DAY NINE

What things have you covered in today’s sessions?

What technologies have you been exposed to?

How m

ight you use the technologies/techniques in your own teaching and learning?

What value would these techniques/technologies add to your teaching and learning?

What challenges do you foresee?

DAY EIGHT

What things have you covered in today’s sessions?

Today we have talked about Quizlet. It allows you to learn vocabulary and grammar. There are a lot of different ways in which you can practice/learn the language and it is great for promoting students' autonomy. It also shows you progress.

You look for cards with a specific content e.g. English verbs to do with education, the sets pops up n the screen and you can work on them.

What technologies have you been exposed to?

Quizlet

How might you use the technologies/techniques in your own teaching and learning?

I can use it to set my students homework. I need to remember to limit the number of items to about 10.

What value would these techniques/technologies add to your teaching and learning?

It would definitely be a great technology to promote students independence and it also gives an opportunity to extend their learning process.

What challenges do you foresee?

DAY SEVEN

What things have you covered in today’s sessions?

We have talked about Google Forms. It is a technology which allows you to make questionnaires but what is really great about it is that it turns the answers into charts giving you a 'visual' interpretation of all the answers.
Russell sowed us how he has used it for collecting data.

What technologies have you been exposed to?

Google Forms

How might you use the technologies/techniques in your own teaching and learning?

Google Forms are great for

• Questionnaires before the course starts. You can ask your students about their language experience, individual needs, expectations etc.
• Mid-term, end-term questionnaires
• Working on describing graphs, charts etc.
• Teaching students to make surveys (for their BA, MA thesis)
• Group/pair work discussing results, other students' answers
• Data collection
• PTA meetings
• Self-evaluation (both for students and teachers)

What value would these techniques/technologies add to your teaching and learning?

I think it could be very useful for students' self-evaluation. It would help them to develop learner independence which is of course incredibly important in language learning.

What challenges do you foresee?

DAY SIX

What things have you covered in today’s sessions?

We have worked on Edmodo creating our own groups (as if we were teachers running a course).

Russell set us some tasks to do.

We were supposed to:

1. post a question
2. create two polls
3. create a quiz (with a video) (without short answer option)
4. create a quiz (include short answer option)
5. create an assignment
6. create two folders - one with three links to different websites, one with two videos
7. share a code and let others to your classroom

Another amazing technology! Screen Capture!

We talked about it on day five. Russell showed us how he uses it but today we have had a chance to check it out for ourselves and do some practical stuff.

Here is a video made by Russell Stannard our teacher:) on how to use it and how to apply it in teaching.

Isn't that just great?!!!

What technologies have you been exposed to?

Edmodo, SnagIt

How might you use the technologies/techniques in your own teaching and learning?

Edmodo is a great platform where we can share videos and pictures and build different activities around them.

For example

• Polls are great for discussing results in class
• Quizzes gives you the opportunity to very quickly create a quiz using different types of answers
• Assignments are good for longer pieces of writing
• Posts are useful for general discussions
• Folders is the place where you can keep all your files

SnagIt is probably THE greatest tool for assessing students assignments be it PowerPoint presentations, essays you name it. You just capture:) the screen the piece of work is on and record your comments. Giving feedback in such way is faster, more detailed and for sure more friendly to a student and... it once recorded and shared it is always there for students to come back to.

What value would these techniques/technologies add to your teaching and learning?

Giving feedback using SnagIt would definitely be of great benefit for students for the reasons listed above.

What challenges do you foresee?

Unfortunately you have to pay for SnagIt so this time some financial problems may arise.

DAY FIVE

What things have you covered in today’s sessions?

We have talked about Blogger. Russell showed us how to layout the Home page using gadgets.

Then, as promised:) Russell gave us tasks to do on Edmodo as if we were students learning in regular English class.

