Great search engines for teachers and students

There is abundance of search engines available and most of us resort to using Google (and I love it too). There are, however, quite a lot of new, less popular tools that help us find information on the web. I have listed here some of my favourite search tools, each for its own unique features.

Twurdy is a great tool for students because it sorts the findings according to the readability level, i.e. the texts that are easier to read and understand are shaded in lighter colour while the more complicated texts have a darker colouring. This saves the precious student time as they can choose to read the easier texts first.
The name "Twurdy" comes from a play on words with the question "Too Wordy?" - a quote from the website.

My latest favourite - instaGrok search engine - is rich and versatile and saves a lot of your effort and time which you would spend looking for the necessary information, related videos or images.
instaGrok not only finds quality educational materials, but helps learners make sense of them - a quote from the website.

instaGrok displays links, images, concept maps (cool feature!), definitions of related words and terms, videos and even quizzes related to your search, all well-organised and easy to access.

If you register, you can get a summary of all your activities on instaGrok by visiting the page myGrok. If you want your students to provide proof of their online work, ask them to register and share their myGrok page with you.

Oolone is a visual search engine which lets you preview the selected webpages instantly. I typed "climate change" in the search box and got these results. For people who love to see the things before they "buy" them, this tool is indispensable.

PhotoPin is brilliant just for one reason - it searches creative commons photos which are free to download without any fear of breaking the copyright rules.

If I were a kid, I'd love this search engine KidRex because it looks as if it has been made by kids for kids.
The tool searches websites that are kids-friendly and safe, the results are carefully filtered.
If I were a primary school teacher, I'd teach my students how to use this tool.




 

There is also a lovely gallery of kids' drawings.
"KidRex is the best Google!" ♥

Webquest: Festivals and Holidays

Image by OLD SKOOL Cora

A few days ago I did an activity with my students which has been a little disregarded lately - the webquest.

I remember at the dawn of using computers for learning, webquests were rather popular possibly because other web activities had not been "invented" yet. Webquests meant students could get access to the computers and have a jolly time online, especially because computers were rare in their homes.

A webquest is a creative and dynamic activity requiring some web search skills. Students usually like webquests because they get a chance to spend a lesson in the computer room (if it is not homework) and do what most of them like - browse the web.

My 16 year old students had just studied the topic of festivals and traditions and what seemed to me a logical follow-up was their independent work on summing up the basic info about the most popular holidays. We did the activity in the computer lab and the hardest part was that the students did not have any links provided but had to find the information relying only on their own search skills.
The chart they had to fill in asked for the date and place of the original holiday, traditional food, drinks and activities.

Take a look at one of the charts completed by the student.
 

Here is the handout. You may print or download it. If you feel like removing some of the festivals I have included in the chart or add your own, go ahead.

All in all, it was a productive and win-win classroom activity.

The Domination Game by @teflgeek

I learned about this fantastic game accidentally while visiting the teflgeek's blog. Great blog with a lot of useful ideas!
I immediately saw how I could use it with my students for revising certain grammar or vocabulary items.

The game is played in teams, four to be precise, and the goal is to win as many squares as possible.

I made a grid of 30 squares with numbers for the questions and some additional "home" and "centre" squares. I prepared a list of questions 1-30 which had to be answered by looking for answers in the course book.
The teams picked a colour and took turns in choosing a square and providing the correct answer. If the answer was right, the square took the team's colour. If the answer was wrong, the team lost the move and the square remained blank.

To make the game a little more challenging, the teams could get an additional point if they won 3 squares in a row (see squares 2, 11 and base) or 3 squares touching with their sides in a different configuration. They could also win one of the central squares if they surrounded it "by their colour" (see squares 9, 3, 15 + the central square). They could also surround the opponent's square on 3 sides and then the square was won over and changed its colour.
The original game was slightly different but I easily adapted it to the level of my 14 year old students.

To tell the truth, counting the points for me was the trickiest part as I was sitting at the computer and using Paint to change the colour of the squares right away plus checking if the answers given by the students were correct. In the end students helped me to count the points and made sure I did not overlook anything.
This is how the grid looked at the end of the game.

My biggest thanks to David Petrie whose idea I took, adapted and used very successfully. My students loved the game and, as usual in such cases, asked for more. I am thinking about it.

Just one question to @teflgeek. Why "domination"?

