Friday, January 9, 2009

2nd Critical Review of Technology

Vocabulary Worksheet Factory

PART I.

1. What is Vocabulary Worksheet Factory?

Vocabulary Worksheet Factory is a useful tool to design vocabulary activities for your learners. Anyone can install the software and create word activities easily, but the product is not free, unfortunately. After experiencing with free 30-day-trial version you can purchase the product. It costs $59.00 for a single user. Alternatively, you can want to install the program more than one computer so that your students can use it. In this situation you should purchase the one called Small Site License (for less than 250 students) and it is $149.00. As the number of the students with whom you share your program the price of the software increases. The last version of Vocabulary Worksheet Factory, Version 3.9.3.1, is released in April, 24 2008. The thing which makes this software special is that it includes a variety kind of word activities from crosswords to word jumbles and cloze tests. Vocabulary Worksheet Factory is the improved version of three previously created programs by the same company, and these programs are as follows: Word Search Factory Pro, Word Search Factory Lite and Crossword Factory. It has all features of these programs in one program.

2. Who designed Vocabulary Worksheet Factory?

Vocabulary Worksheet Factory is designed by a Canadian company, Schoolhouse Technologies. The company was founded in 1998 and since then it has been serving as a source for practical software tools for users in teaching field.

3. What is Vocabulary Worksheet Factory designed to do?

Vocabulary Worksheet Factory is designed to design different types of vocabulary worksheets for vocabulary teaching easily and in a short time. Anybody can use the software just by installing it. With one of its tools, Worksheet Wizard, users can create activities by following the steps provided. Vocabulary Worksheet Factory is a useful tool for both teachers and students. Teacher can use it in their vocabulary lessons to improve vocabulary skills of their students. Also students can make use of it by preparing vocabulary activities by selecting particular words they have difficulty in learning for themselves.

4. How is Vocabulary Worksheet Factory used?

After installing the program, you can start creating vocabulary activities soon. You can design your own exercises with the words you select or you can use already prepared ones in the software. You can create exercises with missing words or scrambled sentences. If you want your students to study on punctuation, you can create an activity with a text without punctuation marks. If you want to prepare activities on word level, you can use a variety kind of activities provided by the software. They are alphabet soup, alphabetical order, crossword puzzle, decoding, framework, hidden letters, lined, magic square, matching, missing letters, multiple choice, spiral word jumbles, word links, word search and word shapes. After clicking on one of these types, a new page opens and you can create your activity. Also you can play with the options like the format of the page, the number of the words you use, colors, borders, etc. Moreover, you can add an image, quotation or riddle to your exercise page. Word list, sentence collection, text, quotation and riddle editors help you in designing process. When the worksheet you prepare is ready, you can print or save the page on your computer. Also you can export the page as an image file. The program provides you the answer key, too.

PART II.

1. How easy or difficult is Vocabulary Worksheet Factory to use?

The software, Vocabulary Worksheet Factory is very easy to use. You just select the activity you want to use and type in the words -if you want to create a particular activity for your teaching objectives- or select one of the pre-made exercises and the software do everything left for you in seconds. You can even design more than one activity simultaneously with the help of handy tap page view, so you can switch between worksheets. The only limitation of the program for me is that it is not free and its free trial is for 30 days.

2. Who would most benefit from using Vocabulary Worksheet Factory?

I think that ESL/EFL teachers and people in education field can benefit from using Vocabulary Worksheet Factory most. As teacher and instructors always need supplementary elements in teaching vocabulary, especially with young learners, they can create lots of different exercises with this program easily and by spending little time.

3. How could Vocabulary Worksheet Factory be used to enhance language learning?

As it is understood from its name ‘factory’ the program serves you as a factory of exercise. By using worksheets you design with this program in class, you can increase the motivation of your students because students give attention to interesting and different things. If you create different kinds of worksheet activities, you can improve vocabulary skills of your students. Moreover they have fun while learning new words via crossword puzzles or other vocabulary activities you create. You can use them as post activities or you can give them as homework to your students. Instead of giving a list of new vocabulary in the lesson, giving a worksheet of the words is much more appealing for the students. I have really like the program and I think I will use it in my future teaching experiences. It provides different kinds of activities and it is really very user friendly. I have installed its trial version on my computer and I continue playing with its features.

REFERENCES

Vocabulary Worksheet and Activity Creator for Teachers. Vocabulary Worksheet Factory (2009).Retrieved Jan 1, 2009 from http://www.schoolhousetech.com/Vocabulary/Default.aspx