Want 2 Write Fiction! Why NOT Join FutureLearn FREE Course on April 28, 2014?

Derek Neale starts a new online course "Start Writing Fiction" on the FutureLearn platform on April 28, 2014 for 8 weeks. This hands-on course helps you to get started with your own fiction writing, focusing on the central skill of creating characters.

Register for Google FREE Online Course " Making Sense of Data"

Do you work with surveys, demographic information, evaluation data, test scores, or observation data? Are you interested in making the data you collect more useful by organizing it, analyzing it, and applying it in different ways?

What are you waiting for?

Register for the new FREE online course offered by Google that is intended for anyone who wants to learn more about how to structure, visualize, and manipulate data. This includes student, educators, researchers, journalists, and normal business owners.

Let's Create a Badge in 5 Minutes!

Learning English as a foreign language is not an easy job. I always try to motivate my students intrinsically by providing them a variety of opportunities to use their English inside and outside classroom, but it is not the only type. I also motivate my students extrinsically by giving them extra marks, presents, or certificates. This is very great for the traditional learning environment. 

What about the online classes? 

In this semester, I'm working with my students on a blogging project and it doesn't work without an extrinsic encouragement. That's why I thought of creating some badges. I tried to find a way to embed a system that generates badges automatically for free, but in vain. After searching, I found an online website that allowed me to create badges, hearts, and ribbons as well.

REALize! Conference Jan. 24, 2014 ... 27 Great Sessions for English Educators

REALize! is a free online EAL/ ESL professional development conference where teachers and educators participate, join, chat, learn and share their experiences for a day. There are 27 sessions to choose from. Please, check the schedule to know more about these sessions.

When:

It starts today January 24, 2014 from 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM CST 

(Convert to your time zone)

 

3 FREE e-courses 4 building mobile Apps

Retrieved Jan.7, 2014

My school is not technologically equipped. And not all of my students have PCs or laptops, however, all of them have mobile phones. I just want to make use of what they have to develop their creativity and create an engaging atmosphere for enjoyable learning. In short, I want to bring life into my traditional classrooms. There are a lot of apps that I can download for free, but this is not my ultimate goal. I want to build my own apps that suit my students' needs and levels. That's why I decided to search for some online courses that can help me to achieve my goals. I'd love to share them with +Clara Cordero Balcázar  and other friends who are interested in the same area:

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.