Happy New Year!

Google+ Hangouts to Teach EFL

This is a Christmas gift for me and you - a guest post by Marina Salsbury who has already been my guest before.
Thank you Marina!







Google+ has formally been around for less than a year, but it's already turning into the online social network of choice for educators. For language teachers, especially those who teach English as a Foreign Language (EFL), Google+ can be used as a tool to augment learning and as a virtual classroom. As a learning subject, EFL demands a lot of teacher-student engagement and interaction, something that Google+ excels at. In higher learning environments such as masters or PhD programs, habitual conversation is one of the best ways to retain a language, so having an online avenue to converse will be highly beneficial for language learners.

Hangouts are essentially videoconferencing sessions on Google+ which can accommodate up to 10 people. Hangouts With Extras are enhanced online meetings that incorporate text chat, a sketchpad and other collaborative tools. Google has added many features to Hangouts, one of the most innovative being a smart video switching system, which automatically switches the onscreen camera view to the parties that are talking at the moment.

One-on-one EFL teaching or tutoring is the first function that comes to mind when considering Google+ hangouts for education. Skype has already been extensively used for this purpose for a few years. While Hangouts may be effective for traditional one-on-one EFL instruction, they truly shine for group sessions and have already being used by casual English conversation clubs.

When it comes to language instruction, EFL teachers tend to enjoy full attention from their students. This same level of concentration translates well to a Hangout session. In traditional classroom sessions, EFL students must listen and wait for their turn to verbalize the skills they have acquired. This allows students to learn from each other as well. EFL teachers should remind their students that on Hangout sessions they must wait for their peers to finish speaking; otherwise the video auto-switching feature will be enabled and become disruptive.

EFL study groups are already making Google+ their home, and thanks to the ability to integrate a video that's posted on YouTube, they are conducting Hangout sessions in which they watch, learn and discuss video material. English teachers are increasingly alerting their peers to the features that make Google+ a great educational tool, and others are discussing how the integration of Google Docs can augment EFL teaching.

My reflections on using Papershow in class

When I first wrote about Papershow digital toolkit, I promised to give my feedback about the tool.
Now I have tried it out in the classroom with my students and here are some of my thoughts.

Basically, the tool consists of a digital notepad and a bluetooth pen. What is written in the notepad is seen on the screen. The teacher can choose whether to show the pad at the beginning of the activity or reveal the outcome at the end.

I tried all the activities mentioned on the Papershow website, such as mindmapping, checking and correcting student handwriting, doing dictations, checking spelling, taking notes (in groups and individually).

How else did I use Papershow with my students?

• Students made a list of difficult key words from the text they had studied.
• Students in groups studied idioms and wrote the most interesting ones in the notepad.
• Students put down their ideas of healthy / unhealthy food items.
• Students listed the causes of global warming.
• Students brainstormed ideas for an essay.

After each activity students' notes were discussed, they could see what other groups had done, read what other students had written. This is one of the main advantage of the Papershow tool. It produces immediate visual response, and I think this is what attracts students, especially younger, to this gadget.

The use of the tool may involve each student in the classroom and make them active participants in the learning process. For younger students it really makes a difference if they use a plain pen and write in their workbooks or use a "magic" pen to write in a special notepad.

Now my few cautious critical remarks.

The initial excitement and interest quickly wore off once the students had understood how the tool worked (or not worked). Unfortunately the pen did not work in the distance of the promised 10 metres, it did not even work 5 metres from the computer. Students had to move closer to the front or I sometimes gave the pad to those sitting at the front desks. They even made up a joke that the bluetooth ray of the digital pen was too short for their classroom (no more than 4 x 6 m).
The older students realised (and told it to me) that the pen was fun but it was actually a waste of time. I had to agree with them.

Perhaps I and my students have been too serious (we had our bit of fun though) or my expectations have been too high, but I am going to pass the toolkit on to a colleague.
 

How I use Linoit in class

I have tried using rather many websites which are created for posting sticky notes but recently I realised that my favourite site is linoit.com. Here are two examples how I used it with my students.

The ones who are a little more experienced digital users (14 years old) were asked to post their answers to a simple question about their future jobs. We had just finished studying the theme about jobs and they were ready to give their opinion about the topic. Check out their answers here. They have a class blog, so they did not experience any difficulties posting their replies.

