How can I use technology with young learners?

With great tips on what to think about in terms of keeping your young learners safe, focused and engaged, find out Pete's answer by watching the video below:

And don't forget to find out answers to the other digital questions we've answered by browsing our Youtube channel!

Becca

Check out more from Digital Awareness Month by following the links below:

How can you teach speaking online and through technology?

Skype, podcasts and social media

Self-access centres: should you or shouldn't you?

It seems that the internet has the biggest influence on how we curate content nowadays. However Google is now seen as an old way of searching for content and social networks have become our content filters. We see knowledge as the property of a network rather than something that is in each of us. We find our social channel on the basis of what interests us and as a result our networks provide us with the most relevant and best content available.

Tools for curation

Flickr Gallery

Everyone is probably familiar with flickr.com, an online photo management and sharing application. The difference between Flickr Gallery and Flickr is that by using Flickr Gallery you can access the albums full of images that follow a theme or key word. You simply curate other people's photos and have a chance to use amazing images with students to inspire them to write an essay, start a very engaging discussion or simply revise vocabulary. It's a very interesting way to include images in your classes. You may have a student who would like to share their gallery during a lesson.

Cowbird.com

Cowbird is a community of storytellers, which provides storytelling tools for free. It's a platform where people come to tell stories and thus build a network of storytelling. You can search by key words as stories are based on topics e.g. jobs. You can connect to the story and continue it. It could be a great writing assignment and a place for students to use their creative side. How much more exciting it would be to complete a writing assignment about the home using this platform?

Click on the image above to read the story.

Pinterest

The content on Pinterest is focused on images and once again can be a great resource to use during class. When you use search by some key words you will get a selection of amazing photos, which you could use as a warm-up activity or to start off a discussion about stereotypes and countries.

Learning Playlists

Mentormob.com

It's an online learning platform which allows anyone with a passion for what they do to curate websites, videos, and blogs. You simply create a Learning Playlist and fill it in with all kinds of digital content. Instead of searching alone and spending hours filtering down relevant content, people around the world can share what is the best out there and take what's best from the experts.

Learnist.com

You can create a Learn Board on a subject you're studying and add ‘learnings’ by pointing to existing web videos, blogs, images and documents. You can find relevant content quickly too, as you can collaborate with your students. Set up a topic and ask students to find suitable content for the topic.

Themeefy.com

You start with an idea then grab content and create your own magazine, which flips like a book. You can read it online, share via social media channels or simply download.

Worth exploring

Scoop.it

It is an online magazine where you gather articles from the websites you visit and organize them in your very own magazine. You no longer have to jump from website to website; now you have everything organized in one place. You can find details on how you could use it with your students in one of our previous postings here.

Trap.it

At the moment it's only available to download for iPads. It uses AI technology and uses your feedback to know exactly what you like about a given topic and sends over the most relevant online content for you. The content simply gets to you!

Edutecher.net

The website helps educators and schools to effectively integrate technology and web tools into the classroom. It's a great site and I highly recommend trying and using it with your students.

Zite

Zite evaluates millions of new stories every day, looking at the type of article, its key attributes and how it is shared across the web. Zite uses this information to match stories to your personal interests and then delivers them automatically to your iPad or iPhone.

Edsurge

It provides you with an overview of education technology world in a newsletter format.  It helps you to discover the best products and how to use them.

Joanna

To celebrate the end of our month of digital awareness we will be giving away goodie bags at @macmillancampus to the first person who correctly answers on Twitter any of our digital questions at different times throughout next week from Monday 29th April –Friday 3rd May 2013.

If you don't want to miss out on a chance to win a goodie bag follow us on Twitter @macmillancampus and keep your eyes peeled for the questions next week!

Joanna

But once a year I get to fully immerse myself in the world of English language teaching at the IATEFL annual conference hosted by the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language. This conference encapsulates the creativity, energy and enthusiasm you'd expect from bringing together 2,500 of the most motivated teachers and presenters in ELT and I think it represents the very best of the English teaching world.

