Use Dvolver to Make Movies

what is it? What does it do?

This is a very  simple tool for making short and interesting movie. You can choose background, character, music and add lines.

Why is this particular tool or technology relevant to language learning? What approaches to language learning or research underpin the use of this technology?

This tool is extremely easy and users just need to follow the step by step guidance and the movie is done. This tool will be very attractive to studenst with its colorful interface and it can be a great way for the comprehensible output and better student's sommunicative competence.

• Step one, open the website and a lovely interface will come in front of you.

• Step two, just click make a moive and start your movie-making journey. You can choose the scene and background of the movie.

• Step three, choose the type of the scene.

• Step four, choose the characters of the movie and make up their conversation.

• Movie is fninshed and it can be sent to friends. The following one is a movie directed by myself as an example.  

 

How might you use this to foster language leaning in class/outside class?

• Teachers can show students new vocabluary in the conversation and teach them how to use these words in apscific context.

• Teachers can ask students to work in pairs to make a movie on a topic and use as many words and sentence patterns they've learned as they can in this movie.

Limitations:

• Only a few choices on background, characters, music, etc.
• Limits for the number of script.

 

Use Wordle to Change Word

What is it? What does it do?

Wordle is a unique visual representation tool for all the words in a pasted text and creat a word cloud with different colors and layout to choose from. The size of the word in this cloud is accrodance with its use frequency in the specific text.

Why is this particular tool or technology relevant to language learning? What approaches to language to language learning or research underpin the use of this technology?

Here is the video about how to use wordle.

This is a free tool and uses a Java  to produce the 'magical' clouds. These clouds can be instantly uploaded to a public gallery for the world to see or printed off.  You can also trace your own wordle cloud if you named your product and search them in the repository for all kinds of clouds across the globe. The biggest feature of wordle is that it can present a text in a totally fashionable and attractive way and users can choose the layout, color and font on their own. These novel features can make teaching materials more movitating for studens. The following one is a paragraph in a blog-related article. The bigger the word is, the more frequent it's used in this text.

How might you use it to foster language learning in class/outside class?

• Teachers can show the new vocab in a interesting way and make them more impressive for students.
• Teachers can show the wordle cloud of an reading material and design something pre-reading activities like work in pairs to discuss what's this text is talking about based on the keys words presented in the cloud.
• Students can also use wordle to better their writing skills. For instance, they can avoid overusing some particular words and try to come up with some subsitutable words to polish their product.

Limitations:

• Moodle's normal running should depend on Java.
• It's not easy to find your wordle cloud once it's going into the gallery becasue thousands of clouds are going there nearly every second.

Use Bubblr to Enrich the Story

What is it? What does it work?

Bubblr is an web photo-based tool which is easy to search for a wide range of photos on flickr and add comments on the photos to make the comic-strip.

Why is this particular tool or technology relevant to language learning? What approaches to language learning or research underpin the use of this technology?

• Step one, just type the keyword in tag box and relevant photos will show up in a slidable line.

• Step two, click anyone of the photos and choose the shape of bubble. Then drag it into a proper position and size. you can add your comments into it. You can drag the bubble and make it more fit into the photos. After finish this photo, you can choose another one as the follow-up.

• Step three, press done button and fill in the title and name. Then you are free to send this to different email addresses.

 It's obvious that Bubblr is very easy and interesting to use with loads of pictures to choose from. Students can choose pictures they like and add comments on within bubbles.

How might you use it to foster language learning in class/outside class?

This  tool can be widely used in classroom in the classroom for the speaking activities. Teachers can design a attractive topic and students will be motivated into doing this task. Some activities are shown in the following:

• Students can use Bubblr to make a self-introduction with showing their photos of their hometown, school, tourist attractions or etc. Their short conversations could make this introduction more elaboratly and vividly.
• Students can use Bubblr to make a storytelling in class.

Limitations:

• Limited and no copy right photos
• The interface is not so attractive and  no choices for the size or color of the font.
• No other available options for the adding stuff like Mp3 file or other forms.