Stages of the lesson:

1. Work in pairs/groups.
2. Listen to a short piece of news on nano-chips.
3. Take as many notes as we can.
4. Write them in a table (Russell created a table for each group and post it on Edmodo).
5. Listen again and take more notes.
6. Write them in the table.
7. Look at the other group's table and using a different colour add any information you think is missing.
8. In your group try to retell the story.
9. Put the text back together task - online
10. Write in (recreate) the text - online

The tasks we did were actually taken from Breaking News English which is a website where we can find numerous articles and loads and loads of different tasks. So what Russell really did was he went on that website, shared the tasks with us on Edmodo and ... the lesson was ready.

Then we discussed and answered the following questions

1. Go through the stages of the lesson. What was my objective at each stage?
- First listening - introducing students to the topic, taking notes, writing down unknown words.

- Second listening - making them more aware of what the text is about and in that way making them more confident.

- Retelling what they have heard - enhancing the vocabulary input by speaking, enhancing their concentration (trying to remember what was said), developing summarizing skills.

- Putting the text back together - work on vocabulary and syntax.

- Recreating the text - work on vocabulary, syntax and concentration.

2. What was the overall objective of this lesson?
- practicing listening, note-taking, reading, teaching vocabulary, making students aware of what an English sentence/text looks like - especially when they put the text back together or write in the text (prepositions, verb forms).

3. What parts of this could you do in your class?
- all of them.
4. What might happen if they started speaking in the L1?
- I would not worry too much about students speaking L1 because any way they are working with English. It is worth remembering to set not too much time to do a task. If we give them too much time they will probably use much more of their L1.

5. How could you end this lesson?
- we must remember that all the input must be somehow personalized. Students must be able to refer to what they have just learnt to themselves. Husnu's idea to end the class was to tell the students to imagine one of their friends suffers from a condition that can be treated y nano-chips and ask them to write an e-mail to that friend informing him/her about the new technology.

6. What is your overall feeling? What did you learn in terms of language learning? How much processing took place?
- the lesson took just over 30 minutes and we were all that time working on he same text only doing different tasks so it gave a chance to recycle the vocabulary. Put back the text together and recreate the text tasks were especially useful.

Screen Capture Technology was another thing we talked about.
What the technology does is it simply allows you to capture the screen in your computer with anything on it e.g. student's written assignment, Power Point presentation etc. and comment on it in speaking.
Russell presented how he uses Screen Capture technology for giving students feedback.
So far we haven't got to the technicalities of how we can actually do that but it seems to be a great tool for giving feedback because it makes it more personal for the students than just marking and commenting on student's work in writing. The feedback is much longer - it's easier to record a longer more detailed feedback than to write it. Another thing is that students can come back to it at any time and it is there available for them in an unchanged form.

What technologies have you been exposed to?

Blogger, Edmodo, Screen Capture Technology.

How might you use the technologies/techniques in your own teaching and learning?

I will definitely use Breaking News English website not because it is just easy to get ready made lessons but because it is full of incredible online tasks which will enrich students' learning in classroom and at home.

What value would these techniques/technologies add to your teaching and learning?

They would definitely be more flexible in use than traditional materials.

Screen Capture Technology gives the opportunity to give students very detailed, individualized feedback which they can go back to at any time (before tests, exams). It is easier both for students and for teachers to keep track of students progress.

What challenges do you foresee?

Today I am mostly concerned about finding the balance between the technology and traditional ways of teaching. I have learnt so much in the last five days that I would like to straight away use all of it n my classroom. But as Russell said we need to be careful not to overwhelm our students with all these technologies.

DAY FOUR

What things have you covered in today’s sessions?

First of all we have met our new friend from Turkey - Ugur:)

Standing from the left: Husnu (Turkey), Alla (Ukraine), sitting: me, Paola (Italy), in the foreground Ugur (Turkey)

We used TodaysMeet to ask him questions about his work, family, interests etc.
Then we moved on to takling about Edmodo. Russell made a short introduction on Edmodo platform, showed us how to create an account, gave us the code and that was it - we started working on Edmodo:)

We have learnt to add posts, create polls and quizzes, share pictures and videos.

What technologies have you been exposed to?

Edmodo

How might you use the technologies/techniques in your own teaching and learning?

Edmodo allows you to create polls and quizzes (among other things we haven't talked about yet;) You can also post a picture or a video.

