Welcome to Issue 7!
Welcome to the seventh issue of Edtech News, a free monthly newsletter bringing you the latest in new technology for teaching English. Each month we look at the latest online resources for teachers and students, and introduce you to useful ICT tips and tricks. We also feature a multi-level interactive whiteboard activity in each issue. We hope you enjoy reading and if you have any comments please get in touch at tecnologica@britanico.cl. To read past issues, visit our archives.
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In this issue:
- Create your own flashcard sets at
- Teacher development resource:
IATEFL 2010 conference video sessions
- Top tech tips:
for brainstorming and organising ideas
- The IWB activity series: Nº 7 - Background Knowledge
Techno Defoe on 
We have a great site to tell you about this month where you can find thousands of sets of flashcards to practice vocabulary and make your own set personalised to your class's needs and interests. Head to Quizlet and search for the area you're interested in or simply have a look at what's been created in the different areas already. You can flip the flashcards or see both sides at the same time, and do different activities with them online to learn the vocabulary and test yourself.
There are many ways to share the content with your students if you don't want to use them online in class. You can share the set through Facebook or Twitter, and also print or export the cards to another format. It's extremely easy to make your own set of flashcards as well, by simply clicking on the Make Flashcards tab and entering a title, subject area, and the terms you want to include.
Check it out and start sharing with your students... you can even get them to prepare sets for other students to review or introduce new lexical sets or topics in your classes!
Hundreds of professionals, academics and teachers from the ELT world gathered at the 2010 IATEFL conference held in Harrogate to present and attend presentations, workshops and debates on a vast range of topics. Fortunately, many sessions were filmed and are now available to watch at the Harrogate Online website. Browse through the list of sessions available to watch online and select one that takes your fancy.
The videos play online through the website and some of them are available to download and keep on your computer. The streaming speed will depend on your internet connection, but it's a great way to keep up with the latest in teaching methodologies, current issues, theoretical and practical debates, and useful and useable ideas for teaching from Involuntary Musical Imagery to Improvised Principled Eclecticism - how can you afford to miss out!
Don't forget the first IATEFL-TESOL international conference here in Santiago on the 23rd and 24th of July. You can register at www.iatefl-tesol.cl and we'll see you at Universidad San Sebastian. Watch out for the Online ELT Cookbook presentation from the Educational Technology Department on Saturday! More on this great resource in the next issue of EdTech News.
In this month's Tech Tips we would like to tell you about a great tool for brainstorming and organising ideas, either on your own, in a department, or with a class. Are you one of those people who covers their noticeboard or surrounds their computer screen with Post-It notes? Have you ever used Post-It notes for planning a piece of writing or an event? Now you can do all this planning with a handy desktop application which you can download free at this website. You can add notes of different colours, flip them to add details on the reverse side, drag them around the screen and stack, pile and tile them in groups with simple mouse clicks.
It's great for getting different ideas organised for planning all kinds of activities and events, and ideal to show students how they can use it to plan a discursive essay, for example, and develop their writing skills. You can also use it as a mind-mapping tool as the pan mode allows you to zoom in and out and have trails of notes which lead to other topics or potential projects. Download it and see how it can help you organise your planning sessions and turn your desk into a Post-It note-free zone!
- Background Knowledge (IWB activity series Nº7)
We have something a little different for this month's interactive whiteboard section. So often we see IWB material which contains great language activities, but which hasn't had enough attention paid to the aesthetic aspect (usually because this takes up more of our precious planning time...!). The result is that the actual pages look drab or hurriedly prepared.
With this in mind, this week we have a simple tip for how to brighten up your flipcharts and make them more visually attractive by manipulating the background of your page. It's easy to do, and best of all it should take you no more than a minute!
Click on the image to watch the video guide on how to do it.
And finally, Techno Defoe is back to answer another reader's query!
Hi! I'm Techno Defoe, EdTech News' resident tech expert, and I'm here to answer your questions. Whatever you need - website suggestions, help with computer software, advice on using technology in the classroom - I am here to help. Drop me a line at tecnologica@britanico.cl and I'll answer in the next newsletter.
This month, Viviana from Linderos writes:
Dear Techno Defoe,
I'm looking for something to get my students working creatively in English but using technology as well so they are motivated to continue outside class time. Any suggestions?
TD says:
Hi Viviana,
Why don't you try ? It's a brilliant website which allows anyone to make online posters by adding all sorts of multimedia content and text. You can position things where you want on the page and select eye-catching backgrounds. You can add videos, music, photos, images, song lyrics and your own writing. The finished posters look fantastic and very cool. It's a great way to personalise the use of English and is exactly the kind of interactive technology it sounds like you're looking for. What's more, because you can share the finished posters with the whole world, or just within a class group, you can look at lots of examples of other people's work to fire the imagination before you get started, and students can compare and comment on each other's work. I'm sure they'll be motivated to keep creating outside class time and you can even use class time for planning and preparation if you don't have access to a computer lab. Things have come a long way since cutting pictures out of magazines and sticking them on a sheet of card like the young Techno Defoe used to do!
See you next time everybody, and remember: technology is not the enemy!
We hope you’ve enjoyed the seventh issue of EdTech News. Watch this space for
the next issue, coming in August.
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