Class Blog

The Idea

Do you wish your students would write more? What about think more consciously about what they say? What about building a community of writers out of your class?  Try a classroom blog.

What to do

Make a new blog for your students to follow. Students are getting more and more techno savvy and you'd be surprised at how easy it is for them to sign up on their own. After you give them a day or two to catch up, you can pick up the stragglers.

Example

Here is an example for a reading and writing class. I try to make sure they are not only writing regularly but also making comments on what other students are say. The assignments ask them to reflect their writing and what the class is reading.

This could be a really easy thing to do after you get it set up. Once you have the prompts, they are there forever.

Other Uses

What are some other ways you think you could use a blog? Write a comment.

Tweet Your Class

The Idea

Students need to be reminded about home work or a quiz? Do you ever find a great website or something that is a bit of a tangent? Do you feel like if you students just focused on making one or two sentences correct they could benefit? Try tweeting!

Come On, Just Try

I took some selling for the concept. Now I'm a convert. Try it for a month. Make your students participate. See what they have to say. They are using social media to improve their English, not distract from it.

Tweet Once or Twice a Day

I think it works well to send out one tweet a day about what you did in class or the homework. Put "#Name of your class" at the end so then everyone can see what everyone is saying if they search "#Name of your class"! It's really neat to see the discussion evolve and you are the architect.

Some things to Tweet

• Homework
• Extra credit 
• Questions for discussion
• Topic preview
• Blog posts that may be helpful
• Websites to supplement what we did in class
• Discussion questions
• Vocabulary practice tweets
• Test taking strategies
• Learning strategies
• Student Interest based tweets- music, soccer, University

Example Tweets

http://goo.gl/S9IFU Leadership styles of famous leaders. What kind do you admire? Post your thoughts. #MastersLS

HW: Write a paragraph about General Sherman's transformation as a leader. #mastersls

Extra credit tweet: Whose speech today do you remember the most and why (not your own) #MastersLS

#MastersLS Take this leadership quiz. Tweet your style and why you are that leader. http://goo.gl/eb1I9

Rules

• Don't respond too much. It'll seem like you are controlling the conversation.
• Don't go more than a few days without tweeting or people will think you gave up.
• If students make a mistake, privately send them a message with the correction; I made this mistake and the person never tweeted again.
• Make a policy- Be nice, be helpful, etc.
• Make tweeting mandatory if you are going to do it.
• Use goog.l, bit.ly, or tinyurl to save characters

The Future

How would you use this? Think of the possibilities! Succinct discussion about class, outside of class. Follow me and Tweet your thoughts, or comment on the blog.
Twitter: drnagy86

Web Quest

The Idea

Ever have students have problems finding proper resources? Are you worried that they are just reading it in their first language and not in English?  These problems could be solved with a thing called a WebQuest.

What is a WebQuest

A WebQuest has a task, a procedure to complete it, and a final production goal at the end. You write goal for them, walk through the steps giving websites to scaffold and research. In the end, they have a paper, presentation, poster, or project of some kind. It can be individual or group.

Where?

There are a lot of things labeled "WebQuest" out there. A good place to start is Quest Garden. It has a variety of types and resources. While the ESL specific content is a little low, it is an interesting way to get students to work with area specific items and practice their English. They can kind of follow your or their interests.  You can always just Google Web quest and maybe get lucky. People post them all over.

Example

Try doing this WebQuest I found on the quest garden. It is an interesting one about the English language and it is geared towards linguists called "Whose English is it, Anyway?". Here is another about the history of English as well.

Try this one I made for a class. I hope to use it many times in different forms because it is a general "argumentative" speech topic, of which it seems like my syllabii call for frequently.

Expansion

On the WebQuest website, you can make your own. It costs a fee though after the first month. What is really nice about it though is that it comes with procedural checkpoints so you can insure that the quality is high. If you are going to make one for the first time, I'd start there and move it somewhere else after you make it.

You can make this on any free website program such as GoogleSites, Weebly, or others if you have the patience to make it. If you are using GoogleSites, there are some templates out there if you search for them while you are making it. It makes the design process really slick.

Have a Webquest you like? Post it and share!

Three Indispensible Teacher Tools

What do you think that you can't live without in your classroom? I've become so relent on using technology to not only make classes more interesting, but also to increase my productivity. So here is a list of things that make you more interesting, but make life easier.

