New way to book equipment

Hello to all the Wonderful Teachers and Staff at Preston Reservoir Adult Community Education (PRACE). We're moving to a new system for booking equipment like cameras, laptops and so forth. Essentially it's a spreadsheet, and it's online so you can access it any time you have internet nearby. No more looking for that piece of paper in the office at Merrilands, or having to ring Maria in the office. 


You need to login to google.com/docs*, so you'll need to remember your PRACE gmail ID & login. [No i'm not putting any hints out here on the open web.]


[if you want, there's a shortcut directly into the booking sheet: j.mp/pracequip]


Here's michael giving an overview of the new system. This newer video is still longer than i'd like it, at 6 minutes, but it gives more detail on how to make a new line within a spreadsheet cell (essential for multiple bookings as it stands).

Music videos at the Reservoir Baptist Church

I went down to the Reservoir Baptist Church, where Yvonne and Paula have been wrestling with the machinery.. to get it under control. Internet, printers, the data projector.. and extension cords! 

I was hunting around for more musical sites and found this one: Lyrics Training which actually has cloze activities at multiple levels for some videos. 

We hooted in the Merrilands teacher room because  the Chris Isaak video is so suggestive. Would this motivate your students, distract them or upset them?

Here's one that might be more suitable: ABBA plays "Money Money Money". Plus a few more links:

• It's Now or Never - Elvis Presley
• You've got a Friend - Celine Dion and friends
• Money, Money, Money - ABBA
• Better be Home Soon - Crowded House
• Diamonds - Rihanna
• Bonnie & Clyde - Rihanna (funny)
• Set Fire to the Rain - Adele (harder)
• Someone Like You - Adele (harder)

...and if you want more, you can search the site for songs you like. 

i found the site via Larry Ferlazzo who is a great collector of "best of" lists for ESL, for example his page on the best music sites for English language learners.

We started setting up a new wiki page for the learners at Reservoir Baptist Church, on the Learn At PRACE site. (Stay tuned for more details.)

On top of that, there's a site called "TubeOke". Doesn't have the same interactive quality as lyrics training though.









Other technical things: web browsers and video players

We looked at a few other things. There's been such difficulty around the Adobe Flash player in the last few years. One solution Fraser has come up with is to recommend people use the google Chrome web browser instead of microsoft Internet Explorer. Chrome comes with Flash built-in, so it doesn't need administrator permission to show youtube videos. 

(And you don't need admin permission to install it either. Brilliant web browser.)

Yvonne and Paula have been looking for ways to include more music in their language teaching. We looked at music videos on Youtube and we installed a thing called "Youtube Enhancer" which lets you download videos onto the local drive. This can be great if your classroom internet access isn't so good. Download the videos before class, and use VLC player to play them in class. 

Update Nov14: this youtube enhancer doesn't work well anymore. Zoe has been experimenting with an alternative called "KeepVid".

We looked at VLC video player which (in my opinion) is one of the very best software video players around. It's free and open source, and supported by a strong worldwide community. VLC also takes screengrabs really well - which can be super useful for language teaching. 

Other links: 

• By the way, Larry has other 'best of' pages, including best youtube channels: 
  • Best of the year lists,
  • Best youtube channels for learning English.
• [Extra information: What is a web browser?] 
• KeepVid works in any web browser as long as you have a plugin called JAVA. 
• VLC video and media player.

New Easi Speak adds Journalistic Effect

Someone in the PRACE office bought a new set of the Easi-Speak microphones, before the new year. Well done, someone! (i think it was Jennifer. Champion.)

These little gadgets are (reasonably) easy to use: the Red button to Record, and the Green button to Play. It's a bit more complex than that, but each kit has

• a microphone,
• a set of instructions,
• a big A4 version of the most important bits in the instructions, and
• a cable to connect to the computer.

Essentially, you need to know what the flashing light (LED) means: this information is on the big A4 set of instructions. "Steady red" means recording in progress. When you want to move the files onto the computer, you use the USB connector in the end of the gadget. They need charging, which happens when you connect to the computer.

The picture above shows Michael Chalk interviewing the very wonderful Chris Mooney on the day of our Morning Tea. People from many different classes came along and socialised with each other. Several people had a go at using the microphones to interview their colleagues, including Lou and James.

If you're looking for ideas to use these audio gadgets in your classroom, try the PRACE research project known as "Can You Hear Us?".