TARUNPATEL.net » Blogging

Are You Suffering from FAD (Facebook Addiction Disorder)

tarunpatel — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 09:51:52 +0000

1. Do you lose sleep over Facebook?

2. Do you spend more than an hour a day on Facebook?

3. Do you become obsessed with old loves?

4. Do you ignore work in favor of Facebook?

5. Does the thought of getting off Facebook leaves you in a cold sweat?

If your answer to the above question is ‘Yes’ , you are suffering from FAD (Facebook Addiction Disorder).

According to Idris, “A growing body of research in the area of addiction suggests that Internet Addiction Disorder is becoming a real problem, it is a psycho-physiological disorder involving tolerance; withdrawal symptoms; affective disturbances; and interruption of social relationships. The most common one is Facebook Addiction Disorder (FAD).”

If you Google for “Facebook Addiction”, the search engine displays 3,410,000 results.

You can find a remedy to cure yourself from FAD by visiting this search results page: http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&q=facebook+addiction+cure&aq=9&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=Facebook+Addiction+&gs_rfai=

All the best!

Tarun

OHP for ELT

tarunpatel — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 04:55:56 +0000

With the advent of technology, we have got several aids to strengthen the English Teaching process. Among all the devices, the one which requires minimum of technical knowledge is OHP, or overhead projector.

In this article I am going to share some of the ways of using OHP for ELT.

The OHP is a small machine designed to project an image onto a small screen or whiteboard. If you have a screen, which can be placed above the whiteboard and pulled down accordingly, it will stop the glare. The materials we normally use with it are pens, which can either be permanent, or cleanable. In addition to these there are transparencies (OHT), which you can write or draw on, and a special type of transparency which a text or image can be photocopied onto. (Alan Finch, British Council Paris)

Why use OHP?

- It is cheaper option as compared to any other technology

- Use of OHP can reduce paper consumption to a great extent

- Use of OHP enables the teacher to provide students with the handouts of a lesson discussed

- Use of OHP reflects the well-preparedness of the teacher. Students can realize the effort put in by the teacher to prepare the transparencies

Students’ work can be presented in the classroom. This can enable the teacher to correct the most common mistakes made by the students.

- Ready materials are available to teach grammar and other components of language. Also the materials can be used again and again.

- Having OHP in the classroom, a teacher can save a big amount of time (by not writing anything on the blackboard)

- Teacher can gain more control over the content of the topic.

- Teacher can also gain the control of the students with the help of such educational device.

- The use of OHP also allows a teacher to make available the images of whatever is taught to the class. This makes the process of teaching more lively and meaningful.

Be careful

- Know how to use OHP before taking it into a classroom. If possible, hold a mock session with your colleagues wherein you are using OHP.

- Make sure that the transperancies you are using are visible enough (keeping the number of students in mind)

- Use a pointer to describe important pointes from the transparencies

In the end, once again I would like to quote Alan Finch ”The OHP is extremely practical and versatile as every classroom activity can be adapted for the OHP and even the worst technophobe can use it with confidence. Allowing you to have complete control of the class and holding your students’ attention, it is a useful tool for any teacher or indeed worthwhile purchase for any school which doesn’t have one. Finally, as global warming threatens to devastate our world, using the OHP can play more than a small part in saving paper, therefore trees, and the environment.”

Here are some links where you can get more information on OHP in an English classroom:

* http://www.eslprintables.com/printable.asp?id=178535

* http://www.presentationresources.net/opt_aids.html

* http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED352820&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&

YouTube for ELT

tarunpatel — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 04:54:57 +0000

The English Language Teaching process has been energized with the emergence of new Internet technologies and now the Web 2.0 tools.

Also using videos for language teaching has been one of the most effective ways to achieve success in the classroom. The ELTicialsn have been using the videos for teaching English language skills since many years now. The organizations like BBC and CNN have even made billions of dollars selling the video content for teaching purposes.

Money and Time – are two things which have been creating so many hurdles in accessing the authentic video content in the past time.

