Save the Words

I came across a truly fascinating site called Save The Words supported by Oxford Dictionaries (which is not new at all, as I found out later). You need Flash Player to view the site.

Its design is colourful and eye-catching, the background is a patchwork of English words which are no longer in active use and may soon be extinct. If you click the word, the site provides its meaning and gives an example of its usage.

The funniest part is you can adopt a word and get the certificate of adoption! You are asked to use the word as frequently as possible thus helping it return into active vocabulary.

The cause of the site is noble but dubious regarding its impact on saving the dying words. Yet it is a real gem for advanced students who are interested in lexicology. Might be used in classes as a fun activity.

http://www.savethewords.org

Games that teach geography

There are numerous sites which offer online games for checking your knowledge in geography.

One of the most popular kinds of quizzes is recognizing the flags of the countries like Geography Genius. You can choose the level and read the clues about the country. Great source of information!

Another popular kind of geography games is finding a place on the map. I love Geosense which asks you to identify the world countries. You can play the game alone or against someone on the net.

Finally, there are games which ask you to point at a specific location on the map as close to the actual place as possible. I love the one on the TravelPod website. Really challenging!
There is a variety of games about each continent, UNESCO sites, capitals and flags of the world in The Traveler IQ Challenge® and they even let you embed the games on your own website.
 

City Creator

City Creator is a cool application for building 3 versions of cities.

You can choose between a medieval city, a city in winter (great for Christmas) and a modern high-rise city.

The construction work is simple - you just drag and drop pieces from the palettes and arrange them on the field in the way you want. You can change the background until you get the one you like.

If you want to save your city, you need to register on the site.

Example:

How can you use it in the classroom?
1. Ask your students to build the city of their liking and describe it while showing the city on the screen.
2. Decide with your students on building the same version of a city, e.g. medieval, then ask them to describe it on paper. Give a copy of all descriptions to every student. Show each city on the screen and ask the students to guess which description fits.
3. Make a city yourself and ask the students to describe it on paper. Then choose the best description.
4. Teach vocabulary using the city image (directions, location, types of buildings etc).
5. Finally, it is great fun!

Quiz maker for online testing

Here is another great application Class Marker which lets you create quizzes online and use them with your students. It is free if you use the basic version.

You can create online tests with combined multiple choice, true false, free text, short answer, fill in the blank, punctuation and essay questions types.

It is possible to register your class or a group and invite the students to do the test online.


I have made a few sample tests and here you can have a look at one of them. (Don't take it seriously though.)

Test maker

A practical and easy-to-use test generator for creating online multiple-choice tests.
http://testmoz.com/. I first learned about it from the website Free Technology for Teachers.

There are several good things about this application. First, you do not need to go through the lengthy process of registration. However, the teachers will have to create two passwords - one for the students and another for themselves to see the test scores. If you decide to make the quiz available to anyone on the net, you don't have to create a password.

Great from the teacher's perspective (but not so handy from the student's) is the one-attempt limit per test. Students can't redo the test (using the same name) to get higher scores.

What takes most time for the teacher is to create the quiz but once you do it, you can use it as many times as you wish, provided you have not lost or forgotten the web address of the test. Each test has a unique address. The teacher can make it accessible to everyone or just send the link to a selected group of students.

Look at the short sample quiz which I made to test the tool. Use any name to enter the quiz http://testmoz.com/975.

Halloween is creeping up

October is the month of the scary Halloween celebrations. Like it or not, you can't ignore it because --- kids love it!

What an excellent chance to enliven your lessons with different Halloween activities and tasks.

Take a look at my suggestions, also my previous post here.


Bring the festive spirit into the classroom with this video (suitable for older students) giving an idea about the history of Halloween.

Always useful and handy printable worksheets by Sean Banville can be found on http://www.eslholidaylessons.com. Here is the Halloween lesson plan with printable listening and reading tasks.

English Page offers a lesson with Halloween vocabulary which is first studied and then used in writing tasks. Great resource for online practice.

Halloween worksheets on the good old Bogglesworld - a well-known and reliable site.

A rich Halloween resource page for younger pupils with a lot of choice for the teacher on Teacher Planet.

Finally, a great page with Halloween crossword puzzles for both younger and older students.

Watch videos on Wimp

If you are looking for flashy, colourful and feature-laden sites, this is not for you. Because Wimp is plain, bare and colourless. But don't get discouraged by the first look. Explore the videos which have been grouped according to the date (it is the only organisation apparent).
The creators of the site say:

Wimp.com is a mainstream, user generated, family friendly video website...

We are not a funny video website; rather, we feature all kinds of videos: funny, educational, inspirational, cute, science, news, pretty much anything we think that might add 'value' to your life in some shape or form. We are anti-sensationalistic...

Once I had watched the first random video (which turned out to be totally entrancing - Tokyo timelapse by Samuel Cockedey), I delved deeper and found more and more fascinating films.
There is one disappointing drawback (deliberate?) - you cannot download the videos.

Some more captivating videos:
Nuit Blanche: Most beautiful four minutes ever
Why is the sky dark at night? (with a narrative)
Wingsuit proximity flying in Switzerland and Norway

Lingro - the coolest dictionary

Recently I discovered this amazing translation technology Lingro which the creators call a dictionary.

At first glance it does not look like a dictionary because it is more than a dictionary! You can paste the URL of a website and then click on any word - Lingo will give you the translation. It translates words from / into 11 languages! And what's more - it will save the words that were translated for you in your history (to save the list you have to register). You can go back later to review the words and learn them. What an easy way to get the meaning of an unknown word instantly!
Lingro does it with a simple text file too! Just upload the file and start translating!

If you think you'd like to use Lingro services constantly, you can download the browser plugin (it offers Firefox extension) and you will be able to translate ANY word on ANY page you are viewing.

Great tool for learners of languages!

A tool for creating simple polls

If you need a quick response to some question, create an interactive online poll using http://answergarden.ch.  Great feedback tool!
Test it now by typing your answer in the box.

You can limit the answers to one per day or allow multiple answers. Be careful - mistakes cannot be corrected after you submit the answer!

 
Which web tool do you like best?... at AnswerGarden.ch.

Classroom timer

A really simple but useful tool - classroom timer - can be found here.
You will have to open it on the screen or whiteboard.

A fantastic tool if you want to limit the time for some lesson task, e.g. a short vocabulary check. Tell the students they have got 5 minutes, start the clock and leave it on the screen for the students to see it.





The best thing is you can make the timer count up or down depending on your needs.







See more fabulous classroom tools on http://www.triptico.co.uk/.