Snaplingo

Today I want to introduce a software called Snaplingo, which is designed for Chinese young learners who are aged between 5 and 16. You can download to your mobile phones.

Security

Firstly, in consideration of the target audiences is normally minors, the users have to register for an account under the monitor of their parents. Then, the registration information will be sent to their parents’ email accounts.

Personality

After the registration, the learners could design their own avatar, which I think will stimulate students’ learning motivation. When learners tap any part of body, the students can hear the audio explanation of that part. Accordingly, students will not feel bored although this is a kind of audiolingual method.

Once the learners entered into the user interface, they will be in their own “house” where they can customize the theme according to their own taste. Additionally, they can have their own pet, and they have to look after it, or it will get ill.

Communication

The feature I like most is the function of interactive communication. Students will be given ten tasks each day. In these tasks, the students will be asked to communicate with the learners who are English native speakers, but learning Chinese now. For example, students may be asked to upload a picture, and describe it both in English and Chinese, and then the foreign friends who see this picture could give comments or correct the grammar or spelling errors. Every time the student complete a task, they will gain some rewards, and they can use these money to decorate their house and feed the pet.

Moreover, this app not only can help students on writing, but it can also improve the students’ speaking. In other words, the students will also be asked to give description with audio, and thus they can practice their oral skills as well.

When the children completed all the tasks, they can go to the photo clubs (you can find it at the screenshot below), where they are able to find many pictures uploaded by different users. The students could find a lot of pictures they are interested in and users who have similar hobbies and interests. Like a mini SNS, the students could send friend request to the others within this app. Besides, learners can also find some friends with instant chatting.  The “Wormhole” is a chat room that the students can find one peer to chat in the target language, either in English or Chinese. If the users become friends, they can chat online in two languages, so they can improve their own target language skills. More importantly, users could make friends from different cultural background.

The Wormhole

Photo Clubs

However, it may be noted that the vocabulary range of these young children is very limited since most of them learn English or Chinese only for few years. Also, in spite of the app has the function to help them to translate their words or sentences into the target language, this software is still “a new born baby”, this translation is not accurate. I hope the students will not misled by some errors with it. If the function becomes perfect one day, I still wish the learners could try their own best to communicate with each other.

My opinions

I always believe that the aim of language learning is to communicate with others to achieve the goal of information transformation. This software creates a small chat room for students to practice their writing and speaking skills. Although the majority of students are beginners of the target language, they are all at least intermediate speakers of their mother tongues. The learner-learner interactions can scaffold each other, and their similar age and interests will also motivate them to have more interactions and deep communications.

Culture gap is also significant in language learning. When you learn a language, you have to understand the local culture, which I believe will facilitate language learning.

Drawbacks

The pronunciation of this software is not from a human, but a machine, so the sound is weird. In addition, some functions are only available for VIP users. Personally, the biggest problem is the pictures. Since most of the pictures are related to Chinese culture, so it might be too hard for the overseas users to understand and interested in. Finally, there are too many pictures about celebrities, so I’m afraid the children may know nothing about that.

Digital literacy-WordSift

I think you must have already seen the picture with “ICT” when you visit my blog. This picture is made by some key words related to ICT. Is it very interesting? This kind of image is called “Word Cloud”, which can highlight some important information about a topic to help the information receiver understand.

WordSift

WordSift is a free website where you can make your own word cloud. It is very easy to be used. You can select a passage you want and paste it into the type box. Click the green ‘sift’ button, and your word cloud will form automatically.

If you are not happy with this style, you can tap the “Preset Styles” on the top left corner, where you can choose some styles from there. You may also want to edit the word cloud according to your own purpose, such as the colour set or the maximum number of words in this cloud. You can find the setting menu at the top right corner.

Once you have finished your setting, you can see the new style by pushing the refresh button. Certainly, you can download the picture. You will find a download option at the bottom of the setting list. You can choose the format as you need.

Now you can see your own work. The basic rule of forming a word cloud is in terms of the frequency of appearance of different words in a text. So if a word appears a lot, it will be bigger, and vice versa.

