RSCON4 - An Exciting Weekend of Fantastic CPD!

I am delighted to be presenting at the global and internationally renowned RSCON4 virtual e-conference.  This action-packed event is going to be held online from Friday October 11 - Sunday October 13th.

I have had the pleasure of presenting for The Reform Symposium Conference on two occasions, RSCON2010, and RSCON2011 and this year, it promises to be bigger and even better than previous years. Presenters will be sharing transformative approaches to learning and teaching. Influential international keynote speakers are currently being lined up to deliver presentations that will challenge our way of thinking and inform us about the way forward in education in general.

Professor Sugata Mitra will be delivering the Opening Plenary - The Future of Learning.

Below you can view a screenshot of the main page of The Future of Education ning site where more details are available. If you join the Future of Education group, you will be able to keep up to date with all the announcements and news about the forthcoming presentations.

You can find out about all the RSCON4 updates via Twitter by following @RSCON4 and using the hashtag #RSCON4.

I can guarantee that you will enjoy a wonderful weekend of Continuous Professional Development in the comfort of your own home!  I am looking forward to learning about lots of different topical subjects from passionate educators from around the world.

You can read more blog posts about RSCON4 on this Gdocs created by Chiew Pang here: http://goo.gl/KvplSP

Some Visually Inspiring Activities!
My session is called 'Visually Inspire Your Learners!".  It will be held on Sunday October 13th at 4pm Rome Time.

I will be discussing ideas and highlighting some activities to inspire and motivate learners connected to images, comics and cartoons and photo-editing tools.

Examples of Picture activities I have blogged about in the past can be found under the label Picture Activities.

Teach Meet International presentation on Visual Blogging with Muzy:

Slideshare of the Virtual Round Table Presentation on Project 366: A Picture a Day.

Please note, sadly Posterous does not exist any more as a blogging platform and so the links refering to my Project 366 blog on Posterous no longer function, which is a great pity!!  However, some of the ideas contained in this presentation, and the others mentioned in this post, may be included in my RSCON4 presentation.

I hope to present some of my favourite activities and I plan to create a few new ones, especially for RSCON4.  Watch this space!!

WIKI 
I have created a special RSCON4 wiki page to add ideas, links and resources!  It is a work in progress.....

Please click on the Make Beliefs Comix below to enlarge it.

Interview Update
This evening I had the chance to chat briefly about the event with Bruno Andrade, an inspirational EFL teacher and moderator from Brazil, and you can view it below.
Thanks very much to Bruno for giving me this opportunity :-)

A Fable of Sorts on Present.me

I have revisited my very first Powerpoint presentation created in 2010. A Fable of Sorts was a project undertaken for the enjoyable EVO Images4Education session.

 I have used Present.me for the first time. I like its simplicity of use. For a free account, you can create one private audio and three public presentations a month. There is more information about this easy to use web 2.0. tool here.

Pre-recording an audio or video presentation on Present.me would be an excellent back-up strategy before delivering a major webinar.  This would give you piece of mind and possibly save the day!

I hope you enjoy my story which contains images taken by myself, and a plot loosely based on reality......
I wouldn't usually read the text straight from the slides, but in this case, my story could be used as an audio book, whereby a student could listen to and read the story at the same time.

You can click here if you wish to view the presentation on a large screen via the present.me site.

Photo Grid - Android App

Looking through my Twittter stream today, as usual I came across some interesting new links, resources and tools. Being a relatively new owner of an up to date Android mobile device, I am now rather like a child in a toy shop, really excited about all the different apps that can be explored. It's an exciting time for me...

Photo Grid, a new photo editing Android app, caught my eye via Richard Byrne's excellent Android 4 Schools' site. You can view other posts on free Android apps here.

I downloaded Photo Grid as a result of viewing the article on the Android 4 Schools blog, and below and above you can see the results. Quite a neat app, I think, but obviously I need to experiment far more to realise its full potential!

ODD IMAGE OUT
Can you spot which of my images in the Photo Grid below is the odd one out, and why?

A clue: I can't wait to see the image which is the odd one out in the next few days!!

