Wikis!
The great thing about wikis is that they allow students to combine their ideas in a single text, that everyone is allowed to edit. By using wikis on certain topics it is possible to document the learningt process of a whole group (in contrast to most of the other methods below, that concentrate on individuals). So, everyone will be able to profit from other’s ideas or can correct mistakes. In a way, using a wiki is like having a discussion – with the difference that, in the end there is, hopefullly, a clearly structured and readable product.

I can very well imagine to use wikis in class: if the pupils work over a longer period of time on a certain topic, e.g. while reading a novel it certainly may be useful to have a wiki that expands with the growing knowledge of the students. Here they could collect information on the author, the characters, the single chapters and so on. Ideally, there would be a finished product, in which everyone (including the teacher, if necessary) would have taken part – and everyone can profit from.

The only problem I see in this form of class-supplement is the same as I see in many online forms of learning and teaching: While it may be new and interesting to have a wiki in the first weeks, it will probably become a rather unwelcome task sooner or later. So, if a wiki does not work on a volontarily basis, should teachers ask their students to write something in there as additional homework? And if they do so, how should they control who did how much? It will probaly be best to let the students write their findings of actual homework down in the wiki, which has the nice side effect that the students will probably work more thoroughly if their comrades can read their work, too.

“Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.”

Possible ways of using wordle in the classroom:

• check style of piece of writing (often used words will stand out)
• create sentences,  e.g. if-sentences
• collect/ introduce vocabulary
• capturing key points
• introductory exercises – text in wordle -let students guess what it could be about
• work with poems, maybe dissolve them in wordle and create a new one
• reflection on specific topic
• …

I’m not yet sure if every of  the above mentioned possibilities is really useful and feasible, but what I’m certain about is that wordle has a lot of potential for the classroom. The key-fact here is simply that it is a new and different way of doing familiar things – more diversity is always motivating. Aditionally, every wordle is an eye-catcher and thus will increase students interest. Of course only as long as it stays a new and interesting thing – so I would advise to use wordle only occassionally as an addition to other methods: diversity is the key!

“Moodle (noun) – acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. An on-line learning management system (LMS), designed to create opportunities for rich interaction between teachers and learners.

to moodle (verb) – process of enjoyable tinkering that often leads to growing knowledge, insight and creativity. It applies both to the way moodle was developed, and to the way we may use it to teach and learn.”

• it’s a on-line-learning  platform (free!) that allows teachers to create on-line courses by uploading material (e.g. reading assignments), create databases (also with the results of students’ tasks) and start or encourage discussions among the students concerning relevant topics. And, most importantly, it enables the teacher to observe what the students are doing e.g. how much time they spend on the platform.
• students can find all the material relevant for the course without having to leave the house and are able to interactively communicate both with the teacher and the other learners. They can also open new discussion topics and share material e.g. by showing the others interesting links concerning the course.

The question of main interest in our course is, as always :

Is it helpful to use moodle in class?

As we experienced last week it is possible to have real ‘class’ without actually attending to class.  So if, for whatever reason, the teacher can not be with the students, moodle is an excellent way to teach anyway. Having worked with the moodle platform for some time now, I can only affirm that it is a great (and fun!) way of working: new material can be constantly looked up, any open questions can be discussed in the forum and it is definitely helpful to share your results and findings with other members of the course. So for a seminar like ours, that meets only once a week and has its focus on autonomous learning anyway,  moodle is an ideal method of enriching the ‘classroom’.

But in school the absence of a teacher without proper stand-in will be the case only exceptionally. And in normal proceedings all the things possible in moodle, like the supply of material and discussions  should actually be happening in class. To additionally use moodle would probably be unnecessary. Though one could argue that moodle is ideally fit for teaching languages, as it can not only supply the students with authentic reading and audio(-visual) material but gives them also the opportunity to write both in adequate English as meant to be published and interact in everyday speech. But after all, you can do most of the things that moodle offers also via blogs, except for the discussions. And those are better dealt with right in class, where everyone is present – in the end one of the main aims of teaching English is speaking! On-line supplements cannot be a replacement  for real interaction, especially with regards towards pronunciation and intonation, which are essential according to the core curriculum, p.22 (2006).

These were my first reactions after initially learning about and with moodle; I still maintain those arguments speaking against using moodle in the classroom, but as the discussion about moodle goes on and on, I feel that this learning platform deserves some further thoughts.

by listening to podcasts:

• There are loads of podcasts available on the web concerning topics that are dealt with in class, why not use them and let the students listen to native speakers (in best case-scenario) at the same time in order to improve their listening skills?
• Empasis on listening in general: A lot of people already listen to news via podcasts, for example while commuting to work. Encourage your students to do the same, but only in English!

by producing podcasts:

• One way to let students practice pronunciation (also see discussion in moodle ) – it gives them the possibility to listen to their own speech samples and detect mistakes they may not be aware of in normal conversation. And it should be easier to concentrate on pronunciation in relative privacy while recording a podcast than in normal classroom atmosphere.
• Podcasts would also be a great way to present the results of any class project. Instead of creating a poster or writing the results on a transparency, students could let the rest of class listen to what they found out. (Btw: Might also be good for rather shy students, because they won’t be directly exposed in front of class and would have the chance to practice before actually recording.)

