Nearpod

The picture is from https://nearpod.com/

😘What is Nearpod?
Nearpod is an Internet-based platform allowing teachers and students to teach or learn online through presentations, assessment tools, video or text interactions and so on.

The picture is from https://nearpod.com/

✍Tutorial 

👉click here to go to the homepage of nearpod or you can search "nearpod" in your phone app store. Then you can download this app on your phone.

You can easily create your lesson by uploading pdf, powerpoint, video, audio and so on. You can also give feedback to students. To show you how to use it, you can watch the video from Youtube below.

😄How can it be used in language learning

It could be used either in class or after class. It could be used as a platform to distribute resources to students like pre-reading or powerpoint presented in the class. When it is used during the class, the process of learning by Nearpod could be controlled by the teacher. Do not worry a lot that some students may not use their laptops or phones to do inappropriate things. The teacher can easily see who is viewing the Nearpod and who is not, which is beneficial to classroom discipline management. 

I like the Nearpod VR which can increase the engagement of the students. The teacher can take the students to travel to other places. With 3D visual clues, the students could understand more easily.

😭limitations

1 Although there are a large number of resources provided by Nearpod. Usually, you need to pay for them.

2 While it is used in the class, students' face-to-face interactions will be decreased. I suggest you ask the students to use it after class to save time in class for face-to-face communications. However, it is totally fine to use it in the classroom as long as the WIFI in the classroom is good.

Blended learning and Blendspace

(The picture is from Startup Stock Photos, https://www.pexels.com)

Do you prefer learning in the classroom or outside the classroom?

 Why do you need to choose one?

    Why do not we combine these two together?

🥝What is blended learning?

It is a learning method that combines both online learning and face-to-face classroom learning.  Students can learn at any place where the Internet can be accessed before or after the class and also learn in "brick-and-mortar" classroom. 

Here is a video from Youtube about blended learning. 

You can try Blendspace to facilitate blended learning in your class.

🥑Blendspace
👉Click here and you can go to the homepage of blendspace.
You can create a class through blendspace to guide the students and can test students at the click of "add a quiz" as shown in the following picture. Blendspace can also track the students' responses and comments. You can use blendspace to lead blended learning in your class.

(The picture is from blendspace website:https://www.tes.com/lessons )

For a more detailed tutorial, here is a video from Youtube.

🍓How can blendspace be used?
1 for blended learning
Lessons can be shared online and just with a link every student in your classroom can have access to it. Students can learn outside the classroom on their own schedule at any place they like so time in the "brick-and-mortar" classroom can be saved for face-to-face interactions and group work.
2 students' presentation
Blendspace can not only be used by teachers to create a lesson but also be applied by students to make presentations. Why do not students create a lesson to display what they have learn? 

I think in my teaching, I will ask the students to attend the pre-class lesson on blendspace and the come to the classroom to share their thoughts by face-to-face communication. After the class, homework requiring the students to create a lesson to display their reflections on the pre-class lesson and discussion will be given after class.
😔Limitations
1 The quiz on blendspace can only be made by multiple choice.
2 There are some interactions in blendspace but they are limited.
3 Only adding instructions and draging over online resources make it is limited to sharing infromation styled class.  It is like a lecture.
4 If students are not disciplined and motivated, you cannot make sure they will attend the online lesson.

Videomail, improving your oral skills

With the development of technology and the popularity of mobile devices, people usually communicate online. In education, learners also can make the use of computer-mediated communication to practice their oral English. There are many tools available online and this blog will introduce one of them: videomail.

(This picture is from https://www.videomail.io/)

🔶What is it?

You can click here to go to the homepage of videomail.

When you see the homepage, you will find it very easy to use. Click "record video" button so you start making your video. You can add messages about the video and send to an email address. 

(This picture is from MockupEditor.com, https://www.pexels.com)

👩‍🏫How can it be used in language learning

(1) flipped classroom

It can help the teacher to flip the classroom. It is also a tool that can be helpful in blended learning. Students can learn not only in the classroom but also outside the classroom.
The teacher records the video as teaching resources and sends them to the students. The students learn at home so when they come to the classroom, the teacher does not need to spend a lot of time teaching but can use the class time to organize the students to do group assignments.

