Vera’s ICT in ELT Blog

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Create Digital Lessons with Blended Learning

- April 30, 2020

I mage by Oberholster Venita from Pixabay Hello everyone, welcome back to my blog! 😊 In this blog I'm going to talk about a tool which allows you to create your own online materials and lesson plans for your students. Blended learning is an approach which allows you to interact with students online while still being able to use traditional classroom methods. It's the perfect choice of approach for online teaching lessons. Today's online teaching tool is called Blendspace. B lendspace.com (now known as TES Teach) is an online tool through the education curriculum company TES.com. With Blendspace , you can: Independently facilitate your students with exercises, activities and quizzes Allow student autonomy Provide one-on-one feedback to the students Create your own materials and present them in the class or online Build activities and lessons If yo...

Speaking Tools for your Classroom

- February 16, 2020

I mage by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay Hello, welcome back to my 6th blog post! Today I am going to talk about an online speaking tool that benefits both teachers & students! This is week's tool is Voki , by using it, you can create and alter a character's appearance and make it speak by adding a voice message recorded from your phone/tablet or microphone. This tool also offers a text-to-speech feature with more than 25 languages. Conversing with Vokis can boost learner motivation, make the classroom more fun and the students more comfortable with class projects and presentations. Shy students can use Vokis to express feelings and share writing with the class, but make sure they don't get used to hiding behind an avatar!! How to Create a Voki: Here are some student activities and lesson plans that you can do with Voki : The Voki Blog British Council - Teaching English Lesson Id...

Online Collaboration Tools 2.0

- February 11, 2020

Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay Hello, welcome back to my blog! This is going to be the second part of the online classroom tools! I also find Conceptboard a really useful tool, even though it's quite similar to Twiddla (which was mentioned in my previous blog post ), I though it deserved it's own blog post! These two tools and blog posts will be very essential for any teacher who is interested in Online Teaching! What is Conceptboard ? I t's shared, persistent place where work gets done! Conceptboard enables your teams to collaborate and communicate better. You can also video call your team while using it, you can teach, have meetings, group projects, etc! The video calling feature is very convenient and it's one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about this tool as well ! Conceptboard Advantages: Free to sign up! Accessible to all devices from any location. Includes a Virtual Whiteboard You c...

Online Collaboration Tools 1.0

- February 08, 2020

Image by Malachi Witt from Pixabay This week I had the opportunity to experience some student collaboration tools in my ICT in TESOL class! One of the useful collaborative tools that interested me was Twiddla . Obtained from https://www.twiddla.com/ What is Twiddla ? Twiddla is an interactive whiteboard and a collaborative writing tool. If you are interested in online teaching this is the tool for online clas sroom s! It's a web-based program which allows you to hold meetings online while adding text, shapes and drawings to an existing on-screen background. Some background options that you can add are: webpages, a whiteboard screen and imported images and documents. You can use Twiddla to: Interact with students and peers Teach students with the use of the Whiteboard Upload images, texts, drawings or websites Host collaborative meetings Real-time chat and use voice functions Writ...

Using Infographics for Material Design

- January 28, 2020

Image by 200 Degrees from Pixabay Creating interesting and appealing classroom materials is a very difficult job for every teacher! Today I will introduce you a very important designing software which is very essential in creating a variety of materials. The software is called Venngage and it's a free infographics maker! And who doesn't love free things??? Especially when they make your teaching a lot more easy! Venngage can also be used outside the classroom as it allows you to create fun and stylish presentations, posters, images, etc. It takes out the frustration of creating and designing materials for school. How to use Venngage : Once you go into the site, you can create your own account with your email and password. After you sign up, you will be able to use a wide range of free features, however, for additional features there is an upgraded membership. The homepage of Venngage's website states that they have about 100+ infogra...

Enhance Student Motivation in Your Classroom

- January 21, 2020

Photo by fran innocenti on Unsplash As a language learner I always liked the incorporation of language tools in the classroom and that was because most of the time the teacher only taught out of textbooks. I always considered the use of technology in the lesson very motivating! Therefore, when I became a language teacher myself, I always tried to make the lesson more entertaining and motivating through the use of technology. This week, after having the chance to experiment with different learning tools, I found my new favorite! Quizlet doesn't only reinforce your curriculum as a teacher, it can additionally be used as a revision and learning tool for students. It can help you master whatever you are interested in learning, help you practice for a test, a language or to increase your memorization skills. It is a key technology tool for the teachers that feel the need to enhance their learners' motivation and interest! Quizlet can turn the anxie...

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