Using Google Slides for student-centered learning
Google Slides is an appropriate resource for reinforcing student-centered and collaborative learning. Since it is recognized as a good resource to sustain online learning, it could be used for various language learning purposes.
About Google Slides
Some limitations
While Google Slides creates student-centered learning, it is important to consider some limitations inherent to lack of engagement. Therefore, teachers may want to create a different slide with the same assignment for each group of students to avoid copying from their peers. In an EFL setting, the main challenge remains developing students’ fluency due to limited class-time. Therefore, using Google slides to create interactive activities could encourage introvert students to practice their English in a stress-free, self-paced and autonomous way.
For hands-on practice, please Click here or on the link above to access this Google slides document and leave your answer on the space provided for you.
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Quizlet is a technology-enhanced online tool that English language teachers can use to create contextualized ESL/EFL vocabulary building materials for learners’ use in or outside the classroom. The tool enables teachers to build their own resources with flashcards, and share them on the Quizlet virtual classroom, on Google classroom, or on any other learning management system such as Schoology. It offers various learning opportunities through audio and visual resources, as well as quizzes, which include multiple choice, writing, spelling, and matching activities. It can be used to foster learner autonomy through self-paced progress as it supports asynchronous and autonomous learning.
Quizlet does not only provide a wide range of resources but it also enhances teachers’ digital literacy skills because they can create materials that meet their student’s language needs. While it is mostly used to teach vocabulary, we can use it to design grammar-related lessons and activities. Quizlet is also a repository for free ready-made study sets that you can add to your virtual class. In addition, your students can download the app and access Quizlet anytime, anywhere.
Some tips
The tool is user-friendly because it displays simple instructions to guide teachers during the design process.
- Once you create the study set and add flashcards, you will be able to view the different features of the material on the left-side menu.
- The in-class live button on the top of the list is meant for classroom use. You can use it to set up group work and assess students’ progress while they are completing the assigned tasks.
- To create a class, click on create on the top menu bar, then choose class on the drop-down menu.
- Once your class is created, you can share its link with your learners as mentioned above. In so doing, they will be able to access any new lesson you post on your Quizlet virtual classroom.
Please, click on the link to join a class and give it a try https://quizlet.com/join/pPvZWYPhT
You can also watch a tutorial for more information
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VOKI
For a successful use of this online resource, it is recommended to show your students how to navigate through it in class and to give clear instructions. Using your classroom screen or video projector would be a perfect way of displaying the different features related to choosing a Voki character, personalizing it, and adding a voice. I recommend this online resource for teachers who wish to create fun-tasktic learning environments in their classrooms. For example, as an in-class activity, they could use the text-box to write a short self-reflection at the end of a lesson. They could then share the link to their Voki with other peers for peer review. Students would listen to their assigned peer’s Voki and give their feedback. If you have access to a computer and projector in your room, you could also display students’ work on the screen and ask for feedback. Young learners enjoy learning and having fun, so Voki is the perfect resource that can break the routine in a traditional classroom.
Click Here to watch a tutorial
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Blendspace is an online Platform that is built to accommodate and facilitate Blended learning with the possibility of creating interactive lesson contents featuring videos, audio files, reading, writing and vocabulary materials. It is a free Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) that can be of great benefit to teachers and teacher educators as the resource is also the repository for printable ready-made lessons. With Blendspace, we can create classes and add learners to join by sharing the class code. The intuitiveness of the resource makes it easy to control and enables extensive learning outside of the classroom particularly for online instruction. Learning materials can be uploaded from Google, YouTube, websites, or from our device. The lessons we create may also be assessed with Quizzes that enable tracking our learners’ progress. Blendspace can be accessed using our Google account. The lesson Library tab displays ready-made lessons in Math, Science, Social studies, language Arts, Technology, World language, Professional development and other. You can also share your created lessons on Google Classroom, Twitter, Facebook or by email. For class use, your learners can access classroom activities by scanning the QR code that appears when clicking on the Dashboard and on the share button.
