Six Online Corpora

Ever wonder how a word has been used by native speakers?

All the time?

Well check out this amazing resource. I'm just getting to know it a little myself, but so far I'm very impressed.
American English, British English, Spanish and Portuguese.
http://view.byu.edu/

Nik Peachey is just that!

Nik Peachey has hundreds of cool ideas how you can use Web 2.0 to learn and teach English better. I can't wait to explore them and his free e-book!


http://www.scribd.com/doc/19576895/Web-20-Tools-for-Teachers

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Year

Larry is a teacher in California. He must be a very busy guy. And his students must have a lot of fun learning English because Larry's always on the lookout for websites that make learning English fun.

Have a look and see what you can discover!

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/about/websites-of-the-year/

Live Mocha

New site that uses social networking to help you connect with other people around the world who are interested in learning foreign languages as well as friendly native speakers of those languages who are willing to help you practice your skills.

From what I can see, your level of English will probably be much higher than the level of German most learners of German have, but that should not be a problem at all. You help them with their German and they help you with your English. For free!

The most exciting part in my view is the concept of community. Quoting from the site...

Community
Livemocha contains a friendly community of like-minded language learners. You'll make friends with and connect with native speakers.
Interacting with people from around he world will quickly develop your conversational skills and give you insight into regional language nuances, customs, and culture.

Here are two videos to watch explaining how livemocha works. Watch them and then just jump in and join the community!

http://www.livemocha.com/help/view/intro_to_lessons

http://www.livemocha.com/help/view/making_friends

Google in a Basket

This is a conceptual model by Dr Helen Barrett that I like very much. It suggests using Google tools to facilitate an online learning portfolio.

It's very much "putting all your eggs in one basket" kinda thing, but there is something to be said for the convenience of having just one basket...and we all know Google is fast and good.

It is similar to what I have been working on this summer which involves using the wetpaint wikis I have set up, Blogger blogs, and portals like netvibes. The problem from a teacher's point of view of course is managing all these portfolios and documents, but perhaps this might be possible by using the Google Reader and the RSS technology.

Dr Barrett is a real expert when it comes to this e-learning stuff so I hope I can learn something from her and design something that makes learning (and teaching) more efficient and fun for me and my students.

Things You Really Need to Learn

Interesting ideas from a guy named Stephen Downes from Canada, an expert in online education. I like his philosophy and the presentation he gave recently in Taiwan is quite interesting too. He discusses the future of open learning resources, from Web 2.0 to networked learning to the personal learning environment

Here's his website.