But for last three and a half years, YouTube, a video content sharing website has been making the difference to it. At YouTube, anyone can post / access video content.

YouTube now contains enormous amount of video content, some of which is highly exploitable in the classroom.

YouTube features videos in several categories. Some of them are:

- Autos & Vehicles

- Comedy

- Education

- Entertainment

- Film & Animation

- Gaming

- Howto & Style

- Music

- News & Politics

- Nonprofits & Activism

- People & Blogs

- Pets & Animals

- Science & Technology

- Sports

- Travel & Events.

The real advantage of YouTube – at least from a language learning point of view – is that it offers authentic examples of everyday English used by everyday people.

Yes, this is the challenge as well. Students may enjoy watching these clips, but poor sound quality, pronunciation and slang can make these short videos even more difficult to understand.

At the same time use of YouTube videos enables teachers to attach the students to the “real life” nature of these videos. By creating context for these short videos students can be helped to explore a world of online English learning possibilities.

YouTube videos can be used in an ELT classroom for various teaching vocabulary, accents, pronunciations, voice modulation and what not.

BBC Content on YouTube

YouTube and BBC’s international commercial television channel have collaborated. With this around 30 news clips per day will be offered, with up-to-the-minute news and analysis from around the world. The advertising-funded clips will be available to users outside the UK only. Users will be able to comment on clips, rate them, recommend them to friends and post their own video responses to communicate with the BBC and other viewers.

This helps teachers have even “authentic” authentic video content for their classrooms.

The BBC content on YouTube is available at http://www.youtube.com/BBC

Other than BBC, there are several ELT experts worldwide who have been posting their English Language Teaching content on YouTube.

Such videos include English teaching tips, tricks, methods, approaches and more.

If you search for “ELT” on YouTube, the search engine will bring up abut 1830 videos. And if you will search for “English Language Teaching” the search engine will bring about 1240 videos.

YouTube also features hundreds of videos in the following categories too:

- English Language Learning

- English Language Lessons

- English Language Course

- English Language Comedy

- English Language Tutorials

- English Language History

- English Language Commercials

- English Language Teaching Tips

- English Language Teaching Methods and much more.

All this ELT video content is offered on YouTube on the following channels:

- CHANNEL KUNGZOO

- Quality English Lessons

- English Language Teaching

- Edufinder

- Macmillan ELT

- Teaching English in China with EF English First

- eezenglish

- Imagine Learning English.

Key benefits of using YouTube for ELT are:

- Teachers get free video content

- Also a lot of variety

- Teachers can reproduce authentic language in the classroom

- Also comprehensible input is offered through videos

- More intelligences are - The more times and ways we are presented with information, the more likely we will learn it.

Here it has only been possible to touch briefly some information on the use of YouTube videos in ELT. One aspect not yet mentioned is motivation.

Students in many contexts have said they like video activities because they provide a break from the usual textbook-based activities, and even when the activities challenge students, learning with video is more enjoyable.

If you have any query / suggestion, I can be reached at tarunjpatel@gmail.com.

Here are some useful links if you wish to use YouTube for your ELT:

Read such more articles at ELTWeekly.com.

Blog to Teach

tarunpatel — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 04:52:24 +0000

Blogging can be a powerful and interesting activity to expand your reach among your students and also to help them improve their language.

Blogs can be utilized this way:

Put your teaching materials, assignments, time table, important dates on blog
Write summary of everyday lessons on your blog and ask students to post their comments
Award the student who posts best comment keeping language and its importance in view
Invite student articles to be posted on the blog and also ask other students and teachers to read those articles and offer their feedback
Also students can be motivated to create their own blogs and post their articles, poems, quotes etc. Select the best blog and award it

Do you think something more could be added to this tip? Please send “what you think” totarunjpatel@gmail.com.

Read such more articles at ELTWeekly.com.

