$50 Hazel & Olive giveaway (+ a Photography Concentrate discout code!)

Howdy folks, and happy Tuesday. Today's giveaway comes courtesy of one of my favorite online shops, Hazel & Olive! I've worn it proudly here and here, if you recall. ;) Today a $50 gift certificate to the store is up for grabs, which will buy you just about anything you'd like. (most items are a steal at under $40!)

Also, the Photography Concentrate tutorial prize pack winner has been chosen and emailed, but the kind couple behind this awesome site is offering up SOML readers an exclusive 30% discount on all tutorials through September 21st (this Saturday!) with the code SOML30, for those of you who may have been sad about not winning. ;)  Just keep in mind that the field to enter the discount code is on the second checkout screen, and if you are paying by Paypal, you will first be transferred there to log in and then transferred back to the PC site where you can enter the discount code. Thanks, Rob & Lauren, for being so generous!

Now enter for your chance to win free loot from Hazel & Olive below, and have a fantastic day. :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Love letters to two dear friends

Blogtember topic for the day: Write a public love letter to someone in your life. (It doesn't necessarily need to be romantic.)

Today I found that there are two ladies I really wanted to write to - both are so special to me and have been so impactful in my life. Here are my letters...

Dear Megan,

First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BEAUTIFUL! You're 27 today, an age I know you've dreaded for some silly reason, but don't worry, I'll be there with you in just a couple more months. I bet it won't be so bad. :)

I wanted to thank you today for 11-ish years of loyal friendship. You and I have known each other through so many clunky and awkward stages of life - the end of high school, all of college, several boyfriends, big life changes like marriage and moving and the death of loved ones and redefining who we are after school and after we both worked at that same little restaurant for weirdly lengthy amounts of our life, and moving into new homes and thinking about babies and planning for the future and worrying about getting older. We had so many Friday nights and Saturday or Sunday mornings together, bitching about nasty customers and loving on old people and rolling in the tips and late nights at Chili's and the movies when we had to be back up in four more hours for the next shift. We've been friends through all of that, though you've always been more constant and reliable than me, which is part of your personality as a Caregiver, I now see. Thank you for being my friend through it all, even when we got on each other's nerves, which is bound to happen over the course of 11 years... ;) One thing is for sure, I never stop loving you, respecting you, and admiring you for your wonderful heart. Cannot wait to see what the future holds for us both. It's always nice to walk through life with a friend, isn't it? Hope today and year 27 are beautiful, just like you. :)

Love, love, love,

Jenni

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Dear Kristin,

I'm not even sure where to start on this letter - it's funny, because we've had our ups and downs in this weird online/offline friendship, but one thing that remains constant is that I always have so much fondness and warmth in my heart for you, and I'm always so thankful you're my friend. You've said before that you feel out of place in this world, like an outsider sometimes, but I disagree, and I think you belong very much and add so much beauty, specifically to anyone who is lucky enough to be close to you. You've inspired me endlessly with the warmth of your beautiful home and spirit, the way you care for people (the way you've cared for me), the care you take for the small details of your world (you know how God-awful I am with small details, so I find this particularly inspiring), and the fresh perspective you always give me and which always surprises me in pleasant and helpful ways. On more than one occasion you've given me advice that was exactly what I needed to hear and saved my life in different ways, and I've appreciated our relationship of accountability, even when it seemed like I didn't. For people like me, accountability can be extremely annoying but nonetheless extremely important. I've loved growing closer to you over the last year in particular, and I hope that only continues. I respect and admire you more than you know, and I'm so proud of all you continue to accomplish. 

Lots and lots of love,
Jenni

A self portrait plus a life update

Eek, happy Friday the 13th! ;) Today's Blogtember topic is simply a self portrait. Here it is, folks! This is the way my face looks most of the time. Half covered by a camera. ;)

I thought I'd also take this opportunity (you know, an easy day in the challenge), to write a little about what's going on in my life at the moment. As many of you know, we are waiting on our house to be built, and in the meantime living with my mom. (read a little more about that here if you haven't already.)

Well, it's been five months since we signed the contract with our builder, and over four months since we've been living with my mom. We were thinking our house would be done by early to mid October, WORST case scenario - but currently the house is only about 40% finished. The build has been going at an absolute snail's pace. To add insult to injury, a house directly across the street from ours, that was started only about a week before ours and ISN'T EVEN SOLD YET, is about 2-3 weeks from being completely finished. The bastards. Yes, we are bitter about it.

