Hello everyone! Last time I talked about technology and learner autonomy. My interest for this week is learners' collaboration, which also plays an important role in promoting autonomous learning. The sociocultural theory of learning by Vygotsky (1978) stresses the idea that learning is a social process. This means that social interaction plays an important role in cognitive development. By collaborating with peers, learners co-construct knowledge more easily.
What does ICT add to collaborative learning? My answer to this question is that you no longer need to be in the same place to be able to collaborate with others. There is a wide range of online tools that can help you share your ideas wherever you are and at a time convenient to you. Today, I would like to talk about one of these tools-Tricider
Tricider is a user-friendly online platform which can help teachers get students work collaboratively by sharing ideas about a particular topic. This tool is completely free, and is available here. You don't need to log in to use Tricider. When you open it, it will look like this.
All you need is to type the question you want your students to discuss, then click 'go'
Here you have your question created, and need to proceed by clicking the highlighted field to invite students to share their answers. You will have many options to invite your students by means of emails, social media, or by sharing a link generated by the platform.
The following is a video in which ESL teachers from the Teachers of English as a Second Language Association of Ontario talk about how the tool works and how to use it with English language learners. This video is also accissible on YouTube.
What is interesting with Tricider is that students can argue for and against the topic (Pros &Cons). They can also vote for the most favourite shared ideas.
After exploring this tool, I believe that it is a good anline tool that I can use to help my engineering students. When it comes to the use of technology, my students get excited because it is their area of study. Therefore, I can take advantage of this tool to help them develop their writing skills. This tool can also help me monitor my students' writing progress online and provide comments and advice for improvement.
What I think might be a drawback of this tool is that less confident learners may feel anxious to share their ideas online for the fear of being laughed at by their peers.
You can find an example of a tricision that I have created on this link
I hope You enjoy to read my post. Please, leave a comment to say what you think about tricider.
One of the best things you can do in your English classes is to encourage your learners to become autonomous learners. Learner autonomy is a process by which learners become responsible for their learning. In other words, they are able to set goals for learning and look for what they need to help themselves learn what they want to learn.
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has had tremendous development in the 21st century. This has had an influence on almost all aspects of human life including education. By means of ICT, learning can take place ubiquitously (anytime, anywhere). In other words, it breaks the boundaries and goes beyond the confines of the four walls of the classroom and scheduling. Learning can happen all around us, and everyone can be an initiator of learning without having to wait for a teacher to start the process. Learners are more inquisitive and this provides an opportunity for life-long learning.
There are various ICT tools that can help in learning English autonomously. Today, I would like to talk about one of them. That is, Simple English Videos.
Simple English Videos is an online English self-learning tool that is simple to use and easy to navigate.The materials are in form of videos that are made by Viki (British) and her husband, Jay (American). Vicki and Jay explore both British and American English to make authentic videos that can help people learn English in action accompanied with clear explanations. I have found the videos both instructional and entertaining because they are built on interesting converstations, stories, and comedy sketches. Therefore, you can introduce it to your students because it can motivate them to learn the language. The tool is accessible on the web by means of devices such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones. You can access this platform here.
As you can see in the above screenshot, all you need is to click on the highlighted fields and access free learning materials (videos).
What is interesting with this tool is that you can choose materials that match your English level.
Additionally, you can choose an aspect of the language that interests you more.
Here is one example of videos from simpleenglishvideos.com. It is about the use of 'make' and 'do'. Enjoy watching the video.
One of the drawbacks of Simple English Videos is that this learning tool does not provide room for learners to do actictivities to check their progress.
Do you think this tool can be useful for learners in your context? Please, leave a comment to say what you think about it.
Hello everyone!
I hope you are all doing well. This week I want to introduce to you another
interesting ICT tool useful for English language teaching and learning. That is, ‘WebQuest’.
What is
a WebQuest?
A WebQuest
is an inquiry-oriented activity which learners work on by using web resources. In
other words, learners use information from the web to do a task given. However,
this does not mean that learners search for information from google or any other search engine. Instead, they
use web resources pre-selected and indicated by their teacher. In line with constructivist theory of learning, WebQuests allow learners to contribute greatly to their learning through collaboration and meaning negotiation. One of the
advantages of WebQuests is that they promote higher order thinking through
analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
The main
elements of a WebQuest are as follows:
Introduction:
This provides background information about the topic. This should be presented
in a way that attracts students’ attention
Task: a
general description of the task. This should be achievable and interesting
Process: This
is a step-by-step explanation of procedures that learners need to go through to
complete a task
Evaluation: This
indicates what the teachers expect from learners, i.e. criteria for evaluation.
Conclusion: A
summary of what has been learned and encouragement for further learning.
In the following YouTube video, Bernie Dodge (the creator of the WebQuest) explains more about WebQuests.
Let us now look at a sample WebQuest that I have explored this week. The title of this WebQuest is "Learning English with Technology - which tools to use?".
The activity is introduced with a kind of challenge to students to put themselves in the place of somebody who has been employed as an English teacher and has been asked by the director to reseach on technology tools that could be used in English language classes. I believe that this way of introducing the activity will really engage students as they will strive to convince the director about their ability. Additionally, the task is introduced by means of a technology (voki), which I think is a kind of motivation for students to learn how technology can be applied in teaching. Doing this activity is very beneficial because students will at the same time explore WebQuests and learn about other technology tools for language learning.
The task is presented with clear guidelines: students are asked to work in groups to choose one of the language skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) that interests them for which they are going to find a technology tool that can be used to develop that skill.The task is to be done collaboratevely as each student is to work with others with similar interests to develop criteria for choosing a technology tool , then come back to their original groups to evaluate together various tools. As this WebQuest is designed for undergraduate ELT students, I believe that they have prior knowledge of English language teaching.
In their groups, tudents are assigned roles that really match the area being investigated (online tools to develop language skills). Those include listening leader, speaking expert, reading researcher, and writing representative. Working in groups, students with similar roles are provided with enough web resources from which they can get information to support their own understanding in order to decide on three criteria to adopt an online tool to develop a language skill of their interest. Additionally, students are given many options of online tools from which, basing on the criteria they set together, they can choose one that can be used to develop language skills.
One of the merits of this activity is that it develops students critical thinking skills_reading different sources, synthesis of ideas to set up criteria to adopt an online tool, evaluating the tool, convincing the director about the tool, all these require higher order thinking. It is interesting and important that the teacher shares an evaluation rubric to let students know what is expected from them. This helps them to stay focused on the main points of their task.
A good conclusion is provided congratulating students on the great job and challenging them to reflect on what they learnt from the task.
Overall, this is an excellent WebQuest for ELT students/teachers to learn about how to incorporate technology in English language teaching and learning. I think similar activities can be very useful in different contexts. Even in some schools with no or limited internet connection, teachers can use webquests in assignments and projects whereby students can have internet access from parents, friends, or public internet spots.
One thing I don't understand in this webquest is why students were asked to choose only ONE tool to recommend to the director. Is it because there was not enough time to explore more tools? In my opinion, students should have analysed more than one tool to cater for most of language aspects. Maybe the author will tell us more about this.
It is good to note that the author has given permission to other people to use this WebQuest provided that the original authorship is credited_ many thanks to her! If you are interested in exploring this WebQuest further, you can go to this link
You can also find more WebQuests that are already created on Questgarden.com. Interestingly, you can also create your own WebQuest on the same website.
I hope you enjoy to explore WebQuests and look forward to receiving your feedback.
