One challenge faced by many teachers is to find a simple way to distribute, receive and exchange documents with students.  Email is too limiting when it comes to managing a large number of documents , and the file size restrictions make sending large documents difficult, if not possible.

An alternative is to make use of an online file storage and collaboration service. Many such services exist; however, from my experience, the best is drop.io. 

Think of a ''drop'' as a place where you drop off things for others to pick up. It is perfect for storing course materials for students, and for any type of group project where students need to collaborate.

On drop.io you can store up to 100 MB for free (more than enough for most uses) without creating an account. Check out the great video on the home page:

Here’s how it works:

1.    Go to http://drop.io: 

2.    Each time you go to the site, a random url address is generated automatically. In the example above it's: http://drop.io/thl6r6i. You can change the end to something easier to remember, such as http://drop.io/my_english_class.

3.    Click on ''Select Files'' to upload files to your drop.

4.    You can configure your drop.io space by clicking on ''Additional options'' just below ''Select Files.''

·         Set a ''Guest Password'' to limit access to your drop

·         Choose when you want the drop to expire, i.e. when your drop and the documents, photos, etc. you added to it, will be deleted.

·         Decide whether ''guests'' (your students, colleagues, . . .) can add, delete, download or comment on files.

5.    When you’re finished, click on ''Create a Drop.'' Your drop will be created. On the new screen you have an option to set an administrator password so that you can change the drop’s settings or receive an email in case you forget your drop address or password.  This is optional, but it’s a good idea.

6.     Communicate your drop url and password (if you created one) to your students and/or colleagues.

7.    When others go to your drop, they simply have to hover their mouse over a file they would like to download to see a menu appear.

That covers the basics. You can actually do a lot more with drop.io, but the best way to discover the other functions is to go the site and play around with it. I suggest you start by creating a sample drop to discover all the possibilities.

Hope you find that useful!

This is what the University of Lincoln is going to do. It has just become the first UK university to get its own MEC platform. As well as using it with current students, Lincoln will also be using it to test, monitor and build up students' language levels before they even arrive at university.

For Lincoln, this has a number of big advantages. Building up their students' language levels in this way will give students longer to reach the level they want to attain and help them once they arrive.

Settling in will be made easier with access to all the study skills and practical resources from the 'University Culture' section of the English for Academic Purposes content.

It's a great way of building links with students before they even arrive and getting students on board to study at the university.

Mark Forster, senior lecturer at the University's Lincoln Languages Centre, commented on the potential to ''keep in touch with students, monitor their progress and devise a curriculum specifically for them. It means the Lincoln student experience will begin before students have even left their home town.''

Read Lincoln's press release about their use of MEC >

Lure of an unfinished metropolis

This week's news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about the growing number of artists moving to Germany's capital, Berlin, because of low living costs and the tolerance of the city.

You can find this story in the News Items section on your Work Area screen.

We love hearing from MEC teachers, especially about how they use Campus. However, we do not want to keep this information for ourselves only! We like sharing ideas and the best place to do it is our blog. 

We have had teachers in the past sharing their ideas on the MEC blog. There have been a few of them, amongst which were: Anna Rolinska, a teacher in the Czech Republic and recently Barbara Toth from Hungary. Their blog entries were very interesting and inspiring.

If you want to share your ideas with other teachers you can also write a blog entry that we will put up on the MEC blog.

How do I submit a blog posting?

It is very simple, write your blog posting in a word document and send it to me via email to j.trzmielewska@macmillan.com and we will be happy to include it in the next blog update.

I am looking forward to hearing from you!

Earth in danger

This week's news item is our monthly news item for teens. It is about the problems created by climate change and what we can do to save the planet.

You can find this story in the News Items section on your Work Area screen.

You can also find longer versions of the news item with extension activities by logging in to our teachers' area here.

Nowadays, teachers find it challenging to draw and keep students' attention, especially while discussing grammar elements during the class.Students have become more demanding and picky in terms of what types of resources teacher use. It is mostly due to the fact that students use various ways to communicate amongst themselves.

Of course, there are loads of attractive resources that we tend to use in the class like songs or video clips. However, it can be difficult to pick out one that is new to students and raises their interest and attention at the same time. It would also be good, if it provided some entertainment and took students' minds away from the fact that they are  studying.

Here is solution to break the routine: BombayTV

This is an amazing website which not only offers enjoyable activities, but also provides an enduring experience for students. You can find there scenes from Bollywood movies, which are usually packed with melodramatic acting. Students are quickly hooked by the extraordinary intonation and situations presented in the clips.

BombayTV gives teachers a lot of opportunities to work around nice lesson plans.

You could easily present and practice such structures as: 'if only' or 'I'd'. Students could use the target language in the form of subtitles to go with the video clips.

However, the best point of the site is that you can save students' final work and send it or  watch the film clips during a lesson. Then,you could use students' work to organize a Bollywood Award Ceremony. You could also make recordings using the microphone option to make the task even more enjoyable for students.

Have fun and explore the opportunities of this website and enjoy it with your students!

Haiti faces the worst humanitarian crisis in decades

This week's news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about the devastating earthquake in Haiti and the difficulty in getting aid to the survivors.

You can find this story in the News Items section on your Work Area screen.

February word games

This month's Witch’s Pot topics are 'months of the year' (Easy), 'words relating to computers' (Average) and 'expressions relating to the theatre' (Difficult).  

The Swamp Disaster topics are 'sporting terms' (Easy), 'clothing and jewellery' (Average) and 'travel and tourism' (Difficult).

The Wordsearch topics are 'numbers' (Easy), '''watery'' words' (Average) and 'scientific words' (Difficult).

There are new Crosswords and Bridge Builders at all levels too.

Visit the Word Games area to find them all.