We're still making the best of the situation, but it's hard to feel in-limbo for so long. Hard for us, and hard for my mom to have perpetual house-guests, I'm sure. The stress of the whole thing is really starting to take a toll on Matthew and I a bit, and we're ready to have this weird living/waiting situation behind us.  However, at this point I just know the move into the new place is going to be the biggest stress-ball of all, since it will likely be taking place during the absolute busiest time of year for my photography business, not to mention immediately before/during the holidays. Sigh.

But we are blessed, we are blessed, we are blessed. I know it's true, and I really am happy despite our less-than ideal situation. Life just isn't ideal sometimes, now is it?

Other than all that, I am just plugging away at the upkeep of this blog and my business, which I'm so proud to say has really taken off for me lately. I wake up every morning completely EXCITED to jump into my work. It's pretty much the best thing ever!

So those are the two things that have been consuming my life, as of late. The build/wait on our home, and being the best small business owner I can be. Life isn't very exciting right now, but that's OK. There are seasons of life. I think this one we're currently in coincides with the actual season - it's just a long, hot summer. But after summer comes fall, and that's my favorite season of all. :)

Link up your self portraits below today's featured SOML sponsors! Happy Friday...

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First up is something not normally featured here - an e-course! This particular course is led by Melyssa of the Nectar Collective and Erika of Chimerikal, and it's called EVERYDAY HAPPY. These girls summed up the course best here:

"Everyday Happy is a positive, soul-renovating experience that delves into the core of who you truly are. It utilizes journaling, spirit-building, and community exercises to access the most radiant version of yourself and help you unlock your happiness potential. This course is unique — it builds positive self image, reconstructs your habits, and connects you to other participants in a thoughtful, like-minded community." 

Sounds pretty darn amazing, right?! Get to know the coaches here, take a look at the FAQ page here, and reserve your spot ASAP if you'd like in on it. Spaces are limited and the course begins October 1st.

Website

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Next up is Marolsha, an Etsy store you've probably seen mentioned here on SOML a time or two before. Marolsha stocks the prettiest and most inexpensive jewelry - perfect for gifting (to someone else, or to yourself!). I absolutely love the vintage and timeless feel of this perfect little shop. Take a look, and get ready to fall in love.

Shop

How has social media changed you?

Day 8 Blogtember topic: Discuss ways that blogging or social media has changed you.

This one is difficult for me because blogging and social media has changed my life so much that I hardly know where to begin. For the sake of this exercise, I just went back to the very first post on my very first blog - if you’re wondering, it was on July 6th, 2008. It’s interesting, because I found that my writing voice and style has actually not changed much at all since then. But boy, so many other things sure have.

Blogging and social media have had many both positive and negative effects on my life. For one thing, they’ve caused this addiction in me to share my experiences with others. I used to live my life in a solitary fashion - you know, like most people do - but now, if I can’t photograph it, instagram it, tweet it, blog it, share it with the world, it almost feels like it wasn’t even worth doing. It’s such a strange thing, and when I put it that way, it sounds sort of negative (not to mention pathetic). But I find that in my life, this is a good thing. I am naturally disinclined to change, grow, experience new things, and get out of my comfort zone. Blogging and social media have helped me be less that way. Because, you know, my blog would be boring as hell if I remained a sad stagnant hermit covered in dog hair who mostly never leaves the house.

A second way that blogging, in particular, has changed me, is that it’s given me confidence I never, ever had before. I specifically remember being at the grocery store one day, a few months after I started Story of My Life and after I had picked up a few dozen or maybe a couple hundred readers by then. I remember noticing I had this extra spring in my step, and a stronger sense of self than I had ever had before. I remember noticing that and then immediately attributing it to my blog. People cared what I had to say, my great passion for writing was being affirmed, and I was connecting with people in a way I was missing in my “real” life! It just generally felt really nice. To have found a niche, a hobby, and something I knew I could excel at.

Social media has also caused me to be really freaking ADD/all-over-the-place, which I discussed in this post (the response to it was pretty incredible… so many of us suffer with this!). Since I already talked about it, I won’t go into anymore detail on that one. I’m getting a LITTLE better about this though. Re-training myself to focus when I really need to. It’s not easy.

And finally, this conversation would be so incomplete if I didn’t mention the way that blogging and social media have had an incredibly globalizing effect on my life - meaning, it’s brought the entire world right here into MY world. The things I have learned have been countless. The relationships I’ve made have been priceless. The art and talent I’ve been exposed to have been inspiring and invaluable. Basically, it's all made a giant world feel so much smaller and less intimidating. Maybe that’s the optimist in me talking. But I think it mainly just comes from a place of genuine passion for social media and other humans and their endless abilities to share and create.