Magical Moments in Mobile Learning
The irrepressible and amazing Shelly Terrell gave a webinar presentation at the 5th Virtual Round Table Web Conference entitled Magical Moments in Mobile Learning: 20+ Tips and Resources.
If you are interested in mLearning in general, it is well worth bookmarking this presentation right NOW as it really is a wonderful resource!!

Project 366: An Image a Day for 2012

I have been uploading an image every day onto my new Project 366 Posterous blog in order to record my life in 2012. It's a great project, and I found out about it via my Personal Learning Network on Twitter, where else!! I enjoy viewing the images posted by my fellow bloggers such as Chiew, Anna, Sue and Mike amongst others....

Why is Project 366 such a great one? Well, it will be a record of my thoughts and actions in 2012, a place for adding things I maybe wouldn't normally write about on my main blog. I will have a useful bank of images to use for activities in class.

I like the way Posterous Design template adds all the pictures and posts on one page, so I have an overview of up to 16 posts per page. This is a very cool feature! The design template theme is by Cory Watilo.

Below you can listen to a Jing screencast I have just made, which explains this project a bit more.

Man on a roof - (Almost) Infinite Ideas

Almost Infinite ELT Ideas, by Sandy Millin is an award-winning blog written for teachers, which contains a rich resource of pictures to be used as prompts for lesson ideas. Teachers are invited to adapt and use the images as they wish. (Almost) Infinite Ideas won the Tefl.net Site of the Month Award in May 2011.


Who Is This Man On A Roof??
I am very proud to say that one of my pictures, taken in Oxford during the summer, has been selected as a picture prompt for this week's activity, which is open to all teachers. Please go to the post "Man on a roof", and imagine how you would use the picture and then if you like, please write a few ideas in the comments box. It would be really interesting to know how you would exploit this image.

I have to confess, I was fascinated when I saw the sight for the first time. I literally did a double take whilst riding my bicycle along Broad Street (see image above) and almost toppled off it, because I couldn't believe my eyes! Who or what on earth was it on top of the roof??

So, without more ado, head over to Man on a roof right now to see what you think!!!

When you have done that, don't forget to bookmark (Almost) Infinite Ideas so that you can have a valuable resource of interesting photos to exploit with your classes.

How to take the perfect photo
Chiew Pang from IASKU fame has recently written a guest post on ELTPics blog Take a photo and ...... outlining some great tips for taking photos! Have a read below, and then see how much better your photos will turn out!

Know your photos, know your camera

A Photo I'm Quite Proud Of
I took this photo today whilst sitting on the back of a big motorbike, which was travelling quite nimbly! I managed to catch the shadow of myself and K and I was thrilled it didn't come out too terribly blurred. You can actually see my shadow taking the photo. I'm still not quite sure how this photo came out like this, so I guess I was very lucky!!

An Idiomatic Story: Defeating Writer's Block!

Walking along the deserted road in the gloomy fog, the lonely figure made its way wearily towards the village in the distance. He hadn't eaten or drunk for days and he was feeling undernourished and parched. What would he find up ahead? His thoughts lingered as he trudged slowly towards the looming houses.

Having lost everything he owed on the horses a few days before, he knew he would have to start from square one again. He was in the red, he knew it. He had blown everything on one last crazy gamble. He knew people would say he had lost his marbles, but he didn't give two hoots about them.

He came within sight of the main square of the tiny village. It was time to take the bull by the horns.....

Image above found on google search imagesbykids

Can you match the meanings below with the idioms highlighted in the story above?


What happened next???

Addendum
I wrote this little paragraph a while ago, but for some reason I didn't publish it immediately. Then the days passed and I lost my inspiration, work took over and I realised that the reason was I didn't really have a title that grabbed MY attention. The original title was "An Idiomatic Story". The title was just so uninspiring, and that very fact was hindering my progress in a way.

Then today via Twitter I vaguely tweeted the following:"Still no inspiration for a blog post. I need to think of a title first. No title, no blog post! Usually full of titles, but not today!"

