Teacher Training

ICT ACROSS CURRICULUM
British Council Belgrade
27-30 June 2005

Zipped Presentations: Blogging | Use of Hot Potatoes

ICT Across Curriculum, a regional four day seminar, jointly organised by the CALL SIG of IATEFL-ELTA and the British Council, was held in Belgrade from 27-30 June 2005. It was aimed at all teachers interested in enriching their teaching with the opportunities offered by Information and Communication Technologies. They were shown how to integrate ICT resources with other teaching/learning media in order to encourage students’ motivation and further raise their levels of achievement.

The seminar was authored and coordinated by Mirjana Ljiljak-Vukajlovic. She was accompanied by the co-author Olja Milosević from Belgrade, and other teacher trainers: Vesna Alaburic from Novi Sad and Tünde Fustos and Imre Szabo from Hungary. It included the following ICT areas:

POWER POINT PRESENTATIONS

Presenters: Olja Milošević and Tünde Fustos

PowerPoint has an extensive use in the business world and for professional presentations. The presentations look impressive but the essence of the programme is simple. Participants were shown the activities designed by
teachers to be used in various stages of a lesson and some of the presentations created by students. The participants were shown how to use PowerPoint programme and they created their own PowerPoint learning
activities.

AUTHORING PROGRAMMES: HOT POTATOES

Presenters: Vesna Alaburić and Mirjana Ljiljak-Vukajlović

Authoring programs allow teachers to tailor software programs either by inserting new texts or by modifying the activities and thus make the programs more relevant to their own lessons. The first session gave an outline of Hot Potatoes, a software suite comprised of six different authoring programs. Each program can be used to create a different type of interactive, Web-based exercise. The six different modules are referred to as "potatoes," and consist of JBC, JQuiz, JMix, JCross, JCloze, and JMatch, with each name referring to the type of exercise the module creates. The second workshop provided the participants with specific examples of Hot Potatoes uses and a step-by-step guide to creating their own interactive activities using each of the six programs.

FILM MAKING AND EDITING

Presenters: Imre Szabo, Tünde Fustos and Mirjana Ljiljak-Vukaljović

In the first workshop, Tünde Fustos and Mirjana Ljiljak Vukajlović presented their film projects. Tünde Fustos presented her international film project called Comenius Film Meeting, which is still going on and involves three countries: Hungary, Bulgaria and Portugal, and Serbia as a guest participant, and discussed its cultural, educational and language acquisition benefits. Mirjana Ljiljak Vukajlovic showed the film projects she had made with her students: “Looking for a Friend” and “Green Impulses from Valjevo”. She made a point of motivational and language learning advantages of such projects.

In the second workshop held by Imre Szabo, participants got the knowledge about free ways of film-making and editing. As a first step a demo film was shown and then its making process demonstrated.
First the software in the computer was found (Windows Movie Maker). After starting the programme the participants had a look at the main screenshots and the menu points. Then the way of importing pictures, videos and sounds was demonstrated. The help-section was opened.
After these steps the storyboard and the timeline view were tried out. After importing the sample video and audio the video effects menu was opened and then the video transition menu.
The next phase was to enter the titles and credits menu and apply them in the sample film. Some formatted and animated texts were inserted before the movie, during the movie and after the movie.
The final stage covered saving the project first and then the film. After saving there were some explanations about how to play the movie and about its format.

SOUND EDITING

Presented by Imre Szabo

As an essential part of film making a free sound editing software is needed to edit the sound of the films. The best is Audacity. First a demo film was shown about the website where this software can be downloaded from and about its installation process focusing on the mp3 tag that must be installed separately.
After opening the programme the participants were shown the main screenshots and the menu points. A sample audio file was imported and edited. The usual processes such as select, copy, cut and paste were tried out. Then some useful effects (amplifying, fading in and fading out) were shown. After editing, the project was first saved and then the audio file.

WEBSITE MAKING

Presented by Imre Szabo

During this workshop an online free version, YAHOO Page Builder, was dealt with. First a demo film was shown about YAHOO and its free tools. Using YAHOO Page Builder requires a YAHOO account, which was made in advance. After the demo film the Page Builder was opened and the most common editing steps (uploading files and images) tried out. The participants opened the file manager. Then they started editing the pre-made website and tried out some of its features. They opened a text box, inserted an image, changed the background, resized the image, used the clipboard button. When done, they named their pages (the first as the index one, and others with any desired name). After saving the participants previewed their new web pages.
The next step was to use the link button and the add-ons button. Another tool was demonstrated about how to make the naming process easier (www.snipurl.com, www.tinyurl.com).

BLOGGING: A SHORTCUT TO IMPROVING WRITING SKILLS

Presented by Mirjana Ljiljak-Vukajlovic

Weblogs or blogs have become a very popular communication tool in almost all spheres of life – from keeping a web diary to academic writing, from socializing to sale of commercial goods or political agenda, from single person writing to interaction between large groups of writers. After briefly covering the history of blogs and reasons for their exceptional popularity, listing the types of blogs and showing specific examples of blogs in different domains, the focus of this session was on the forms of their application at Lingva-Valjevo Language School and the benefits they can bring both to students and teachers. Participants were trained in blog creating and publishing and guided in making their own blogs, which they presented to other participants. In this way new innovative web teaching and learning resources were created that will be generally available to the interested bloggers all over the world.

Student Tools

English For Special Purposes

Teacher Tools

General