Another option...

  As usual, another boring Sunday passed and I was surfing the net and going over the link with the 150 websites that I attached in my post Summarising when I decided to try Go!Animate. It reminded me of the tool Aldana wrote about: Voki. They are similar in the sense that our students could benefit from not being them who have to go in front of the whole class to present, for example, a text they've produced. Even though, they can record their voices to make it even funnier and better for teachers to see the progress students make.

  This tool allows you to select out of 2 templates and 4 different characters among a specific topic. I don't know exactly how it works because I haven't got the time to do many things but I think it is another nice alternative.

  It also has a paid version from which you can get much more things to do, but I think that as it is could be easily implemented with a course of kids, adolescents, and why not, adults... here you have the topics you could be using: http://goanimate.com/videomaker/quickvideo.
  And for you to see what you can do, I've created my own video!
  http://goanimate.com/videos/0TjMA7MIN8iM/1 Hope you enjoy it!

Anywhere, anytime.

Surfing the Net (a Sunday I was bored), I came across this video on e-learning. I found it really interesting, even though I don’t like much the Spanish accent, because I think it makes reference to many things we have been working with. This is the video:

What is e-learning?

Generally speaking, it describes briefly how is it that a person learns and how the implementation of the Information and Communication Technologies has changed this process. That is why, it will make reference to the use of the internet to say that now a days we can have lessons in a virtual classroom, for instance, and therefore, we, as learners and teachers, can access to the information anywhere, anytime… and this would be e-learning.

Summarising

This year, before we started to have lessons, I took part in a workshop about the implementation of ICTs in the teaching of English. We (teachers of English from different provinces in the country and I) participated cooperatively for this workshop in the virtual classroom of educ.ar. This platform is very similar to Moodle, it is really user-friendly, but, in my opinion, nicer.

During the five weeks that the workshop lasted, we worked with other people and we got to know many interesting tools, because that was the idea, to enrich our knowledge about softwares and websites that could be use in the classroom with or without access to the internet.

One great finding was this link: http://docentesytic.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/150-herramientas-gratuitas-para-crear-materiales-educativos-con-tics/,

On Our 2nd Practical Work

Here I am, writing about PowerPoint again. This time because our next practical work is about a lesson plan in which we have to include a PowerPoint or Prezi presentation. As my classmates, Ma. Fernanda and Vanesa wrote on their blogs, it will be hard work, but it is also true that we are willing to try and go on discovering!

Besides, I also agree with Santiago on the fact that it much depends on the topic you work on how much you can do with a presentation of this characteristics, and since we have to make it for possible students I'm sure it'll be fun!

Impossible Is Nothing

Today, I'm writing to show you my achievement!
 

I've edited this picture with Photoshop. You might be wondering 'How? She cannot even work with PowerPoint!' 

Which one do you prefer, PowerPoint or Prezi?

   Last week, I was preparing the lesson I was to deliver. As part of it, I thought of doing a brief and simple presentation of the topic I wanted to work with so I decided to use PowerPoint to fulfil my task. After struggling to do it, I thought of trying Prezi instead. I knew of this software because a teacher of mine once taught a lesson using it and I found it really eye-catching; when the opportunity came I used it. Now, as regards the title's question I think my answer is already given. It is really hard to me to make a PowerPoint presentation look visually attractive. However, these two tools have their own pros and cons... 

Some interesting and free info!

I've just arrived from a really interesting workshop delivered by Deborah Healey.

Here you can find some information about her and the two presentations she is going to give tomorrow and on Saturday at the 'ARTESOL 25th Anniversary Conference: The Dawning of the ELT Digital Age':  http://www.artesol.org.ar/deborahhealey.html 

And here it goes her website: http://www.deborahhealey.com/ 

There she posts a lot of links that might be very helpful since they all are resources for ELT and they are free!