“Keep your Blog Live All the While Successfully Avoiding Low Quality Links” by Tarun Patel

tarunpatel — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 06:00:25 +0000

You should make your linking program as a best working marketing instrument of your business. The links should attract more specific traffic and in no time, improve your position in the search engines, which in turn should get you best hits that are no cost targeted. You should also remember that if you are not picky about the Blog you are linking your business to, you might have a bad experience right after starting. Keep your Blog live all the while successfully, avoiding low quality links.
It is good to have one-way links, as they are beneficial to your business; however, you should not forget to include the reciprocal links as a part of your Blog’s marketing program. You can easily obtain the reciprocal links, which just need some kind of hard work. It has been in talk that the reciprocal links are not much considered by the search engines and big marketers. You should underestimate the search engines to be just crowded with empty links. If you make the links to be good, they become so, which would mean linking to sites with high value and page value.
You may find it hard to link the new Blog with high PR to link to sites. You should first understand about the site or the Blog along with the content’s quality, before using it as the criterion for linking. The fast changing low PR site can get you more visitors in future and influence the search engine. Assess if your site would be one of the favorites of the search engines. It is apt and sensible to stay away from the sites that feature scraped content, pages and pages with lot of links than the sites with offensive content or design.
Start with finding a good management program for links in order to save you a lot of time, from doing the entire linking program again and regrets in the future. Link management after initiation is a huge and long-term project. To save yourself from the stress, invest money it takes to do it better and once for all. Easier ways to get links are through link building networks and reciprocal link programs. You should also remember that as all involved are hunting for links, there is no need to be in a hurry to get them. It might be surprising for you to see that few partners with good page ranking are ready to barter it with a new site. However, these link programs are used by the Bloggers with caution, who update themselves with Google. You may lose out on your Blog ranking, if the search engines or Google reject or lower anything related to link building programs.
Your links pages should not be hidden to value your links and you should be proud of your affiliation. You can name that anything like Link partners, associates, resources, and affiliates, as long as you understand it correctly, and are comparatively better than the links. Make sure to display the links in the visible area of your links page, or on the homepage of your site. You should not be ashamed to show the link page to your potential link partners. There is no need to hide or print it in such a way that it becomes difficult for one to see. Professional designers normally follow these methods. In spite of good design, the site may not be effective enough to attract new quality links.
Concentrate more on the quality than quantity of your Blog links. Fewer quality links would increase your Blog ranking at faster and higher pace than the large number of links with zero page ranking. “Quick Fix” link programs are more favored by the search engines, and this is the reason for any Blogger to connect with quality links. It is recommended not to go for amateurish links but to work towards the quality partnerships. To get long returns in the form of Blog’s rank and visitors, you may choose this method, even if it takes a bit long time. Check out aragloco as an example.

“How To Keep Your Blog At The Top Of The Rankings? Some Social Marketing Tips” by Tarun Patel

tarunpatel — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 05:24:43 +0000

Adding new posts to your blog is one of the simplest ways to keep your blog at the top of rankings. A new post will always keep people interested and clicking on your blog, more clicks means higher ranking since one of the ways rankings are established is by counting the number of clicks earned by your website. People will return to your blog if you include funny anecdotes, free advice and links to other interesting pages in your blog.

Maximum advertisement of your blog is another way to keep your blog at top rankings. You can advertise at forums, post links in chat rooms, tell friends to post links on their websites to your blog and find websites that are looking for blogs to be added to their web pages. The number of links caught by the web spider will automatically increase your ranking.
If you use your blog to promote your website, you can hire one or two writers who can write daily posts for your blog. This will also add fresh ideas and better perspective to your blog. There is no shortage of blog writers, since there are people who write blogs for themselves as well as earn a living through the blog. You can advertise on job boards and the interested ones will send you their emails and sample work, so it will be easy for you to choose the one that suits you.
You will not feel stressed with the thought of updating a blog, while you will also be reaping rewards for fresh blog entries regularly. If you earn from your blog you can surely afford hiring one blog writer. The best one would be the one who was a style of writing that matches yours.
Hiring a web writer to write keyword rich articles for your blog is another good idea of increasing your web rankings. People with good idea of SEO can do the trick for you. You can also buy top ranking by using Google Adsense, here you will have to link your blog to several sites. This effort will surely pay off in increasing your rankings.
The most important thing about maintaining a blog is being loyal to it. You should return to it each day and add at least two posts. Increase in internet rankings in the only way you can ensure that your exposure on the internet has increased substantially. You can create a newsletter and add it to your website and other ways of advertising are all good means of increasing your search engine rankings.
Your rankings will go up if you provide amusing blogs. Consistency and providing new material are the key to maintaining a healthy audience for your blog. Check out this blog as an example.

