FIREFOX ADD-ONS

Each add-on specifies which applications and versions it works with. These add-ons are really interesting and we can use them for instance to download videos or  mp3 (easy youtube downloader) files from youtube; and many other interesting actions.

HOT POTATOES

HOT POTATOES SUITE

Hot potatoes includes six applications.

These applications enable you to create interactive:

Multiple choice

Short-answer

Jumbled sentences

Crosswords

Matching and ordering

Gap-fill exercises.

They can be uploaded to the World Wide Web.

Hot potatoes is freeware, and you may use it for any purpose or project.

Jmatch: matching and ordering.

Jcross: crossword

Jmix: jumbed sentences

Jcloze: fill in the gaps

Jquiz: multiple choice, true or false, text entry or short answer.

Hot Potatoes suite: the masher

The masher is a tool for automatically compiling hot potatoes exercises into units.

Imagine you have five hot potatoes exercises that form a single unit materials and you want to build HTML from all the exercises, with the same colours and appearance settings; you also want to link the exercise together using the navigation buttons, and create an index file for the unit. The masher will do it for you.

SHARED ASPECTS

Files designed with HP should be saved in two different formats:

HP FILE (extensions: jmt, jms, jqz, jcl, jcw)

HTML FILE (to be used with any web browser)

JMIX

A Jmix activity produces a jumbled word or sentence activity.

Letters of a single word may be jumbled, or the words of a sentence.

Jmix uses the standard and drag-and-drop types of output files should be saved in towo different formats.

JQUIZ

Jquiz can create four different types of questions:

Multiple choice

Short-answer

hybrid (a short-answer question that turns into a multiple choice questions after several attempts), and

multi-select (in which the learner has to choose several of a set of options, then check the choices).

JMATCH

The Jmatch program creates matching or ordering exercises.

A list of fixed items appears on the left (These can be pictures or text), with jumbled items on the right.

This can be used for matching vocabulary to picture or translations or for ordering sentencesto form a sequence or a conversation.

MULTIPLE CHOICE JQUIZ

The learner choose an answer by clicking on a button.

If the answer is correct, the button caption will change to a smily face :-) and if it is wrong, it will change to an x.

In either case, the student will see the feedback specific to that answer, explaining why it is right or wong (assuming you write the feedback when you make the exercise!).

If the answer is wrong, the learner can continue choosing answer until a correct answer is selected.

Once a correct answer is chosen, the scaring is “frozen”, but the learner can still click on buttons to see the feedback for other answers without penalty.

JCLOZE

Jcloze program creates gap-fill exercises.

Unlimited correct answers can e specified for each gap, and the student can ask for a hint and see the letter of the correct answer.

A specific clue can also be included for each gap.

Automatic scoring is also included. The program allowa gapping of selected words, or automatic gapping of every new word in a text.

REMEMBER

Files should be saved in the same folder.

HP does not include software for the edition of images, sound or video.

Suggested software: Gimp, Youtube editor, Audacity,...

Use long names, without spaces.

Browsers read spaces as : 20%

There may be naigation errors. Reading_in_English …..Reading in English.

LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE

INTERACTIVE WHITE BOARDS, FOR OR AGAINST?

Reasons against using interactive whiteboards

 Tight budgets

Interactive whiteboards are not cheap, and many educators believe that students are better served by allocating funds to teacher salaries.

Traditionalist educators

According to Education Week, one of the biggest complaints about interactive whiteboards is that they are often underutilized by poorly trained or technically-challenged teachers.

Reasons in favor of using interactive whiteboards

Powerful visual tools for teachers

Using interactive whiteboards, teachers can create lessons that incorporate video, moving diagrams, and online content to help explain difficult material and to keep students engaged.

Ability for students to interact

Students can interact in a variety of ways with whiteboards, including writing on them, manipulating objects in matching or sorting games, or voting on answers with the help of handheld devices.

Display student projects

Interactive whiteboards allow teachers to showcase projects that students have created using software such as PowerPoint. These types of projects may look more impressive on a big screen, and most students enjoy seeing their work displayed in this fashion.

IWB

An interactive whiteboard is an instructional tool that allows computer images to be displayed onto a board using a digital projector. The instructor can then manipulate the elements on the board by using his finger as a mouse, directly on the screen. Items can be dragged, clicked and copied and the lecturer can handwrite notes, which can be transformed into text and saved.
They are a powerful tool in the classroom adding interactivity and collaboration, allowing the integration of media content into the lecture and supporting collaborative learning. Used innovatively they create a wide range of learning opportunities. However, in many environments they are not being used to their full potential, and in many cases acting as glorified blackboards. 

Connecting the IWB

-           Video connection (photos of each type of connection)

·         HDMI 

· RCA

· VGA

The usage of IWB in primary education.

HOW TO TEACH THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE

• The knowledge children have of the languages they know has essenially been acquired through its use.
• Therefore, this is the way it should be followed in the foreing language.
• For that reason, the didactic approach should be focused on the use of the target language in the class.
• The essential condition to facilitate this process is to focus the didactic intervention on a real and continuous use of the language, which acquires more importance if we consider that, in most cases, our boys and girls do not have more possibilities of contact with the foreign language than the one they have within the school framework.

• The fact of starting from a very limited linguistic competence in most pupils, makes necessary to guide educational practice more to the establishment of this competence that to its developmente to improvement.
• At the same ime, the communicative context should be used a as a support for the verification of the hypotheses formulated through the use for the verification of the hypotheses formulated through the use of the expressions and the positive or negative feedback that the context can provide.
• Pupils should be given the opportunity to put into practice what they have been exposed to.
• How can they learn a foreign language if they are not given the opportunity to practice it?
• As a general rule, we can say that, at the beginning, most of the class time should be devoted to listening to an intelligible input and speaking (by repaeating, asking and answering questions, drilling, etc.).
• Once they gain confidence (not acquire) in speaking adn understandig messsages in the foreign language, they can begin the process of reading and writing in that foreign language with vocabulary, set phrases,... they are familiar with in the FL and also in their mother tongue. “Do not introduce any concept which has not been acquiered in their mother tongue”
• Summing up, following a Communicative Language Teaching Approach, the time the teacher is speaking, explaining, .. should be reduced and, the time the students are producing the foreign language increased. “The time the teacher talks should be reduced dramatically”.

SOCIAL NETWORKS

Today we have focused on the use of social media in the classroom for the benefit of students. Social networks help us to concentrate a wide range of materials that we can use to work with children and to share useful with other classmates. The conventional use social networks are a great educational space to explore and exploit by teachers who can educate their students in charge of these tools, which are used in a bad way in their daily lives. Their proper use, can bring dynamism to education, quality, safety and creativity, and to promote individual and collaborative learning of the most outstanding students to those who have more needs.

An increasingly sense of educational community for students and teachers due to the proximity effect produced by social networks is appearing, therefore there is an improvement of the working environment among students to see everything as something new.