Podcasting in the ESL Classroom

Today I checked out a podcasting site called CUlips that creates podcast lessons for ESL learners. The site is based out of Canada but is still relevant to students learning American vernacular English because there are a wide variety of podcasts on many subjects that can be used by teachers. I listened to a specific episode titled "Home is Where the Heart is." The format of this podcast included two speakers, Andrew and Maura, who have a discussion about idioms that involve the word and concept of home. Some of the idioms they include are home sweet home, there's no place like home, hometown, house and home, etc.

I think that this podcast could be used in a higher level ESL class where students have a good base of vocabulary and grammar. The podcast itself is rather long, around 20 minutes, so it might be two extensive for students with limited listening abilities. I think that this could be a good at home listening homework assignment where students have a worksheet that requires them to answer questions about the main idea, dialogue details and getting meaning of new words from context. Also, the podcast could be paired with a unit on idioms in general or a unit on the meaning of home and culture. I think that this episode touches on a topic that students in an ESL class in the US could relate to because it talks about the experience of culture shock as well as common idioms. It is always a good idea to incorporate topics that students can relate to and share their experiences with in order to engage student interest and increase motivation.

Communicating World-Wide with ePals

The ePals Global Classroom provides a variety of learning opportunities for the EFL classroom. There is a learning center with many resources that can be adapted to the specific needs of your classroom. For example, if you are conducting a unit with a focus on science there is a Science Center, or for a unit on geography there is McGraw Hill, or students can visit the Smithsonian Museum. These are only a few of the options available. This is a resource that can be utilized by classrooms in the US as there is a center that is common core aligned as well so that the project ideas that are suggested will align with common core objectives. Many of the resources can be utilized abroad as well and provide teachers and students access to award winning materials that can be used on many devices including iPad, Android and Kindle.

One of uses for this tool that I think can be very useful in the classroom is the use of projects for incorporating cultural elements into lesson plans. Classrooms from across the globe can pair up to participate in completing a project together. There are multiple ways to accomplish this. If you have a project in mind you can post your idea and your class info and another teacher can respond if their class would like to partner with you on the project. You can also search the projects that other teachers have posted and choose one that your class could join. The ePals sight provides project ideas for you or you can come up with your own. Some interesting examples are: a scavenger hunt, a documentary of your community, a collaboration on being a green campus and a story-writing project. Really the options are endless which is what makes this such an adaptable tool.

Digital Storytelling with GoAnimate

This time I tried using GoAnimate to create an animated comic strip. In actuality I had never considered using comic strips in an EFL classroom so this was a great opportunity to try something new and see how it could be adapted for educational purposes. Again this is a site that offers a more limited free version but you still have options for picking out many background settings for the comic, as well as characters and props. This tool allows you to incorporate audio to make the characters speak or they can use text bubbles. I would like to have both options so that students could read and hear what is being said by the characters. The characters can move around the scenes as well which makes the comic strip come alive. I will say that this feature is slightly more complicated to incorporate so I think I would need some additional practice to master all the features and see how they can be used.

I chose to create a comic strip with characters modeling how to use modals in a social context. So, the teacher and student used the more formal version of modals to speak to each other and the two students addressed each other using informal modals. This is actually an area that EFL students can struggle with and I think that a comic strip would be helpful to model the correct uses in a way that is more engaging than a list of written examples. I think that comic strips can be quite helpful in the classroom because they can provide a visual reference for students. Comic strips could be used as hooks or lead ins as well, but I also see a role for them as a way to get students discussing what is occurring in the dialogue and giving them an opportunity to analyze and dissect the interaction.

Digital Storytelling with Animoto

Today I tried out Animoto to make a short video that could be used in an EFL classroom. I really liked the site because I found it easy to navigate and making my video was quite simple and quick. Also, the various options for music, styles and text mean that I can customize the videos I create. On the downside is the short length of the free videos, thirty seconds is rather limiting. Depending on how much I would use this tool in class I might consider a paid membership so that I could have even more options.

