6. Meetup: Community Learning

Meetup is the world's largest network of local groups. Meetup makes it easy for anyone to organise a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face. More than 9000 groups get together in local communities each day, each one with the goal of improving themselves on their communities.

Meetup's mission is to revitalise local community and help people around the world self-organise. Meetup believes that people can change their personal world, or the whole world by organising themselves into groups that are powerful enough to make a difference.

Meetups  for ESL teachers and students :)

The advantages of using Meetup:

• get to meet a group of like minded individuals
• sharing of knowledge
• get new ideas, inspiration and motivation
• can be empowered and re-energised

Meetup provides a platform for learners to have an authentic situation in learning. Teachers can the opportunities to share the different teaching method to be more effectively implement in the classroom whereas the students get to stay in touch with the language experts to improve their own learning. 

5. Animoto: Video Production

Currently, there is a great application of technology-based learning in education, which is a rapidly growing phenomenon. In these days, students live in a media-rich environment and interact with a wide range of electron devices both inside and outside of their schools and houses. In technology enhanced language learning, there are tools to improve the collaboration and communication.

In this post, I am going to introduce a web-based tool called Animoto.

• It is designed with a constructivist approach by encouraging the students to navigate, create and construct their knowledge. 
• It offers an interactive environment that allows the students to design learning, to be creative by constructing their own learning experiences. 

The constructivist theory focuses on making connection and meaning in the learning process.

What the students do?

• have their own accounts to make full-length videos while in class and at home.
• can also download their videos. 
• make both in-class and homework assignments easier to do even though an internet connection is not available. 
• create unlimited videos for themselves.
• sharing of ideas
• can post videos they want or download them for in-class presentations. 
• open up a whole new world of possibilities for use in classroom teaching and learning. 

Step-By-Step Instructions:

1. Sign up for Animoto

• Go to www.animoto.com
• Click on the Sign Up link at the top right corner of the screen

• Follow the online instruction to complete the sign up process. 

2. Sign in to Animoto

• Click the Sign In link at the top right corner of the screen

3. Create a Video by choosing the video type you want

4. Share, Edit and Embed your videos

Finally, share your videos with your friends in class :)

4. Golgster : Poster Yourself

Golgster is a Web 2.0 tool that allows users to create virtual posters combining linked or embedded text, video, images and music. Glogster can be used in educational settings as an alternative to traditional poster presentations. 

Glog as Teacher Tool 

• Used to present lessons complete with links to outside resources, with audio and videos related to the subject and topic.
• Support and meet the needs of special education and general education because of the presence of images, audio and videos.
• Fun way to learn by engaging students in the learning process.

Glog as a Student Tool

• Fun and engaging way to learn
• Provide a multisensory outlet for expression
• Sustain the students' attention for longer period of time
• Stimulate creativity

The following is the golgster that I have created  to teach Literature, Fair's Fair.

Fair's Fair

How to get started with Glogster :)

3. Wix : The best website builder

Wix is a good website builder candidate which is suitable for teachers and students. It is an innovative website builder which allows you to create your own website with the readily-made templates available.  

ADVANTAGES OF USING WIX:

Professional looking templates– Wix offers over 510 professional looking templates or you could create your own custom design. Some of these pre-made templates are much more beautiful than what you get from other website builders. If you’re not the creative type and need help in building a beautiful design, Wix’s pre-made templates will really help you get started.

Intuitive Drag & Drop interface– The way to create your website with Wix is based on a drag & drop interface. Pick what you need (image, slideshows, text, etc) and position them wherever you want without any restrictions.  

Create your own website via www.wix.com

Choose the templates that you want :)

I had the experience of creating teaching aids in teaching adjectives and English for Science and Technology (EST) using wix. The following is the wix website created. Have fun learning :)

Adjectives

Diseases Around Us

2. Storybird: Collaborative Storytelling Approach

Storybird is a web 2.0 tool created by Mark Ury that supports the collaborative storytelling with the use of art galleries that inspire people to create stories. It is available at www. storybird.com and learners can activate a free personal account to write narratives using images to create storyboards. 

When creating a storyboard, learners can discuss what they want their story to say, how to structure it and what images to use. The creation of storyboards as a prewriting strategy helps learners develop their writing skill.

