Intervue.me is a new website I have been using recently. It's another website that is based around the use of webcams. The site enables users to create questionnaires and then get the recipients of the questionnaire to leave video recorded answers. The site is very easy to use.
Register the go to 'My Dashboard' and click on 'Create New' to start your first questionnaire.
First you decide on the levels of privacy you want for the questionnaire and whether you want people to be able to leave anonymous answers or add comments to the answers.
Next you click on 'Start adding questions'. You can type in your question and give more explanation below the question if you think that makes it clearer. You can add as many questions as you want. You'll also need to click on 'Edit title' so that you can give your questionnaire a name.
Once you have added all your questions you can just click on 'Share' or 'Invite' to either get a URL for your questionnaire or to email it to specific people. Then once people receive the questionnaire they just click on the questions and record their answers using the webcam in their laptop.
To see all the videos you can just go to 'My Dashboard' and click on the 'Videos' tab. Here are some example questionnaires I have created. Feel free to leave an answer to any of the questions.
Create comprehension check questions to go with reading homework so that students also do some speaking for homework.
Create opinion polls for students to answer.
Make action research questionnaires
Play the alibi game and get students to explain where they were and what they were doing at particular points in time.
Ask students about childhood memories.
What I like about Intervue.me
It's very quick and easy to create questionnaires
It's a great way to provide speaking practice for students.
You can add more detail and explanation to the questions.
Students get to practice their digital communication skills.
Students will be able to watch and listen to their replies and rerecord them so this will focus them on accuracy.
It can be more communicative and engaging than writing down answers as students can also see the other answers that have been recorded.
You can create long questionnaires or very simple single question ones.
What I'm not so sure about.
It could take time to get students feeling comfortable in front of the camera, so you might need to help them a little and get them to think about lighting and getting the correct distance from the camera.
Be careful about enabling anonymous replies or comments as this could be abused.
Students need a laptop with a reasonable quality microphone.
I hope you find Intervue.me useful and that your students get plenty of speaking practice.
I recently spotted this very interesting site called Vyou.com which exploits video to create asynchronous conversations. I find it interesting because of the simple way it creates presence. As you can see below, it looks like the person (me in this case) is waiting ready for your question.
All visitors need to do is type a question into the text line below the video and the creator will get a message with the question and post a reply. You can try it if you wish by posting a question to me. I'm not sure yet how long it will take for me to answer though.
This is very quick and easy to set up. You just go to the site and register for free, then once your registration is validated you record two short video clips. One is the one you can see above and another for unanswered questions. As questions are answered they appear below the 'waiting' video.
It's also a bit like Twitter in that you can 'follow' people and build up a group of followers. These people all receive notification of any video responses posted.
I'm trying this out because I think it's a great way of getting students to speak to each other and ask you or each other questions. All you need is a webcam and a microphone. How to use this with students
You could set up your own grammar or vocabulary answers site and students could send you questions.
You could get students to ask each other questions about a story.
You could play animal, mineral or vegetable and each students has to ask question to see what you are thinking about.
You could just get students asking and answering questions about their likes and dislikes etc.
I think this would work particularly well for class exchanges with students from other classes or countries.
What I like about it
It's free and very quick and simple to set up.
There's a real feeling of presence and that someone is there waiting for your question.
I can generate some real spoken interaction.
It's a very simple idea made very effective.
You can embed the video chat into your blog or site.
What I'm not so sure about
Of course something like this is very much open to abuse, especially as it allows anonymous questions to be posted.
The widget which I've embedded into my post is a bit big and it would be nice to have smaller sizes.
A lot of the example conversations that have been created on the site are a bit adult in nature and certainly inappropriate for younger learners, so if you use it, be sure to use it with adults and embed it into a blog or site so that your students don't wander round the site.
WebCams aren't generally very flattering, especially in a bad light, but you can always wear a big hat or dark glasses.
If you do give this a try, please do follow me and I'll reciprocate, as I'd like to find out a bit more about how this will work in practice. You can visit my profile on the site at: http://vyou.com/nikpeachey . There you will be able to see a better view of the full size widget.
