Things You Can Do With Your WebCam 1

I'm beginning to think that besides the actual computer itself, a WebCam is one of the most fundamentally useful tools we can possibly have to help us teach and learn a language and of course what's great about WebCams is that they are getting very cheap and many laptop computer come with one ready installed for free!

Beware of bad hair days!!!!

So I've decide to start a mini series of postings on 'Things you can do with a WebCam' - Even if you don't have an Internet connection.

Create fictional characters for narrative and photo stories
Most WebCams can be used to create and record both still and moving images and come with their own software which can be used to add backgrounds or to change and distort the images. You can get your students to dress up, disguise themselves and then create images that they can build into a picture story.

• Here are some images of characters that I created with my daughter as the basis for a story.

• I then embedded these into a document and added some speech and captions. This is a great tool for getting your students to create their own picture stories and practice dialogue and narrative.
• I used Photo Booth to create these images and then imported them into Comic Life on my MAC, but you can do the same thing on a PC by using free software such as ManyCam to create the images and then just inserting them into a Word document and adding 'Call outs' for the captions and speech bubbles. (See a review of the ManyCam software here: Great WebCam Software)
  

Record your own stories
Story telling is a great way to develop students listening and speaking, but why loose all those wonderful story telling moments. You can use a WebCam to record stories for your students to watch and get your students to record their own stories to share.

• Telling a story to a WebCam on a computer can be much less intimidating than facing a live audience, so this can reduce your students' anxiety levels. It also gives them the opportunity to watch and listen to themselves telling the story so that they can evaluate their own performance and record and re-record and improve their performance if they feel it's necessary.
• Your students can also store these recordings as part of an E-Portfolio which they can look back on later and, if you have younger learners, you can share these with their parents.
• You can also create the stories collaboratively, by recording your own beginning and getting your students to add a sentence each so that they develop the story in their own way.
  

Here's an example beginning that I created using an online tool called 12 Seconds TV, but you can do the same thing with your WebCam and just store it on your hard drive.

• The stories that you record don't have to be created by the students or even improvised. You could get your students to record readings from books and work on making them entertaining. I remember as a child watching a TV show called Jackanory which featured popular celebrities reading stories and have often enjoyed reading stories to my daughter.
• The ability to make your reading entertaining and dramatic with different voice to do the parts of the dialogue is quite a skill and requires a good understanding of the text. Asking students to use a text to develop these skills can be a really good way of focusing them, not only on their understanding of the text, but can also help the students to 'explore' the tonal ranges of their voice in English and to work on their pronunciation. If you try this though be sure to leave plenty of time for rehearsal.

Here's an example from Jackanory of Rik Mayall reading Georgie's Marvellous Medicine


Editing your videos
Once you have a number of stories recorded you might want pull these together into a short 'show' and start editing them together, adding effects and inserting images into the narrative - You could even use the still images of the characters that you created.

• Again, if you have a MAC you can use i-Movie to do this, but don't worry if you have PC, there are also some great free tools that you can use with your students to do this. These include VideoSpin by Pinnacle (See my review: Free Video Editing Software ) or Virtual Dub which is a simple free program (You can see a review and tutorial here Merge Multiple Video Files With Virtual Dub )
• Once again, remember that it doesn't have to be you who does thee editing. You can get students to edit their own videos and add effects too. having a polished finished product from their learning can help to motivate the students and give them pride in their accomplishment, which will ultimately encourage them to enjoy and improve the level of their English.
  

Well that's the theory. Hope it works out for you and if it does then look out for part 2 of things you can do with your WebCam.

Related links:

• 12 Second Video Clips for EFL ESL
• Tutorial: Using Videos from YouTube
• Sending Bubble Joy to your EFL / ESL Students
• Great Video Commenting Tool
• Video conferencing for EFL
• Send Free Video Messages

Best

Nik Peachey

Create Image Books

I've always liked sites that take images and enable you to do something interesting with them. Pim Pam Pum seems to be a company that is remarkably good at helping us to make the most of Flickr images, and I particularly like this little tool called Bookr.

Bookr enable us to create nice interactive image books with text captions.
Here's an example that I created based on the poem 'In White' by Robert Frost.

I found the words to the poem on Poem Hunter here: 'In White'
You can see the full size version here: In White by Robert Frost

The books are really simple to create, you just need to type in a key word to find the images you want and then drag them onto the pages and add your text.
Here's Bookr video tutorial to show you how easy it is.

