How many times have we listened that a picture worths more than one hundreds words? What about using pictures and words thanks to a great tool like Voicethread?
Voicethreadis a great tool for collaborative projects since it joins picture and voice in slideshares, it is like an interactive media album. Students can leave comments using voice, text or video if they have a webcam, therefore it promotes asynchronous discusion about the topic which is being discussed. Besides, teachers can decide if they want to publish their Voicethreads presentations to share them with other teachers or keep them private.
This web 2.0 tool allows teachers to know better to their students, interact with them in a lively way and learn about their interests, hobbies, worries, etc. And, on the other hand, students can practice the language, discuss about interesting topics with other students and teachers, contrast opinions from different perspectives and enrich their learning experience.
If you would like to know more about this tool I recommend you to watch the following Voicethread:
What is Voicethread anyway?
Some ways to use Voicethread in education.
If you are interested in knowing more about using Voicethread in the ESL/EFL classroom I recommend you to visit the following Wikiwhere you will find really useful examples as well as the Webheads and friends at TESOL 2008.
As Tiscar Lara says in "Cuadernos de Comunicación e Innovación" magazine, 'Weblogs have a great potential as a tool in the educational field since they can adapt to any discipline, educational level, or teaching method'. Besides, what makes weblogs attractive for ESL/EFL educators is that students can take control of their learning process, express their ideas and interact with their teachers and other students in their same class or in English speaking countries. Therefore, students are exposed to real language what is really stimulating for them since they feel English is something real and not something they can only use in the English classroom.
But, what is a weblog or blog?
A blog is a free personal website where a person or a group of people usually write posts, include videos, personal opinions, slideshares, links, photos, gadgets, news, I mean, it is like a personal online diary. However, blogs were not created for education but they give teachers a great amount of possibilities to interact with the students, to motivate them with activities the teacher adds to the blog. Blogs have become a collaborative tool for information exchange and reflection on the topics studied in the classroom.
Nevertheless, a blog should not be just something for students to do when a teacher doesn´t know what to do in the classroom but a tool for achieving the persued learning goals. Effective teachers have to give simple and clear explanations if they want their students accomplish the activities in a successful way.
Teachers can use all kind of resources for the activities: videos, photographs, comics, website links for carrying out a researching task, etc. However, teachers have to organize, categorize and order resources to avoid "cognitive overflow". If we ask our students to search information for an specific topic on the net they can get lost since they can find a lot of information on the net but they cannot distinguish between high quality and low quality sources. A blog allows teachers to organize information through categories, structure information in an easy and quick way.
Advantages of using a blog with your ESL/EFL students
1. Teachers can interact with their students in the target language outside the classroom in an easy and fast way.
2. It is a way to give voice to your students to express their opinions, ideas and upload the work they have done in class, for example.
3. Students are actively involved in their learning process.
4. Teachers in non-English speaking countries, thanks to the net, can have access to real material for their classes and include it on the class blog.
5. Teachers can expand their classroom boundaries and their students can go on working wherever they want.
6. Students can get 'feedback' on their works from the teacher.
Ideas to use a blog outside the classroom
1. Divide your students in small groups (3-5 students per group) and ask them to create a blog for publishing the project they have been working on. Create a questionaire to know how your students have worked, if they have enjoyed the activity, what they have learnt, etc.
2. With adult students, you can organize and international classroom language exchange with other English teachers to know cultural similarities and differences with British, French, American or Portugues people, for example.
3. After a reading and discussion in class you can ask your students to create a new story using stripes, they can draw the story or use Toondoo for doing this task. After that, they have to publish them on the blog and other students have to decide which story is the best.
4. After introducing a reading about London city, you can tell your students they are going to London only for three days in July. They have to work in small groups. London is a very big city, therefore, they cannot visit all the interesting places there. They have to decide when are they going to visit London, what kind of clother are they going to take in their suitcases (you can include a link to a weather report website from U.K), what places are they going to visit (include a London guide website), where are they going to stay (bed&breakfasts, hotels, hostels, Inns, etc). They have to interact with the other students to take all these decisions. When they have finished the research, they have to publish a summary on the blog. With this activity they can review vocabulary (clothes, weather) and grammar (going to).
