Vocabulary website review

The first site I have reviewed is http://www.vocabulary.com/.

This site is fairly extensive and has four different sections that you can use. The first is root word lesson plans which are divided into 3 levels of difficulty. In their words: "These free interactive vocabulary puzzle and activity sessions use Latin and Greek "roots and cells" to help unlock word meanings. There are eight exercises into each session and include: Interactive Puzzle, Fill-in-the-Blanks, Definition Match, Synonym & Antonym Encounters, Crosswords, Word Finds, True/False and Word Stories."

In addition to the root word lesson plans, there are thematic puzzles (which groups vocabulary into different subject matters/topics); word lists (which contains "alphabary" lists [not sure what "alphabery" means to be honest] in different subject matters like "Animals" or "Fine-Arts"); and test preparatory/assessment (which contains random lists of words that might be found on the SAT or ACT in particular but I'm imagining could be adapted to perhaps TESOL testing).

I found the site fairly easy to navigate and also pretty extensive in terms of the types of vocabulary available. It seems like a good resource when you are working with people who have a specific interest (say sports or literature) and you want to teach them vocabulary that deals with that interest. There are also business terms and so it could be used as a vocabulary resource for an ESP class.

A couple of negatives though are that this website doesn't seem geared specifically for ESL learners and is more general in nature. There also aren't any real opportunities for deep processing or making concordances. In short, it's a good site for general vocabulary use, but you would have to do some planning yourself on how best to introduce the vocabulary and/or use it in a class. It could simply be a website you give to students as a resource for their own personal use and outside study.

My Teaching Portfolio Site

This is my teaching portfolio site: http://tinyurl.com/yh8d6hw

CALL reading resource

After poking around a bit, I found the following website: http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried/stories/stories.html

There are a number of short reading exercises on the website that are geared for level 1 or perhaps level 2 students and many of them have quiz questions afterwards. There doesn't seem to be much difference between those reading activities to the activities that you might find in a regular text book though I do think they might be useful with that caveat in mind.

The exercises I would most likely use (or modify for use) in my own class would be some of the ones found under the heading "Other Readings." For instance, there is one that talks about finding an apartment and reviews some of the relevant vocabulary for finding an apartment. There are also links to Craig's List (in this case for San Francisco) where students can put their newly "learned" vocabulary through the paces. I think that kind of authentic activity is a good example of how CALL can be used to find authentic texts.

Blog #1: Prior CALL experience and (some) of my interests in the course

One prior experience I had with using computers in the classroom was when I used Youtube last semester while teaching my ITA course here at UIC. I recorded student presentations and posted them to a private Youtube channel so that they could see their progress over the course of the semester.
I am interested in using podcasts and also interested in learning more about what distance language learning might look like using the internet. Does anyone have experience doing either? If so, what was your experience like?