The onestopenglish team was kept busy at this year's conference in Liverpool. Back in August, we launched a “Creativity in the Classroom” Scholarship to IATEFL 2013, asking creative English language teachers to tell us about new and inventive ways they engage with students in class. The winner, Ana Maria Menezes from Brazil, won the scholarship with her '10 tasks challenge', a project in which students use the language they learn in class to produce content using 10 different digital tools. With 20 years of teaching experience, Ana Maria is no stranger to continuous professional development, but it was her dream to go to IATEFL and it was great to meet her at the conference.

We also sponsored two of our regular authors to present at the conference. Luke Vyner, co-author with his brother James of 'A Ghost's Guide to London', delighted our senses with a talk on 'Using sound as a creative stimulus for language learning'. He showed how rich, multi-layered, ambient soundscapes can provide context for understanding that goes beyond language by provoking an emotional response, as well as providing opportunities for extensive digital storytelling.

Nik Peachey, author of our 'Tech tools for teachers' series, engaged our critical faculties with a talk on 'Evaluating web-based tools for language instruction'. He practises what he preaches, commanding a range of web tools to elicit audience participation. We commented, said hello and contributed generally via a so-called backchannel (defined as, 'everything going on in the room that isn’t coming from the presenter') on Todaysmeet.com. Later on we offered ideas and voted on them as a group via Tricider.com. You can watch Nik's presentation and find out more about the web tools and apps we reviewed in the presentation on the IATEFL/British Council website.

On the Wednesday night we let our hair down at the Macmillan party. As biased as I am, I'm sure plenty people would agree that Macmillan consistently puts on the best conference party. This year in Liverpool, it was at the Cavern Club, home of the Beatles, and we danced the night away to the Cavern Club Beatles, a tribute band so authentic that the tribute Paul had learnt to play the guitar left-handed for absolute authenticity!

I'm now back at my desk, catching up with emails and firmly back in the daily grind, but reminded, as I am each year, of why I do my job.  

Claire

Should I open a self-access centre?

To find out the answer, and things you should think about before making this decision, check out the video below.

And don't forget to subscribe to our Youtube  channel to get notified of more of our videos!

Becca

Check out more from Digital Awareness Month by following the links below:

How can you teach speaking online and through technology?

Skype, podcasts and social media

 How can I use technology with young learners?

In this week's videos we're looking at a couple of tools that you're probably used to using for yourself. If you're teaching in a country away from your family and friends, chances are you'll have phoned home now and again using Skype. But Fitta from Indonesia wanted to know how you can use it in the classroom. Skype, WebEx and other similar software are becoming more and more useful for distance classes and Nana will take you through some of the key things to remember.

Something else you might have heard about are podcasts. Maybe you've heard the word bandied around on radio shows or at conference talks and wondered just what they are and how you can actually use them. Well if that sounds like you, you're not alone. Eleni from Greece wrote to us asking the same question and in this video I try to take you through the basics.

Finally, on a different note, Phil from France has been despairing about digital distractions in class. Are your students tediously texting non-stop? Always fooling around on Facebook? It can be annoying when you're trying to teach, but in the first of this week's videos, I suggest some ways you can deal with the issue and even incorporate some students' love of all things online to enhance their English-learning experience.

If you've missed any of the previous videos in our series, which include using digital for speaking practice, using apps in the classroom and searching for Business English resources, just head to our YouTube channel and stay tuned for next week's selection where me and Nana will be answering questions from people just like you.

Peter

Check out more from Digital Awareness Month by following the links below:

How can you teach speaking online and through technology?

Self-access centres: should you or shouldn’t you?

How can I use technology with young learners?

My favourite talk I went to on the first day of the conference was MLearning: is it a portable circus or just an illusion.

MLearning is about learning on the move and enables us to learn anywhere and anytime. The important thing is that it is restricted to the mobile devices as the name would suggest, but rather the range of portable devices which can be accessed regardless of our location. The key element is 'connectivism', which allows people to be connected and network.

