MEC Training Coordinator, Steph Earnshaw, writes:

Click here to see a useful page listing the top 100 e-learning tools, nominated by various e-learning experts. The list has been compiled by Jane Hart on her site Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies.

My favourite e-learning tool and, I think, one of the most relevant to English language teaching, is Audacity. Jane and friends explain the benefits of Audacity here. As they say, it's the perfect online tool for creating and editing podcasts for use in class. You might even want to ask your students to create podcasts as a homework activity. I've also talked about Audacity before on this blog, here. 

One online tool I hadn't heard of is Ning. With Ning you can create your own social network and customize it in any way you want without having to stick to particular formats or privacy settings as with Facebook or MySpace. For example, you might like to use it to set up a network for your class so that you can send them links to educational websites, blogs or online videos. Find out what Jane's experts say about Ning here. 

Remember that any online tools, podcasts, videos or social networking sites can easily be linked into MEC through the My Web Links area. Just go to My Web Links and click 'Add new' to create a New Weblink, as shown below. To publish your web Links to your students just click 'Publish weblink'.

If you'd like to see an online demo of how to create MEC Bookmarks, Word Lists or Web Links and then publish them to your students, click here.

MEC Senior Editor, Jeremy Smith, writes:

Extension to internet surveillance proposed This week's news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about a proposal by the British government to increase the powers of security and intelligence agencies to access personal data through the internet.

To find out about these new powers and the implications they could have, go to the News Items section on your Work Area screen.

MEC Training Coordinator, Steph Earnshaw, writes:

If you have internet access in your classroom then why not have some fun in your next lesson with www.fodey.com? I came across it when looking at one of our favourite blogs, the Learning technology teacher development blog, which is run by Nick Peachey. Thanks Nick!

On Fodey.com you can have a great time playing with characters such as the little fellow below.

Just type into the box below the image to control what the different (funny looking) characters say. You can choose from many different characters. Below are just a few.

Fodey.com is a great way of getting students to practise writing dialogues and expressing themselves. If they're feeling really keen you could get them practising their journalism skills in English by creating your own fodey.com newspaper. Just click the Newspaper link at the top of the Fodey homepage. Here's one we made earlier.

If you don't have internet at school, why not get your students to write a newspaper article on fodey.com for homework? They can save it from the site, print it out and bring it in next lesson to share it with the rest of the class. Great fun!

Overwhelmed Galapagos takes aim at illegal workers

Are you one of the many Macmillan English Campus users who has been asking us for reading materials for teens? Well, in response to popular demand we're delighted to announce that from October 2008 we'll be publishing a monthly News item for teens graded at three language levels.

Teen interest

Based on articles from Spot on, a magazine written especially for teens studying English, the news items will include articles on topics which teens find interesting alongside enjoyable classroom activities.

Engaging activities

Each News item for teens will include an article, plus an activity to develop reading comprehension skills and a web project that can be completed in class or for homework. In addition, you can download an extended version of the article from our support site, along with a worksheet for use in class.

Downloadable worksheet

The worksheet includes lead-in activities to introduce the topic and present the key vocabulary, the reading text and follow-on activities. You can also refer to the worksheet for the answers to the comprehension questions. The News item for teens is the basis of an enjoyable lesson for teens that is quick and easy to prepare.

October's News item for teens

This month we are launching the News item for teens with an article about New Zealand: a country with fantastic scenery and home to extreme sports fanatics. The authors write about bungee jumping and scuba diving; meet the people who live and work in New Zealand's most beautiful natural areas; and interview the teenagers who enjoy these hair-raising adventures.

If you want to find some excellent teaching ideas on using technology in the classroom then it's worth your while visiting Nik Peachey's blog Learning technology teacher development.

One of his postings tells us all about Gifup, a site that allows to you make your own photo slide shows. As usual, Nik suggests some useful ways to use Gifup in class and highlights the advantages and disadvantages.

You could create a photo slideshow to use with a MEC vocabulary activity. For example if you're using the MEC Vocabulary Activity Clothes you could find lots of pictures of clothes, use Gifup to create a slideshow and ask learners to shout out the correct names as a follow-up activity.

October sees the launch of Spot on news lessons for teens! Based on articles from Spot on magazine, this series includes worksheets and activities written by our Author of the month, Karen Richardson.

We know you've been on tenterhooks waiting to find out what happens to the characters in the onestopenglish soap opera, The Road Less Travelled. So, will Sal marry Rich? Will Katie confess all? Will Michael finally ask Katie out on a date? In anticipation of the launch of Season Two, we've prepared a special trailer to remind you of the story so far...

We've had lots of entries in the Onestopenglish Video Dictionary Competition and, after some serious debate here at onestopenglish HQ, we've chosen this worthy winner for October!

We are pleased to announce that the Technical University of Munich(TUM) has joined the MEC flock. As you can see from the photo I spent a couple of days training their group of dedicated EFL teachers.

MEC Product Trainer, Sarah Milligan, writes:

We’ve spoken about Voicethread quite a lot on this blog, that’s because it’s full of inspiring ideas. If you don’t know what it is yet you can find out here.

MEC Senior Editor, Jeremy Smith, writes:

Hollywood actor Paul Newman dies

This week's news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about the life of Paul Newman, one of the great Hollywood actors who was also a philanthropist and political activist. Go to the News Items section on your Work Area screen to find out about his life.

October word games

This month’s Witch’s Pot topics are ‘words related to weather’ (Easy), ‘words connected with theatre performance’ (Average) and ‘financial terms’ (Difficult).

The Swamp Disaster topics are ‘food and drink’ (Easy), ‘film and music’ (Average) and ‘words that follow “get”’ (Difficult).

The Wordsearch topics are ‘musical instruments’ (Easy), ‘clothes and make-up’ (Average) and ‘houses and gardens’ (Difficult).

There are new Crosswords and Bridge Builders at all levels too. Visit the Word Games area to find them all.

The lovely image above was made using the website Wordle - Beautiful Word Clouds. I thought it might be useful for teachers using an IWB or data projector. Click on 'create' and add some text or even the url or Rss feed of a website to make a beautiful word cloud.

 Here are a couple of ideas for using Wordle in class:

1. Create your own Wordle using vocabulary you're about to teach and put it on your IWB flipchart or project it onto the wall to introduce the lesson.

2. Choose a song you'd like to do with your class. Get the lyrics from one of the many song lyric websites. (Click here for one I found earlier). Make a Wordle from the lyrics, add it to your IWB flipchart or project it. Ask your learners to guess what they think the song is going to be about by looking at the vocabulary. Below is a Wordle made from the David Bowie classic 'Changes'.

If you think of any more ways to use Wordle, let us know!

The front entrance of the Davis Campus, Sheridan Institute of Advanced Learning

We're very pleased to tell you that the Sheridan Institute of Advanced Learning has started using Macmillan English Campus. It was my pleasure to go over to Toronto, Canada to run two days of training for the Sheridan teachers on the 22nd and 23rd September, 2008.

Sheridan College provides full and part time English courses for adult students. Courses include English for Academic Purposes, Business English and General English. There are also a range of courses teaching English relating to Canadian culture. Seventeen of the Sheridan teachers attended for two days of MEC Basics, MEC in use and MEC Administration training. They are already familiar with using online resources and technology in the classroom, and the college is very well equipped with computer labs and data projectors, so we hope that MEC will prove to be a big success!

Thanks to everyone who came to the training for their friendliness and enthusiasm. We're looking forward to hearing how it goes with MEC at Sheridan.