Google Drive

I use this everyday, for everything. If you are not using Google Drive, you are doing a disservice to yourself. Reasons for using Google Drive:

Organize

Organize all the things that you would use in your class in one spot. Make a folder for each class, just like you would on your own computer. The difference? Now you can access it everywhere!

Edit

It can edit any Google documents on the fly. I can edit something on my iPad or smart phone before I send it away to be printed on a cloud printer. Great!

Make Documents

Make word processing, spread sheet, and presentation documents. It isn't super fancy but it works great for simple things, things you would use everyday in class. You can also make forms which can become questionnaires  quizzes, or grammar exercises.

Upload

Upload everything to your drive so you can look at it later. This includes not only documents, but also videos, pdfs, or pictures.

Share

Share it! I took all our materials that the teachers had shared on our computer and collected it on one drive. Now, anyone who wants to access this material can do so at home. Not only that, but it is super easy for them to add their work anytime, anywhere.

Delicious

Do your bookmarks explode out of your bookmarks bar? Mine do. So, give some love to this bookmark site.

Collect

Collect your websites all in one place. Now you don't have to email yourself links, only have them on one computer, etc. It's all in one place where you can access anywhere.

Tags

What would this website be good for? Hmm, maybe vocabulary, or an interesting reading. So I tag it as vocabulary, reading. Write a little blurb about what is on it. And do this for every new website that you find useful. Works great because when I am then looking for something, I just look for the proper tag.

Search

You can then search what other people have tagged as well. If you are looking for anything at all, you then have a website with a short description of what that site is all about. It's a great tool for finding resources.

Share

Share your bookmarks. Everything that has the same tag GETS ITS OWN WEBSITE! I don't capitalize often, but that is awesome. I like it for letting students research pre-selected websites. It works well for finding speech or writing topics. It's also good for those students who say, "Hey, I would like some TOEFL information, can you help me?" Sure.

Evernote

Where do you keep all your lesson plans and lectures? In your head? What about notes about a class? Consider using Evernote as a way to organize your paperwork.

Organize

Make folders and "tag" your materials as topics. For instance, everything you have to say about "topic sentences" could easily be kept in one spot.

Immortal

Make your lectures immortal. You will never lose any information again. Get an idea? Write it down. Think you said a good lecture? Why not record it? Ever come up with something on the fly that worked really well in that moment? Take a picture of the white board and upload it to your notes straight from your smart phone!

Share

You can send these documents to anyone. Send your lecture to your class to help them review. Share with other teachers some interesting ways that you explain things. It is truly endless.

LOL Cat Grammar

The Problem

Do you ever have problems getting your students to want to find mistakes? In a lot of cases, students don't know what to look for or what to do with it. And after you teach it, they make the same mistakes over and over.

So how to you improve grammatical awareness in a memorable way? LOL Cats!

The Idea

Have students look at LOL cats for specific grammar and vocabulary errors. This could be a topic you are studying or a general trend that you find your students making.

What to do

For instance, notice the following LOL cat:

You can start by asking your students "What is wrong with this?" They can then find what is wrong and correct it. Next we look at the following:

Again, what is wrong with this and how to fix it. And finally:

Again, what is wrong with this one and fix it.

The lesson can then be what...? Subject-verb agreement! An interesting way to introduce the rules of subject-verb agreement in a memorable way.

Expansion

Other areas you can add that work will with LOL cats:

• Spelling
• Pronunciation of high frequency words and spelling
• Word endings
• Attention grabber for class
• Conversation starters

What is also nice is that you can easily create your own with your pictures or other peoples on the site. Write your own lesson in a LOL cat way.

Any ideas? Please post some other ways you think you could use LOL cats in a class.

Writing Macros to Aid Written Feedback

The Problem

I was running into problems with printers and students. For some reason, students keep thinking that it was okay to not turn in their work on time giving the excuse that they don't have a printer, or the school printer was down. This would lead to getting the writing emailed to me. It was then on me to print out the essay. I got a little upset about it.

This lead to using a site like Edmodo so collect student essays. They send it to you this way and you don't have to get your personal email involved.  Plus, it is just really nice to have it all organized for you. This worked well but I kept running into the time issue: too much feedback. I was writing endless comments and a lot of them ended up being similar, or the same idea.