The other students (aged 15) had never used interactive tools before, this was their first attempt of posting something online.
The task was elementary - they had to complete a grammar exercise in the classroom and (after showing it to me) immediately go to the media library one by one, enter the website (I had supplied the address) and post the exact time. I stayed in the classroom and watched them posting the stickies. When they returned to the classroom, we discussed the tool and its possible uses.
Needless to say, they were delighted with the activity, especially after they had attached the picture of the naughtiest boy in class. For beginners, their joy was natural, and I had reached my aim - to get them interested in using web tools for making learning more exciting.

#ELTBITES Challenge

Richard Gresswell, the @inglishteacher, has invited the teachers to share their bite-size lesson activities. The activity should be done with minimal resources, just some paper and a pen. Great idea and useful at that!

Here is mine, adaptable to any age.

Spy Adam!

The aim of the activity – to practise describing someone’s daily activities.

1. Divide the students into 3 groups.  Try to put an equal number of students in each group.

Each student in the group has to describe Adam’s (pick whatever name you prefer) activities for a certain period of the day. Tell the first group the time – from 6am till midday, the second group – from midday till 6pm, the 3rd group – from 6pm till midnight. If you wish to include the night, stretch the period.

2. At the beginning of the lesson read an introductory paragraph about Adam. Give Adam’s background, mention some peculiar features, e.g. Adam is afraid of the dark, he is scared of bees, he hates hamsters, he plays the flute, he knows Swahili, etc. Students have to include this feature in their stories. Encourage them to make up funny situations and strange incidents.

3. Remix groups - pick one student from each group and put them together in new groups of three. Students read their stories to the other group members and they decide if they have got a realistic story.

4. At the end of the lesson, the teacher decides which story has been the most coherent or captivating.

Looking forward to new ideas from other teachers and Richard himself.

My favourite web tools now

We all have our favourite web tools and technologies that we prefer to use in our work. This is the word cloud of my favourites at this moment. It is highly possible that in a few months my preferences will be different.

I use Weebly and Posterous for class blogs.
Vocaroo is indispensable for audio homework.
Penzu is great for student online writing (journals, essays, reflections)
I can't imagine my work without PowerPoint.
Linoit is fantastic for short student reponses.
Wordle and Tagxedo are the tools for making word clouds (like this one which I made with Wordle).
WordDynamo is my newest favourite site for making interactive vocabulary quizzes.
Bubbl and SpicyNodes create great mind maps.
Kubbu is a wonderful tool for making interactive online exercises.
Glogster helps to create attractive online posters.
Flisti is just one of the numerous poll creating sites.
YouTube has always been the site where I find most videos that I need.
IrfanView is a simple (and therefore easy to use) picture editing tool.
Moodle is the platform I use with my older students.

The roles we play on forums

Have you ever posted a message on a public forum? Why did you post it? What did you want to say? What made you choose the particular forum - topic relevance, familiar people or urgent / desperate need for help?
Whenever we decide to make an appearance on a public site, we have two options - be invisible, i.e. anonymous or reveal our name. These are two totally different conditions which determine our online behaviour.

People who post intelligent, balanced and relevant comments are lifeblood to any successful forum discussion.
The worst type are anonymous discontented forum users who give vent to their anger or malice. I have seen thousands of comments posted by such people on national websites and it has always made me wonder about the true nature of anonymity. Does it automatically gives you freedom to abuse other people or is it a shield to protect you - from what?

If the forum is closed as in elearning environment, people coming to forums have a certain aim in mind, and usually it is posting for study purposes. They are never anonymous and it preconditions their sticking to the rules of netiquette. However, during a long time I have observed that there are as many patterns of behaviour on forums as there are participants. Active, coherent and responsive people are emoderators' joy. There are the brash ones and there are the considerate, there are the shy and the headstrong, the diligent and the idle. And there are lurkers. Reading, observing, watching, waiting, posting only when they cannot avoid it.

I have known the website Flame Warriors for years. It gives a huge list of roles people play on forums, each role supplied with a picture and definition created by an artist Mike Reed - Rebel Leader, Big Cat, Toxic Granny, Coffee Klatch, Bliss Ninny, Fanboy, Lonely Guy, God, Weenie etc.

Even if you don't agree with everything Mike Reed has written, it is worth taking a look at the site, especially if you have to deal with forums - either as a participant or a moderator.