lyrics Training website covers many such genres and our students can have the chance to listen to a wide variety of songs. They will choose the songs they like and listen to them while seeing their lyrics. Of course, we can guide them to watch particular videos but I am sure that they will do more than this.

Why I say 'yes' to Lyrics Training! 

•  Our students can practice their listening skills infinitely in a more relaxing way.
• I believe that even if some of them do not want to play the game, they will at least click on the 'Karaoke' button so that they can see the lyrics and sing the song. After all, most of us tend to search for videos in YouTube displaying also the lyrics. Furthermore, our students will try to sing the songs thus they can practice their reading skills, their pronunciation and a more natural way of speaking including contractions and reduced forms of language.
• Students with musical aptitude will be benefited.
• The songs are authentic and up to date so students might be more motivated to listen to them and learn English. 
• Music is culture, so our students can become familiarized with the English culture.
• The website is very interactive in the way it works so students can scaffold themselves by repeating or pausing the lines.
• Feedback is also provided and our students have the chance to play again the game trying to achieve higher scores.

Limitations to think about!

• There is only one type of activity, fill in the gaps. However, we can always use other listening activities to supplement it.
• We should be careful with videos containing inappropriate words, meanings or images.
• Some contractions may get our students confused. We should warn them as well as inform them about informal and formal way of writing.

One last tip

Even though Lyrics Training website is very interesting and I believe that most of our students will happily use it, we should find ways to check if they actually do this and give them our own feedback. In this way, their motivation will be even more increased. For example, we can make posters in the classroom with the songs that our students like, or we can ask them to make posters with interesting words that they have learnt!

So, let's go ahead and take advantage of our students need to listen to songs!


Printscreens from Lyrics Training

Padlet can make our students work together effectively!

Padlet allows us to set up an online interactive themed wall in few minutes and then we can share its URL link with our students who can express their thoughts on the topic, add YouTube videos, website links, photos and documents by adding visual sticky notes to it. So, the great thing is that the wall is not created by one person but we can have several students work on it. This is a perfect chance to have our students collaborate with each other and experience the benefits of group work.

Some years ago in Greece we used to work individually most of the times and the only pair or group work I remember as a student is when the teacher requested her/his students to create pairs or groups and discuss about a particular topic for a few minutes. Students used to talk to each other for a while and then because they were bored and the teacher could not check them all at the same time they continued in Greek saying about irrelevant issues. Of course, I am sure that nowadays English language teachers do more than this and try to promote collaboration in their classrooms. I believe that Padlet is a very good tool which can bring fun to our lesson and maybe help some of our students realise that they actually learn more by building upon each other's ideas than competing with each other.

How does Padlet work?

Padlet is a very user-friendly tool, it is free but we will need to make an account.

• So, first we go onto the Padlet homepage and we click on "Login or signup" button where we can fill in our email address and a password. 
• Then, we have two ways to build a new wall. We can either click on the yellow "Build a wall" button or click on the"+" button at the top right corner. Next to the "+" button there are 3 more buttons which can allow us to view our account and change our password, view all the walls we have created and finally log out (Image 1).

Image 1

• That was it! Our wall is now ready but before sharing it with our students there are a few things that we need to do. We have two ways to modify our wall either by clicking on the yellow "modify wall" button or clicking on the icon on the right side of the page (Image 2).

Image 2

• Once we clicked on "Modify wall" we will see that more option buttons appear on the right part of our screen which can help us costumise our wall. We can type a tittle, give a brief description to our wall and add a relevant portrait choosing from the ones offered by Padlet or uploading a photo from our computer (Image 3).

        

Image 3

• Then, we can add a wallpaper which is a background for our wall. Again we can choose among the ones offered by Padlet or upload one from our computer or even find one on the Internet. Remember to choose a wallpaper which is nice and simple so that students can read easily the content they are going to add to the screen (Image 4).

Image 4

• Afterwards, we can decide on our wall's layout namely on how our students posts are going to look like. There are two options either users can post anywhere "Freeform" or post below each other's post "Stream" (Image 5).