I received the following tweet by @becluwlib saying " Maybe 'overcoming writer's block's' would be a good title. :)". I replied "Yes, thanks! That's a good one - I think I'll just give myself a little bit more time :)". Well, the time has come now, and I have incorporated part of the advice in the title for this post, so many thanks indeed to Cari Teske from Conrad IA!

Again, the power of Twitter is amazing. So, I now have a blog post with a slightly offbeat title, which I am happy to publish. The challenge I had originally set myself was to create a short idiomatic story from a picture prompt. This is in preparation for my presentation at IATEFL Brighton 2011, which is on the theme of "Teaching Idioms".


The inspiration to challenge myself to writing an idiomatic story came from "Every Photo Tells a Story" blog. It's a fantastic source of images and a great resource for teachers. I really like it!

Seminar in L'Aquila for Tesol- Italy Teachers: Effective Images for Powerful Activities

In front of my PowerPoint display

It was my great pleasure yesterday to present at the first TESOL seminar of this new school year for Tesol Italy in L'Aquila, Abruzzo. This meeting was organised by Annamaria, the co-ordinator of the Tesol L'Aquila group, and it was lovely to meet her in person. She welcomed me and K (who was my personal chauffeur for the day) very warmly, and then helped me to set up the computer in the designated room, which was in the newly born Resource Centre for Teachers of Foreign Languages, hosted by Scuola Media "Dante Alighieri" of L'Aquila. This fabulous resource centre has been equipped by Tesol Italy with all kinds of materials available for the teachers of L'Aquila.

The session lasted approximately 2 hours, and there were over 20 teachers who were able to attend. My presentation was entitled "Effective Images for Powerful Activities". I showed a combination of slides I have used before, and a few additional new slides. I have embedded a Slideshare below.

L'aquila Seminar: "Effective Images for Powerful Activities

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Feedback and Analysis
It was an absolutely amazing and very moving experience for me to be with teachers, who have been through so much. I was very happy to see all the participants joining in the activities with such a lot of enthusiasm. It was a very interactive presentation, and I liked the fact that I was able to move around everyone and see how they were getting on with the tasks I set. I think we all had some fun and the time literally flew past!

The participants did the following activities amongst others:

• brainstorm adjectives beginning with "C" to describe qualities of an effective teacher
• discuss the qualities of an efffective teacher
• 20 questions "guess the famous couple" (Romeo and Juliet)
• retell the story of Romeo and Juliet in under 50 words in pairs / groups
• retell the story around the class with each participant using only one word (this was fun!)
• guess the story of how a couple met
  
• create a poem/short paragraph from a picture prompt
• read a poem out aloud with correct stress patterns
• complete half a text to recreate a full text
  
• guess a famous person (George Clooney) - relevance to Abruzzo being his latest film "The American"
• briefly touch upon the implications of "teaching unplugged" via a picture prompt

Some Web 2.0 Tools
I introduced and showed examples of the following tools (amongst others), which I had used to create special effects and or edit my own images:

create a newscast picture with tuxpi.com
create a film strip picture frame with tuxpi.com
create a magazine effect and motivational poster with bighugelabs.com (see the one above)
a mind map using www.bubbl.us

The mind map below is one I have just created highlighting the lovely qualities of the teachers I met yesterday. Please press on the image to make it bigger. This has been saved as a .jpeg file.


Below is the same mind map, but it has been saved as a moving file, which is quite fun. This was embedded very easily straight from bubbl.us to my blog. Which one do you prefer?



Teaching Unplugged
I discussed the fact that teaching "unplugged" is a topic which is very topical at the moment. To teach with a coursebook or not / to teach "Dogme" style lessons or not. I introduced this topic briefly by a tuxpi - edited image of myself teaching back in 1981 (!!) in the GDR. Of course, back in those long distant days, I did literally teach "unplugged". Eg I had no internet, no OHP, no modern gadgets. Just the plain old, but incredibly useful, blackboard you can see behind me. The excellent "Streamline Departures" was the coursebook I used with all my Beginner level groups of students for the whole year. That is why after 30 years I still know the book inside out. I have very fond memories of it indeed!

I also showed the following image to generate a short discussion topic on "guess what is Janet saying to her students in 1982?"

