THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF APPS
Apps stands for applications purchased or obtained to use on apple or android portable devices. I found the following private company site called PSA (Pete Sharma Associates) and thought it was interesting when evaluating apps for use with second language learners.
But first who is he? He says..
"Pete Sharma is an EAP (English for Academic Purposes) Lecturer, and has recently taught on
the pre-sessional EAP course at Warwick
University, UK. He holds a Masters in Education in using educational technology
in language teaching. He is a freelance author and teacher trainer, and worked
for many years in business English. He has written books on technology in
language teaching, and is co-author of Blended Learning: using technology in
and beyond the language classroom (Macmillan 2007) and 400 Ideas for
Interactive Whiteboards (Macmillan 2011). He writes an e-lesson blog for
Macmillan’s In Company series. Pete is on the committee of the Learning
Technologies Special Interest Group (SIG) of International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL)."
So I paraphrase Pete's list of "Ten Great Apps"
for language teachers......
(1) Dictionary apps - fairly self-explanatory eg dictionary.com
(2) Flashcards - using "language flashcards"
revealed 876 options in the itunes app-shop.
(3) TED.com -"TED is a non-profit devoted to Ideas
Worth Spreading. It started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together
people from three worlds: Technology,
Entertainment, Design." - well worth a look!
(4) BBC iPlayer - one of my personal favourites with large numbers of English language videos for language learning practice
(5) Simple Minds - used mainly for creating mind maps -
(something I do alot of with junior primary students and I feel has great
potential in SLL). Class tell me everything you know about kangaroos....
(6) Google Goggles - hold your phone over a painting to see
the artist and title - sounds great but I haven't tried it.
(7) Acrossair - geo-tagging for information on restaurant,
pub etc options in your area - try the "nearest place" app. Authentic
language learning possibilities.
(8) Voxy - voxy.com English newspaper article etc - looks
great - I haven't tested it but would be very interested if anyone has to find
out what they thought!
(9) Sounds - Macmillan pronunciation app (using sounds
foundation chart). excellent listening app.
(10) Screen Chomp - turns your ipad into an IWB - looks great
for annotating photos etc and using a screen recorder - very interesting.
When making the most of apps it is essential that the teacher and the student have criteria for assessing the value of a particular app in pursuit of language learning goals. So plenty of options for using apps in SLL. Are there any negatives?
Conrad
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