Rita Zeinstejer on Google Applications in the Classroom

Today, Rita Zeinstejer was our wonderful grand finale guest speaker at Webheads in Action Elluminate virtual room hosted by Learning Times.
Rita is a resourceful EFL teacher at the Association Rosarina de Cultura Inglesa in Argentina where she set up both the Self Access and the Multimedia Centre eight years ago.

In her usual sparkly manner she led us through several ways to use Google applications and sites in the classroom giving us examples of her own work, tips and great ideas to use those applications with our students. The presentation looked at all the applications that Google has created to use for free with our students.

She took us from Google Docs  to Google Sites, iGoogle and Google Tours passing by Google Earth, Google Reader, Google Knol, as well as Google Sketch Up, Google Scholar, Google Around  and even  Google Goggles and Google Body Browser, giving examples of the use of the tools to enhance course content, create a warm learning environment and engage the students.

Her ideas are so brilliant, versatile and challenging that  all participants felt time simply flew away.

Thank you Rita, it’s BaW tradition to have you closing this session. To all participants... a big round of applause. You’re on the last 100 meters of Becoming a Webhead! We’d love to read your comments about the session, they have great value for us.

Rubena St.Louis's Presentation

Rubena St.Louis shared wonderful "materials creation" tips and resources based on a "cooking recipes" theme on Friday, February 4. Her presentation made all of us to be involved into the world of “cooking” activities. Rubena started by giving us a general overview why we may need to create our own materials. Then she shared the process of materials creation step by step by introducing what good materials are and what opportunities they provide. Then we moved to examining what authentic resources and what Web 2.0 tools we can use. All these steps were introduced in a wonderful and very practical table. Finally, Rubena answered the participant’s questions how to deal with students who have learning problems (Juan), how to deal with individual and group interest (Wen Jun/Jasmine), and how to organize groups according to learning abilities or language levels (Ayat). We were more than fortunate with technical issues; however, some participants couldn’t enter the room or couldn’t have audio. For information on participants, chat log, and slides to the presentation, please visits our wiki page. We have recorded the session and will also make it available for those who could not attend or would like to listen to recording. We would love to know your impressions and opinions about the session through your comments on this blog.

Live Session with Claudio Azevedo

We had a fabulous live session with Claudio Azevedo at WiZiQ. It was great we didn't have audio problems today except some echo but the session stopped after an hour. It happened dur to the screen sharing at that time and Larisa was not able to add time to our session. However, all participants registered in advance and they were able to join the session easily. Some participants could talk (i.e., Svetlana). Claudio presented his blogs Movies Segments to Assess Grammar Goals and Movie Segments for Warm-ups and Follow-ups. The title of presentation sounds greatly "From Darkenss to Sparkling Connected ELT Community." Claudio gave us great examples of how movies can help move from darkness to sparkling. During his presentation Claudio stopped and asked questions. For information on participants, recording, and slides for presentation, please, visit our wiki page. WiZiQ recorded the session and we will make it available for those who could not attend the live session or would like to listen to recording. We would love to know your impressions through your comments in this blog.

Live Session with Michael Coghlan

We had a wonderful session with Michael Coghlan at yahoo messenger today. We did have some technical problems, i.e. audio. Some of us were not able to join the conference despite the efforts from moderators' part and other colleagues to help. However, this was a part of learning. In the session Michael discussed the use of synchronous and asynchronous tools for teaching in different contexts and environments by briefly reviewing background information. During the presentation he got participants involved asking them to talk about their experience and their context. He went beyond the tools we have covered and talked about other communication tools that making an impact on the way of teaching. It was a very socially lively session. Some participants asked questions and gave valuable contributions by using text chat area or mic. For information on participants, chat log, and slides to the presentation, please visit our wiki page. We have recorded the session and will also make it available for those who could not attend or would like to listen to recording. We would love to know your impressions and opinions about the session through your comments on this blog.

Larisa (mod week 4) and Mbarek (mod week 3)

Graham Stanley´s Presentation on Twitter

Graham Stanley took us on wonderful ride through twitter and its enormous potential as a tool for socializing, teaching, and learning. It was a very insightful session. He started by giving us a perspective of how twitter evolved in his own experience from being a tool for socializing only to being a tool used for teaching and learning. Then he moved on to give recommendations on how teachers should use twitter in class. It was really worth being there. He also gave precious advice on applications to use and also on who to follow on twitter. It was a very useful session for twitter fans and those just beginning to explore this tool. In case you were, please leave your impressions on the comment box. If you weren´t or want to listen to it once more click here.

Thanks a lot Graham for teaching us so much.

TappedIn Tour

We had a great enthusiastic tour of TappedIn hosted by BJ Berquist. Over 30 participants learned the ins-and-outs of this collaborative tool. Many even mentioned how much virtual exercise they were getting while scampering from room to room.
We would love to hear your comments on the experience. Or if you were unable to attend, review the TappedIn page in the wiki: http://baw2011.pbworks.com/w/page/34808339/TappedIn
then join the conversation.


Thank you, BJ for another wonderful Live Session.

Welcome to Becoming a Webhead 2011 session

Welcome to our 8th round of Becoming a Webhead 2011 (BaW-11)!

In BaW-11, we will explore Web 2.0 tools and share the best ways of using them in our teaching practices.

On this blog, we will comment on our weekly live sessions.


We are looking forward to interacting with you :-)

Daf