5. You can provide your students with a reading from the web uploading it to the blog and ask them to write a summary.
2. Not all students have a homogeneous NTIC knowledge.
If you are interested in this topic you should visit this Web 2.0 in the Classroom Blog entry called "Using Blogs to Promote Authentic Learning in the Classroom"and "Blogging for ELT" by Graham Stanley. They really worth!
Would you like to integrate blogs in your English classes?
You are always welcome to contribute with your ideas!!
Next: Top Ten for Education. Number 3 is for Voicethread.
Today, surfing on the net I have found a very interesting article in the 'Transforming Education through Technology' journal, called Top Ten Web 2.0 Tools for Young Learners written by Chris Riedel. My aim with this post is not making a list of Web 2.0 tools but giving some ideas to use them in the classroom since we, teachers, need to share new pedagocial ways to introduce technology into the curriculum.
I would like you to contribute with your ideas as well.
1. How can we use Web 2.0 tools in the classroom?
2. What projects or activities have you developed with your students using them?
3. Have they enjoyed them?
4. What has been the impact on your students?
5. What problems have you found to adapt them to the curriculum?
Thanks for your help!!
What are Wikis?
A wiki is free software which allows you to create a website in a simple way for you and your students. You and your students can edit text, links, powerpoint presentations, multimedia content, videos, photos... since it is mainly a collaborative tool. The most famous wiki is Wikipedia where people from all over the world edit information about everything you can imagine (literature, science, biographies, history, cities...).
How can we use wikis in the classroom?
1. A wiki can be a great tool to collect all your students class works, similar to an electronic porfolio.
2. You can upload a video about the topic you have introduced in class and write some questions about the video. The students have to write their answers in the wiki. You can use the "To Do" feature in the wiki if you want they work in pairs.You can use the forum to communicate with your students. Interaction is an important part of the learning process, if you don't interact with your students they can feel themselves isolated.
3. If your students are adults you can set up an online discussion about culture (a film you have watched in the classroom, food, a book they have read...). After that, they can work in a webquest about the same topic and complete a task such as a short video with their vision about the topic the video deals with, a film summary with their point of view, a multi-cultural recipe book...
4. You can contact other ESL/EFL teachers in a different country and start a project to know cultural differences. Your students can learn to value other cultures or the culture of the language they are learning, English.
5. Students can collaborate in small groups (4-5) on reports, presentations, sharing links for a related topic, writing a story, etc.
Last 26th March, Google launched a new sub-site called Youtube Edu which was released in Youtube Blog . According to Youtube Blog, "YouTube EDU is a volunteer project sparked by a group of employees who wanted to find a better way to collect and highlight all the great educational content being uploaded to YouTube by colleges and universities. We'll feature some of these videos on the home page on Friday and elaborate further in a separate post on that day. "
This project is very similar to Academic Earthone. There are more than 20000 videos about lectures, full courses, etc, on Youtube Edu and growing each day! Now, you can go on learning anytime and anywhere browsing videos by college or university name in the Directory.
Youtube is a tool which many teachers like using in their classes, however, this sharing site is blocked in many schools around the world and in many countries. Therefore, has Youtube developed this new sub-site to avoid sutting the site out?
There is no doubt this has been a great idea, but when is Youtube going to launch a sub-site for ESL/EFL teachers full of teachers' classes, activities, projects, experiences,etc to know what other teachers are doing all around the world in just one website?
Yesterday, Karen Schweitzer, an experienced freelance writer and copyeditor who also writes for About.com and other education companies, sent me this article with very valuable information about Free ESL Teaching Resources.
Every teacher needs a little help now and then inside the classroom and out. Fortunately, there are plenty of free ESL teaching resources that can be found online. Here are 30 useful sites worth checking out today.
General Teaching Resources
Education World - Education World is one of the best online resources for teachers. This site hosts information about professional development, lesson planning, and other resources that educators can use.
Teachers Network - This non-profit organization was created by teachers for other teachers. The Teacher's Network offers up-to-date research, news, lesson plans, videos, and much more.