The Illusion of MLearning

One of the biggest misunderstandings about using tablets is the fact that their usage is quite often restricted to the classroom work. Using tablets shouldn't substitute the paper version of the material but rather create something that couldn't be done without technology. When institutions and teachers are making a decision about applying tablets in their teaching they should think whether they are going to use the tablets for MLearning or MLearning for tablets. 

How to integrate MLearning

1. Set objectives
2. Provide on-going training
3. Teach kids about the staying safe online
4. Create a protocol for parents
5. Set rules about when and why to switch off the tablets

How to search for apps

One of the most popular ways to look for interesting apps is via your social network, iTunes or GooglePlay.  Additional ways of searching for apps are:

Quixey
App Crawl

Framework for teaching with apps

Apps can help teachers to teach the following online skills:

Searching- looking for content online e.g. Google
Bookmarking- saving interesting content for the future reference e.g. Evernote, Pocket
Organizing- working with the online content and organizing it e.g. edmodo, maxapp
Creating- generate online content e.g. imovie, stay kid
Sharing- exchange content using social media channels e.g. Facebook, Twitter

Other useful apps:

U-Pad Lite:
It lest you take notes but most importantly you can fill in the forms, signs it and everything takes just a couple of minutes. It's very handy when you are applying to take part in a training session, conference, etc.

Educreations:
This app turns your iPad into a smart board as well as it lets you record your voice!

Storykit:
It's especially useful with young learners. Students create stories, add text, pictures and as it is for the true storytelling they can record their voice when they tell the story. If you are using social media channels in your teaching you could share the stories via social networks.

Why use MLearning?

It definitely provides your students with the affective context. It's also effective as it means learning when you need to and your students are not restricted by place or time. As for the teacher, there's no need to push information to the students as they can pull the information themselves.

Conclusions

Schools should:

a. Develop a technology plan on how to start and work with technology
b. Create a policy for the tablet use
c. Set up a primary control over the downloading and synchronising apps.

Teachers should be involved in the decision making process; they shouldn't be the last to find out that there's a plan to start applying technology

Students should be allowed to keep and use tablets

Isil Boy, the presenter, delivered an ideas-packed talk, inspired by the book The Night Circus.

Pop in tomorrow to find out what's happened on Day 2 of IATEFL 2013.

And those of you lucky ticket holders for the Macmillan Party and we will see you all at the Cavern tonight!

Joanna

And, whether you’re able to join as at the event or not, you can keep up with all of the excitement and essential information by joining us here on BlendedMEC, as well as Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Why not let us know your top IATEFL tips?

Last but not least, for those of you with us in Liverpool, why not come and check out one or two of our talks? You may even get to see some familiar BlendedMEC faces! Keep the following dates in your diary:

Tuesday 9th April 10.50-11.35: Joanna Trzmielewska, Encouraging Collaborative Learning

Tuesday 9th April 12.55-13.25: Pedro Moura and Annie Altamirano, Designing Online courses: a case study from Macmillan Practice Online

Wednesday 10th April 16.25-16.55: Sarah Milligan, Do something you don’t want to do, every day

Friday 12th April 11.10-11.40: Peter Newman and Ilja Van Lunteren, Practical tips for taking the plunge with technology

More information about all of these talks, including where you can find them can be found here.

Check back soon for more news live from IATEFL 2013!

We'll be releasing new videos every week throughout April, and this week, the first few videos have been made available on our dedicated Youtube channel!

To kick off this exciting series, we answered a very popular question:

How can you teach speaking online and through technology?

Watch the video below to discover Peter and Nana's suggestions!

Keep your eyes peeled throughout April for more exciting videos! Why not subscribe to our Youtube channel to get updates when new videos are available? Even better!

Becca

Check out more from Digital Awareness Month by following the links below:

Skype, podcasts and social media

Self-access centres: should you or shouldn’t you?

How can I use technology with young learners?

Have a lovely Easter.

 We look forward to bringing you more from the world of ELT soon!

Joanna, Becca, Peter, Julie and Kirsty