(2) doing presentation 

The students can use this tool to make a video presentation expressing their ideas. It helps to reduce the stress in a real face-to-face presentation. By using videomail, students can practice, rerecord and watch their own video to reflect on their performance. 

😣Limitations 

(1) At one time, the videomail can be sent to only one email address. 

I think it will be better if the videomail can be sent to many email addresses at one time or can be uploaded to a shared space online. It will be time-saving.

(2) It cannot add pictures and slides. If you want to present pictures or slides, you can only show them in front of the camera. IF you are the teacher who wants to use it to flip your classroom, extra handouts may be needed.

(3) I tried videomail on my laptop. It automatically uses the rear-facing camera. The website does not provide any guide to change it to the front-facing camera. It is inconvenient for me to selfie myself.

          

collaborative learning and stromboard

(The picture is from Stephen Paris, https://www.pexels.com)

What happens in a traditional teacher-centered classroom?
A teacher gives a lecture and then an assignment is given. Students work on the assignment individually and hand in the assignment. At last, the teacher marks everyone's work and give general feedback to the whole class or detailed feedback individually. 

BUT

If students work together,.......
👧👦🧒🧑👩

(The picture is from  rawpixel.com,  https://www.pexels.com)

Students can ask other group members questions, learn from others work, monitor each other, compete and help each other. It seems that the students learn in a collaborative environment where every member devotes their resources into a  shared resource library. Every one can capitalize on the shared library. This is collaborative learning. 

🔴The structure of this blog
This blog can be divided into two parts. The first part is about collaborative learning and the second part talks about a tool called stormboard based on collaborative learning. The first part is the basis of the second part because the first part helps you understand the second part.

What collaborative learning is has been talked about. Then this blog will provide an example for collaborative learning to further explain the definition of collaborative learning and evaluate the benefits of collaborative learning. Afterward, a tool called stormboard which can be used in collaborative learning will be introduced and evaluated in terms of limitations and advantages. Finally, suggestions will be given.

🔵Example
Postering and commenting on blogs is a process of collaborative learning. I write blogs about based reflections on ICT course. Through posting the blogs, I share my thoughts and ideas with other blog users. Other users comment on my blog, evaluating my blog, responding to my ideas and ask questions. It also provides a blended learning environment. This learner-centered learning mode can promote students' engagement and motivation. This learning mode is quite similar to stormboard that will be talked about afterwards in this blog.

💖other benefits:
1Increase students' satisfaction in the learning experience so their retention will be improved.
2 Interactions among students promote the development of communicative skills.

Then I will introduce a tool can be used for collaborative learning.
This tool is underpinned by the concept of collaborative learning.

👀Stormboard

(The picture is from https://stormboard.com)

👉click here and you can find the homepage of stormboard.

Stormboard can be used to record your ideas whenever you get inspirations and share them with people around you or very far from you online. Everyone who joins the same storm is an ongoing participant even before and after the class, sharing their ideas. This learning process here is very similar to the blog learning method mentioned above. Students using stormboard can share ideas and interact with each other. This is why it is relevant to collaborative learning.

After creating a storm, you can share your storm with others by link or email. You can add a sticky to your storm by using the numbers on your keyboard (1-6) :
1 Text
2 Whiteboard
3 Image
4 Video
5 Index Card
6 File
That is very easy and time-saving.

Here is a video in youtube instructing you detailly how to use the stromboard.

👍 (1) Advantages and functions of stormboard
1A a significant number of templates are available to you organize your storm.
2 Easily and quickly add stickies and comments in the shared workspace.
3 Participants can vote for ideas they think are good. Users can see what ideas their team like best and then focus more on the ideas regarded as the best.
4 Stormboard helps connect remote individuals or teams. Wherever they are, they can work in one shared space.  
😨(2) Limitations of stormboard
1 Because everyone has the right to do something to the shared strom, you cannot make sure every student is doing what the teacher required to do. Some naught students may draw a big tortoise on the whiteboard. I think stormboard is more suitable for high school and college students. Too young students may be naughty. 
2 If the group is too big and everyone has their own ideas to organise the storm. It will be in a mess.

