Final reflections on the course

Here are my final reflections, which I've decided to record and upload to Podomatic:

Case study: Sharing the experience of webtools in Brazil

In this post, I'm going to comment on a creative task carried out using a webtool (Voki), by Ana Maria Menzes, an English teacher and teacher trainer from Brazil. This project was published in Innovations in learning technologies for English language teaching (2013), edited by Gary Motteram for the British Council.

Ana Maria Menzes designed an interesting weekly activity with a class of upper-intermediate students aged 15–16. Her objective was to provide the learners with extra writing, reading, listening and speaking practice at home, as she believes most teachers try to integrate technology in the classroom, but few encourage students to use it at home to develop their digital literacies. Each week one volunteer student created a short text (50 words) for a listening dictation with the content being chosen by the student from a previous lesson. The teacher corrected the text, and the student then recorded the text using a digital tool. Afterwards, he or she would share it with the rest of the class to do a dictation activity. Every week, a different student was in charge of the task.

Here's one of the texts created by one of her students, using Voki.

In my opinion, according to the SAMR model, this kind of technology integration would belong to the category of "Modification," since doing a dictation/listening comprehension activity with a recording is not new, but the task has been significantly redesigned by allowing the students to provide the material, and integrating writing practice, speaking practice and listening comprehension into the same task.

Moreover, Ana also redesigned the correction stage: "Originally, Ana thought she would have the learner write their first draft, which she would correct and give them back on paper, but she decided instead to record a screencast while she corrected the text, explaining the learner’s mistakes, at the same time providing a pronunciation model of how to read the text." The advantages to providing corrective feedback using this method are more than one: firstly, it saves time; secondly, it provides the student with a greater amount of information on mistakes and ways to improve his/her production; lastly, the teacher's recording would be extra listening practice for the student. I would say this kind of technology integration would be between the Augmentation and Modification stages, as the tool is replacing paper, but there is also functional improvement, since feedback is personalized.

There are many online tools we could use to upload and display feedback on our students work, such as Podomatic or Soundcloud. Anyway, we would need to download a free recording program to record it offline before uploading it, like Audacity.

Personal Learning Networks - Why do I need to build one?

There are many advantages to investing time in building a PLN (Personal Learning Network). Although it may take some time to do it, once you have set it up, it will pay off.

Firstly, PLNs are useful to gain access to resources, ideas and advice from teachers all over the world; content that we can curate and share. Today, we can find everything we need on the Internet, without having to physically attend expensive conferences to keep up to date. Secondly, building PLNs using different webtools helps us develop our digital literacy.

Nik Peachey divides the PLN experience into three stages:

• Information in. This is how and where we find information.
• Information processing. This is how we process, engage with and capture information.
• Information out. This is how we share what we’ve learned or discovered.

For each of these stages, he mentions different webtools he uses. I'm going to talk about the ones I use, which may coincide with his.

Information in

These are the different ways in which I get ELT-related information online:

• Facebook groups. I currently belong to two or three ELT-related groups, where people share resources and ideas.

A Facebook group interface.

• English language and ELT forums. Right now I'm registered in forums such as Wordreference and UsingEnglish.

UsingEnglish.com

• RSS feeds. RSS feeds enable website publishers to syndicate data automatically, and once users subscribe to a website, RSS removes the need for them to manually check it. Instead, their browser constantly monitors the site and informs the user of any updates. The browser can also be commanded to automatically download the new data for the user. In order for us to sort through all of this information captured by the RSS feed, we need a RSS reader (also "feed reader" or "aggregator"), which can be web-based, desktop-based, or mobile-device-based. The RSS reader checks the user's feeds regularly for new information and can automatically download it, if that function is enabled. The two RSS readers I like the most are Feedreader and Feedly.

Feedreader

Feedly

• YouTube. By having a YouTube channel, you can subscribe to other channels and receive updates on their content.

