[VESTIRE2001]

Hello
Are there any good sites for ideas (for vocabulary and grammar) or powerpoints for the new interactive whiteboards?
It will be my first time I '' use them and I don't know what to do....
Thank you so much for your answers
Emma

[kisito]

Funny you should ask this question. I just finished working on site with free interactive grammar and vocabulary flash games, Powerpoint games, printable card games and board games. There are also lots of free templates for you to quickly build customized games for your lessons. Go on! Give it a try!

[mesmark]

Kisito's site is a good one. I had a quick look through it this morning.

Search for 'interactive classroom' and '(your lesson plan theme)'. That ought to give you a lot to work with.

There are some activities on these pages:
vocabulary videos: MES TV
vocabulary and grammar: Learn English Online
phonics games: Phonics Games Online
vocabulary PowerPoints: MES Flashcards

[VESTIRE2001]

I would like to thank both of you
Thanks!!!!

[djkirstyjay]

Quote kisito

Funny you should ask this question. I just finished working on site with free interactive grammar and vocabulary flash games, Powerpoint games, printable card games and board games. There are also lots of free templates for you to quickly build customized games for your lessons. Go on! Give it a try!

Firstly, I'd like to say how wonderful the games on your site are, however there are two comments I'd like to make, which I have encountered this week whilst using it.

First, it would be great if the games had more questions, as I can only play each game once with any group becuase the questions are the same each time. If it drew the questions from a random pool of ones in a database, that would be fantastic.

Secondly, it would be great if there was a way to either download the games, or buy a CD or Zip folder containing them (especially if there was the ability to add/customise them) because twice the last week I have found that photos have not loaded during questions due to internet dropouts and I would really have liked to use the games with a class I had on Saturday, but there was no net connection in the room we use, so I was unable to.

If I could download the games to my harddrive it would be a great facility... free or otherwise.

However... thanks for providing this great resource

[kisito]

Quote djkirstyjay

Firstly, I'd like to say how wonderful the games on your site are, however there are two comments I'd like to make, which I have encountered this week whilst using it....
However... thanks for providing this great resource

Hello djkirstyjay,
Thank you for taking the time to give us feedback on the games.
1- We are sorry that the inability to customize the especially popular classroom games, is a handicap. This is mainly due to the technology behind the game design. Those games are first built on our desktop and then uploaded to the site and does not interact with a web server. This means once a game is built, it can only be customized offline. You are among a group of loyal followers (I thank you) who have got me thinking about empowering the user to create his/her own games. There are two solutions being contemplated at the moment. My team of developers with whom I raised the issue are looking to make it possible to design sth of a similar nature which is customizable. Problem is, that is a huge financial engagement. A second easier solution is to set up another members site where for a small fee, you can always send in your questions and our team will customize a game and upload it for you, even send you the zip file.
2- Photos not loading. Ahhh!!! You must be using internet explorer. Internet explorer does not do a great job loading the images of the classroom games. Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari browsers do not have this problem. Unfortunately, IE is the most popular browser. I did a troubleshoot page for this which you may have missed. It is here. Click to see.
3- We will work to make more of these games so you can find what you want. Also keep an eye out for a more fun version of these games that we are about to launch in about 2 months. When that is done, I will keep you posted.
Thanks again for your feedback and for using the site.

[djkirstyjay]

Thanks for the reply... as a web developer myself, I fully understand your difficulties, and I will be staying subscribed to this thread for updates

However don't insult me by saying I use IE!!! I use Firefox and Chrome or Safari on occasion, but I NEVER touch IE. In fact, I only have it installed on my computer (IE 5.5 through to IE8 as standalone programs) for testing web pages. I own upwards of 20 websites myself, one of which is a forum for my geographical region which has over 25,000 members.

I'm afraid the problem with the photos not loading is not just to do with IE. It's a problem with other browsers too And I tried your 'clicking on the pic' fix, but it only worked sometimes. It seems like a bandwidth issue to me, as it was temperamental, and we are known to have low bandwidth here in the mountains. I don't get more than 1MB at home.

