January 2009 Volume 2, Number 4

In This Issue Dear colleagues:

Web Pages Welcome to our fourth breathtaking collection of CALL materials for this academic
year.
Training
All websites are working at press time—but remember, the Internet is a moving
News of the target.
Future
No need to save this document to find the websites—they will be available
Projects permanently from the department’s CALL page, courtesy of Susan Curtis. See
―EFL-CALL Resources Website,” on the College’s Intranet home page. Or click the
About Us link here.

Submissions Older newsletters are also stored on SharePoint here. CALL committee minutes are
here.

Remember that this newsletter is an internal document. If you want to forward it

Links to friends outside the college, please delete any references to passwords exclusive to
college faculty.
Server 9 - EFL --Steve Roney

CALL
Resources Web Pages
Ed Lang-8: Here’s an interesting idea: a social web based on
Technology writing. This web page allows students to connect with
(TLC) native speakers around the world, who will correct their
writing for them. They, in turn, can boost their morale and make friends by
Templates & helping others with their Arabic.
Tools (TLC) http://lang-8.com/
--Rebecca Hatherley
CNA-Q
Library Glogster: An interesting alternative, for you or your
students, to PowerPoint for making a lecture or
CNA-Q IT class presentation. Glogster makes one big poster,
Tutorials that you can move around with the mouse.
http://www.glogster.com/
Abdulmanan --Rebecca Hatherley
Nur’s Staff
Training Page Xtranormal: Want to get your students writing? Try
this one. They can make a movie simply by typing in
the dialogue.
http://www.xtranormal.com/
 Dvolver is a similar movie-making tool.
http://www.dvolver.com/live/home.html

Introduce your students to the world of varying English

accents: here’s Amy Walker of Seattle, Washington,
performing 21 different accents in two minutes.
―Toronto,‖ though, to your present correspondent’s ears,
is utterly unconvincing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UgpfSp2t6k

And here’s ―Miss Cupcake,‖ a Glaswegian, seeking to

duplicate the feat, with a few new accents added to the
mix:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObonHPh15ug

Face Your Manga offers a good opportunity to talk about

physical appearance. Students can create their own manga
(Japanese cartoon style) avatars in the process. My own
manga is at right.
http://www.faceyourmanga.it/homepage.php?lang=eng

Listen and Write: Have students practice taking dictation from a pre-
recorded audio; or you can upload your own. Among other interesting
features, students can track their progress and compare their results against
others around the world.
http://www.listen-and-write.com/

Youniverse. One sure-fire way to get your

students reading: get them reading about
themselves. Use with care,
though—not all content here is culturally appropriate.
http://youniverse.com/

Training
The Teaching and Learning Centre has put together a
Wiki on collaborative classroom tools. Have a look here:
http://collaborativelearningtools.wetpaint.com/
-- Cheri MacLeod

Also courtesy of the Teaching and Learning Centre is

this online training resource. Our username is ―cnaq‖
and our password is ―atomic‖. Besides step-by-step
videos to instruct you, it also features videos you can
use in the classroom to instruct your students.
http://movies.atomiclearning.com/uk/home/
-- Cheri MacLeod

News of the Future

Andrea Comeau sends along this fascinating clip on MicroSoft’s ―surface

computing‖ technology in development.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/863734/microsoft_tabletop_technology/
--Andrea Comeau

Projects

The CALL subteam for materials creation is now completing the first step of
the project announced last issue: identifying CALL authoring resources
available to EFL faculty at CNA Qatar –Duhail.

For step 2, we have decided to tackle AWL 1 as our sample learning

objective. Our goal is to demonstrate the full spectrum of CALL authoring
materials to the EFL faculty, and to reintroduce some of the CALL software
we have installed in the labs.
--John Allan

The University of Ulster is offering an award for

Excellence in Multimedia Language Teaching,
with a maximum value of 3000 pounds sterling.
Details are at:
http://www.cemll.ulster.ac.uk/site/news/mmlt_Award_09_10
--Andrea Comeau

About Us
CALL stands for Computer-Aided Language Learning. We on the CALL committee
have a mandate from the department to aid and abet you in using educational
technology in your classroom. We currently comprise two committees: software
evaluation and materials development. If you are interested, we would be delighted
to have you join us in this cause.

Current Members:
Steve Roney (chair)
John Allan (chair, materials development)
Douglas Culbert
Susan Curtis
Scott Dagilis
Darlene Liutkus
Cheri MacLeod (TLC liaison)
 Scott Webber
Rebecca Hatherley (Academics liaison)
Dan Rieb
Larissa Conley
Linda Earl
Alan Vallely
Shairon Burton

Submissions

 Please If you have a tech tip to share, or know of an interesting

consider the and relevant website, please send it along to
Stephen.Roney@cna-qatar.edu.qa for inclusion in a future
environment issue.
before
printing this A big thanks to those who contributed to this issue:
newsletter.
Cheri MacLeod, Andrea Comeau, Rebecca Hatherley, John Allan, Steve Roney.