Teacher Magazine - This online magazine provides news and a collection of blogs for teachers. Other features include polls, interviews, and interactive forums.
GEM - The Gateway to Education Materials (GEM) is brimming with free teaching resources and tools. Teachers can choose from more than 50,000 free resources.
Teacher Planet - With more than 350 theme based resource pages, Teacher Planet is a good place to come up with ideas and information for themed activities and lessons.
General Lesson Plans
PBS Teachers - This PBS site is an excellent place to find free, standards-based lesson plans for a wide range of subjects.
Discovery Education - The online lessons library from Discovery Education includes hundreds of free teacher-created lesson plans.
Scholastic - Scholastic provides a number of timely, thematic lessons for teachers. Many of the lessons are free. An additional 10,000 lessons can be accessed for a small fee.
Thinkfinity - Sponsored by the Verizon Foundation, this popular site includes free lessons, interactives, and other useful resources for teachers.
Lesson Planz - Lesson Planz is an online directory of lesson plans. Using this Internet directory is a great way to find free lesson plans without going from site to site.
ESL-Specific Lesson Plans
The Internet TESL Journal - This site has thousands of free resources for EFL and ESL teachers. Some of the best resources include lesson plans, classroom activities, games, and articles on teaching techniques.
Using English - Using English is an excellent source for free ESL lesson plans and printables. The site also hosts forums, articles, and useful links.
English as a Second Language - English as a Second Language is an About.com site with free lesson plans for students of any level. The site also includes printable quizzes, tests, and English learning tools.
ESL Galaxy- This site provides nearly 3,000 free worksheets that can be used in ESL lessons. New worksheets and activities are added on a weekly basis.
Read Write Think - Although this site isn't aimed at ESL teachers, it does offer reading lessons and materials for English readers at almost every reading level. Read Write Think also includes the IRA and NCTE's standards for the English Language Arts.
Worksheets and Worksheet Generators
Educational Press - Teachers can make and print all of the free educational worksheets, flashcards, game boards, and quizzes they want with the Personal Education Press.
TEFL.net - Created specifically for ESL and EFL teachers, TEFL.net has more worksheets, lesson plans, activities, and quizzes than one teacher could use. The site also has a worksheet generator so that teachers can create their own worksheets.
Teachnology - Teachnology offers more than 6,000 printable worksheets sorted by category. The site is also a good resource for lesson plans and other printables.
Family Education - Family Education is a great place to find printables for almost any reading level. This site also includes a number of other resources ESL teachers can implement in the classroom.
Super Teacher Worksheets - This site is an excellent source for ELA worksheets. Specific topics include grammar, printing, cursive, phonics, reading, reading comprehension, and writing prompts.
Flashcards and Flashcard Makers
ESL Flashcards - ESL teachers can download hundreds of free flashcards from this site. Flashcards come in three different sizes.
Flashcard Exchange - Teachers can make, print, and exchange flashcards on this easy-to-use website. Flashcards can also be studied online.
Scholastic - The Homework Hub Flashcard Maker from Scholastic is great for math and word flashcards. The flashcards you make are printable. Make up to four cards at a time.
Kitzkikz - This no-frills flashcard maker is great for making versatile flashcards. Just print, cut, fold, and study.
Flashcard Machine - Teachers can create web based flashcards using this free web app. Flashcard Machine also hosts more than 10 million ready-to-use flashcards.
Teacher's Blogs
TeacherLingo - TeacherLingo is a blog community for teachers. Educators can create blogs, read blogs, and network with other teachers.
Edublogs - Edublogs hosts thousands of blogs for students, teachers, librarians, and other educators. The site is great for teachers who want to introduce blogging to their students.
So You Want To Teach? - This teacher-run blog is a great place to find motivation, teaching resources, and information about classroom management and personal development.
My ESL Corner - This teacher-run blog is a wonderful place for ESL teachers to share resources, news, and teaching tips.
Online Teaching Degree - The TeachingDegree.org blog is a good place to learn more about teaching education and degree options for ESL teachers.
