Online conferencing

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Posted on 19th November 2009 by Shaun Wilden in Conference |Teaching |technology

Back in September I posted about the ease of getting ‘free’ teacher development and having a personal learning network via the Internet (view original post here) and I’d like to revisit that in this post. I made reference to how the ELT blogging community and the use of twitter was changing how we teachers can share ideas and bounce around issues.

This is still true but it is only half the story, these days technologies have allowed us to start virtual conferencing as well.  Ok they have been around for a while but they are growing in number. I, like many others, have been popping in and following along when ever I had the chance but so inspiring was a conference last week that I felt it deserved a blog posting

The conference I’m talking about was the virtual round table conference, held over two days and completely free to join in.   Over four hundred people took part and enjoyed presentations and workshops, along with some fascinating roundtable discussions. Ok, I would say that as I took part in one, but all of them gave valuable insights into technology-use and teaching.  Discussing such issues as:

How the past can help us predict the future

What is the future re technology and teaching and how this will effect how we teach

Whether imagination is more important then knowledge

amongst others

All in all 49 presenters gave there time freely to say nothing of Heike and her team of moderators who made the whole event run wonderfully smoothly.   If you missed it then don’t worry the whole thing was recorded and you can go and watch the recording on their website.

The joy of the virtual conference is that you can attend from home – ok you need a computer and a good Internet connection but on the other hand you have no expensive conference fees, travel costs or hotel bills to pay.  You can pop in and out to fit into your schedules and get to share and discuss ideas with teachers from all over the world (55 countries attended the virtual roundtable). What more convenient way could there be for at such a low cost?

Try it for yourself the third ETCon 03 conference is coming up on the theme of – The Future of Teachers in a Global and Digital World and it is free to attend and while your at it join the educator’s PLN which apart from being a great place to learn, discuss and share, is a good place to fine out about other online events.

Until next time…

Shaun

For my students, cos we ran out of time…

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Posted on 19th November 2009 by Shaun Wilden in lessons |Teaching

Hey class,

So we started the video but never got it finished c’est la vie. So you can finish the task here and email me if you have any difficulties. (If you are not in my class – we have been taking a wander through euphemism since doing the pencil in lead video on the main page – pencil in lead being a euphemism . We looked at some common euphemisms, euphemistic job titles and this text).  Any mention of euphemisms naturally has to lead to the dead parrot sketch. The task is watch and complete the tapescript)

The script starts at 1m 04 secs

Mr. Praline: (yelling and hitting the cage repeatedly) ‘ELLO POLLY!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o’clock alarm call!

(Takes parrot out of the cage and thumps its head on the counter. Throws it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor.)

Mr. Praline: Now that’s what I call a dead parrot.

Owner: No, no…..No, ‘e’s __________!

Mr. Praline: __________

Owner: Yeah! You s__________ him, just as he was wakin’ up! Norwegian Blues __________ easily, major.

Mr. Praline: Um…now look…now look, mate, I’ve definitely ‘ad enough of this. That parrot is definitely __________, and when I purchased it not ‘alf an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it bein’ tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk.

Owner: Well, he’s…he’s, ah…probably pining for the fjords.

Mr. Praline: PININ’ for the FJORDS?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that?, look, why did he fall flat on his back the moment I got ‘im home?

Owner: The Norwegian Blue prefers keepin’ on it’s back! Remarkable bird, id’nit, squire? Lovely plumage!

Mr. Praline: Look, I took the liberty of examining that parrot when I got it home, and I discovered the only reason that it had been sitting on its perch in the first place was that it had been NAILED there.  (pause)

Owner: Well, o’course it was nailed there! If I hadn’t nailed that bird down, it would have nuzzled up to those bars, bent ‘em apart with its beak, and 
     VOOM! Feeweeweewee!

Mr. Praline: “VOOM”?!? Mate, this bird wouldn’t “voom” if you put four million volts through it! ‘E’s bleedin’ __________!

Owner: No no! ‘E’s pining!

Mr. Praline: ‘E’s not pinin’! ‘E’s __________! This parrot is __________! He has __________to be! ‘E’s __________and gone to __________ ‘is maker! ‘E’s __________, Bereft of life, ‘e  __________! If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to the perch ‘e’d be __________! ‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s __________, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is __________, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!

10 things to do with this song….

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Posted on 2nd November 2009 by Shaun Wilden in lessons |Teaching |technology

Last week I twittered that I loved the song below so much that I might use it in class.  The song is quite hard to understand so working from the song alone would probably be too much for the class but there are two very good videos of the song on you tube, the official one (a stop-go animation / live action one) then this one made by a fan. The video is so liked by the singer that he has adopted it. This video is almost perfect for classroom room as it acts as a visual back up of the lyrics and also the pictures help with meaning.

There are many ways the song can be used but for me the song fitted into our ongoing theme of collocations and word associations as the song is full of words may well appear together (i.e. sheets and bed / pillow, head). So here’s what I did with and other things the song can be used for.

I made a wordle of all the pair words except one (i.e. I used an odd number of words).  If you like cutting up paper then you could do this as a matching exercise. Here are the lyrics. From the wordle the students had to choose pairs of word they thought would go together. The odd number means that there is an ‘extra word’. This increases the task difficulty and creates a second task  – what word can they think of to make a pair.  Having paired the words then they discuss as a group their choices.  Now play the video, asking them to listen and see if their answers were right (as I teach quite an advanced class , I first played the original video for challenge, they unsurprisingly got very few), after allowing time for them to makes changes to their ideas etc I then played the second video, this time of course they can  see the answers. We played it a few times for them to finalise their answers (i.e. confirm what they got right etc) and because they liked the song.   We then checked together. Being the class they, they needed no prompting to talk about the video but there are lots of things you could do as a follow up.

The song also lends itself to typical song activities such as gap-fill, cut up the order and reorder.  I am sure you can think of many ways to follow up the listening part but here are a few things that spring to mind

  1. Speaking – discuss if any of the things in the song make the students happy.
  2. Speaking – what makes students happy/ brings them down
  3. Speaking – play both videos then discuss them, which do they prefer two videos and then their favourite music videos
  4. Speaking – show them this clip from the jungle book, rumour is that the Paolo Nutini was influenced by it.  So the students discuss if they think this true or not
  5. Reading  – explore more about the singer at his website.
  6. Vocabulary / Structure  - Make your own ‘visuals’. Students think about their own line for the song and then make their own picture as in the video.
  7. Language – Use the song to introduce the structure, ‘I’ve got..’
  8. Task – Make their own wordle of things ‘they’ve got’
  9. Task – Make their own poster for a pop concert or of their own things ‘they’ve got’ on glogster.
  10. Make their own visual flashcard of vocabulary using a site like ‘quizlet’

And if they really like challenge, watch the video and see if they can spot the spelling mistake (pencil) and how may rogue capitals there are :-)

Enjoy the song,

Shaun