Example task for polls:

• post a question in your poll e.g. 'Where would you like to spend your next holiday', type in answers, students answer the question choosing one option (preferably at home). Later in class you can discuss the results of the poll (Edmondo actually gives you the percentage of votes), ask students why they chose a particular option. You could also teach students how to talk about results of polls. ALWAYS REMEMBER TO LINK TASKS ONLINE WITH TASKS IN THE CLASSROOM. Students must know why they are doing tasks online at home. They should not do online tasks just for the sake of doing something online.

Quiz button allows you to create a quiz using five different types of tasks - fill in the blank, True/False, multiple choice, matching and short answers.

You can create a quiz to any given picture, video or text that you post.

Example for quiz:

• search an interesting short video, share it on Edmodo, and create the quiz preferably using the same type of task (only multiple choice, or only T/F etc.)

Example tasks for pictures:

• describe the picture, comment on the picture, answer a specific question referring to the picture. ALWAYS REMEMBER TO GIVE THE WORD LIMIT AND GIVE CLEAR INSTRUCTIONS.

Example tasks for videos:

• continue the story, comment on the story, watch it mute and write what you think the people are saying, answer specific quesion referring to the video.

Another great thing about Edmodo is that you can create subgroups, which means that students assigned to a particular subgroup cannot see other groups' tasks/answers. This helps create an information gap between them and in turn can motivate them to share with and learn from their classmates some facts.

Example task for subgroups:

• group A watches video/see picture/read text X, group B watches video/see picture/read text Y, group C watches video/see picture/read text Z. They answer questions, comment on, describe (picture), summarize (text) as their homework assignment. Then they come to class, join members of other groups and ask and answer questions about their video, picture, text. REMEMBER TO ALWAYS LINK WHAT STUDENTS DO ONLINE WITH WHAT YOU ASK THEM TO DO IN THE CLASSROOM.

What value would these techniques/technologies add to your teaching and learning?

What, I guess is really important, is that all the tasks are in one place.

Students see other students' posts so they can comment on them.

It extends students learning process and doing things online is probably more appealing to students.

I also believe that it gives them a sense of community even more than when they are together in classroom.

Students can use it any time and wherever they want.

As a teacher I can post pictures and videos on different topics adjusting to my students level, age, interests etc.

It is very easy to create a quiz.

It helps teachers to track students' progress and approach them individually.

What challenges do you foresee?

Alla made me realize that there are more challenges than just the ones I have listed so far. Time spent searching right materials online but also creating tests / quizzes. Do I have the skills to prepare a good test/quiz.

DAY THREE

What things have you covered in today’s sessions?

Wednesday the 16th - THE MOST PRODUCTIVE DAY!

We have a great teacher! He asks, he listens and first and foremost he can adjust to what we really need.

Russell started us off with an unassuming simple task: using Google Slides ask other participants of the course different questions about the course itself. And so we did. Later on we answered the questions. It turned out that we had been struggling a lot for the first two days. We all agreed that due to our 'not so great' ;) computer skills we find it incredibly difficult to remember what Russel is showing us.

So what he did was he simply listed (on the board) all the things that we have covered so far, paired us up and told us to go through all of them once again trying to teach each other. Of course, he was there to help us.

Once we did a thing from the list we ticked it off - a little bit like it's done at the end of units in coursebooks 'Now I can...'

So now we can:)

TodaysMeet

• create a room
• share room
• set up discussion

Google Slides

• create a slide
• change the design
• add new slides
• add a link
• add a picture
• add a youtube video
• share slides (edit/red/comment)

Youtube

• find a channel
• subscribe to a channel
• upload a video
• create a playlist
• add to a playlist

images

• search for an image
• search for exact colour/size/drawing

What technologies have you been exposed to?

TodaysMeet, Google Apps: Google Slides, Youtube.

How might you use the technologies/techniques in your own teaching and learning?

It's becoming more and more clear how we can use the technologies. Russell made us realize that each technology is good for different things. At the beginning of the class he made a clear distinction between the technologies we have been talking about so far and platforms which we are going to learn about later in the week.

