No homework today!!!

It is not that difficult to play the role of a nice teacher. Everybody knows that the word “homework” does not go with “thank you very much.” Students, however, think that homework is directly related to workbooks and that anything apart from that can cause them no harm. Here follows something that happened to me last week. My students, who had been talking about rules for two weeks, asked for “no homework.” They were really surprised and happy when I gave them a positive answer. There was just a little condition: they had to go to http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/teens6 and post one of the rules they had at home and make a comment about it. Take a look at the result. Isn’t it homework? They don’t think so! =D

Also see http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/teens57

By Fábio Ferreira

M-Interviews

Students were studying Relative Clauses (who,that,which). They were divided in 5 groups. Each group had a cell phone to take a photo. I talked to some people in the branch (previously) (Cláudio Azevedo, Thelma Peres, Vera Cerejo, Louise (trainee) and Silvania (secretaria). I asked these people if my students could ask them some questions and take a photo with their cell phones. They gave me their permission. After the break, I explained students that they would talk to a person and ask these people some personal questions, take notes and take a photo of him or her. I gave them 10 minutes to do it. After that, they came back to the classroom and sent the photo of the person to my e-mail. I gave them 5 minutes to come up with sentences using relative clauses and pronouns to introduce the interviewed person to the class. I opened my e-mail and as I was showing the photos(using the data show) the group was talking to the class about the person they have interviewed. In this particular activity I needed the internet connection, which was working just fine that day. But they could have also shared their photos and information in groups. They get together with people from other groups and show the photo using the cell phone itself. It took 20 minutes to do everything and they had a lot of fun, talking to other people and especially using their cell phones!

Saying the Unsaid - Silent Movies and Reported Speech

Online Learning and Sharing - Posterous via kwout

Teaching reported speech is certainly not that difficult. When I teach it, I always explain to students that it is used to retell stories, translate conversations between a foreigner and someone who does not speak his or her language, or even engage in a conversation with three or more people in a noisy environment such as night club or a rock concert. I also try to recreate communicative situations that make it as authentic and genuine as possible. If I could take them to a rock concert or a night club, it would be great. Despite my efforts, my students cooperation, and the wonderful ideas teachers always have when planning classes , I am not always happy with the size of dialogues or the quality of language produced by students in follow up activities. You know, we teachers always think that there is room for improvement.
This semester while I was planning one more class to teach reported speech, I thought that silent movies would just be the perfect means to create a situation for having students reporting a third party utterances and actions to each other. How did I do it? I did it in two phases and two places.
In Class
I first showed them a short silent movie (I used a silent version of Star Wars available in You Tube- It lasts only a little more than a minute). Next I paired students and asked them to take turns reporting what was being said right after I paused the movie. So I played a bit of the movie and paused for reporting. It was quick and fun and they really enjoyed doing it.
In the Computer Lab
While we were still in class, I gave them instructions. I told them to go to Youtube and type the search term silent movies. I also told them to choose movies that lasted three minutes or less. Besides that, I instructed them to do as we had done in class: they should first play the entire movie and then play, pause, report. They did it in 25 minutes and posted their reported versions along with the movie straight to our posterous class blog. We later corrected and the posts.The first drafts, however, were amazingly quite accurate to my surprise.

Teacher, *MALL today?

Teacher, *MALL today?

How to overcome Internet connection problems and control fast paced students.

By Fábio Ferreira

Taking students to the Computer Lab is a good way to change your classroom environment and go over the content presented by textbooks. Besides breaking the classroom routine, the lab is a very useful tool to foster students’ independent learning behavior.

There are many options available for teachers to explore and practice the content being taught, as, for example, online exercises (from the e-folder), internet websites, videos from youtube, just to mention the most used ones. Let me talk a little bit about the exercises from the e-folder, since they seem to be the first option for many teachers. The strongest point about them is that they were designed exactly based on the content students have to master and is going to be assessed. However, as everything else in this world, there are pros and cons. In my view the negative point here is that we depend on the internet connection to use the exercises. If the internet is OK, teachers still have to be attentive because students’ paces are different and sooner or later you are going to hear “Teacher, I finish! Everything!” while some students are still struggling to open the page. You will find yourself in times of trouble and there will be no mother Mary to come to you**.

