Alan November

Educational Innovators

During a recent webinar tutorial in which we were discussing the use of technology in learning the name of Alan November popped up.  I had never heard of him and so spent some time finding out who we was and found these videos which I immediately identified with:

Who owns learning?

21st Century Learning - a Deep Dive into the Future

I am currently reading Alan November's book, Empowering Students With Technology, and hope to find more time to read through it over the holidays.

The point that technology can be a powerful motivator for some students who do not succeed in traditional classrooms is pertinent and not only relevant to teenagers as the story of Yves with which Alan November opens the book alludes to.  I have found it can be a powerful motivator for many of my adult learners.  

The story of Yves reminds me of a quote often attributed to Einstein which berates state education systems:

(Here's the view of someone who really disagrees with this quote and rightfully questions whether Einstein would take this view.)

The Republia Times

Educational Games

 

Age: Mature teens+
Levels: Medium-Difficult

Ever wondered what it's like to be the editor-in-chief of a national newspaper?  Students and teachers alike will enjoy printing positive articles which depict the glorious and free nation of Republia in a positive light.  Your job is to print as many articles as possible for the Republia Times that will help make Republia great again! ;)

In the current age of post-truth politics, Facebook bubbles and unscrupulous mainstream media doublespeak this game from Lucas Pope is topical and a fun way for students to get some authentic topic-related language input related to media propaganda and the main stream media.  Fostering critical reflection is an important aspect of educational programs and what Richard Kern specifically calls critical semiotic awareness.

A critical semiotic awareness of how meanings are made, framed, and transformed in particular contexts of language use is essential to twenty-first-century learners because they face a singularly pervasive mediascape that is potentially as exploitative as it is emancipatory (Kern, 2015:233).

This entails raising awareness of how conventions are used to shape texts to construct discourse toward social ends.  Making learners aware of their own agency to use these conventions but also in critiquing them and potentially shaping them.

Which stories were the most outlandish?
Which stories were the most unbelievable?
Which stories were just silly?

Which positive stories might have contributed to a greater Republia readership?
Which negative stories may have contributed to a lower Republia readership?

Were there any stories that were scarily similar to real-life news stories?

Richard Kern, (2015) Language, Literacy and Technology. 

Question Forms - Monty Python and the Bridge Keeper

Engaging Video Clips

 

Level: B1+
Age: Teens and Adults
Theme: Question formation, Questions with and without auxiliary verbs, Comedy

Monty Python are one of the most famous (if not the most famous!) English comedy collectives ever and rank among my top comedians.  I try and use comedy clips whenever I can as British humour is an extremely important part of British national identity.

I have used the following video clip with teenage classes and many students found it amusing.  The surrealist nature of Monty Python jokes can be tricky and sometimes requires a bit of explaining which may reduce the comedy value.  I used this clip when reviewing question forms and specifically in lessons where I've wanted the students to prepare their own quiz questions.

If students are willing they can act out their own Monty Python Bridge of Death scene with questions of their own choice.

Watch the video and answer the following questions:

How many different questions does the bridge keeper ask all of the knights?

What happens to the knights when the answer the questions incorrectly? 

Can you remember any of the questions?

There are 5 (not 3!:) questions:

What is your name?

What is your quest?

What is your favourite colour?

What is the capital of Syria?

What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

 Here's the video clip with subtitles

Some vocabulary that can be pre-taught or looked at afterwards: 

Dragon Dictation

Speaking

 

Dragon Dictation is a free app which students can download to practice their speaking and pronunciation skills.  It is a speech recognition application which is only available on the Apple iOS platform.

 

As you can see in the demonstration video above, transcription of my speech is 99% accurate.  The only error is the absent of the definite article before Apple iOS due to the fact that structural words, such as auxiliary verbs and prepositions, are often pronounced in their weak form and so often go unheard (by electronic devices and students themselves!).

Learners can practice reading short extracts and compare their recorded transcription with that of the written text that they have chosen.

Dr Ruben Puentedura

Educational Innovators

 

'Dr. Ruben Puentedura is the Founder and President of Hippasus, a consulting firm based in Western Massachusetts, focusing on transformative applications of information technologies to education. He has implemented these approaches for over twenty-five years at a range of K-20 educational institutions, as well as health and arts organizations.

