Wordia.com - the dictionary with a difference!

Here's an interesting new web site which I discovered this week. It's called wordia and is a dictionary with a difference.

As well as giving you standard definitions, this innovative site allows ordinary folks (like you and me) to upload our very own definitions of our favourite words.

These can be as straightforward or quirky as you like - the site doesn't seem to have an obvious commercial goal - and it's certainly fun to check out some of the videos.

The site was featured on BBC World last week and after I created a couple of vids and uploaded them I got a comment from the very guy (one of the founders) who had just been interviewed.

As we've been talking a lot about Web 2.0 and creating simple videos recently, this could be a great way to put your skills to the test. It's so easy it's not true!

You need:

a free Wordia account
a free You Tube account
a free movie maker (e.g. Windows Movie Maker on all PCs)
a webcam on your computer

You have to open your You Tube account but you don't load your video onto You Tube - you upload it straight onto Wordia, who put it on your You Tube account for you. They don't want any fancy editing or anything - just the raw video of you defining your favourite words.

Why not give it a go? I've done mini-vids for 'hotchpotch', 'because' and 'shit' so far - let me know what you think!

Teaching Tips: Site Pal

Hello Again,

I've had many requests for the web addresses of the interesting resources I mentioned during my talk at the TESOL France - Best of BESIG day back in June.

So, as promised, I'm starting a series where I introduce them to those of you who weren't able to make it to Bethany's 'BOB' day and who, nevertheless would be interested in knowing more...

My first offering is the really cool Site Pal web site, which is a really funny and funky site which offers something genuinely intriguing for free.

You can use it in any lesson with your student(s) if you have an internet connection, or amuse yourself by creating messages and exercises for your students to do between sessions.

Here you can see one of the ways in which I exploit Site Pal. I create short listening exercises with the script on my teaching blog. I've included two examples - click on the images to listen:







As you can see, it's fun and motivating - when I showed it to one of my private students - the boss of a car company - he decided to use it for an amusing motivational new year message for his entire sales force. You can create a quick message for free.

Post comments if you need more info.

Sab