The video I made is meant teach the simple future tense using the prompt "What will you do this summer?" I think that short thirty second videos can function well in the EFL classroom as "hooks" to grab student interest and attention using visual stimulus rather than just orally stating the topic or question. Also, the video could be used as a lead in to small class discussions as a way to activate students' prior knowledge of the subject that is going to be addressed in class. In these instances a long video is not really necessary so even the free version could be utilized. Another consideration is that depending on the level of the students a short video could be preferable so as not to overwhelm them with too much content. One feature that I think would make this a more education friendly tool is if there was an option for incorporated spoken audio text. Then students would be utilizing both listening and reading skills, besides providing practice in each area this would also aid those students who may different learning styles.

Summer Vacation is Here

Bringing Digital Storytelling to the EFL Classroom

What is digital storytelling? According to the site Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling it "…revolves around the idea of combining the art of telling stories with a variety of multimedia, including graphics, audio, video, and Web publishing." What makes digital storytelling so dynamic is that it can be used to cover any topic from personal experiences to current events, the possibilities are endless. 

Another site, The Center for Digital Storytelling emphasizes the transformative social effect that digital storytelling can have stating that "Whether online, in social media or local communities, or at the institutional/policy level, the sharing of stories has the power to make a real difference." I think this is very true because through sharing people of diverse experiences and backgrounds can come to understand different perspectives. Also, visual imagery can be very powerful. By combining digital imagery with a written or oral narrative it makes the story that is being told that much more vivid and alive to the audience.

There are multiple uses for digital storytelling in the EFL classroom because it is so adaptable to just about any topic. It is a tool that can be used by either teachers or students. I think that as a teacher I might use it to increase student interest in and attention to a topic. For example I could make a video to tell a story or interview someone that tied in with a lesson or unit covered in class. This could make the topic more alive to the students. Also, with the availability of sites such as Skype it is possible to interview and video tape people across the world. Another option for digital storytelling is to have the students work individually or in groups (depending on the availability of equipment) to interview English speakers on a specific topic or to interview each other. This is what I really like about digital storytelling, this element of sharing experiences.

Gamification & Serious Games

I tried out a serious game called 3rd World Farmer. I played the game twice and found it to be easy to navigate. Some of the other serious games I tried out were much more difficult to figure out, had more rules to learn and required a more extensive vocabulary. For this reason I think this game could be good for an EFL classroom. I might employ this in an EFL classroom as an autonomous learning tool for students. I think it could be paired with a unit on finances, the condition of farmers in developing countries and farming vocabulary.

My learning objectives would be for students to recognize farming vocabulary, to practice making financial decisions and to be able to make observations about the life of a farmer in a developing country. The students would be responsible for playing the game on their own. In order to assess that the learning objectives had been met I would ask the students to write two short observational paragraphs about their experience. I would ask them to include details of the game they played utilizing farming vocabulary, details of the financial decisions they had to make and their observations on the life of a farmer in a developing country.

Gamification in the EFL Classroom

According to Educause gamification is the application of game-like elements in non-game situations. The intension is to increase interest, motivation and participation. Stephan J. Franciosi discusses how using games in an educational setting can contribute to students' intrinsic motivation to learn. He defines Flow as a mental state where a person experiences the challenge of a task/game which is neither too easy or too hard. Flow Theory has three components which support the use of games, they are: goals, feedback and skill/difficulty balance. If a game has these three components then it is likely to increase students' experience of Flow and engagement and thereby increase intrinsic motivation.

I played an escape the room game named The Great Kitchen Escape. I played the game three times. If I were to utilize this game in class my learning objectives would be that students would be able to identify kitchen vocabulary items through listening to directions, they would be able to follow commands given by the teacher reading the walkthrough, and they would be able to recognize prepositions for the location of items in the game. I would most likely have the students work in groups of two depending on the size of the class and the number of computers available. I would write out a script for the walkthrough using kitchen vocabulary, command words and prepositions of place/location and read it to the students as they played the game. Throughout the game playing process I would carry out comprehension checks to make sure the students were understanding the vocabulary, commands and prepositions. As a follow-up to the activity I would make a worksheet with screenshot images from the game for the students to identify the vocabulary, commands and prepositions that were used.