Image 5

• One really important feature of Padlet is its privacy settings. We can have a wall that other people can view but cannot add content to it. We can have a wall that other people can view and add comment to it and finally we can have a wall that our students can view and add comment to it but the content will be added once the teacher agrees "Moderate posts". Finally, we have the choice to add a password to our wall which will be required by anyone who wants to have access to it or we can make it completely private by choosing the first option "Private" and adding the emails of the students we want to have access to our wall. I suggest either to choose the "Private" or the "Password" option and tick on "Moderate posts". (Image 6)

Image 6

• What is more we can pick a new address for our wall and change the address already given to it by Padlet. We can choose a simple word which our students will be able to remember and write down (Image 7).

Image 8

• Finally, we can make our first sticky note by double clicking on the wall. If we want, we can write our name and give a title and then start writing content up to 160 characters. It is possible also to add a link to a webpage or add a video, an image either from the Internet by copying and pasting the URL or by uploading from our computer. Keep in mind that a sticky note can be edited or deleted only by its creator or by the owner of the wall. Students can also change the size and the shape of the post even its location depending on the layout we have chosen (Image 9).

Image 9

• One last thing I want to mention is that we can share the wall via email or Facebook, Twitter etc, we can embed it on a website by coping the URL code and we can export our wall as PDF, Excel file etc or print it (Image 10).

Image 10

For more details you can check Russell Stannard's teacher training video about Padlet, formerly known as Wallwisher.

How can we use Padlet in the classroom?

There are many possibilities for using Padlet in the classroom but I am mostly interested in activities which can foster collaboration, enable group work and establish a friendly, collaborative relation among my students.

Writing

• Starting the Lesson, Brainstorming, Group Discussion: We can put an image or write something on the wall and ask our students to work in groups or in pairs and comment on the topic. Students can brainstorm, use their background knowledge and their imagination. We can introduce almost every topic included in our coursebooks (science, environment, technology etc), for example healthy and unhealthy food and our students can simply write down food items or add videos and images or even better I would suggest to let them choose sides and support either healthy food or unhealthy food and work in pairs in order to find arguments and relevant videos. This can make our students really active, they will collaborate and negotiate with each other in order to create the sticky notes. In addition, the wall updates in a real time so students will feel the need to work and present something to their teacher and their classmates, so they might be quite motivated and they will probably not waste their time on irrelevant discussions. 
• Giving a different end to our lesson, checking for understanding: We can follow the above rationale and at the end of our lesson we can request our students to express their thoughts and feelings about what they have learnt. We do this most of the times in our classroom by asking questions and trying to elicit answers from our students. However, it is often the case that many of our students do not pay attention to their classmates answers. Furthermore, shy students will avoid to speak and share their thoughts. We can use Padlet to make them create a note, expressing their opinion about cyber robots for example and at the same time commenting on one of their classmates sticky note. Thereby, our students will have a motive to read and reflect on their classmates ideas (Image 11).
• Creating a story: We can put a phrase or a word on the wall and divide our students into groups and ask them to collaborate in order to create a story beginning with it. It is important to guide them through the whole procedure because collaboration does not simply happen. We should establish the rules for example each and every student will have to write a sentence and continue the story according to what their teammates have written. Moreover, we can ask them to choose roles, there will be a student responsible for the time, a checker, an organizer etc. Our students will have to sign a contract, promising that they will perform their roles. Thus, every student will be responsible for something and all of them will have to listen carefully to each other and collaborate for the shake of their story. 
• Peer reviews: I would like to point out that Padlet is a very good tool for an alternative type of assessment. For example, when all groups have created their stories (example mentioned above) we can ask our students to suggest their classmates ways to improve their story (other linguistic choices, better structure etc)
• Suggestions for further reading: Our students can create a note referring to their favourite book, they can include a brief review about the book, a photo or a video. Furthermore, we can ask our students to create a second post, selecting their three favourite book reviews on the wall. Students will have the chance to be exposed to different kinds of books and may develop an interest for some of these.

Vocabulary

• We can post a word and divide our students in pairs or groups and ask them to come up with as many synonyms as they can or create as many sentences as they can in 5 minutes. Another idea is to ask them to find pictures on the Internet which reveal the meaning of the word.

