Dimitris Tzouris

This post is as a sneak peek of the presentation I did at the 23rd TESOL Macedonia Thrace Northern Greece International Annual Convention, on March 26, 2016 and was originally published on the TESOLMTh e-bulletin. Computers have made it a lot easier to organize our work, do research and enhance teaching by incorporating creativity tools. The web has added flexibility and collaboration to the mix. Chrome is a web browser that brings everything together: Research, Collaboration, Productivity and Creativity. All this is achieved by both using the browser’s features and by adding third-party apps. Not like those on our smartphones, but web apps that bring additional features and functionality. Everything syncs like magic Got a new computer? Good for you! Been using Chrome? Once you log into Chrome on your shiny new laptop using your Google account, something wonderful happens. Have you witnessed it? All your preferences, your bookmarks, your saved forms and passwo...

Listen. How often do you listen? Especially to your own voice? For those learning a foreign language, speaking is a core skill and technology has made it really easy to practice speaking and listening back to our own voice. ESL learners are lucky, since most of the apps available today were made for English. It is, after all,  the language used in over 55% of the Internet. Practice speaking and listen to your voice It is very important for language learners to be able to listen to their own voice, since it helps them improve their pronunciation and intonation, both extremely important in verbal communication. There are many ways they can record their voice, play it back and share the recording with their teacher, relatives and friends. You could also do the same and share your voice comments with them. Using a mobile device iOS devices come equipped with the Voice Memo app, which allows easy recording and sharing via email or other apps, such as Dropbox. Ther...

tl;dr The following post is about organizing your bookmarks, annotations, PDFs and notes with Diigo Outliners as well as easily creating citations with Cite This For Me . Diigo Outliners How do you do research? Having ebooks and online journal databases at your disposal is a big help and means less trips to the library, right? But keeping everything organized in one place is very important and can become a helpful guide for your research. Plus, it gives you peace of mind. Diigo was the first tool featured in this column , back in early 2014. Since then, the Diigo team has introduced a new feature: Outliners . Outliners help you organize bookmarked websites, uploaded PDFs as well as your own thoughts and comments, all on one page. Here’s an outliner example for a lesson plan from the Diigo website: With the Diigo extension for Chrome or Firefox , you can bookmark any page on the web. You can also highlight parts of the text and add not...

The following report of Andrew Wright's storytelling workshop was originally written for the 22nd TESOL Macedonia Thrace Northern Greece Annual International convention and has been cross-posted on their blog . Andrew Wright wasn’t wearing his storytelling coat on that Saturday morning, but he was definitely in storytelling mood. His workshop included tips on effective storytelling in our classrooms and of course, he read a few stories too. But, why do we tell stories? Andrew Wright believes that stories give motivation, they allow students to experience English instead of just study it, allow for bonding, support the four basic skills, help presenting and re-recycling and springboarding. What are stories? Stories can be real (facts, history, our life) or fiction (oral or written). They are life’s daily stage of events and we are the actors and how we talk, walk and behave is part of the story as well. How to tell stories? Be clear: Tell your story in such a...

I live in Greece.  Times are hard here. Banks remain shut since last Monday and capital controls have been imposed since then and will not be lifted for some time, according to the latest news. Among other things, this means that all transactions with foreign banks are blocked. Most of my domains are registered with Namecheap and Hover and I have to renew some of them this month. It's really important to do this. Also, this might sound less important, but my Spotify and Google Play Music subscriptions will stop renewing next month. In general, I am unable to use PayPal, Google Wallet, have any transaction with online retailers abroad, such as Apple, Amazon/Audible, Google or support crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Stuff I used to do on a weekly basis. I hadn't though of adding a donate button on this blog before. I've never had ads and I've ignored emails asking me to monetize this blog in the past. But now I need your help. I've ad...

Previously on When EdTech Meets ELT: I wrote about how to curate your own collection or articles using Flipboard, resulting in a beautiful digital magazine. In this "episode," I’ll write about how to discover content and follow blogs and websites in order to create your own daily information stream. This is going to become your own, personalized information diet. I was planning to write about Feedly alone, but on February 10, 2015, Flipboard launched its new web service and it’s definitely worth mentioning. Feedly is probably the most popular online news reader and where the majority of the Google Reader users fled to, after Google shut it down in February 2013. Feedly allows you to subscribe to blogs and websites that provide an RSS feed. This practically means more time for you since you get every new article and blog post in one place - your Feedly page -  without having to check each blog or website individually for new content. To begin, you only...

It's time for the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival!  My favourite time of the year! If you are going, make sure you get the official festival app installed. It is available on iOS and Android. It will help you keep track of your schedule, as well as rate films, see what's trending and what's being discussed on Twitter using the #TDF17 hashtag. But you will also need another app. Many times, you need to turn on your phone to see the time, especially if you are thinking of going to another screening immediately after the one you're in. Sometimes you are looking for an alternative so you can escape. It's okay. It's a film festival. You're supposed to leave in the middle of the screening and go to a different one instead. Every time your phone screen is on, a stream of bad karma is emitted in the room along with the light from your screen and you become an annoyance. That's why you need Night Mode. Available for Android, Night Mo...