Twitter in the Classroom

On the website Educational Technology and Mobile Learning I found a great list of educational uses for Twitter. The list was broken up into five categories: Communication, Organization, Resources, Writing Skills, and Twitter Exercises. The more common educational uses for Twitter were listed such as sending out mass announcements, providing feedback and communicating with parents. There were also many ideas that had not occurred to me. For example, under communication there was a suggestion to use Twitter as ambient office hours so that teachers can be more accessible to students. Under organization a suggestion I thought could be really useful to me in the future was using Twitter to recap the day's lesson. A recommendation under resources was to follow Twitter news streams in the target language. For writing skills an idea I liked was assigning a daily or weekly word game on Twitter. Then under Twitter exercises I thought another good idea was to give bonus points for students who use Twitter to participate in discussions that they might feel uncomfortable to join in class.

A second article I read addressed how to establish a Twitter routine in the classroom. The author was writing specifically about grades K-8 who cannot establish their own Twitter accounts but I think the information can be adapted to other age groups. The visual roadmap graphic was really informative. It starts out by pointing out why teachers should Tweet with their class for example to communicate, to practice writing skills and to develop a sense of digital citizenship. The roadmap then moves on to how to familiarize students with the Twitter scene, what it means to be a follower, how to follow someone, and how to evaluate the feeds of others. Finally the visual shows how using Twitter can encourage students to use both lower and higher order thinking skills. I found this graphic very helpful in visualizing the process of introducing and utilizing Twitter in the classroom.

Twitterchatting

I followed the #eltchat on Twitter on Wednesday morning. The majority of teachers who attended the chat were from England but there were also teachers who were living and teaching abroad in places like Saudi Arabia. I thought that having teachers with varied backgrounds helped to stimulate the conversation and produced diverse observations and suggestions. The topic of the chat was the importance of the starting and ending of a lesson. What I liked about the chat was that it was informal, that anyone was welcome and could post a comment or idea. Also, I found that several participants had some interesting ideas of how to organize the beginning and ending of class. There were also some links and references given to reading material and resources on the topic. I found the tone of the chat to be very positive, welcoming and open to ideas. There was a lot of positive feedback and encouragement between participants.

I will say though that the format of a Twitterchat is somewhat confusing and hard to keep up with. There were multiple conversations going on at once so it could be somewhat hard to follow one train of thought. Also not everyone followed the specific questions that were posted by the moderator and a few participants would go off subject and make jokes. Due to the rapid nature of the chat sometimes the new question that was posted was not seen and people kept posting about the last question or they did not like/understand a question and ignored it. Ultimately though a Twitterchat is an informal venue so that is what is nice about it, participants can comment on what they want and say what they want without too much censorship. I liked the experience and can see that it could be useful for professional development and for networking. There were many useful ideas expressed in a short period of time and I felt that there were things that I could try to implement in class.

Social Networking Sites and Professional Development

Recently I joined a social networking site for EFL teachers called EFL Classroom 2.0. I was amazed by the variety of resources available on the website. There are forums for hosting discussions with other members and blogs to follow with updates on teaching resources. In addition in your personal profile you can include a link to your own professional blog. Also, there are thousands of links to videos, there are links to educational games, to e-readers and even to some of the resources we have been exploring in our class such as Voicethread.

I am really excited to explore more of these resources and materials. For instance there is a whole page of resources just for phonics as well as a page with materials such as flashcards and worksheets. What I also like about the site is that it is international. This is important to me as a future EFL teacher who intends to teach outside the US. I would like to have access to different resources and have the opportunity to network with teachers who are working abroad.

Connectivism Theory and the Modern Learner

Through reading George Siemens' article on Connectivism, A Learning Theory for the Digital Age, I started to envision learners as modern day hunter-gatherers. I say this because I think learners are constantly on the hunt for information and knowledge on-line, on databases, on social media, etc. This hunt can be seen as a means of survival where the learner must stay current in their field in order to remain relevant and ultimately to remain employed. Siemens states "When knowledge, however, is needed, but not known, the ability to plug into sources to meet the requirements becomes a vital skill. As knowledge continues to grow and evolve, access to what is needed is more important than what the learner currently possesses." The implication for our learners is that they need to develop the skills to hunt for knowledge so that when they encounter something that they do not know the answer to they have the resources to search out the answer.

