Nik's Learning Technology Blog: elt

Showing posts with label elt. Show all posts

Thursday, 15 September 2022

The Teachers' Classroom App - By PeacheyPublications

This app has been designed to help teachers in the physical and remote classroom.

The app is a combination of teaching and teacher development tool.
You can use it to launch one of over 200 media rich digital lessons with engaging interactive materials for students to work on together or at home.
You can use it to develop your knowledge and understanding of a wide range of issues faced by the contemporary English language teacher.
We add new ideas and materials every week.
The app includes workbook apps for students that can help you cut costs.
There is also a Digital Toolbox to help you choose the best free resources from around the internet.

Check out our site to find out more: The Teachers' Classroom App

Explore or catalogue with hundreds of lesson activities and great ideas to combine technology with learning English: Our Catalogue

Thanks for reading

Nik Peachey - Pedagogical Director - PeacheyPublications

Sunday, 19 January 2020

Digital Tools for Teachers - Trainers' Edition

...

Tuesday, 20 November 2018

Would you like to become an ELT materials writer?

There are so many talented teachers who create materials for their students each day and never have the opportunity to get them published.

Perhaps this is you.

Would you like to develop your career as an ELT writer?
Would you like to generate an income from the materials you produce?
Do you enjoy creating materials for your students?
Do you write articles for a blog that you would like to put into a book?
Do you create teacher development sessions that other teachers could use?
Do you like creating your own stories or games for students?
Do you have an idea for a teacher development book?
Do you have an idea for materials that don’t fit within the usual ELT paper-based niche?
Would you like some feedback and help with your ideas?

If you have answered yes to any of these questions, please sign up here to keep in touch with me about a new opportunity that I’ll be launching soon.

Over the last few months, I have been developing a plan to expand PeacheyPublications Ltd and turn it from my personal hobby into a disruptive digital publishing company by raising funds through Patreon.

Part of the plan is to involve more writers and develop and help them grow and become part of the company as the company grows.

What’s in it for you?

If you sign up to become a writer you’ll get editorial guidance and help to develop your ideas into publishable products.
Once your materials are ready we’ll do all the design and prepare the materials for publication on our platform.
Once your materials are published we will market them to our customers and help build up sales.
When the materials sell you’ll receive 50% in royalties.
We will also enable you to market the materials independently to receive 75% royalties.

Initially, we are looking for 10 - 20 writers to work with. You don’t have to be a previously published writer. This is open to anyone who has an idea for a lesson, activity, book, game or story.

Why us?

We can get your work published within weeks rather than years.
We give you editorial support based on more than 25 years experience in ELT.
We will market your materials for you through our networks and customer list.
We help you develop your ideas.
We look after design and make the materials look professional.
Using our platform you can generate extra income by marketing your materials yourself and by helping to sell materials from our other writers.
We will handle the VAT charges

Once again, if you are interested please sign up here

We’ll let you know when we launch.

Find out more about PeacheyPublications

Best

Nik Peachey

Thursday, 1 November 2018

What's new about Lessons in Digital Literacy

Over the last few months, I have been revising and redesigning the series of lesson plans I first published in 2016. These lesson plans help to develop students linguistic and digital skills as well as their critical thinking by introducing them to a range of topics and information-rich graphics.

What's New about the Lessons in Digital Literacy?

I've incorporated a number of new features into the redesigned lesson plans.

The biggest change is that I have created digital versions for both teachers and students.

Example: Studying How to Study

These presentations have been created using a technology called html5 which means that they will work in the browser in pretty much any device, including mobile phones, iPads and other tablets.

In order to make it easier for both teachers and students to access the infographic for the lesson, I've added QR codes, so that students can either scan them onto a mobile phone from the teacher's copy or if they are using their own version of the student materials, they can just click on it and the infographic will open and they can scroll up and down it.

Another feature that these digital materials include is a marker for annotating over the presentation. This is easy to access on both the teacher and student copies and can be opened and closed along with the annotation.

Where writing activities are suggested I've also created a link to an external notepad which students can use and then publish their work directly to the internet.

