MyBrainShark : Transform your static content into voice-enriched video presentations

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.

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/brain/index.html

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/brain2/index.html

Hope you can benefit from this tools as much as I have!

-Suze-

Bookr - Blog the Book!

Is your students (or if you are a student) love to photograph? Then this is a great opportunity for you to integrate that particular interest into the magical of ICT to learn English!

Bookr is a tool to create and share your photo book using Flickr image. You can choose your favourite themes or topics and start to search for your favourite photos to be published in your photo book. All the images come from Flickr therefore there are a lot of images to choose from. When the photo book is ready, you can publish it for other people to view.

This website can be used by teachers to design tasks that can be more fun and less threatening for the learners to learn English. English language learning can be integrated into this task by asking the learners to write a description for each and every photo they have included in the album. This is the opportunity for the learners to express their thoughts and practise their writing in the target language by describing the photos.

Another task that teachers can do with Bookr in the classroom is the speaking activity. When the learners have created and published their own photo books, teacher can ask them to present their photo books to the class. Teachers should provide learners with the idea of what they have to say in their presentation such as why they choose the topic, what photos they have chosen and are the photos related to their life. By using the guidelines, learners can brush up their speaking skills as well as enjoy learning the language through a slightly different approach.

This website is absolutely free and all the images come from Flickr hence there will be no copyright issues as all the photos will be directly link to the original post. It is also very easy to handle this tool. Learners only have to choose a topic, search photos by typing in the words related to the content, select their favourite photos, write a few brief descriptions, click the publish button and voila it’s done!

However, in my opinion this website is more suitable for the speaking activity as there is a limited space for them to write the description for each photo. They can choose to write longer but the description will cover up the whole page and you can no longer see the photo! Therefore I recommend teachers to use this tool for speaking activity which the photo book can be a good stimulus for them to speak. Other than that, the photos may take time to load so it may take a longer time for learners to create one photo book and later present it to class. Teacher might not be able to carry both activities in one period.

In my personal point of view, Bookr is a fun website to vary the activities used in the classroom but it is suitable for a more leisure activity rather than teaching language for academic purposes.

Below is a print screen of several comments on the used of Bookr taken from Wallwisher.

Footnote: Wallwisher is a website which can be used for people to post and share comments or notes with other people. The wall or room is usually created by a person and others can join the wall to post and view all the comments. It is an alternative way of expressing thoughts when a group of people are having online class or so called the connected classroom.

-Suze-