VOCABULARY TEACHING

SUMMARY OF http://www.wordchamp.com/
Wordchamp.com is a language learning network that includes many advantages for the language learners. It facilitates the language learning by providing the learners to choose their subject matter and enable them to have an idea about how to learn that language. In the website, there are many language activities including multiple-choice activities and fill-in-blanks activities that enforce the learning of that language. There is also Course Management System, which is free for teachers, but not students, which enable them to create a class and have interactive activities with the students with regard to language learning. Moreover, the Web Reader helps the learners and teachers to read foreign websites without having difficulty in understanding. Also, by using this tool, it is easy to communicate with native speakers, which is very important for the learners of foreign languages.
SUMMARY OF Gerry's Vocabulary Teacher
This tool is a very useful tool for teachers as it enables them to create exercises very easily. Teachers may use this tool to introduce new words and to help the learners practice them with gap-fill exercises. Therefore, it makes the job easy for teachers as it is also easy to use this tool. Moreover, students have advantage of practicing what they have learned, thus making the learning more permanent. This tool also includes Academic Word List which covers the words used in English Academic Papers. This database runs on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000 and XP and can be downloaded on the computer.
SUMMARY OF Text -to -Speech Technology
This tool enables its users to listen the texts in the target language and practice pronunciation. It reads it in a manner that one can think as if a human reads it. Therefore, it is very useful for foreign language learners as they can learn the actual pronunciations of the words that they deal with. However, lacking in emotional aspects may become a disadvantage for the learners as they may not get rid of the difficulties that they face with intonation.

Summary of www.moodle.org

Moodle is also a content management system which enables teachers to prepare online learning communities. It is free to use and provide a lot to share, teach and learn for both students and teachers. It requires downloading, so once you download it on your computer, you can use it for free whenever you want to do so. This software package enables its users to have online lessons, documant sharing, virtual classrooms and so on.Therefor, this system is very efficient for distance learning and language learning. As it has pedagogical basis, it contributes language learning at utmost.In addition to this, There are a lot of intructions on the moodle website that help teachers and students to use this content management system effectively. It is very easy to use and enjoyable to edit the pages.

Summary of www.nicenet.org

Nicenet.org is also a very useful content management system which help its users in learning languages provide a wide range of opportunities for free. Its Internet Classroom Assistant (ICA) provides teachers and students virtual classsrom where they can interact and teach and learn. This management system does not require any installation as it is free and very easy to use.The only thing that is needed is “internet connection”. This system provides its users, which are mainly teachers and students, video conferencing, scheduling, document sharing, personal messaging and link sharing. All of these are very easy to use. They are integrated and one can use both of them at the same time. For example, when you are scheduling, you can also prepare video conferencing. This system does not require any money, but if one wants to donate money, he/ she can do so via Paypal or check that are under the link Donate to Nicenet.

Summary of www.dokeos.com

Dokeos.com is a content management system which enables its users to have a deep knowledge, interaction and reach a lot of information. This e-learning system is very useful for both students and teachers as it provides them to interact with each other with the help of virtual meetings and virtual classrooms that are for live training sessions. It also gives chance to both students and teachers to build SCORM courses online via templates and powerpoints, which is very easy task to do. There are also services which help its users about how to use these management system. In addition to this, there is a link which show the usage of the system step by step, which is very useful for the users, as well. However, this management system, dokeos, shpould be downloaded in order to be made use of as it requires downloading and installation. It has a lot of versions that are shown via the link download. One can download this amanagement system and use it effcetively for the purpose of education. It is a very useful system for language learning.

Summary of Emerging Technologies... BLogs and Wikis: Environments for On-line Colloboration

I have recently read an article called “Emerging Technologies, Blogs and Wikis: Environments for On-line Collaboration” written by Robert Godwin-Jones from Virginia Comonwealth University. The article tells about the usage of internet in language teaching and the tools that are used in this sense.
The writer separates the tools into two groups as “First Generation Web” and “Second Generation Web” that are somehow different from each other. He also separates the First Generation Web into two groups as asynchronized tools, including e-mails and discussion forums and synchronized tools including chatrooms as AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, iVisit and Paltalk etc. .
Second Generation Web has its tools as Blogs and Wikis. Blogs and Wikis both help students and teachers share their information and get help in language learning as well as language teaching. Both are easy to be created and used. One does not need to have knowledge about HTML in order to use blogs and wikis. We can simply create and use these tools. We can edit our blogs and wikis easily. Even though they seem to be the same, they have some differences. Firstly, blogs are more personal than wikis as the creator of them can make changes and he/she can direct it. The people who are not the creators of a blog cannot add their information on someone’s blog, they can only make comments if the creator lets them do so. Nevertheless, everyone can add information on wikis as long as it is relevant. This enables people to reach a great deal of data by the help of wikis.
In conclusion, internet has a great impact on our language learning recent years. As everything change and improve, the tools that help education, language learning is improving as well. Therefore, language learning becomes much easier and effective thanks to these tools. The only thing that the learners of a language should do is to make use of these tools at utmost.

Summary of flamentality.com

The website flamentality.com is “the knowledge network explorer” that has content areas in art, business, community interest, English, foreign language etc. It is mostly an educational site that provides teachers to find and make use of “lessons, webquests, tools, personal development, technical consulting and customized seminars” in a variety of areas. There is also video conferencing, which is very useful for both the teachers and the students. A lot of links are provided to be made use of teachers in finding useful educational sites, having information about the technology that helps learning. This website is free to use. One can just register and make use of it at utmost.

Summary of podomatic.com

The website podomatic.com provides us creating and sharing videos and photos with people. It is free and easy to use. It includes a lot of categories such as arts, business, comedy, education, health, family and so on, which help us find a variety of videos, photos in that area. We can both upload and download videos and photos. We can design our podcast, add photo in order for other members to know us, design our podcast by the help of templates provided to us and invite friends to our podcast. It is a very rich website in content as it enables us to reach a lot of videos and photos, thus interacting with people around the world.