Category: Learning

Good quality video Part II

Recording high-quality video Part II Recording video from webcams: Several HD (high definition) web cameras have appeared on the market recently promising to record up to 1400 by 900 pixel resolution video for an outlay of around €100 or less. The specific webcams that I’ve seen are the Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000, the Microsoft ????… Continue reading Good quality video Part II

Social networking for EFL/ESL

In this article, I’m going to discuss the relevance of social networking to learners of English, some of the developments in learning English as a foreign/second language on-line and how this might shape the future of e-learning and learning management systems for EFL/ESL. So much to learn, so little time to learn it. For learners… Continue reading Social networking for EFL/ESL

Making e-learning resources relevant

E-learning resources have a number of advantages over book and paper based resources. In this article, I’m going to write about one in particular: the importance of being able to edit the resources that you use with learners. This article focuses directly on resources for learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as… Continue reading Making e-learning resources relevant

Video formats and media containers

…or Why don’t videos of the same type, i.e. AVI, MPEG, etc., work on everyone’s computers? With broadband Internet connections becoming the norm, video on the web has become commonplace but beware, authoring video files for deployment on the web can be a minefield –  WMV, FLV, MOV, MP4, F4V – There’s a dizzying array… Continue reading Video formats and media containers

Students adore Moodle

I’ve just read this post by Phil Shapiro on his PCWorld.com blog. He certainly lays lavish praise on Martin Dougiamas‘ brainchild and life’s work, an LMS (learning management system) called Moodle. Read the article here. Update Here’s a global map of Moodle sites and list of links to them. Here’s a set of bar graphs… Continue reading Students adore Moodle

Good quality video

  This article is a follow-up to my post, “Good quality audio”. Here, I’ll give a few tips aimed at new-comers to recording video for the web and how to get the best results. I’m assuming that, as a new-comer, you have very basic, low-budget equipment or are about to buy or borrow some. Obviously,… Continue reading Good quality video

Google Wave

Another revolution in the way we communicate and interact with each other on the web. Google may have done it yet again. Introducing… Google Wave! What is it? It’s difficult to explain. The Google developers’ way of describing it is to ask the question, “What would e-mail look like if it were invented today?” It’s… Continue reading Google Wave

LiveMocha.com & Pearson buddy up

Reuters announced on Wednesday 11th March of this year that LiveMocha.com and Pearson Education Publishing (owners of Longman Publishing) have teamed up to provide a English as a Foreign Language e-learning service marketed directly to consumers. What is LiveMocha.com? It’s essentially a social networking website, similar to Facebook, for example (it evens includes a Facebook linking… Continue reading LiveMocha.com & Pearson buddy up

Good quality audio

What’s the best way to record audio and achieve professional sounding results? It’s not as expensive or as difficult as you might think. For the average Podcaster or for dialogues and presentations, it’s relatively easy to get set up and start producing high quality audio material like a radio station. Let me explain some of… Continue reading Good quality audio