Using Phraseum to learn lexical chunks

I recently revisited Phraseum, an app which I first discovered and reviewed in March 2014. I’m glad to see that the tool is still around, has gathered a loyal following and has developed both in terms of design and functionality since...

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Creating social phrasebooks with Phraseum

I spend a lot of time looking at different web-based tools and apps and thinking about if and how they can be used for learning. Sometimes it takes some thought and at other times it’s really obvious. With Phraseum it was instantly obvious...

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Online Video: For Language Development

There are now a number of online video sharing communities that are specifically designed to support the development of language and communication skills. These websites don't just provide us with video content, but also the tools to help us...

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A River of Images

I love the power of images and their adaptability for teaching, so I can't say that I'm upset to be almost overwhelmed with really great tools for exploiting Flickr at the moment. The latest of these is Flickriver, an incredibly simple Flickr...

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A Tool for Comparing Words

I've just found this very useful tool that allows you to compare words and phrases and how they are used online. It works very simply by taking the two words or phrases that you type in and searching through Google to give you the results for...

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Exploiting Image Sequences

I have to admit that when I first saw Bubblr, I thought it was just a simple tool for adding speech and thought bubbles to images, but when I started to try it out I discovered that it can do far more than that.You can use Bubblr to search...

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Using Word Clouds in EFL ESL

I've just discovered Wordle, which is a really useful site for creating word clouds. The word clouds are created by entering either a text, URL or del.icio.us user name into a field. The site then generates a word cloud based on the frequency...

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Games With a Purpose and a Social Network

Well who would believe it? A social network built around playing word games with online partners! This may not sound like a great idea, but I have to say that I'm impressed! Gwap (Games With a Purpose) is a collection of 5 basic word games...

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Your big carbon feet

I’ve just seen this new website called the Carbon Account. It’s sort of an ecology 2.0 social network. Once you register you fill in details about your household and your travels, the meter readings for your bills and the amount of miles you...

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Animating vocabulary

I've just been looking at a useful websites called Gifup that enables users to quickly and easily create animated gifs / image sequences like the one below. This seems to me a like a really useful way of revising and teaching vocabulary.What...

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Multimedia wordsearch

This is a really nice tool that I have just discovered. It's called PhotoSoup and it generates wordsearch activities based on any topic in just seconds.It's very simple and works on images from flickr. You simply type in your topic and the...

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