Digital Tools for Teachers

Over the last few months I have been working on a new book project and finally have it completed.

The new book is Digital Tools for Teachers.

This book has been written and designed primarily with English language teachers in mind though the majority of the resources and tools contained in the book will have much wider use than just language teaching.

The book is available at the introductory price of £1.99 from:

• iBook Store
• Payhip

The book contains more than 70 tools and resources and these have been hand picked because they represent a broad cross-section of what is at present available.
The chapters of the book are divided into simple pedagogical tasks that most teachers need to carry out or help their students with and the descriptions of the resources are suitably concise to make the book easy for a stressed teacher to access and browse in a few spare moments between classes.

The sites, apps and resources within the book have been divided into the following chapters:

• Reading Tools
•  Writing Tools
•  Speaking Tools
•  Listening Tools
•  Grammar Tools
•  Presentation Tools
•  Poll & Survey Tools
•  Infographic Tools
•  Course Creation Tools

You can download the first two chapters free here:  Digital Tools for Teachers

At present each chapter contains between 5 – 10 different sites that have been selected to help you make a quick choice of the tools you need.

All of the tools and resources selected for the book are either free or have a useable permanent freemium offering, so you will never be forced to pay for any of these resources in order to sustain the work you are doing with your students.

Over the coming years it is my intention to regularly review and expand on the contents of this book. If you would like to be involved and assist in this process you can do so by:

•  Suggesting tools to be included in future editions
•  Writing an entry about a tool you have used and found useful
•  Reporting a dead link or a tool or resource that has become commercially unviable for teachers
•  Reporting a typo or factual error.

Anyone who contributes in any of the ways above will get a brief mention in the next edition of the book along with a link to their own blog or website.

Related links

• Digital Video - A Manual for Language Teachers
• Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers
• Thinking Critically through Digital Media 
• PeacheyPublications 
• Tools and alternatives for creating presentations
• Technology, Autonomous Learning & a Decline in Critical Thinking

Best

Nik Peachey

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Sending Bubble Joy to your EFL / ESL Students

It's amazing how you can spend ages looking for something you want and then when you find it a whole bunch of other things come along with it. That seems to be the way things have happened for me with video conferencing. I found and posted about tokbox last week and then came Bubble Comment this week which I wrote about on my Quick Shout blog, and now Bubble Joy!

Bubble Joy is a way of sending short (60 seconds) fun video messages to people.


Click here to see the live video message (only good for the first 50 visitors)

They have a selection of message cards and you just record your video message to go in the middle using a webcam and microphone. The whole thing is very quick and easy to do.

So why use this with EFL / ESL students?

• It's good listening and speaking practice
• It's good fun and easy to do
• It's communicative
• It's creative
• It's free, easy to use, doesn't require registration
• Nice selection of cards

So how do we use this with our ESL / EFL students?

• Well a lot of the suggestions that I mentioned in my posting Video conferencing for EFL will also work with Bubble Joy, but be sure to remember that with Bubble Joy you only have 60 seconds, and the video card expires after it has been viewed 50 times.
• You could also try using it for specific occasions (there are cards specifically for Christmas, Easter, Valentines etc.)
• You could also get students to create messages that match the other themes (What would you say from inside a lion's mouth, inside a shark, on safari) and then build a story to go with the cards explaining why this happened.
• Students could also plan an imaginary holiday and then send a card to tell other as about it (on safari, riding in a hot air balloon etc.)
• Students could use one of the TV or stage designs to give a brief news report. They could each report on their day in class or what they did on holiday, at the weekend or on a class visit.
• They could use the stage or TV designs to record a joke each and then send them round and vote on the best one.
• The cocktail glass card could be used to create warnings against the dangers of alcohol.

See the full range of Bubble Joy designs here:

What I'm not so sure about

• Students need to email the cards, so to avoid them having to share their email addresses it might be better to have the students send the cards to you and then you grab the links and share them in class or on a web page etc.
• It would be nice to be able to upload your own frame to put the video in.
• 60 seconds can be a bit limiting
• Shame the cards expire after they have been viewed 50 times

Well I hope you enjoy Bubble Joy and that it helps you to spread some joy among your students.

Here are some related links:
Great Video Commenting Tool
Video conferencing for EFL
Send Free Video Messages

Best

Nik Peachey

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