We are building this page together. If you discover any
sites that you think will be useful to your colleagues, please forward them to
me and I will post them on this page for all to use. It would be useful if
you could take a moment to comment on the sites that you are recommending.
This page is being built by Professor Jileena Rose, Mallory
Zalucki, Kayla Robertson, Jonathan Valley, Alanni Wethers, and Lauren Moore,
and many more, with the
assistance of Professor Robert Cooper.
This looks like a great interactive site for people who
want to work on their pronunciation. The listening
exercises require
Real Player
and
Flash Player. I highly recommend this site for
students AND instructors.
This excellent site includes Free Online English Grammar
Rules, Free Online Quizzes, and Helpful Links.
Activities
for ESL Students
There are over 1,000 quizzes, exercises and
puzzles on the a4esl.org website to help you
study English as a Second Language.
INFOTRAC - THE ONLINE LIBRARY associated with Thomas
Nelson publishers
For ESL Students and
Teachers
Telling Stories
Using Drama & Multimedia with ESL Students
Storytelling — through drama and multimedia — allow English language
learners (ELLs) to concurrently develop language and higher order
thinking skills. Through sample projects and videos, Telling Stories
demonstrates ways to involve students in engaging activities that help
develop their language and content area skills.
St. Martin's
Handbook - Interactive exercises and tutorials on
plagiarism and documentation.
Week 4: Using Wetoku in the Classroom
Welcome to our fourth week of New Teacher Boot Camp!
Today we're going to be exploring
Wetoku.
What is Wetoku?
Wetoku is a web service or Web 2.0 tool out of Korea
that provides a simple platform for interviewing someone
via the Internet. Collaborating globally is a must for
our students and as result interviewing can be a
challenge. Wetoku makes doing an interview as easy as
filling out some basic information, creating an
interview session and then sending the creative
interview session’s URL to the interviewee. Once the
recording is done, the interviewer can embed the copy of
the URL into a blog or website. You will need a web-cam
for this tool.
Introducing Dave Dodgson
Dave is an elementary school teacher in Turkey
teaching EFL (English as a Foreign Language). Take a
read about his approach to using Wetoku in the
classroom.
From Dave: Wetoku's split screen feature makes it
perfect for interviews and that's exactly how I used it
with my fourth grade English class here in Turkey last
year. We had been reading an adapted version of The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz and we had a related project
about the state of Kansas to do. Through Twitter, I
found out a member of my PLN from Brazil had spent time
in Kansas as an exchange student and still visited her
host family there from time to time. She agreed to be
interviewed and I set my students the tasks of preparing
questions they wanted to ask.
Wetoku
was ideal for the interview for a few couple of reasons.
First of all, the split-screen feature offered the best
visual format. Also, as Wetoku is web-based, we didn't
need any extra software like Skype (which isn't
installed on the class computer anyway). Finally, the
recording is broadcast live (so absent students could
still tuned in if necessary) and is immediately archived
for future viewing.
Once
set up, the students took turns to introduce themselves
and ask their questions. As English is a foreign
language for them, they struggled to understand the
answers a little but, as the whole session was recorded,
they were able to re-watch it several times later, which
gave them some great authentic listening practice!
We
also made use of the archived interview by embedding it
on the fourth grade's English wiki site, thus making it
available to the entire year group. The kids really
enjoyed having a guest "beamed into our classroom" and
got a lot out of the experience!
Please view this screencast tutorial for an overview
of Wetoku.
Assignment 1:
Create your own Wetoku
Step 1: Set up a personal Wetoku account.
Follow all the account set-up steps.
Step 2: Explore the Wetoku's that have been
created on the site by other users.
Step 3: Practice creating a show alone and/or
with a colleague or family member.
Step 4: To create a show start by clicking the
blue "Showtime" button on the top of the page.
Step 5: Next decide to do a single show or
interview show. For single show click on the
"Live" tab and fill in the info. For interview
show click the "Interview" tab. Decide on your
privacy setting.(May want to do "private" URL
feature first, before you go public.) Click the
"next" button.
Step 6: Wetoku will ask you to allow your webcam
to connect. Click "allow". Click the large "OK"
button. You'll now be in your show. (You can't
edit a Wetoku, so practice makes perfect!)
Step 7: Ok you are "On Air". In a "single Live"
show, click the start button to begin. In an
"Interview" show, you must send the URL link and
password displayed that was created for your
show to your interviewee before you can start
your show. They click on the link, use the
password, then they appear in your split screen.
(No account needed for guests to be
interviewed.)
Step 8: Once you click the start button, you
will see the red record button on, which means
you are recording. Click stop when you have
completed your show.
Step 9: When you stop recording, your screen
will go dark. (If you have a guest, they will no
longer appear on your split screen.) You can now
watch the show on your channel. If you
interviewed someone, send them the link created,
so that they can see the show.
Step 9: Wetoku link can be shared Globally, so
don't be afraid to reach out as you practice.
Step 10: Use headphones for your interviews or
shows! This will eliminate echo.
Step 11: Create a Wetoku show!
Assignment 2:
Post Your Wetoku to the WIki
Step 1: Go to
http://wetoku.com/
Step 2: Sign in to your account
Step 5: Copy the embed code for a Wetoku show
that you created
Step 6: Go to your page on the wiki
Step 7: Click "edit page"
Step 8: Click on the Widget -> "embed widget" in
the tool bar on your page
Step 9: In this widget menu click "other" ->
"other html"
Step 10: Paste your wetoku code in the html box
on this page
Step 11: Click Save and a widget will now be on
your page
Step 12: Click Save again and your Wetoku will
now appear on your page!
Thanks to Dave for the great idea of how a new
teacher might begin to explore the use of this great
video communication tool!
About Dave Dodgson
Dave
Dodgson works in a private elementary school in Turkey
teaching EFL (English as a Foriegn Language) in the
fourth and fifth grades as well as running the school's
wiki pages. He is currently nearing completion of an MA
in Educational Technology and TESOL with the University
of Manchester. He is an
active blogger and you can find him on Twitter as
well (@DaveDodgson).
They are (drum roll please) our very best, most useful
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you.