It all can be presented in a form of a simple equation:

PLATFORM = CONTENT + ACTIVITIES

Google Slides,TodaysMeet, Yutube, Docs, Images they all can be put onto a platform such as Edmondo or Moodle, which makes it easier for students and teachers alike.

What value would these techniques/technologies add to your teaching and learning?

Once I get to know them really well (which I hope I will:) it opens the world of opportunities for me and my students in terms of resources and effectiveness of learning.

What challenges do you foresee?

The challenges stay the same: using the technology in a professional way (from a technical point of view) and finding the right time and the right technology for a particular class.

DAY TWO

What things have you covered in today’s sessions?

We had a look back at Google Slides trying to create a presentation on places in Turkey working together at the same time. However, we were not allowed to talk to each other. We could communicate through the chat only. Not being able to communicate in person proved to be very difficult and ultimately we failed at completing the task, which actually made Russell very happy;)))

It turns out that before you ask your students to create a presentation using Google Slides it's a must to

• assign slides to particular students
• set the topic in a very clear and detailed way
• make sure students know how to use the technology

I hope we'll come back to doing things on Google Slides later:)

We learned how to post images and videos on Google Slides. Russell told us how to use 'tools' when dealing with images and videos in order to adjust them to our needs.

Then we moved on to talking about Blogger. We learned how to create/add a new page and how to add gadgets so that our blogs have more than just a home page.

What technologies have you been exposed to?

Google Slides and Blogger

How might you use the technologies/techniques in your own teaching and learning?

I can encourage my students to keep a blog in English as a reflective diary or set special topics or just let them write about anything they want. Then they can share it and comment on whatever is posted.

It's great for writing projects (letters, essays, summaries etc - every week students have to post a piece of writing), keeping e-portfolio (assessing students on their videos, writing, speaking etc).

It's also great for me as a teacher to keep a reflective diary.

What value would these techniques/technologies add to your teaching and learning?

When it comes to keeping a reflective diary students can have more control over their learning.

As far as assessing students' work is concerned it gives the teacher the opportunity to have everything in one place. Students can always come back to what they have posted.

What challenges do you foresee?

Incorporating the technologies into the class - when and how to use them in a particular class.

DAY ONE

What things have you covered in today’s sessions?

from the left Paola (Italy), Husnu (Turkey), me, Alla (Ukraine)

I have met Russell Stannard the tutor and the other students -Paola, Alla and Husnu. Russell told us about blended learning in general. We have looked at TodaysMeet, Google Slides and Blogger and we have begun learning how to use them.

What technologies have you been exposed to?

todaysmeet.com

Google Slides

Blogger

How might you use the technologies/techniques in your own teaching and learning?

TodaysMeet and Google Slides are great for quick, collaborative tasks. It's a perfect tool for students to use for expressing their opinions, sharing ideas and commenting on them; revising vocabulary and grammar.

Using TodaysMeet and Google Slides I can easily extend students learning of English outside the classroom. It's great for homework.

Examples of tasks (TodaysMeet):

• Getting to know each other: students talk and ask questions - they write as much info as they can remember in the message box (using single sentences) as a summary of what they have found out - they come up with new questions - they type them in - they choose a student (or they ask their teacher) to answer the question.
• Vocabulary revision: students brainstorm adjectives typing in the words in the message box - then they need to come up with prefixes to make opposites.
• Grammar revision (narrative tenses): students together create a story: s comes up with a sentence and another student develops the story - students continue until there is a whole, logical story.

Examples of tasks (Google Slides):

• Speaking, expressing ideas: T creates a slide with a question - students work in pairs coming up with as many answers as they can and type them in their slide - then they add more ideas to other pair's list using a different colour font - then they choose three best answers/ideas - then they comment on why they chose the three in front of the class.

What value would these techniques/technologies add to your teaching and learning?

This definitely makes classes more attractive to students giving them access to their classmates' ideas and comments at the very same time they're expressing theirs. This also gives them a great opportunity to extend learning outside the classroom and do the tasks whenever and wherever they want.

What challenges do you foresee?

It's going to take me quite a while before I can feel really confident using those technologies.