So Much to Learn...So Little Time

Speaklike...or just a lazy app for anglophones

I caught an article on this new beta in my reader, via Webware.com.

SpeakLike: Home via kwout

As a languages teacher I'm actually at a loss as to what I think about it. At first I thought it could be a fun kind of application. As it is an companion to an IM  client it is obviously not going to required to translate a huge amount of text. So for maybe a business person in a rush to communicate with a colleague overseas this could be a useful tool. The user types in their own language and apparently seconds later the interlocutor sees the translation in their own language. (English, Spanish and simplified Chinese currently available.)
The interesting bit is that human translators are also used along with HAL (Human Assisted Language) (2001: A Space Odessy, anyone)

However  as an MFL teacher I am obviously wary of any kind of translating machine. No machine can ever replicate the humanity of language. Words often have multiple meanings which sometimes require an understanding of nuance to translate. I suppose the creators of SpeakLike have realised this and added the extra buzz of human translators, but this is bound to slow down the whole process and it would no longer be quite like IM (INSTANT messaging.)

This application came hard on the heels of VOXONIC which has apparently developed some proprietary software which can replicate a person's voice in ANY(!!!!!) language. Apparently from a fifteen minute sample of you speaking they can present you saying whatever you want in any language...without more info (or maybe more brains on my part)I can't see how this would give a good translation, I just keep thinking about Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther films "Deu yeu 'ave a reum? etc. Some rapper (Prodigy from Mobb Deep) has decided to release his latest album in 14,000 languages using this software.

Technorati Tags: speaklike, voxonic, language, adamsutcliffe

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Web 2.0 Apps and their Use in the MFL Classroom...mashups

Following on from a couple of previous posts regarding web applications and non-web applications I have used in the class, I set out on a little bit of personal research to have a look at some of the new web apps and see how they could be used in an MFL classroom (filters permitting) or to aid language learning. Regular readers will have seen the recent posts about specific language learning resources. These post and others to follow deal with applications which don't necessarily have a language learning purpose but can be adapted for this purpose.

In this post I want to deal with what I've termed mashups, for want of a better word. They permit the user to manipulate text, images, audio and even video.

Glogster:

Glogster's tag line is "poster yourself". And it is simply that. You create a poster including pictures, text, video etc. I think this would be superb for language learners. Students could create e-posters about themselves, celebrities, their town etc. They can show off their writing in a foreign language, or they could record themselves speaking the language on their phone/mp3 player and upload it. They could even make a wee video and upload it. In one piece of work students could present both their Speaking and Writing skills whilst at the same time showing of their creative skills.
Obviously, knowing the kind of networks we all work with in schools it may not be possible to use in school, and if possible it would probably need some preparation beforehand. Students would possibly have to load pictures/audio/video onto a pen drive  at home. I think though that it is at home that this would be great for learners to sink their teeth into. Once their glog is created they can then either embed it in a class blog or email the link to their teacher.
Here's one I did earlier.

Le Glog de Monsieur S.

Scrapblog:

Scrapblog is similar to Glogster in many ways, in that you can add photos and videos etc. It differs in one obvious way, and the clue is in its name, scrap...blog. It's the e-version of a scrapbook. That is you can create multiple pages, add a sountrack to the project and even add Ken Burns Effect to your pages.

I think this application would be a great way for students to write about and create a pictorial representation of a holiday experience, say a school trip to France etc. In my example I thought about the topic of school and how I could represent that. Obviously mine is a quick version just to have a look through (which is why the embedded video has nothing to do with our school) but there are definite
possibilities. This is more of a long term project though.

Update: Scrapblog can also be used to tell a story. Why not adapt a fairy tale in a foreign language and jazz it up with photos?

Mixbook:

This app is essentially photo based, but text can be added. Again this is great for writing and showing an account of a trip and such like. What I do like about it is the fact that you can collaborate with friends. So a group of students could work on a project of some kind away from school, and not have to be together. Even better, if a student (or class) has a penpal a mixbook of images and writing comparing and contrasting each others' lives etc. A way for both (sets of) students to practise their language skills whilst ensuring they understand each other.