As an addendum to our brief discussion yesterday, I would like to add the following excellent blog posts, which are currently featuring the subject of "Teaching Unplugged" principles:

Dogme Blog Challenge by Karenne Sylvester.
Dogme for All? by I'd like to think that I help people to learn English blog.
Unplugged Teaching Journal entry #2: My week with Marilyn by Jason Renshaw.

You might also find the following blog post "Animating your Coursebook", by Marisa Constantinides, very interesting.

On the theme of Romeo and Juliet, have a look at this absolutely amazing "Interactive Romeo and Juliet" resource, mentioned on Richard Byrne's Free Technology for Teachers blog.

I was very touched when at the end of my presentation, Annamaria presented me with a beautiful book on the history of L'Aquila. I will treasure this book forever.

Many, many thanks Teachers of L'Aquila for your wonderful participation in my seminar. It was a huge pleasure to meet you all. Hope to see you at TESOL - Italy Rome National Convention next month!

Cherry Picking

I knew I had to write this post today as soon as I saw these cherries high up in a very inaccessible and potentially dangerous place. The title "Cherry Picking" came to mind like a bolt of lightning. Not the unflattering idiomatic sense of the word, but the literal meaning. I also envisaged the exact image I wanted. My cherries on the balcony with the stupendous view in the background. Metaphorically speaking, this view is my constant source of inspiration, my catalyst, my continuing support. One needs a clear view or outlook on life. Where is one heading? What is one's "raison d'etre"? Does one make a difference?

The Other SideThis morning I don't know why, but I felt momentarily deflated. I felt like a small fish in a huge pond of ever increasing magnitutude. I asked myself a very honest question. "Janet, do you feel down, because although you were nominated in the Top 100 blogs, you didn't achieve the final 100?" I thought for a few moments, and this is my answer to self. "It would have been a huge thrill, of course, and it would have made my day and my week, but there were far worthy winners." I have mentioned this phrase here. Then it hit me. The word "worthy" by my very own definition. Had I somehow subconsciously implied that I or the other 395 blogs who were nominated were not "worthy" for not being in the final 100? How might they all be feeling? It made me ponder. I fell into reflection. I walked outside into the bright sunshine and spied upon the ruby red cherries, glistening enticingly.

Inaccessible Delights
Seeing the cherries high up in the tree and inaccessible to me, I knew I had to somehow pick them. I had to do it alone. It was a test of my character. Caution well and truly thrown to the non-existent wind, I gingerly clambered up the steep perpendicular embankment at the back of the house, and grabbed one of the branches, and then twisted it so it came back towards me. I had a stark choice. Did I carry on with my quest or give up? Well, the rest is in fact, minor history. Proud of my endeavours, I decided to wrap the cherries in a nice red ribbon and hence the top photo. The photos are on my blog now to remind me that life is complicated at times and seemingly impossible, but that you can achieve the impossible, if you really literally reach out and grab it. I managed to pick these cherries with great difficulty, but I did it! Failure was simply NOT an option. Success smelled sweet as I held the prizes in my hand.

Permission GrantedLife can deflate you at times. You have to pick yourself up and spur yourself onwards and upwards. Remember that feeling sorry for yourself is a pointless waste of your valuable time. Think of a beautiful scene and give yourself permission to relax for a moment amongst the hurly burly that surrounds you. These images will be a lasting reminder for me personally that life is what you make it. I had to take a risk in picking these 5 cherries way high on high, just for this blog post to be written as I am typing. The self-imposed cutting edge. I can choose to continue with my sombre mood or choose to ignore it, and completely engulf myself with what I love doing best. No choice really, is there?

Swimming or Drowning?
Then I read Natasa's excellent and thought-provoking post "Swimming or Drowning?" and it all made sense. Sometimes life can get too hectic with an online world which dominates so much that there is no time to really see what is in front of you in the offline world. I am truly blessed with an idyllic lifestyle and environment. I do not know what is going to happen from day to day. I should appreciate this more, instead of analysing things far too much.

