The project aims to train 25 Moldovan EFL teachers from the regions to integrate blogs in their teaching practice.
It represents a successful continuation of the "EFL Blogging School for Moldovan Teachers - Edition 1" Project, implemented in 2014.
Dear EFL teachers, This week we will be exploring various resources where we can find educational videos and share them with our students. Enjoy browsing through the websites we recommend at the end of December.
Task 1 Which of these resources could be the most relevant for your students? Choose 3 collections of videos and explain how you could use them in your class:
How could Moldovan teachers use the resource to teach English as a Foreign Language?
Find an interesting TeacherTube video, post it on your blog and put together 3 tasks for your students.
Post the link below, as a blog comment.
For example: ESL Book Club could be used to inspire students to create their own book club and read interesting books in English, then share their impressions on TeacherTube or YouTube.
How to make an ice-cream sandwich shows 2nd grade students explaining how to make an ice-cream sandwich, so it would be a great project idea for Moldovan elementary level students when they learn food or action verbs.
Select five new ideas for using video with your students and create a collection using Padlet, Listlyor Pinterest (instructions posted in Assignment 11).
Post the link to your collection of teaching advice below, as a comment to this post.
Sample projects created by the participants of the EFL Blogging School Project, Edition 1 :
This week we are going to explore Web 2.0 tools which combine words, images and links. They can enhance students creativity, they can help us keep all our useful sites in one online collection and can offer tools to keep our blog visually appealing. Enjoy playing with the tools!
Watch the relevant YouTube video, read the Wikispaces articleand answer the question: How can Quizlet help our students learn new words? Post your ideas below, as a comment to this blog.
How does Lingro work? Post your observations as a comment to this post.
Task 3: Let's explore Word Clouds! a) Explore two online tools (Wordle and Tagxedo) which help us generate word clouds. Choose the one you prefer, read the articles posted below and create a word cloud related to a topic you are going to teach next week accompanied by a simple task for your students to complete then embed it into your blog. Place the link below, as a comment to this post, accompanied by three suggestions on how this tool can be used in the EFL classroom. Wordle - a toy for generating “word clouds” from the text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your students.
Discover another similar tool - Tagxedo - a word cloud webtool with style! It provides a good deal of customization for users. For example, if teachers or students want to create a word cloud in an apple shape, then Tagxedo is the right tool for the job. For younger students, Wordle is much more straightforward to use; however, older students will love the customization Tagxedo provides which includes colors, shapes, fonts, and themes.
Task 4: Time to experiment with visual bookmarks. Take your time to explore the possibilities offered by these four wonderful online tools: Padlet, Pinterest, Listly and ThingLink. Choose one, create your own collection and post the link below, as a comment to this post. The link should be followed by three suggestions regarding how the tool can be used in teaching English as a foreign language.
I. Uses for Padletin your classroom could be endless - just have a quick look at this online Padlet library. Padlet is an online space to create a collaborative, digital word walls. It allows users to create sticky notes that can include text, images, links and videos. Teachers can embed this into a classroom website or blog which makes it a go-to collaborative space for students. For primary students, teachers will probably want to create the wall with words and links for students. Older students will get the hang of it fairly quickly. A great, collaborative tool and virtual classroom space to build online references and key vocabulary for content units. Recommended readings:
II. Pinterestis another great resource for all teachers. It is a pin-board-styled photo sharing website. We can create and manage theme-based collections. For example:
III.Listlyis a service that allows users to create and share lists. The site makes list making interactive, meaning users can rate, comment on and contribute to other people’s lists. List.ly is connected to other social media sites, such as WordPress, which allow you to embed your List.ly into posts. Other great examples:
IV. ThingLink is a tool for making images interactive. To use, simply upload an image, identify hot spots on specific parts of the image, and add text or web links to the image. In the classroom, teachers could use ThingLink to launch a unit by introducing students to key vocabulary or students could design interactive images as they become more familiar with vocabulary. Student examples:
Browse through theESL Glogpedia collection. Choose one Glog from the collection or create your own interactive poster and create a task for your students related to its contents. Post the Glog and the task on your blog.
For example:
"Dear students, write a three paragraph essay about England using the information included the Glog below. Follow the essay structure explained in the YouTube video embedded immediately after. "
"Dear students, please collect all the Past Simple verbs from"Alice in Wonderland" Glogand group them in regular and irregular forms. "
From learning the alphabet at primary school to training sessions at work, we're always learning. To see if the learning experiences are effective and satisfying, the surveys are in hand. Being able to gather the feedback and information needed from teachers, students, professors and administrators, these tools make everyone's educational journey as fulfilling as possible. To this extent, this week we would like to propose you free online tools aimed to create own online surveys, quizzes and questionnaires.
This way, during Assignment 10 you will:
learn how to use Google Forms to create an online quiz, survey or questionnaire
familiarize yourselves with the basics of online surveys
explore recommended sites and create three different quizzes, surveys or questionnaires
create an assignment for your students which would combine reading, writing, listening or speaking tasks with an online survey incorporated into your school curricula
Task 1. Watch two videos about Google Forms and write a paragraph on its benefits for EFL teachers: - how can teachers use Google Forms in the EFL classroom? - which student skills would the online surveys develop? - how can Google Forms save time and effort?
Task 2.Now it is time for you to create your own survey / quiz / questionnaire using Google forms.
Task 3. Browse through the links below with practical ideas on how to integrate surveys, quizzes and questionnaires in your curriculum. Write down three ideas on how you can use online surveys to improve your students' reading, writing, speaking or listening skills. Post your ideas as a blog comment.
Task 4. Let us explore other great online tools for teachers and integrate them in our curriculum.
Browse the list below and choosethree toolsyou can use with your students;
Create three surveys using these three different platforms;
Target different subjects, different grades or different topics;
Embed the surveys on your blog as part of a reading, writing, speaking or listening assignment. The surveys or the quizzes can be related to a YouTube video, to a Scribd or Google Books document, or a power point presentation from Slideshare which should also be embedded into your blog.
Post the link to your blog assignment which incorporated online quizzes below, as a comment.
1. Poll Builder The Poll Builder provides a free, simple, one-step process to create polls that you can embed in your Web pages. You can select the background color for the poll and have up to 5 possible responses. 2. Quiz Star for Teachers With QuizStar you can manage classes and quizzes, attach multimedia files to questions, make quizzes in multiple languages, access from any Internet-connected computer, allow students to complete and review. 3. Survey Monkey SurveyMonkey is the world's most popular online survey software. We make it easier than ever to create polls and survey questionnaires for learning about anything from customer satisfaction to employee engagement. Sign up to access our library of sample survey questions and expert-certified templates. Customize your survey questions, distribute your questionnaire on the web, and start collecting responses in real time. 4. Kwiqpoll This is a simple poll making tool. It does not require any registration. Just visit the homepage and start creating you poll right away. You have the choice to provide multiple choice answers. You will also be provided with a generated URL to use when sharing your polls. 5. Flisti This is another great simple poll tool. It is very easy to use and resembles Kwiqpoll in that it does not call for any sign up. Just head over to its main page and start working on your poll. You can add as many answers as you want to your poll. Again , you can embed your polls in your blog, wiki or website 6. Polldaddy This is another popular polling service that allows users to create free polls and surveys containing up to ten questions. 7. Micropoll Micropoll allows users to instantly create a poll using a set of questions and answers then one email address. It also provides embed codes to share polls online. 9.Obsurvey This is a great utility for creating instant surveys. It is dead simple, just visit its main page , type in your questions and answers using their text editor and there you go
