Gliffy is a free, online version of Microsoft’s Visio, a flowchart, diagramming, and floorplan design program. This powerful application lets you share, also for free, student-generated works over the web.

How and where I have used it

This is my second year using Gliffy in writing classes at HGU. First, I have students write a paragraph about their rooms, describing in detail room layout, colors, furniture, appliances, and anything they feel makes their home special or unique. Next, they sign up for a free account at Gliffy and recreate their rooms visually using this program.

Once they start getting familiar with how things work, students become totally absorbed in this activity and create some truly impressive drawings. (See samples at bottom.) After oral presentations in groups of four, students add their drawings to their blogs, such as this one.

Room floorplans recreated by students

Basic instructions for using Gliffy

1. Log in to Gliffy
2. Specify the size of the document in the Properties panel at right
3. Add a background color and activate the grid (optional)
4. From the left menu, choose Floorplan, then a symbol type
5. Click and drag a symbol into the workspace, resize it, add a shape, text, etc.
6. Try the tool palette, such as the connector or hand tool
7. Invite collaborators by clicking Share, then Collaborate, then sending emails
8. As collaborators make changes and save, changes will appear in right column
9. When finished, choose Publish, and look at all the options Gliffy gives you (you can also Save and Export from the File menu)

Setting up the activity
It is important to pre-teach the English for the geometric shapes which are an integral part of Gliffy. “Square” and “circle” are universally known, but “parallelogram,” “cylinder,” and other more specific terms may need to be introduced. Also, it really helps to review prepositions of place by drawing geometric shapes in various places on the board and having students call out each object’s location relative to the board and to other objects.

What else can I do with it?
There must be hundreds of ways to use Gliffy in EFL/ESL. Here are a few ideas:

Dictation: Students draw a diagram while listening to pre-recorded instructions.
Pairwork: One student describes her room while a partner recreates it in Gliffy.
Collaboration: Students in pairs or groups collaborate in the design of a castle, dream house, office building, etc.
Cultural Exchange: Team up with an EFL teacher in another country, and have students exchange diagrams of local schools, residences, or other buildings with a description of anything particularly unique to that culture.

Dfilm Moviemaker is without a doubt one of my favorite sites for boosting motivation in EFL classes.  I love it. Students love it. What more could a teacher ask for?

With Dfilm, students choose from a number of preset backgrounds, skyscapes, scenarios (rendezvous, chase, etc.) and characters, write their lines, add BGM (background music), and create up to three scenes of animation. Students are actively engaged from the outset because it is they, not anyone else, who are creating the content. That is what makes this activity so successful.

When finished, students send the URL of their movies (stored on Dfilm’s servers) to the teacher for evaluation or display (see 3G Dfilms or 7G Dfilms at the top of one of my course blogs). They may also share their creations on personal blogs or web sites by pasting in code generated by Dfilm. A text box is located just under the HTML code where anyone viewing the page can leave a short comment.

To exploit this great tool further, a colleague suggested an extension activity whereby students write short “directors’ statements” to help put their movies in context and expand upon their meaning, since not all visitors to a film URL would necessarily be Japanese. This is a great idea and I am anxious to give it a try (thanks, Mary!).

What would I change if I could? It would be icing on the cake if the movie characters could actually speak the lines that students write. The ability to save and edit movies locally would also be a great feature. Still, all in all this is a very cool application of Web 2.0 technology in EFL.

One note of caution: If your students are embedding Dflim movies in their blogs or websites, I would suggest advising them not to add BGM. It is cute the first time, but visitors cannot turn it off!