Before the invention of web 2.0 tools, digital storyboards were likely to be created by using pictures and/or images from the internet, nowadays web 2.0 tools like Storybird can provide the images learners need, systematically organized. When working on Storybird, learners decide whether writing the story at the same time working synchronously in the classroom, or at home working asynchronously online by switching turns until the end of the story. Storybird has a huge list of galleries, the images can be arranged in slides as preferred and students are able to modify its content. Educators might find it useful at any educative level, from primary school with literacy purposes where English is spoken as the native language, up to higher education and English courses for ESL or EFL students. 

Storybird is a collaborative storytelling tool. Students can choose the art and create their own stories by dragging and dropping pictures and creating a story to match.

This tool is a great tool for the teachers to be implemented in the class to enhance collaborative writing.

Are you ready? Let's get started.

How to sign up for storybird

How to get started :)

How to use storybird to collaboratively

How to embed your storybird in a website

The following is the example of storybird that I have created. Have fun reading :) 

How I Met Your Aunties

1. Edmodo: Language Learning

The rise of the Internet and online communication technologies has changed the way people work, communicate, socialize, and learn as a ‘network society’. 

Research conducted by the British Council in 2007 revealed that 69% of learners around the world said that they learned most effectively when socializing informally, and students with strong social networks performed well academically. Moreover, on-line social networks are an excellent communication tool for knowledge construction based on social relations, conversation, collaboration, and shared work. 

Therefore, in this post I would like to suggest a new media, called Edmodo. This website is a free and secure learning platform designed by Jeff O'Hara and Nick Borg in 2008 for teachers, students, parents, schools, and districts. This site looks similar to Facebook, but is much more private and safe because it allows only teachers to create and manage accounts, and only their students, who receive a group code and register in the group, can access and join the group.

Edmodo is considered quite a “new” media in Malaysia. However, it is widely used by language instructors to promote language learning. LizziePinard (2004) has implemented Edmodo with language learners to make homework more interesting. She took Edmodo as a platform to support the development of their language learning autonomy. She summarized 5 ways of using Edmodo with language learners.

Five Creative Ways of using Edmodo:

1. Article sharing and discussion

This activity gives learners the opportunity to express their thoughts, opinions and ideas related to a newspaper or magazine article and see what others think. This uses both receptive (reading) and productive (writing) skills, and enables authentic, communicative use of language between students outside of class time.

A learner finds an article that he or she thinks is interesting and posts the link to Edmodo, along with a short paragraph explaining why they think it is interesting and an opinion related to the topic.

Other learners in the class can then read the article and respond to the original poster with their own ideas and thoughts.

2. Listening task generation

This activity is adapted from Vandergrift and Goh (2012). They call it a “peer listening task” (Vandergrift and Goh, 2012: kindle loc 3923), whose goal is to facilitate extensive listening. The idea is that learners create a listening task for their classmates to carry out.

Learners find a youtube clip or podcast in English. The students will have to post a link to this clip on Edmodo, along with some questions about it. The teacher checks the questions to make sure they are correct and clear, making any suggestions/corrections by responding to the post.

The learner can edit the questions according to the teacher’s and their friends’ feedback.

3. Time for a chat!

This is a very simple activity but potentially a very beneficial way of recycling language met in class in a communicative, meaningful way.

Any learner may start a conversation on Edmodo, on any topic,by posting a conversation opener. Other learners respond and the conversation develops. This kind of activity has the potential in helping the students to communicate and share their ideas on the related topic in a meaningful way. By doing so, it helps to promote the teaching and learning in class.

The conversation continues until learners run out of things to say.

4. Let’s Cook!

This activity might not be that appealing to all learners but the students will have the opportunities to use the language in the given activity.

Learners have to try and cook friends’ recipes and post pictures of the finished product on Edmodo. They can tell their friends what they think of the recipes and find out what their friends think about their own recipes.

5. Reporting a conversation

Edmodo allows the students to group together in a “club” online” to discuss on certain topics. Subsequently, learners write about it on Edmodo. This kind of activity helps the students to use the language in discussing their favourite topic online. The students subconsciously acquire new vocabularies and learn new ideas in the discussion.