Use of technology in the english class

USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE ENGLISH CLASS

Wikispaces

• A wiki is a platform where students ’s work, teachers’ s ideas, materials and useful links can be stored as in a virtual library which has the advantage that it can be continuously enriched. Teachers and students can work both synchronously and asynchronously, from school or from home. It focuses on collaborative writing since it allows a group of students to work together at a given project and make a collage of their contributions. Just like Moodle, it can be used for teachers’ continuous professional development, because the content of the course can be posted on a wiki and the participants can read it and solve their assignments whenever they have time or a computer available.

Wikispaces• How to use wikis• Wikis allow students or educators to collaborate for making a project or

portfolio in a group or to work alone. • Students can create dictionaries of idioms, phrasal verbs, semantic fields.• They can create a library of their best poems or compositions and add to it

whenever they have something new.• A wiki can be used to supply additional materials, links, photos or videos

(from You Tube),which students can use for their projects. The class blog can be read from the wiki.

• Teachers provide immediate feedback and students can improve their work following the given suggestions.

• Teachers have their students’ work in one place which makes it easier for them to correct it and have a record of their grades and progress.

• http://www.wikispaces.com/

Blogs

• http://callactivities.blogspot.ro/• Blogs were initially designed for people to write their

opinions and impressions on different topics and events and get a response to their posts. They can be very well used as a useful means of communication between teacher and students, providing information on the important events, giving them useful links to follow, posting homework and having it corrected. Blogs keep a record of all students’ activities and work and everything can be illustrated with photos.

Blogs• How to use blogs• Teachers post links of films, videos, useful sites which

students can study at home and then discuss them in class in order to save time (Flipped Classroom).

• Teachers can post the links students are going to use in a lesson to make their search easier.(MentorMob is a very useful tool which uses playlists with all the sites that are necessary in a lesson)

• Students can make their own blogs to post their work or they can email it to the teacher who can embed it in the blog. Their work may consist of Word documents or PowerPoint presentations which are embedded as SlideShare presentations.

Blogs• Students are encouraged to post comments

on their peers’ work developing their critical skills and acquiring more control over language use.

• Teachers can embed HotPotatoes tests to assess students’ knowledge on grammar or vocabulary.

• http://www.cristinacabal.com• http://www.nikpeachey.blogspot.com

Digital storytelling-Storybird

• Storybird is a platform where collection of arts centered on the same characters can be found and exploited for creative writing. Students can choose one of these collections, select the most appropriate pictures and draft a storyline that can match them. They can also think of a specific literary text and try to adapt the story to the pictures, to recreate meaning and give it another dimension.

• Storybird compositions can be used to revise tenses (present- to describe one character's daily activities, past- to retell a story, future-to make predictions about a character's future life)

• Certain topics, like friendship, jealousy, love, sadness, happiness, fear, can be illustrated and students can write about the effects these feelings had on their lives.

• More talented students can also create lyrics , not only narrative texts.• The stories created by students can be printed and they can set up exhibitions

with their works or they could be used for reading activities at other classes.• Students or teachers can use already created stories for reading

practice.Teachers can use this tool in the revision or assessment periods when it can be turned into a motivating and pleasant activity.

• http://storybird.com/

Storybird

MakeBeliefsComix

MakeBeliefsComix• This is a tool which helps students improve their writing skills by creating

new stories and comic strips to support them or by writing summaries of the texts they read or by illustrating a language matter they have studied. In the last two cases they have to make a short plan of what they intend to write and try to find the suitable characters and settings. Creating comic strips can also be set as a homework task.

• MakeBeliefsComix is suitable for practicing writing summaries or reports on texts pupils read during lessons or for illustrating understanding of a grammar point.

• Students can write about different moments/chapters in a story, print them and create a comic book. The printed pages can be stuck at random on the blackboard and students should order them accordingly.

• Students can present their opinions on current events, on matters of general interest., holidays, school, friends.

COMICS

• Tell Your Life Story• Travel to A Mysterious Place• Making Wishes Come True• A Day at Work• A Day at School• http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/

Glogster• This tool utilizes audiovisual aspects to support a learner's digital text-based

product and allows a professional result that a learner can feel proud of displaying, even if their writing skills are limited. Its enjoyable format also helps enhance student’s motivation to learn languages by using an active learning tool.