Unlike some hunter-gatherers in the past, today's learners are not out hunting alone. Instead they can build networks of connections to other individuals and as a result they can increase their knowledge. In a video titled The Changing Nature of Knowledge Siemens discusses "The Network model of learning…the learners themselves, the connections they form with each other, the connections they form with databases, with other sources of knowledge is really the primary point of learning." I like this idea that these connections are learner initiated, that each individual creates their own network which is unique to them and their experiences and interests. If learners are encouraged to build networks while in a school/classroom setting which are relevant to them they can continue to use and expand upon them in their life outside the classroom.

Diigo vs. Scoop.it

Social bookmarking and curation are relatively new to me though I have used Delicious in the past for bookmarking. I found both Diigo and Scoop.it to be useful sites that were easy to navigate. I like that the content that you collect can be accessed from the internet rather than saved to just one computer like the more traditional form of bookmarking used by search engines. Personally I prefer Scoop.it's use of images in the curation topics rather than the list-like format of Diigo. Also I like the Scoop.it feature that offers suggestions of articles to scoop and follow. In addition, it is possible to post comments on your own posts and on the posts of others which makes it a much more interactive forum than Diigo.

There are many similarities between Diigo and Scoop.it such as being able to include multiple tags for each posting, the ability to copy and paste from the original articles, the option for including personal descriptions of the articles and the ability to follow others and to be followed. An interesting feature of Diigo is that you can preview the websites which are bookmarked which does provide a visual reference when scrolling someone's list of bookmarks. Another feature I like is the ability to highlight within the article you bookmark. I think this is a great feature to enable you to reference what was particularly interesting within the article. I think I am more inclined to use Scoop.it on a regular basis because of the visual factor of the curation topics. Also I like that the search options which are suggested are based on the tags and content of the sites you have selected within the curation topic. 

Educating for the Future

While watching the Future Learning Documentary video I was impressed by the numerous innovative ideas presented by the interviewees. They advocated for the use of technology in the classroom including video games and iPads which is not a revolutionary idea itself but they called for a revolution of a different sort. A revolution in motivating students to learn, to present information within context, to blend learning and play, and to make the learning experience less rigid. I think these are all very valid suggestions and that technology can be a tool to help accomplish them. One observation that I really connected with was made by Sugata Mitra who suggests that a skill that students should be learning now to better prepare them for their future is the ability to conduct information research on-line. I think this is a very important skill not only in the forum of higher education but in one's private life in order to be better informed about the world.

Another video I watched was "Did you Know" which presented many interesting statistics about technology, its uses around the world and its role in both education and employment. These statistics and observations help to put the modern situation in historical perspective. The video raised many questions such as how technology has changed the job market and how this relates to educating today's youth. It made me think about how the United States can remain competitive with countries such as India and China who have such large populations. Something else I observed was that the video mentioned the vast quantity of information available through the internet and technology but nothing was said about the quality of this information. This brought to mind the Future Learning Documentary video and reinforced the need for students to learn how to perform on-line research. With so much information available students need to have the skills to determine what is the more reliable source.

Using blogs to Meet Learning Standards

The possible uses of student blogging are virtually endless. The fact that blogs can be adapted to individual student and classroom needs and requirements is what I find so exciting about them as an educational tool. One way I would like to utilize student blogging in a future EFL classroom is as a forum for journaling. Student journaling on a blog can meet several ACTFL learning standards one of which is Communication Standard 1.1 “Students engage in conversations, provide and obtain information, express feelings and emotions and exchange opinions.” I think a blog can be a more dynamic setting for students to journal and share their thoughts and opinions about topics covered in class. They can customize blog entries with pictures, videos or music and add links to other sites that interest them or touch on the same topic.

In addition, journaling on a blog can meet another ACTFL learning standard for Communities Standard 5.1 “Students use the language both within and beyond the school setting.” This is accomplished by providing an opportunity for classmates, teachers and parents to communicate and interact through posting comments and feedback. This interaction can occur both within the classroom and outside of it.

In terms of professional development I think that blogging can enable me to build relationships and communicate with other educators. I like the idea of using a blog for journaling about the lessons I teach. I can reflect on what I think went well, what didn’t go well and what I could do differently to improve the lesson the next time I teach it. By building a network of educators who can provide feedback and suggestions I will have access to resources to help me improve as a teacher. Also I will have a means of observing my progress overtime through reviewing past posts.