Wordle - creating word clouds

Hello, everyone!

The other remaining task we are supposed to do is to write a post about a web 2.0 tool our friends presented in the classroom. We are free to choose the one we are interested in. I personally chose to introduce a website named Wordle. I am going to write why/how it is used and suggest some ideas for its use in language teaching in my post.

What is Wordle?

Wordle is a web-based tool that allows you to quickly create beautiful word clouds from the text you provide. It is free to use and there is no sign up or registration required. It is really fun and easy to use. You can easily customize your word cloud by changing the font, colors and layout to your preference. After you have created your word cloud, you can take a screenshot of it, save it as a png file or print it out.

How to use Wordle

1. Go to Wordle and click on “Create” to get started. 

2. Type your text directly or copy and paste it into the empty box. (You can also enter the URL of any blog, blog feed or website with RSS feed to create a word cloud from the text on that blog or website.) For the words you don’t want separated, simply put a tilde (~) between them just like in my sample image below. If you want to emphasize some words, type them multiple times to make them appear bigger. After you have finished, click on “Go”.

3. Your randomly created word cloud will appear in the box.

4. You can change the appearance of your word cloud by using the “Font”, “Layout”, and “Color” tabs on the top. Those tabs will enable you to change the color and style of your words and layout like horizontal or vertical design. Under the “Language” tab, you can make all words upper or lower case, remove numbers if there is any and remove common words of many languages. You can also click on the “Randomize” button at the bottom to make Wordle randomly select a design for you. Here is my self-customized word cloud of the book 1984:

5. After you have finished, you can take a screenshot of your word cloud, save it as a png file or print it out.

ADVANTAGES
Free to use
No registration required
Simple interface
Appealing visuals
Able to customize the design

DISADVANTAGES
Not able to change the design into a specific shape
Not able to share the design via social media

Overall, Wordle is so simple and easy to use. It is really making something boring much more appealing and fun. It is ideal for students to get creative like creating posters while practicing their vocabulary knowledge. They can easily learn or practice vocabulary through word clouds. They can create word clouds to describe people or write poems. Teachers can also use Wordle to revise vocabulary of a topic that students have studied before. They can create a word cloud by putting some keywords of a specific topic before starting a lesson and then ask students to guess the topic they are going to study.

I would highly recommend Wordle to the teachers who are bored of traditional methods of teaching and are looking for an engaging and a fun one way to include in their lessons.  

Make Beliefs Comix - creating comic strips

Hello, everyone!

We have two new tasks. One of them is to write a post about about the tool my partner Elçin Çepni and I presented in the classroom. The tool we presented was a website named "Make Beliefs Comix". In my post, I am going to introduce the website, and write why/how it is used. I am also going to suggest some ideas for its use in language teaching and include the materials we have created for our presentation in my post as well.

What is Make Beliefs Comix?

Make Beliefs Comix is web-based comic strip creator that allows you to create digital comic strips online. It is free to use and requires no login or sign up. You can easily customize your comic by changing number of panels, adding various characters, expressions and emotions, talk bubbles, thought bubbles and prompts. You can also adjust the background to your preference. After you create your comic strip, you can share it via email or print it out. 

Make Beliefs Comix is mostly used for the purpose of digital storytelling in classroom environment. Students can express themselves, use their creative and imaginative side as well as improving their language and media literacy skills while creating their own comic strips. 

How to Use Make Beliefs Comix

Step 1. Go to Make Beliefs Comix and click "Enter Here!" to get started.

Step 2. This is the page where you will create your comic strip.

Step 3. Name your comic and type your own name in the text fields below.

Step 4. Choose a character from the grid.

Step 5. Click on the selection window and the character will appear on the first panel.

Step 6. Use red arrows under the selection window to select different expressions on a character. Here are two examples of other expressions for the professor:

Step 7. Select different backgrounds and background colors, add various words and objects to use in your panel. Panels can also be added up to 4.

Step 8. Use red arrows under the selection window to select various objects, scenes and words. Here are some examples:

Step 9. You can add talk and thought balloons and choose prompts to make your characters communicate in your panel. 

Step 10. To select another panel, simply click on it. A red outline will appear around the panel to be worked on next.

