18 EVO Professional Development Sessions to Start 2014

Retrieved Jan. 2, 2014

This is my fourth Electronic Village Online (EVO) session that I participate in. As an EFL teacher, I always search for such opportunities for professional development. It doesn't only help me to know more recent trends in teaching English and update my expertise, but it also connects me to a lot of educators and teachers from all the corners of the globe. In this crazy digital age, the emphasis is shifted from “how” and “what” to learn towards the question of “where to learn.” "Where" is the buzz word of the 21st century. In other words, “the pipe is more important than the content within the pipe” (Siemens, 2004). This means that the network itself is the basis and core of the learning processes. Once learners connect to a network, they share and find new information, change what they think according to what they learned, and then connect to the network again to share their insights and experiences. In this way, learning is a knowledge creation process rather than just knowledge consumption (Kop and Hill, 2008). 

Try ChatButton to Get a Chatbox for Free!

Retrieved Dec. 24, 2013

My students badly needed a way to get my instant help when blogging for the first time. I just wanted to put all things together in the class blog to make this experience easier and more interesting. I spent a lot of time trying some tools for live chatting, but unfortunately most of them need accounts. Of course, this is a kind of headache when it comes to signing up for many websites to do a certain task. Then, I found ChatButton. It is a free and easy-to-install chatbox for use anywhere. 

Hover over Words to Get the Meaning for Blogger and WordPress

Retrieved Dec. 20, 2013 from here

I'm working on a blogging project with my first-year high school students. During this experience, there are a lot of things that I have to learn. As a sharing fan, I decided to write a series of posts to document every skill I acquired and every tool I explored to accomplish the aims of this project and meet my students' needs. Among many things that my students need is a way to find the meaning of the new words that they encounter in the required tasks. I thought of some ways like linking the class blog to an online dictionary, and embedding a Bing or Google widget to translate the whole site, but they didn't work well with my students. 

Why not Join the College Writing 2.1x MOOC?

Register NOW!

Don't Miss The Macmillan Online Conference 2013!

 
When: 

Nov. 11-15, 2013

Where:

The Macmillan Online Conference uses Blackboard Collaborate. Check this link to register for the sessions you would like to attend.

What are you waiting for? 

Let's Enter the Project Competition and Win ...!

Are you interested in doing a creative project with your students? 

Then, 
Why not enter the Project competition. It is an international competition that encourages the use of language through projects.  

The task is very easy:

1. Ask your students to create a class poster on "Communication in the 21st Century" either online or physical. 
2. Once your students finish, complete the entry form posting either the link to their online poster or a j-peg image of the poster.
3. Click here to find all about this competition and the attachments you need.

Ghost: A New Blogging Platform is JUST Born

I have just received an e-mail that the new Ghost blogging platform is ready to the public. Ghost is a free platform dedicated to one thing: Publishing. It's beautifully designed, completely customizable and completely Open Source. Ghost allows you to write and publish your own blog, giving you the tools to make it easy and even fun to do. It's simple, elegant, and designed so that you can spend less time messing with making your blog work - and more time blogging. There are a lot of features of Ghost that can make it the future of blogging:

Don't Miss 6 FREE e-Conferences in October 2013

Retrieved Oct. 4, 2013 from here

I can't travel by my body, but my mind can go around the whole world connecting to a variety of  brilliant networks in minutes. These FREE online conferences add a lot to my expertise, skills, and knowledge. As a teacher, I always search for such opportunities to update myself professionally and academically. They provide me with a solid theoretical background and applicable ideas of the most recent trends in education and teaching English in particular. In such online conferences, I meet new educators, follow them on their various social networking websites (e.g., Twitter, Google+, Facebook, ....), collaborate with them in international projects, share ideas, build online communities, and create new collective knowledge. During this month (October 2013), there are SIX online educational conferences that will be hosted online and can be attended for FREE:

Register for Google New Online Course "DAF"

Digital Analytics Fundamentals

Registration is now open and the course begins October 8. 
Register Now 

This three-week course by Google provides a foundation for marketers and analysts seeking to understand the core principles of digital analytics and to improve business performance through better digital measurement. Check out the course FAQs for more details.

15+ FREE Webinars Stations to Update Your ESL/EFL Practices

Do you want to update your ESL/EFL practices for free? If yes, webinars (i.e., web seminars) can be a great way to promote your professional development. They not only provide you with opportunities to know the most recent trends in teaching English, but also connect you with a variety of professional educators from all the corners of the world. You can share and discuss ideas, collaborate with other teachers via a variety of social networking websites, and create new personal learning networks. You just need a computer with an internet connection to get started.  

Below is a list of the most wonderful stations to drop by and attend a webinar. 

Have you Tried to Draw Like Picasso?

 

Picassohead is a lovely digital tool that allows users to create their own masterpieces using famous features drawn by Picasso. Teachers can use such an amazing website to unleash their students' creativity and bring the magic of arts into their classes. 

Humanizing Your Online Class

This title completely captured my attention when I first saw the announcement of the webinar by Michelle Pacansky-Brock. I always stress the importance of the socio-affective touch between students and their instructors. In this digital era, it is considered the key behind any successful learning. Knowing more about students, what, how, and why they learn inevitably lead to an enjoyable and memorable experience. Students also want to know more about their instructors and connect with them for extended interaction. The question is "How to use digital tools to humanize this relationship?

Let Pictures Speak!

Blabberize is a web 2.0 tool that allows users to upload a picture, draw a "mouth" on that picture, and then record or upload a sound clip to make it speak or sing along with the sound. 

Chat on the Fly using TLK.io

Thanks to Kaushalya Mandaliya, I managed to embed a live chatroom on my blog. You can create your own using TLK.io [talk·eeo]. It  is a web chat that is open to anyone and channels are owner-free. It seems so easy to use and embed into websites and blogs. I love to use it with my students.They always need instant feedback when working on new projects. However, the public feature is not secure. Anyone can join the discussion and write their messages. The only way to create a little bit private chatrooms is to choose complex names using numbers, letters and character, so spammers can't see them easily. This tool is a little bit new and of course they will add more features in the future. Let's wait and hope!

Check THREE Promising Courses by Coursera

Coursera launches many courses on September 2013. There are just three courses that catch my attention. My only criterion of choice is watching the instructors' introductory videos. You will not believe it. I know that these short videos are not enough to judge the quality of the whole experience, but they have a very great impact on learners before starting their journey of learning. Please check this great article by Sarah Linden to know more about the reasons behind using video introductions rather than text-based ones when creating your online courses.

Kindly explore each course info and choose what you need and add to your expertise: