My Experience working with authoring tools

Our last task in ECO II was to design a class including some authoring tools. Great idea. I'm glad I came to know this tools because, definitely they are extremely helpful. My group decided to work with HotPotatoes and I really liked it. It is simple and it allows you to create engaging activities in a format that teenagers will find more interesting. So, I really recommend it and for sure this is a tool that I'll continue using when teaching. 

Authoring Tools

Before sharing with you my thoughts about the usefulness of authoring tools in language teaching I'd like to share what authoring tools are. It's taken from http://www.ehow.com/info_8379526_authoring-tools-englishlanguage-teaching.html

What Are Authoring Tools in English-Language Teaching?

By Laura Jean Holton, eHow Contributor

The Internet is a rich source for activities and material for English-language teaching. However, many teachers may not have the technical skills to make full use of these resources. Authoring tools, or authorware, for English-language learning can help teachers create interesting and professional interactive classes.

Definition

• Authoring tools are programs that assist a user in the writing of hypertext and multimedia applications. They consist of programs, templates and wizards that can help teachers to create computer-based learning classes and presentations. Authoring tools work by linking objects, such as text, pictures or audio, to create a final application. A user must establish the relationships between objects and their sequence in the application.

Teaching Templates

Teachers can use the Teaching Templates authoring tools to design exercises connected to specific purposes. This collection consists of nine different tools: Energy Saver (filling in missing letters), Flashcards, Gap Text (based on the Cloze test), In Other Words (using synonyms), Mastermind, Multiple Choice, Playtime, Question Time and What's Your Opinion. Using Teaching Templates is very simple since the user only needs to key in information, such as questions, answers and options. It also allows the author to edit features of webpages -- for example, by changing colors and adding images and sound.

From my point of view these authoring tools are really useful to us because they allows us to create common activities and tasks that will respond to our students specific needs. We do not only design exercises in a visual way but we also decide on the contents that the activities will deal with and the strategies we want the students develop. Authoring tools allow teacher to decide on the texts the students are going to read or hear, the vocabulary they are going to work with. Authoring tools will give students immediate feedback and if it's well designed, it will provide the correct answer and a brief explanation if we want. These activities can be solved on line or off line what is something very important to take into account in case the connection at the schools is not very good. Finally, authoring tools are not time consuming and you can create easily eye-catching activities just by following the steps.

I really liked these tools. I found them very helpful and they are ideal for a "bussy teacher" so I'm sure in a future I'l be working a looooot with them

Teaching Kids with Songs

Hi! I was surfing the net when I came up with these funny videos to teach kids. I just loves them. I know they're not completely new and that we already know some of the songs but for those who cannot sing, as me, these videos will be reaaaly helpful when teaching.
Enjoy them :)

ABC Song

Head Shoulders Knees and Toes

Colours

The web is full of nice videos. I just post some of them

Working with Web 2.0 Tools in the classroom:

We have been dealing in ECO with Web Tools, the importance of integrating them in our classroom and some of their advantages and disadvantages. From my point of view, these tools are great to motivate and engage our students. We know they like working with computers and they are reluctant to work in paper and pencil activities.  What’s more, I think they are very useful to develop long term classroom projects and to encourage students to work with those topics they most like as they would have access to information they may not find at home. Anyway, I think we sometimes forget a very important point about the use of these tools in education, and this is that students need to know how to work with them because one day they will need them in their professional life and after all, that is one of the aims of education.  Some disadvantages we need to consider are that we as teachers may not be very well prepared to work with them and it is time consuming (it would be different if we would have been encouraged to work with technology during our own education. Congratulations to this subject that is opening our minds!) and that not all the schools have these resources. Apart from that, I’m totally in favour of including them in my classes. As long as we use them more often, it is less time consuming for us and it is really important to give students the chance to be creative and active in their own learning process. 

Alice in Wonderland Webquest

This is the Webquest I prepared last year in EDI. When I re read it I saw there are some differences between it and the format Letizia presented to us. The difference may be that we worked with this webquest in EDI and we didn't pay attention to the teaching process in the subject. Or at least, we didn't deal with the same topics we deal in ECO II. I think our professor was more interested in our language development and our creativity because she gave us a very good mark. Anyway, if we analyze this webquest we can find many ways to adapt it and turn it into a project. It includes a final production!  But some of the production steps should be adapted to reach to that final production.

Hope to see your comments on in it :)

http://www.mediafire.com/view/?vye7z4sa8sdh0tv

Playing with Voki

Since we got to know Voki I've wondering how I could integrate it in the classroom. At first I thought it wasn't that interesting because its only function is to give voice to an avatar. What's more, I thought it could encourage our students to not developing their speaking skills as Voki gives the opportunity of typing what the character says. So, I spent a loooong time thinking of an activity to include it and finally I came up with a game.

The students could create some avatars and each avatar would describe another one. So, the rest of the group would have to listen the description and find the avatar which matches that description.

I think it's a simple and engaging game. It's not difficult to create the avatars and characterize them.And the students decide if they want to give it their voice to them or if they want to type the text.

I've created one example in which a character (we do not know her name because somebody would discover it by listening to another's character description) is describing Sally

http://www.voki.com/pickup.php?scid=6597633&height=267&width=200

 I invte you to ask about the game and I would like if you have some other ideas to work with Voki

Hi People! I'd like to share with you a Webquest I created last year. This is the first one I made so it's not perfect. Anyway, it's something