If your students don't have access to digital devices in the classroom you can still use these lessons as there is a PDF version of the students' version provided.

The underlying structure of each lesson looks a little like this.

As you can see I try to work from what students already know and believe, introduce new information to them, see how they respond to the information and then get them to examine and evaluate the information more deeply. The final part of each lesson helps students to synergise the information and incorporate it back into their belief system.

All of the lesson plans include detailed step by step instructions and guidance for teachers, as well as answer keys.

Although each plan contains eight to ten tasks and about 2 hours worth of material, they don't have to be completed in one lesson and some of the evaluation tasks used selectively.

You can download all of these lesson plans and materials from: PeacheyPublications

I hope you enjoy themand sign up to my customer list to be informated when new materials become available and to get customer disocunts.

Related links:

Best

Nik Peachey

Friday, 12 May 2017

Recap for enouraging reflection on learning

One of the true keys to learning and developing any ability is the willingness and capacity to reflect on what we have learned.

So how can we encourage our students to reflect on what they have learned? Generally we want them to reflect from a slightly more distant perspective of time rather than more immediately within the classroom and this is where Recap can really help.

Recap is a cross platform app that allows teachers to create classes and manage students and set them reflection questions that they can respond to using video on their laptop webcam or smart phone from their own home.

How does Recap work?
To create a class and add your students just register on the site as a teacher.

Once you have registered you click on Add Class and complete the class details form. You can also decide at this point whether you want your students to register with a PIN or an email. Email is a better option for older learners, whereas a PIN is better for younger ones as this doesn’t require them to have an email, but you do have to add all of their names.

Once the class is created you get a link and a code that students can use to enter your class. I’ve set up a dummy EdTech class, so feel free to join and try it out as a student if you wish. Just use the code shown in the image below.

Once your class is ready you can add two types of tasks, a Recap or a Journey.

When you click on Add Recap you can type in and / or record your first question.

You can then click on ‘Next’ and set the length of recording for your students’ response and the due date for the assignment. You can also decide if it goes to the whole class or individual students and enable to do some self assessment of their recording.

Once you click send the task becomes available to the students. Once they have replied you can click on the student list and then select each student to see their responses.

You can also click on ‘Assess’ and access all the student responses and respond back to them or watch a ‘showreel’ compilation of their responses.

Once you have responded to their comments they can reply, so this can set up a kind of discussion chain.

The second type of task you can add to Recap is a Journey. This is a question based around a sequence of materials with links to different media and video stimulus that you can record on your webcam or phone to help engage with students.

To do this just click on ‘Add Journey’, allow access to your webcam and microphone, record your video and then add steps and links to media you want your students to explore.

The video you record has to be very short so this isn’t a tool for delivering lectures, it’s more of a tool for setting students up to discover things for themselves.

Once you have created your ‘Journey’ activity for your students you ca share it with them, but you can also add it to the Recap ‘Marketplace’ this allows you to share or sell your ‘Journey’ activity to other teachers, so this is a great way to potentially make a little money (the maximum sale price is $0.99).

You can also find ‘Journey’ tasks that you can use with your students there.

How to use Recap with students?

Set a Recap task each evening after class and use it as a form of learner diary.
Use Recaps for action research and get students to tell you how they feel about what and how they are learning.
Set Recaps as short pronunciation assessment activities by getting students to read short texts.
Use Recaps to build a more positive dynamic and get to know your students a bit better and discover their motivation and interests.
Set Recap tasks to check students remember the vocabulary they learned during previous lessons.
Create Journeys based around infographics to get them researching and reflecting on the information within the graphic.
Use Journeys to get students doing research before coming to class for debates or for information sharing in class.
Use Journeys to share SOLE type questions that students can research.

What I like about Recap

Students are often shy to speak and ask questions in class so this is a chance to get them talking just to you.
Actually having the opportunity to listen carefully to each student during the class can be difficult, so Recap can provide you with the ability to fairly assess your students speaking.
The video clips your students submit are stored on the site, so over time you can see how they are progressing.
It’s a safe and controlled way for students to communicate with you through video.
You can actually get to know your students a bit better and give them some one to one time.
It’s great to be able to give students speaking homework and for students to see themselves speaking and reflect on their own performance.
It’s free and works across platforms (there are apps for both Android and iOS).
It offers teachers the opportunity to make some money from their work.

