Sharing the EVO experience - Week 3

I just loved being part of EVO this week! I discovered tons of interesting tools to make animated videos and work on listening-comprehension. Have a look!



Week 3 at Digital Storytelling for kids

This week we explored some tools to make video stories for children. After a great introduction to the topic by Dave Dodgson, we had a look at some essential tools, like Animoto and Photopeach, and then we plunged into animation. The moderators suggested three tools, which participants used to create some pretty impressive videos!

Go animate
Domo
Dvolver

This is a video my ten-year-old daughter created in just five minutes. She was thrilled!

Bianca's Dvolver - In the park

Also, have a look at these great videos by some of my fellow participants!

Valerica's Photopeach

Carol's Google Search

ValyD's Photopeach

Week 3 at Digital Tools for the Classroom

We worked on listening-comprehension this week. The moderators organized a fantastic "Listening Treasure Hunt" in which we had 30 minutes to explore 12 amazing websites and then choose at least two of them to create a lesson plan. The time was short, so I must admit I "cheated" and spent a lot more on each tool, really enjoying them! 

Movie segments to assess grammar goals

This is a very interesting site which I've used before (actually this blog's been in my blogroll for a while). You can find short sections taken from well-known movies and exercises to work on grammar. It's an incredibly job carried out by Claudio Azevedo, the blogger behind it.

Smories

Stories for children told by children. Great idea! The only problem I found is that, while the stories are intended for children, kids in Argentina rarely reach the level of English to understand them (except for bilingual school students).

10 questions

A selection of reader-submitted questions on Time.com serves as a basis for a candid interview with major entertainers, business leaders and other influential personalities from around  the world. Really great authentic input!

Listen and write
A dictation site organized by level. Great source for listening material.

Am New York
A sample of speakers from New York talking about their lives and thoughts. Great to work on accents.

Backbone
Pretty much along the lines of AM New York but with speakers of British English.

Teaching with TED
This is an awsome wiki with tons of ideas to use TED in the classroom. Although I've used TED many times, I didn't know this site. Very useful!

Wordia
Wordia is a site where you can search for specific words and find videos related to the topic of your interest. Some of the topics also include educational games.

Hope you enjoy going through all these 

great resources as much as I did!

Sharing the EVO experience - What is EVO?

EVO (Electronic Village Online) is a set of free online workshops dealing with a range of topics related to the field of language teaching and the integration of new tools to the ELT classroom. EVO takes place annually, over five weeks, starting on the second week of January, and it is attended by hundreds of teachers around the globe.

EVO sessions are moderated by teachers and teacher trainers from different backgrounds, according to the topic, and held 100% online. Sessions are mostly hands-on workshops, where tools and resources are shared and participants are expected to explore them and come up with their own conclusions and materials. The good thing is that, in general, materials and assignments are shared on wikis or blogs so that participants can work at their own pace. Some moderators also offer weekly webinars where doubts are cleared and questions answered. You can find more information on EVO and prior sessions here.

I chose to take part in two sessions: Digital tools in the classroom (moderated by Carla Arena, Ana Maria Menezes and Jane Petring among other trainers from different countries) and Digital storytelling for kids (moderated by Shelly Terrell, Barbara Sakamoto, Özge Karaoglu, Jennifer Verschoor and David Dodgson among others). I knew most of the moderators because I follow them on Twitter, and I was really excited to be able to attend their sessions because I knew they would be just great!

I must say I realize now that I was far too ambitious to register for two sessions, because there are lots of tools and resources to explore and I’m finding it difficult to keep up with the pace of both groups! However, I’m doing my best to take every advantage of this great opportunity to meet educators from around the world and discover new and exciting tools!

I’ll blog about this experience weekly. You are welcome to join the ride!