What is Internet4Classroom? A long time ago two enthusiastic American proffesionals, Susan Brooks and Bill Byles, began a collaborative project to help teachers to integrate New Technologies in the classroom in an effective way but it was so great that it arrived to the net for all of us in 2000.
What can we find on this wonderful site?
1. A site mapwith all the site items organized alphabetical order.
1. Online tutorialsto help teachers to use programs such us Work, Powerpoint, etc; pedagogical tools such as Webquests; multimedia authoring tools such as Hyperstudio, a tools which allows you to integrate text, voice, pictures... and others.
2. In the same section, there are lessons as well which include useful examples and tips about how to use them in the classroom and many resources you can find on the net.
Our students have changed radically. Today's students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.Mark Prensky.
Many things have been written about how Web 2.0 tools can increase opportunities for learning in a cooperative way, improving critical thinking and communication between students, and between students and teachers.
Nowadays, competent teachers in the New Technologies usage are needed in Education in order to make a difference in the classroom. We should not forget that our students are “digital natives”, therefore, as Carina Grisolia and Claudia Marisa Pagano says in their article “WebQuests, Wikis y Blogs un trío que se las trae!” –“chalk and blackboard are not enough for teaching” (la tiza y el pizarrón no son suficientes a la hora de dar clases). However, teachers have to rethink the learning process introducing new learning strategies and methods based in New Technologies to motivate our students.
Technology by itself doesn’t change and improve the way our students learn; we can have classrooms full of computers, with the most innovative programs, and go on with the methods we use in face-to-face classes, I mean, magisterial classes. Therefore, we need new pedagogical approaches in order to our students learn in a cooperative way, and this is just possible if teachers learn to think web 2.0 networks educatively. This means, as well, to change the teacher’s role.
The teacher is not an "encyclopedia" anymore, but the person who helps students to achieve their goals teaching them to work in a cooperative way (webquests, wikis, blogs…). Cooperative learning is just possible with WEB 2.0 tools. Web 2.0 has expanded the class boundaries to create social and educative networks on the net where teachers and students work together to create and share knowledge, whereas Web 1.0 was about passive viewing of content. Students love project works in which each one has a role, since they feel they have a responsability. They enjoy and learn doing things and strengthening bonds with their classmates and teachers!
If you are interested in this topic, you should read these articles and book:
A long time ago, I wrote a post about the best site for finding ESL resources for all levels,ESLPrintables. Today, I would like to recommend you other two great sites full of resources: Curriculumbits and Ziggity Zoom.
Curriculumbitsis a site which was launched in 2006 full of free interactive multimedia resources not just for ESL teaching but also but also for Bilingual Schools since it includes materials for subjects such as Geography, Biology, Art & Design, Maths, PE or Physics. As it is said in the site "Resources have been produced according to key stage 3 and 4 of the UK National Curriculum for students aged 11 to 16. All resources are produced by elearning multimedia specialists in collaboration with every day teaching staff as a direct solution to their classroom requirements."
The Teaching Resource Libraryincludes games, quizzes, interactive animations and videos to use in the classroom. There are not many resources for English yet, but it worths visiting it!!
However, if you are looking for a great site full of ESL resources for preschool and primary (first cycle) the alternative
is Ziggity Zoom: a place where children will get excited and have fun playing games, colouring pictures, reading and listenting stories about different characters, watching vid
Wednesday, February 04, 2009Inma Alcázar5 comments
Life-long learning is an important part of us as teachers. Teachers are constantly learning all their life because it is very important for us to recycle ourselves, we have to become non-stop learners, to know new pedagogical strategies, how to motivate our students and adapt to their different learning processes...
In my opinion, a good teacher is a good life-long student. Therefore, some books you shouldn't miss are those found in Cambridge website, a great pedagogical free e-books collectionfrom Cambridge University Press which has been designed for ELT professionals who wish to know more about language instruction. There are some topics like:
1. Teaching Listening.
2. Teaching Listening and Speaking: from Theory to Practice.
3. Teaching Pronunciation: Using the Prosody Pyramid.
4. Teaching Vocabulary: Lessons from the Corpus, Lessons for the Classroom.
5. The Student-Centered Classroom.
They are not long books, you can read them in a few hours. Therefore, you have any excuse to read them, have you?
