Power Point Presentations

Power Point is a not completely exploited software for many of us (users), making linear presentations and rarely using the interactive tools available.

Power Point gives you the chance to change the routine and attract students attention toward the lessons

engaging them through the interactive options offered, making the class more interactive. 

Power Point/ Prezi (Cloud based presentation)  gives you the chance to use other resources as videos, animations, audio files, word docs, links, action buttons (PPT)  to innovate the class presentation and activities.

Beware of not making abuse of the tool or the animation-effects this could reduce effectiveness and create a different routine.  Content of the presentation as the content of  a regular class is a key element.

Don’t forget to have a B Plan just in case any issue comes with technology.
 

Week 5 Reflections

This has been a great week in our course, as a conclusion I can say that:  

1. (PBL) Project Based Learning is a great strategy to have the students learn and apply English giving it authentic meaning through the Project content

2. WebQuest can be used as part of a PBL activity or as an complete activity, can be less complicated for the students than PBL

3. Creating a Rubric and sharing it helps the teacher organise the the class on an effective way, and also will motivate the students to complete the tasks focusing on what really is important

4. Both  ZUNAL (WebQuest site)  RUBISTARS  (Rubric creator  site) are great sites, but are partially, free, so you may either get used the available options, or pay a reasonable access to the more complex options.  I think that Zunal.com can be more easily be substituted than Rubistar where you find pre-established content for general Rubrics that save a lot of time.


Luis

Curiosity . Week 5

This week we are reading and learning about WebQuest among other topics. 

The sites that were shared by Robert, are useful, and using a WebQuest gives you a number of benefits:

1.    You can save time having the students do the research and information analysis  using that time in the class for another activity  

2.    You may do the whole activity online

3.    You can integrate skills as you bring the result of the Quest, or part of the process, into the classroom for discussions or presentations

4.    As you assign the students a certain task using a limited information source  keeping  control 

5.    As Robert recommend in one of his tips, for Integrated Lesson Planing, do not  stick to one technology, site or application, to conduct the WebQuest there is a lot of options from Zunal   to Facebook.

 Curiosity may drive your students to complete a Quest!

Luis

PBL + ESP

Project Based Learning (PBL) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP)   make a great combination, I think that teaching an ESP class is the best and easiest time and chance to use PBL for ESOL. 

Why?

Firstly, most ESP courses include students that have a similar background, activity, profession, culture, or business, so the topics are much easier to be chosen by either the class or teacher, as Susan Gaers say: The project must be geared to the population.

Secondly, in general, the ESP content of textbooks makes it easy  to work on a final project

Finally, including as part of the evaluation a PBL activity will make the students to give a practical and monitored chance to practice.

Some examples:

English for Mechanical Engineering:  Writing a short project to solve a problem (real or fictional) with Curiosity Rover

English for Law: Role play on a trial using the Red Code movie

English for Business:  Analyze an article on an industry trend of Forbes Magazine  using Michael Porter’s 5 Competitive Forces model

Luis

Reading and Writing Week 4

Without noticing we have completed 40% of the program, and it is a big coincidence that we are developing techniques to teach Reading and Writing and last Tuesday, the World Book Day was celebrated.

Some ideas about the week:

1.        Considering the nature of Reading and Writing, it is easier to find tools and integrate them in the classroom than the use of tools for Listening and Speaking.

2.        Larry J. Mikulecky states that to void “Frustrational Reading experiences” you must command at least 95% of the vocabulary. 

I have observed and experienced gaps when speaking, all due to the lack of vocabulary. Then, working toward vocabulary building is a core target when planning CALL activities.

3.        Jarek Krajka,  Robert Elliot and Margo Dill, remark the need to integrate the online or CALL component into the regular curriculum or class content.

4.       Jarek Krajka defines a number of roles for the teacher when using technology: Tutor, Supervisor, Teacher, and Tech-Assistant.

5.        Using focused on children material with adults or teenagers, but with an English level that is a challenge for the new audience, will probably lead to a successful activity. I think that is a great suggestion of Larry J. Mikulecky’s article.

6.       All lecturers recommend having a B Plan, in case something do not work with the chosen technology.

7.       The resources shared by Robert and classmates, are quite interesting and easy to use in the classroom to help the students, moreover, them give to chance to integrate the practice of English through the four and three communicative skills and sub-skills.

8.       Finally, as previous week I recommend mostly using and exploring the sites including ready to use activities, with the option to check answers, “Plug and Play”.

Call it Delicious

This is the third week at the program, and is time to share some ideas and reflections about all that we did and studied:

1.  Delicious.com

•    The site helps you to keep in one place all the pages related to your activity, this case English Teaching
• You can explore and share inside Delicious
• You can link your Delicious  account with Facebook profile or Twitter, thus importing the liked pages

 About this site; I would recommend to use it in order to save time keeping track of your favorite pages and getting to know new ones trough the network and friends

2. Class Activity of  Zlatka Dyankova from Tryana Private High School of Languages and IT in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria. (1)

• Teachers specially in Schools and Universities, face students have to study English instead of want to, have low motivation to participate in class and practice
• The use of technology changes the student's learning environment, making it more appealing, attractive and motivating for many of them
• If you combine technology with an event of general interest as the Winter Olympic Games, the result is that probably you will have the students engaged in the activity
• There is a number of applications and web sites that are simple to use and can be combined to carry out the activity: WebQuest, You Tube, Blogger, and others, that won't be hard for the students to get used to 

Conclusion: Blend different applications with a topic of interest for the students  as sports, music or movies and you will probably have a successful activity.

3. CALL

•  There are less free available resources for Speech Recognition on the web than those focused on the mechanics of speaking
• You may combine the content of different  sites to practice with your students
• Some sites  are "plug and play" including ready to use practices & questions, with  check your answer applications,  like VOA or  Randall's ESL Cyber Listening
• You will find ready to use  exercises and practices, or lesson plans on the web 

Explore the web, integrate the resources offered  with a class activity in order to practice the four communicative skills; have the student print the reports and share the results in class.  If you don't have internet connection in your class, there is a lot of content that can be downloaded, you can leave the "six walls" in your teaching using the PC.

Calling or Blending?

The definition of CALL  (Computer Assisted Language Learning) on Julia Gong’s article is  (1)“the search for and study of applications of the computer in
language teaching and learning”.

On the other hand according to wikipedia (2):  Blended Learning,  is “a formal education program in which a student learns at least in part through online delivery of content and instruction with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace^{” ,} 

^{and/or "} is a form of education that combines face-to-face classroom methods with computer-mediated activities". 

^{Students may ask you if an activity is Blended or CAL-Learning, or which definition includes the other one?}

From my point of view CALL is a concept that includes Blended Learning  just for the definition or academic discussion. Firstly,   we’re moving toward  smart phones every day (processors inside the  phones), and  you may use a computer in the classroom with no Internet connection at all. Finally,  the second definition of Blended Learning implies a need of at least partial face to face contact, on the contrary if you conduct a completely online course,  like ours for example, you are using  CALL for the class. 

Do you agree?