I hope you find Recap useful to help develop your students’ ability to reflect and your own ability to develop a closer understanding of your students’ needs and abilities.

You can find lots more video based apps and activities in my award winning ebook - Digital Video - A Manual for Language Teachers.

I want this book

Related links:

Best
Nik Peachey

Friday, 21 April 2017

5 Free Edtech and ELT eBooks

This is just a quick post to share 5 very short ebooks that have been taken from my award winning ebook - Digital Video - A Manual for Language Teachers.

Winner of the 2016 British Council Award for Innovation in Teacher Resources

The ebooks come from chapter 9 of the manual which contains 12 more entries like these. As well as the explainer text, which shows you how to use the tools and gives suggestions for tasks you can do in your classroom, each ebook also has a video tutorial.

Each ebook is available either as PDF from Payhip or from the iBooks Store. I hope you enjoy these free ebooks and find them useful.

Digital Classrooms - TedEd

TED Ed is a great tool for creating online lessons around videos. It enables you to structure a sequence of interactive activities around the video clip that guides the viewer towards a deeper understanding of the content. It’s an ideal tool for building blended learning.

Digital Classrooms - MoveNote

MoveNote is a great tool for getting your presentations online. It enables you to add a talking head with voiceover to guide your students through the materials. These can be embedded into online courses or webpages. It’s ideal for creating flipped learning.

Digital Classrooms - MailVu

MailVu is a great tool for creating asynchronous interaction in either an online course or as part of a blended learning unit of work. It enables asynchronous interaction with just a web-browser and a webcam or there is a free mobile app that runs on most platforms.

Digital Classrooms - VideoNotes

VideoNot.es is a great tool for building your students’ digital literacies and their abilities to use video to study online. It enables students to take time stamped notes while they watch video content and save them alongside the video file.

Digital Classrooms - Wideo

Wideo is a great tool for creating simple animated movies. It enables you to create a range of teaching materials that explain simple theories. It’s also easy enough to use to get students creating their own animations.

I hope you enjoy these ebooks and find them useful. If you like them then please check out more of my ebooks at: PeacheyPublications.com and sign up for my Edtech & ELT enewsletter to be kept up to date on all that's new in digital learning.

Related links

Best

Nik Peachey

Monday, 2 January 2017

Digital Tools for Teachers

Over the last few months I have been working on a new book project and finally have it completed.

The new book is Digital Tools for Teachers.

This book has been written and designed primarily with English language teachers in mind though the majority of the resources and tools contained in the book will have much wider use than just language teaching.

The book is available at the introductory price of £1.99 from:

The book contains more than 70 tools and resources and these have been hand picked because they represent a broad cross-section of what is at present available.
The chapters of the book are divided into simple pedagogical tasks that most teachers need to carry out or help their students with and the descriptions of the resources are suitably concise to make the book easy for a stressed teacher to access and browse in a few spare moments between classes.

The sites, apps and resources within the book have been divided into the following chapters:

Reading Tools
Writing Tools
Speaking Tools
Listening Tools
Grammar Tools
Presentation Tools
Poll & Survey Tools
Infographic Tools
Course Creation Tools

You can download the first two chapters free here: Digital Tools for Teachers

At present each chapter contains between 5 – 10 different sites that have been selected to help you make a quick choice of the tools you need.

All of the tools and resources selected for the book are either free or have a useable permanent freemium offering, so you will never be forced to pay for any of these resources in order to sustain the work you are doing with your students.

Over the coming years it is my intention to regularly review and expand on the contents of this book. If you would like to be involved and assist in this process you can do so by:

Suggesting tools to be included in future editions
Writing an entry about a tool you have used and found useful
Reporting a dead link or a tool or resource that has become commercially unviable for teachers
Reporting a typo or factual error.

Anyone who contributes in any of the ways above will get a brief mention in the next edition of the book along with a link to their own blog or website.