Step 11. Additional characters can be added to the panels.

Step 12. Click on the grid that is on the left side of the page to choose from a variety of options including move, scale and flip to adjust your character. You can also click on the top left of the grid to be forwarded to printing or emailing the comic. 

Step 13. After clicking "print/email" icon, you will be brought to the following screen. You can either print or email your comic from this screen.

Sample comic strip that my partner and I have created:

There is more...

The website also offers sections for teachers, parents and students with special needs. 

ADVANTAGES

Free

No account needed to create comic strips

Easy to use

Simple interface

Able to change expressions and emotions of the characters 

Able to add prompts

Sections that provide valuable resources for teachers, parents and students with special needs.

DISADVANTAGES

Limited background and object selection

Limited panel selection

Limited emotions and facial expressions for the characters

Font size and style cannot be changed

Comics cannot be saved in order to be worked at a later date

CLASSROOM USES

Students can pair up and create amusing dialogues on a specific topic using comics. Then, they can act out their dialogues. 

Students can work in groups and create their own short comic story.

Students can individually create and analyze a character.

Overall, Make Beliefs Comix is a great digital storytelling website that allows students to express themselves and use their creative and imaginative side. It provides lesson plans, resources and printables for teachers, thought-provoking exercises for students as well as parenting tips for parents.

Introducing an App: Sock Puppets

This week's task is to introduce and write about an app that can be installed and used on a mobile device for language learning/teaching purposes. It actually took me a while to decide on an app. I went through bunch of apps as I wanted to introduce something that allows students to be productive and comes in really useful for them. So I decided to introduce and review "Sock Puppets"!

Sock Puppets is a great storytelling app that both teachers and students will enjoy. The app lets you create lip-synced short animated videos using sock puppet characters. All you have to do is download the app through App Store to your mobile phone or your iPad to get started! There are both free and paid versions available on App Store  but I am only going to review the free version. 

Learning how to use the app is actually simple and fun. To create a video, you simply;

1. Select your puppets

2. Select a background

3. Select the props and scenery

4. Move your puppets and props into their positions

5. Record your voice

6. Save the video and upload it to Youtube (optional)

Recording is so easy with a record button. You can also move your puppets side to side while recording. It detects voice so the puppets will automatically lip-synch to your voice while also applying a cute cartoon effect to it, which is a perfect way for shy students to record their voices and speak with confidence.

The only downside of the app is that there is 30-second recording limit for the free version although you can purchase extended recording time which is 90 seconds.

Overall, this app is both imaginative and fun especially for younger students. It simply allows them to get involved in creative storytelling. I think there are many ways to use this app in a classroom setting. For example, students can retell a story, prepare and perform a short poem, pair up and create amusing conversations on a specific topic or work in groups and create their own short story. Students can either improvise or prepare their speech beforehand. Socket puppets app help students boost their imagination as well as improve their language skills and their creative thinking.

I highly recommend this app to English teachers as it is an app that will surely enhance the learning experience for students.

Digital Storytelling Project: How to make Pompoms

This week’s project is digital storytelling. My partner Elçin Çepni and I worked together on this project. Our instructor gave us three options to choose from and we decided to go with the second option which is ‘HOW TO project’.

 For this project, we were required to demonstrate either a real or an imaginary process. In order to demonstrate the process, we had to explain it step by step adding videos, photos and narration. Our video was not supposed to be longer than 2 minutes, which I found inadequate for this task but after all, the task itself has to be challenging! Finding a creative idea was also a bit challenging. However, we managed to come up with a lot of different ideas but not every one of them was creative. We had to discuss every aspect of each idea we found including having had to explain it in just two minutes. In the end, we decided on the idea of how to make pompoms. We thought it was creative, cute and explainable-in-two-minutes kind of idea! We asked my mother to help us demonstrate pompom making as she is really a crafty person. We took the video of her making a pompom first and added narration to it later. We recorded our voices and explained the process step by step. We used Movie Maker to edit our work.

