Learning through Listening: Podcasts

Podcasts are an interesting and useful tool to use in a classroom. There are a variety of topics that can be discussed via podcast, but one that I listened to was specifically for German learners/teachers. The
German Grammar Pod: The Gender Podcast was one that caught my eye immediately. My students always ask if there is a way to try and remember the articles for nouns since there are 3 singular articles and a plural article (and the cases that go along with it). I would have my students listen to this podcast because it discuses one of the areas that a lot of people get caught up on.

She explains how complicated the genders are in German, but gives a shortened list of how to determine the gender of the noun and charts to go with the transcript. This would be especially useful at the beginner level, but also serve as a reminder of the rules in later levels. 

There are a variety of podcasts out there on the internet, but here is the link for the Top 50 Podcasts for Learning a Foreign Language.

Global Collaboration

The newest wave of educational services includes connecting with people on a global basis. The site ePals offers a safe, school friendly method of collaboration. "ePals Clubhouse is a safe place for kids to connect with one another; share and read their favorite books; write and publish their own stories; play fun and educative games; and create their own art...School administrators can rest easy knowing that ePals SchoolMail365™ is a safe and protected space for student interactions. Educators can manage and monitor what students see, whom they communicate with and how they interact." It has tools that a teacher could bring into their classroom, enriching the learning experience for the students. "Teachers use the free ePals Global Classroom to create real world, culturally- enriching learning experiences for their students." Their tools can be used to enhance the curriculum. There are a few key tools that caught my eye when looking through the site:


-Cricket /Cobblestone - Both of these publishers are an online book, eBook, toy, and magazine ordering tool. They have theme packs for varying ages and grades that teachers can use. If the school or an individual has wishes to go digital, there are "interactive games, music, and more" that can be used with such a subscription.


-in2books- "In2Books brings the Common Core Standards to life with a safe motivating online curriculum that matches students with adult eMentors. Students get authentic experience purposefully reading books with eMentors and sharing ideas about important issues via online letters." This program is only available in the States currently. It is a nice enhancement to the lessons occurring in the classroom.


-Junior Folklorist Challenge- This is a project/competition that aligns with the Common Core and allows for creativity. Students will need to research, document, interpret, and present information about the folklore that they have identified within their community.

This website seems to be a valuable resource to reinforce and/or enhance lessons for students. I could see myself using the ePals clubhouse and the SchoolMail365. Working with middle-schoolers, not a lot of them have emails outside of school. This would be a safe alternative to a generic email address. I would use it to communicate updates, reminders, etc. outside of school time. As far as the ePals clubhouse, it's an area for students to have fun with. Without some fun, lessons become boring and repetitive. If the school district was willing to pay for a subscription, Cricket and Cobblestone could be extremely useful at multiple levels.

Comics in the classroom

Comics of varying sorts have been around for hundreds of years. From political cartoons to Sunday funnies, people of all ages can enjoy their humor and analyze their meanings. There are a number of comic strip websites out there, but the one I'm looking at today is GoAnimate. It's free to join, but comes with a limited number of themes and a time limit (30 seconds) on the comic strip videos. This also requires an email address to sign-up, which as talked about in my last post, might be an issue for the younger grades. It's nice though, because within the themes, there are many options to choose from and objects that can be manipulated. Voices can be added to the characters, either through a voice file, a voice recording, or a text-to-speech option. Again, in the free version, the comic strip video can only be 30 seconds long, so it limits how much speech can be added in. Music files can be uploaded as well. It's not overly complicated, but does take some time. If I were to have students use it, I would definitely make them have a plan in advance. I think that overall, I would just use it to introduce various topics instead of having students make them. I would consider using them in the upper grades (10-12) potentially.

Idioms are used in everyday speech. When a student is learning any language, eventually the topic of idioms must come about. The comic below walks through some idioms that can be heard in the news or daily conversation. I envision it being an introduction to a section on common (American) English idioms. It would be discussed and broken down into the various idioms that appear in the 'news report.' This technology doesn't have to be limited to just a language classroom. I can picture any number of topics being presented through one of the comic strip videos.

Breaking News: Idioms by katiemcf on GoAnimate

Animoto: For the animated classroom

Finding ways to engage students is always a challenge. One way to make units more hands-on and interesting is using this website called Animoto. It's pretty basic software, so it'd be easy for students to learn. It also takes you on a walk-through of how to use it when you sign up. Signing up does require an email, so that might be tricky for those teaching in the lower grades/middle school. Animoto has a free version of their site that has a limited number of themes and limits video length, but it still allows you to upload your own music and pictures to create the 30 second film. I'm not sure what the options are if a school district were to be interested in 'purchasing' it.

This would be good to use in a variety of ways, and is in no way just limited to an L2 classroom. Students can use their own pictures or stock ones off of the internet to create a variety of videos. It turns a boring old picture into an interactive show. You can only add captions to the pictures, so the characters are limited, but it also forces one to be succinct. Below is a video I created talking about the weather in German. In this case, it would be an introduction on how to describe weather using noun, adjective, and verb sentences. I could definitely picture doing this with my students. It would be a nice way to either introduce a unit or as a means of assessing learning. For further ideas and examples of how to use Animoto, Kathy Wickline's post Bringing Lessons to Life with Animoto offers a wide variety uses.


Wie ist das Wetter

Digital Storytelling: Creativity of the future.

Digital Storytelling is an innovative way for stories to be presented that includes the narrative, images, sound, and even video.  "Digital stories can be instructional, persuasive, historical, or reflective" according to the article 7 Things You Didn't Know About Digital Storytelling. Storytelling has been around for a long time, giving it a high prestige within cultures. In languages that don't possess a system of writing, storytelling takes its place in recording the history of the cultures. Storytelling can evoke a variety or emotions and/or provide valuable information. 

