A place to remember how to set up tools I find useful for my teaching.

All mixed up with Splinder and Motime ...

I had not used this blog in almost a year, but liked to keep it because I had set reminders on certain tools I use for my teaching. Well, it seems I have not used it well enough lately as Splinder seems to have bought Motime and I am all mixed up at the moment. Will have to find out what happened ...

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 23:46 | link | comments

Tesol presentation, Denver, Saturday March 28th, 2009

My colleague Leticia Esteves and I will be presenting at the Colorado Convention Center, room 612, at 10:00 a.m.
Here are our slides:

Updated version Tesol 2009

View more presentations from Berta .

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 06:18 | link | comments
blogs, tesol, webheads, presentation

Kwout

Analía from the Enhancing Lessons session in EVO2009 recommended this site to embed info anywhere online. The page says that "kwout" is a way to quote a part of a web page as an image with an image map. To use this service, all you need is to add our bookmarklet to your favorite browser.

I just followed the instructions of the demo and captured a section of  my blog at Blogger. A code is generated to embed it anywhere. It took a while though.

Here it is:

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 18:14 | link | comments
screen capturing, html code, evo

Looking forward to the EVO sessions in January ...

I have been so dedicated to my three class blogs in the past year and the wiki for the collaborative writing course for EFL students last term at my university that I feel exhausted and I have an online overload. I can´t keep on spending so much time in front of the computer, reading mails, comments, messages, posting, looking for materials, etc., etc., etc.

Maybe I have pushed myself too much trying to keep up with the pace of technology and my digital native students, and I am feeling the heavy load on my digital immigrant shoulders ;-(   There is always so much going on, so many new and better tools that it is overwhelming. Maybe my priorities have changed ...
I hope EVO will boost my online energy up next year!!!

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 01:29 | link | comments
WiA, EVO, technology stress, wia, evo

How to add "recent comments" widget in Blogger

Oh paradise ... I could finally find a code that would do the trick. I had tried some before to no avail. Now this one works!!!  I got it from Mad Tomato. Just copy it to the gadgets area under html, give it a title and paste your blog address to replace "your own blog". If you want to change the number of comments shown at a time, change the number "5" in the second line to one between 2-10

<script style="text/javascript" src="http://www.freewebs.com/filer/blogger/rc.js" ></script><script style="text/javascript" >var a_rc=5;var m_rc=false;var n_rc=true;var o_rc=100;</script><script src="http://yourownblog.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default?alt=json-in-script&callback=showrecentcomments" ></script><div align="center"><a href="http://www.madtomatoe.com/">↑</a> <a href="http://www.madtomatoe.com/recent-comments-widget-for-blogger/" target="_blank" title="Recent Comments Widget">Want this widget?</a><br/><br/></div>

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 23:43 | link | comments (1)
html code

Zaid´s 101 Free learning tools

Our Learning with Computer´s friend, Ana Maria Menezes, recommended this presentation and I could not help embedding it in this blog which holds those tools and ideas which are very helpful but I might forget about ;-)  This is the right place for me to come back to.

 

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 00:53 | link | comments

My students blogs for ID5128

In the Learning with Computer group we have been exploring Diigo as a social bookmark tool and it offers a slideshow feature which can be really helpful. Here is a show of the blogs my ID5128 students opened up for free writing. I tried to place a larger window, but it messed up my blog columns. The tool is not straightforward. I had to go to several pages to figure it out. First, go to the slideshow widget page and select from the options: webslides for feeds or webslide for bookmarks. I had a window open for Diigo and made a list by selecting the 7 blogs of my students. Then the list appeared in this page and the code for embedding the show was generated. I could not embed it in Wikispaces but it works well in Motime and Blogger.

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 01:56 | link | comments (1)

Nice toy: taggalaxy

I had heard from this tool from Carla but then José Antonio mentioned it today in his new Evolve blog. Its name is taggalaxy and you just write a keyterm (tag) and it creates the globe of pictures for you. You can set your mouse on it and move it around. There are 188.232 pictures in Flicker about Venezuela  and 3977 about Canaima !!! I printscreened it, pasted to paint, generated a URL with tinypic, and here it is! (I wonder if there is an easier way to do this and avoid so much hassle? Any idea?)

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 22:13 | link | comments (2)
photos

Meme game ... I was tagged by Mary Hillis in Japan

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 23:56 | link | comments (9)
meme, lwc, blogging4educators

Finally technorati

 

Since I have been using Bloglines, I never went back to a Technorati account I opened sometime ago. It gives a rather unusual instruction for claiming Motime blogs, so here I am writing this new post to do so. They also require to add a certain code, so here it goes. I hope everything works well. I thought having Bloglines was more than enough but there is a sort of renewed interest in using Technorati. Live and learn!  Technorati Profile

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 20:50 | link | comments
rss, web 20 tools, aggregator

Silly me and html code for links

Time and time again I keep forgetting how to link a URL when I am making comments and have no access to an html button. This is just another of this tiny details that make a huge difference of space and time on line (or at least it does to me). Another piece of info. my brain cannot hold is the link to tinypics to generate URL of pictures and videos for free.

