I’m thinking about trying several things in the following year. Apart from using Moodle still more and perhaps getting more of my colleagues hooked up to it I’d like to try some kind of classblogs. I’m still not sure if I do it from within Moodle or get some free blogs from Blogger et.al.

Moodle will offer a protected environment for my students. This should help to limit fears and get them to actually write something.
On the other hand, a blog on the internet definitely increases motivation – especially considering that strangers can post comments.

What to do?

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Thanks to @blauerpunto for focussing my attention on this: The Alot is Better Than You at Everything. I’m not going to enjoy forums or IRC chats anymore. Just because of the image of the burning alot in my head.

I might use the comic when we discuss chatspeak in class, though.

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Sollte jemand noch mehr Ideen oder Unterrichtsmaterialien für so ziemlich alle Fächer suchen, wird er/sie/es hier sicherlich fündig werden.

Wolfgang Autenrieth hat dort mehr als 2010 Links zu Arbeitsblättern, Tipps usw zusammengetragen und nach Fächergruppen sortiert! Vielen Dank für diese Wahnsinnsarbeit!

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I just stumbled upon this ebook (in PDF format, free of charge) and thought I would share the find.

Kick start your TEFL career: 20 classroom activities for elementary learners offers a wealth of ready to use activities for your English classroom. Nice to have, especially when you have to cover the lessons of an ill colleague.

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As the school year is coming to an end, it is time to evaluate what time and energy I have spent on my Moodle install.

All in all, I think that testing Moodle in one of my classes was a positive experience for both me and my students. They’ve acquired technological knowledge, had fun while learning English and did more of their homework than before.

All valid reasons to  broaden the experiment to further classes next year!

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..that is: I’m ready to test Moodle in up to three of my classes. I’ve taken down my personal website and installed Moodle 1.9.x (weekly whatever) on it.

So far I’ve already started a course for the book I’m reading in an English class. Two history courses (on industrialisation and the First World War) will be added shortly. Tomorrow evening, the first bunch of students is going to get their feet wet with creating accounts in Moodle and giving the system a go.

I plan on using one lesson to get them ready with the system and another two hours of first real work in it. This should give them enough time to try out forum and chat as well as the glossary and whatever nice tasks I can think of.

BTW: as a starting point, this book is a nice introduction to Moodle.

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Over at his blog, Sean Banville tips his hat to several teaching colleagues who, despite their full time jobs, create free English lesson plans for us.

Definitely worth a visit!

Aside: Sean’s websites themselves are full of great free lessons!

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Have you ever wished you and your students could collaborate online by …

• … sticking notes to fridges?
• … rearranging those notes?
• … commenting on these notes?

I know I have. So I was very excited when Opera Software introduced Unite into their browser.  Unite offers several applications running in your browser. One of them is the Fridge, which let’s you collect notes from other surfers. (These surfers don’t need to surf with Opera, BTW.)

The only remaining problem was that I really don’t like to let my computer running when I’m not at home, so the Fridge would not be available for several hours per day. Add to that the different surfing habits of my students and you realise the problem: When the Fridge was available, no one but me was surfing. When the students were connected to the net, the Fridge was unavailable.

Luckily, there is Wallwisher. Accessible 24/7 and no need to keep my computer turned on. Just how I like it!

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From those whom I follow on Twitter these interesting links emerged today:

• Comics
• Top 12 Sites To Watch Videos That Are Better Than YouTube
• Digital Storytelling Tools for Educators (free ebook)
• Moodle Hosting (Free basic Moodle hosting. I have no idea how good they are, how nice they will play in future or else. I just thought you might be interested.)

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Let’s face it: reading is necessary for learning.

However, reading a text and comprehending or creating meaning from it are two different things.  To help students you can show them various strategies that will help them get along. Quite a number of those strategies have been collected here. Some even with videos!

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