Image 11

Some Limitations to think about

First of all, we need to take into account the number of our students. If the students are many, it might be difficult for them and for us to work on one wall. The space may not be enough and students will not have the chance to reflect on what their classmates have written. In addition, too many sticky notes can make our wall look chaotic and us feel stressed. Finally, our students can upload only one photo or one video and the text can be up to 160 characters.

I would say yes to Padlet because it is a very good tool for collaboration. Our students do not need to create any account. They can have access to our wall simply by typing the wall's URL in the search box. However, we can make our wall password protected and choose to moderate all posts so that we can avoid other people from posting on it. Furthermore, our students can make personalised posts by adding pictures and videos. Finally, Padlet is very easy and free to use and no time is needed at all!

So, let's go ahead and use Padlet in our classrooms and give our students a chance to do funny yet formative collaborative activities!

Printscreens from Padlet

Fotobabble's talking photos can be our trump card!

Fotobabble allows its users to add voice to photos very easily and quickly. How amazing can this be? I got excited about it from the very first moment and I knew that I would send lots of Fotobabble's talking pictures to my friends and family. If you tell me that you are not tempted at all, I will not believe you! So we can imagine that if we like Fotobabble so much, our students will love it! Most of our students, especially secondary ones have already a Facebook account, Instagram account, twitter and others of which I might not have heard. They are used to uploading photos and they love it. Fotobabble takes pictures to the next step. Instead of writing comments under them we can actually record ourselves talking about them. The possibilities of what we can do with talking pictures in the classroom are countless but first I think it is important to understand how Fotobabble works.

How does Fotobabble work?

Fotobabble is free but we need to create an account. First, we visit Fotobabble's site http://www.fotobabble.com and then we click on the "sign up" button, we fill in the required details and our account is ready to use!

Image 1

Once we have made an account we can create Fotobabbles very easily and quickly following three main steps.

1.Upload a picture.
If we look at the image above, we can see that there are 3 ways to upload a picture. We can upload a picture from our computer. Secondly, we can sign into our Facebook and use one of our pictures there and finally, we can paste in the URLof an image that we have found on the Internet (we should be careful with copyright issues).

2.Record ourselves.
Once we have uploaded a picture we have to wait a few seconds because we need the Adobe Flash player to connect with our browser so that we can start recording. Then we click on the "Allow" button and we can click on "record" (Image 2). When we are done we can click on "Play" and check if we like our recording. If we are satisfied we can choose to make it private and then click on "Save'.

Image 2

3.Share the fotobabble.

We have got all the options for sharing on the right part of the site (look at Image 2). The easiest way is to copy the link of our fotobabble and send it via email. Of course, we can share it on Facebook, Twitter etc finally we can embed it on websites by copying its embed code. Keep in mind that when we embed into a blog we can change the size of our fotobabble from the width and height.

One more detail about Fotobabble

If we go onto the "My fotobabble section" we can see all the fotobabbles that we have created which we can edit or delete. For more details check Russell Stannard's teacher training video Fotobabble-get your students speaking .

What activities or tasks can we do with Fotobabble?

Fotobabble is definitely one of my favourites web tools. We can use it to make our students speak either in classroom or at their home about whatever we want. Below are some of the ideas which I hope you find useful.

Speaking

• Students can use their own photos to talk about themselves, their best friends, families, pets, their houses, their village, their town etc.
• We can ask them to take photos while being on holidays or during weekends and ask them to talk about these.
• Students can talk about educational excursions, visits to museums, zoos etc
• We can choose a topic (robots, sports, their favourite singer, athlete, country, city, myth etc) and ask them to use relevant pictures from the Internet. There are tens of billions of photos out there so why not to use them? 
• Students can comment on topics they have heard in the news or talk about books, comics and movies.
• Our students can choose a photo they would like to talk about or they can invent a story pretending to be someone famous, a foreigner, eyewitness of a burglary, someone applying for a job or talk about other imaginary situations.
• They can choose a photo and sing an appropriate song for it.
• They can try to guess what their classmates are doing in their pictures.

I am sure that our students will be something more than willing to talk about their own photos or photos they have found on their own. Speaking will become more meaningful and personal. A good idea is to ask our students to create a blog where they can embed all the fotobabbles they create. In this way they will have a personal collection of fotobabbles which will remind them of what they have achieved. In addition, they will have the chance to show these to their family not only to their teacher and I hope this will motivate them to work even harder. At the same time listening to themselves speaking will boost their confidence.