Writing is.......
How do you cope with a momentary loss of confidence? Please do feel free to share your experiences.

For me, writing is therapeutic. Writing is uplifting. Writing is..............? If you wish, please complete the gap with your own thoughts. As always, I would love to hear them.

Let Sleeping "Cat" Lie

Although Joey is indeed fast asleep inside my Rosemary Plantation, the actual idiom I had in mind was "Let sleeping dogs lie", which refers more to the picture below. The lesson was one I had written a while back, but was lying buried beneath my more recent posts. I published the following Picture Phrasr post at the beginning of my blogging days!

Picture Phrasr

Can you guess the idiom depicted by Kelly, Sofia and Isabella above?

I have just been looking through the archives of Nik's Learning Technology Teacher Development Blog and have come across "Phrasr" by PimPamPum, which was highlighted in the blog in February 2008. I decided to have a play and I wrote the answer to my question above. Please see this sentence. Did you guess the idiom? It looks like a fun site and great tool for exploiting the huge array of pictures available on flickr. Have a go at creating a picture sentence or paragraph yourself!
2nd December 2008

CATaloguing Idioms
Idioms have always held a fascination for me and finding pictures to go with them to make them stand out, has invariably been a quest of mine. I will focus on Cat idioms and show you a few images which can be used to create some effective and memorable lessons. Using your own images whenever possible, adds an extra element to motivate and engage your learners.

Feeding the Fat Cat
The image below of a "fat cat" was found while I was hunting for hidden gems from "The English Blog" by Jeffrey Hill. I can always count on this fantastic blog to come up with brilliant cartoons from newspapers based on topical news of the day. Other lovely examples of "Fat Cat" can also be found in the English Blog's archives here.

Has the Cat got your Tongue?

This was a question I was actually asked by a teacher when I failed to respond to a rather tricky question. I have never forgotten this as I was indeed lost for words, and could not for the life of me reply to the question. I was 18 at the time, and it was a question to do with my Latin A level. What is the meaning of this idiom? Choose one of the 3 answers below:

1. You can't remember something
2. You don't know the answer to a question
3. You are not saying anything

Like the Cat that got the Cream

This expression means one of the following. Can you guess which one is true?

1. Someone who looks very pleased with themselves, because of something good that they have done
2. Someone who makes other people happy by always complimenting them

Original cartoon source from Google image search.

You can view a lesson plan of mine based on this idiom below. This section has been updated today.

The Cat That Got The cream

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Let the Cat out of the Bag

This is an idiom which crops up a lot. If you let the cat out of the bag, you accidentally reveal a secret or a surprise. I once let the cat out of the bag when I told a friend I would see her on Saturday night. She looked surprised. I then realised I had almost spilled the beans. A surprise party had been arranged for her on the Saturday night. I immediately backtracked as soon as I realised I had almost given the game away. Luckily, it was forgotten, my friend didn't notice, and the cat stayed firmly in the bag!

You can view a lovely painting of this idiom from Image © Ben Killen Rosenberg / Getty Images by viewing this page here. I have removed the image I had here, as I wasn't sure of copyright.

Like a Cat on a Hot Tin Roof


Well, in fact Vicki is on top of a terracotta roof, but you get the gist.
Does she look a) pleased to have her photo taken? or b) nervous and unable to keep still?

The following sentence should give you an idea:
What's the matter with Victoria today? She's like a cat on a tin roof. Normally she's very calm and laid-back.

It's raining Cats and Dogs

Yes, I admit, this idiom is a little bit "old hat", but you can still hear it being used when it's bucketing down with rain! I love this image. I found it via a Google cartoon search.

BBC Learning English site
I love the BBC Learning English videos based on teaching idioms. Here is one of my favourite episodes below, which includes 3 cat idioms and their explanation. The lesson with Teacher's Homework from students can be found here.



Funky Cat
Reading through Shaun Wilden's lovely blog I came across this great post on Playing with "photo" type programs again.. I learned about BeFunky and how to turn your images into funky cartoons and other great fun alternatives. I had a little play and below you can see how Joey turned out!

