Chat+room

With text chat:
media type="gabbly" key="https://teb-teachingenglishforbusiness.wikispaces.com/page/edit/Chat+room?token=f1884dd8695571a04682e81a675f1c1c" height="400" width="480"

With voice or video chat:
If you create a blog or wiki for your students (a group, or one-to-one client) you can add a button like this so they can Skype you directly from that location. It's a nice personal touch!

media type="skype" key="carldowse" ARG0="call_blue_white_124x52.png" height="52" width="124"

The buttons are of course free and down-loadable from the Skype website. If you want to test it (this is actually just a sad way of getting people to speak to me!) then click on the button above and see if I'm online (Carl).

Alternatively, you can communicate asynchronously with your students, by using this tool from [|Springdoo] which allows you to leave video messages for your students which they can reply to:

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As always, the hard part is figuring out how to exploit these technologies in really effective ways and avoid using them just for the sake of it. I'd be interested to know what you think. Hit the discussion tab to leave your comments, ideas and suggestions. Or, if you have a web cam why not record a video reply?

And here's yet another video possibility, this it's from [|TokBox] which provides fully web-based video-conferencing that doesn't require you to download or install any programs on your computer:

media type="custom" key="228057" Once you have registered your [|channel] is given a URL which you give to the person(s) you want to speak to, and they visit that URL to talk to you. It can also, as you see above, be embedded in your own web page.

With online white board:
Click on the button below to open a new Skrbl pad. This is a handy tool for use in combination with Skype voice or video chat, but works best with small groups (up to 4 + tutor), or of course one-to-one online tutorials. Your students need to know the location of your pad (you can have as many private pads as you like once you've signed up) and you can give them this by sending them the URL of your pad by email.

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The URL (web address) of your pad can be cut and pasted from your browser's navigation bar.