“Blogging Helps You Make Money From Google Adsense” by Tarun Patel

tarunpatel — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 05:00:52 +0000

So now you have created a blog and you have a devoted fan base that reads your blogs and posts comments regularly? So then now you can make even more money from your blogging site. You can allow small businesses and other companies to post ads on your pages. Google Adsense pays you each time someone clicks the ad on your pages.
It is not substantial enough but it will surely be a decent amount depending the number of ads displayed and the number of clicks earned by these ads. This also will help to increase your rankings since web spiders will lead the trail back to you.
However, you require to be careful about whom you allow to advertise on your page since there might be some ads that might offend some readers and as a result you might start losing your fan base. Again too many ads also will not help since this will make your web pages look like an advertisement board, it will turn people off, therefore the ideal thing to do is to choose ads that people will want to click on and keeping the number in check.
In order to increase traffic to your website, you can also post ads on other websites. This will cost you but increased traffic to your website will be worth each month’s fees. You might have to break even or even incur some losses but knowing the best option will be worthwhile.
Posting ads on your web pages is not difficult at all. These are small ads which you can place anywhere you want on your web page. This way companies, small businesses and blog sites advertise and get audiences who make purchases often via the internet. It also helps the audiences to visit their favorite sites faster.
Adsense is the way to get noticed for the companies who want to sell one thing or another. Popular blogs can help these sites sell more. You can keep on earning more and continue to get more readership by writing quality content, that are interesting and timely. Your blogs should be able to engage readers and make them stay long enough that they will check out all the links provided by you. This will increase your ranking and the audience base.
The blog in order to remain interesting, entertaining and engaging should be updated from time to time, preferably twice a day. This brings out a notable change in the revenues generated from Adsense ads. Again the content placed on your web pages should be such that any average person should be able to connect with it. Choosing subjects higher or below average will not invite readers for your web pages. Check out aragloco as an example.

“Content Articles Can Bring Your Blog More Traffic” by Tarun Patel

tarunpatel — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:34:41 +0000

As an internet user, you are probably well aware of how fun, educational, and interesting blogs can be. You may even have your own blog. Have you ever given a thought to the content you find on a blog? Did you know that there are content articles you can add to your blog to help draw traffic to it? It’s true and if you have a blog you can use these content articles to help boost the popularity of it and the amount of readers that you have. By adding good quality content to your blog, you can attract more readers to your site faster. Below are a few good reasons content articles work well to boost the traffic to your blog. Keywords in the article The keywords in your article will attract traffic faster than about anything. The keywords are what cause your article to be returned in a search engine when a search is performed. For example as long as your website is in the search engine and you sell rubber gloves then when someone searches on a search engine for the term rubber gloves, your site will be displayed. The trick is to try and get your website to rise up through the rankings and be among the top few returns on an internet search. Informative and educational articles Make your articles educational and entertaining so that your readers will enjoy your articles and want to come back and read more. If you are not a very good writer, you can find writers to do it for you on one of the freelancer sites. Give your readers what they want and information they can use. Post regular updates If you don’t update your blog on a regular basis, your visitors will tire of seeing the same old thing and will eventually stop coming. Keep your content fresh and post at regular intervals and your visitors will return. If you decide to use a content writer, you can order several articles in advance so you don’t have to worry about running out, and then post them at the appropriate time. The above tips will work together to bring you more hits to your blog and this means that your blog is becoming more popular and more people are visiting and coming back to read your updates. This is an important concept because loyal readers will soon become loyal customers and may even refer others to your site because they like it so much. So if you have a blog or are thinking about setting up one, keep these tips in mind because they will help you to get more readers of your blog and increase your traffic and hopefully your sales too! Check out this blog as an example.

