Zeynep BAŞER

VOCABULARY TEACHING

www.wordchamp.com

wordchamp is seen as a really efficient and amazing language tools by the users of it. Wordchamp has several features which most of them are free. Its features are really amaizing. For instance, you can read a website by using wordchamp so that it gives the meanings and explanation of unknown items when you click on the word. You can also easily access to the largest and fastes growing language learning library including flashcards and audio recordings of native speakers via it. Wordchamp even provides twelve different drills for the language learners to practice on what languages they want. Moreover, teachers can create a class and assign the assignment to the the students on the internet. However, although teachers do not pay for enrollment, students have to pay 12.50 dolars ( to access for up to six months). Just after they pay for it , the students can acces to the interactive class and assignments. Besides these, people can create their flashcards lists and share these. They can also find language partners here.

Gerry’s Vocabulary Teacher

It was created by ESL teacher Gerry Luton, and Martin Holmes, formerly an ESL instructor and now a software designer. It was designed to make teacher’s work easier. In a very short time, teachers can create a variety of vocabulary activities such as gap-filling or vocabulary test. Furthermore, the program also allows users to edit or delete sentences contained within the database, and users can even add to their personal database collection with words and sentences of their own. Any changes or additions made are automatically saved to disc. Moreover, Gerry’s Vocabulary Teacher includes different contexts for keywords, and they are exemplified as different forms such as noun , adj., adv., verb, etc. Actually, it is not a free software and the prices are as the following:

• Pricing is: One single-user registration Gerry's Vocabulary Teacher: US$50
• Extra seat (allows downloading of the program onto a 2nd computer): US$35
• CDRoom One single-user registration: US$75

Text- to- speech Technology

There are some programs such as Natural Voice and TextAloud Mp3 which aim to produce real human voice according to the wrriten text. They have several advantages for language learning. For example, the teacher can create his/her own listening content and pronunciation activity. However, there is also a disadvantage, as well. As Kılıçkaya (2006) said, intonation and stress might be problem because they won’t be certainly like natural speaking.

Zeynep BAŞER

Content Management System (CMS)

Computer Managemen System is a tool that helps the people to create, edit and manage content (text, images, graphics, video,sound,etc.) by using a certain process.

www.dokeos.com

It is a well-known e-learning management application. It is a free and easy software. You can build e-courses by using given templates . You can prepare and author assignment and tests including multiple choice, fill-in-the blanks, open questions, hospots, etc. You can organize the lesson content and activities by sequencing authomatically. You can have Chat, Video Conferencing and give feedback to each other . Dokeos also has a mascot ‘Mister Dokeos’ and provides it to the users so that they can enhance learning. It can be used in five language, including Netherlands, English, French, Italian, Spanish

www.nicenet.org

It is a sophisticated tool which provides a variety of learning environments including conferencing, document or link sharing, scheduling, and personal messaging. It is also free and easy to use. To create a class, it is enough just to have an account. It addresses to the post secondary and secondary classrooms, distance education and collobarative academic projects. The site also provides easily reach to every section while dealing with a different section.

www.moodle.org

It is a content management system which is designed for educational purposes. It is a free and Open Source software. It has a large number of users from 193 countries all around the world.One can use Moodle for commercial services such as fully serviced Moodle hosting, remote support contracts, custom code developmetn, consulting. If one know Unix and other web technology, s/he can easily install Moodle. If one need help for developing their own course, Moodle provides coursewares to help them professionally . For example ‘E-Desing’ for United Kingdom is one of Moodle partners forthis aim and provides tschnical and pedagogical service related to Moodle. One of the users, Timothy Takemoto, Japan expresses his thought about Moodle “I am, first of all, stunned by the quality of this software and by the potential it has to help my institution. I have been at the recieving end of a lot of extremely helpful advice.”