 I found this project quite enjoyable, to be honest. It was a bit challenging to come up with the perfect idea and also kind of time consuming to arrange and complete everything but during the process, my partner and I actually had fun. We enjoyed this task more than both our podcast and film review task even though it took much longer to complete. I believe that my partner and I came up with a good outcome as a result of our collaborative work. After all, this task would not be efficient if done individually. It is important to discuss the ideas and organize all the work together as it leads to the best outcome. People can always lead each other for the better if they work collaboratively.

 In my opinion, creating a digital story would contribute to students’ foreign language development as students get to practice their writing and speaking skills but it especially enhances creativity, communication, collaborative work and technological skills. I think these four are the most important aspects of digital storytelling project. 

Here is our project:

Website Evaluation: ESLgold

 This week’s task is to write a post about an ELT website specifically designed for English learners. My choice of a website is ESLgold. At first, the website did not seem that appealing but when I went over it, I saw that it actually offered plenty of materials and resources for both learners and teachers of English. Materials include teaching ideas, lesson plans, worksheets, quizzes, flashcards, audio and videos of various topics. Sections are well organized by topic, skill and level thus everything is just so easy to find. Learners can improve their English language skills with fun activities. They can test themselves, listen to podcasts, watch videos of their preferred topic and even find a tutor online to practice their speaking skills. Teachers can as well benefit from the website through easy-to-reach lesson plans, worksheets and teaching tips to improve their classroom practice. They can use games at the end of their lesson. They can also give homework to be done online through the website. 

  Even though the website provides effective materials to learn and teach English, it also has some downsides. Firs of all, the website lacks of appealing visuals to attract learners. I actually did not like the overall layout of the website. It could have been designed in a much better way. I also did not like the fact that the website has advertisements and I think they surely need to be taken down. I could not come across to any errors or broken links on the website besides some minor mistakes like using capital letters wrong.  I really like the vast amount of materials and resources the website provides. I recommend teachers to pay a visit to this website mostly because it helps save their time with lesson plans and worksheets, offers useful teaching tips as well as easy-to-use various teaching materials. 

About RSS Feed

  This week’s task is to write a post about RSS feed and the blogs we follow. We are supposed to choose one of the blogs we follow and explain what it is about and why we recommend teachers to follow that blog.

  It is beneficial to start off with explaining what exactly RSS is and for what purpose it is used. RSS is an abbreviation for ‘Really Simple Syndication’. It is basically a feeding format to which internet users subscribe in order to keep track of their favorite websites including blogs. RSS feed allows users to see summaries of the latest feeds from their favorite websites in one place instead of checking each website separately to see if there is a new feed or a content uploaded. My personal preference of a software is RSS Feedreader as it is quite simple and free. I currently follow fifteen educational blogs for English Language Teaching. My favorite, however, is ELT Resourceful by Rachael Roberts. The blog mostly provides teaching ideas and tips for English teachers to improve themselves. Rachael Roberts, as a professional materials writer, gives advice on creating effective lesson plans as well as sharing her own lesson materials, activities and plans that can be downloaded. Her blog also provides different aspects of methodology for teachers interested in that area. I strongly recommend her blog for teachers who can use some help on improving their teaching, developing their own materials and producing practical lesson plans for their students. 

Wiki Project – PK Film Review

 This week’s project is Wiki. My partner Elçin Çepni and I worked together on this project again. Our assignment was to review a film we both watched. We were supposed to imagine as if we were writing a film review for a school magazine. We decided to review the movie “PK”.

I found this project much easier than the previous podcasting project mostly because my partner and I had no difficulty finding a movie. I guess I am lucky to have similar interests with her. We just had a bit of difficulty at the beginning of our writing process as we did not know what points of the movie to include exactly. But eventually we had our way around and we ended up with a long review. We managed to shorten it as much as possible, though.

To be honest, I had fun with this project. I had a chance to have a long and a really nice talk about the movie with my partner. We talked about the important aspects of the movie and we found ourselves discussing philosophy. It made me realized that PK is a movie worth watching more than once!

I think wikis can be used in a classroom setting for the purpose of making students more creative and active in the learning process. Wikis are easy to use and they also encourage collaborative work so that students can improve their communication skills while doing their task. 

Anyway, here is our wiki project: Direct link to Wiki