New Web Tools for Teachers

Below is a list of some great new web tools I have curated for teachers.

The purpose of such lists is to provide teachers with ready materials to use in their classroom and keep those who are too busy to go online and search for web tools, keep them updated on the latest releases in the world of educational technology.
Enjoy!


1- ImageQuiz

As its name indicates, this tool allows you to create quizzes around images. ImageQuiz has several predefined quizzes that you can use with images but you can also create your own quizzes based on images you want.

2- Pixaby

This is a great resource where you and your students can have access to a treasure trove of free images to your in your projects. The images are also royalty free and do not require any attribution to the author.

3- Book Results

Book Results is a free eBook search engine which you can use to search for free eBooks available online. Just type in the title of the eBook and you will be presented with a list of results to choose from.

4- Oweb Voice Input

This is an extension that you can install on your Chrome browser to convert your speech into words. Just click on the mic icon and start speaking, it is marvelous.

5- WireWax

This is an free, online-based video tool for adding motion-tracking hotspots to people and objects in video. The process is akin to adding a tag to a Facebook photo, and once these hotspots are added, users can then add buttons with images, formatted text, links and applications. The latter of these, apps, is where it gets exciting... Users, content owners and producers can add video-in-video, SMS message senders, image carousels, competitions, interactive games, animations - just about anything which can be imagined.

6- Presentation.io

This is a tool to help you broadcast your presentations to mobile devices, tablets and laptops no matter where you are, in the same room or in different parts of the world.

7- Flashcard Stash

Flashcard Stash is built on top of a dictionary, so you can lookup words above and save them. Click on functions in the top right of each vocabulary flashcard for example sentences, synonyms, and audio. Highlighted words can also be clicked for an immediate definition.

8- Tag Cloud

This is a great world cloud tool you can use to generate word clouds out of text you provide, the URL of a webpage or even from a document you upload to Tag Cloud.


http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/03/8-great-new-web-tools-for-teachers.html

Tips to Learn English Quickly

Teaching Tips

Keep a folder of great lessons ready to go at a moment's notice.

This is self-explanatory. If something works, make sure to take the time to set it aside in a special folder for future use. You will be very thankful that you took an extra two minutes to make an extra photocopy for future use!

Take note of the most common student mistakes made during an exercise and correct students after the activity has taken place.

Most ESL EFL classes have improved communication skills as a top priority. When a teacher corrects every mistake, students become hesitant when speaking because they are afraid of being corrected. You can give them more confidence by correcting them after the fact. Most mistakes made are repeated by a number of students and are of a similar nature. By correcting students after the exercise, you help increase communicative fluency by encouraging a natural flow of conversation that would otherwise be interrupted by frequent correction. Correcting students after the exercise also helps them to focus on the most common mistakes which is useful to all students, not just the student who has made a particular mistake.

Use music in class.

Music can be incredibly helpful in setting the mood, helping students concentrate, or just improving the spirits of students before they get down to work. Put a recording on before students arrive and watch how students leave their cares behind them as they get ready to concentrate on the learning tasks ahead. Music provides a wonderful way of refocusing and relaxing at the same time.

Get your students more physically involved in the lesson.

Sitting at a desk for a long time can be incredibly boring and cause students to lose attention. Get your students up and walking about, even for just a few moments, and you will be surprised at how the energy level rises in the classroom. Not only do these short breaks help students refocus their energies, but they also improve learning by providing a physical link to the learning taking place at that moment.

Focus on making standard activities more communicative.

When all is said and done, most students are learning English in order to be able to communicate in English. Each exercise needs to have a communicative aspect somehow connected to it to take the knowledge acquired from passive to active. If you are working on conjugation exercises, get students to ask each other questions about their past experiences using the tenses concerned. If students are working on a reading comprehension, take the time to ask their opinions on what they have read, how what they have read applies to their own lives, etc.