Related links

Best

Nik Peachey

Monday, 3 October 2016

Exploiting Infographics for Digital Literacy and Critical Thinking

This is just a short post to anounce the publication of my new ebook 'Exploiting Infographics for Digital Literacy and Critical Thinking'.

Exploiting Infographics follows on from 10 Lessons in Digital Literacy, which is a collection of lesson plans based around infographics, and looks in more depth at the genre and how infographics can be used as both sources of information and as creative learning tasks for students.

The tasks that accompany the infographics are intended to encourage students to think more critically about the information they are exposed to and to question the sources of information they find whilst browsing the internet.

Exploiting Infographics should help teachers to start creating their own tasks, activities and lesson plans for students and to integrate infographics in a way that will enhance students’ critical thinking, digital literacy, language and communication skills.

Exploiting Infographics was conceived as part of The Digital Classrooms Series which started with the award winning Digital Video - A Manual for Language Teachers.

The series is intended to help teachers, teacher trainers, materials writers and course designers integrate digital technologies into their classroom practice in a pedagogically sound and impactful way.

I hope you enjoy these books and find them useful.

Related links:

My Lesson Materials

Nik Peachey

Friday, 15 January 2016

9 Generic activities for exploiting infographics

This post has been revised and moved to my new blog at: PeacheyPublications.com

Kind regards

Nik Peachey

Friday, 25 September 2015

20 + Things you can do with QR codes in your school

This post has been updated and moved to my blog at: https://peacheypublications.com/blog

Apologies for the inconvenience.

Related links:

Best
Nik Peachey

Friday, 18 July 2008

Microblogging for EFL with Plurk

Well I never thought I'd say this, but I've become a fan of microblogging! I have to say that it's mainly because of Plurk. When I first saw Twitter some time back I couldn't really understand what all the fuss was about. I had a look at a few 'twitterers' sharing such information as what they had for lunch or that they were washing their hair and decided there are levels of detail at which information stops being informative - if you know what I mean.

Anyway, as the Twitter phenomenon continued to grow and other players joined the market I decided to give it another try. At the beginning of June I started a Twitter vs Plurk comparison. Now almost 6 weeks later, I have to say that for me Plurk has come out as a clear winner. Watch this demo to see why.

Here's a quick demo of Plurk and some of the features.

To view the demo in a new window click here (2.7Mb)
Download the demo as Quicktime movie (4Mb)
Download the movie for i-pod (5Mb)

What I like about microblogging

One problem that I constantly have is the amount of information and new things I find that I'd like to share but just don't have time to research and write about. What I have found over the last few weeks is that mircoblogging allows me to share this information, admittedly with less depth, but I've been able to share links to resources that people might find useful, but which I don't have the time to explore in depth.
See my Plurk line here if you'd like to check out the sites I don't have time to write about: http://www.plurk.com/user/NikPeachey

What I like about Plurk

For me the best Plurk feature is the ability to embed video from YouTube and images into the Plurk. This enable users to watch the clip or image without leaving the Plurk interface.
I also really like the horizontal time line and the way you can scroll back through time lines and thread in comments. Threaded discussion can often become very disjointed and hard to follow on Twitter, but Plurk makes it much clearer which comments are related.
I like the distinction between friends and fans (friends Plurks can also appear on your line, whereas fans just subscribe to your feed)
I like the sense of accumulating 'karma' as you develop your plurk presence.
I love the Plurk widget (you can see it embedded towards the bottom of the right hand column on this page).
I really like that Plurk gives a choice of verbs for the message

So how about using microblogging with EFL studnts
As a teacher you could use microblogging to:

Share resources and links to useful websites or videos (they open in the interface so students don't have to search around YouTube for them.
Send out prompts and reminders to students about assignments and due dates.
You could just use the social aspect to share a bit of what you do each day with them
Send students images to comment on / describe
Send out words and ask students to respond with a definition.
Create single sentence assignments that students respond to wit single sentences.
Create sentences for the students to correct.
Create a collaborative story. You start the story with one line and each student has to add another using the response feature.