What about you? How has blogging and social media changed you? Speak up in a comment or in the linkup below!

Favorite online places (to drop some dough)

For Day 7 of Blogtember we're sharing links to favorite online shops. I have so many and there are seemingly endless fantastic handmade shops in places like Etsy... it is a veritable black hole of awesomeness over there. But here are just a few of my favorites! Cannot wait to browse everyone else's picks, too. Happy Hump Day!


BLOOM THEORY // The loveliest camera straps I've ever seen. I don't own one, but it's on my bucket list.

DIMDIMINI // When we have a baby someday I will be decorating with these little critters. There are so many adorably whimsical watercolor animal prints in this shop!

PETITOR // This is one of my favorite shops for beautiful and inexpensive gifts for friends (and myself).

IVIEBABY // One of the major reasons I'd like a baby is so I can decorate its nursery with some Iviebaby.

RUCHE // Ruche is so timeless and classy, and new arrivals are added almost every day. I love this adorable shop!

Share your favorite shops in the linkup below! Have fun browsing. :)

Making lectures and lessons more interactive with mQlicker

As the traditional lecture has come increasingly under fire for being completely out of touch with modern teaching and learning methods, there has been a move by many teachers, conference presenters and lecturers to make their teaching techniques more modern and interactive. One of the key technologies for enabling this has been a range of audience response systems that provide real time responses to polls, questions and surveys while the speakers is actually presenting.

It’s great that many teachers are taking this step, but some of these response systems like mQlicker can deliver much more than a simple audience response, in fact you can use them to initiate debates, brainstorm ideas or even develop complete units of elearning which can help you to ‘flip’ your classroom and create motivating blended learning materials which encourage and keep track of student engagement.

mQlicker has a number of ways of encouraging interaction and displaying results. To see a live demo of how mQlicker look at: http://www.mqlicker.com/demo.html

Be sure to tab through the different questions types, enter data and use the settings tab to change the way the data displays. I particularly like the word cloud type data display for text and numerical entries.

To set up your mQlicker interactions you need to register and log in on the mQlicker site. This is free to do.

Once you have done this you see the admin user interface. This is much simpler to use than it looks at first glance and the initial field shows you the 6 step instructions for how to create your poll or questionnaire.

Once you have created your questionnaire and launched it, participants just need to go to: https://respond.cc/ enter a numerical code and then input their response.

Here are 3 short video tutorial which show you how to do that.

How to create an mQlicker questionnaire 1



How to create an mQlicker questionnaire 2

How to create an mQlicker questionnaire 3



Why I like mQlicker

• For a start mQlicker is cross platform compatible so as well as working an app on all the major mobile platforms it will also run in the browser on both mobile and desktop.
• It has a range of ways of displaying participants responses which you can choose from. I particularly like the one which shows responses to text input as a word cloud.
• I really like that you only need to set up one fixed URL https://respond.cc/ for responses and that respondents just enter a short digital code. This makes it pretty simple to get people to the right place at an event and they don’t have complex URLs to copy down or registration codes to handle.
• mQlicker is pretty simple and straight forward just to get started with, but it also comes with a complete manual http://resources.mqlicker.com/doc/manual.pdf that you can download to start digging into the more complex capabilities.
• You can embed mQlicker chart results into a presentation (PPT) and make it dynamic so that your presentation slide updates automatically when people vote.
• It’s easy to reuse questions or questionnaires with multiple classes as it collects questions together in a question bank.
• There are premium services if you want something that looks customized for your company or event.

Some tips for getting the best from audience response

• Don’t limit participation to the room. Why not send out surveys and polls for response through social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook or through a back channel chatroom, then you can get a much wider variety of opinion and get the people in the room to respond to that.
• You can use the tool to brainstorm, especially with the word cloud data display. This would be great for brainstorming vocabulary based around topics, or words which collocate with ... etc.
• You can set up before and after votes for in class discussions, to see how many people can be persuaded to change their minds.
• You can create complete flipped interactive learning, by creating questionnaires with a video embedded into a slide at the beginning and then a variety of questions to get students exploring the video content. Then when you come to class students are prepared and you have some response data to get them working with and thinking and talking about in class. Using videos for flipped learning in this way when you are tracking the responses,  puts more pressure on students to actually do the work and watch the video as they know their responses are being tracked by the teacher.
• You can create questions based around images, so be sure to take advantage of this feature to help stimulate response from the students.
• You can allow students / participants to be anonymous, so this is a great tool for doing action research and to collect genuinely honest feedback on your teaching methods or content.
• You can use it to make your classroom more democratic, by setting up votes to find out which parts of the book or course students most want to study or what kinds of activities they want to do next.
• It’s great that mQlicker can enable open text input, so make the most of this feature. Participants are often frustrated wit questionnaires or polls that don’t really provide the answers that they want to give. Creating open text questions gives the respondent much more ability to express what they feel. This can though be more difficult for you to analyze statistically
• And last but not least you can use it for assessment and set micro tests as you class progresses. This can assure you that participants are following and understanding your message.