Because Blendspace promotes remote and autonomous learning, it may be useful in EFL contexts. For this reason, I recommend the resource to EFL teachers as learners can use it on their mobile device and access learning materials or Quizzes using their own pace. Self-paced learning lowers anxiety-related issues and fosters learner motivation. The possibility to create lessons based on your learners’ needs may reinforce language skills to a large extent. For example, you can design listening assignments with audiovisual materials that encompass multiple choice items or open-ended questions to check comprehension. Learners can self-check their answers at the end of each Quiz and submit their work for feedback. With the teacher’s view on the Dashboard, you can also have an eye on your learners’ progress while providing them with the needed feedback. Reading assignment may feature articles from websites with comprehension questions. Your lesson can also be a blend of various learning materials as in this lesson samplemade with Blendspace (Click on the play button on the top bar to access the lesson content). The resource supports hybrid learning, so its content may be shared on other learning management systems such as Google Classroom. Here is a YouTube tutorial for more insights!
Plickers
Plickers is a formative assessment tool that motivates learners to take part in classroom activities. To access the resource, you can sign in using your google account for free or use the paid version for more features. Most teachers use the free version because it enables them to create their online Quizzes such as multiple choice, True or False, or open-ended questions based on a reading or a listening activity that has been completed in class. Your students do not need to have a computer or a mobile device to participate as they will use QR code looking cards. Each side of the card is labelled ABCD, and students will hold their card up depending on the answer they choose for the question that is displayed on the teacher’s screen. To visualize students’ answers, you need to use a mobile device with a camera to scan their cards. In doing so, their answers are automatically shown on the screen, and you can directly assess their performance. For an effective use of Plickers, you will need a computer or laptop and a video projector to project your screen for class view. You also need to download the Plickers App on your mobile device (phone or tablet) to scan the room. Finally, you can download the Plickers cards from the Website by clicking on Help on the top right menu bar and on get the Plickers cards. It is recommended to download the cards on hard copy papers so as to reuse them multiple times or to buy them online for better quality. You can watch this tutorial to learn more about some specific features such as creating your assessment and adding students. Plickers is an alternative resource when students do not have access to the necessary technology in under-resourced areas.
Some other benefits
One of the pedagogical benefits is to create engaging formative assessment materials that evaluate your learners’ progress in a short span of time. Knowing that your classes do not last more than thirty minutes, you may want to design the assessment prior to class time. Since your learners do not need a computer but only the cards, preparing the technology may not require much time. It is however important to check all cards by simulating a test.
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Pedagogical benefits
Storyboard that is suitable for ESL/EFL learners as they may benefit from the wide range of vocabulary items that are incorporated, as well as the intuitive aspect of the tool. So, I think this resource will be perfect to develop your learners’ writing skills through storytelling, which is part of students’ cultural background. As a classroom activity, students can work in groups and create a comic strip based on a prompt of their choice or given by the teacher. For example, after completing a jigsaw reading task on a written story, you can ask them to stay in their group and design a storyboard to retell the story with the appropriate scenes, characters, and speeches. In doing so, students will not only read for an authentic purpose, but they will also engage in a fun writing activity where they are given the opportunity to socially interact and negotiate meaning. The teacher may want to circulate and give support where necessary while students are completing the task. At the end, they can share their storyboards with other groups for peer-review and feedback. I usually ask my fifth graders to write about their daily activities or to describe an event that took place at school or at home. Using Storyboard with similar prompts may be more motivating for young learners because they can contextualize a real story by selecting the adequate scenes and characters. Another activity is strip-storytelling, which entails creating the first scene as a prompt and asking learners to complete the story using their imagination. I find written strip-stories as very collaborative and student-centered, so I am convinced using Storyboard That for such activities may be more exciting for second language learners.
