Monday, 3 August 2015

Arrival

Coming back to NILE brought back a lot of memories which had been buried somewhere at the bottom of my memory. Before I came to Norwich, I didn't seem to be able to remember much about the topography of the city. Walking to NILE, however, triggered all the interred images and put them into the foreground of my mind again.

Classes

What did we do? Russell made us - the six participants from four different countries - get to know each other with an image spider on paper.
We were then introduced to Blended Learning when we discussed different definitions of the term. It turned out that we have to differentiate between technology-enhanced learning and real Blended Learning which has a component of in-class-activities and home activities closely related to them.

Technologies

TodaysMeet

We used a website called TodaysMeet which allows students to make written contributions to an ongoing discussion, brainstorming or any other activity in class. All the texts can be projected on the screen for everybody to see.

TTV

Luckily, Russell runs a website with videos that explain all the technologies we are learning.

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/sharing-discussing/todaysmeet.html

If you click here, you can watch an example of his videos.

Tuesday, 4 August 2015

Classes

We started off in the morning by discussing the basic idea of Blended Learning again and made sure we didn't confuse it with other forms of teaching.

Technologies

Russell presented Google Forms, which are helpful for sharing material. Forms are text files, surveys etc. On the iPad I had to download apps for these Google Forms. I will have to find out what the other departments at Kanti use. Is there anything similar on Apple devices that students are familiar with?
This example contains items that can be put into a Google Doc: multiple choice, videos, tick the right answer, maze document etc.
The Simple Past Tense

Wednesday, 5 August 2015

Activities

We were introduced to a website titled www.breakingnewsenglish.com. It contains a lot of material on level B2/C1.
We then looked at a website called www.listenaminute.com with an example of a newspaper article. The creator of the site offers a huge variety of activities starting from the article. They can be done in group work, pair work or individually.
Short hint at www.quizicon.com. As the name suggests, it is a tool to make quizzes.
Next thing was blogging. Our job was to create a blog on the course which should help us to remember the activities, applications and uses of the tools.

Technologies

Breakingnewsenglish.com can be used in class to make students listen to readings of newspaper articles, as a starting point for note-taking etc. Share their results?
For blogging, yet another Google website - blogger.com - is a handy tool. We learnt the basics of how to create a blog and make use of the different functions and gadgets it offers.

Blogs can be used to organise blended learning with a class. The main function of the blog is to act as a repository for all the material that we produce and keep ready for the students.
In my case, I could put material I have produced over the years on the blog (or will there be a better tool for this next week?)

Thursday, 6 August 2015

Activities

The first item on the list of activities was quizlet.com. It is a tool with a wide variety of possibilities for producing flashcards, vocabulary cards and other helps for many requirements of learning processes.
In the afternoon, I gave a talk on some "preliminary" attempts I had made at Blended Learning.
Finally, it was blogging again and how to make and upload YouTube videos.
This is the video I produced:

Technologies

Quizlet is a website but also an app for the iPad (hooray!).  

It can be used for individual work in class or at home. Uses could be learning or revision of vocabulary. Quizlet can be a help in differentiation in that students (or the teacher) can produce individual sets of vocabulary. 

On the site, a huge number of sets are already available which other teachers have made. I even found some sets for coursebooks I am using. They may need some adapting, they are a good starting point nevertheless.

YouTube is well-known but has been completely untrodden territory for me so far. Still, here's a video of a few seconds embedded into the blog (Watch it. It got an Oscar nomination for most inspired foreign film.)

Friday, 7 August 2015

Activities

We learned about Screen Capture Software, which captures images with sound online and even videos with sound online. Russell introduced us to different brands of software, some easier to learn and use, others more difficult to use but also more sophisticated in their features.
In the afternoon, Petruschka gave a presentation on blended vocabulary practice with the help of a website and on the use of the same website for essay-writing.

Petruschka's presentation

warm-up with "ABC DRS3", Questionnaires were produced (by students) from English Vocabulary Profile. The website lists learner's vocabulary in the categories of the CEFR. This is a very useful tool for vocabulary revision.

