EDpuzzle - a nice tool for Flipped classrooms - embed quizzes into Youtube videos

EDpuzzle is a nice tool for embedding quizzes, and discussion questions into YouTube videos. EDpuzzle allows you to create a classroom within EDpuzzle, so you can assign a video assignment to your students. You can also prevent students from skipping or fast forwarding through the video.

I recently taught a Leadership class to my EFL students at a university in Korea. The text for the course was "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.", by Stephen Covey. Below, is a nice , short, subtitled video summarizing the 7 habits. I embedded short comprehension questions throughout and assigned it to my class.

I highly recommend EDpuzzle for your class, and I fully intend to use it in the future for all of my classes.

Memrise.com , My KOTESOL Conference Presentation

Last semester, I conducted a research study testing the effectiveness of Memrise.com as a tool to help students learn vocabulary. There WAS a significant difference between the control group and the experimental group on the amount of vocabulary words retained. My research partner and I are in the process of finalizing the research paper and getting it published. This past Thanksgiving, my partner and I presented our findings at the annual KOTESOL (Korean TESOL) conference.

On a personal note. I HAVE used Memrise.com to study the Korean language and I DO believe it is an effective tool for learning vocabulary, as well as many other topics. So, I highly recommend Memrise.com. It is an effective tool because it is based on the Spaced Repetition method for retaining new information.

Check it out at the following link: https://www.memrise.com/

YouTube tutorial I recorded to explain how to use Smore.com

Smore.com is a wonderful on-line poster website I will certainly use again with my different classes. You can embed sound, video, and other links to make for an interesting tool to use for in class or on-line presentation.

Smore.com - an on-line poster website, capable of embedding sound recording , videos, & other links.

Here is an example Smore.com poster I presented to my EFL class in South Korea to explain what was expected of them, when they worked on their own projects advertising a country of their own choosing. Scroll down on the poster to hear a SoundCloud recording of my voice discussing Iceland's wonderful tourist offerings.

Smore - a wonderful on-line Poster site , Soundcloud - a very useful recording site

Smore.com On-line Poster Advertisement Tutorial (& Soundcloud) from Ron Genech

Smore.com is a wonderful on-line poster website I recently used with my EFL students in South Korea. Their assignment was to present an on-line travel poster, advertising a country of their choosing. With SoundCloud, they were able to record their voices, describing their country. They then presented their travel posters to the class in person. Some students also elected to include short video clips in their presentations. Below are some links to several of my student's presentations. https://www.smore.com/eb08y-new-zealand https://www.smore.com/60zm1-welcome-to-brazil https://www.smore.com/5gchm - singapore https://www.smore.com/s4f8k-about-andorra https://www.smore.com/tvvbs - italy

Building Online Learning Environments - Final Project

This slideshare is a summary of my experiences enrolled in a DCIU course entitled, Building Online Learning Environments,during the Summer of 2015. This course was a good "kick in the seat of the pants" for me to finally explore some 'rainy day' tech tools I have been meaning to use for some time. I look forward to adding to this blog in the future. Thanks for visiting !

Building Online Learning Environments - Ron Genech -Final Presentation from Ron Genech

Speech Accent Archive, ManyThings.org, Vocaroo.com - 3 good English Pronunciation tools.

The Speech Accent Archive is a pretty interesting site for students to hear people from all over the world read the same paragraph. I used it recently, when I taught a class of Korean students preparing for the TOEIC Speaking Test. Manythings.org is also a useful website for ESL / EFL teaching. Finally, Vocaroo.com is a good tool for students to record their voices, so they can hear their pronunciation and realize what areas of pronunciation they need to improve.

TOEIC speaking Test Pronunciation Practice from Ron Genech