Bottoms Up, it’s a new year

1 comment

Posted on 6th January 2012 by Shaun Wilden in technology |twitter

http://www.disclose.tv/forum/happy-birthday-duck-did-you-think-we-would-forget-t26317.html

Happy New Year everyone. As I start my first conference of the year, I begin to wonder what this year’s conference circuit will hold in store and what new and exciting things I’ll learn.  One thing I hope is that I’ll see more of a ‘bottoms up’ philosophy appearing in workshops and conferences.

Let me explain, I go to a lot of conferences every year and see a lot of talks given by very dedicated, passionate and clearly experienced teachers.  Being both a teacher trainer and a bit of techie I tend to go to those sorts of sessions. Towards the end of last year I was getting a bit fed up.  Borrowing some terminology, sessions seemed to be taking a bit of a ‘top down approach’ to teaching and I started to wonder if we were beginning to lose ourselves in the assumption that everyone understood when we said things like Web 2.0  and ‘use a dogme approach’

“Top-down reading models suggest that processing of a text begins in the mind of the readers with

•           meaning-driven processes, or

•           an assumption about the meaning of a text.”

http://www.sil.org/lingualinks/literacy/ReferenceMaterials/glossaryofliteracyterms/WhatIsATopDownReadingModel.htm

Change ‘reading’ to two of the current topics du jour in EFL  – technology and dogme and you may start to get my drift.

Now before the dogmatists start to get their heckles raised, I am not about to have a go. Contrary to popular belief, I have nothing against dogme bar the unnecessary hype.  I actually think that as a teacher I put into practice many of the principles that dogmatists hold so dearly. For a while people seemed to divide into two camps, those for technology use and those for dogme. Thankfully that divide seems to be disappearing but, in my opinion, what both sides are still culpable of is a tendency to assume everyone in the world is completely comfortable with both, well that and a lot of hyping.  As a result, conference sessions can end up simply saying things like ‘this is a great website’, ‘dogme’ – taking the ‘top down approach’, assuming the audience will leave convinced and able to assimilate and blindly follow what they have just been told.

I think this is exacerbated to some extent by social media networks, quoting Andrew Keen, p.16 The Cult of the Amateur

“The Web 2.0 revolution has peddled the promise of bringing more truth to more people – more depth of information, more global perspective, more unbiased opinion from dispassionate observers. But this is all a smokescreen. What Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis , shrill opinion rather than considered judgment. The information business is being transformed by the Internet into the sheer noise of a hundred million bloggers all simultaneously talking about themselves.”

Thankfully as 2011 wore on some of the voices started to move more into the bottom up approach.

“A bottom-up reading model is a reading model that

emphasizes the written or printed text

says reading is driven by a process that results in meaning (or, in other words, reading is driven by text), and

proceeds from part to whole.”

http://www.sil.org/lingualinks/literacy/ReferenceMaterials/glossaryofliteracyterms/WhatIsABottomUpReadingModel.htm

Applying this to technology use,  I hope that I’ll see sessions that give solid reasons for advocating tech use along with practical ideas that help a teacher integrate it into their teaching if they so wish.  Stop overwhelming with the amount of sites and show one or two and lots of ideas with concrete reasons for using them that way we can more people using  technology productively. Likewise with dogme, let’s have more of the how to do it rather than the ‘just do  it’ approach.  Show people how they can do it, don’t just tweet or announce in a session that dogme is the answer. It really isn’t that easy for a teacher to go against the doctrines of their school even if dogme is better than slavishly following a course book. So the more we show how, the sooner dogme will become more mainstream.

Please don’t get the wrong idea I am really not having a go about any sessions, just musing on what I’d like to see more of and on that note,

See you on the circuit and until then ‘bottoms up’

 

 

 

 

 

Can you help me with the content for a talk please

5 comments

Posted on 7th December 2011 by Shaun Wilden in #eltchat |Conference |IATEFL |IH DoS conference |Shaun's talks |twitter

Thanks for coming to read this. I need your help please, if you can spare a few minutes of your precious time.

As might have seen from twitter, #eltchat is going to have a symposium at IATEFL about social networking. My talk is going to centre on hashtagging.