Teaching Ideas

I believe this tool can assist reading and writing class.

Reading

Predicting is a significant reading skill. Before the students start reading, they can predict the content of this text by the title or linking to their own schemata. The word cloud can highlight the key words, so the students can work together to predict the content of this passage with their own knowledge. By comparing with the traditional way, in which students may start reading some parts of the text and jump off the predicting section, with the word cloud students can only guess the content with these words, so it is a kind of gentle force.

If you want to know more about WordSift on reading facilitate, here is a link. Hope it could be helpful.

     Writing

      

   I think this tool is also very useful for writing feedback lesson. Because the tool can show the most frequent words, it can make effort on helping students practice using wider range vocabularies.

   How does it work? Very easy. If you click a word in this cloud, it will turn into red, as the picture shows, and then you may find a summary about this word in the frame below. It concludes the times of occurrences and the sentences that contain this word. Very clear.

You may want to see the detail of these sentences, you can just click the green button on the right corner, and the frame will be extended. When you select one sentence, this sentence will be located in text with green highlight. Thus, it is very user-friendly. Teachers can lead students to find the synonyms to replace these words. This skill is important.

In China, writing is always a shortage, especially their lexical resource. IELTS test has a writing requirement on lexical, which asks the students to use wide range vocabularies in writing, and convey precise meanings. The word cloud can facilitate this exercise.

Now you know how to use it in helping vocabularies range improvement, but how about the precise aspect? You may notice that there is a red box below, which is titled as “Search for a word in the Visual Thesaurus”. Actually, this is another software, but here is a link. When you click a word in the word cloud, the synonyms, the functions of these words, and examples can be found here. You hover your mouse over a vocabulary there, it will show you the definition of it. When your mouse fly over a dot, it can illustrate the speech patterns to you. In this way the students can learn new words, and this learning process is similar to our thinking process, so I think it should be easy to memorise.

Moreover, the students is not only simply memorise them, but also learn the functions and the meanings of these words. This is a self-learning process, to be specific, students can use WordSift after class as well.

Shortage

Although the pattern of it can be customised, the forms of clouds are limited, which will restrict the way of editing. This is the only shortage I found until now, but if you have some new ideas, please share it with me. :p

A Screen Recorder: Screencast-O-Matic

Today the off-class teaching and learning activities are also very popular, so today I want to introduce a screen record software, Screencast-O-Matic, to you.

How to use it?

Screencast-O-Matic is very user-friendly. When you enter this website you can just click the blue “start recording” button to start your record. 

Then the record setting interface will appear on your screen. You can drag the dashed frame to the area you want to record. You may change the size of the frame, which is similar as you change the size of a picture on the computer. Now everything is ready, and you can start your recording.

There are three versions of record you can choose, at the top of the black box. The first one “screen” refers to the only screen-record. The second one “Webcam” will turn on your camera, which will only record you. And the last one will record both you and the screen at the same time, so when you begin your record, the record from your camera will appear at the top right corner, and your screen record is still the main part. I have to remind you that, before you do these settings you should also check the “Narration”. It is a test for your microphone, to check if your microphone can receive sounds. So if there are green or red bar appear in this area, it means that your sound can be heard by your computer. 

Once you press the red “Rec” button at the left bottom corner, your record will start. You will have three seconds for your last preparation. Take a deep breath, smile, your record starts.

When you move your mouse within the frame during record, you will find that your mouse has been highlighted with a yellow circle which helps your audience follow your pace. I love this feature.

 During the recording process, you can have a pause. If you want to stop your record at this moment, click “Done”.

Then the preview version will appear to you. If you feel satisfied about that, you can choose how to deal with your record. You have three options, save to your own computer as a video file, or upload to the Screencast-O-Matic, or upload to the YouTube. You may feel unsatisfied about this video, you can click the “Cancel” button to discard your video.

Here is a record made by me, about my hometown.

How to make it assist your teaching?