👩‍🏫(3) How can it be used in language learning?
It can be used for brainstorm, collaboration, and communication in high school. The teacher may create a storm before the class and asks the students to post their ideas on it. The teacher views the ideas and comments on it and based on it prepare the lesson. It saves time because the time of a class is limited and guides the teacher's lesson plan.
 It can be used in colleges. Students post their thoughts about their research, project or dissertation on it and get feedbacks from classmates and tutors.
If you are primary school teacher, I do not think stormboard is suitable for you.

😘(4) some suggestions for teachers when using stormboard:
1 Consider the allocation of group members. The diversity of group members are important. I think it not good to put students with the same gender or from the same background in the same group. You can find more different ideas and learn more in a group whose members are quite different.
2 Monitoring students' using stormboard in case some naughty students make jokes on the shared storm because every participant has the right to make changes to the storm.
3 If the task is so difficult and complex. The teacher should guide the students to allocate the working responsibility. Every group member should be aware of the role he or she should play in the group.
4 Try to make the group size not too big. I think 5 people is OK. If the group is too big, make a regulation on how to organize the layout and the structure of the storm.

👉 Just click here. There are many other collaborative learning tools introduced in this website.

👉 Click here. This website did a good job in terms of giving suggestions on collaborative learning.

Learn English with the rhythm of the music

Most students have ever complained that the learning process is boring and sleepy, while most people love music. Music is like the spice of life, turning a black and white silent film into a 3D Hollywood blockbuster so why do not we use music to learn English.

The picture is from https://image.baidu.com

This blog will introduce Lyricstraining, a useful tool to learn different languages. This blog can be divided into two parts.  Firstly, instruction on how to use it will be given as the first part of this blog. Then some comments about its advantages and disadvantages will be available in the second part. 

🎵 How to use?

You can click here (https://lyricstraining.com) to go to the website. You can search Lyricstraining in your app store and download it on your phone. 

The picture here is the homepage. Here are many songs recommended or you can search on the top of the webpage for your favorite songs. 

(From https://lyricstraining.com)

Choose one and then you can choose the difficulty as shown in the picture.

(From https://lyricstraining.com)

Then you can start. Fill in the lyrics sing your keyboard according to the music you are listening.  You can skip the blank when you cannot figure out the lyrics but you may lose score when you skip.

(From https://lyricstraining.com)

After the game is over, you can see a score rank among players around the world. You can share your score and compete with your friends.

Here is a video from youtube, if you still have difficulty to use it.

😁 advantages 

1 Music and video here motivate learning. You can use it anywhere by yourself. It promotes learning autonomy.

2 The video here is relevant to the lyrics so it may provide a context for the students to understand the lyrics here.

3 Music can reduce pressure. A good mood facilitates learning. 

4 Most of the singers are native speakers so the pronunciations are mostly standard. The languages used are authentic.

5 Competition in the score rank urges people to work hard.

6 Benefit learners' listening comprehension.

😱 Disadvantages

1 Some songs convey a negative meaning. For example, some songs may involve excessive drinking and bad languages. It may have a bad effect on teenagers.

2 The intonations of speaking in a song are totally different from normal conversations in daily life.

3 Although the videos here are interesting, you may not be able to concentrate on reciting the vocabulary due to the distractions of video.

4 If you cannot fill in the blank in time, the music and song will stop. If they stop for many times, it is unpleasant.

5 After one song is over, a table of high scores comes. You may lose confidence and motivation when compare yourself with top players with a high score.

6 I think learners can memorize new words better by hand-writing than tying. Unfortunately, the handwriting function is not assessed in Lyricstraining.

7 It may not help you a lot if you want to improve academic English.

Overall,  Lyricstraining is helpful but still need to be improved.