mQlicker is a great free tool for making your classroom, lecture or conference presentation more interactive. It would be great to see more tools like this being used at conferences and in classrooms, but of course you do need to make sure that your venue or classroom has good connectivity and get people into the habit of coming along ready with devices to participate, but as mobile and tablet penetration grows in the education sector and educational authorities realize that we have to stop banning these devices from classrooms and start exploiting them more fully.

I hope you find mQlicker useful

Related links:

• 3 Tools for Exploiting the Wifi During Presentations 
• Crowdsourcing Knowledge with Students 
• Peer editing in digital and mobile environments
• The Web 2.0 School of the Present
• Social Networks and the Web 2.0 Revolution: Part 2
• Creating Social Polls and Questionnaires Using Urtak
• Survey Creation Tool for Students
• Create Quick Online Polls
• Create an ESL EFL Video Quiz
• Make your own chat room

Best

Nik Peachey

Video communication apps and mobile learning

One of the great things about mobile devices such as tablets, iPads and phones is that most modern devices have good quality cameras and microphones built in. This opens up a really wide range of potential for communication and speaking practice that used to be such a struggle to organise on older laptops and desktop computers.

App developers have also been quick to exploit the potential of this powerful tool and in this post I'd like to look at some of the tools that have been created and how they can be used for language development.

Mailvu for asynchronous messages

Mailvu has been a long time favourite of mine, mainly because the web based version is so easy to use and doesn't require any downloads. You just point your browser at: http://mailvu.com/ and as long as you have the Flash plugin installed on your computer you can start recording immediately. Mailvu also provides mobile apps for iOS, Android an Blackberry. These are easy to use and it allows you to send short spoken messages which don't require the viewer to have any specific software or to download large video files. They just click a link and watch your message. This kind of cross platform compatibility is really important if you are working in a BYOD environment where students could be coming to class with a wide range of devices.

EyeReport for picture in picture

EyeReport  puts an interesting twist on the video communication genre by adding the ability to record video on video. By this I mean that students can upload or record a video on their mobile device and then add a video commentary over the top explaining or commenting on what they see in the original video. This opens up a whole range of potential activities that we can get students doing. They could add commentary to sporting clips, give guided tours of places they have visited, explain processes or even make their own documentaries. Once students have completed their recording these can be shared to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or emailed directly from within the app.

CoachesEye for video annotation

CoachesEye is a similar app to EyeReport (though this one is no longer free) but is much more feature rich. Like EyeReport you can record video commentary over video, but with CoachesEye you can also add annotations and you can stop and control where you insert your comments into the video. This app was designed for coaches to give detailed feedback to athletes on their physical movements, but it's a great app to get students creating and talking about their own videos, and also a useful tool to use when observing teachers for training purposes.

Storytime for bedtime stories 

Storytime is another app which puts a new Twist on the video communication genre. It combines video conferencing with reading stories out loud. The app was designed to enable parents to read to their children from a distance and it contains a number of books you can choose to read and while you read you can discuss the books, ask questions and point to things on the page whilst chatting with the video window at the top. This is great for doing online tutoring with younger learners. There is quite a range of books from very basic and up and they are nicely illustrated.

Teleprompter for controlled speaking practice 

Teleprompter is an app that I wrote about a while back when it was still free (iPhone for Speaking Homework ). The app is what it says, it allows you to import text and then it scrolls through the text while creating a video of you reading it. This is great to get students doing controlled speaking practice and then watching and improving their speaking. You can set texts which include a range of sounds which they find difficult and then watch them together and help them to understand what elements of their pronunciation are causing problems.