1.   To Practice Speaking English      

Since the software allows users to share their videos, I think maybe we can ask students to record their own speaking, and share it within a class, maybe on Moodle or their own blog. We teachers and classmates can give comments on it.

In this way, some students who are very shy will have more courage to practice their speaking. Moreover, compared with the traditional face-to-face class practice, this asynchronous practice can involve every student in practice, and the teacher has the opportunities to give attention to everyone.

Nevertheless, the drawbacks of this kind of practice cannot be neglected. Firstly, students have more time to prepare their content, but some of the students may just read out their writing which looses the original purpose of oral practice. Secondly, Chinese teaching special teaching situation leads this kind of exercise hard to be practical. In China, each class may have 40-60 students, if each student shares their oral records to their teachers, teacher will have a huge extra working load. Thus in China, the comments from peers may be more efficient, and the learner-learner interaction will help them to improve in a different way.

2.   To Give A Distant Teaching

It is easy to make a courseware with Screencast-O-Matic. You can just use the frame to select the presentation screen to record, and you can have a brief look on the following content from the left preview column.

This is a PPT from my ICT class. I use this as an example.:p

This kind of lesson is very suitable for a distance learner, or an absent student. Since the students can download and save this video, they can watch it for times. Thus, it allows the students to learn at their own pace. However, the free version only allows 15 minutes record, so you have to keep the video short. The other shortage is that the interactive activities cannot be achieved within this software. You may add some questions or quiz in your courseware, but you cannot get the students' reactions. If you can embed your video in other software, like Nearpod, I think the interaction problem can overcome.

3.   To Give A Writing Feedback

Owing to the talk and mouse highlighter features, Screencast-O-Matic is easy to give comments on writing. You can open a Word document of students' writing, and put it under the frame. Now you can record while you go through the student’s work. If you find anything can be improved, just speak it out and add some suggestions or directly edit on this document, since either way of comments can be recorded by Screencast-O-Matic.

This software will be very helpful on after class activities, and facilitate distance learning activities. Although some computers may be asked to download a plug-in, once you have already set up for one time, then later using is convenient.

Nearpod

Smart phone and pad these technology devices have become more important in people’s daily life. The teaching classes can utilize these devices to facilitate teaching. Nearpod is one of the most effective teaching aids. To some extent, I believe it can replace PowerPoint to give students teaching instructions.

These basic functions of this software can be used freely. This software aims to facilitate teaching in class, so it can help tutors monitor the students’ activities and control the pace of teaching. Now, I want to give an instruction to you on how to use this tool.

How to use it?

Firstly, you have to set up an account. You could set it up with your Google account or Microsoft account.

Then you can design your own lesson. This design process is similar to PowerPoint. You can just simply click the “Add slide” frame to add slides.

You have three choices on how to design your content: content, web content, activity. When you add content, you can select add slide, video, or slide show, etc.

The web content allows you to link a website to your design. The last section is about adding activity, where you can involve many interactive activities in your design.

When you have finished designing. It’s time for you to start your live session.

After you click the “live session” button, the system will form a pin automatically. After your learners tap the code in their own devices, they will gain the access to this live session.

One of the most interesting functions is the polling activity. Students can vote for the activities, and the teacher can get the statistic of the answers from the software. Similar with polling, the results of quiz will show to the teachers as well. Each student's answer will be showed in the table, but the students won’t get access to that, so only the teacher can see each student's situation.

“Draw it” is also one creative features. Teacher can add a picture into slide, and the students could draw or write something to highlight the answer in pictures. After they send the results to the teacher, the teacher can select some typical work to the whole class, which can lead a discussion.

You may feel worried about if the students are following the teaching process. It is easy to monitor them. If the logo besides the pin on the top turn into red, it means one student is no longer in this session. When you click it you will find out who is not in. Thus, this is helpful for monitoring, even in a distance teaching.

China?

Since in China classes usually have a large number of students, the engagement of students is very limited. Moreover, in the traditional classroom, the students whose seat at the back of the classroom cannot see the blackboard in front of the classroom. Furthermore, the online English course is very popular in China these years, however the interactive activities are very rare, this tool can help overcome these drawbacks, as long as the students and teachers can get access to the internet and the devices are available in the classroom teaching.

