Chapter 10 Producing Electronic Materials

What are electronic materials? =Informational resources, exercises and activities that we create ourselves for our students to use on a computer as web page or CD-ROM content, or even in printed forms. (examples) (1) Recording passages from the textbook and put them on your web pages (2) Creating exercises using Hot Potatoes (pp ) (3) Creating interactive stories using Quandary (pp )

A web page showing similar materials that we are to use by ourselves Activities for ESL Students (p. 127)Activities for ESL Students (This site works sometimes and doesn’t work sometimes.) (a new site for many games, exercises, etc. not introduced in the textbook)

Reasons for creating electronic materials (1)To provide extra practice for learners for reviewing and consolidation (2)To generate a bank of materials for future use (3)To motivate students with materials different from those in textbooks and other materials generally used (4)To be familiar with the use of technology in teaching English

A large school or (network of teachers) can save the materials they have created: (1)at a server. (2)at Virtual Learning Environment or Content Management System *Virtual Learning Environment (p. 137, Chapter 11) =A web-based software system in which course content can be stored. (example) Examples of Virtual Learning Environments *Content Management System (p. 153, Chapter 12) =An online storehouse of web pages, documents, downloads of multimedia files and other resources (example) Newfangled—Web factory

Creating electronic materials online Let us use simple exercise generators! Discovery School Puzzlemaker (p. 128)Discovery School Puzzlemaker Smile (pp )Smile

What is an authoring tool? Definition: an installable program that allows you to create materials in electronic format which can then be distributed on a CD-ROM, DVD, USB pen drive, floppy disk or via web page to your learners. Caveat: Choose authoring tools that are useful and easy for you. *For many authoring tools, like high-end technology, the learning curve is very steep.

Using authoring tools to produce materials Hot Potatoes (the most famous authoring tool) Hot Potatoes * multiple choice * short answer * jumbled sentence * matching/ordering * gap-fill (examples) Exercise by Okamoto-sensei Exercise by Hayase Exercise by Hasegawa-kun (59 th class)Exercise by Hasegawa-kun

Interactive stories Learners read scenarios and the make choices to decide what they will do at certain key points. Quandary Hayase’s exercise Hasegawa-kun’s exercise (59 th class)Hasegawa-kun’s exercise