EFL web explorer: Authoring tools

Authoring tools at CLEAR – Center for Language Education And Research at Michigan State University.

http://clear.msu.edu/teaching/online/ria/

AUTHORING TOOLS: LANGUAGE (1)

The Centre for Language Applications and Research at the Michigan State University has developed a set of language authoring tools based on spearhead technologies for language learning.

CLEAR’s Rich Internet Applications is a research and development lab with free tools that language teachers can use to create online language teaching materials – or have their students create activities themselves! Once they have made them they have their own individual link to the activity which can be embedded easily into your own web lab.

Audio Dropboxes (put a dropbox in any web page; students’ recordings get put into your dropbox automatically)

Conversations (record prompts for students to do virtual interviews and conversations)

Mashups (combine media elements to create a new resource for language teaching)

Viewpoint (record or upload videos to link from other sites or embed inside your own web pages)

SMILE (tool for creating interactive online exercises)

MIMEA: Multimedia Interactive Modules for Education and Assessment (German, Chinese, Arabic, Vietnamese, Korean, Russian; online video clips and activities)

– BROADCAST Podcasting for Language Teaching

AUTHORING TOOLS (1)

Authoring tools is one of the areas of CALL some teachers find most attractive. On the left sidebar you can find some links to sites specialised on authoring tools. They are included in the section CALL referencial sites.

A good website with a review and classification of  authoring tools available on line is Vance Steven’s http://www.geocities.com/vance_stevens/authorng.htm