• You can download a higher quality (4.9Mb . mov) version here: Bookr Tutorial
• You can download a version for iPod (5.6 Mb) here: Bookr Tutorial

So how can we use this with our students?

• Poems - Like my example above, you can get students to illustrate poems, by typing in the words and picking an image for each of the key words in the text. If you have pairs of students illustrating the same poem they could justify their choice of image and how they felt it linked to the poem. If students illustrate different poems you could collect them together on a blog or webpage as a kind of poetry carnival and even choose the best ones.

• Jokes and Songs - The ideas above would probably work just as well with jokes or song lyrics too.
  
  - A good place to look for child friendly jokes is Yahoo Kids Jokes and for more adult jokes try 101 Fun Jokes (choose with care)
  - Two places you can find song lyrics are SongLyrics.com and Lyrics Search Engine.
  

• Grammar Examples - You can get students to create books of personalised sentences based on various grammar structures.
  
  - For present perfect you could ask students to create 'experience books' with images of places they have been and things they have done.
  - They could create their future plans book with illustrations of things they are 'going to' do, things they 'will have done by ... ' etc.
  - They could create conditionals books with an image to illustrate each clause of the conditional
  

• Narrative and story telling - Students could pick some images and then tell a story about them in their book. You could do this a few different ways:
  
  - You could try give the students ten keywords, they find images to match the words then create a story linking them all together.
  - You could search out the images yourself then ask the students to write the text for them. (You can do this by publishing an image book, then get the students to open the book and click on the 'Recycle' button. They will then be able to edit the book and save their own version.
  - You could also create a blank book with your own text in and ask the students to read and select images for the text (Again you do this by creating a book and then the students click 'Recycle' to edit their own version).
  

• Matching text to image - You can create your own image and text matching exercises by creating a book with images and the descriptive sentences on the wrong pages. Students would have to cut and paste the sentences in to the correct pages.

• Error correction - Select some images and write some text to describe each image, but include some mistakes (Errors in the description rather than the grammar - e.g. blue flower when the image is of a blue moth etc.). Ask your students to correct the mistakes.

• Personal information book - Students could create a book to illustrate things about themselves such as hobbies, interests, favourite singers etc. (Make sure they don't include location or contact information)

• Favourite things - They could create a book describing some of their favourite things, a bit like the song (Rain drops on roses etc.)

• Hobby book - They could create books to illustrate information about favourite hobbies or sports which they enjoy, like a guide to basketball (Including images of all the equipment etc.) or skateboarding.

• Scrap book - They could create a scrap book using images to illustrate a trip or holiday they went on. This could be even more effective if they have their own Flickr account as they could actually use their own images from their holiday.

What's good about Bookr?

• It's free and very easy to use.
• Gives students access to loads of images
• You can pull in images from your own Flickr account if you have one.
• Great that you can embed the books into blogs or webpages.
• Really nice way to personalise and add creativity to classes.
• Students have a really nice product at the end of their work.
• Students don't need to register or part with any personal information
• I like the way the pages turn!

What I'm not so sure about

• Be careful with younger learners, some images may be inappropriate
• It's a shame that the text is quite small and doesn't show up so well on the embedded version of the book.
• Would be nice to be able to print the books up.
• All published books are public

I've really enjoyed playing with Bookr and exploring some of the creative possibilities and it's a tool that I'm sure I will use in the future. Hope you enjoy it and by all means add a comment if you want to share other ideas or materials you have created with it.

Related links:

• Immersive Image Environments
• Great Time Line Tool
• A Picture's worth
• Picture phrases
• Make Your EFL ESL Yearbook
• Personalised flashcards
• Animating vocabulary
• Exploiting Image Sequences
• Develop Your Vocabulary
• Vocabulary Sequences

Best

Nik Peachey

Exploiting a Video Viral

For a long time now I've been fascinated with viral marketing campaigns and the way advertisers use these to promote their products. What's really interesting about them is the advertisers ability to come up with really novel and original ideas to capture our attention and make us want to share with others. My Fame Star is a great example of this and one that we can use to create lesson materials.
What it does, is enable you to upload a photograph and then create a story around it.


It then converts this story into a small video report. Here's an example I created called 'How my past caught up with me.' (You'll have to watch a short advertisement first)

Example: Click here if the video doesn't play

How to use it with students

• Create a video about yourself or a fictional character and ask your students to watch it and make notes about your life story.