Vocabulary

• We can make our own fotobabbles to talk about the topic of our next unit.
• Our students can find pictures which describe the meaning of the new vocabulary and make a story trying to use these words as many times as they can.They can do the same with idioms.

Colourful pictures and our students effort to make the recordings can make our vocabulary activities more memorable.

Miscellaneous

• There are many schools in Greece who have pen pal relationship with schools in Europe or America. So it would be great for our students to exchange fotobabbles with them.
• If this is not possible, students in the same school but in different classes can exchange fotobabbles.

Limitations to think about

The main limitation is our students security. We can teach them how to make their photos private but still on the homepage of Fotobabble we can not predict what the content will be. The same danger runs when our students will be searching for pictures on the Internet. However, we can deal with these if we and their parents guide and monitor them through the whole process. We can also make a class account if our students are under 13, therefore, not allowed to open an account. Another issue is the lack of interaction because fotobabbles are monologues. Of course, we can not have everything! Other kinds of speaking activities can promote dialogues and real interaction. Furthermore, if we have many learners we will need much time to give feedback to all of them and we will not be able to listen to every fotobabble during classroom time. We can have them work in pairs and correct each other but still we will have to address each of our students individually. Thus, we should manage our time carefully!

Why I say yes to Fotobabble

• Our students will be creative and make something which they will own.
• They can develop their own interests which can help them become more autonomous learners.
• It is fun and can make students willing and more confident to speak.
• It can help them to practice pronunciation and develop fluency.
• It is free, easy to use and time saving.

One last thought 

 Most of our students will practice and record themselves many times before actually saving their fotobabble. This can help them develop accuracy while speaking, however, we should be sure that they do not have unrealistic expectations. It is important to let them know that in oral speech people tend to make pauses to think, they do mistakes and they produce incomplete sentences or even words sometimes. So, no one expect them to talk like robots. For a change we can ask them to brainstorm or talk about a topic just for half a minute and save their first try. There are lots of different activities that we can do using Fotobabble, I am sure that you will also have come up with quite a few by now! 

I wish you happy fotobabbles!

Printscreens from Fotobabble

Word clouds are appealing and can be useful as well, thanks to Wordle!

Wordle can help us turn texts into word clouds. We can do this very easily and quickly simply by visiting http://www.wordle.net. The site is free and no membership or account is required. Once, we are on the page we can click on the "Create" button and then a box appears where we can paste any text we have already copied or type words, sentences or text (Image 1). Then we click on the "Go" button and a word cloud is created instanlty (Image 2). The site requires the Java programme which can be downloaded very easily.

Image 1

Image 2

How does Wordle work?

What Wordle does is to create word clouds by distributing the words randomly all around. The more frequently a word occurs in our texts the larger it appears in our word cloud. Look for example at the above word cloud. The text I have typed is: "Look at the dog named George barking and jumping all around. How silly is George the dog. " The most frequent words are "George", "dog" and "the" which appear larger in contrast to the other words.

Why does Wordle stand out from the other web tools which allow us to create word clouds?

Wordle is special because it is easily costumisable. Once we created the word cloud there are four categories: language, font, layout and colour which can help us recreate our cloud according to our teaching aims. Below you can find some of the most important choices offered in each category which can make our lives easier.
Language: I believe that the choices make all words lower case, make all the words upper case, guess case for each word, remove common words can permit us to create appropriate clouds so that we can ask our students to either indicate which words should be written with capital letters and which with small letters or in cases we have removed the common words (which are usually functional words like the, in, and etc) we can ask them to recreate the sentences.
Layout: Choices like all horizontal and any which way can make our word clouds easily to be read or suitable for tasks where our students have to categorize the words in it respectively.
Colour: Apart from the colour options offered we can easily costumise colours so that for example we can choose a nude colour for the majority of the words and intense ones for the words we want to stress.

Other important tips

Right click on a word can delete it from the word cloud.
When we create or paste a text we can keep words connected simple by using a tilde between them.

Finally, we can either print our clouds or by clicking on "Print " we can choose to save them as PDF files. Another option is to save our cloud by clicking on "Publish to Gallery" (there are many already made word clouds there available for us to use) then copying the embed code assigned to our cloud if we want to embed it on a web page.

