home

From Susan Gaer

1 What is a Wiki? A) an online photo service B) an online datebook c) An online collaborative writing tool D) None of the above

Answer is c 2) What is a Blog A) an online journaling tool B) an online collaborative writing tool C) a video program D) a computer operating system

From Carol Wilson-Duffy, April 24 East Lansing

1. Which three of these is similar? Eyesport, Jumpcut, iMovie, or Videoegg, Answer: iMovie is for the Macintosh, whereas Jumpcut, Videoegg, and Eyespot are for Windows.

2. Why would you use any of these four products? Eyesport, Jumpcut, iMovie, and Videoegg Answer: These products have specific tools for creating/editing videos to be delivered in a Web browser.

3. What new technology format does YouTube, Google Video and MySpace use to enable easy video uploading? a. Windows Media Player (wmv) b. Flash video (flv) c. Real Player (rm) d. QuicktTime (mov) Answer: b

Johanna Katchen here. I came up with four questions. Leave it to teacher to enjoy making tests.

Question 1: You made a cute one-minute video and want to send it to a few friends via e-mail. Which is NOT a suitable file format to save video for e-mail/internet use? a. MOV, b. AVI, c. WMV, d. RM. Answer is b because AVI is a very large file format that much hardware uses for processing video. MOV is associated with Quick Time, WMV with Windows Media, RM with Real Player; these three formats are compressed sufficiently to be used over the internet.

Question 2: What is Skype? a. a technique for typing rapidly using a miniature keyboard, b. a free audio editing software, c. a software that allows you to make cheap phone calls using your computer, d. a particularly destructive computer virus. Answer is c.

Question 3: What is a Trojan? a. any type of malicious software that sneaks into your computer disguised as something else; b. a software for editing graphics and photos; c. another name for a hacker, d. a person addicted to computer games. Answer is a.

Question 4: Tomorrow is your best friend's birthday; he lives on the other side of the world. This afternoon you and your friends recorded a 72-second birthday greeting on your MP3 player. What would be the best way to send this recording to your friend? a. record it to CD and send the CD by mail, b. call your friend on the telephone and play the recording into the telephone, c. upload the MP3 file to your computer and send the MP3 file as an e-mail attachment, d. forget the recording, gather your friends together tomorrow, call him on the phone and all of you greet him in turn. The best approach is c; however, if you had the most modern cell phone that takes photos and movies, is an MP3 player and recorder, and has internet access, you might be able to do it all on one device. If the other person is on the other side of the world, e-mail is better than phone because the time zone difference may cause inconvenience.

From Aiden, April 21, 4:30 pm Taiwan time

1. What is Google Docs and Spreadsheets and how can you use it in a writing class? Uses in Writing Class
 * Here's what you can do with documents:**
 * Upload Word documents, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML or text (or create documents from scratch).
 * Use our simple WYSIWYG editor to format your documents, spell-check them, etc.
 * Invite others (by e-mail address) to edit or view your documents and spreadsheets.
 * Edit documents online with whomever you choose.
 * View your documents' and spreadsheets' revision history and roll back to any version.
 * Publish documents and spreadsheets online to the world, as Web pages or post documents to your blog.
 * Download documents to your desktop as Word, OpenOffice, RTF, PDF, HTML or zip.
 * Email your documents out as attachments.


 * collaborative writing/peer editing
 * as an assessment tool: from draft to finished work
 * publishing students’ writings

2. What is Vaestro? What is Chinswing? What is MyChingo? What are the advantages/disadvantages of each tool? Vaestro, Chinswing, and MyChingo are audio discussion boards (audio forum). With Vaestro, posted audio messages are threaded and new subtopics can be posted without opening a new forum. MyChingo works like Vaestro, but you can add it to your blog or website as a widget. Chinswing is a cool tool; members can upload their photos, listeners can associate ‘a voice with a face’. This helps members to get familiar with each other. Unlike Vaestro and MyChingo, topics are not threaded.

3. What’s Bubbleshare and how can you use it with EFL/ESL classes? Bubbleshare is a web based tool for photo sharing. It can be linked and/or embedded on a blog or website. It allows audio/video comments on each photo entry. It can be used for speaking and listening activities.

From Buthaina Al Othman, April 23

1. **What is a Skypecast?** Skypecasts are large, hosted calls on Skype. A skypecast is ideal for live, online presentations / lectures / interviews, since you can be heard in groups of up to 100 people participating from anywhere in the world. 2. **What is Box.net?** Box.net is a virtual storage space for computer files, including documents, photos, music files, and video clips. This tool is great to move files among multiple computers, backup important data in the event of a computer crash, or share documents and photos with friends and colleagues.