  View this book full size or get a printed copy at Mixbook

Technorati Tags: mfl, languagelearning, web2.0, learning, teaching

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Tumblr

I've been thinking for a wee while about separating my thoughts into 2 different places on the blogosphere. I've decided to try out Tumblr. Here I will pass on my thoughts, comments and observations about the world in general, whereas I will try to keep this my place for things educational...seeing as it is my employers that pay the Typepad subscription.

If you follow my bloggings and twitterings, why not try to keep up with my Tumblings:

Chuffin's Tumblr

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Two More Resources and Online Safety

This film looks at 2 other web learning resources, Palabea and iTalki.
As learning resources for pupils I am not convinced as to their relevance they are more geared to using language learning as social network. Not that I'm against that per se, just they do not appear to be 100% set up to learn a language.
The majority of this film gives advice about using these sites and the amount of information required to be able to use them.


Click to Play

A brief look at 2 more language learning resources and also a word about your safety when using these resources .

MangoLanguages

This is the first in a mini series of films looking at some of the free web-based language learning resources now available.





Click to Play

This is a superb language learning resource. Well presented and well thought out. The audio uses native speakers and there is something for everyone.
Use it while its still free.

Technorati Tags: adamsutcliffe, languages, learning, resources, french, german, spanish, mangolanguages

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What Kind of Teacher are You?

Are you this kind of teacher?

Or are you this kind?

Images courtesy of Alec Couros from his Doctoral Thesis, Examining The Open Movement: Possiblities and Implications for Education, and were originally uploaded to Flickr by Alec. 
Thanks to Mr W. for bringing them to my attention.

May I be so bold as to suggest that if you are reading this you are probably a networked teacher, or on the way to becoming one. I find myself more and more a networked type and I have to say it suits me down to the ground. I have never thought so much about my job (vocation?) ever, and have never had so much contact with fellows world wide; at this particular point in my life when due to my ruptured discs I am not in my "Typical Teacher Network" it is really quite comforting and stopping me wallowing in too much of my own pity.
For example I was ironing a few clothes on Sunday ( I can still do a bit of work) with Twitteriffic chirruping in the background and Ewan wanted some contributions for a piece he was in the course of writing. I had a few thoughts and so did a few of our mutual followers. You never know I might vaguely recognise something he writes in The Economist.
Yesterday I caught a tweet from Lucy Gray asking for examples of presentations showing good practice in Global Ed. I sent her a link to one I did for our Welwitschia Partnership...lo and behold I discovered she has set up a whole network dedicated to Global Education.Fantastic.
One BUT though. I put out a tweet for any GLOW monitors to ask about their role. Nary a tickle. Glass half full version, non of them are online tonight. Glass half empty version...they don't know about Twitter...oh dear, better not utter my true thoughts.

All hail the network.

Technorati Tags: Aleccouros, networkedteacher, network, adamsutcliffe,

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Spokeo...SPOOOkeo

Spokeo

Does anyone else think this new social media tool is just going too far. I'm sure the idea of being able to track your friends content was the original innocent idea, BUT if you use this service the person you are tracking does not need to know. You don't have to be invited or approved or even be registered at Spokeo.

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Apparently it can even track what you buy or want to buy on Amazon

I'm presuming then that "enlightened" companies / universities could use such a service to background check potential candidates. JUST ANOTHER REASON TO BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU PUT OUT THERE.

                    All users can track information that is publicly available.
         

In other words anything that is on public view can be tracked.

Your reading list is completely private. Nobody knows what you are
tracking, not even the friends you track. Since Spokeo is a friend
tracker and not a social network, you can rest assured that everything
you do on Spokeo is completely private.

As I say SPOOOKEO!


