CHINSWING

Chinswing is a global message board where anyone can add voice messages to ongoing topical discussions.


It is a tool that can be used in many different ways to practise both listening and speaking skills with students of all levels. Of course, if we want our students to become active listeners, we should make it clear in the rubric that they will have to continue/respond or react to the previous posts.


One of the advantages of CS is that students can record their messsage again and again (before they click on save to upload it) if they are not satisfided.
Their message can be as long as they want, so it is up to the teacher to set a time limit for recordings (either maximun or minimun).


In the case of more advanced students, we could make them participate on authentic threads. The interesting thing is that discussions are categorised, so students could choose a discussion on a topic of their liking. One of the benefits of making students join ongoing discussions is that they will be exposed to many different accents.
Here’s a link to a thread on one of the parts of TOEFL speaking test, which exemplifies how this tool could be used to practise the individual long turn in Cambridge exams (the mini presentations in the BEC suite, for example).
http://www.chinswing.com/pages/discussion.aspx?id=4f896910-fa90-4467-9843-bb557b45a8af


Here’s a link to another thread. It’s a good example of how to integrate the book with CS. Listen to the teacher’s rubric.
http://www.chinswing.com/pages/discussion.aspx?id=b464200a-0c9c-4b98-8795-a44e3f4c0406

Actually, we can start threads on many different topics to further practise what is being taught in the coursebook (e.g you can ask students to describe their house, a room in their house, their hometown if you are teaching there is/are and prepositions of place).

Here’s a link to a thread I have created. We know children love listening to stories and inventing stories. After teaching and practising the past tense, the teacher could start a story in CS.
http://www.chinswing.com/pages/discussion.aspx?id=98d19b90-7b8c-4ca8-b2de-e21f18fa6540
Of course, we could introduce this activity by creating an oral chain story in class. Besides, the teacher could post again if necessary (e.g if kids have lost track of the story).

And here’s another link to a thread for intermediate students.
http://www.chinswing.com/pages/discussion.aspx?id=4f3206a8-9290-4757-8c3e-8ffb48092a10


Last but not least, Chingswing is very, very simple to use. Click on the link below, read the instructions, sign up and join an online discussion or start your own.
http://www.chinswing.com/pages/firststeps.aspx

BLOGS

So what’s a weblog (or blog for short)?
It's an online journal. It is sequential and the posts are arranged in reverse chronological order, which means the most recent posting appears at the top of the page and the older ones disappear off the front page and go into the archives.
Blogs are very user-friendly. People with little computer knowledge can open, update and maintain a blog.

Why use blogs?
Blogs have great potential for enhancing our classes. They can help students improve not only their reading and writing skills but also listening and speaking (since they can integrate other tools). As readers may be allowed to comment on the posts, blogs lend themselves perfectly for online discussions or debates.
Besides, as blogs are sequential, they can really complement the timeline of a school term and we teachers and the students themselves can track all the process and the progress made.
Moreover, blogs could be used to develop a ‘digital portfolio’, either class or individual portfolios, which could be visited by parents at any time of the year. Some schools have blogs for parents as well.

How to start working with blogs?
It is always a good idea to start by reading other teachers’ blogs, to see how they organize information, what kind of activities they design for their students, how often they blog, how the rubrics are delivered.

How are blogs used by teachers?
There are many different approaches. These are some I have come across:
- Some teachers have a class blog where he/she is the only one who posts and students leave comments. See this wonderful blog of a Brazilian teacher called Kelly (actually this is the blog she uses to communicate with her several groups of students) . Have a look at the different activities she has designed for her students, and their responses. She has had a truly enthusiastic response from her students.
http://kellycilc.wordpress.com/author/kellissima/
- Some others have class blogs where the students are invited to make postings, not just comments. See the blog Rita Zeinstejer (a teacher at Cultural Inglesa, Rosario) had with her CAE class last year. Rita encourages her students to go global and interact with students from other countries, a very enriching experience.
http://ritamz.ning.com/profiles/blog/list
- And some teachers have a class blog where they post the rubrics for the activities and the links to the students’ blogs. Each student has a blog where they do the work set by the teacher. Of course the students and the teacher visit each others’ blogs and leave comments. See this blog opened by Robert Squires, an ESL teacher from Montana, USA., for one of his pre-intermediate classes.
http://integratedskills-robert.blogspot.com/
and an example posting
http://muhammadunbelievable.blogspot.com/

As you can see, blogs can be used with students of different ages and levels. Besides, Robert’s blog is a very good example of how to integrate the coursebook with the blog. After dealing with a unit on description of works of art, he set an assignment where students had to write a paragraph about a work of art of their choice using the new vocab and structures. It is expected that they will be more motivated and therefore more careful with the quality of their work since they will be read and commented upon not only by their teacher but also their peers.