Drawback

This software has a high requirement on internet quality. Once the students get lost to the internet, the students will drop off the session.

Secondly, once the teacher starts the statistics, the students cannot continue answering the question anymore.

I hope the software can be helpful in your teaching process. I saw who hold the gold membership using some cooler functions. If you are really interested in this software, you can have a try.

SNS for Teachers Autonomy

When we talk about SNS what will you think about? Your daily life sharing? Entertainment gossip news? Yeah, these are the basic functions of SNS, which helps people to establish links between each other. In this information age, the internet provides a platform for each individual to share their life and opinions, but have you ever thought about to use SNS to share your ideas about English teaching or get some ideas from it? 

Advantages

I never thought about this from teaching perspective before as well, but as an English learner (until now :p), I always try to find something that can help me learn English from SNS. However, I want to say that Twitter is really a good recourse for English teacher. Since everyone can establish an account for twitter, it is possible to find a lot of famous English teaching researchers or teaching organisations on this platform. Because people are linked via internet, you can find some other useful sources or people by searching the following and followers, and you can follow them as well. At the same time Twitter will recommend somebody you might interested in to you. So there are plenty of resources on ELT.

The second function I prefer is the #Hashtag. You can find different Hashtags by searching. What are the functions of Hashtags? You can post a tweet with Hashtag, and the other people who follow this topic as well, will find your tweet, and they could give comments to it, and you can have a discussion together via that. Similarly, you may also find others twitter under one Hashtag, so you can actively have a discussion with these users as well. Here is a very useful Hashtag I’d love to recommend to you, #ELTchat. Every Wednesday, there will be some topics to be discussed, and ELT teachers from different countries will discuss together, so I believe you will get some brilliant ideas from there on your teaching process.

However…

There are some limitations that cannot be ignored. Firstly, about the privacy problem. Some people (for example your students, if you don’t hope they find your ‘secrets’) may get access to your profile, or your photos, so your personal information may be watched by others. Moreover, some people may have different images when they are holding the ‘teacher’ identity, so once Twitter leaks different images to their students, such as your drunk photo, it may be difficult to keep a respective image to the students. Thus, if it is possible, create a new account for teaching purposes, and check your followers regularly, if you find someone you don’t like, you can block them.

Secondly, you can only put 140 characters in one tweet. I think it is too limited to express one’s opinion. But you can type all the things you want to say first, and then screenshot, so you can share your words by image. But still not so convenient.

Finally, the most significant shortage is that it cannot be accessed in China. Although there are many ideas and resources on Twitter, for the policy issues, Twitter cannot be linked in China. Fortunately, there is something similar in China, Weibo (微博, the direct translation of microblog). This SNS is really popular in China today.

Weibo

Compared with Twitter, it also limits the word for each post. In here, the users can type 140 words in Chinese characters. Due to the features of Mandarin that 140 Chinese characters could transmit more information than 140 English characters, one post of Weibo can cover more information. Additionally, Weibo has the function to post “Top Article”, which allows users to post a passage on it, like a blog. So Weibo can help teachers share their ideas more directly and easily on Weibo. Of course only the title and the starters of these articles can be seen while followers scanning, so it won’t cause time consuming.

This social communication tool has a topic discussion area, similar with the Hashtag in Twitter. People can discuss there, and the host could select some cool review and post them at the top of this discussion area.

These are my ideas about Weibo using on teacher autonomy, however, the resources on English language teaching are very limited, and most of that is for learners rather than teachers. Some of famous English teachers in China post a lot of things about their working life, but the thought about teaching methods or skills are very rare. I really hope the teachers in China can utilise this platform to improve our teaching methods and share valuable resources. I find one account on the web related to the teaching method. It regularly holds some discussions in Chinese, if you are interested in you can follow it as well.

SNS in China is gradually become significant for daily life, and if we could make it work for our teaching purpose, I think the efficiency will be improved a lot.