Day 5

Let s revise Blogging!

The main steps to the creation of a blog are:
1. posts
2. labels
3. formatting
4. extra pages
5. gadgets
6. design
7. settings (you can, for example, add authors to your blog)
8. themes (on the left)



Golden Rules
n.7 : Consistency  is a MUST.
n.8 : CONTENT IS KING (not theme, design....)

If you want to get more familiar and have some tips about how to use a blog in class, please have a look at this video. Author? No need to tell you, I suppose!!

Next , http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/

an astonishingly rich website with plenty of activities for different levels. 

The same author also created a similar website for lower levels (PET students): listenaminute.com

Teaching Tips
The activities in these two websites are automatically generated so not everything is perfect but in general two activities are great: Text Jumble and No letters.

An example of a combined activity:
- listening activity + note taking
- in couples discuss what you heard
- second listening.
- final discussion

While organizing activities, let’s keep in mind they should be:
· Communicative
· Engaging
· User-friendly
· Contextualized
· Personalized
· Affective


In group activities:

- competition is highly motivating so teachers should create it.
- the cut off point of an activity is when the first group has finished (unless you have another connected activity planned ).
- you can also set a fixed time. Not important if the students haven' t finished it.

Now, some new technology! Screen Capture
It is/can be used in many situations.
In education , mainly for audio feedback (by the way, this is what Russell Stannard got many prizes for!!!)

We can receive our students’ digital text texts , give them an oral feedback (grammar, vocabulary, spelling, text cohesion, content…) highlighting the text in a different colour and recording whatever we do on the screen.
Advantages? Many!!!
- highly individual
- motivating
- a general feedback to the class when same mistakes are repeated by many
- general feedback are reusable for the teachers!!
- students feel they are important to the teacher!!!
- while getting the feedback they will be listening and reading at the same time
- big amount of feedback can be given
- a form of distant learning but students will feel the teacher’s presence
- it tells much more than a simple “good”
- negative feedback can be made softer , more polite, less direct

Where else is screen capture used?
- tutorials about technology
- online courses
- pronunciation activities
-describing pictures
- flipped classes
- students can record themselves while presenting a PowerPoint presentation      and here's the feedback! ready made for teachers and students alike.
- give instructions about exams (PET, FIRST…)
- explain grammar rules
- record any lesson 

How can we get this Screen Capture technology?
Some is for free: Jing, Screencast-o- matic, Camstudio;
Some have a cost: SnagIt (30 $ , once in a lifetime), Camtasia.

Now, let's have a look at 10 different ways to use Screen Capture in class!

Day 1

Blended Learning

Wow! Here I am, in this lovely city, Norwich, to start the teacher training course on Blended Learning at NILE, with Russell Stannard,



In 2008 Russell Stannard was awarded the Times Higher Outstanding
Initiative in ICT for his work on www.teachertrainingvideos.com.

one of the best- known expert in the field of ICT integrated into the educational process.

I am sure that, apart from my personal experience of a training course with him, you will find his website very helpful and clear whatever new technology you wish to integrate in your teaching.
A part from being professionally very good, Russell is highly involving, super-dynamic and definitely passionate about what he is doing.


I
from left to right: me, Husnu, Aga and Alla

In fact, he is trying to make me and my 3 classmates, Alla from Ukraine, Aga from Poland and Hüsnü from Turkey, self -confident and positive about the results we are going to reach. He even told us that we are not miles behind (as I think I am!!) in using technology in class!

Russell started the lesson introducing Today's Meet, a very interesting tool to be used in collaborative learning. It gives the possibility to create a room, for a limited period of time, where teacher and students can share ideas or ask each other questions.
Here's Russell's short video about it:


Next we went on working on Google Slides, a great tool to share, guide and monitor group or individual work . This is Russell's short video about how to and why to use Google slides :

Finally Russell taught us how to create a blog with Google Blogger so ...this is what I'm doing now!! And once again, I am sure you will appreciate Russell's instructions and ideas much better than my description...

Golden Rules

1. Always remember technology MUST have a value added
2. Always use assets
3. Technology is useful especially to organize students' studies outside the class!

Teaching Tips

Italy is slowly moving towards cooperative learning and project-based learning and both Today's Meet and Google Slides can be very helpful in letting the students cooperate without moving around from town to town.
The teacher can have complete control over the students' activities, in class and at home, and at the same time be available to help .
Today’sMeet can be used in a great variety of situations: students might be asked to jot down plenty of questions to one of them about the past holidays (revision of the Past Simple), about plans for the next holidays revision of the Future Tense), or about hobbies…. The answers given will create an opportunity for comments, discussions, surveys…..
In addition, I can ask the students, in group, to select one of the holiday destinations mentioned in the discussion and create 3 slides each : one showing a meaningful picture, the second including a video and the third one giving five fact about the place ( limiting the number of words in order to prevent students from copy-pasting from the net).
With higher classes,I might ask the students to read a poem or an article and write down their impressions, comments, doubts on Today’sMeet;
the next step will be a discussion about it and finally I might ask the students, divided into groups, to create Google Slides about the writer or the poem or the context.