How should we correct our students' writing?
The discussion as to whether to correct or not students’ writing on blogs (as well as when or how) is inconclusive at this stage but there are some points most teachers agree on:
- blogs offer students a place where to practise writing without the pressure of grades
- if mistakes impair communication, the teacher (or a peer) should come up with the appropriate question to make the student explain/paraphrase what he means
- a very useful strategy is selecting common errors made by the students and addressing them in class
All in all, we should remember the aim is communication rather than accuracy.

Getting down to business
Well now, if you have reached the end of this long post, the only thing left is to start blogging. Click on the link below (actually copy and paste it in your browser, it doesn't work from here) and then open your own blog. Take the tour, watch the tutorial and start playing with this new tool to see how it works. Remember, just holler if there’s sth you can’t do.
https://blogger.com/start
This is another link to a document with very clear simple explanations.
http://www.d.umn.edu/~hrallis/guides/blogs/blogger.html

Tutorials

How did you like the Medieval Helpdesk video?

Well, I just meant it to be an introduction to this post. As you know, we will be looking at a series of web 2.0 tools and their applications in EFL teaching.

But first we will have to learn how to use them. I can guarantee that most of them (if not all) are very user-friendly. Besides they all have tutorials that show how to use the tool in question and pages with FAQ where your query may have already been answered.

If after consulting these sources, there's still something you can't get to do, remember there will always be somebody who can help you out: the school technician, a colleague who has already used that tool, our younger colleagues who are already digital natives, our sons and daughters ...

Just as an example of what a tutorial is like click on this link and learn how to make an animated story with Zimmer twins. You'll see how easy it is. (we'll have a look at Zimmer Twins and its possible applications later on)

A comic relief

I'm sure this video will help you relax (after the reading and/or listening load in my previous post).
It shows 'helpdesk support' back in Medieval Times. I very much wonder if I sound like Brother Ansgar when I ask questions about how to use these new tools (remember I'm a digital immigrant).
It's hilarious. Just enjoy it!

Why Use Web 2.0 Tools?

Because our students have changed and we have to think of ways of engaging them.

I mentioned in my previous post that we are digital immigrants as opposed to our learners, who are digital natives. As Marc Prensky points out:
- Digital natives think and process information fundamentally differently from the generation of digital immigrants.
- It is wrong for us teachers to assume that we can use the same methods that were successful with previous generations to teach digital natives.
- Therefore both content and methodology need to be reconsidered.
Here's the link to the whole article by Marc Prensky. (By the way, I felt really identified with Prensky's description of the 'accent' that we digital immigrants cannot get rid of)

The second part of this article is also worth reading. Prensky addresses the issue of learners' attention spam, the need for reflection and critical thinking, and advocates game-based learning.

For those of you who are more auditory, here's the link to Michael Wesch's presentation, a cultural anthropologist at Kansas State University, discussing Web 2.0 in terms of social impact. He makes similar points to Prensky, and what he says has deep implications for educators. (It's about an hour long but it's great for listening practice as well).

Web 2.0 Tools

What does Web 2.0 refer to?
To put it simply, the main features of the second generation of web tools are:
- their interactivity (students cannot only read or listen to content online but also produce their own written and oral texts, publish them, comment on and edit other people's work, i.e. interact with others)
-how easy they are to use (we don't need to be software experts to be able to use them, great relief for us teachers who are digital immigrants)

Why don't you watch this video that introduces some web 2.0 tools and how they are already being used? The presenter also talks about Second Life, a web 3.0 tool I am not going to include in this blog for the time being.

Scenario

'You are a 'blind optimist' who believes that by using blogs in your lessons you might afford new learning opportunities for students and perhaps encourage your colleagues to become interested in using Web 2.0 tools. You would like to present 'A Vision for Incorporating Blogging into Lessons' at the first staff meeting of the year. Explain your plan for incorporating blogging. (What do you have in mind and how you will accomplish it?).'

This scenario closely resembles what will most probably happen at one of the schools I work at. It might not be at the very first staff meeting of the year but it will be before the beginning of classes and I will 'advertise' not only blogging but several other web 2.0 tools as well. However, there's one important difference. I'm not a 'blind optimist', just an optimist. I'm sure we will start using some of these tools this year.

Why am I sure? Because I hope I will be able to show my colleagues that we will be using technology with a purpose and not just for its own sake. If I succeed in doing this, they will adopt some of these tools.

Robert stated it so clearly in one of the introductory readings: ' it is vital that the use of Web 2.0 tools should be based on sound pedagogical practices that are designed to help the students meet the intended learning objectives. In general terms, we can say that if technology does not assist learning, it is not worth using.'

Well, now my plan (as I've already said, for incorporating not only blogging but some other web 2.0 tools as well): I'll invite my fellow teachers to visit my blog, this blog, where I will keep a record of the different tools , their possible applications, reflections, videos, links to other blogs, etc. I'm sure this will set the ball rolling.