Based on that experience I came up with an alternative to use the Computer Lab, having all students do the activity proposed at the same time and what is better, being very careful about the accuracy of their production. The solution I found was to use Net Operator, installed on the teacher’s computer. Besides the possibility of monitoring all the computers in the room, there is also a chat option there. Here follows the strategy that I would like to share with you. Let’s use Helpful Helen (Teens 4 – Unit 5 L1) as an example. The context of that lesson is that somebody has a problem and the other person has to offer help. (I’m hungry. I’ll give you sth to eat.) With all the chat windows open, T gives Sts a problem. Sts have to offer help using the structure studied in class. The key here is that they are not supposed to press enter and send their lines until T says GO! After everybody finishes, T says Go and Sts press enter. The first (correct) line displayed gets one point***. As the lines will be sent only after T’s command, Sts will be together. All the computers are identified, so Sts are always careful about their mistakes, since they don’t want to be exposed. Considering that they have to be quick after they hear GO!, adrenaline has an important role making Sts forget they are “studying”. No one has ever complained about that activity and now, instead of hearing Teacher, MALL today?, I sometimes hear Teacher, let’s play that game on the computer!?

The purpose of this article was not to say that the other options are not good, but that there is always room for improvement when you let your creativity flow. Think outside the box!

Fábio Ferreira

Ed Tech Monitor - FAN

*M.A.L.L. stands for Multimedia Access to Language Learning (our Computer Lab)

**Let it Be – The Beatles

***The activity can be adapted!

Learning Something New - QRCodes for the Classroom

In one of my blog posts, I talked about the three mantras for tired teachers, and mentioned that my learning goal of the month was to not only learn, but also test the pedagogical possibilites of QRcodes. I'm delighted  to say that I followed the two first mantras (learn and try) and am here to share (as part of the last one!) the results of my classroom results.

I studied QRcodes, thought of a lesson plan that fit my students' needs and school curriculum. It all started when I told my adult students how the advertisement industry was using QRcodes and Augmented reality in their campaigns (we were discussing about the world of advertisement). They had a question mark on their faces, for they'd never heard of QRcodes or Augmented reality. I explained it, then, there was a brochure in our school with a QRcode. I showed them how it worked. Most of my adult students own a smartphone. So, I sent my customary email of the day and included links to free app downloads of QRreaders for iphones and android phones. Plus, I added they homework in QRcode to make them curious and willing to take their time to download the apps.

I used http://qrstuff.com to generate the colorful QRcodes with amazon links to specific products. We were practicing how to say in different ways how something was expensive or cheap, as explained in my last post:

2. Try, fail, try again in class                                                                                
Learning is not enough. Practice really makes perfect. Test with a plan.
I learned about QR-generators and found powerful free QRreader apps to encourage my students to download them.
I planned a shopping activity with QRCodes to practice talking about things that are too expensive and a bargain.
I invited my students to download the app to their cellphones (I gave suggestions for either Apple and Android smarthphones)
I feel ready to try. Here are the colorful QRcodes I prepared for the activity.
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1_N-ykajXMynurxERnk3E3ZBAkjt-b6JDUBMwn6fkTBg 

I was ready for the classroom trial, a group of Prime 3 (unit 7). I had my cellphone with a QRreader app and my son's iPod touch. When I got to class, I asked if some of them had downloaded the app. Yes, Yes, Yes! So, we were ready. First, I elicited from students the dialogue we were practicing and the expressions they could use to say something was way too expensive or a good deal. Then, I handed in to the groups different QRcodes in different colors. They scanned them, and had a wonderful practice using real products from Amazon. I was careful to choose products that might really interest them (GPS running watch, Nespresso Coffee Maker, Gold bracelet, Watch, Touchscreen digital camera). The students were really into the activity and practiced extensively ways of talking about a purchase. I asked them to stand up and change partners holding their cellphones and their products. So, they had on the cellphone screen the product they wanted to talk about and they could also use the QRreader history to browse other products they had scanned. Some students had the cellphones, others asked about the products. The hard part was to make them stop!!! After that, we talked about the products and prices and what they would really buy, students were curious about how to buy online, what the shipping costs and taxes were, if it was reliable to buy online. What a wonderful discussion in which all the students had an experience to share! I was ecstatic with the positive results of my own learning.

