Messengers: Emoticons

We tried to use Yahoo Messenger in the teaching of speaking and grammar last time, and we also had 'written conversation' about YM. While chatting, we often used emoticons, such as and . Here is a snapshot of our chat last time.


Do you know that YM has hidden emoticons? Hidden emoticons are emoticons that you cannot find in your YM software but can be used by writing the appropriate codes.

Click here to see the emoticons.
Click here to see the hidden emoticons.

I hope the emoticons can make learning using YM more motivating for your students.

Let's Multiply: Problems and Theme

Yesterday some of you reported that you had created an account in Multiply but had difficulties in logging in. One of you even "lost" your account.

After tracing back the procedures in creating the account, we concluded that the problem might lie in the confirmation. After creating any accounts in the internet, you should check your email because you are sent a confirmation email. In the email message, you will find a link which you must click in order to confirm that it is really you who create the account. Could you please try to create an account again in Multiply? This time, don't forget to check your email and click the confirmation link there. Hopefully this will solve your problem.

ooOoo

You were also curious about changing the theme of Multiply. You could do it the easy way or the hard way. To do it the easy way, simply click:

Customize my site
Choose a theme
The theme you want (e.g. Sandskrit, Pagoda, etc.)

If you wish to put you own theme there, please click:
Customize my site
Custom CSS
Then you put your CSS there and click 'save'.

In order to customize the CSS (i.e. use your own pictures for the background, change the color of the rails, change the size of the fonts, etc.) you have to learn about it first. Don't worry, I'll try to give you the simplest explanation about how to costumize CSS (after we finish discussing blogs). In the meantime, you could find some excellent themes that Multiply users have created in:

http://customizedthemes.multiply.com/photos

There are hundreds of themes there. Pick the one you're interested in.

Let's Multiply: Posting & Unhiding

I only have two friends in my Multiply, i.e. Bu Kussaini and Pak Slamet. I haven't seen other students' Multiply. Probably you haven't invited me to be a member of your Multiply because you have difficulties in posting something there. Therefore, I made Powerpoint slides which explain how to post in Multiply. Please download the slides here.

Bu Kussaini asked me how to make some features--such as Reviews and Links--appear in her site, because she couldn't see them anywhere in her Multiply. I have also made slides about this, and you could download them here.

I hope you could finish the assignment soon. Please don't hesitate to ask me questions if you have problems, I will be happy to help you. Good luck...

Let's Multiply: Social Networking Sites in TEFL

Social networking sites are sites that you can use to build social network through the internet.

In other words, you can use these sites to keep in touch with your family, students and friends (...and enemies...hee hee) online. The most familiar example of social networking site is Facebook. Through Facebook, you can connect yourselves with anybody and do many interesting activities with them, such as showing off your photos and seeing others', give and receive comments on the Facebook's wall, chat with them online, etc.

There are lots of social networking sites available in the internet besides Facebook. Friendster used to be popular among people in Asia, including Indonesia, before they switched to Facebook. My Space is used among many people in Australia. Twitter is as popular as Facebook all over the world. You could read a comprehensive list of social networking site all over the world in Wikipedia.

I prefer using Multiply than Facebook, Friendster, or Twitter because the features of Multiply can be exploited for educational purposes. Please download my slides here and read them again to find out how you could use the blog, picture, video, review and link pages in Multiply to support the course (TEYL) I'm teaching at Unesa.

The assignment for the topic 'social networking sites' is: use Multiply to support a course you're teaching at school.

Create a multiply account in http://multiply.com.


Select a topic for your Multiply that you could share with your students, e.g. English, reading, grammar, etc.
Post some items in the blogs, photos, notes and external links.
Submit the address of your Multiply (e.g. gendolos.multiply.com) and the email address you use to open the account.
If possible, please invite me to be a member of your multiply site. Mine is htpp://shirtnjeans.multiply.com.

Good luck!

Syllabus (revised)

Sorry there's a mistake in the dates that I wrote in the syllabus. Please download the revised syllabus here. I highlighted the correct date in pink.

Messengers: The Birth of Gendolos Group

On 30 March we discussed how to use messengers in the teaching and learning of English. Basically, a messenger is a software that we can use to chat online. Some examples are:

Yahoo Messenger http://messenger.yahoo.com/
Windows Live Messenger http://download.live.com/Messenger
Gmail Chat http://gmail.com/
ICQ http://www.icq.com/

Despite very limited facilities in the classroom, we managed to try to use Yahoo Messenger (YM) in the teaching and learning of grammar, especially the past tense. Many of you have had a Yahoo account so I could add you as a friend in my list. Then one of you asked whether we should make a group for our class, and we came up with an idea of making one and calling our group GENDOLOS.


So that’s it… Gendolos group was formed on March 30, 2010.

The use of email in ELT

Last week I asked you to create an email account in Gmail. Don’t forget to submit your name and your email address to me on 30 March.

This Thursday you are going to discuss about how you could use email in the teaching and learning of English. Here is an excellent article that you should read before the discussion:

Using E-mail in Foreign Language Teaching: Rationale and Suggestions by Margaret Gonglewski, Christine Meloni and Jocelyne Brant

Try to find more papers about the use of email in EFL by using search engines, and share them with Mr. Ali, your peers, and me.