• Get your students to create their own stories then put them in pairs to listen to each others' story and make notes of the variations / differences.

• Use it as a prompt for students to write a newspaper story. You could get the students to watch the video clip and then convert the story into a newspaper clipping. You could add some realism to this by asking your students to use the Newspaper clip generator from one of my previous postings (Animated EFL ESL Writing Prompts)

• Ask students if they can think of any real celebrities whose story is similar to this. Get them to tell the class or write the story of a similar celebrity.

• Discuss the use of 'viral marketing' sites like these as advertising.

• Do they think it's useful?
• Do they know of other viral marketing examples?
• Does it have an influence on their impressions of the company / product?

Have a look at an article I wrote here to find a out a bit more about viral marketing

What I like about it

• It can really personalise the lesson and materials
• It's fun and free (despite the advertising)
• It's easy to use
• Great stimulation for the imagination
• It has an embed code so you can embed the video into a blog or wiki
  

What I'm not so sure about

• Shame about the advertising, but I guess everyone has to make a living
• If you email it to someone the default is to accept promotions of the company's products (I deselected it)
• Sometimes the embed code doesn't work so well but can be improved with a bit of code editing.
  

Well I hope you and your students enjoy this and by all means post links or comment about any other ideas or materials you create with this tool.

Related links:

• Animated EFL ESL Writing Prompts
• Create an English Cartoon
• Animating vocabulary
• Make you own animated movies
• Picture phrases

Best

Nik Peachey

Adventure Narratives for EFL ESL Students

For a long time now I've really admired and been fascinated by the work of AmanitaDesign. They have a really unique approach and I love the way they blend photographic textures with cartoon images.

I also find their games quite addictive and that's I quality I always look for when trying to find stimulating materials for students, so I've been looking at how these games could used for language development.

The two games I've chosen for this posting are Samorost 1 and Samorost 2

Samorost 1 is based on the scenario of an asteroid heading towards a planet. The player has to click various elements of the screen and find out how to help Samorost change the direction of the asteroid and save his planet.
In Samorost 2, Somorost's dog is stolen by aliens and the player has to help Samorost rescue the dog.


So why use these games with EFL ESL students

• These games are fascinating and very engaging.
• They are quite mentally challenging and help students to develop analytical and critical thinking skills.
• They are beautifully designed and should stimulate your students imagination
• They are based around strong narratives
• They really are a lot of fun to play and discover
• Online games are a significant part of our younger students' culture
  

So how can we use these games with our EFL ESL students?
Here are a few suggestions to get your students developing their speaking, reading and writing skills.

• Tell the story - Split your class into A and B students. Get all the As to play one game and all the Bs to play another. as they work through the games they should keep notes of what happens and what they try to do to find their way through the game. Once they have finished the game pair one A student up with one B student and ask them to retell the story as if they were Samorost. Once the students have told their stories they can change over games and see if they can work their way through the game by remembering the narrative that their partner told them.

• Write the instructions - Split your students in to As and Bs as above and get your student to work their way through the games and write instructions for how to complete each level. They should then give their instructions to their partner and see if their partner can use the instructions to find their way through the game.

• Write a review of the game - You could ask your students to write a review of one of the games. You could collect these together with reviews of other games and publish them as a small booklet.

• Following instructions - As a reading exercise you could print up the 'walk through' instructions on how to complete the games and see if students can read them and work through all the levels.

• You can find a walkthrough for Samorost 1 here
• You can find a walkthrough for Samorost 2 here
  
  You could use the walkthrough instructions from the first game as a model and get the students to write a walkthrough for the second game.
  
  You can find lots more links to games and their walkthrough instructions here at Games Online
  

• Write the story - You could get your students to play one of the games and then write the story. They could write it as a news report and even use a video camera or web cam to create a news broadcast.

What I'm not so sure about

• Students can get a bit excited and carried away and then they forget to use English
• The games are actually quite challenging and students may well get stuck and frustrated. If this happens you can either let them stop and get them to end the story at that place in the game, or you can give them the walkthrough sheets to help.

Well I hope you enjoy these games as much as I do. If nothing else, they are a visual treat.

Related links:

• Exploiting two computer-based RPGs
• Games With a Purpose and a Social Network
• 3B Village 3D browser
• Create your own game
• Looking at There.com

Activities for students:

• The Samorost Game Challenge
• Take a Quiz Adventure Journey

Best

Nik Peachey