As more and more material for the classroom turns towards computers, digital storytelling can provide a creative outlet for teachers and students to use. On the website Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling, there are a few main uses and benefits mentioned for both teachers and students. For teachers who are interested in using digital storytelling in their classrooms, "Teacher-created digital stories may also be used to enhance current lessons within a larger unit, as a way to facilitate discussion about the topics presented a story and as a way of making abstract or conceptual content more understandable." If the students have the chance to view a digital story, it can potentially clarify or reinforce the material that is being discussed/taught in class. When students use it, "digital storytelling can also be a potent tool for students who are taught to create their own stories." This is a creative means of alternate assessment. It engages students in the lesson, regardless of the unit. It allows students to have a distinct voice in creating this, all while using technology that most students use on a regular basis. Some examples of activities include: giving their point-of-view on an issue, provide a cohesive argument with visuals,  tell a story that focuses on a specific sequence of events, etc. All of this requires a use or practice of the target language. Teachers must always find creative ways to engage students, and if done correctly, this type of project can be used to activate many different learning styles and can also teach skills that can be transferred to other subjects. 

Gamification: Encouraging learning through play

Gamification is "the application of game elements in non-gaming situations, often to motivate or influence behavior," according to the article 7 Things You Should Know About Gamification.  Learning doesn't have to  be lectures and worksheet after worksheet; learning can and should be fun some of the time. There are many reason that using games in a language classroom can be  beneficial. The TED talk video, Tom Chatfield sums up these benefits in his talk the 7 Ways Games Reward the Brain. "The first one is very simple: experience bars measuring progress...Second, multiple long and short-term aims...Third, you reward effort. It's your 100 percent factor...Fourth, feedback." By giving instant feedback and rewards, you can encourage a students ongoing development.

In a language learning classroom, one game that I could see myself using in an intermediate level ESL classroom is the point and click game Phantasy Quest. I've only played the game once through myself, but I can see how this would be very useful. It requires logical thinking skills as well as language skills. You pick up items, use them as needed, explore the island, put together clues, etc. For this game specifically, the learning objectives would be somewhere along the lines of being able to follow and later describe a logical sequence of events, as well as learning some of the vocabulary that is present in the game (ex. ship wreck). With any sequence of event type activity, the consequences of actions can be looked at as well. In this game, the students are the key participants. The teacher would serve a more passive role in the lesson after explaining the purpose of it. Depending on the number of students and the resources, it can either be an individual or class based game. If I used the walk-through (provided by The Best "Fun" Online Video Games for English Language Development), I would do as the site suggests and pair up students. They would then compete to see who could complete the game first. If possible, I would pull some key images to talk about about the walk-through after each pair completed the game. To assess and see if the objectives were met, I would have the students, on an individual basis, write a general sequence of events of the game in their own words.

For learning to continue outside of the classroom setting, the game Trace Effects. I've played through part of it one time. It's similar to the point and click game talked about above. It requires an (free) account to be created for it to be played. The game is presented as an option to improve your English through play. As it is teaching English through the game, it is also exposing students to a variety of relevant, everyday topics in U.S society. It gives objectives that are to be met before the next step. Similar to what I've mentioned above, the objectives would be learning how to follow a sequence of directions/objectives and vocabulary. The game provides vocabulary practice from the different chapters to reinforce what is in each section as well as links to resources.To assess if learning has occurred, I would look through the vocabulary that the game presents and create an activity to assess their usage. Or I would design an activity like I did above that would have the students use this new vocabulary to lay out the sequence of events.

For both of the above games, sequence of events/logical thinking is very important. It's a skill that can be carried over from the L1, but the new skill is being able to follow directions and describe what happened in an L2. By utilizing this previous knowledge, it can hopefully make the students more comfortable with the concept because they might have been exposed to it.

Twitterchats: PD of the future?

A Twitter chat is a set time each week that a group of people use the same hashtag (#). Within this agreed upon hashtag, people can discuss various topics. The argument is that twitter and twitterchats can be used for professional development or in a classroom setting.

After attending my first Twitter chat (#langchat) on Thursday night, I have reaffirmed my belief that twitter is not for me. It was difficult for me to follow all of the various conversations that were occurring. It was just a constant stream of pieces of conversations. There were so many different dialogues occurring at the same time, and to see any of them, you had to individually go through them. It was quite chaotic to go through. Maybe other chats are set up in a more organized fashion, this I cannot say. In general, I'm not a supporter of Twitter. I think trying to convey an idea in 140 characters is extremely limited and can lead to many mis-communications. I will not be using Twitter for networking or professional development in the future.

For those of you that do like twitter and can get it past the web-filters in a school setting, here are some suggestions for the classroom. From 35 Interesting Ways* to Use Twitter in the Classroom:

• Let teachers follow what you are up to
• Twitter Poll
• Word Morph
• Word Play
• Monitor the learning process
• Twalter egos
• Twitter as a research 

From 60 Inspiring Examples of Twitter in the Classroom: 

• Silencing blurters
• Attendance reminders
• Digital faculty lounge
• Classroom notepad
• Twitter recaps
• Talking to career experts

I think that Twitter, if it's going to be used in the classroom, is more suited to college classes than middle school/high school. Many schools prohibit the use of phones and block social networking sites  like Twitter, at least the handful I've been in. I would not use Twitter in my own classroom, so I cannot offer any of my own ideas. If I wanted to use a social networking site, I would stick to something like Edmodo where ideas can be expanded upon, surveys can be taken, etc.