WebQuests

😊 What are WebQuests?

Here is a video from Youtube giving you a good description of WebQuests.

The video is from Youtube.

According to this video, Bernie Dodge held the view that the definition of  WebQuests are "a constructivist lesson format wrapped around a doable and interesting task that is a scaled-down version of something adults do".

WebQuest is underpinned by the idea of task-based learning. Teachers put several tasks on the websites and students complete these tasks by reading the materials. Commonly, students work in pairs.

✌ Construction

According to 'concept to the classroom', a WebQuest usually has 6 parts: introduction, task, process, resources, evaluation, and conclusion.  However, many WebQuests do not have resources.
🔺Introduction: provide background and explain the general goal.
🔺task: describe what students should do and achieve in the end
🔺process: the steps the students should take to complete the task
🔺resources: resources students need to finish the task 
🔺evaluation: standards to evaluate students' work
🔺conclusion: reflection and thinking about the possible extension

Just click here to see recently published WebQuests: http://questgarden.com/author/reports/recentpubs.php

😄Relevance to language teaching and how to use it in teaching
WebQuest can facilitate the task-based learning process. A WebQuest is consist of several tasks. Students' reading skills will be improved by reading the materials. WebQuest can be used in group work assignment so through student-to-student interactions, listening and speaking skills will be improved. 

😀 Advantages

1. When working in groups, interaction among learners benefits their learning.

2. The ability of critical thinking is improved through coping with these tasks.

3 Encourage engagement and motivation

😭 Limiatations

1 I think the materials and detailed instructions are given on WebQuests so it is unnecessary for teachers to talk more about it. I am wondering if a teacher using WebQuests in class, what the teacher can do excluding giving necessary help to students when they ask for help? Hence, I think it is more suitable for after class activity and self-studying so the vital classroom time can be saved.

2 In group work, students with a low level of motivation to learning may rely too much on other group members.
3 WebQuests are not suitable for beginners because they require a certain level of reading skills.

🙂 Using the Quest Garden

Here is a video from Youtube teaching you how to making a webquest by Questgarden.

     The video is from Youtube, published by Diallo Sessoms.

Overall, WebQuests make good use of multimedia in the class and can motivate students to improve their critical thinking and team spirit though they have some limitations.

                                          

Reference
https://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/webquests/index_sub3.html

use Voki to motivate your students

It is important for teachers to catch students' attention in the class. Students tend to lose their concentration when teachers are giving a long talk. Many teachers are frustrated by this problem. However, now I am going to introduce a tool that can make your teacher talk more interesting. It is called "Voki".
What is Voki?
Voki is a game-like tool that can help you express by using a talking character and your own voice.
Tutorial
Put Voki on your google search and you will certainly find the website or you can just click here: https://www.voki.com/student/create
First of all, you can choose the character you like by clicking the first button with a face on it. There are several tags you can choose and under each tags there are many characters of the same type.

Then you can choose what the character wears by clicking the second button with a T-shirt and a cap on it. Uses are free to choose the background of the character showing by the second picture.

You can record your voice and enter message as shown in the third picture.

There are also many videos about Voki on Youtube. Search Voki and I think you will find more information.

How to use it in your classroom?

I will use Voki to give oral instructions in my classroom. We can also ask students to make a Voki video to express their ideas. It is good for you to add an interesting Voki video in your lesson presentation.

Limitation 

Though it can make the class more interesting for the students, some students may pay more attention to the character itself but not the message it conveys. To use Voki in the classroom, the classroom must have electronic devices like a computer and a projector. I do not find any way to download the video created by Voki so you need to use USB to store it and bring it to the classroom. It may be difficult for classrooms without these devices and the Internet in remote and poor areas. Additionally, the resources on Voki are limited. I think the background and the cartoon characters are kind of out of fashion. It cannot add pictures and presentation slides to the video. It will be better for students to understand when having some pictures and other materials. 

All pictures in my blog are from: https://www.voki.com/student/create