So I started making comment macros for Microsoft word. 

The Idea

So the idea is a make a comment that you use often, highlight the problem, and click a button; BAM! There is your comment already written out. 

Comments vary from "Can you think of another example?" to "Make sure the subject agrees with the verb. Example:They is...->They are...". Students are questioned about there work, mistakes pointed out, and good work is praised. This saves time as well as makes your comments consistent. Students can become more aware of the types of mistakes they make and how to fix it.

It is a little work to set up, but here is how. This set up is for Microsoft 2007 or later, though it may be easier with earlier versions.

Cheat!

If you want to download my macro script with what I already set up, here it is. Though you need to troubleshoot it and set it up. Ignore this if you don't know what I'm talking about.

What to do

1. Write your comments

It works best to get all your comments written out first so that you can just work on making the macro later. I have my comments go into two groups, content and grammar.  I also tend to have the students write two drafts of essays. I give the content feedback first and after they correct it, I give grammar feedback. I find it works well.

Here is a list of my comments (The grammar ones are mine, the content ones are borrowed/adapted from this excellent article on feedback). It may be easier to do this with this information directly in a word document.

2. Make a Macro

First, you need to "Record" a macro. What this does is save all the subsequent things you do (clicking, typing, backspaces, forward spaces, everything) until you hit the stop recording button. So first, highlight something (it can be anything, but for me, it will be the comment I want to make).

Next, you need to name your macro. Use something you will remember, otherwise you won't know what it does until you click it. Click okay.

Now you click "New Comment" and type, don't copy and paste, your comment.

When finished, go back and stop recording your macro.
Now go through and do this for each comment.

*Complicated Time Saver

If you don't want to retype each comment, you can go through and edit each comment after words. Just Name all your macros without highlighting anything. When you finished just naming macros, click "View Macros" and then Click "Edit". You then have the macro editor. Under the title of your macro copy this script:


Selection.Comments.Add Range:=Selection.Range
    Selection.TypeText Text:="The comment you wish to make."

In the macro editor then, you can actually go through and copy and paste what you want to say.

3. Create Buttons

Now right click anywhere on the top part of Word, the thing called the "ribbon". Click "Customize the Ribbon" (Or go to File, Options, Customize Ribbon).

It brings you to this window where you can then make a new "Ribbon". Call it whatever you want, but this is where you customize how you want it to work.

Create a "New Tab" by clicking on the bottom. This will be your work space for making comments.

Right Click to edit the name of the tab. I like "Proof Reading. Edit the group for the type of comments you want, e.g. "Comments", "Content Comments" and "Grammar Comments". Add new group under your tab to get these groups. This starts to get messy, you may want a separate tab for different types of comments.

Start to add your macros by:

1. Select "Macros" from the "Choose commands from"
2. Select the macro you want to add
3. Select the group you want it in
4. Click Add

I now looks a little messy and hard to pick the one you want. At this point you can rename the macro from something like "Normal.NewMacros.clear_thesis" to "Clear Thesis". When you rename something, you also can change the icon the macro is associated with. This makes it easier to use later on.

You may also like to have a command to just make a regular comment on this tab, so go back to "Choose Commands from" and click "popular" then find the comment button.

Now you have a customized tab that looks something like this:

4. Profit!

If you did all this work, all you have to do now is highlight the student work, click the button, there is your comment. Happy grading!

Improvements

What would be great would be websites with grammar lessons and exercises that students could follow up with either linked into the comments, or as a comment sheet added to it. Same thing with the content. A real example to go along with it would be great. Any thoughts? I'd love to hear.

Wiki Writing

Why Wiki?

I've found it difficult to have students work on their writing with technology because it:

A: Needs feedback

B: Is kind of lame

In class last week, we talked about collaboration tools and one of them was making a wiki. This lead to some research. The article I read focused on writing a wiki as a class. The assignment was to keep a wiki over the course of the semester and post 47 things. The study found that students who kept up with the wiki and made more edits did better on the final exam. The argument was that the students had more interest in writing and therefore were more engaged in learning about it. It was found that students were interested in what other students wrote and wrote better for their own assignments. There isn't a link between wikis and better writing, but it shows a link between interest and being a better writer.