Back in November 2008 I published Part 1 of a series of articles intended to explore the use of WebCams in education. I have now finally got round to writing Part 2 which is a collection of 20 activities EFL ESL teachers can do with their students. The post was instigated by Ana Maria Menezes who sent a video message to me through Tokbox asking for suggestions for ways yo exploit it.
I've used Tokbox because it is a free online video conferencing tool that enables you to communicate using different 'modes'.
These are 1 to 1 live synchronous direct communication
One to many, by creating an asynchronous 'public broadcast stream' - like a series of short video programs
Many to many live synchronous video conferencing
One to many private asynchronous communication - by emailing links to video clips with text message included.
One of the great advantages of Tokbox is that any video messages or clips you create are stored and can be shared either through links or by embedding them into web pages (like the examples below). Here's a rather dated video showing how Tokbox works (The interface has been up dated since this was made , but the functionality is still very similar)
20 WebCam Activities
1. Chinese - video dictation - whispers - Use the video email feature to record a short text. Send it to the first of your students. Ask your student to write down the message and then record it themselves and send it to the next student. Each student should rerecord and send the message on to another, until the last student sends it back to you. You will then see how accurately the message matches to your original text.
2. Interactive video learning diary - You could get students to create an interactive learning diary, they could email you their video summary of what they feel they have learned each day and you could then respond. The videos would form a good learning record and students will be able to look back at them later and see how they have improved - quite literally - and also hear the improvements in their speaking ability. This is also a great way to give your students one-to-one-time which can often be a problem in class.
3. Class survey - Action research - You could send a video message to your students with a class survey question that they could respond to. This would be a good way to carry out classroom research, decide on learning goals and make sure that all students had a means to feedback to you in private and on an individual basis. They could also create their own questions and send them to each other, then feedback in class.
4. The witness - Show half of your students a video clip or picture, that includes a number of people (scenes from films with bank robberies, where a number of people are involved are quite useful for this). Then ask the students to imagine that they are one of the people in the film or picture and they need to describe what happened. Ask them to record a video statement giving their account of what happened in the first person. You can then ask the other students to imagine they are detectives and watch the clips your students have created and make notes to piece together what happened. Afterwards they can watch the original film clip together in class and you can see how well they did and what they missed. Here's an example bank robbery scene
5. Favourite poems or haiku - Students could record themselves reading their favourite poem or haiku, you could then embed the videos into a web page or blog as a class poetry collection.
6. Video twitter - Using the feed feature you could create a kind of video Twitter, with your students video micro-blogging about learning English, their day at school, or any topic they find interesting.
7. Text and video error correction - Using the video email feature, you could record a video of yourself reading a text, then add the text within the email message. You could include some errors in the text and get them to watch the video and correct the errors.
8. Create a collaborative story - Email students a video with the first line of a story and ask them to record your line of the story and add their own, then pass it back, or pass it on to another student. This way you could build up a story between the group over a period of time.
9. Tip of the day - Send you students a learning tip each day by video email. These could be exam tips, study tips, recommended website etc.(The URL for the website would appear in the text part of the message below the video - see: http://www.tokbox.com/vm/lwrtuj1jhuog)
10. Video dictation - Send a video email of yourself dictating a text and ask your students to watch and write the text in the email and send it back to you for correction.
11. Vocabulary record / word of the day - You could ask your students to create a video to record the words and example sentences. You could also do something like this yourself as a kind of 'Word of the Day' channel.
12. News Reports - Ask students to read the news ( in English or their own first language) and then produce a video news report on one of the main stories that they are interested in. They could also create their own local or school video news channel for other students to subscribe to.
13. Present continuous (sound on or off) - You can record video clips to demonstrate present continuous sentences. You can do this with sound on or with sound off and the students can guess the sentence .
14. Questions for response - You could set up clips with questions and ask your students to respond online. They could also set up a sequence of their own questions for other students to respond to.
15. Guess the object - You or students could record a description of and object and viewers have to listen and guess what the object is. Getting students to create these clips will help them to be concise and really identify the key concepts behind describing objects.