But what else is Cambridge University Press setting up for teachers? As Holly S. Longstroth, one of the organizers, told me, there will be an online conference called Exploiting Dynamic Content in the Professional English Classroom by Brendan Whightman on 6th March.
"This presentation will explore the varying types of materials that are now available to professional English teachers through the Internet. These include blogs, podcasts, infoquests and hot-off-the-press lesson plans that probe the latest issues wiht the immediacy that onyl the Internet can facilitate.
Referencing the free resources on Professional English Online, we will consider the advantages and the disadvantages of the Web's dynamic pedagogical content and how it compares to, differs from, and 'ultimately' can be integrated with traditional teaching materials.Brendan Whightman taught General and Business English in Poland and Italy for seven years before moving into technology-enhanced learning. He is an expert on blended learning and instructional technologies and his experience with e-Learning includes course design and software development for ELT, project managing interactive whiteboard CD-ROMs and teacher training. He now works for Cambridge ELT as Commissioning Editor for e-learning".
You will find more information about it in the following link.
Not only is technology fun and motivating for our students, but also a powerful tool for learning. Teachers in schools and high schools should give their studens as many chances as possible to use technologies integrating them into the curriculum because they would get better results than with traditional methods. One of these opportunities could be using digital cameras in class.
Ideas for using them in your ESL classroom:
1. For the first class or when teaching Countries and Nationalities, you can ask your students to divide in groups of six people. Then, tell them they have to imagine they don't start school in Spain but in England where there are many students from other countries. They have to write a short play with questions for the first class day, such as "Hello, how are you? My name is... And I come from ... Where are you from?" "I am from... but I have lived here for ..." "Oh, that's great! Are there many shops, museums or theatres in the city?". Then, they have to record their play with their cameras, using imagination.
2. Another idea is to do the same activity but collecting friend's photos, England photos, looking for information about England, timetables, subjects, food... and make a presentation in class. For this task students can use Movie Makerto create a slide show which they will use in their presentation. After that, they have to talk about their first day of class in a British school or a trip to London. Here you will find an example made by university students, you can adapt to your students level.
3. Students can also use digital cameras for creating TV commercials. Two students are the reporters, others the Sports journalist who has to talk about sports and interview famous players; the national reporters who have to talk about events in the country; the international reporters in different parts of the world; culture journalists to tell about cultural events, shows in the world and interview famous writers, singers..., and the weather reporter who has to talk about the weather in the world. They have to write the stories, try to memorize them and create a short play to recorded later.
4. If your students are beginners, you can help them to perform a song. Watch here a cute example.
You will find more ideas in the following link. I hope these ideas are useful for motivating your students to learn English.
Nowadays, our students are digital natives, that is, "children who were born into and raised in the digital world", children who spend a lot of time surfing on the net, chatting with their friends, playing computer games... This is not learning, but what about changing this? What about teaching them to use the tools they can find on the net to learn English?
I am sure that if every student could use these tools in order to learn English and acquire knowledge, not only at school but also at home, anywhere, his language would improve very quickly. The teacher's role is to help students to be more independent, to reach their goals in their learning process and this can be done teaching them to use web 2.0 tools in an appropriate way because this is the new 21st century literacy.
Nowadays, we are exposed to a wide range of Information Technology in our homes. Citizens of the future who lack technology skills will be at a severe disadvantage since confidence with Information and Communication Technology is part of the New Literacy for the 21st century. Teenagers spend more time surfing on the net and are fond of it. Therefore, teachers has to rethink their ways of teaching and adapt to the new social changes because Internet has brought a revolution to teaching and learning.
But, how can technology help in the learning process?
One of the possible answers is through Moodle. Moodle is one of the most used "virtual learning environments" to teach online courses or as part of on-site education all over the world by 1.851.889 and 26.745.838 users. It was developed by Martin Dougiamas to help to create a social constructionist approachin education and a new way of learning. This platform, which has be
en used since 1999 can be useful to interact with your students who live in the same place or who live in different countries. Besides, Moodle is an open source course management package that is free.