Nakamaru, S. (2012). Investment and Return: Wiki Engagement in a "Remedial" ESL Writing Course. Journal Of Research On Technology In Education, 44(4), 273-291.

The general idea is this: Have students create an article, read and comment on other articles, revise, teacher comments, final draft.

Sites

I found Wikispaces good because it has no adds and has a bulk user creator. It also has a really good system for making comments. You can also change the permissions on the page as well. The draw backs are is that it looks kind of bland and there are no ways to change that unless you pay. It is also a little bit of work to set up users (but this gives you a good deal of control, including setting passwords.).

The other site is I tried was Wikia. The benefits are that the design has more customization and anyone who knows it exists can then contribute to the article (it sends an email when someone does.) The disadvantages are that there are lots of advertisements and no system for making comments outside of altering the actual text. Security is also an issue because anyone can write on it (makes it easy to set up though). Navigation is strange and hard to find things you wrote.

The Assignment

Create a narrative essay. The story is a personal or made up story.  Collect your stories by your country of origin. Write the essay on a wiki page, comment on other student articles, and revise work.

The wikispace page.

The wikia page. Feel free to contribute to this! Add your country by adding a page and write your narrative.

Reflection and Potential Uses

What is great about this is you can have the whole set of directions available. It is also nice because you can model what you want done in class (for instance, we commented on an essay by an old student) and have them explore on their own.

It is also really neat to see the articles and comments pop up. You'd be surprised what your students can create in a short time.

What is also neat is that students can have this for ever.

Finally, this could be an interesting way to not only do narratives, but many different types of essays, summaries, news reporting, classroom study guides, really anything. The idea is they work together to collect the parts of the whole and comment on each other's work.

Note Taking

As I was in class this week, I realized that I just ask my students to take notes without ever really explaining how to do that.

I think I've left that skill to other people or specific classes that have it in the objectives.  The problem is that students fall through the cracks, just started studying that month, or never learned it well.

So for this week I'm writing a guide to note taking.

Click here to see the guide.

Here is a document for hand outs or whatever.

Here is an example of how to take notes as well.

Bad Presentations

I'm trying to be a better presenter and making better presentations. Going to blog about it this week.

It started when I was watching some student presentations. I noticed that my ESL students truly crutch on reading a Power Point word for word. I also noticed some major word and color fouls. Then there was the questions of plagiarism (yikes!). While I try to stick to these rules, that doesn't seem to work for my students. They need some explicit instruction if I am going to allow them (optionally or otherwise) to use a presentation tool in class.

So this week I made a presentation on my presentation rules for presentations.




You can find the whole thing here. There is a script to go with the slides as well which you can access through the settings button or by looking at the original.

Now would also be a good time to mention other presentation tools besides Microsoft PowerPoint.
Try making a Prezi, GoogleDocs, Zoho, or something crazy. Click here for a list. I like the online ones because if you are like me, sharing presentations is a big deal.

Some neat presentation tips with a business slant, could easily be adapted to ESL.

Happy presenting!

Vocabulary Building

Ideas for Vocabulary Building

Goal

To learn vocabulary at the end of a chapter, before a test, when introducing vocabulary, previewing, reviewing, or studying.

The idea is to look at three different ways to teach students study skills while having them learn the content vocabulary.

Level could be all, it just depends on the student's technical aptitude.

Types

Flash Cards

Flash cards are tried and true, so how does technology improve it? Well. Very well. You can add media, share, and use premade programs to play games, review, drill, spell the words you want to learn.

Quizlet

Example of the whole flash card set.

Drillster

Drillster is a little bit more intense. Better maybe for those machines who want to study TOEFL or GRE.

The example is an Educational Psychology flash card set. It can have media as well as multiple columns for definitions.

Mind Map

Connect the words in sentences. Really useful for a set of words that have a shared theme. Really illustrates the point that a word is not used in a singular fashion.

Popplet 

...is cool. It is a mind map that is really easy to use. You can have multiple people working on it too.  

This is an example that was done with the whole class. Notice how all the words weren't used but could have been. It was fun being able to move things around and connect it.

Prezi-Typically a presentation tool (blogged about it here), but it could easily become a mind map as well.