Challenges and tips:

• Such an activity will only work if your students have smartphones with data plan or ipod touch devices with wifi (and wifi at your school). Or if you bring your own devices to class. 
• there needs to be preparation beforehand and, at least, some students need to download the scanning app
• The content you choose to be scanned must be exciting, close to students' reality to make the effort worth it.
• Encourage other teachers to join you. It is REALLY fun and brain-friendly.

For ideas on how to use QRcodes in the classroom check this PPT:

Cross-posted from http://collablogatorium.blogspot.com

Let`s M that Learning!

From time to time new trends and innovative practices take over the language classrooms. From video cassettes and cd players to computers and interactive boards, emerging technology has always been present in the lives of teachers. Some innovations are easy to deal with, others require patience, skills and a lot of creativity. In recent years, a lot has been talked about "m-learning", that is, the use of mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablets) in the classroom.Smartphones and tablets are gadgets that have come to stay and we teachers cannot deny their existence anymore. For teachers who are concerned about being up-to-date with the latest trends, it is paramount that they learn how to operate those state-of-the-art devices and get used to new lingo, such as APPs. By the way, do you know what APPs are?

As a matter of fact, like any other new technology that comes out in the market, the use of mobile devices in the classroom has already caused a great stir and generated a lot of controversial opinions. Our challenge, as teachers, is to find creative and effective ways to use these devices in classroom so as to promote learning in the classroom. Some experts believe that it seems to be a much wiser decision to find ways to incorporate the students' most beloved and inseparable object into the lessons than just saying to turn them off as they enter the classroom. By the way, have you already seen how many amazing (and sometimes unbelievable) things those little objects are capable of? Have you ever considered the colossal potential they have to turn learning into something more exciting and alluring to students of the 21st century?

But some questions might be already popping in your mind:
How do I get started?
How can I effectively use a smartphone or tablet with my groups?
What APPs do I use?

The answers to these questions have not been completely answered yet and the light at the end of the tunnel is still a little blurry. However, the more teachers experiment with this new technology, the clearer the light at the end of the tunnel will be! So this is the time to plunge into this ocean called "m-learning" in search of all the questions that need to be answered. Visit internet pages specialized in m-learning, google your questions, ask students about the APPS they already know and enjoy, explore your mobile devices, connect with other teachers who are already taking advantage of such devices in their classrooms, etc. I don`t consider myself a specialist and I still need to learn a lot about "m-learning". I`ve just had my first smartphone for 2 months but I have already experimented a bit with it and tried to involve the whole group in my proposed projects. Here are some of the ideas I have already tried:

1. Songify
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/songify/id438735719?mt=8

This is a very popular app that transforms speech into music. There are different tunes you can use, some for free, some paid.The app has been advertised as free for a limited time. The songs can be shared via e-mail, Twitter or Facebook.

I have used this app in two different ways:

a) Students recorded a short paragraph about themselves using the target grammar structure. Then, classmates had to listen to the mixed song and summarize the information they could understand.


b) Students recorded some sentences about themselves using the target grammar structure. After, I (the teacher) asked some comprehension questions (just like a traditional listening comprehension exercise).

* tips:

a) avoid very long sentences or too much information because the mixing might break the information into chunks and change their order, making comprehension a bit more challenging.

b) results are better achieved if speech is loud and clear when recording.

c) re-songify the speech into a different tune if it`s too difficult to understand (depending on the tune you use, it can make a major difference!)

2. Web Treasure Hunts
You can ask your students to search the World Wide Web for some answers needed for some exercises. In one one my groups, for instance, they had to answer questions about popular bedtime stories. Most of them didn`t know all the right answers, so they promptly looked for information in Google and Wikipedia.