Screencast-O-matic
For your secondary school students, you can use the screen recorder to make short educational videos on grammar, vocabulary, and other language skills. For example, I used it to make short grammar lessons on the use of tenses, discourse markers, idiomatic expressions, and conversational devices, then posted them either on Google classroom or on the class WhatsApp group. In doing so, they could watch the video lessons on their mobile devices and complete any assignment that is attached to the lesson before in-person meetings. Most students said they preferred the video lessons to in-person instruction as they could review the lesson anytime and take notes for further clarifications in class. Your students can also use the resource particularly when they work on their class projects. Project-based learning is usually learner-centered, so after finalizing their projects and working on their PowerPoint slides, they can use Screencast-o-Matic to record their presentation. It is less stressful to record a presentation on their own than to present in class. The resource is also used to make YouTube tutorials because of the good quality of the sound and camera. The presenter mode displays a pointer and other marking tools on the left side bar.
Whiteboard Chat
It is an interactive online whiteboard that teachers can use for free to create collaborative digital lessons. It is a newly released tool that is more sophisticated than Google Jamboardas it offers more features that facilitate sharing content and displaying various materials for students. To access all features on this resource, teachers are recommended to open an account by signing up. Whiteboard chat is an appropriate tool for remote learning that we can use to teach real time while making the most of a variety of functions such as inviting your students via QR code or a link, sharing your board with all students, using the text entry or handwriting functions, and adding web-based materials like audio, video, and websites. To invite students to the digital whiteboard, they can either scan the QR code or you can share the link on another platform. This resource also gives you the possibility to access your students’ whiteboards and to leave your comments or feedback while they are completing an assignment. Whiteboard chat is also a repository for several other embedded tools such as manipulatives, YouTube videos, charts, and other useful resources. Students can ask for help by clicking on the raise hand icon and the instructor can scaffold accordingly by joining students’ personal boards.
Based on the functions highlighted above, you can have your students work in small groups to brainstorm on a topic or complete a given assignment. Using the incorporated tools such as the Venn diagrams or mind mapping charts on the right or left menu bar, students can engage in word processing games like word clouds based on your lesson content. The possibility to insert pdf files, videos, or images is another advantage to explore as students can describe pictures, summarize a written text, or simply comment on a video they have watched. As an interactive board, you can use whiteboard chat to facilitate remote learning through Zoom.
Some limitations
Using whiteboard chat in a low-resource area would be technically absurd as teachers and/or students may not have access to the required technology. To avoid 'the tail wagging the dog', we should carefully identify our learners' needs before choosing the technology-enhanced resource that is appropriate.
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WORDLE: Make your own word cloudes
What is a word cloud?
There are several tools that you can use to generate your own word clouds such as Tagxedo or Wordsift, but today's post is about Wordle which is a flexible and intuitive online tool to make beautiful word clouds.
How to use Wordle?
As you can see in the tutorial, you can customize your clouds by changing the font, the layout, the language, or the color. An important feature of Wordle that I forgot to mention is that you can remove words from the clouds by simply clicking on them and on remove, which makes it interesting for classroom use, for various purposes.
What can we use word clouds for?
Creativity is a key word for English language teachers. We are always looking for new ways to bring variety in our classrooms by personalizing educational tools to fit our teaching contexts. Original ideas often stem from imagination, therefore reflecting on how best we can integrate any tool for English language learning is a must. Word clouds from Wordle can be used in various ways.
1. Teaching vocabulary through brainstorming: As you can see on the example above, you can make a word cloud by copying and pasting a text that you are planning to use for reading comprehension. Then remove the words which are already familiar to your learners and leave the ones you think are relevant to the chosen topic. Show the word cloud and ask your students to guess topic by prompting if necessary with leading questions in the form of a brainstorming. You can then pre-teach the vocabulary with different strategies. It can be used to identify synonyms, antonyms, adjectives, verb tenses and so on.
2. Building sentences: Giving your learners mixed words from a text and asking them to make meaningful sentences that can be joined to make a paragraph, is another way of using word clouds. This activity can be related to sentence structures such as the place of adjectives and adverbs in a sentence. A great idea from one of my colleagues is to organize classroom groupings according to the different colors on the word cloud. For example, each group can be assigned a color and come up with a meaningful story or paragraph, using only words of that color.
Limitations
As mentioned in the tutorial, Wordle only works with internet explorer and cannot be opened in Chrome or Firefox. MacBook users can use Safari but need to install java.
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