Barcelona vs Real Madrid: CINCOmentarios

If you can handle a heated debate, there's plenty of scope for discussion on this one.

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The only English version I managed to find:

Soft & Fluffy Chocolate Mousse Recipe

Image by Chiew Pang

It's quite amazing how much terrible Chocolate mousse I have tasted considering it is such a simple recipe! At least mine is. A good mousse should be soft and fluffy, yet firm, not runny.

Ingredients:

Egg whites (one to one-and-a-half egg per person)

30-40g of dark chocolate (50% cocoa) per person

And, that's it!

1. Melt the chocolate in a medium-sized bowl (au bain-marie or in the microwave). If you're doing it in the microwave, 30-40 seconds ought to be enough. Don't overdo it. It should be slightly lumpy - stir the warm chocolate to dissolve the lumps. In any case, I like to leave traces of small lumps of chocolate.

2. Mount the egg whites until soft peaks form.

3. Fold the whites into the melted chocolate, a little at a time.

4. Scoop the mixture into ramekins or wine glasses. If you wish, garnish the mousse with a walnut or hazelnut in the middle.

5. Leave them in the fridge to cool, preferably overnight.

See? No cream, no yolks, no sugar, no frills and fancy! Just whites and chocolate for the perfect mousse. The simple test for a mousse is to invert the ramekin. If the mousse stays in place, it's ready. If it makes a mess, ouch!

In Livebinders:    Death by Chocolate
    

Livebinders: Wordle and Beyond

A lot of people have been jumping onto the bandwagon of Livebinders lately, so I thought I'd give it a try, too. Basically, Livebinders is an online bookmark tool, but is more versatile than, say, Delicious. It allows you to 'bind' your sites into separate folders, making for easier retrieval.

Educators have been quick to take advantage of its potential, and if you haven't heard about it, or seen it, I've created a binder of Word Cloud generators. Take a look! Click on the link below.

Do you like it? What bookmarkers are you using right now?

Word Clouds: Wordle and Beyond

How to link games, websites, etc. to your blog

By request, here's a simple tutorial on how to link games and websites to your blog. The examples are based on blogger, but other blogging sites such as wordpress will be similar.

First, although they may be obvious to most of you, I'll run through the basics for the benefit of those to whom they might not.

To post in a blog, you can use either the 'compose' mode, the one most of you are familiar with, or the 'html' mode, where the code is more primitive, but allows you more control.

Linking words

To add a link to a word, highlight the word, and click link. A new menu pops up, asking you for the link. Type it in, and click ok.

This is how the actual HTML code looks like.

Linking Images

To insert an image, place the cursor where you want the image to be, and click the picture icon. A menu pops up, allowing you to add images from your computer or from the web. Select those you want to insert, and click 'add selected'.

You will then see your image in your post editor. Click on the image, and you'll see options to change the size and to select justification. To move the image elsewhere, just click and drag. If you aren't able to do this, you'll have to enter in html mode, and move the html code manually.

Similarly, if you want the image to link to a url, select the image, then click link.

If you want your links to open in a new tab/window, see here:
http://aclil2climb.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-to-make-hyperlink-open-in-new.html

Inserting Titles

 

If you want readers to see something while hovering the mouse over the icon as in this image (Inserting image: click to enlarge), you'll need to insert a 'title' command.

Inserting Own Games

"How to insert games?" I hear you screaming. If the site where you create your game provides an embed code, all you need to do is insert it when you're in html mode. Most sites which host the games themselves provide this, for example, Classtools, ProProfs, and My Studiyo.

If they don't provide an embed code, but still host the games themselves, such as Purpose Games, then you'd need to take note of the url of the game, then link it to some words, such as 'play this game here' or, alternatively, as I tend to do, create an image and link the url to the image. The easiest way to create an image is to take a snapshot (see my page, Useful Resources, for snapshot programs), and link the game to it.

However, if they don't host the game themselves, such as in the case of Content Generator or Hot Potatoes, then it gets slightly more complicated.

First, you have to make sure you've stored the file, normally a .swf or an .html file. Then, you'll have to upload this file somewhere. Blogger doesn't allow upload of these type of files - I've always wondered why they allow videos and pictures, but not documents. Fortunately, there are free hosting sites available (again, see my Useful Resources page).

One of the easiest to use is Google Sites. Create a site. Then, you can create pages within it to keep your stuff organised. For example, I have: https://sites.google.com/site/acliltoclimb/games where some of my games are hosted.

When you've uploaded your game file, to obtain the link, click download and select copy link address, as shown in the image. It will look like this:

https://sites.google.com/site/acliltoclimb/games/Bookingintoahotelquiz.swf?attredirects=0&d=1

Ignore the end part, from '?' onwards; in other words, like this: https://sites.google.com/site/acliltoclimb/games/Bookingintoahotelquiz.swf

You can then proceed to link it to your post (either words or image).

I hope this brief tutorial will be of help to those of you who had asked me about it. If you still have problems, do not hesitate to ask!

Using Cartoon Strips to Practise Dialogues

 Need some novel way to enliven your class?

The traditional way of practising dialogue is to have students work in pairs (or groups), prepare their dialogues, then role-play them, maybe in front of the classroom.