Here it is then. I am sure I will come to find it a zillion times:  

<A HREF="http://             .html">my XXXXXXXX</A>

<A HREF="http://360.yahoo.com/bleiva2003">my 360 page</A>

Embedded it looks like this: my 360 page

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 17:01 | link | comments (1)
html code

Camstudio

I downloaded this program more than a year ago and have not "caught any screen"  yet. I see it being used very frequently by ESL/EFL colleagues who prepare tutorials to help their students follow instructions, steps in a process, etc. I will give it a try soon but there are so many wonderful tutorials all over the place, it is really amazing and here is one on the basics of using this open source software, as Camstudio is.

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 22:52 | link | comments
video, tutorial, screen capturing

Twitter widget

Although I don´t do microblogging with Twitter that much (I forget about it, same as I forget to check Facebook, ha, ha), I decided to go ahead and get the twitter widget. Since it did not have the Motime logo, I clicked on the Wordpress logo and got the html code which I then inserted in the side bar by going to the template. Motime has not set an easier way to add elements to the sidebar. So I just guessed where it should be by adding it between the Cbox code and the  counter code. It worked !!!

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 00:16 | link | comments (2)

Did I strike gold????!!!!

A very active and creative Webhead from Brazil has recommended this site which is solid gold. One can search a favorite song and then embed its code in one´s site, wow, it has great potential, especially when teaching reading with song lyrics. One thing is to have the song video from youtube, but another is to have the song available in just audio and have the lyrics available in another link. Ideally the song could have captions, like some at dotsub like this one by Nickelback.

Thanks Ronaldo for the tip. Here is one song from Foo Fighters, the grammy winners last Sunday and a link to its lyrics , DOA (Death On Arrival) , a bit dark, but enjoy it anyway.

This tool became quite a hit in one of the posts in my present classblog. Check it out here 

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 19:24 | link | comments

Feevy

 I had been noticing a widget in many WiA blogs in the past months and did not quite understand its potential. Well I just embedded it today in my blog for the graduate course on Theory and Methods of ESL-EFL teaching and learning. I only have two students and they have set up blogs to reflect on the chapters we read every week. This way I can check when they post and get to their reflections very easily. I know Bloglines does the trick but this is quite straight forward visually. Feevy is very friendly so there is not much need for explaining steps here. Just sign up, add the blogs you want to follow and copy the html code to embed it in your site. I guess you will need to sign up with a different mail account every time you want to embed a Feevy in a completely different blog community.

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 23:32 | link | comments (1)
web 20 tools

My first Slideshow with Windows Movie Maker

Here it is, finally. Made as an assignment for the EVO_08 video session.  A bit time consuming but it was worth it as I had a lot of fun playing around with different options. Windows Movie Maker offers a rather easy way to make our "videos"  with our own pictures and upload them to Youtube, Teachertube, Google videos, etc. It is very friendly but there are a couple of details one has to watch out for. Here is a site I will check later on that deals with FAQ. I got all mixed up trying to get background music and my voice simultaneously. I tried placing two audio channels previously recorded with Audacity, but could not. So I finally left the music on in the background as I read the script recording it with the wmv mike tool, and towards the end, I just raised the volume of the music manually. Sergio Mazzarelli, our moderator, suggested to save the video, bring it back in WMM and then add the music in the audio channel. Great idea!!! I didn´t know how to create the Ken Burns effect but got it by playing with the features "simplify in, simplify out".

I felt overly conscious as I was recording my voice and still find tons of mistakes I made as a nonnative speaker, but what the heck, I could not go on and on re-recording endlessly. So bear with me and give me as many suggestions as you want. I will take them into account in my next video "production" ;-)

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 16:20 | link | comments (5)
video

Collaborative revisions with Google docs

Google for educators has these suggestions that look very promising for EFL writing. It offers a pdf tutorial too. I also found this site from Google where they mention new applications in 2008 like downloading powerpoint presentations that can be embedded to a blog.

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 22:14 | link | comments (2)

NUMB

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 14:46 | link | comments

Voice thread, an alternative to Chinswing

I am just checking out this new tool. It does not work in Wordpress (as expected) and I am trying to see if it works here. The person following the thread has to register to the site (something not needed in Vaestro).

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 20:41 | link | comments

Web trend map

 

Here you will find the most successful sites in the web and their trends. Check out how Google, Flicker, Del.icio.us and other sites you use so much are doing these days.

