'FACEBOOK' for Teachers and Students

Hi there

A good social networking site for teachers and students. Let me present to you, EDMODO.

As you can see from the image, edmodo lets us sign up as a teacher or as a students. A teacher could have more than one classes by using one account. Moreover, parents could also sign up just to check on their children activity on this site. The parents just need to have a parent code to sign in to the site.

Here is a tutorial to set up an account using Edmodo


p/s: It a good tutorial. Sorry it is an old video, it has the old interface.

How can Edmodo be used in language classroom??

This is a good tool for teacher to interact with students in a class. Teacher could use it to set up a homework to the whole class. Moreover, this tool can also act as a medium where teachers could leave a reminder to the students as well.
 Besides, students could also use this tool to ask question to the teacher. The question could be directed directly to the group that the students belong to or directly to the teacher. Teacher or other students then could just reply on the post that has been posted. (just like facebook)

Advantages of using this tool:

• It is free!! (we like free stuff)
• It can be used as a means of communication. (teacher-students, Teacher-student, student-student or vice versa)
• It can also be used to promotes discussion among students in class. Where teacher could give question and students discuss by replying to the post.
• Parents could monitor their children activity.

Disadvantages of using this tool:

• Internet connection is needed.
• Looks lame. (compare to facebook)       

vocaroooo

Hi all,

Vocaroo is a cool tool for somebody to use it. It lets anyone to record a recording and share it on any social networking websites, email it to others and also EMBED in in blogs.

here is an example of voice recording via vocaroo



Record music with Vocaroo >>
 p/s:  I told you so that we could embed it in blogs  :) If you want to learn this tools, you can click here. (a lesson by Russell Stannard)

How can Vocaroo be used in language classroom??

First of all, this is a great tool. Teachers could use it as an activity for speaking activity. It helps to check students pronunciation as well as give shy students opportunity to practice their speaking.

One of the activity that can be made via this tool is by making students to do a mocking interview. Vocaroo could come in the end of the class where the students could just record their interview and then submit it to their teacher via email for assessment. The whole process of creating dialogue etc could be done without the usage of any computer devices. This is a good lesson as technology will only come when it is needed.

Since it is difficult to listen to every interview by the students, this tool would come in perfect as teacher could assess it after class time.

Advantages of using this tool: 

• It is free!!
• It can be shared via social networking sites as well as embed it in classroom
• Teacher could assess speaking at home. (save time)
• Most importantly, it is user friendly. (easy to use) 

Disadvantages of using this tool:

• Internet connection is essential.
• Need to have a microphone or else the recording sound would not be good.