Instead of doing that, why don't you get them to prepare a comic strip first (after working on expressions, vocabulary, etc., of course). Either have them do it on the fly in the computer lab, or set it as homework. Later, they can role-play the situations. To make it even more fun, randomly assign the comic strip to a group for them to act it out.

One of the best I've found is ToonDoo. It's quite versatile; you not only have several characters to choose from, but you can easily play around with backdrops, fonts, expressions, etc. You can bet the kids (and the adults, too) will love it!

What do you think? If you need a tutorial, let me know. Leave your comments below by clicking on 'comments' if you don't see the form.

TEA 2010, Powerpoint Presentation Uploaded

Some of you had come to me and asked for a copy of my presentation, so here it is. Although I covered only a cross-section of the possible technological tools that can be used in education, I hope I have inspired you enough to try some of them. Note that the examples in the presentation are linked, so make full use of them.

Don't forget to complete the survey. The results can be seen by everyone, so do take a look at what your peers thought of the sessions, too.

Over the next days or so, time permitting, I will post some tutorials which I hope will help clear some of the doubts some of you have. I'm sorry that there wasn't enough time in the workshop session to help everyone. So, keep coming back here to read!

One of the major problems was not being able to do some of the activities I'd shown, or not being able to see some parts of my blog.

Most important, I always encourage people to have more than one browser. A lot of you just use INTERNET EXPLORER. I'm afraid that this isn't suitable for some sites, especially if you have older versions. So, do keep it up to date, and also, have another browser handy. I'd recommend Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. When one doesn't work, try the other.

Most of the games and activities I'd shown use Flash and/or Java, so make sure you have them in your machine and that they are allowed to execute.

Don't forget to look at the USEFUL RESOURCES page if you can't find any of the tools I've mentioned.

And, I keep repeating, don't hesitate to ask me for help! Below each post, you'll see 'n comments', where n is the number of comments for that post. Click on it to bring you to the comment menu where you can read other comments or write your own.

This blog: All the resources you find here in my blog are free for you to use. Just let your audience know where the material came from. If you want to link to any of the online activities, I'd prefer you to link to the relevant post here rather than directly to the activity itself. I was surprised when some of you expressed doubts regarding using my material. Sure, if you want to buy me a coffee every now and then, it will be most appreciated! ;-) And, yes, everything here has been the result of my own sweat - some of you were surprised at this, too. Of course, I've had to use other people's resources, too. That's what the Internet is for - sharing, but I always try to credit my sources. If I'd missed it somewhere, I'd appreciate being told. Alternatively, if you see my material being used elsewhere without proper credit, I'd appreciate being told, too.

Purpose Games: I use this site quite a lot. If you plan to use my Purpose Games (all my point-and-click games are there), do ask your students to register. That way, you can keep track of who has done what and what kind of scores they have. This, hopefully, would encourage healthy competition between them.

And do ask your students to place comments here in this blog, too.

bridging the gap between digital native...

See more presentations by acLiLtocLiMB | Upload your own PowerPoint presentations

This PowerPoint presentation can also be downloaded from Slideshare and Google Sites. Those of you who have Microsoft Office versions 2003 or older can download from Scribd.

TEA 2010 Tenerife Bridging the Gap Between Digital Natives & Digital Immigrants SURVEY

Thank you all for getting out of your bed this Saturday morning to attend my talk. I hope it was worth your while. Please complete this survey - I'd appreciate it very much. It shouldn't take you more than a couple of minutes.

Click on the image to start it. When you've completed the survey, there should be a link ("Ver Respuestas Anteriores") for you to see the results. In any case, you can also click on these links below at any time to look at the analysis:

Results in Charts
Results in Spreadsheet

Please note that the count for the number of people who have taken the survey is 4 more than the actual number. This is because I did 4 tests, and Google had included them in the analytics. Deleting the spreadsheet entry doesn't change the analysis.

Please do stay tuned to the blog as I'll try to post some help soon. I'm sorry that the workshop session wasn't long enough for me to have been able to help you all more. In any case, post all the questions you want, and I'll try to answer them.

Why don't you all organise more sessions, and I'll be only too glad to fly over. I'm quite cheap ;-)

More on Jobs: Video singalong & Games

Here are more fun activities on jobs! The song, People In My Town, is by Peter Weatherall, and he's got some great stuff. A CD of his in your department wouldn't go amiss, really.

Be sure to take a look at these older activities, too:
Online Crossword
Jack of all Trades

Flags of the World Online Game

Try to identify all these flags in this point-and-click game. For those who aren't familiar or who still don't know, these games which I created in Purpose Games aren't too difficult. The trick is to click on any dot if you don't know the answer. On the 3rd wrong attempt, notice how one spot will change its colour from blue to purple. Try to remember it for the next time you try. Obviously, you'll need to play the game several times in order to be able to learn something. Always aim for 100%, and always aim for as quick a time as you can achieve. Oh, and please register - it's free. By registering, your scores will be saved and displayed. Make sure to try these other games, too:

Capitals of the World

Countries and Nationalities

For more, browse under category 'geography' in the GAMES AND QUIZZES section.

EFL ESL Blog Carnival, Still time to submit your article!

The next EFL ESL Carnival  will be published on 1st December on Sabrina's Blog. If you have a post on teaching or learning English which you think might interest others, why don't you submit it and get some publicity for yourself while helping others at the same time? Use this form or if that doesn't work, submit it directly to Sabrina or Larry Ferlazzo.