3. Camera 

a) Another project that got my students involved in a matter of seconds was asking them to go around the school hallways taking pictures of students, teachers and school staff. This group was learning vocabulary about clothes and physical description, so when they returned to the classroom, I asked them to pair up, show their pictures and describe the people in them.
* I asked the students who didn`t have a camera to pair up with someone else and use the partner`s camera. 

b) Once, I assigned a special homework project and, to my surprise, most students really worked on it. They were learning about likes and dislikes, so I asked them to go home , choose a family member and take 5 pictures of objects or situations that would clearly illustrate what that person liked or disliked. When students came to the next class, they sat in groups and shared their pics and talked a bit about their family members.
* Students who didn`t have a smartphone or tablet with a camera, used their portable video games or traditional digital cameras.

So, have some of these ideas inspired you? I hope so! So, what are you waiting for? The future has arrived, it`s time to try out new ideas. One important thing: share with us what you have done in class, this way we can build knowledge together and improve our skills faster.
Let`s "M" that learning!

Vinicius Lemos

On Doodling Songs

 
Originally uploaded by elsvo.


Music livens up the spirit, helps people connect, triggers emotions, brings up memories and cuts through barriers.

On doodling songs 
I came across a Great idea On classroom 2.0.

Find more videos like this on EFL CLASSROOM 2.0

Show this video to make sure your students know what is expected from them.

Find more videos like this on EFL CLASSROOM 2.0

• Choose a song your students like;
• Make a powerpoint with each line/chunk of lyrics on a slide;
• Practice the song; 
• Print out each slide and give it out to students to draw their pictures.
• Make a clip and spread the word!

My students had a blast! How would your students react?

Language Learning Tips (updated)

!Update: here's the link to the voicethread created with this video: http://voicethread.com/share/1259177/

If you plan to show this video to your students, please use this link and encourage them to leave their comments on the thread. (=

In the beginning of the semester, I think it is a good idea to discuss second language learning with adult and advanced students.

As teachers, we have a lot to offer on the matter. However, as this semester begins, I decided to give the students a chance to contribute on a group wide discussion, and had them come up with ideas to maximise specifically grammar and vocabulary acquisition.

After this discussion students had 10 minutes to place their ideas into a text, which was then read and recorded.

Here is the result.

Now, there are a few ways to do this, the easiest is using a digital camera to record the clip. You can later compile and edit the segments using Windows Live Movie Maker.

On the technological side, WLMM can capture both video and audio from notebook standard hardware, but the audio might not be very good.

This video will be later uploaded to voicethread in and attempt to continue the student-created pool of tips and tricks to English learning.

Embracing Changes

Using our recently acquired skills, Cleide Frazão and I carried out a piloting project this past semester.
Here is our workshop in brief. It focus on using web2.0 in a systematized way, make the most of it and do NOT get stressed out.
Cleide and I are not the savvy type, we have been just starting our digital literacy program, and we both still wonder when the old days of chalk and blackboard will spin back in vogue. But we both share a love for pedagogy, for understanding how our young learners learn best. Technology offers us a broad horizon of possibilities to reach out, engage students in writing and connect with families. Here is our workshop on different media. Choose the one that pampers your reading style best and let us know your ideas and suggestions. What tool are you experimenting with? Do you have a favorite tool?
Prezi

Digital Communication Class Web2.0 and young learners on Prezi

About Prezi

Spent all morning learning how to deal with prezi editor. I had seen it once - no idea where- and  I have to confess it was a bit too all over the place for me until I saw this wonderful presentation on EFL Classroom 2.0.My advice if you will prezi soon: Watch the tutorial beforehand and choose the constrain to back and forward move when you embed. ( if you are a linear kind, like me.)
 Voicethread

About voicethread
We decided to upload our workshop on voicethread and post on the project's wiki. This is our paperless, green way to connect for further discussion and feedback. I am in love with this tool! It provides us the chance of extending our learning opportunities... Amazing!
Scribd 

Issuu

Open publication - Free publishing - More younglearners

5 Questions for Planning Successful Web-Based Activities

"

5 Questions for Planning Successful Web-Based Activities via kwout

"

This interesting post about Tech Integration raises important pedagogical issues when we are considering integrating web-based activities into our lesson. One important feature of this tech integration is exactly our reflection upon the kind of pedagogical approach we are taking. It´s not technology for the sake of technology, but it is technology with pedagogically-sound, meaningful contexts.

