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.

Xerte- for blended learning

Today, I want to introduce one software for blended learning, Xerte. This is a very useful tool for the blended language learning courses. Since the teacher can put all the material on this webpage and share it to the students to work on themselves, which can help students with their listening, reading and writing skills. During the face-to-face class, the students can have more time to have group work with others, which can be a boost on speaking practice. So, I believe the efficiency of class can be improved with this tooklit.

Xerte

Now I want to show you the talented tool. When you log into this website, you will see an interface like below. You can choose to a type of project from the right side. And you can edit or preview the project as you wish. If you delete one project unintended, you can find it back via the recycle bin.

Since this software allows teachers to add different types of materials into it, such as videos, sounds, images, or even the Google map. All these materials can be authentic materials, which relate to the students' daily life, so the purpose of language learning, to communicate effectively, can achieve. I'm sure these sources will help the learning process interesting.

You may want to also add some interactivity into your design, and Xerte provides you several types of task model. Some of them are similar to the tasks we adopted from course books, and some are very interactive which are unique with the technology support.

For example, the Hotspot Image can be used in vocabulary teaching, and it helps students establish an awareness of the meanings of words. As the image showed below, the students can understand and memorise the name of different organs by clicking different parts of the picture.

You may ask if this tool will be very hard to use? No! Definitely NO! You can find out that once you insert a new section into your project, the main interface on the right will give you instructions about the content you need to edit in different part. The only thing you need to do is to follow the instructions (as the picture showed below). But I have to say that some names of the activities are not very clear, so I have to try to find out the functions myself (maybe it's my problem, since I'm not a native English speaker :P).

Once you finish your task design, you may need to publish it to your students or your colleagues, you can manage the access of your project. It provides four routes of access. You could choose one according to your need. This function can be found after you click the 'publish' button, which can be found once you log in this website. 

Merit

For the learners, they can learn at their own pace, which allows the users to practice times and times. Secondly, it can help the teachers save the time for face-to-face classes. Since the basic exercise can be done off classes, and it leaves more time for the pronunciation practice and group activities. Lastly, the traditional language exercise may be boring for the students, but by putting it in an interactive way, the students may have more motivations.

Disadvantages

This software is not free :(. I only have the access with my institution's account, but as far as I know the full version have more functions, for example you can export your design into a ZIP. Moreover, I don't like the UI. Although it allows the users to change the colours, the choices are very limited, and the fonts are not lovely as well. I worked with that for hours, and the UI makes me feel very exhausted.

My Design

I designed one IELTS reading exercise with Xerte. Since in China from June of 2016 except the speaking test, the rest skills of IELTS will be processed on computers, it is necessary for the candidates to get used to this mode, and I think this tool can be a great help for their exam preparation. Here is the link of my design. Please feel free to give me some comments on that. I know it is still very rough.

Useful links

If you need more detailed help on this tool, you can discuss it with me. Although I haven't used it for a long time, I'd love to explore it with you together. And you may also find this link very useful, which is a video about how to use it.

I do hope this tool can be a friend for your teaching process :).

Teambition

Today, I would like to introduce a group-work software, Teambition. Teambition is a software which is designed by a Chinese group. Here is the link of this website: https://www.teambition.com/.

This software can also be used in different devices, It can not only be accessed in web, but also for Android and iOS system. With the era of  “information fragmentation”, this software can improve the efficiency of working. Additionally, it is totally free.

This software can be used for students’ group working. Once the students have been divided into groups, the leaders can establish a task with this software, and the group members can be invited into that software. Since this software can be linked with most of the SNS, the process of registration is pretty simple, and the invitation can be sent by email with a link, or a QR code. Really easy.

Furthermore, if each group of the students can invite their teachers into group, it will be very helpful to the monitor process, and the teachers only need to simply click on each project, and the process of each group can be found easily. Compared with the other technologies for group working, this one can involve teacher into group working. Although the teachers may not give any comments while the students working, the troubles students meet or the mistakes will give the teachers a direction for further teaching.

Main Tasks

Now, I’d love to introduce functions of this app. Now, I’d love to introduce functions of this app. When you log in this website you may create a new project as you wish. You can edit the project page and name. At the bottom, you can also choose who can get access to this project. 

After you create a project, you can add tasks in it. You can divide one task into different stages, and the stages can be edited by the button which showed in the picture below. You can add new tasks in each stage, and tasks can be dragged into different stages as demand,  without editing them again.

For each task, you can add notes and some other content into it. Leaders can add detailed information for one task, such as the due time and priority. You may also separate on task into subtasks, so that you can complete them step by step. This is my favourite part. Because the students can claim for different part for one task, which will be very systematical in group work. In addition, since one task could be very complex, if the leader can divide it into parts, this will be very helpful in confidence establishment, and members will keep the motivation on working. 

All the contents relate to this part could be added into this table. At the bottom of one task, members can give comments on this task, and they can also share resources within this stage. Each edit action can be found in history, if you roll down the box.

Posts

You may want to share some ideas or give a draft to the whole group, and you can do this under the subtitle of “Posts”.

This part can be regarded as a discussion forum. You can change the colour or font according to your needs, which will contribute information transmission. Similarly, group members can add comments here. You could attach documents with different formats here, such as PDF, doc, ppt. Tables can be added into it as well, similar with Microsoft softwares.

Files 

Sometimes, you want to share some documents with all teammates. With this software, you don't need to rely on email or some other technologies to share documents. Teambition provides a zone for sharing, and it has already given some clear classifications. If you need, you may create new folders. The best thing is you can add many things as you wish into this website, because there is no limitation.

Meetings and Tags

You can arrange meetings at this software, and the organiser can choose to alert members before the meeting. "Tags" is similar to the function in Blog, when you add anything into this project, you can label the tags, which will be helpful for information searching and activities arrangement. 

Me

"Me" can help you complete your tasks. Your timetable, your tasks, your meetings can be all found from here, and you'll find it is in order. Moreover, sometimes you'll have some ideas, you can add notes here, which can only be only accessed by yourself.

Chat

You may want to have a live chat for discussion when working with your task, you can just press the button showed below, where you can select a person to chat with, and the history can be found in the inbox. The person you talk with will receive the notification immediately. Very convenient. 

App for SmartPhone

This software can be used in phones as well. In this information age, the smartphone plays an important role in daily life. It provides the channel for individuals to connect with others all the time. You can send voice message as well.

In this app, anyone edits anything will send notifications to each teammate, unless you switch off the notification function or you will receive the update information anyway. Of course, every task can be found in this software as well, and you can check it at anytime.

I haven't used this software for a long time, but I really like the design. Since this software is free, and can be learnt easily, I believe it will have many users. This software can be used in different languages, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, English, and Korean. I think it can provide other languages' UI will have more consumers.

This software overcomes the distance issue for group work, however, it might be a little bit complex for young learners. If this software can allow the users to edit one document together lively, it will be cooler, like Googledocs.