(Hippasus of Metapontum, was a Pythagorean philosopher. Little is known about his life or his beliefs, but he is sometimes credited with the discovery of the existence of irrational numbers.)

Dr Ruben Puentedura is the creator of the SAMR model for selecting, using and evaluating technology in education, which currently guides the work of the Maine Learning Technology Initiative, as well as projects in Vermont and Sweden.

His current work explores new direction in mobile computing, digital storytelling, learning analytics and educational gaming, focusing on applications in areas where they have not been traditionally employed.  He can be reached at rubenrp@hippasus.com/'

Ruben R. Puentedura's blog 

The impact of SAMR

How to Apply SAMR

Friends - Harvey & Rabbit

Engaging Video Clips

 

Level: B1+
Age: Young Learners to Adults
Theme: Friends, Adjectives, Picture description, Present simple, Present continuous

Tell students that they're going to watch a video about Harvey and his best friend.

Why do you think they are good friends?
Who do you think Harvey and Rabbit are?

Further questions to ask before watching the clip:

Why do we need friends?
Why are your friends important?
What do you do together?

Watch the video, do you do these things with your friends?

Watch the video again, write as accurately as possible all the things Harvey and Rabbit do.

• They play on a see-saw together.

• They have their photos taken in fancy dress in a photo booth.

•  Harvey buries Rabbit in the sand and makes him into a mermaid. 

• Harvey rescues Rabbit from a burning house and resuscitates him by licking him. 

• They steal sausages from the butcher's and Rabbit drives the getaway car.

• Harvey makes a compilation tape for Rabbit and dances to it on his hind legs while Rabbit listens on headphones.

• They lie down on their backs in the grass watching cloud shapes.

I sometimes stop the video at different parts and get students to tell their partner what is happening / has happened / is going to happen.  This was particular helpful for Cambridge exam preparation such as PET and First where candidates have to describe pictures.

You can click on the images below and view these video stills:
 

 (FRIENDS! a-la-la-poo-poo-la-la-laaaaaa..)

Elllo

Listening

 

ELLLO (Is that three 'l's teacher? Yes, three 'l's) stands for English Language Listening Library Online.  It was created by Todd Beuckens, an ESL teacher living in Japan.  The lessons are free and very very helpful.

Complementing the free audio is a script, vocabulary and quiz.  

3rd World Farmer

Educational Gaming

Age: 10+
Levels: Medium-Difficult

3rd World Farmer can be used with kids and teenagers to educate them on the problems that families in other countries face to make ends meet.  I'd suggest students try playing the game then report back to the class on the difficulties that they faced.  They could also write a story or a narrative on what happened to them.

'3rd World Farmer lets you experience some of the hardships of farming in a poor country. Will you prosper despite corruption and lack of basic neccessities? Or will endless wars, diseases, droughts, and unreliable markets perpetuate your economic disadvantage and spell your ultimate doom?
3rd World farmer is a serious game, developed on a very slim budget. It is not precise in all details, but covers a wide range of topics. It is meant to be both educational and slightly provocative, with the sole intent of making people think about these topics and, hopefully, realize that each of us can make a difference in helping to end poverty.'

ESL Games Plus

Educational Gaming

 

ESL Games Plus offers interactive online games for learning and teaching English as a Second Language. 

Learning games are mostly suitable for teaching ESL Kids and Teenagers. There are activities for teaching and practising English grammar, vocabulary, sentences, listening and pronunciation skills. 

Playing these fun educational games, students learn English vocabulary, sentence structures, grammar, listening, pronunciation and phonics. 

My favourite games are the Rally Game and the Pirate Board Games.  They were particularly helpful during a recent course I taught in which the group consisted of five male Qatari teenage beginner students.  It was very hard work trying to motivate them and it was quite a forgettable class.