[kisito]

Thank God you are not one of those using IE. Now we know the problem is clearly an issue of low bandwidth. Didn't realize I was talking to a fellow webmaster. 1Mb can be slow especially as one game averages around 4 MB of download file size.
Stay tuned. We will be looking into this going forward.

[djkirstyjay]

Thank you so much for your attention. I have to say your games are fab!

[kisito]

Hi djkirstyjay, Here is a follow-up on the last conversation we had on the games. We set up a new games site for ESL which has solved one problem, which is that of images not loading in the classroom games - Click here to see. Images load fine in the new games and in any web browser. We figured out the issue. As for customizing your own games, we are still working on that with the new website. All updates and support for these types of games will be done through the new site Games for Learning English, Vocabulary, Grammar Games, Activities, ESL. We have also added more fun ESL Games on the site. The printable crocodile and pirate board games now have interactive versions. I will be happy to customize some games for you as the school term begins, just let me know which and send me feedback. Hope this helps. Have fun teaching!

[djkirstyjay]

Hi Kisito!

Just to let you know, I've been using your new site this week and I have to say the games are great. You can see some of them in action on my facebook feed at https://www.facebook.com/EnglishTenerife.

One minor problem I experienced in Firefox is that sometimes the images do not show up first time, but if I minimise the page and then maximise it again, there's the photo. I don't know why and I've not tried it in other browsers to compare as I only discovered the problem yesterday.

Do you have any news on the 'customizable' element yet? I have been having a think about it, and if it were possible to re-write an XML file that fed the game its questions, then that would be ideal... What do you think?

[djkirstyjay]

Just an update... no problems with the images today in Google Chrome.

I would also like to add that if you do have an XML page feeding questions into the games, then I'd be happy to share any I write with you, as I'm sure others would, so you could have an XML repository for questions that could be loaded into the games

[kisito]

Hi djkirstyjay
Good to know these games are fine on Chrome. It would seem chrome solves a lot of problems. I must say that I did not find problems with other browsers on my computer, while using the newest creations on www.eslgamesplus.com/
Really happy to see these games in action on your facebook page.
As for the XML file, the questions are written into it and that is easy to change, but you need to change the images and audio for each question, which cannot be done by simply rewriting the XML.
If you like I can send you a zip file of a game and its contents to play around with. Perhaps you can work out something.

[djkirstyjay]

The bane of my existence is the use of different browsers and the incompatibilities between them.

Yes, feel free to send me the files for a game. Are all the games 'fed' the questions in the same way? Do the images and audio have to be hosted and the link to their location stored in the XML?...

Another suggestion would be to have the questions taken randomly from a 'pool' of questions on the same subject or level, and a massive database containing them all which could be added to whenever to increase the 'pool'. The reason I suggest this, is that the main problem that comes up with my classes, is that I can't use the same game twice, as the questions are the same and in he same order, so the students get to know the answers.

Fortunately this time I have left a big enough gap between lessons so that the questions have remained fresh but if you had a database that ALL the games connected to, and you had a section before the game starts where the teacher could select the subject (family, school, etc) and the level - (elementary, beginner, pre-intermediate, etc) and then the game would only use the questions with the correct level and subject in the game, but also use them 'randomly'. Therefore is there were 100 questions on one subject and the game used 50 random questions then the games would always be new and fresh...

You could even have a form on your site where teachers could submit questions direct to the database (with approval before they go live on the games, of course) which would increase the database of questions exponentially over time.

The great thing is, that a game would only need to be made ONCE, rather than having different copies of the same one, meaning that your time could be spent developing new games, which would all ultimately link into the same database of questions.

Anyway... I'm just thinking aloud I am not a Flash programmer, so couldn't begin to comment on the workload of making one of these fantastic games, but I do have some experience writing PHP and databases - so can understand how it works.

My email is info[at]englishtenerife.com if you want to contact me.

PS: I personally thing the whole process of choosing your own character at the beginning is almost as much fun for the kids as the game, and an excellent conversation point for revising descriptions too

[djkirstyjay]

Hi @kisito, we're using the games in class again and it reminded me that I've not heard back from you about doing more questions for the games. This is just a quick reminder post that I'm still willing to do stuff if you send it through!