contest
The only skill required to enter this contest is to have a very beginning level understanding of the English language. You do not need to have an email address. You also don’t need to know how to type — none of these sites require a whole lot of writing. I say this so you can see how these can be used to give your students fun ways to learn english.
In addition, here are a few other facts that show how easy it is to use the tools in classroom:
1) No registration is required to use the tools.
2) They are available free-of-charge.
3) Users can create attractive and engaging online content in a few minutes.
4) Users can email the link to the content they created from within the site itself.
5) The online content the user creates is hosted indefinitely on the web application’s server — it is not deleted within a week or a month like many others do.
6) Even though a microphone, or the ability to upload a photo, might be useful on some of these sites, you can still create engaging content even without the extra equipment or image.
Once the online content is created, users can use the site’s email feature to send it to a teacher who can just look at it or, even better, post it on a webpage. Of course, the ideal option is for students to be able to post it on their own site.
OK, Now let's start our contest. Please just follow the instructions below. Do each step in order. After the content entries are sent to me, I will sent it to Bob and post them on the website. We will let our objective judges choose their favorite resources. The winners will be announced at a live webcast. We will let you know the time frame a bit later. Do not feel rushed to complete this. We will allow ample time for everyone to enjoy playing around with these tools. This is just step one in using music in the classroom. We will be continuing on to make more excercises like this with a step up in difficulty as we go.
Enjoy and get started. Contact me or Bob with any problems accessing anything or with any questions you have.
WRITE AN ESL/EFL SONG:
- Use Let Them Sing It For You to write lyrics, and have each word sung by a different singer.
- Or try Don Pablo’s Tex Mex Serenade, choose a singer and a song, and then use a text-to-speech feature to act as one of the judges.
Just as a note for later, here is how you can make these tools useful to ESL students
- have students write what they had to eat for breakfast that day, and then create a song that will use the text-to-speech synthesizer to have the talking turn into music. Students can share these with their friends.
- students can compose musical greetings or careers they hope to pursue.
Since these sites all have "Send to a Friend" capabilities, all students have to do is E-mail it to you. Their E-mail will contain a URL, which can then be linked to your website or blog.