YouTube feed

Information processing

Right now, I have a Diigo account, where I store useful links, tag them and organise them into lists. I've always bookmarked links in my browser and organised them into folders, but having a really long dropdown menu in your browser is not particularly comfortable. 

A Diigo library

Information out

As Nik points out in his blog article and in his presentation Developing personal learning environments for your professional development, sharing is a very important part of the process, because you are turning information into knowledge by using what you have found, reflecting on it, reformulating it and republishing it.
I usually share stuff on my Facebook account and Facebook groups.

Speaking skills: Teaching with Speaking Tools & Apps - Shelly Terrell's TESOL webinar

Hello!

I have watched Sherry Terrel's American TESOL webinar on tools and apps to develop speaking skills, and in this post, I'd like to review some of the tools she recommended, so I prepared a Prezi on this:

List of tools:

• Voki
• Skqueak
• Present.me
• Prezi

Game review: SPENT - Can you make it through the month?

In my previous post, I talked about games in the ELT classroom and how to choose appropriate games. In this post, I'm going to talk about one of the games that Graham Stanley mentioned in his webinar: SPENT. According to Wikipedia:

SPENT is an online game about surviving poverty and homelessness created by ad agency McKinney for pro bono client Urban Ministries of Durham (UMD), whose mission "is to provide food, clothing, shelter and supportive services to neighbors in need". Players must make the difficult decisions necessary to live for one month on $1,000, often having to choose between equally disagreeable options. The dilemmas they face represent those that bring people to places like UMD: Do you make a healthy meal or keep the lights on? Cover the minimum on your credit cards or pay the rent? Hope your sick daughter gets better on her own or risk your job by leaving early to take her to the doctor? Let your son play in the after-school sports league or save the money needed for his uniform?
The game ends when players either run out of money before the end of the month or make it through with money left over.

Obviously, this game is great to encourage critical thinking in our students. Most of them will come to realize that they would never survive in that kind of situation by making the same decisions they would with their current lifestyle. Moreover, from the point of view of language, the game features lots of vocabulary connected with work and unemployment, such as make it through the month, run out of (money), get a job, monthly take-home pay, taxes, opt in/out for health insurance, get a loan, to name but a few.

However, as Graham points out, the teacher needs to pay attention to the way students play the game, since while playing videogames, once you get really into it, you could either get into character, or take the idea of winning too seriously. If students end up doing the latter, they will get carried away by the need to win and end up trivializing these issues.

I played this game twice and each playthrough was completely different. At first, my morals guided my decisions and I attended all of my fictional children's school plays, gave them money for random stuff... Until I finally ended up broke because I had decided to pay for my sick dog's four hundred dollar treatment. When I played the game for the second time, fortunately, I didn't have to make that last decision, but I had to buy tons of junk food in order to save money, keep my mouth shut instead of complaining about my low salary because I could risk getting sacked, and of course, I was never able to pay for those 'extras' my children asked for (such as money to buy a uniform in order to join an after-school sports team). Oh, and I missed the school play because it meant getting out of work and losing those wages.

A lesson plan for this game, as Graham suggests, could include a warm-up discussion to speculate about what will happen in the game: whether students think they would survive the month on one thousand dollars, what problems could be the most difficult to solve and why, etc. Afterwards, while playing, students could be asked to spot certain expressions.

To sum up, here's the game according to Kyle's selection criteria:

• Simplicity. The game is simple enough, as the basic pattern of interaction consists of different dilemmas presented to the player, and the player has to decide what to do by choosing from two or three options. After that, the player learns the consequences of his/her actions, also getting a piece of relevant information regarding poverty and unemployment in the USA:

If the player opts in for health insurance:

If the player opts out for health insurance:

• Language. You cannot progress in the game without understanding the dilemmas you are presented with, as your decisions will have consequences. If students were to make random choices, they would probably lose the game relatively fast, so language is an important element in the game.
• Pauses. There are pauses each time the player has to make a decision. As I said before quoting Kyle Mawer, these should be used for the teacher to encourage language production and for the students to produce it.
• Story. If students perceive the game as being the story of what happens to your character (or their 'other selves' who are unemployed and poor), I believe they will be able to find the story gripping.
• Age. There is no inappropriate content, but I believe some issues will not be easily understood by students younger than 10.
• Audio. This aspect is not really the best, as audio is limited to some sound effects.
• Walkthrough. No walkthrough is really needed for this game, as all you have to do is choose from two or three options and you don't have to figure anything out in order to progress.
• Language. Language in this game is crucial to progress, and it is written. As I mentioned above, the game contains several expressions connected to the world of work and unemployment, and tons of modals used in dilemmas (should), decision-making (will), etc.
• Fun. I believe calling it 'fun' would mean not taking these issues seriously, but it is definitely interesting and entertaining.

Digital play: gamify your lessons, by Graham Stanley

I have explored Graham Stanley's blog and watched a recording of his webinar Gamify your classroom. In both, Graham mentions different ways of adapting games for classroom use and he recommends several games, for which he provides lesson plans. Being a gamer myself, I found his blog and webinar very interesting.

In his webinar, Graham mentioned one occasion on which he tried to play RPGs (Role-playing Games) with students that hadn't played the genre before, and as a consequence, the activity wasn't very successful. Before trying to use games with a certain group of students, teachers should find out whether this particular group of students is used to playing games for fun. If they are, the teacher will be able to exploit the real learning potential behind playing since, as Graham says, if something is already a part of your life outside the classroom, then that will most likely motivate you if used inside the classroom.

However, in order for a game to be of help in language learning, there must be a context in the game chosen, provided by a task, and learners need to understand that they are playing the game for a pedagogical reason. This means that the teacher must be careful when designing the task; the task will be the key for meaningful language practice when playing.

Moreover, teachers should do some 'research' before trying to 'gamify' their lessons, or they may find themselves in a completely unknown world and they won't be able to take advantage of what games make students feel in order to accomplish successful language acquisition.

Tips to finding a good game

In this post, Kyle Mawer (Graham Stanley's colleague) provides tips to choose a good game to use in your lessons. Here's a summarized version:

The ideal game...

1. ... has to be seemingly simple. If the game is too complex or demands too much attention on the part of the learner, then there won't be enough time for language practice/learning.
2. ... should come packed with language. The best games are the ones that already come packed with language, such as Vortex Point, where you cannot make progress if you don't read the speech bubbles.
3. ... should have in-game pauses. These should be used for the teacher to encourage language production and for the students to produce it.
4. ... should have a gripping enough story.
5. ... should be age appropriate.
6. ... should have nice audio elements. These can enrich the students' gaming and learning experience.
7. ... should have a well-worded walkthrough. This can be difficult to find, as they are usually written by players, but fortunately for us, Kyle Mawer has set up a wiki with several walkthroughs written with an eye on language learning.
8. ... should contain some form of language. It could be spoken or written, and it could be in the game itself or in its walkthrough, but it should be present somewhere.
9. ... should be fun! Or else students won't become engaged in the activity. As Kyle says, a language task shouldn't kill the fun of a game, but rather restructure it.

Evaluating web-based tools and apps - Nik Peachey's criteria

Watch Nik Peachey talk about the things we should take into account when choosing tools and apps for ELT, and mention some useful tools:

Video provided by the British Council.

Here's a summary of his criteria:

1. Accessibility. Will all of your students be able to use the app?
2. Learnable / teachable. How long will it take you / students to learn how to use the app?
3. Learning goal / outcome. Is there an obvious (or less obvious) learning outcome that can emerge from using the tool?
4. Digital literacy. Does it help students to develop a useful digital literacy?
5. Price. Is it free or affordable? Are there any discounts for educational use etc?
6. Interaction - Communication. Does the app support some form of interaction or communication?
7. Authenticity. Is it something that students would use outside the classroom in their everyday lives?
8. Registration. Do students need to register and remember a password in order to use it?
9. Reuseable. Can the app be used more than once for more than one purpose? Can it become a regular classroom tool?
10. Security. Is there any risk involved in using the app?
11. Prolonged use. Does the app need to be used over a period of time to get satisfactory results?
12. Business model. Can you identify the business model which funds the app?
13. Context. Is it for student use, teacher / student use or teacher use only?