Cool for cats or what? This nifty little tool is free, quick and easy to use and does not involve registration. Students would have great fun making their projects with images more fun and gives a funky twist to the usual.

Here is the original photo taken in the garden. Joe looks like a cat on a mission, doesn't he? I also think Joe has well and truly had his 15 minutes of fame in this post!

I would love to hear how you exploit idioms of any sort. There are many ways to make them more fun. Please do add your tips!

FotoBabble

I found out about FotoBabble just now via my PLN's Twitter stream. I read about it on TeflTeacher Blog via the amazing Shelly Terrell from Teacher Reboot Camp. I couldn't resist giving FotoBabble a twirl, so to speak, and here is the result! It's a site which allows you to simply record your voice onto a photo that you can upload from your computer. You need to register (it's free), choose a photo, record your voice, press save and then add to your blog, or email it to your friends. It is that easy! I think the tutorial on TeflTeacher Blog is really helpful and I was able to follow the steps very easily. Next project will be to see if I can embed a talking photo onto a Wallwisher!! Why don't you give it a go yourself? Here is my embedded Fotobabble in a previous Wallwisher that I created.


NB Can you guess what Joey is thinking as Chikita walks past him?

A Digital Story

A Fable Of Sorts

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Background Information
This week in my fab Images4Education course we had to create a digital story using any form we wished. I chose to make up a story using pictures from my folder and create a Power Point presentation. I then easily uploaded my PPt to Slideshare. I let my imagination flow. The characters consist of the ever present Princess Arabella, Victoria, Joseph and two farmers. It has an enigmatic ending because I would like you, my dear readers to think of what happens at the end. I will be away for the next week with no Internet connection and so, it would be lovely to find some suggestions when I get back. If not, the story will end enigmatically forever, and that will also be ok!

A Week of Firsts
My first time with Slideshare, Power Point and GoAnimate. Which of these tools have you used before? Do you have any tips you would like to share? I look forward to hearing from you!!

Images4Education and Moodle for Gardening and Cooking: Course Update

My EVO Images4Education course is going very well and I am enjoying exploring all the new features and connecting with other participants. I now have a Flickr account and I have been learning a lot. I have also found out about all sorts of lovely sites to use to edit photos in a fun way. Big Huge Labs is an amazing tool just waiting to be played with and well, dear reader, I certainly have played to my heart's content! The following photos have been simply re-edited with different effects such as create a stamp, a magazine cover, a postcard, a film poster and so on.

How can this tool be used in class? Well, the students can create projects, promotional posters, visual prompts for poems, they can use their imagination (like I have!).

The following pictures show you some of the special effects you can create on Big Huge Labs.

The first picture below was taken yesterday by K. It shows me with one of the 5 new olive trees I bought with some birthday money from my family. It made me reflect. I don't have any children, but these 3-year-old olive trees should last for many centuries, so for me, they represent a very powerful symbol of what I will leave behind for future posterity and that is something which makes me happy. I just hope this young olive tree below will last the course! I will be writing up a blog post soon on the topic of "Olive Tree Cultivation."


I love the film poster effect and this is one I have created, starring the elusive and very mysterious film star Arabella Cascarino and her Creator. Rather cheekily, I have taken the liberty of nominating the film for 5 special and imaginary Bit's'n'Bobs, Show'n'Tell Oscar awards.
Oops! The film star is Isabella Cascarino (the sister).





Abruzzo poem
Part of week 2's imaginative and challenging tasks was to write a poem based on a photo depicting your origins. The photo of the mountains is one of my favourite and I have referred to it many times in my blog, for example here. I really enjoyed this activity and I let my imagination run freely and the poem came straight from the heart.


I am now from the wilds of Abruzzo
from central Italy
I was from the cosmopolitan hub
of a medieval university city
The two forever linked
by nonna Natalina's move
from rural village
to sophisticated Oxford
The mountain of adventure beckons
enticingly amidst the cool backdrop
of ancient olive groves, centuries old
learned trees, the fruits waiting
to be picked by my fair hand
Ice-capped peaks denoting a
majestic grandeur
The valley of adventure waiting
to be explored
Virgin territory as yet untrampled by
swarms of tourists
I am off the beaten track
No postman dares venture beyond
the old ruined farmhouse
perched precariously on the hilltop
Isabella and Sofia rule the roost
Nikita and Chikita as yet unborn
Soon to be united in a glorious
mingling of all creatures great and small
This is my destiny
This is my future
This is where I am now

Interesting Links to Explore
Natasa is also taking the Images4Education course and her writing and feedback is inspiring. The poem she has written is amazing.

