ekkoTV

ekkoTV

This is very cool and simple to use. It enables you to do a video chat with 2 other people. No muss no fuss. No sign ups or other hassles. Flash interface with your mic and webcam.

I don't see many options at this point. There is a link that you can share with friends (anyone you want to speak with) at the bottom of the screen. I'm not sure how long this is good for. Maybe you could add it to your blog or other page and use it as a regular meeting place.

They also have a text chat box, which is wonderful for sharing that text information that audio is terrible for. Things like URLs are easier to cut and paste that having to listen while someone spells it out for you.

Very cool application. I can't wait to see it grow up.

Dan

Why & how to use online message boards

James Trotta
Jason Ham

Teaching English in Korea ESL Blog

Learn English grammar online (discussion forum)

Forum is open to the public

Started out by doing grammar tasks (go find this form used out in the Web) then moved to student-directed topics (whatever you are interested in) and then moved to prompting culture topics.

Polling is good to get students going on the topic. I think that this is a good method, good suggestion, that I hadn't thought about before.

They pay NES $.20 per post to reply to learners' postings. Great idea, though James did say that it was coming out of his pocket. I don't think anyone is going to make a living off of it, but it is a small motivation to participate.

Vaestro: The Dialogue Driven Network

I ran across this today via another site (see my previous posting). At first I thought that it was just another discussion forum, but it's a little more than that. It is an audio discussion forum. It's organized just like other threaded discussion forums you've likely used, but each entry is an audio segment.

I'm not a big fan of the design (particularly the player), but I'm not going to complain since this is a free application :)

Check out the test site that I started. Leave a message if you have the chance. http://www.vaestro.com/viewforum-382

Dan