Your students could use microblogging to:

Create a learner diary, recording briefly their language learning activities and insights through the day.
Ask questions to the groups and get support with new words they find or things they don't understand.
Post a short sentence each day using a different one of the verbs in the Plurk line
Share good websites etc.
Share a little of their world and what they do when they aren't in class.

What I'm not so sure about

It's really hard for a competitor like Plurk to break into a market that Twitter almost invented, so despite the fact that I use Plurk more often and it seems to me a much better product, I've got far more followers on Twitter than I have on Plurk, so the audience potential is much greater with Twitter.
As ever privacy is something you need to be careful of, and I've found that a few people who have requested friendship only do so to 'spam' my time line. Though that's easy to sort out and stop.

Well which ever you use, whether it's Twitter, Plurk or something else I hope you enjoy your microblogging experience.

Drop me a line if you know of other alternatives, or if you have used these microblogging applications in other ways. As always you comments are welcome (though moderated!).

Best

Nik Peachey

Related links:
See Wikipedia's definition of microblogging
See My Plurk microblog
See My Twitter microblog
See My Plurk demo video on YouTube and grab an embed code.

Tuesday, 20 May 2008

Skype Part 1 Recording Audio

This is the first in what is going to be a series of postings looking at Skype and the range of plugins freely available for it and how these can be used for teaching languages and creating ELT materials.

As most people know, Skype is a freely available VOIP program which allows users to make computer to computer 'telephone calls' for free. What many people don't know is that there is also a huge range of 'plugins' available for Skype which expand and enhance its functionality and turn it into an even more useful tool for teaching and learning.

This first video shows how you find and install these extra plugins and focuses on one in particular (Pamela) which helps you to record your Skype calls.

Click the play button and turn up your sound

I hope you can see how easy it is to start installing and expanding the functionality of Skype.

Having this ability to record calls really helps as us language teachers and as materials creators to get a lot more out of this free program.

Watch the movie tutorial to see how to start recording your calls.

Click the play button and turn up your sound

So how do we use this with our students

This is great if you are doing any business training or training students involved in Call centres or customer services where the phone is a major means of interaction with customers. You can set up telephone role plays record them and give your students feedback on their performance.
You can record example / model phone calls for them and get them to listen and analyse how well the callers performed.
With general ELT / EFL students you can also set up a range of telephone role plays and record them (These could be job interviews, ringing about renting a flat, booking a hire car etc.) There are a whole range of real world tasks for which we need to use the phone for and giving your students the ability to try these scenarios out and then listen back and evaluate their own performance can be very empowering.
You could record some dialogues or interviews with friends or fellow teachers for students to listen to.
Students could interview each other and record and create their own tasks for each other.
You could ask students to use Skype for collaborative work (group conferencing is possible) and record their meetings for you to give them feedback on.

What I like about it

Pamela is free, easy to use and records audio to Mp3 format which can easily be edited or imported and used in other multimedia projects.
The Mp3s can also be used on i-pods or other mobile devices
The plugin is easy to configure and quick to download
Using voice only for communication with no visual cues from facial expression or body movement is very challenging for language learners, so this is a great way to practice and perfect this.

What to be careful about

You can only record up to 15 mins on the free version, but that should be enough for most purposes.
Never record people without their knowledge, it's actually illegal in some countries
Both Skype and Pamela need to be downloaded and installed, so if you are working with computers in your school, then you might need to persuade a few people before they allow you to do this.
Make sure that if students are using their own Skype user names and accounts that they are careful about who they share these with, as Skype does attract some nuisance callers.

I hope you find this a useful addition to your teaching toolkit. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who is already using these tools, and especially if anyone is using other Skype plugins to record or extent their Skype functionality.

Best

Nik

Friday, 16 May 2008

Games With a Purpose and a Social Network

Well who would believe it? A social network built around playing word games with online partners! This may not sound like a great idea, but I have to say that I'm impressed! Gwap (Games With a Purpose) is a collection of 5 basic word games which you can play in collaboration with an online partner (The website automatically finds you one).