An in Depth Look

Go into more detail on those really difficult words. Take a look at the definition, translation (depends on your view of the use of translations obviously), synonyms, antonyms, the root and the derivatives from the roots, an example sentence, and a picture.

Presentation tool/ Word Processor (Google docs, Zoho, PowerPoint, Word, Open Office, etc.)
Example

Popplet
Example



Prezi could also be used for this as well. An added advantage might be a video embedded as well.

How to Use

Hopefully a lot of these are self explanatory but here are two ways:

One is to assign it as a project. This way you don't necessarily need a class with a computer or whatever. Have students bring in a copy or their computer to share with other students as partners. It can be assigned individually or let them choose their favorite method.

Another way is to build it together as a class. Have the students make the pieces of the parts individually and then as a class come together and build one set.  This is good as a precursor to an individual project because you are giving the scaffolding to do the project individually later.

If you come up with any other uses or programs, please share!

Prezi and QR

Prezi+QR

What it is...

This week I made a Prezi. I admit it wasn't the first time I've used it, but it is definitely the best I've made. It is also connected with a QR code information gap activity for some production.

Prezi is a presentation tool that zooms.

If you don't know what a QR code is, check this out.

If you want a list of QR code readers for smart phones, check this out. iOS, Droid, Black Berry.

In a nut shell, the idea is that students know about "didja" or "didya"

Level

High beginner to low intermediate

Materials

• Computer and projector for the Prezi.
• Each student (or half) needs to have a QR Code reader or even half. If not, the QR part can be removed.
• Handouts.

I+1

Students will need to at least have been introduced to past simple verbs and how to make a question with them. Knowing short and long answers are also helpful.

Goals

Students will recognize and use relaxed pronunciation in past simple questions.

Students will understand that

• There is informal and formal speech and when to use it
• There are rules to relaxed pronunciation

Students will be able to…

• Pronounce “did” with pronouns in questions
• Listen to informal register using “did”

Students will know…

• Relaxed Pronunciation
• Past simple questions and answers

Lesson Plan

Go over the Prezi. Let them hear the examples and ask questions.

Did ya? on Prezi

Follow up with the QR code activity. It tells a little story. I had the students go around the room and ask each other, looking for the answer to their question. The students can then copy down each other's questions.

What to Take Away

Prezi is a pretty fun way to do presentations. I still see the use of PowerPoint in that it can have individual moving text. The benefit of Prezi is that it A) looks cool, and B) gives students a bigger question and reviews often. Check out a list of benefits and disadvantages for Prezi here.

QR code is interesting. I'd been using it to just have students look at a website or something else. It could potentially be used as a link to have students follow along on for a Prezi, which is one of the functions of it.  It seems like a cool information gap activity. It might also work well for a scavenger hunt activity as well.

Revealing Attitudes

Revealing Attitudes about Writing

Introduction

This is a little exercise that I have done on a first day of a writing class to spark conversation and get students to really let you know how they feel about writing. I got this idea after reading an old, but good, article about writing.

Goals

• Reveal student attitudes to writing
• Icebreaker
• Preview
• Journal
• Motivate

Preparation

First make a Poll Everywhere account. Make a new poll with the question "How do you feel about writing?"

You can keep it open ended or have multiple choice answers such as:

• I'd rather do something less painful like jump off a bridge.
• I'll do it, but complain bitterly because I'm bored.
• I like it okay if the topic is good.
• Why aren't we writing right now? My pen aches!

Or even hate, dislike, like, love could be answers.

A journal entry work sheet

In Class

1. Have students take the survey and see each others results. (If you don't have a computer screen/ projector, write out or hand out the instructions. You can then see the results on your phone or laptop or whatever and read them to the class)
2. Discuss answers after reading the results and find out what students like and don't like about writing.
3. Follow up with the journal entry work sheet where you discuss the following quote and then write.

"A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket." -Charles Peguy

Let's Do This

I Pledge

I hereby pledge to create an ESL activity, project, lecture, conversation, whatever, that integrates technology in the classroom. I pledge to update once a week (or untill I want to blow my brains out).

Activities will be conscientiousness of resources that teachers have. Activities will be easy to use, regardless of teacher/student skill with technology. Activities will engage students and immerse them in an activity to pull the idea apart and play.