Keek for video journals

Keek mixes web with mobile in the form of video journals. Users can post short messages of up to 35 seconds from their mobile or computer and these are published to the web or can be browsed through the app. This would be a great tool to use as a daily learning journal, but it's probably best used by adults or more responsible teens. It seems to be a very popular tool with teens in the USA and there is a wide range of content that students can browse through, some of which is not best suited to educational purposes, but as a concept this is quite a good app. If you prefer your students to be sheltered from this kind of popular culture app, then you can still take up the idea of the video learning journal and just get them to use their built in video camera app and post the messages to a Dropbox site.

Six3 for video messaging

Six3 is similar to MailVu and also compatible with most platforms, but it gives you the choice of recording private or public message and has an additional filter feature which can help to improve your appearance on the video. It's called Six3 because you have 63 seconds of recording time in each message. Like Mailvu, the messages are also sent via links through your email, but they can also be posted directly to Twitter or Facebook from within the app.

Skype for synchronous online tutoring

Skype has been around for a good while and was one of the first video based communication tools to break into the mainstream. It's being used by many online schools to deliver live online lesson from teachers to all parts of the globe. One of the great things about Skype, apart from the reliability, is that it keeps developing and adding new features. The recent addition of video messages that enable it to be used as an asynchronous tool will really help to widen its scope for use as a language development tool.


Built in camera app
With all these apps and the possibilities they offer, it can be easy to overlook the obvious. Most modern mobile device come with a built in video camera application and you can always use this to record and send video message. This has the advantage that messages are very safe from third party app providers and any possible security breaches, but sending the video clips to someone else often involves sending the whole clip via email which can be slow and require good connectivity.

For more ideas and activities for using video and webcams to develop languages see my posting 20 WebCam Activities for EFL ESL Students

Why use video communication?

• Well one of the best reasons to use these kinds of apps is to get students speaking. Speaking homework has always been particularly difficult for students, but now you can ask students to produce spoken homework which you can watch and assess.
• Video as a communication genre is likely to become increasingly important as a 21st century digital literacy, so it's important that our students have practice and are able to use this communication genre, just as they do with speaking on the telephone or writing emails.
• Video can draw students' attention to many of the paralinguistic features of communication that are hard to highlight in a crowded classroom.
• Enabling students to record themselves speaking and then to watch themselves can be very enlightening for students as they can then start to self assess their own performance and look for ways they can improve. It can also encourage some students to try harder, because they know that someone else might see the video.
• Video can be very engaging and can be played repeatedly so it gives students the chance to listen again and in more depth.
• Video communication can help teachers to build a stronger sense of connection with their students, especially with online course when you might never physically meet your students. Conveying some sense of your personality, sense of humour and character can be very difficult in written communications, so video has some really big advantages.
• Giving students 1 to 1 time and having the time to just sit down and spend a few moments listening to a single student without the noise of others around can be really difficult in the classroom, but having a short recorded video clip of our students can really enable us to focus on their specific strengths and weaknesses and enable us to give them some really personalised feedback.

Potential problems

• As with any kind of online communication, make sure your students know how to protect their privacy and also themselves from harassment. Be sure to have a transparent and open policy on any kind of harassment so students know what is likely to happen to anyone harassing and how to report harassment.
• If you are using video communications with younger students also make sure their parents know what you are doing and why you are doing it and get their approval (in writing if possible) and if possible get them involved too.
• Make students aware of the difference between poor quality speaking and poor quality audio. You don't want them to think they sound bad if the real problem is the recording quality and interference from background noise etc. Help your students to understand how to get he best quality results from whatever recording tools they have, by finding somewhere quiet to record and experimenting with the best distance from the microphone.
• Helping students to look their best on video will also help to boost their confidence. Getting the camera angle right and having the light coming from the right direction can also have a big impact on how students look, so helping with this can be part of the learning experience. There is a useful article here which may help: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/look-good-on-webcam/
• Always remember and remind students that anything they do or say on video can potentially be seen by other people for years and even centuries to come, so whenever one of these apps is used, encourage them to think about what they are doing and saying and keep in mind that it could be seen by people they know and people they might yet meet as well as strangers who they might never meet. It's important to remind students of how they want to be perceived.

I hope you enjoy these apps and that they help to get your students speaking. Please leave a comment if you have any favourite video communication apps that you use to get your students speaking.

Related links:

• Mix Images and Animation on Your Mobile 
• Peer editing in digital and mobile environments 
• iPhone for Speaking Homework 
• iPad Apps for English Language Teachers
• Create Books for the iPad
• Getting Learning out of the Classroom with Augmented Reality  
•  Augmented Reality and Web 3.0
• Creating texting dialogues for students

Best

Nik Peachey