What are the advantages of using Moodle?
I have not used Moodle as a teacher but I discovered its advantages as a student, in one of my literature subjects at the University last year, and it helped me a lot in my learning process.
1. The teacher can enroll all here/his students.
2. He/She can upload tasks to develop in groups or individually at any time and in any place. You can choose the last date to upload the task to the platform. For example, in my class, the teacher uploaded some poems and the students had to write a literary essay about it. I think it is very comfortable since when you have finished it you can send it to the teacher in just one click. Besides, students can access safe materials in a personalised environment.
3. He/She can include a chat to discuss some topics explained in the class, wikis, podcasts or group discussions for collaborative activities.
4. He/She can upload documents or videos to help students in their learning process.
5. A forum can be also included for different questions. The whole class had to create a glosary with 18th century literary terms.
6. Students do not feel so shy, at least in Spain, to contact the teacher as they do in class.
7. Students can contribute to whole class initiatives.
8. Teachers can also include news about interesting topics related to the school, high-school, university or to the subject.
9. Teachers can follow their students' progress, how much time do they spend on the platform, what places have they visited in the platform, when they upload an assignment or post a comment on the forum.
10. Moodle offers students the opportunity to instant message other friends in the class, edit their own profile, add their photos, create their blog.
In this
link you will find moodle tutorials to learn how to use it and a book called UsingMoodlewritten by Jason Cole and Helen Foster.
But what else can Moodle offer to teachers?
As Manish Verma said "Moodle is an asynchronous tool", I mean, Moodle is a platform where the teacher can u
pload Word, PDFs documents or online learning resources to make easier to the students the information access. However, there are many other tools, like Wiziq(free software), which allow synchronours cooperation, that is, whichallow teachers to share text, audio and video with the students in the virtual classroom and viceversa.
These tools provide integration with moodle and this is what makes moodle to be a real VLE (Virtual Learning Environment). One of the advantages which Wiziq provides to Moodle is that you can "use features like live audio and video communication, text messaging, whiteboard with drawing and writing tools, PowerPoint, PDF and Flash file sharing and privileges to transfer control to any participant independently"(1) what can be more interesting for younger students. Learn how to do it!
What are the advantages of using Wiziq in the Moodle platform?
1. You can use it to view public sessions given by experienced teachers on a great amount of topics or interact with other teachers or students in a live discussions via online conference.
2. You can upload your own Power Point presentations.
3. The sessions are recorded, therefore if you cannot be on time you can follow them later.
4. Teachers can view other teachers lessons to know what other teachers are doing and take ideas to improve their own ones.
But there is also one disadvantage since using just the Moodle platform you do not need to be on the computer at a particular moment but with the Wiziq tool you have to be there. Besides, it is only in the beta version.
For more information about Wiziq you can visit its blog or watch this video:
As for Moodle, there are also tutorialsfor learning to use Wiziq. Another live e-learning software is Elluminate which was created in 2000. Here you will find information about how integrateit into the Moodle platform .
But there are more tools like DimDim (free web meeting service based on the open software platform is another web 2.0 launched one year ago). Here is the guide to integrate it with Moodle.
If you are interested in similar tools: tutorom, iknow(for languages) or Yugma (not free).
Some teachers are still reluctant to integrate new technologies in their classrooms? Why is so difficult for some teachers to accept this change?
Today I got an email from Chad DeBolt, the creator of the ESL United website. This amazing site is a mixture of Facebook and Monster, that is, an ESL social network where you can upload your curriculum, write blog posts, upload photos, videos, chat with other ESL community members, participate in the forum and groups, create your own group to interact with other peers. Therefore, teachers, schools, associations... are welcome!!!
Here, you will find everything you need to know about the ESL world. In addition, as it is starting volunteers are needed and you can contribute to make this site your own one. If you miss something in the site you can join to the ESL United Website Volunteers and make your proposals. Therefore, what are you waiting for checking out the site?