Technologies

The tools we used were

• Jing (easy to use, no saving locally, video can be uploaded to screencast.com; not available and not viewable on iPad)
• SnagIt (costs about $50, videos can be sent to YouTube and saved locally, not available for iPad either, unfortunately; once sent to YouTube, videos can be viewed, of course)
• camtasia (advanced tools with more features, but also more difficult to use; as there are no screencast tools for iPad, not usable on iPad)
• screencast-o-matic

Application

Screencasting can be used for

• recordings of videos which you want to add your own comment to. This link goes to the video in which Erick is interviewing me and in this one you can hear Erick's wonderful American accent.
• feedback to student's texts by the teacher
• peer reviews among students
• basically you can also use screencast to copy video snippets which otherwise may be difficult. According to Russell you are allowed to copy short sequences for educational uses.

Monday, 10 August 2015

Activities

We read about different models models of Blended Learning (see this article and our evaluation)
The next great topic was what the Flipped Classroom is and what its pros and cons could be.
Giannni gave a talk on how his school uses Moodle to evaluate students' work.
Russell continued his introduction to Screencapture and presented the tool called Camtasia, which is much more sophisticated than Jing and SnagIt, but also more demanding in use (and more expensive to buy as well).
Finally, - more on the fun side - Russell introduced us to the website lyricstraining. I realise Elton John's "Crocodile Rock" is still stored in the recesses of my memory...

Technologies

The evaluation of the different concepts of Flipped Classroom models was a good example of what google docs are good for.

Tuesday, 11 August 2015

Activities

We discussed the term VLE, which stands for "Virtual Learning Environment". It is a workspace containing a repository plus tools for the various task you may want to carry out in Blended Learning (or in web-enhanced or pure online learning for that matter).
The main part of the day was spent on getting to know Edmodo, which is one of the tools that are available for VLE. Another would be Moodle. However, it is not free and more complicated in use.
Ania gave a talk on how she gave her course an upgrade with a video on the idea of lumen as a measure for light output.

Technologies

We learnt how to do the following things on Edmodo.

• posts
• replies
• polls
• quizzes
• assignments
• folders
• tracking

By the way, Russell recommended using Firefox for Edmodo. And again, the iPad needs an app for Edmodo. The app has a slightly different lay-out from the website but has worked well so far.

Wednesday, 12 August 2015

Activities

Russell again pointed out what an important book the online collection of articles on Blended Learning by Brian Tomlinson and Claire Whittaker is (see below).
From this book, we analysed five case studies of Blended Learning projects from all over the world, considered their pros and cons and presented our findings in a short talk using a grid which Russell had prepared on Google Docs.

(Blended Learning in English Language Teaching: Course Design and Implementation; ed. by Brian Tomlinson and Claire Whittaker)

Thursday, 13 August 2015

Activities

A NILE tutor joined the group for the morning.
We returned to the case studies from the day before, reviewed them and discussed them in two groups along questions that Russell had provided. The discussion results can be found on Google Docs.
Russell then added some more comments on the matter (motivation; long-term objectives; how to keep web-based courses alive; teacher training)
In the afternoon we watched a YouTube video with 'guru' Sugata Mitra who is a staunch supporter of Self-Organized Learning Environments. Russell has found material that looks behind the stage of Mitra a bit and has shown that all is not gold that glitters here.
Erick gave a talk introducing us to www.goanimate.com, which enables students to produce funny little videos. Erick found that it helps students to overcome speaking inhibitions.
Finally, we learnt about a www.videonot.es. The site allows you to add notes to a video imported from YouTube. When you watch the video, you can jump to the place in the video that you have annotated.

Technologies

www.goanimate.com is the website that provides templates for animated short films. Click here to find an example called A Helping Hand. Adobe player is required to view it, so not for iPad ...

The link goes to a short attempt I made at annotating Branagh's To Be or Not To Be monologue in his Hamlet film: Hamlet monologue

Gurus

Russell listed the names of a few gurus on educational topics worth looking at.
Tony Wagner
Ken Robinson
Stephen Hepnell
Cathay Davidson
Clifford Nass
Nicolas Carr