16. Sales pitch - A variation on the idea above is to ask students to produce a video trying to convince users to buy a particular object. Again this helps them to identify key concepts, gives them practice with using language of persuasion and it may well help them to push for faster speaking speeds and better fluency.
17. Moods - You can create video clips of yourself or your students expressing different moods. This can help them to learn the vocabulary of the moods, but you could also use it to get students to predict the cause of the mood ( and practice present perfect; "He's angry because he has just been made redundant." etc.)
18. Live tutoring support - Tokbox and video conferencing is an ideal tool for supporting distance learners and doing 'face to face' tutorials.
19. Video interviews - You could get in touch with someone for your class to interview. Just have one computer plus camera set up in class, and a visiting expert, friend or colleague on the other end for your students to interview. They could also interview an expert in groups from home with a conference call. The interview doesn't have to be done 'live' it could also be done through a series of email video messages sent to the interviewee.You can try it here by watching this video and then clicking reply.
20. Video lesson with conferencing - You could use the conference call to videocast your lesson or presentation to a group of distance learners.
I hope you find these suggestions useful and manage to use some of them with your students. Do drop me a line if you have other recommendations for useful video conferencing tools or activities. You can find more video related activities for EFL ESL here.
This morning I spotted Solvr on MakeUseOf and decided to give it a try. Solvr is a free easy and interesting way to collaboratively brainstorm and attempt to solve problems online.
It's very simple set up. You just got to http://www.a.freshbrain.com/solvr/ type your problem into the field and then click 'Start'. You will then see your problem with a number of options underneath.
You can add different elements of the problem, make suggestions by adding ideas and leave comments. The collaborative part comes in when you share the URL with someone, then other people can come and join in the problem solving and brainstorming. Here's the URL for the 'Making a living 'problem I set up.
I also set up a problem earlier on today, which was about integrating technology into the ELT classroom. I added a couple of elements of the problem and then posted it to Twitter. With a few minutes, the problem started to develop as people added in comments solutions, and even started to vote on the solutions.
So how do we use this with students? We can set up a whole range of debates and online collaborative tasks.
You could set up debates on the environment or other issues that your students find relevant. Here's an example on how to end world hunger. Each students could have their own topic to brainstorm the elements and causes of the problem, then students could exchange links and try to offer solutions to each other's problems.
You could use Solver to get anonymous feedback from your action research tasks. This would also enable you to enter into debate with the students and get a deeper level of understanding of their responses.
You could use it to address classroom issues or learning issues and explain some of the rationale behind activities. This would enable students to safely and anonymously discuss the issues with you. Here's an example We don't like reading in class
You could use it to brainstorm vocabulary around a topic or theme and then get your students to add definitions, and other elements of information about the words, like their parts of speech, collocations, example sentences etc. Here's an example on politics. Feel free to add to it.
You could use Solvr to plan an events like a class outing, party or doing a play. This way you can get students to think about the different jobs involved and decisions to be made, decide who will do them and explore the potential obstacles.
What's so good about it?
It's free. very quick and really simple to use.
It encourages critical thinking skills and the breaking down of problems into manageable elements.
It encourages debate and interactive discussion.
It's very versatile.
Great for interactive homework tasks
It can be used synchronously or asynchronously.
It can give students time to think about and review what they write.
Students can see the ebb and flow of ideas and opinions and the way they interact.
Solvr also seems to work in Second Life. Check out Peter Miller's posting: Problem Solvr
It's anonymous so students can be honest without being identified.
What I'm not so sure about
It's anonymous, so can be open to abuse.
It shouldn't be used to replace face to face debate in class, where that is possible, but could be useful to prime students before class so they have more ideas when they come to class for discussion.
Carries some advertising, but students can be asked to ignore the ads.
It's still being tested, so you debates could disappear or there could be bugs.
I think Solvr is a really useful addition to any teacher's technological tool set, especially if you are involved in any kind of distance learning courses. I hope your students enjoy it and that you think of other useful ways to use it.
You can type in your question and give more explanation below the question if you think that makes it clearer. You can add as many questions as you want. You'll also need to click on 'Edit title' so that you can give your questionnaire a name.