Ideas for classroom practice

First days of class

• We can ask our students to use adjectives or/and nouns (including toponyms) to describe England or their school.
• We can ask them to use adjectives and describe how they want their teacher to be. We can also create a similar word cloud.
• They can make word clouds with their expectations from our lessons or refer to their learning difficulties (grammar, past tense, speaking, prepositions).

Most of us tend to ask lots of these orally but now we can use Wordle for a change and make our lessons more interesting and colourful. Students will be more engaged and will get to create something of their own from the very first day. We can use these word clouds as posters to decorate our classrooms. In addition, in our first days we usually have plenty of time so we can give our students the time to explore Wordle.

Reading skills

• Wordle can help us do pre-reading activities. We can make a word cloud with difficult words including in the following reading exercise and ask them to predict their meaning. Something else that we can do is to make a word cloud with the whole following text and ask them to tell us (predicting from the most common words) what they think the text will be about. Finally, we can make word clouds with words summarising the main ideas of the following text and ask our students to brainstorm and talk about these.
• We can also do some post reading activities focusing on the vocabulary and grammar of the text. For example, we can ask our students to make clouds with the words they do not know or with difficult words. They can make clouds with synonyms or antonyms of particular words in the text or find the compound words, collocations, motion verbs, regular or irregular verbs, cohesion words. Our students can make sentences with the above as homework.
• They can work in groups and use the most common words of the text to make a story

Writing skills

• We can give our students two word clouds generated by texts on the same topic but the first will be formal and the second informal. This is a way to make them realise the different writing styles by actually letting them discovering the distinguishing features by themselves.
• We can give them essays that other students have produced and ask them to compare these. They might find spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes, repeated words, limited vocabulary etc.
• Our students can also work in groups and brainstorm on the topic of the essay.

Vocabulary

• We can make a revision on the vocabulary. After each chapter they can work in groups and make word clouds with words they have learnt and liked the most. We can use these word clouds to decorate our classrooms and as a reminder of what they have achieved.
• We can have them match words, find collocations. For example, we can type everyday habitual activities like take a shower, brush my teeth etc and ask them to match them.
• We can give them a new word and make clouds with every word they associate with it (Image 3).

Image 3

Grammar

• We can use Wordle to make a revision or to present new grammatical points. For example, we can create a word cloud with sentences including "used to + infinitive" and "I am getting used to + gerund" and ask our students to recreate these (Image 4).

Image 4

Special occasions

• Our students can make word clouds with happy birthday wishes when one of their classmates has his birthday.
• They can make clouds to describe Christmas or Easter.

Some limitations to bear in mind

The main problem is that we can not edit the word clouds once they had been created. Our word clouds will be lost if we try to refresh the page or return back to the box. So we will have to rewrite the text or paste it again! This can be very frustrating and very time consuming so we need to warn our students about this and keep reminding this to ourselves.

Why I do suggest Wordle

Wordle can be very appealing which can make our students willing to participate. In addition, it can help students who have a visual learning style and others who love collaborating with each other. Moreover, our activities will be more memorable since students will be more engaged and creative. It is also important to remember that to generate a word cloud once you have come up with the words takes not even a second! So let's give our students this time to produce word clouds, I am sure that they will love it!

Printscreens from Wordle

Vocaroo- a voice recording site which can transform the concept of homework!

Vocaroo is one of the simplest voice recording sites on the internet! We do not have to download or install anything neither to create an account to use it. We only need to have internet connection and a computer with microphone. Then, we can go to http://vocaroo.com page, literally click on one button and start recording instantly. Finally, we can save, share or embed our recordings extremely quickly and easily. Vocaroo is free and by far the most easiest to use tool I have ever seen.

How can we use Vocaroo?