The site has a selection of five rather addictive games:

The ESP game. You and your partner both see an image and you have to type in as many words as you can that you associate with the image, until you and your partner come up with the same word ( that's the ESP bit). This is great vocabulary practice and pretty addictive too. You play to a time limit ( about 3 mins) and get a score at the end.
Tag a Tune. This is a fantastic idea. You and your online partner both hear a tune and you both have to type a description of the tune. You then have to decide if you were both listening to the same tune or a different tune. Great writing practice and again done against a time limit with points awarded.
Verbosity ( a variation on the classroom 'Hot Seat' game). You and your partner take it in turns to see and describe a word. The partner who can't see the word has to guess it. When you are describing the word you have specific sentences that you complete as clues. This not only helps to develop vocabulary skills, but also helps develop students abilities to explain new words which they don't understand.
Squigl. This is an image based game. You see an image and a word and you have to hold down your mouse and outline the place on the image where you see the object of the word. Great for vocabulary building.
Matchin. This is the least useful game in terms of developing vocabulary, but is still quite interesting. You and your partner see two images and you both click on the one you like the most. If you click on the same one, you get points.

All of these games are played against a time limit and you are awarded points, though you work collaboratively with your online partner.

Where's the social part?Well you have the option to start chatting with them at the end of each game and you can also set up a profile with picture and demographic information, which the site uses to help select a similar playing partner for you (though this is optional).

I was actually more interested in the games than the chatting, though with the last game, particularly if you are choosing similar pictures a lot, it might be interesting to chat and find out how similar the person you are working with is. It's also a good bit of language practice for your students if they do, though as ever they should be careful to protect their privacy and identity.

How to use this with students

Just get them online and get them playing the games.
They could do it from home as homework and you could set them a score to reach, or see who can get the highest score.
You could use them as warmers at the beginning of class, especially if you have an IWB or data projector, or as fillers for early finishers in a multimedia room.

What I liked about it

It's free, though you do have to register, easy to use and fun.
Students work collaboratively rather than competitively
The games are really nicely designed, visually very attractive and have good use of multimedia
They are 'authentic' rather than being made for language learners, though they are really well suited to the ELT / EFL classroom.
The site was set up by Carnegie Mellon University so you can be reasonably sure there isn't some large dark corporation doing unspeakable things with your personal data
The site is actually being used as a way of tagging images and audio, so your time is being put to good use and helping the world become a better place ( find out more)

What I wasn't so sure about

There's not much I don't like about the site. It's shame that you 'have to' register to play the games, especially as you are supposed to be 13 or over to register, but this is due to the chat functionality.
Also, as with any site that contains images, there is the potential for some of these images to be offensive to your students, but there is a small button for them to click to flag offensive content, and that in itself is a good form of training.

Well hope your students enjoy the site and that you don't get too addicted to plan a lesson.

Best

Nik

Wednesday, 14 May 2008

Goolge Maps for Directions

Love them or hate them, you have to admit that Google does offer us all manner of useful free tools. One of my favourites is Google Maps, especially useful on my odd trips to London (when I never seem to be able to remember my A-Z!)

So, I've been thinking about how we could use this 'real world' tool to help our EFL students and to develop their abilities to give and understand directions. It's actually quite simple to use. You just go to http://maps.google.co.uk/ or http://maps.google.com/ Click on 'Get Directions' and then enter your start point and destination. Click the Google logo below for a quick video tutorial that shows some of the features.

Click for flash video tutorial (1.4 Mb)

So how can we use this with students?

Choose a location and destination and get Google Maps to create your directions, then print up a map of London with the two destinations on and ask your students to mark the route on the map.
A variation on this would be to have the map printed with the route on and cut up the directions and ask your students to put them in the correct order
Print up a route map and directions and edit out some of the key words, then get your students to write in the missing words.
Give your students a map showing only the start point and read out directions for them to follow. They have to listen and tell you what the destination is.
Print out close ups of each stage of the journey and use them as flash cards. Get your students to match each step of the journey to the correct flashcard.
Print out a route map and ask students to write their own directions for the map (You could give two groups different destinations then get them to exchange directions to see if the other group can use their directions to find the correct destination.)
To download an example set of directions + route map and blank map to print up and use for these activities click here: Example materials >> (500k pdf)
To print up maps and directions for yourself just click on the Google maps 'Print' icon.

