BP10_comment to Elizabeth Lundstrum's blog

You have to check out this amazing Web 2.0 tool Elizabeth found called Shidonni. Follow my comment to Elizabeth Lundstrum's Web 2.0 tool.

BP9_Comment to Gregg's blog

Check out my comment to Gregg's newest discovery called Edmodo.

BP8_Forvo

Ever had problems pronouncing a word or simply didn't know how to pronounce a word?  Don't worry because Fervo has just solved all your pronouncing problems!

Fervo is a simple Web 2.0 tool and the perfect tool to use in all my classes.  It's not only very beneficial for all language learners, but also for native speakers of any language who want to pronounce correctly.  What makes Fervo different from other translators is that people can add words, pronounce, or just listen and learn.  It includes accents from all over the world and when you click on a word to listen to, it tells you the country the person is from.  This powerful tool has recorded words from native speakers in over 200 languages, over 700,000 words, and continues to grow!  There is more to this tool that makes it great and user friendly. 

Fervo's home page is well structured and has five main tabs: home, languages, categories, pronounce, and users.  In the home page you can see the sites activity. For example, you see the number of speakers, words pronounced, and pending pronunciation; as well as, categories, and your own personal activity once you become a member.  In the language tab you can see all the languages with the number of words pronounced and recent words pronounced beside each language. Further, each language has a code (en for English) and the activity that is happening in each language. The categories tab shows you all the categories. The pronounce tab shows you all the words that need to be pronounced in your language(s); which you can help by pronouncing and you can also can add words to your language. Finally, the users tab shows you all the users and the number of words they have pronounce.

Other perks about this site is that it's safe, it has an iphone app, you can vote on the best pronunciation, and you can receive messages from other users within the site.  You can set up your privacy and also receive notifications from Fervo to your email. Overall, I think this Web 2.0 will be very useful to those who want to perfect their pronunciation or help others.

BP7_OMM_Twiducate

This is first promotional ETC one minute message on Twiducate. Watch it and find out why it's an amazing Web 2.0 tool to use in your class to engage your students and increase communication with parents. Enjoy!

BP6_comment to Pamela

Follow this link to my comment on Pamela's blog.

BP5_Comment to Emil

Follow this link to my comment on Emil's blog.

BP4_Twiducate

I have found Twiducate to be the perfect Web 2.0 tool to use for my AR project because it's a social network for schools. With this tool I hope to be able to motivate and increase my students English language fluency outside the classroom in a safe virtual environment.

Who are the developers of Twiducate? Teachers! Therefore, this social network gives you  all the benefits of a social network like Twitter by allowing you to include discussions, pictures, and links, but it also allows teachers to post deadlines, homework, and surveys. 

What are the benefits of Twiducate?  One of the best features I have found is that it helps facilitate the management of all your classes, as well as, making it user friendly for both teachers and students. For example, teachers are able to add multiple classes in their page, navigate between classes, and add all their students names under the corresponding class. The system automatically generates each students' password or the teacher can create it.  Therefore, each student is able to login to their classroom making it safe to use and easy to manage by the teacher.  Although this is a great Web 2.0 tool there are a couple of downfalls.

First of all, it's important to keep in mind that Twiducate is social network for schools; therefore, it is limited in includes features that we are used to seeing in social networks. For example you can't add music or videos directly into your post, instead you would have to add it as a bookmark.  You also can't add pictures from your personal file, you can only add pictures from a url link. As for your profile picture, you can only choose from the avatar pictures that the site provides. Further, Twiducate is a new Web 2.0 tool and is still being developed to provide teachers and students with all the necessary features.

Overall, Twiducate is a great educational social network tool that you can use in schools unlike other social websites that are blocked by firewalls and administrators.  Despite the downfalls, it serves the purpose of collaborating into with your students outside the classroom and gives teachers control and easy management of their classrooms.  I'm already using it to share information with my critical friends and I will definitely use it for my AR project.