       

       

Technorati Tags: spokeo, socialmedia, socialnetwork, privacy

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Expert tips for Editing Podcasts in GarageBand

Here's a great list of tips about editing podcasts in GarageBand. It's not a how-to, rather a how you can improve and make it more professional.

10 Tips for Editing a Podcast in GarageBand


Technorati Tags: garageband, editing, apple, mac, podcast, podcasting

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Learn 200 words a day

200words-a-day.com

Just got this link through my google alerts for languages. For any of you MFL teachers out there have you heard of this, do you have experience of it. If so drop me a comment.
It sound to be too good to be true, but I like the idea if only for increasing students grasp of vocab.

Teaching Modern Foreign Languages in Schools Using Accelerated Learning Software
Free Trial in your School - read on only if you are open-minded...
Many modern foreign languages (MFL) teachers have difficulty in attracting, and retaining the interest of students who are studying languages in schools. Teaching vocabulary is one of the areas of difficulty.

The 200 Words a Day! techniques, which use the
teachings of the world's memory masters, might hold the solution if
this sounds like you might be facing.

Now to approach my PT. What is there to lose by talking to them and trying it out. We are always complaining about how students don't learn enough vocab. Obviously it wouldn't/shouldn't replace the usual courses etc but it could be useful.


Technorati Tags: language, learning, teaching, french, german, spanish, 200words-a-day

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Non-Web Applications I use - Part 2

iMovie 06
I love this almost as much as GarageBand. Notice I have specifically mentioned the previous version of iMovie rather than the 08 one. I don't get the new one...well actually I've not spent enough time with it but it didn't leap out at me. iMovie 06 interface is simple and to my way of thinking, logical. You upload your film edit it and then export it in whatever way you choose. I had few problems a bit ago with it not transferring files properly to my usb storage drive but that seems to have been solved by an update. I enjoy mucking around with it and trying new things and this and GarageBand have released a (quite) creative part of me that I didn't know was there. I've even got some senior students using it for their drama project and they seem to find it easy enough.
As it is part of Apple's iLife suite it fits quite happily with GarageBand, iPhoto etc, so you can add garageband jingles as part of the soundtrack (same for iTunes) or you can use pictures from iPhoto.
There are all kinds of themes you can integrate into your projects but I've not investigated those as yet...one step at a time.

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iPhoto
The new iPhoto is great. No longer do you have to search through your library photo by photo, your uploads are automatically sorted into date organised events. The new editing tools are also miles better than the previous version; even though I know next to nothing about photography and editing even I can make a photo look better. I really like the facility to use your photos to create things such as calendars and card etc. I created 2 fundraising calendars for the school using iPhoto and a colleague's pictures. Dead easy and they look great. As I don't have a .Mac account its not that easy to email photos direct from iPhoto. I did try out the MailPlane app but gave it up when I had to pay and went back to Thunderbird...but this is why I have a Flickr account anyway.

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iShowU
iShowU is a screencast recording application. I tried out the demo version at first but wasn't all that impressed. Then I heard about Jing and tried that but I couldn't get it to record anything. So I went back to iShowU and started to muck around with the demo...lo and behold I worked it out, so I bought the full version. It seems to be relatively simple to use, but it took me some time to come out with a recording I was satisfied with. You can set the amount of screen you want to capture, and the quality of image you want (there's a huge choice and I found what I wanted through the old trial and error technique. You can record from the inbuilt computer mic or via a usb mic (recommended). Using this app I have produced a couple of tutorials for my Connecting Classrooms Partnership wiki.

Welwitschia Wiki Tutorial pt 1

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iTunes
Do I really need to write about the "best digital jukebox on the planet". Create playlists, upload and browse album covers, burn your playlists and let the grace note database do the work when you import your cd's. But thats not all. Of course iTunes links with GarageBand and it is here you can store and convert your podcasts, vodcasts etc.. Then of course there's the store, a great place for music but more so a great source of free learning resources in podcasts. Finally I like to use iTunes to "impress" my registration group with my wide and eclectic taste in music...it's not worked yet though, "Who are Bad Brains?"