What I like about it

Google maps is free and really simple to use
If you have an i-pod touch or an i-phone, there is a fantastic Google Maps widget which you can install (great for mobile learning)
Gives good clear instructions and easy to print maps (just use the 'Print' icon)
A really useful 'real world' tool
You can use it live if you have a computer room or data projector / interactive whiteboard in class, or just print up materials for use off line.

What I'm not so sure about

The detail of the maps for some developing countries is pretty sparse

Hope you find this tool useful and if you have suggestions for other activities I'd love o hear them.

Best

Nik

Thursday, 31 January 2008

Drama project tools

Celtx is a nice free project work tool that can help give real shape to your class projects and make for much greater involvement and collaboration between students. It's a fee piece of software designed for creating media type projects such as movies, advertisements, screen plays, theatre plays etc.

Once you've downloaded and installed the software, you choose what kind of project you want to create and then complete a series of templates which help you to outline various scenes, describe characters and assign roles, create story boards, index the different scenes and move the around. You can even upload images and videos of various parts or the project.

What's also really nice is that you can upload the work to the Celtx centre server and work collaboratively with a group of people online and when you have finished you can even publish your work for other users of the software / site to critique.

How to use this with students
When ever I've tried to do drama, video or machinima projects with students, it's often been a bit of a disappointment, they end up producing something that isn't very good or well thought out and they don't really produce much language along the way. With a tool like this you could structure the whole of your project and have them involved the whole time, so that they work together towards the actual project performance over a number of lessons.

There are some useful example projects which are downloaded with the software too and examining one of these could also form the basis of a lesson

A good way to get students into using this might be to take an existing short story and analyse it and input the information from the story into the software to turn it into a play or movie.
There are some nice tips here on common grammar and other mistakes when writing a screen play.

What I liked about it

It's free and a reasonably small download
It can be used by groups working collaboratively online
It can help to give real shape and a professional feel to creative / drama projects
You can download versions for MAC as well as PC and in quite a few different languages
It's nice to be able to share projects and look at other people's projects on the user community
It's pretty simple to use
There are some online tutorials to help you understand the software, though they tend to be a bit long and wordy.

What I wasn't so sure about

Project work can be quite an undertaking for a teacher and a class and involve loads of planning and commitment. You would need a good bit of practice with the software to make sure you are comfortable with it before launching into a project.

If you are already running drama type projects and want to get students more involved in the creative process and working on their own original projects, then I think this is a really useful professional level tool.

It would also work really well in conjunction with Moviestorm if you were thinking of launching into a Machinima project and would help you and your students to keep track of the work you do within the movie creation software.

I've actually downloaded this myself and started using it with some of my own creative media projects, so I'll let you know how I get on.

Hope you find it useful

Best
Nik

Nik's Learning Technology Blog

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Thursday, 15 September 2022

The Teachers' Classroom App - By PeacheyPublications

Sunday, 19 January 2020

Digital Tools for Teachers - Trainers' Edition

Tuesday, 20 November 2018

Would you like to become an ELT materials writer?

Thursday, 1 November 2018

What's new about Lessons in Digital Literacy

Friday, 12 May 2017

Recap for enouraging reflection on learning

Friday, 21 April 2017

5 Free Edtech and ELT eBooks

Monday, 2 January 2017

Digital Tools for Teachers

Monday, 3 October 2016

Exploiting Infographics for Digital Literacy and Critical Thinking

Friday, 15 January 2016

9 Generic activities for exploiting infographics

Friday, 25 September 2015

20 + Things you can do with QR codes in your school

Friday, 18 July 2008

Microblogging for EFL with Plurk

Tuesday, 20 May 2008

Skype Part 1 Recording Audio

Friday, 16 May 2008

Games With a Purpose and a Social Network

Wednesday, 14 May 2008

Goolge Maps for Directions

Thursday, 31 January 2008

Drama project tools

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