Would you add other questions to the list?

Microsoft Mouse Mischief -

EFL teaching - Superlatives

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

EFL teaching - Superlatives

View more presentations from Magda Mendes.

Superlatives - Class 52, Sudoeste

Hi dear friends,


I'm so proud of my Teens 5 group that I've decided to share their
work with you. They wrote about their family members using superlative adjectives. All I did was to compile their files into a ppt one...the rest was all their work! Hope you appreciate their effort! 
Please take a look


Thanks,

Magda 

Cutting movie segments.

This video assumes you already have a digital version of the video file. (Digital video files can be ripped from DVDs, VideoCD or BluRay. There are many programs that make this conversion, I use DVD Shrink.)

Even though Windows Live Movie Maker is a practical and simple solution, it has limitations regarding file type, it will handle .avi (today's standard for shared SDTV media) well but it won't open other popular formats like .flv (flash video from the web) or HDTV's standard .mkv.

Also the settings need tuning if you want to work with widescreen (16:9 and 16:10) files.

Another downside of using WLMM is the output format: it only exports video in .wmv. Although .wmv files are easily uploaded to youtube some third party software are not able of playing it (this is not an issue unless you work with different platforms, like a Windows desktop and a Unix/Mac laptop).

The mentioned keyboard shortcuts are:

'j' for frame-by-frame backwards

'k' for play/pause

'l' for frame-by-frame forward

Active and passive websharing.

There is enormous hype around Web 2.0, using it effectively, however, has been difficult for most of us. Teachers are usually much more excited than students when it comes to creating content on-line. One of the reasons for this is that students are 'web lazy', that means they do not wish to create new accounts for projects (face it, they already have e-mail, IMs, Orkut, Facebook and Twitter accounts to name a few).

The reality is that the Web is still used for passive information exchange by most users, who are open to receiving content but uncomfortable with creating it. With that in mind, here are two suggestions on how to use the Web with your groups without requiring students to create content.

First let me tell you about Glue: Glue is a cross browser tool that allows users to share likes and dislikes in one click. After the user has liked something and made a comment, it is categorised and displayed in a user friendly web page.

Go to the Glue website and install the tool bar. It will load when visiting websites such as imdb.com, wikipedia or amazon.com. This makes it easy and simple to make suggestions on books, movies, music and topics for students.

This came in surprisingly handy for Movie Talk; since students watch segments from many different movies I post them (and others who didn't make the cut) on my Glue profile and students can see the suggestions on my Glue profile without having to log in.

Second on the list is Twitter. If you have a twitter account you can use its hashtag and search functionality to let absent students know what happened in the class. This works naturally for teens and young adults who know how to use Twitter, but a quick guide on the first class is necessary when dealing with older students.

All you have to do is teach students how to perform a search on twitter for their group's code as a hashtag (our naming system helps by providing unique codes for every group).

I have a Thomas Flex 6 group on Saturday, so their tag is #TF6S (notice tags do not allow '-'). After the class I log on to twitter and post the tag, followed by the pages we covered and the homework assignment. This makes it possible for absent students to catch up and do the homework. Best part is that it takes less than a minute to post and you can do it from your mobile.

Hope you enjoy the suggestions.

A site for elementary teachers

Guys, I've just found a great site called Poisson Rouge. I'm sure elementary teachers will profit from it. It's very visual and great to be used in the mimio. They offer over 200 games and interactive activities that include a vast array of topics, like music, numbers and art.
Interactive games include real world applications and everyday objects. By clicking on images, you are taken to a game or activity. By naturally exploring, children will learn to grow their minds and their creativity. For example, when you click on the clock, you are taken to a game where you can move the hands on the clock to match the correct digital time that is being displayed.
In the bottom right hand corner, you can see pictures of castles with a Greek Flag, an English flag, a French Flag and a Chinese Flag. These flags represent the languages that are used in a specific game. When you click on one of the castles another castle appears. By scrolling over areas of the castle, you can learn categories in these languages of different words like toys, animals and numbers.
Teachers can use this site to let their students simply explore. They can even create a scavenger hunt of their own list of items and have students try to find them. The simple activities are great enough on their own for vocabulary reinforcement and practice.
Because there is no main text on the site, creators decided to give parents and teachers who are preparing lesson plans a quick guide to all the games, activities and animations on the site.
With so many engaging activities and games, your students may get lost in this exciting site! I have to say that I did! Hope you enjoy it.

