Chatzy-Free Private Chat room

Today's Website~

●  Chatzy-Free Private Chatroom 

Chatzy-Free Private Chat room

What is it about?

●  Chatzy is a free private chat room.  You can start a quick chat.  It has no registration 

    steps.  Just invite your friends or your students, they can join instantly. 

●  You don't need Flash or any installation on your computer to use Chatzy.

●  Chatzy is user-friendly.   It works on many major browsers and with any languages.

●  It is an ideal chat room for idea-sharing.   

Why is the content good for language teaching?

●  It is a user-friendly interface for learners to share their ideas and communicate with 
  
    one another.  It engages students in cognitive learning through communication. 

●  Encourage students to interactive with their peers through reading others' opinions

    and have a deep discussion about certain topics they explore in class.

●  Encourage students to share opinions and respect one another by using the discussion

    interface.

●  Everyone has a chance to speak out their ideas.  Shy students benefit from the different

    way of communication a lot, too.

●  Encourage students to work collaboratively according to the tasks the teacher design.

●  Students could learn from one another from reading the instant response.

●  Help teachers to assess students' language output after language input.  It can also be

    used to check students' understanding of what they have learned in class.

How might you use it in a language teaching context?

●  First, introduce students Internet Etiquette in the virtual room, e.g. how to greet with one

    another.

●  The teacher could either ask individual student to make sentences (e.g. the sentence

    patterns they learned in class) to check their understanding, or ask students to work in 

    group to make a story (e.g. with vocabulary, phrases they learn in class or a topic  

    related to your curriculum).

●  Students can work collaboratively to rewrite a story, e.g. each group takes turns to write a

    sentence.  They should try to make the story cohesive and reasonable.  The teacher can

    give guidance to help students use appropriate linguistic meanings of  expression and

    generate appropriate content.  Students will learn a lot through the negotiation of meaning.

●  For low-proficiency students, they can do some simple spelling competition, type what

    they hear (words or sentences) from the teacher or news, or answer some simple

    questions to check students' understanding of the sentence patterns and the content.

●  The teacher could ask high-proficiency students what they know about the topic

    and the experience about the topic they are going to learn.  The teacher could also

    encourage students to reflect what they have learned in class. 

●  The script of the discussion or classroom activities can be printed out, which can be used

    to assess students' in-class performance.  The teachers can also reflect their own

    teaching and revise the curriculum, and make it more suitable for the students' learning

    process.

●  The students could always go into the room and review something they are unfamiliar or

    reflect their answers, or print out the transcript.

●  The teachers can paste the saved discussion in the class blog for students to review.

Limitations

●  Might need computers for everyone in order to assess individual performance.

●  If it is a large class, it might take students lots of time to read everything in a short time.


●  Students still need to "speak out" to practice their speaking, pronunciation and

    communicating skills.

●  It might not easy to read if there are too many students writing on the same screen.

●  It is better for collaborative writing and opinion sharing.

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Example~  How to Use Chatzy 

●  First Click on "Start Quick Chat".  Write down your name, and choose your color.

    After filling in your "Title/Subject", you can invite your friends or students.

 Start Quick Chat

●  You can either write e-mail or offer the link to your friends or students so that they can

    join the chat room.

Invite Your Friends

●  Now you can start to chat.

Start to Chat

●  Check on your visitors you invite.

Vistor List

●  Click on "Save/Print" to save or print out your discussion.

Save or Prin

●  Here is the video tutorial from YouTube.

●  Here is the transcript of our discussion in class.  "Second Life" in language

    learning was our topic in class.  And after the presentation of our classmates, and

    the oral discussion led by the presenters, guided by our tutor, our tutor asked

    some questions for us to think about.

    The transcript:

Classroom Discussion 1 (By using Chatzy-Free Private Chatroom)

Classroom Discussion 2 (By using Chatzy-Free Private Chatroom)

Jing- Another Useful Screencast Tool

Today's Website~ 

●  Jing

Capture Your Screen (Jing)

What is it about?

●  Jing is a free screencasting tool by which you can record videos of your computer screen

    to demonstrate and explain the tasks (orally) you are doing on the screen to the viewers.

●  You can record your screen up to 5 minutes (free version).  And once you sign up, you

    will have 2GB of storage for free.   

●  You can catch images on the screen and write down notes on the images.  You can also

    select the area of the screen you would like to show before you record the screen.

Why is the content good for language learning?

●  Like all the screencasting tools (Screecast-o-Matic and Screenr), Jing is a simple, easy

    tool for teachers to give students feedback according to different tasks students do in

    class or outside the classroom. 

●  The visual and audio characteristics make the teacher's feedback, directions, and

    instructions clearer and easier for students to follow.

●  The feedback from teachers are authentic English.  Students can practice their listening

    skill.  

●  Learners can use this tool to present their work, too, e.g. practice their speech, describe

    a picture or comment on a video, or tell a short story (e.g. the photobook they create). 

●  The video can be shared via links or be embedded in your website or blog. The teacher

    can record the common problems or errors students might make and send them to

    students to reflect and improve their English, e.g. pronunciation, grammar, or writing

    skills.

How might you use it in a language teaching context?  

●  Teachers can use Jing to correct students' writing, pronunciation, or explain the common

    errors students make when learning English.  It can also be used to give students

    feedback and instructions as their visual notebooks.

●  Students can use this tool to do film-dubbing, picture describing, videos commenting, 

    story-telling.  And because the visual and audio are the main characteristics of this tools, 

    the teacher can have students work collaboratively using Mixbook, YUDU, Issuu, or

    Powerpoint to briefly introduce their works, and share them with their peers, friends

    their family. 

●  Before students present their works on the screen, the teacher has to give students

    some instructions, have them practice, and make sure that students are ready to record 

    and present their work.

Limitations~

  

●  Need sufficient computers and Internet.  Headphones are needed, too.

●  You need to install Jing on your computer.

●  You will need a "pro" version (14.95/year) to publish your vidoes to YouTube, or download

    the MP4 files in your own website or blog.

●  Even though you can save the videos in your Jing, it might be better for teachers to paste

    the links in the blog and provide a description of each link, or you can embed them in the

    blog. 

●  When students work collaboratively, it might be very noisy when all of the groups are 

    talking simultaneously.  A computer with only one headphone makes it difficult for several 

    students to talk in turn.

●  If there are too many students in a class, it might take the teacher lots of time to give 

    individual students feedback.

●  You can only record up to 5 minutes, so the teachers have to adapt the task to the time.  

    limit.  Perhaps they can have students divide the task into several parts (videos).

●  Learners can only save their videos in their computer with WTF format.  MP4 format is

    only available in "pro" version.

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 Example~

●  Here is the tutorial of how to use Jing from Teacher Training Videos. 

  Teacher Training Videos-How to Use Jing

●  Here are some other ideas of how to use Jing from Teacher Training Videos.

  Teacher Training Videos-Ways of Using Jing

●  Check out the webiste.
 

Capture Your Screen (Jing)