• Teaching/Learning ideas:• Reflect on a particular life experience. • Express opinion on certain topic.• Illustrate a language problem.• Gather vocabulary illustrating with examples.• Talk about family, present hobbies, likes and dislikes.• Draw attention to a local or national events, cultural life, social trends.• Deal with a topic or problem given which might be personal or wider social.• http://www.glogster.com/

WordItOut

• WordItOut can be used in the classroom as additional activity to maintain students´ motivation and attention. As it helps practise students´ writing skills and spelling, the teacher may give individual students or small groups of students a task to create a word cloud using different groups of words, or even a story or an article. Groups of words or an article can be related to different topics worked on within the class.

• http://worditout.com/

WORD CLOUD

PODCASTS

• You can record radio programs, music and songs from ITunes, podcasts, audio clips from the internet, authentic interactions between native speakers and develop listening comprehension active.

• Audacity allows to digitalize tapes or CDs –you can share them, edit them.

• Pronunciation activities.• Using the editing and sound effects tools-copying, cutting, pasting

audio clips, changing the speed or pitch of a recording- it becomes easy to create activities specific to the pronunciation needs of students.

• Students can visualize, listen and compare all or specific parts of their peers recorded productions.

• Export songs and audio files , mix sounds.• http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/• http://breakingnewsenglish.com

Webquests

• With WebQuests, students create meaningful projects that they share with others via oral presentations, posting to the web.

• They are expected to take the information that they interact with and transform it to create new information that has meaning to them.

• The links students use are pre-selected by the WebQuest writer. The focus is on using information rather than looking for it.

Webquests• Adopt a WebQuest in its entirety for an area of study.• Adapt a WebQuest to suit the theme of study, students or curriculum

area.• Gain ideas about a topic or theme• Use the embedded ICT resources to become proficient in using ICT

techniques or programs (eg. Powerpoint, Hyperstudio, Excel etc.)• Introduce a topic or unit of work. A stimulating way to get students

thinking about their new avenue of study.• Use it as a focus throughout study of a unit of work or topic.• Assess the knowledge of students at the end of a study unit.• Engage in WebQuests for a short term and long term study.• Conclude a unit of work. Students have the opportunity to clarify what

the have learned through their studies of a topic and apply their knowledge and skills in activities that require critical thinking

• Develop and build the foundations for a debate.

Survey Monkey

• Beginners may take or create surveys on hobbies, pets, daily routine.

• Intermediate level- jobs, use of media, future of traditional family.

• Advanced- examination of intercultural issues, political opinion polls, sensitive topics students feel reluctant discussing in class.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/

MentorMob

• MentorMob is a tool that allows teachers to organise their favourite posts or websites into a playlist. It can be shared or embedded in a blog or website. Teachers can organise videos, pdfs, documents, websites, articles into playlists and then assign them to their students in the computer lab or as homework.

• http://www.mentormob.com/learn/i/conditional-clauses-copy/the-zero-conditional-2

• http://www.mentormob.com/learn/i/describing-people-copy/matching-exercise-3

POWERPOINT• games(Jeopardy, millionaire)• presentations• tests • reviews• Flashcards• Matching game• Arrange things in the right order• Integrate movies and pictures• Worksheets that can be printed• Create step by step tutorials on any topic with photos,

illustrations, narration, audio• http://www.jc-schools.net/tutorials/ppt-games• http://www.callactivities.blogspot.com

HOTPOTATOES

• The Hot Potatoes software suite includes five applications that can create exercises for the World Wide Web. The applications are JCloze, JCross, JMatch, JMix and JQuiz. There is also a sixth application called The Masher, that will compile all the Hot Potatoes exercises into one unit.

• http://www.callactivities.blogspot.com

Bookmarking• Social bookmarking tools are a popular way to store, classify, share

and search links. Individuals or groups of people can work together using social bookmarks for professional networking reasons and compose a virtual database of relevant information.

• Track author, type of research, articles from the field of users interests, book updates.

• Develop and realize classroom collaborative projects sharing bookmarks.

• Collaborate on projects with other schools.• Create educator’s groups where teachers set up a shared social

bookmarking account where teachers can post research and information bookmarks that they collect throughout the year.

Delicious

• http://www.delicious.com