1.	Well, we simply open Vocaroo page.
2.	We click on the “Click to Record” button and as soon as we click on this, Vocaroo is going to request permission to access our microphone and camera. Then, we have to click on “allow”.
3.	As soon as we click on "Allow", Vocaroo will immediately start recording what we are saying. We should bear in mind that we can do recordings up to 5 minutes.
4.	When we are finished, we can click on “Click to Stop” button.
5.	Then we can review our recording and if we are satisfied with it we can save it.
6.	Another option is to share it via email or embed it onto websites, blogs. We can also download it as MP3.
	If you need more details about how to use Vocaroo, you can visit Russell Stannard's teacher training video . Reasons for us to use Vocaroo! First of all, Vocaroo is free and easy to use, really easy. So, it is suitable for inexperienced in technology teachers and for intermediate and pre-intermediate level students. I know that when it comes to technology, we as teachers feel the need to have full control of the web tools and Vocaroo can make us feel secure and confident. Furthermore, have you ever been worried that our students are not given many opportunities to speak in class because of the limited classroom time? How many times have you struggled to give all of your students the chance to practice speaking? Vocaroo can help us transcend our classrooms' borders and have our students do audio recordings while being at their homes. They will have the chance to practice more on their pronunciation, grammar, to develop their listening and speaking skills, their fluency and gain some confidence before the next time they will be requested to speak in front of the whole classroom. What is more, Vocaroo can establish a connection between what we do in class and our students homework. To become more explicit, we can work on the above skills and language knowledge in our classrooms and prepare them for the recording they will have to make at their homes (I will refer to this again later on). Homework might become more meaningful and pleasant as well. I remember recording myself singing songs in Greek and English using my cassette recorder. Nowadays, thanks to technology things are easier and many of our students might like the idea of recording themselves, pretending to be singers or sports journalists. Our students might develop their own interests and become more autonomous and by doing something interesting they can become more motivated. Finally, it is extremely easy for our students to send their recordings to us and we can also easily make recordings which will function as feedback and send these to them. In this way, we can have a more personal relationship with our students and address their needs individually. Activities and tasks with Vocaroo! Grammar We can use Vocaroo to help our students practice past simple. For example, we can ask them to do a recording and refer to what they did yesterday, over the weekend or during their Christmas holidays. Vocabulary We can work on the already taught vocabulary. For example, in every chapter there is a vocabulary build up section. We can choose some key words or difficult ones like idioms and make a recording by simply saying these words. Afterwards, we can send it to our students and ask them to write down the words they heard and make their own recordings by producing correct sentences which reveal the meaning of these words. Finally, we can send individual feedback to each one of our students indicating the areas they have to work on.  Speaking In our classes we usually deal with topic areas like family, professions, pets, friends etc.We usually make a warm-up by showing them some pictures and then we help them remember some relevant words. We then make some questions to initiate a dialogue and help them speak. Unfortunately, the time we have is very limited, thus, I believe it is essential to use Vocaroo and ask our students to record themselves at home while talking about their best friend, their pets etc. We can give them some questions as a guideline.  Another idea is to have them talk about their favourite food, book, or city. You can present these recordings in your class and ask from their classmates to guess what they are talking about. Of course, if our number of students is big we might not have the time to do this. In addition, you can have them occasionally talk about anything they want or even create imaginary stories. Finally, our students can record themselves reading the text we have done in classroom. I sure that most of them will go through the recording process many times till they feel satisfied.  Communicate with our students We can use Vocaroo to inform our absent students about what we covered in the lesson they missed and give them instructions for their homework. Our students can say to us what they have not understood. Some things to consider Vocaroo can be a very good tool but there are some things we have to bear in mind. First of all, if our group of students is big then we will have to devote a lot of time to listen to each recording. Now from the part of our students, they have to speak quite loudly and close to the microphone. This can be frustrated at the beginning because they might not be used to the idea of recording themselves. Nevertheless they can try again and again when being alone at their homes and overcome that problem. Another issue is that there is no interaction, no communication since the students produce monologues. To deal with this, we can ask them to work in pairs and assign them roles like interviewer and interviewee so that they will have to listen to each other and answer properly.  I like Vocaroo because it gives our students the chance to speak. I used to hate it when my teachers planned extra teaching hours for speaking only a week before the exams and expected from me to speak confidently and fluently. Let's give our students the chance to practice on speaking and communicate with us through recordings. Our lesson can be so much different, funnier and more personal than the other school subjects. This is one of the advantages of being a language teacher! So, let's make the other teachers feel jealous of us! Printscreens from Vocaroo