The criteria I always take into account from this list are:

• Accessibility (1). I never use any apps that may not be accessible by some students; everyone should be able to use the app I have chosen for a task.
• Learnable / teachable (2). Depending on the time available for each course and how profitable the app would be, I decide whether teaching to use it would be worth the hassle or not. As for me, I'm quick to learn when it comes to technology, so that isn't a problem.
• Price (5). I would never ask students to pay for an app, and I usually don't, unless it's really, really worth it.
• Authenticity (7). This point is important to me in most cases.
• Registration (8). This shouldn't be a drag. Actually, if students have an account, the teacher can easily track their creations.
• Context (13). This is clearly relevant, but it depends on what you want to achieve with the app.

Applying the criteria: Scrible

For the purpose of analysing and applying these criteria, I have tried out Scrible, one of the apps recommended by Nik Peachey in his presentation. Scrible is a tool which allows you to bookmark sites and organise them in a library, highlight text, change its color and add notes to it; all these modifications can be applied to the content of a website directly from your browser.

The toolbar looks like this:

The toolbar requires no installation of any kind. This is how it works and here you can see my results.

Here's my review, applying Nik Peachey's criteria:

1. Accessibility. Will all of your students be able to use the app? Since this tool is just a link in your Bookmarks Bar, it can be used independently of what OS you have, and it can be added to any browser as long as it has a Bookmarks Bar. As regards mobile platforms, it's only available for iPad for now.
2. Learnable / teachable. How long will it take you / students to learn how to use the app? It seems to be pretty easy to learn. It shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to teach.
3. Learning goal / outcome. Is there an obvious (or less obvious) learning outcome that can emerge from using the tool? This tool provides an alternative to the traditional way of printing and highlighting/underlining texts.
4. Digital literacy. Does it help students to develop a useful digital literacy? Definitely. It would add to the things students can achieve using technology for educational purposes.
5. Price. Is it free or affordable? Are there any discounts for educational use etc? The tool is completely free, but there is also a Student Edition (which requires an academic email address) and a premium, paid edition. However, the features provided by the free edition are quite decent, in my opinion.
6. Interaction - Communication. Does the app support some form of interaction or communication? Yes. You can share your results by posting them to Twitter, Facebook, sending them by email or creating a permalink, which allows you to share your results anywhere.
7. Authenticity. Is it something that students would use outside the classroom in their everyday lives? I should think so. This app can be used to save any sort of website and highlight information, regardless of the context.
8. Registration. Do students need to register and remember a password in order to use it? Yes.
9. Reuseable. Can the app be used more than once for more than one purpose? Yes; I think students could profit from the tool for personal use as well as for studying purposes. Can it become a regular classroom tool? If students have access to computers and are used to working with them in class, then yes.
10. Security. Is there any risk involved in using the app? No risk at all.
11. Prolonged use. Does the app need to be used over a period of time to get satisfactory results? No.
12. Business model. Can you identify the business model which funds the app? As I have said above, there is a free edition, a Student Edition (which requires an academic email address) and a premium, paid edition.
13. Context. Is it for student use, teacher / student use or teacher use only? Teacher/student use.

I think this tool is simple and quite useful at the same time. It could be considered to be between the Augmentation and the Modification level in the SAMR classification when used for teaching purposes. Students won't need to print anything, nor copy and paste information from the web into a document and work on it there, so using this app could save some work. For example, they could work on a Wikipedia article directly from the web. Moreover, it is an authentic app that they can use anytime, anywhere, and not just a learning app which they most likely won't use again outside the classroom.