Web 2.0: useful tools for teaching

Web 2.0 refers to the second generation of websites that allows users to interact and collaborate with one another as content creators in a virtual community using, wikis, blogs, web applications, social networking sites or video sharing sites.

Other examples of web 2.0 sites are Word Clouds and Voki. Both of them are useful tools to innovate in the classroom and they are very easy to manage.

As regards word clouds, they are the visual representation of a short text. There are different online free generator which allows you to create an image where the words are mixed and have different shapes, colours and size. These features vary according to the most important words. Which means that you can choose the words you would like to highlight or make your students pay attention to.

Voki is a web tool in which you can create a personalize “avatar”. In this web, you can choose either to record yourself or to insert a text and Voki does it for you. It is a useful teaching resource since teachers can either do different activities or ask students to work with it.

Here we would like to share with you a didactic sequence thought for a group of seventh graders, in which we include word clouds and voki so as to teach the seasons and the weather .

First of all, we are going to show students a word cloud as a pre-reading activity, in order to activate students prior knowledge about the topic and to anticipate the content of the text. The word cloud simple visual emphasis will allow us to highlight the most important words and help students preview what text might be about.

After working with the word cloud, students will work with a text in which they have to complete with the seasons and the weather. Before students read the text,we will work with the meaning of the words they need to use to complete the blanks and then we will work with the pronunciation of those words.

This is the picture dictionary students will use to complete the text.

This is the text in which students have to complete the blanks.

Once students complete the text, they will check their answers with a voki (this voki will be created by us). Also, as a post reading activity, students will create a voki in order to check pronunciation. The task consists in choosing an avatar and record themselves describing their favourite season of the year. We might do this activity on the computer lab so students can use the microphone.

Reference

• Rouse,M. (n.d) "What is Web 2.0?"

Blended Learning in the EFL Lessons

Nowadays, technologies have a great impact on education, thus influencing teaching and learning. For this reason, we consider that blended learning could be a good way of including technology in the classroom.

Blended Learning

By integrating technologies in their lessons, teachers can increase learners’ motivation and create positive attitudes towards the foreign language. Since the web offers a wide range of materials to develop a certain topic- such as, authentic texts, graphics and pictures, videos, songs, interactive web pages, blogs and social networks- teachers can profit from them to make students’ learning more meaningful by selecting and adapting resources according to the learners´ needs.  However, this does not mean that face-to-face learning is not valid. On the contrary, face-to-face learning provides learners with appropriate explanations for those abstract aspects and concepts of the foreign language, which might not be clear enough for students to work them out on their own.

According to Parterrieu (2015), face-to-face teaching provides the opportunity to create a good atmosphere to get to know students better and to develop effective activities and tasks for them. Also, learning a foreign language, might be a difficult or overwhelming task for students, and teachers can reduce this negative emotions and support learners with useful strategies to approach the language.

All in all, we consider that blended learning gives us the opportunity to innovate in our lessons by introducing interesting topics and by carrying out online tasks. Besides, it benefits students in the sense that a meaningful context is given and they can manage their own learning process.

References

• Itslearningglobal (2013); Blended learning in 2 minutes and 38 seconds
• Parterrieu, Sophie (2015), Why we still need face-to-face teaching in the digital age

Rethinking our teaching practices: Hugo Pardo’s talk.

Last month, we were invited to a talk held by Hugo Pardo Kuklinski about “Educacion y cultura digital” at Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias (FHUC), in Santa Fe. At the conference, Kuklinski presented the results of his last two projects: “Circópolis” in Salta and “SERO laboratorio vivo” in Medellin, Colombia; at the same time that he shared with us those experiences, he stated some of the key points teachers should consider when acting as “Intrapreneurs”.

Hugo started his talk saying that “Education and pedagogy need to be rethought”. This comment didn’t surprise us, since it is very well-known that there are important aspects in education to reconsider. As future teachers, we are constantly studying new approaches and strategies to improve and adapt our practices to the learners’ needs and interests. Therefore, we were expecting that this man, who is PhD in Communication Studies, told as something new.

However, everything changed when he began to show us videos of his experiences in Salta and Colombia.  Kulinski ‘s talk became more interesting when he stated that after doing some research, he realised that “despite including ITC in the classroom , there are still issues to consider in education”. We completely agree with his statement and that means that we have some interests and queries in common. For this reason, we would like to share with you, some of the ideas that Pardo suggested in his presentation.

At the talk, Hugo introduced the concepts of “digital revolution” and “ teachers as intrapreneurs”  in order to put forward his idea of “changing education logics” by taking into account the following points:

• Differentiation of contents, methods and nets. 

• Create a personal brand.

• There are always opportunities, even for new profiles.

• If you play ecstatic, you lose. 

• “Anywhere” is a classroom.

• Take care of the new.

• New postdigital language.

• Write your own manifest.

• We all are designers of experiences.

• Experts in the new liquidity. 

In our opinion, although he had quite a business-oriented view, he seemed to have innovative ideas and good intentions, such as motivating teachers to “try” new things in the classroom, which may be useful to tackle with some of the problems school is facing nowadays. 

It was also evident that Kulinski is more a businessman than a teacher, since most of the time, he was selling his projects and ideas without taking into consideration the different school contexts. In addition to this, we found some of his ideas rather contradictory, for example: he tried to convince the audience (teachers, in particular) of taking more risks and trying new things in their lessons, but he gave up teaching at university because his strategies didn’t work for some of his students.

To conclude, we found this experience really fruitful. It is true that some of Hugo’s opinion about teaching were a kind of “far-fetched” . However, we consider that, as future teachers, we should take into account his ideas and adapt them to our learners’ need and contexts.

There is nothing to lose. Just let’s offer our students new learning experiences which allow them to express themselves and inspire them to finish school and fulfill their dreams.

Reference

•  Pardo Kuklinski, Hugo (2016). "Educación y Cultura Digital". Universidad Nacional del Litoral-Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias. Santa Fe