This WebQuest is designed for students in 9th or 10th grade and requires them to work in groups on the topics of Politics, Privileges and privacy, the First Ladies and ‘Special Cases’ of American Presidents. The aim for the class is that their ‘company’  develops the best journal containing a lot of information about the Presidents of the US in order to win a price of 10.000 $. So, in addition to the 4 groups there is also a special job for the Head editor, who organizes and motivates his fellow students and writes an article on his own. On the resources page the students find links to relevant pages for each group, except for the head editor, who has to rely on his own sources. Then there is also an evaluation page that gives hints to the requirements and a teacher’s page that explains the ‘didactical thoughts’ behind this WebQuest.

While I like the idea that the students are working together on a common goal that is not abstract, but a tangible product in the end, I have some problems with the differentiation of the groups. On the one hand it is positive that the students are able to choose a topic according to their interests but on the other it is stated that some are more complex than others which makes comparability and evaluation a bit difficult. The idea behind this is of course that each student should be given a task according to his or her abilities, but then the teacher would have to assign groups instead of letting them choose freely. The same applies for the special job of the head editor, which is designed for very good students. If there are such students in the class I would probably give them the opportunity to do an extra article on their own and give the responibility over the single groups to others, so that nobody would feel slighted.
As for the overall topic, which is of course intended to motivate the students, I think that the concept of a competition is well-meant but makes only sense if they are really competing against someone.

Still, apart from the criticism above, I think that this WebQuest would be a fun excercise for students and gives them the opportunity to improve not only their writing skills and the way they look for information in the web, but is also great for their social skills.

http://www.ulricianum-aurich.de/10a/holes/holes_start.htm

On this site the sudents give an introduction to the book and the main characters. There is also a photo-story and little articels on important aspects of the book, written by small groups or individual students. You can also find an extensive list of links to relevant pages, such as the author’s biography and bootcamps in general (the book’s plot takes place in a desert bootcamp for juvenile delinquents). In addition to the topic relevant articles, the students introduce their class and the way they worked -with lots of funny pictures- and have a feedback page.

As to the didactical value of this project: First of all, I believe that there is a great similarity to working with blogs, so some of the didactical effects are closely related. The students are able to document their learning process, see how much they have already accomplished and can show others tangible proof of that. Again, making their work public is in my opinion a good way to ensure not only careful work, but lets the students also be proud of it, especially when they get positive feedback from others. Also, working with the web is probably more fun for the students than the textbook work they are used to. And the resulting site gives them a great overview on the novel and can serve for later reviewing of the topic, e.g. as  a preparation for an exam.

An advantage over working with blogs may be that here the students present their work as a class effort and don’t feel the pressure of direkt comparison and competition when they have a blog each.

What could be of less didactical value is the fact that creating this site was probably not as easy as blogging – and to learn how to do it may have been frustrating or consumed time that was actually meant to be spent working on the topic at hand, namely the novel ‘Holes’.

When googling ‘blogs & English lessons’, you receive countless results, so this rather new form of teaching and learning is developing quite fast.

Another form of blogging is a sort of tutorial blog e.g.

http://www.whitesmoke.com/blog/

that offers general advice in grammar or writing to English learners in the form of posts. Here students can look things up they don’t know yet or have trouble with, such as the passive voice. Of course the correcness of the posts isn’t guaranteed, so when in doubt of the reliability of the source, you should better double-check.

Then there is also a number of blogs that are more relevant for teachers like this one

http://thelinguist.blogs.com/how_to_learn_english_and

that offers opinions on questions such as ‘Does it help to correct mistakes in language learning?’ and general language learning.

various blogs on the novel ‘heat and dust’ show how learners can keep record of what they have been doing in class as well as at home by

- creating summaries of each chapter (creating a reading diary)
- concentrating on single aspects – such as characterizing the protagonists
+ sharing their work with their classmates and teacher.

By making their work public, they are probably more liklely to work intensively and carefully, because their posts will be read and evaluated by others, which results in beautiful work.  See here:

http://donathlk.wordpress.com/heat-blogs/

teacher blog

It’s a useful thing for a teacher to start a blog – all kinds of information such as links or new assignments can be shared easily and quickly with the students. Also, having a course blog as a reference to topics discussed in class might be a refreshing and motivating form of teaching. By the way, creating a blog isn’t that difficult (I’m just experiencing it myself) – you don’t need any prior knowledge.

learner blog

Of course learners can have blogs, too. This way they can document their learning process – for example by creating a diary on the book read currently in class. It is also possible for the learners to discuss and share answers to assignments among themselves or have them checked by their teacher.

For further information see:

http://www.englisch.schule.de/blogs.htm