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 02:15 | link | comments (1)

Crossword puzzles with Eclipse

 Rubena is using this program which is downloadable, free and has easy to follow tutorials. Check it out here.

 

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 19:19 | link | comments
web 20 tools

AAAL: American Association of Applied Linguistics

From April 21-24, I attended and presented at the AAAL in Costa Mesa, Orange County, California. A dear friend and colleague from Venezuela and I had never attended this convention before and felt as if we were surrounded by the rock stars of Applied Linguistics, authors we have cited countless times and whose articles and books we have read for many years: William Grabe, Tom Cobb, Marlise Horst, Norbert Schmitt, Diane Schmitt, Elizabeth Bernhardt, Rod Ellis,  Keiko Koda, Barbara Kroll, Diane Larsen-Freeman, Fredricka Stoller, Zoltán Dörnyei, Doug Biber, Hossein Nassaji, James Lantolf,  William Labov and the superstars from University of  Toronto Jim Cummins, Merril Swain, Nina Spada, Alister Cumming and Sharon Lapkin ... It was a thrill to run into Grabe, Cobb, Horst and the Schmitts in almost all the presentations we went to as they dealt mostly with common areas of interest: lexical acquisition and reading comprehension.

Here is my presentation, as promised. I was honored to have Prof. Grabe in the audience and later have my study mentioned by him at the Invited Colloquium on Reading.

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 02:18 | link | comments (2)

Internet and critical thinking

Just this afternoon I had the TV on and was listening to the news on criticism from teachers about Wikipedia as seen by students as a legitimate source of information where many seem to go to. It is our obligation as educators to raise students´ consciousness on the data they find on line and provide critical thinking opportunities for them to question their sources and validity. Very frequently students simply cut and paste without understanding or even reading what they are copying and this cartoon adresses the topic very vividly. Garbage in = garbage out. Let´s help them sort it out.

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 05:13 | link | comments (3)

How to use Wikispaces

This is a powerpoint presentation by Jennifer Wagner in California on how to use Wikispaces. Its audio podcast is here.

 

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 17:01 | link | comments (1)
wikis

Tinypic ... easy embedding of pictures and video

I just ran into Tinypic. No need to download or register. Just go there, press "examine" and upload a picture or video. The site will generate three codes:

1) Embed HTML code, 2) IMG Link, 3) URL Link

Let´s see what I can do with my favorite sunset picture if I just embed the code. Here it is. I did not have to upload the picture to Motime, which saves space in the free amount one is allowed a month.

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 04:05 | link | comments (4)

Placing Clock in sidebar

Dafne already explained this in BaW07 but I found a request in my Motime mail. So here it is.

Go to this site: http://www.clocklink.com

and select a clock with the time of your city. Copy the html code and open your Motime blog, go to "template" look for the "archives" section in your template and copy the html code after it. Then save. I hope it works.

Hugs, Berta

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 01:21 | link | comments

A video by Graham Stanley

I would like to share this video made by Graham Stanley, an English Webhead based in Barcelona, Spain, who gives a short and very clear presentation on Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Second Life. I enjoyed it so much that decided to have it in a post here. Graham is presently a Co-moderator in two Tesol-evo sessions.

 

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 21:33 | link | comments (2)
web 20 tools

Placing a ppt with Slideshare

I tried to post a powerpoint presentation in Wordpress and couldn´t; in Blogger I am still trying, and I wanted to check if it was possible here in Motime.

It is about Brain-based Learning and I presented it at Ventesol 2005 in Maracaibo, Venezuela. Please give me the deserved credit if you ever use it in front of an audience or class. Thanks. Here it goes:

It was fast and easy. Thanks Motime

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 17:45 | link | comments (6)

CBox

Just found out about it at the BaW07 Motime blog. Go to Cbox and sign up. Once registered, copy the code that is generated and paste it in the sidebar of your blog. Voilá! 

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 17:54 | link | comments (1)

Collage with Picassa

I used Picassa a couple of months ago and now I don´t remember how I made a collage then. I guess I downloaded Picassa onto my computer (free of charge) and then found my way through. I will try to go back and check. Here is a page for help.

Go to Picassa and download the free software. All our photos will be re-organized in Picassa files. Click a photo in the albums on the right and it will appear in the window on the bottom left. Click the green bottom to keep the photo and the red to delete the photo. You have to do the green or red button click for each photo. Now press "collage" on the right bottom and the collage will appear (25 different photos will be an excellent choice, otherwise the program repeats the first photos). Click "create" and save in the same folder where the photos came from or  in a different one. Here is a sample. You can crop (minimize) or enlarge photos, do slide shows and much more with this software. I have not experimented much with it yet.

Posted by: BertaLeiva at 17:47 | link | comments (1)