I’ve decided it would also be a good talk to do at a conference in early January. The downside of that decision is that I now need to plan and write the talk. I thought I’d try and use social networking to provide the content for the talk and that’s where you come in.

I’d like to talk about both the positive and negative things of hashtagging – I think it is important to look at the downsides as we can learn from this as much as the positives.

For me the use of hashtags has made it easier to find everything from activities to apps to conferences. What about you?

What I’d like is short audio and video clips along with some comments from as many of you as possible on the topic ‘What has / hasn’t hashtagging done for you’?

Please send me your contributions via twitter, email (shaunwilden@gmail.com) or via this post.

Thanks

Shaun

As a further point of reference, this is my absract for IATEFL along with the proposed running order of the talk

Abstract
23.08. 07, the day the first # was used on twitter. Since then they’ve come a long way especially for teachers. From an online staffroom to a never-ending resource list, the # is an important part of the ELT. This talk addresses the benefits of hashtagging and answers the doubters by asking what has #hashtagging ever done for us?

Proposed running order
The talk begins with reference to the python sketch discussing ‘What the Roman’s have done” during their occupation of Judea. It uses this to make the analogy to the use of the hashtag on twitter.

In the ‘Roman’s sketch’ people list things that the Roman’s have done while under the impression they have done nothing much. Using this idea, the talk will ask the audience in the room and online to consider what hashtagging has done for them.

It will move on to explore a number of the negative comments people have put forward about hashtags and the use of twitter as a means of teacher education and development. These criticisms include factors such as 140 characters is not a good forum for critical discussion, it’s just a bunch of mates, people simply retweet, there’s too much to read, there’s no control of who says what and so on.

Each comment will be addressed with reference to positive aspects of hashtagging drawing on the work of #eltchat and making reference to other groups such as #breltchat #eltpics, #iatefl etc.

Finally by using ‘talking heads’ video recordings of teachers around the world and the live #eltchat twitter stream, the talk will conclude by looking at how #hashtagging has benefitted teachers in a number of different teaching contexts.

Links and slides from ELT Signpost talks

3 comments

Posted on 12th September 2011 by Shaun Wilden in Conference |Homework |reasons to use technology |Shaun's talks |Teaching |technology |twitter

Before getting to the links, I thought I’d share a video Mark Andrews made while at the conference – though he has made me realise how much I walk around!

This is the bibliography for my talk last Saturday at the ELT signpost conference in Brno

1.  Repetition and learning by heart: an aspect of intimate discourse, and its implications

Guy Cook

2. Learning, Language, Memory, and Reading: The Role of Language Automatization and Its Impact on Complex Cognitive Activities

James M. Bebko York University

3.  OECG

4. Grammar in Songs

5. http://www.writingforward.com/grammar/good-grammar/breaking-the-rules-when-good-grammar-goes-bad

6. Word cloud

7. Memorization and EFL Students’ Strategies at University Level in Vietnam – Duong Thi Hoang Oanh  Hue University,

8. http://www.helium.com/items/1665536-how-traditional-memorization-and-recitation-techniques-help-students-develop-strong-cognitive/print

9.  Memorization

10. Practiced control

11. Being observant  – onestopenglish

11. Dealing with difficulties – DELTA page 30

12. ELTChat on grammar  – summary

Here you can find the slides in pdf

This is a link to the plenary talk – I gave it last month in South America and uploaded the slides then.

Finally this is the article I wrote for the oupblog

For the Swiss teachers

0 comments

Posted on 9th May 2011 by Shaun Wilden in Conference |reasons to use technology |Shaun's talks |Swiss conference |Teaching |technology |twitter |videos

A big thank you to all the teachers who came to my talks on Saturday. It was a pleasure to meet you and be able to talk to you all. Thank you for the generous welcome and for laughing in all the right places. Here are the slides from the plenary talk. If you need any help with the web sites, a reminder of how to use them and anything just send me an email.