“Blogging To Help in Creating a PR-Savvy Business” by Tarun Patel

tarunpatel — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:31:48 +0000

There are chances that you know or at least have heard about blog, if you use Internet. Also known as online diary or journal, a blog can be public or private. Blogging first came into existence and became popular when individuals wanted to express their feelings. With time, blogging was started being considered as a unique tool to popularize businesses.
Use little PR skills and well-organized blog to help the growth of your business or to start a new business. You may want to know how it is possible. Though, people read and seek information, they still like the blogs that have entertainment, since it is similar to reading a person’s deep thoughts. You can encash this point and use your blog for attracting more reading and turning them into prospects of your web site. Just a random posting of blogs about your business would not help you in creating interest in the readers. You can create a business that knows about the PR using your blog by following certain suggestions given below:
1. Creation of user-friendly web site: In order to attract consumers through blogging, ensure your business has a web site that is user-friendly. You should also understand that it is important to think before pushing some or the other information over the Internet. Thinking indicates thinking in the lines of the products and services offered. Make sure that your web site displays a clear picture of the business you offer. The information should be easily understandable and accessible. The important information of your business should always be on the home page, rather than on the page, where no one can find it. Avoid displaying too many ads or searching for information that would annoy a reader, and you may lose the otherwise prospective customer.
2. Adding your blog: After creating a good web site, add your blog with care. You should also decide on how you would like to show yourself and your business to the entire world, the type of customers you would like to attract, and many more. If you would like to attract the high-end professional customers, the relaxed attitude or jazzy logos and pictures would not help you anywhere. Make sure that you limit such ideas for your personal blog.
3. Grammar: Use good grammar, and adopt professional writing style with no punctuation errors. Before publishing the matter on your blog, make sure to proofread them for spelling and grammatical errors. Professionals would not like to read a business blog with lot of grammatical mistakes and spelling errors, as it indicates un-professionalism. If you are not confident about your writing style or grammar, you can check out for specialized freelance blog writers within your specified budget.
4. Blog updation: Update your blog on regular basis so that you don’t lose out your readers. You can try updating once a day or two, as once in a week would be too long. Stagnant or stale information would bore and annoy the customer. Once you get accustomed to blogging, you would find it easy to update it daily.
5. Accept Comments and Feedbacks: People, generally love commenting, and if it is blog, there is no need to ask. Therefore, include a comment section for your readers to write comments. Depending on the readers’ taste you can know easily what are their likes and dislikes, and what do they do. This would help you to be in par with their tastes. Check out aragloco as an example.

Ghandiji On Non-Violence – A Video

tarunpatel — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:48:16 +0000

We Indians ars facing a big trouble due to some kind of misconception or misunderstanding of a certains group of people.

I am talking about the terrorism that is victimising the highly developing places of India, i.e. Karnataka and Gujarat.

As most of us know, terrorism is a problem, not faced by just one nation, this is a haman-planned calamity that prevails in almost all corners of the world.

In my view, and also said my a leading Gujarati daily ‘Divya Bhaskar’, “non-violence” and “satyagrah” are the two keys to solve this problem. These are the two weapons which could melt the hearts of all kinds of human beings.

Yes, we know it is not easy to be Gandhi, but we have got a model – and we just have to follow it. Think of the person named Mohandas who carved his own path and lead the whole nation called INDIA!

Today I have searched out a video from a movie on Gandhiji in which Gandhiji’s ideas on non-violence are filmed. I am sure everyone would be able to spare a few moments to learn the thoughts of that great soul and spread it all across.

Watch the video and write what you believe.