The site features the following ESL Activities Online: ESL Classroom Games, Memory Games, Spelling Games, Sentence Games, Interactive Board Games, Hangman Games, Jeopardy, Wheel  Games, Concentration Games, Matching Games, Car Racing Games, Pirate Games, Crocodile Games, Word Recognition Games, Mobile Games for iPad, iPhones and Android devices.

Random Name Picker

Random name picker is a website I regularly use with all age groups and levels.  It can be found on Russel Tarr's ClassTools website.  I started using it when an adult in one of my classes dominated speaking activities way too much leading to other students missing out.  Use it judiciously and be careful with students who really don't want to speak.  I've been using this a lot over the last few years and I've never had any issues with students who didn't want to contribute.

New English File Online

English File, published by Oxford University Press, has always been one of my favourite course books.  There is a good mix of material that engages learners.  The communicative activities and grammar worksheets in the teacher's book are my go-to additional material.  Each level includes relevant pronunciation activities which I find lacking in other text books.  Layout and design have also been well thought out offering an attractive and appealing course for students to follow.

The New English File Upper-intermediate Online resource is a fantastic website I regularly tell my B2+ students to make use of.  It offers a wide variety of resources which allow learners to continue their learning at home.  You will find games, web links, text builders, revision activities and a whole lot more.

The different New English File Online levels can be found here.

Early digital gaming

The Atari Lunar Landing game was probably one of my earliest brushes with digital gaming and led to me getting a Commodore! You can play this game online.  Teenage students will NOT be impressed.  It would be good though to look at them and discuss how much digital gaming has changed.

Gavin Dudeny reminded me of these games in a webinar he gave in conjunction with the British Council.  It was called mLearning: From theory to practice.

Moonlander

Play Atari Lunar Landing games

 

Original Boulder Dash

Newer Boulder Dash

Using QR Codes in the Classroom (and around the school!)

QR codes are ubiquitous; you can see them in supermarkets, on posters, and in newspapers and magazines.  This means students will be familiar with them but are highly unlikely to have actually used one.  What are they and how can we use them in class?

QR is an abbreviation for Quick Response, and allows smartphone and tablet users to quickly access and view a various range of multimedia - texts, audio, images, animation, videos and interactive content.

Using the school’s iPads and the QR code reader, students can quickly scan a QR code and access material that you have chosen for exploitation in class.  It often saves time compared to typing in long URL addresses.

There are many free QR code readers on line which can be used to create your own QR codes: kaywa.com, QRcodegenerator.com, mobile-barcodes.com, webqr.com or beetagg.com.

I have adapted a present continuous picture quiz which a colleague created last year.  Using a free online QR code generator, I created codes which when scanned displayed questions relating to the pictures displayed on the first floor waiting area.

Here are three good reasons for using QR codes:

• QR codes can hold over 4000 characters of information. Instead of printing out a long web article to your students, QR codes could give them direct and instantaneous access to the same resource in class. You save time and you save paper simultaneously.

• They are very easy to generate. To create a QR code, you only need to copy and paste the address of a web page into your QR generating software. Once you have produced your code, you can then transfer it to your teaching resource, or simply leave it on the interactive whiteboard for students to scan in class.

• QR codes can be printed on almost anything: paper, textile or walls (not sure you should try that!).  Some schools use them in the reception area to provide extra information about school events to students, parents and visitors.

 

This app offers simplicity and efficiency.  We often don’t have time to ‘play around’ with complicated software and other educational gadgets. QR codes are becoming a popular tool in education as they combine speed, ease and novelty with the capacity to hold a large amount of data. They can actually do a lot to enrich your lessons. If you try out QR codes, please share the experience.

Michael Carrier - Re-defining access to language learning: using handheld and mobile learning

I recently watched this British Council produced webinar given by Michael Carrier who spoke about extending language learning through the use of handheld mobile devices.

He believes that in-class reading and grammar activities are often unproductive; they are better carried out at home.  This is something I whole-heartedly agree with and is supported by a recent questionnaire I gave to my students.   Four questions were sent to the students in my group, 9 out of 12 students responded.  No student chose reading as a skill they would like to develop in class.

Reading tasks are best set as homework and then can be used for vocabulary work or developing speaking skills in class.  All of these students did however declare that they are thinking of doing the IELTS exam in the future so banning reading skills completely isn't in their best interests.