Switzerland Plenary Slides

Links from both talks:

30 Day song challenge (click on ‘rules’ on the right to see each day)
Vocaroo – online voice recorder
Fotoababble - Upload a picture and a describe it
Quizlet – vocabulary  flashcards
Dvolver – the cartoon movie site

 

Have you #eltchat(ted) yet?

2 comments

Posted on 23rd September 2010 by Shaun Wilden in Teaching |technology |twitter

If not, you should, well you should if you’re involved in the ELT. Of course if you don’t use twitter then you might be a bit lost at this point. Let me explain.

ELT chat is the weekly discussion held on twitter.  ELT professionals from around the world spend an hour discussing pre-chosen topics.  It ‘meets’ every Wednesday for two sessions – one at 3pm London time and then again at 9p.m. with a different topic discussed each time.

It started two weeks ago and so far we discussed:

Motivating students outside the classroom

Intercultural Competence

Will online teaching replace f2f

Oral error correction

Of course an hour is never enough but so far I have found the three I have taken part in, have given me lots of food for thought, reaffirming some of my teaching beliefs and challenging others.

I always find talking about teaching stimulating and felt twitter has served as my online staffroom since I joined it. However, now with #eltchat I find it even more so, especially as I am not currently teaching.  In week one there were nearly 1500 tweets that’s quite a lot to digest even if tweets are only a 140 characters

The growth of the #groups had added a new dimension to twitter this year – ironic given that towards the end of 2009, some educators were saying teachers would stop using it – a definite case of the Mark Twains (reports of my demise and all that).

ELT chat has its own website where you can suggest topics for discussion (these are then voted on), see archives and continue discussions.  A podcast is also on its way and there is a ‘newspaper. So no excuse for not joining in really.

You can find the website here.

The newspaper here

If you are on twitter then follow @eltchat and use the hashtag #eltchat.

If you are new to twitter and need advise just post to the hashtag, one thing you’ll find is that they are a helpful bunch.

See you next Wednesday?

World Cup Activities

1 comment

Posted on 11th June 2010 by Shaun Wilden in lessons |Teaching |twitter

The World Cup starts today hurrah four weeks of football and a clear excuse to do football related lessons. As such there have been a lot of resources tweeted about over the last few days. So here’s a list of those links, starting with the excellent free resource site provided by @esolcourses

Quizzes and worksheets for elementary and beginners

English words for countries and nationalities

World Cup 2010 English and Numeracy Games and Quizzes

Sean Barnville’s Breaking news site will be having daily World Cup skills lessons

The British Council are bringing us the premier skills website throughout the cup which promises videos, games and blogs

While the BBC Learning English sit is the place to go for football vocabulary and here for some football idioms

If that’s not enough to keep you going then the esl-library has a lesson plan for you My English Club Blog has a myriad of other things and Larry Ferlazzo provides you with more links here

Enjoy the football

Shaun

IATEFL – What I saw on day one

3 comments

Posted on 8th April 2010 by Shaun Wilden in Conference |IATEFL |reasons to use technology |Teaching |technology |twitter

Back at the hotel after a great first day of IATEFL. Apologies if you follow me on twitter and got inundated with tweets, I use twitter to collect my notes from talks (I used to simply type them in word but now I can type, collect and share.)

Just looking back over all the tweets now, there’s no surprise that most of my day was attending the tech-related talks.  However the day started with a plenary on The Professional Life Cycles of Teachers and this gave a insightful overview of the stages we go through from the initial enthusiasm of our career through to ‘serene and conservative’ latter stages and apparently in 4 more years I reach ‘veteran’ status.

The first of the tech sessions given by Nicky Hockley really brought it home to me how much kids have embraced technology (when they have access to it, of course). This was illustrated with videos showing how kids use their camera phones and windows moviemaker.  Other examples of showed how school kinds (of 8 years old) in the UK were using Ipod touches as part of their day to day learning – from accessing weather cams through to researching history. The motivation of the students was truly incredible. We also got to see how phone cameras were used by language learners to produce ‘tourist guides’ of their hometown. Again the results were simply stunning in the quality of language produced.  Unfortunately I am not teaching at the moment but as soon as I get the chance I want to try this out.