PowerPoint X All the rest

It’s amazing all the effort we have been putting into adapting to the world of technology in the classroom. It seems that the need to naturally insert the computers and projectors in our lesson plans has fallen on top of us as an avalanche. Now we’re right in the middle of it and we are working hard to survive.
Many of my colleagues are investing time and money in this venture and Powerpoint is definitely the most popular topic in the conversations I could participate. The reasons for that are very easy to understand after observing a good lesson prepared in Powerpoint. The visual gain is enormous. We can organize the content better and it’s great to work with pictures, making flashcards obsolete. There are a lot of activities that can be developed using Powerpoint, and in that our friend Lilian Marchesoni is an expert. It’s really fun to play games and the animations make our presentations interesting. The ideas are many and knowing how helpful they are we share them with other teachers. Our wiki (CTJconnectED) is the place to share and explore them.
However, I can’t help thinking about all the doors that the computer-internet-classroom combination may open. We can bring the world into your classrooms and probably the only amazement will be our own. The internet is part of our students’ lives just as the television is. We should take advantage of this fact and foster the so desired language production and aquisition through this means, which is very natural to them. Wikis and blogs are two very powerful tools to create a link with the students, sometimes even with parents. Storytelling now is something much more stimulating and there are many sites that allow you to create your own multimedia stories. Pictures, songs, articles, they are all a few clicks away. And of course, we have to mention social networking. Visiting Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and others are part of the routine of most internet users.
I’m certainly a Powerpoint fan, but our students will benefit a lot if we use the internet as a production enviroment. The students will produce under our supervision. Besides the e-folder exercises that are meant to help our learners with reviewing the class content, we may encourage them to write blog posts, embed videos they create at the class’ wiki or blog, use their own pictures to tell a story or as a trigger to a discussion thread. Let’s remember that there is a huge number of online resources to use in class and many of them may be used by the students at home. Powerpoint is a great tool, but we’ll benefit a lot from learning how to apply those other online resources in our pedagogical practice. Some good online tools we can use are Voicethread for storytelling or anecdotes, wikis or blogs as a way of communication among students and teachers, You Tube and Flickr as source of images and videos, which we can embed in our wikis or blogs with just a few actions. Take some time to get to know them and in case of doubt talk to the EdTech team.

Ice breakers

and now..., originally uploaded by Zero Rae.

An ice-breaker...

• Opens the way
•  Sets the course
•  Clears the path
•  Facilitates the movement
•  Cuts through barriers
•  Breaks resistance

Icebreakers are more than fun and games. They are activities that help people connect. These creative interactive processes open the way to learning. I have been collecting activities that I usually use and adapt from. I have been thinking about how to add a digital twist to old timers.

Flickr - 

I could take my students to the computer lab and ask them to share some of their pictures -  

I could ask students to choose some pictures that they relate to and ask them to talk about themselves using the images.

Students could get in small groups and guess information about  each other through the pictures they chose.

Photopeach

I've read about this great site on Life is a feast,  you can learn more about this tool on her blog post. I really liked this web2.0 because it's user friendly and we can make visually rich quizzes to enliven our classes. I used Photopeach to upgrade an ice breaking activity called 

        What's True? 

Students write sentences about themselves, preferably something funny or unusual that most people wouldn't know. one of the sentences should be a lie. students read their sentences aloud to the group and they try to guess which one is the false one.

This simple interactive activity can help you set the course and start a great semester! Have fun!

esl warmer on PhotoPeach

Wordle

 For the very beginning of the semester we could use wordle to design an ice- breaker.

You could write a text about yourself, turn it into a cloud using wordle and ask students to guess pieces of information about you using the words. Students could do the same in the computer lab using wordle or on a blank sheet of paper.

This activity might generate lots of interaction and exchange of information among your learners.

What tool would you use to design an ice-breaker? How would you use it?