 

I often set reading tasks as homework and then do vocabulary activities in class and move onto discussions relating to the text.  For grammar focused work I set the students the task of reading the grammar rules at home and trying some exercises at their own pace (more along the lines of a guided discovery approach).  When we meet in class we work on what the students have understood and try some controlled speaking practice followed by freer speaking activities.

Alice is Dead

Age: 13+
Levels: Easy-Medium-Difficult

You have arrived in Wonderland... but Alice is dead. Can you figure out how to escape Wonderland? 

According to a study by Lu et al (2013) this game can help students develop their reading skills and enhance reading efficacy.  It offers around 36 sentences and about 300 words.  The level of difficulty is easy and the suggested completion time is 20 to 25 minutes.

If you're spending over 25 minutes and give up, here's the walk-through to help:

Finished?  There's also an Alice is Dead 2.  This version has more than 60 sentences and about 600 words.  Difficulty is medium and the completion time is 30 to 35 minutes.


And finally, Alice is Dead 3.  The lexical content is again increased; 80 sentences and around 1000 words.  It is rated as being difficult and so completion time is between around 40 to 45 minutes.

Reference:
Lu et al. (2013) Understanding the Confidence, Motive and Self-efficacy on Influence of Adventure Game on English reading. Educational Research (ISSN: 2141-5161) Vol. 4(3) pp. 257-263, March 2013 

Tsunesaburo Makiguchi

Educational Innovators

 

This quote from Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, a forward-thinking educational theorist from Japan, was one that particularly struck a chord.   By educating our learners on how to use the technology available to them we can help them become more autonomous learners.  I liked the idea of a key unlocking the vault of knowledge.  Often when I find a really good website it does feel like a very valuable treasure trove has been unearthed, and when you find something like that, it is best sharing it with friends, colleagues and students.

'The aim of education is not to transfer knowledge; it is to guide the learning process, to equip the learner with the methods of research. It is not the piecemeal merchandizing of information; it is to enable the acquisition of the methods for learning on one's own; it is the provision of keys to unlock the vault of knowledge. Rather than encouraging students to appropriate the intellectual treasures uncovered by others, we should enable them to undertake on their own the process of discovery and invention.'

TOON Books

TOON Readers offers an entirely FREE selection of resources which allows children to read and listen to an entire story using "Read To Me" or by activating audio prompts on individual balloons when they need a little extra help.

TOON Readers were developed in cooperation with Professor Garfield, a non-profit educational collaboration between Garfield the Cat and Ball State University.

I found the Jack in the Box interesting.  Art Spiegelman is a famous American graphic novelist best known for his book Maus.

These can be used in class or shown to parents who can help encourage students to read English texts at home.

Monkey GO Happy

I’ve been using Monkey GO Happy with my very young learners to teach them useful vocabulary, imperatives and prepositions.  The website itself can be a little annoying with lots of flashing images and clickbait sites. 

The games themselves however are fun and students enjoy trying to find the monkeys/elves etc. There are puzzles that need to be solved along the way and quite intuitive to solve without many instructions.

I walk the students through the games asking them questions about what they can see.  Students are really motivated to respond as I then let them find the eggs on the IWB.

Stop Disasters

Stop Disaster is a disaster simulation game.  You can choose from five types of natural disasters: earthquakes, floods, tsunami, wildfire and hurricane.  
 

Students have to think about what precautions can be taken to reduce the impact of natural disasters.  There are missions, challenges, students are given a budget etc.  It would be really interesting to use this in class or set it up as homework and students report back to class.

Little Alchemy

In Little Alchemy students begin with four elements, fire, earth, water & air, and then make different combinations to create new things.  

They can make planes, yoda, animals, supernatural beings, inventions and lots more.  It is really good for project work with students reporting back to the class on what they have made.

I use it to introduce the zero conditional and get them to explain to each other what they have made e.g. 'If you add earth to water, you get mud'.   There is also an app which is free to download.

GeoGuessr

GeoGuessr uses StreetView images that drops the player in a random location and challenges them to work out where they are.