Carla Arena is one of my brilliant facilitators on the course and her blog is very inspiring. Her knowledge and fantastic use of Flickr is incredible and her enthusiasm is infectious.

Ana Maria from Life Feast blog is also one of the excellent co-moderatators on my course and I am learning a lot about how to exploit images from her.

Here is an interesting blog post I found on the resource-packed Box of Tricks which focuses on Using Images in the MFL (Modern Foreign Languages) Classroom.

Larry Ferlazzo has a very interesting post on "How do you use Photos in the ELL Classroom".

Just seen and will add "10 Sites for Playing with Images of Students" from Graham Stanley's excellent Digital Play blog.

Moodle for Teachers-3 Gardening and Cooking Course


I am also busy on my Moodle course. There was a weekly live Wiziq session on Saturday and I presented a Power Point presentation on behalf of my team mates on the Gardening and Cooking Moodle course. It was the first time I had done such a thing "live" and I actually enjoyed myself. The slides were a collaborative project via Google Docs and we have been organising ourselves with daily emails and weekly meetings on Skype and Google-Wave. My Team members come from Canada, USA, Canary Islands and Japan. We also use Diigo to bookmark useful links for the course that we are developing. We are now busily working and collaborating to present and showcase our future course next weekend. No rest for the wicked!


As you can see, I have been able to combine some of the new things I am learning from my Images4Education course. I am delighted to share them with you here.

I hope writing this post will inspire you to experiment with a few new tools. Are there any other Web 2.0 tools for using images that you like and that you would like to share here? I'd love to hear about them!

A Combination of Courses

I am enjoying my Electronic Village Online Images4Education course and Moodle4Teachers course. The PhotoPeach video below achieves two objectives. Firstly, I have used my own photos except for one from the Internet- can you guess which one is not mine? Secondly, I have created a simple gardening quiz for my Moodle for Gardening and Cooking course, that I am currently developing with the help of my 3 lovely coursemates from Canada, Canary Islands and USA. I was inspired by Ana Maria Menezes' posting on PhotoPeach Quizzes here.

Have a go at my quiz! It was very easy to create.

Gardening Quiz on PhotoPeach

How did you get on? I would welcome your feedback!

Fun Subtitles

Having just read Ana Maria Menezes' excellent blog post where she highlights a new site called BombayTV, I decided to try it out immediately, as it looked like such a lot of fun. Here is the result below. Thank you very much, Ana Maria for inspiring me!!



I believe students would love creating new subtitles for these short scenes either in pairs or small groups. This would certainly be a different way of exploiting dialogues in class.

My EVO (Electronic Village Online) Images4Education course starts on Monday and I am raring to go!! I will be charting my progress as the course develops and hopefully I will recount my experiences here on my blog.

Picture Activities

Asking students to make up dialogues is always a great way to use the language you have exploited. I showed my 3 afternoon class students the example below that I had created from MakeBeliefsComix and then got them to create their own above. It took a few moments only and they told me it was a lot of fun.


Speechable is another great site for adding captions to your photos. The photo below was used to great effect as a warmer and to present and practise new language. The personal element makes it a little bit more interesting. This simple photo has a lot of vocabulary in it and is good for discussion.
Listen to some questions that I asked about this picture. Voki is a great little tool that can easily be embedded in your blog or other sites.




The photo below also from Speechable shows you how you can get your students to invent short dialogues between famous people. The pictures could be related to topics of the day.



I have just created another speechable about President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize.

I decided to carry on trying to fix an initial problem I had with this particular link above and my perseverance has paid off!!

Read the English Blog's explanation of a cartoon relating to the same Obama Peace Prize theme.