Say Goodbye to Mocrosoft Word Feedback Now!

http://www.techsmith.com/jing-features.html

What is Jing?


Jing, is a software which could let users capture an image of what they see on their computer screens. It could also record up to 5 minutes of onscreen video.


Why is this particular tool relevant to language learning? What approaches to language learning underpin the use of this technology?


With the advent of Jing, teachers could give feedback instantly and vividly to their students. This could greatly foster the learner autonomy. “autonomy is a capacity---for detachment, critical reflection, decision-making, and independent action” (Little 1991:4). Students could improve their language learning result under their teachers' guidance in the video feedback.


How might you use it to foster language learning outside class?


This feedback could be not only helpful to just writing skills, you can always rewind the video to practise your other language skills, for example, listening skill.


What limitations can you see with the use of this technology?


Firstly, teachers who give feedback are supposed to be a fluent speaker in target language, if not, the efficiency of this tool could not be reflected.


Second, you might still need to write an email, suppose your students' language are not  so competent to follow what you said in the Jing feedback video.

The Beauty of Words

Pale Blue Dot

http://www.wordle.net/

What does wordle do?

Wordle is a tool for producing  “word clouds” from text (articles, sonnets, or even documentary evidence,etc.) that you input. The more frequent the word appears, the larger the font size could be. You could tailor your own word clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color choices at will. 

How might you use it to foster language learning in class?

In class,  it could be used  in two ways.
First, we could teach intensive reading by displaying this wordle image to students. As shown above, which I generated by inputting one of my favourite articles (Pale Blue Dot, written by  Carl Sagan ), key words or to be specific, theme words come out.We could design tasks, for example, let students predict according to a Wordle picture , suppose they were this article's writer and how  they might produce their articles. Obviously, this method could greatly motivate students to understand this article.

On the other hand , we could employ Wordle in anlysing an essay, for instance,a letter, or an academic writing. We could input a model essay in specific genre into Wordle, common words like the, a(an), to,numbers excluded by default, some words and expressions which used frequently in this genre might appear prominently. This way could be more striking and stimulating to your students in teaching them writing an article.

What limitations can you see with the use of this technology?


First, suppose you just store it in public gallery like I did, theoretically, everyone who found it can use it.

Second, Wordle does not support to input ideographic fonts, for example, Chinese!