Web 2.0 Tools for blogs and wikis

Click to Play

Short video on Web 2.0 tools used in my blogs & wikis.

It was created to test Stupeflix and then upload onto bliptv to show both tools to LTM mentors.

slide shows & fun pictures

You have seen sideshows made with bubbleshare, smilebox and voicethread. Today I want you to see an example of what you can do with slide.com.

Don't be afraid. It is easy! Try it at home and use it fro the excursion photos and the health expo!
By the way, do you know who Joern Utzon is? (notice the indirect question)

Health

Make a Smilebox photobook

Last Tuesday we all went to listen to health specialists talk about Women's Health and Men's Health.

Answer this quiz about some of the information given to us by Cheryl on Women's Health.

On Wednesday 3rd May the Student Association is holding Health Expo 2009. There will be some fundraising activities, like the food prepared for us and all the AMEP students. There will be raffles and fantastic prizes to be won ( an ipod shuffle, $50.00 petrol voucher, etc). The money raised will go to Aussie Farmers.

We will be serving food in the first shift. Afterwards, please go and visit all the stalls and find out what they offer. To be on the competition, you have to fill in an evaluation form that has to be stamped by all the stall holders!

We should prepare the food that will be served on Tuesday or very early on Wednesday morning. Before preparing food, it's very important to know about food preparation hygiene. Read these two facts sheets: Hand Washing & Food Safety when cooking. Listen to these questions about food preparation and answer then in your blogs by writing a paragraph.

To help you with some of the vocabulary and content of the Health Expo, do the following activities:

1. Go to Time4English, News Library 7J. Read the article Hot Chips cause Cancer. It's a good idea to read the three levels, it will help you with vocabulary and comprehension.

2. Now read the article 7Y Take-Away Food Dangerous. Read the three levels. In your blog write a summary of both articles and tell us what you think.

3. Check the following links to help us prepare for Health Day: Better Health Obesity. Do the worksheet Obesity. (You can print it or do it online This is part of your reading assessment)

4. Read and listen to this fact sheet on Healthy eating, it is useful for both men & women, although it is directed to women in particular:

• Healthy eating text


• Healthy eating mp3

5. Look at the BMI Calculator. You just enter your height and weight and it'll tell you your BMI and if it's healthy or not. Check the health quizzes to get more ideas for yours.

Anecdotes & Excursion

Talking about ourselves is something that we often do when we meet new friends, classmates or work colleagues. Listen to five of your classmates talking about themselves in this We Talk podcast.

Soon we'll be going on our excursion to the Chinese Gardens and Sydney Aquarium. It will be a good opportunity to practise what you've learnt about casual conversation. Today you can listen to a very good example of a casual conversation with an anecdote. Listen to this podcast of two TAFE teachers, Wendy and Gihan, having a chat during their coffee break. Do the worksheet and choose a classmate to practise anecdote telling later in class. You can record your conversation with Audacity.

A very important skill to learn when preparing an excursion or a day out in a big city like Sydney is to know how to plan your trip ahead. We are going to use trains, so check the CityRail website and follow these steps:

1. Click on timetables
2. Select a station. You will be shown which line it belongs to
3. Click on that line in the city direction (in our case it's Bondi)
4. Select the page with the time when you want to travle (in our case 7-10.06 am)
5. Write down the time you have to catch the train in order to be at Town Hall at 9:41 am
6. Now check the timetable again to find out when to leave Darling Harbour if we want to get to Kogarah station at 2:19 pm.

Trip Planner

CityRail aslo offers the possibility of planning your trip ahead. Click on the transport Info icon below:

Swine Flu (contd)

If you want to create a greeting or message like this, click on the picture and follow the link. You can then use printScreen & paint to save as a picture and upload it onto your blog.

Welcome to our three new students, Sunita, Nunung & Yasmin!

Today we'll continue our work about Swine Flu.

• Watch the BTN episode on Swine Flu. Ask me for the worksheets if you don't have them.
• Do the worksheet
• With your group write your report in our f2f wiki
• With Audacity, record your section of the report. When it's ready save it in a usb (memory stick) or email it to the teacher.

Weekend Practice

Swine Flu, Easter Eggs

Thinking about your learning

Spend a minute to answer this survey about Learning English. Check the results and see if they change.

Listening to yourselves & Speaking to each other

From now on I will post your podcasts in a new Sydney Institute blog called We talk!. This means that we won't have any problems listening to them at TAFE. I will still publish them in Let's talk! as this has a bit of a following (past students, other Australian TAFE classes, other ESL learners & teachers from overseas). So welcome to your new podcasting blog. I'm looking forward to your new radio programs. Keep talking!

• Today you can listen to your second podcast made by Mouri, Dina, Asha & Rosa. We talk with an AMEP teacher, Melanie, and her students about making Easter Eggs.


• Practise your pronunciation. Using Audacity we are going to record ourselves telling the story of Waratah Romance so far. You can use the words in this box to remember details of the story.

Writing & searching the Internet for News

We are continuing with our group Swine Flu work from last week.

• Watch this BTN video for more information about Sine Flu.


• With your group, work on your article by adding new information to what you wrote last week.


• Start publishing your work in our f2f SI wiki. Go to News (page link on the left sidebar). The create a new page for your group and link to it form the news page.


• We will record a radio program on Swine flu for We talk! as soon as your group is ready.

Vocabulary & twitter challenge

You can do this at home on the weekend:

• Idiom Connection Print the first section to undestand the difference between idiom, phrasal verbs and proverbs.
  
• Choose an idiom from the Animal Idioms list and write 2 sentences with it. Write them in the f2f wiki and at home publish them in twitter writing @English_Phrases in your twit.