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iWork 08 (Keynote)
iWork 08 is the new suite of presentation and spreadsheet tools from Apple. Pages is like microsoft publisher, Numbers is a spreadsheet application and Keynote is Apple's Powerpoint. I can't comment on Pages and Numbers as I haven't used them but Keynote leaves powerpoint languishing far far in the shade. It is stunning and so easy to use..the only difficulty is deciding what your presentation is about. The themes are amazing, as are the text effects and transitions. It simply looks superb. You can record your presentation and export it to post on the web or on dvd. You can import pictures, films, music, anything, because it all fits nicely with iTunes and the iLife suite. I love it, AND if necessary you can export to PDF, Flash or PowerPoint...but it just doesn't look the same.
Here's what I produced (during my enforced absence) to promote a languages-based filmmaking project.

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Mousepose 2
A very cool presentational tool from Boinx. It helps you highlight the particular area of the screen you want to show by spotlighting that area and dimming the rest. The new version also includes keystroke visualisation, enabling your audience to see which keys you are pressing. You can also visualise your mouse clicks. Look at this pbwiki tutorial I made to give you some idea.

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Open Office
As I didn't want to pollute (and have to pay for the privilege) my PowerBook with Microsoft stuff I decided to use Open Office as my word processing application. Put simply it is an open source office suite (as m/soft office) which includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager and a drawing programme. The WP app is very similar to other office suites and it works quite happily with M/soft Office. In other words I can write something on it at home, email it to school and open it up quite simply as a word document. It offers all the features you would expect from a WP app. (I haven't used the others in the suite.)
I do quite like it but there are times when it (or more likely me) doesn't seem to be quite the same as Word which I am much more used to using. I can't really explain how or why, because I don't really know enough about it. But for my needs it works perfectly well.

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PDFPen
Not so long ago I had to download a pdf form fill it in and send it to someone (in Cameroon) via email. But you can't write on a PDF normally. So I thought I'd try this thing out. And it did indeed Smile on my Mac. It works. The form filling seemed to be a bit fiddly when I used it, but since then I have discovered how to lock the text filling tool on. Thats all I've used it for so far and I only have the demo, which leaves a not too obvious watermark on the document. In laymans (my) terms it seems to create another layer over the document on which you can then write. It served its purpose and who knows, I might need it again.

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Quicktime
Probably the most readily used and available platform for content in the world. I convert all my films and podcasts to quicktime which ensures that most people can access the content.

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Text Edit
When I just want to jot something down and can't be bothered opening Open Office I use Text Edit. Its a simple word processing app which lets you do quite a lot of fun stuff like importing music and film files. You can spell check, change fonts and format and create bulleted lists. Quite simple really.

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Thunderbird
As i use Firefox as my browser of choice and was looking for an email client to host multiple gmail accounts I decided to try Thunderbird. No complaints so far. I've linked 3 gmail accounts to it and it works like a dream...i.e. I don't have to do anything more than click. I'm not even going to go into all the other stuff it can do because I don't understand although it has good junk protection and as it is open source it is very secure (a strange but wonderful paradox isn't it?)

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Twitteriffic
My main Twitter client (I also use Twitterfox via my browser but that doesn't count for this post). I sings when a tweet comes in and there is a pretty looking blue bird in my dock. I use twitter but am not fully sure/convinced but can see its potential. I tend to use twitteriffic to advertise my latest blog posts. Oh yes its free if you are prepared to put up with 1 advert per hour otherwise I think it costs $14.95 to stay ad free...no prizes for guessing which version I have. The free one.

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Well that's all folks. Hope this mini series has been a little informative and not too tedious.

Coming soon, Web Apps I've not used yet but will do soon...bet you can't wait.

Technorati Tags: twitter, twitteriffic, thunderbird, textedit, quicktime, pdfpen, openoffice, mousepose, boinx, smileonmymac, iwork08, itunes, ishowu, iphoto, imovie06

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