It seems that phones and mobile technology can be used to great affect both in and out of the class – from projects to iphone apps for more independent learning. You can access Nicky’s talk here.

Next up the indomitable Gavin in what was essentially a talk aimed at those who have spent the last year naysaying the use of technology and talking about it being simply faffing.  Since Gavin and I agree on most things when it comes to technology, I was never going to walk out with much new, but the talk did show the historical use of naysaying from people in the 1700s worried about the introduction of slates into the classroom through to those saying that the intro of the biro would have a damaging effect on learners.  The talk explored myths, criticisms and worries labeled at tech use. Concluding by making the point that technology in schools was often a top-down process i.e. coming from the school directors. In order for it to be smoothly integrated into schools more thought needed to be given to how it was going to be financed (why spend all the money on hardware if people cant use it), support how are people going to be trained and the realization that this training needs to be ongoing and therefore how much support would be given to encourage technology adoption. We also heard not for the first time (and surely not for the last – well I know its not the last cos I say it in my talk on Saturday :-) )– that technology IS only a tool and if used correctly is not the domineering white elephant in the room.

In the afternoon I attended the twitter focused talks  – Graham Stanley on how life has changed since twitter. How it has become an incredible resource for teachers for everything from a research tool to the often-quoted 24/7 staffroom. For me as a teacher, trainer and writer, twitter has become one of the most powerful tools at my disposal and it was good to see how many people felt the same. In a lovely juxtaposition my final talk for the day was Petra Pointer’s excellent talk on using twitter with students. She explored why the so-called digital natives that made up her students had not embraced twitter and showed how she cajoled and encouraged them to take part. Twitter has now become a way for her students to extend classroom work from further readings, to discussions, and greater class cohesion through sharing of information. Again I can’t wait to try her ideas out in the classroom.

Overall I have really enjoyed day one on many levels, IATEFL is always a good place to catch up with people. This year especially so as many of my twitter PLN are present. On top of that seeing and speaking to so many like-minded people and being able to extend those discussions out to the web 2.0 communities has been great. I have also been reassured that others think like me, learnt something new things’ I cant wait to try out and for the most part being thoroughly impressed with the professional presentations put before me.

Roll on day two but now time for a well-deserved beer and catch up with colleagues.

See you tomorrow.

A new site to play with – jigzone

4 comments

Posted on 11th February 2010 by Shaun Wilden in lessons |reasons to use technology |Teaching |technology |twitter

Twitter rarely fails to provide me with at least one thing a day that i want to try and use in my teaching or training.  This evening @evab2001 sent out a link for a a site called jigzone ,thus keeping me occupied for an hour or so making, and then solving jigsaw puzzles out of my photos.  Mind you I do like my puzzles (see my post in December on pixuffle )

This puzzle maker allows you to do a lot more and I can immediately see its potential in the classroom, particularly for those classrooms that have IWBS in them, though using a dataprojector to beam it on to a board / wall will be just as effective.  Turning a photo into a puzzle, creates an immediate speaking activity – describing the picture, giving directions (it goes in the top left etc) alternatively a language practice exercise (i.e. modal verbs – that piece must go there, it could go there because). Scanning in a coursebook picture etc allows a bit of variety for context setting and prediction type exercises, students can make their own and post them then in class they can be displayed and talked about.

I wondered if it could be used for vocabulary or even sentences so I quickly typed the sentence below and took a screenshot (the site only works with pictures) and volia. If you click on the ‘play’ sign it will link you to the site and let you play the puzzle – if you want to up or lower the challenge then click on the ‘change cut’ on the left and you can decide how many pieces you want (from a list – note though the birds look good they are a tad hard to connect)  and when you have had enough the ‘autosolve button’ reveals all. Easy to create, easy to use and as I said I think it has classroom potential…. think I’ll include it in my next digital workshop.

Click to Mix and Solve

Playing with wiffiti

1 comment

Posted on 23rd January 2010 by Shaun Wilden in feeds |tag |Teaching |technology |twitter |wiffiti

Someone twittered about using wiffiti (which basically pulls together messages from twitter etc). It looked interesting so played around using EFL /ESL tags and it produced this. Now to think how I can use it in class :-)