which stands for National Film and Sound Archive is an Australian nation's living archive that collects, preserves and share their audiovisual heritage. The collection includes films, television and radio programs, videos, audio tapes, records, compact discs, phonograph cylinders and wire recordings. It also encompasses documents and artifacts such as photographs, posters, lobby cards, publicity items, scripts, costumes, props, memorabilia, oral histories, and vintage equipment. (taken from the website)
One of the useful contents in the website which can help the English learning is the Digital Learning Resources that are specifically offered for education. Learners can choose a variety of resources from the digital resources finder or simply click on the any featured topic that you like. I would like to remind you that all the contents in this website are about Australia. However, both teacher and learners can still make use of this website for teaching and learning purposes. It will be a good source of improving language as well as gaining knowledge about Australia. This tool will provide the listening materials as well as the guidelines on how to use the materials. Some topics have the examples of activities which are available and ready to be used in the classroom.
I am going to show you how to make use of the website. If you scroll down the digital learning page, you will find a topic which is Talkback Classroom learning journeys. Click on the topic and you will be directed to Learning Journeys webpage. Then I choose the learning journey under the topic of 'Energy'. Click on the learning journey button and you will see a list of digital resources tagged with 'Learning Journey Energy' which are differ on the topic and level of learners.
You can choose any topic that you like but here I have chosen Global Warmingissue for Year 7 and 8. Click on the link and you will find a webpage with a video clip and all the information about the clip.
You can see on the right hand side, a box which shows what are on the page - about the page, curriculum focus, background information, classroom activities and further resources - and on the left hand side, the links to download the video clip. So if teacher and learners were to use the content on this website, they can easily download the content, refer to the information provided as well as the suggested classroom activities to assist the teaching and learning process.
What I like about this website:
The website offers a wide range of topics for the learners to choose such as environment, history, culture etc.
The listening materials and the activities are arranged according to different levels to suit learners abilities.
It is free for educational use and always free to download the copy of the audio and video clips.
It is printer friendly page.
Learners can use the contents of the website and the further resources link to widen their knowledge about Australia.
I can say that this website is very effective and practical for learners to enhance their language skills. One thing that is for sure is it is an Australia-based archive so the contents are limited to Australian context only. Hence some learners might not be able to engage with the activities because they are not familiar with the content. However, this will be a good opportunity for them to discover a new knowledge.
This week tool is a very useful tool for teacher to integrate the teaching process with the use of ICT . It is common for teachers to use static contents such as PowerPoint presentation, documents, photos or video clips as the tool of teaching process. With the help of myBrainShark, teachers can easily add voice into their video presentations. The tool also benefits the learners in improving their communication and oral presentation skills. I will touch in deep of the advantages of this software tool as we proceed to the next paragraph. But first, let's watch the example of the use of myBrainShark tools. It is a slideshow of my self-introduction that I have prepared to test this tool.
Video presentations usually contain only short sentences and bullet points. Sometimes it is hard to understand some of of the bullet points if the slide's creator or presenter is absence. This is where mybrainshark can be utilized to add voice over in order to make the presentation of the content even more clear. Teachers, for example, can prepare a document such as PowerPoint and add whatever they want to clarify about the content and save the documents to be used later. Once the presentation is ready, it can be be shared via email or any social media. An embedded code is available so that you can also post it on your website or blogs for other people to view. The interesting part of embedding the document is it can be viewed anytime via your computer and even mobile phone! In this case, teachers can provide this tool so that learners can have their own learning process apart from learning in the classroom. Learners can view the video presentation at home as their further references. Even more, the audio will definitely helps them in understanding the content without the presence of the teacher.
Other than teachers, learners can also benefit from myBrainShark by using this tool to improve their speaking skills and become fluent in using English in the real world . Teachers could design an activity based on a specific topic for the learners to create their own documents or video presentations, and then insert their voice recording into the videos. The topic chosen can be variety or of the learners' particular interests so that they have some ideas of what they are going to speak. The advantage of using the voice recording is, learners can practice their speaking skills by narrating and elaborating the points in the slideshow. Teacher should encourage the learners to speak and use as much vocabulary as they can without paying too much attention to the language aspects as the main aim of the lesson is to enhance learners' fluency. For me, this is a very useful tools to practice speaking as well as presentation skills.
Some other good things about this software tool are it is user friendly and it is free to sign up and create account! When you upload a content and the voice recording, you can always go back to the video presentation and edit your works. You don't have to worry if you are not satisfy with the quality of your audio. Besides, you can even record your voice on your mobile phone and upload it into the slides. So you can record your voice anytime and anywhere when you have got the idea to say something and upload it later when you are ready to work out your video slides. Here I attached the links I've got from www.teachertrainingvideos.com which can assist you on how to use myBrainShark software tools in more depth.
