Home > The Treasure Hunt Club > No. 36 Classroom2.0, Road to Grammar, Jewelry Designing, Job Pico, and Wikipedia
No. 36 Classroom2.0, Road to Grammar, Jewelry Designing, Job Pico, and Wikipedia (2008年02月10日)
カテゴリー: The Treasure Hunt Club
投稿者: 名ばかり編集長
Marcel Van Amelsvoort
（Kanagawa Prefectural College of Foreign Studies）
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Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Treasure Hunt. This month I’d like to introduce one very interesting new service that I hope you will find as useful as I have. It’s called Classroom 2.0. I’m sure that most of you are very familiar with the terms Web 2.0 and E-learning 2.0 already. Well, this service provides a place where a community of educators interested in this type of approach can exchange ideas. If you are not sure what this approach can offer you or your learners, I recommend that you take a look. You can get your own page and blog here, and join special groups within the community (like one for EFL educators), or just explore new techniques by seeing what other people are doing (wikis, podcasting, blogging, Second Life, and much more). In the EFL group section, there is also a resource page with hundreds of games, stories, quizzes and more. It’s all waiting for you to join in and explore. http://www.classroom20.com/
Another resource I came across recently is Road to Grammar. There are actually two websites here: one for regular learners and one for young learners. In all there are more than 700 grammar and vocabulary quizzes available. Here are the links:
http://www.roadtogrammar.com/welcome/ http://www.roadtogrammar.com/junior/
Next I have a few rather unconventional web activities that could be used in some creative lessons. The first is a jewelry design workshop. Learners design a piece of jewelry, describe it and then send it to a friend. The design possibilities are somewhat limited so instructors should be able to pre-teach the necessary vocabulary. I think it could make a nice little lesson on describing things. It’s also a lot of fun. http://www.artisancam.org.uk/flashapps/jewellerydesigner/index.php
Job Pico, the next site, is a problem solving game (you have to prove yourself in a job interview, which requires successfully getting out of a room). It’s an interesting puzzle with great 3D walk-through graphics, but it is not easy. It could be a nice little problem-solving activity that could be used in a speaking or writing class for higher levels. (You can play in Japanese or in English) http://www.gotmail.jp/jobpico/
And lastly, a little update on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is developing as a fantastic resource and is now the first place I go for information, and the first place I recommend to my students when they are researching something in English. But the language is often too difficult for my learners. There is help, however. First, I recently discovered that by clicking the language link on the left, you can often get the same page in another language. So let’s say you are searching about the US government. Once you find the page, you can click on the Japanese link on the left and go to the corresponding page in the Japanese Wikipedia (or vice versa). Now, of course this only works when there are corresponding pages in the other language, but it can be very useful for learners to switch back and forth between the two pages as they search for information. In addition to this, a new Easy English Wikipedia has been introduced (you can find it as one of the language choices). This co!
uld be a great place to send our learners when they are researching. Unfortunately, it does not yet have that much content, but I’m sure it will continue to grow.
That’s it for this month. Take care and see you next month.
（Kanagawa Prefectural College of Foreign Studies）
＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝□■
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Treasure Hunt. This month I’d like to introduce one very interesting new service that I hope you will find as useful as I have. It’s called Classroom 2.0. I’m sure that most of you are very familiar with the terms Web 2.0 and E-learning 2.0 already. Well, this service provides a place where a community of educators interested in this type of approach can exchange ideas. If you are not sure what this approach can offer you or your learners, I recommend that you take a look. You can get your own page and blog here, and join special groups within the community (like one for EFL educators), or just explore new techniques by seeing what other people are doing (wikis, podcasting, blogging, Second Life, and much more). In the EFL group section, there is also a resource page with hundreds of games, stories, quizzes and more. It’s all waiting for you to join in and explore. http://www.classroom20.com/
Another resource I came across recently is Road to Grammar. There are actually two websites here: one for regular learners and one for young learners. In all there are more than 700 grammar and vocabulary quizzes available. Here are the links:
http://www.roadtogrammar.com/welcome/ http://www.roadtogrammar.com/junior/
Next I have a few rather unconventional web activities that could be used in some creative lessons. The first is a jewelry design workshop. Learners design a piece of jewelry, describe it and then send it to a friend. The design possibilities are somewhat limited so instructors should be able to pre-teach the necessary vocabulary. I think it could make a nice little lesson on describing things. It’s also a lot of fun. http://www.artisancam.org.uk/flashapps/jewellerydesigner/index.php
Job Pico, the next site, is a problem solving game (you have to prove yourself in a job interview, which requires successfully getting out of a room). It’s an interesting puzzle with great 3D walk-through graphics, but it is not easy. It could be a nice little problem-solving activity that could be used in a speaking or writing class for higher levels. (You can play in Japanese or in English) http://www.gotmail.jp/jobpico/
And lastly, a little update on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is developing as a fantastic resource and is now the first place I go for information, and the first place I recommend to my students when they are researching something in English. But the language is often too difficult for my learners. There is help, however. First, I recently discovered that by clicking the language link on the left, you can often get the same page in another language. So let’s say you are searching about the US government. Once you find the page, you can click on the Japanese link on the left and go to the corresponding page in the Japanese Wikipedia (or vice versa). Now, of course this only works when there are corresponding pages in the other language, but it can be very useful for learners to switch back and forth between the two pages as they search for information. In addition to this, a new Easy English Wikipedia has been introduced (you can find it as one of the language choices). This co!
uld be a great place to send our learners when they are researching. Unfortunately, it does not yet have that much content, but I’m sure it will continue to grow.
That’s it for this month. Take care and see you next month.
