Of course, you need a Mac and an iPad to fully ‘play’ with the author. Having both, I duly spent a fair few hours ‘messing about with it’ on Thursday evening.   With the permission of a colleague, I took her M.A. project (on #eltchat), which she published on her blog and used that to try out Author.

As a desktop publishing program (DTP) it is certainly easy to get to grips with  – a series of menus and toolbars make turning the blog work into a ‘book’ very simple.  I guess it will take a little longer to master the finer points but in a matter of minutes I had chapters, images and video all in book format. Being able to constantly look at how the final version would appear on my iPad screen as I went along was a boon. Fair play, Apple, it certainly is easy to produce professional and multimodal work.

Having completed my first book, the task of submitting to Apple for iTunes was relatively easy, though made slightly more complicated by me wanting to submit to a category that doesn’t quite fit into the others; perhaps this is a metaphor for the ELT profession as a whole.  However, a few clicks here and there and Apple seem satisfied. It took a day or so for the book to appear in iTunes, but it is there, and should you want to, you can download it. Of course, you do need an iPad to read it, though it is possible to share it with people as a PDF.

So, is this enough to make it game changing?  Well, it may be in mainstream education but I think it will be a fair while before it makes a difference in ELT.  For a start, how many of your students own an iPad? Or for that matter, how many of you / your schools own a Mac (and a Mac running Lion at that)?  I can see the main publishing companies having a look at it but I think it might be a while before their coursebooks go that way, especially with the rather strict and somewhat greedy EULA that Apple have that basically gives them all ownership of anything uploaded.

I can see it perhaps finding a place with the small publisher, and it may be the ideal platform for something such as the round project (though, again, the EULA may prove off-putting). A lot of people lost in the moment began to dream of publishing their own course material – certainly something that could happen but remember that having access to DTP doesn’t give you access to an editor or people to help you shape your work. You may find producing a coherent interactive coursebook is a lot harder than you think.

I can definitely see it being a professional way to share texts with students, grouping them together in a book keeps them tidy, for one.  As a teacher trainer I think it would be great to be able to put all my handouts from a course like CELTA into one book that a trainee could download.  Likewise, instead of simply sharing slides from talks I can make interactive books for iPadded attendees to download.  Though, since I constantly reference work on the Internet and use sites such as YouTube, I dread to think of copyright implications. Maybe I’ll just stick to collating ELTchat stuff.

However, one thing it might well change is the student project.  As with so many of the tech tools we recommend, perhaps the most immediate thing to do with iBooks Author is put it in the hands of the student. Encourage collaborative learning; let them produce their own work. Even if the end result is a PDF rather than a work in iTunes, Author opens up a world for students to work together to do professionally produced projects and the processes that the students use working together in English may well, in the end, turn out to be the real game change.

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’

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.

And this is there ACINNE talk:

1. Sesame Street – ABC

2. Wikipedia definition

3. ABC flashcards

4. Alphabet taught these days

5.  Summer holiday text message

6.   Guardian Article on handwriting

7.  Consider this video

8. Facebook uses reduces grade

9. Twitter dumbing us down

10. Twitter reducing big words

11. Poor memory? Blame google

12. Students thoughts on wikipedia

13. 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times

14.  New Media Literacies video

15.Mark Pegrum’s digital literaces (though I recommend them in full in his book)

16. Aha video

17. UNESCO booklet on teachers and technology

18. ELTpics blog

19. ELTChat

20. BReltchat

21. EVO

22. IATEFL LT SIG

And here are they slides….

Ok, running tech training for teachers is hardly innovative but these days I spend most of my time training people online rather than in the classroom so I had been looking forward to this week for a while and it had been months in the planning.

To get to the beginning of this week has taken countless number of emails back and forth trying to arrange everything from finding a suitable venue through to assessing the needs of the group. The initial brief was simple – provide hands on training for state schools teachers who for the most part don’t want to use technology.  These teachers seem to be typical of many I meet around the world. They know they need to try and reach their students, their schools have invested in IWBs and in many cases computer labs but then not invested in the training.  Demotivated after lots of ‘this is what you should be doing’ talks, the teachers needed simple, hands-on things and lots of ideas for how to implement them.

The one condition was given the investment being put into the training, one of the demands was that the teachers would have to demonstrate learning by the end of the three days.  To do this we came up with the idea of small peer microteaching / presentations that the teachers consented to do to video as part of the final day.

We decided that the training should address using IWBS , collaborative writing and projects, utilizing some websites and making use of dvd both online and publisher produced.

Day one of the training in a brand new EU funded computer lab somewhere just outside of Lefkosa.  With the selected teachers turning up, the training got off to inauspicious start when the first teacher through door approached me to ask if we were really going to be using technology!  Before giving a look of horror when we affirmed that we would indeed be switching on the computers.

On the first day we covered using dvds (simply because this seemed to be the less daunting thing for the teachers). We then looked at collaborative writing, from using simply mindmapping tools online to showing how students could all work together using google docs. Many of us take such things for granted but the sheer joy and looks of amazement when the teachers could see they were all typing into the same document was quite something.  As part of the training I had set up a shared blog (deciding that posterous was the simplest to use). On this I put all the links to things we used, left instructions and small tutorial videos made on jing.  To bring day one to an end I showed a few examples of class blogs and directed them to a writing task I had left on the blog based on a video.  Rather speculatively I set homework to follow my instructions and set up a blog that they could use for day two.

It was clear from reactions and comments at the end of the day that it had been well received but I didn’t really think more than 3 or 4 of the group would actually go home and do the homework. However, I did tell them they could email me during the evening for help etc and I was genuinely surprised when a few of them did.

Arriving for day two, I found many of the teachers there before me, computers switched on and asking me questions before I had even fully got into the room. It dawned on me that most of them had actually made a blog and embedded a video into it.   You could sense the pride in the room and the realization that this was something they could actually do with their students. Questions rained down from how can students write on it, how could each class have a page, what else can they do with it.  The fact that it was a small group and I could give hands on advice, really spurred them on and throwing the plan out of the window (dogmatists rejoice) we proceeded to look at what else they could do. How to make and embed quizlet flashcards, making animations using dvolver, uploading photos and using voice recording,  making use of word clouds.  Each was introduced, worked through together and then time allowed for hands on practice.  For me the results were stunning, here was a group teachers many of whom was openly ‘afraid of technology’ embracing it, suggesting ways to use it and at times peer teaching each other how to use it,, suddenly from not knowing what ‘embed’ meant they were telling each other how to do it like pros. One of the issues that arose (that I had not anticipated) was people not knowing the difference between linking and embedding..

Next came IWBs and it is very revealing, given that all of them had them in their schools, that none of the really knew what they were and how they worked.  Even an  ICT teacher was unsure as to what they were.  So more time for more hands-on,  give them the space and the safe environment and within a few minutes they were at the board trying to write, use screenshade and  genuinely delighted to find that board is really no more than a mouse and monitor.

Sending them home that night with some software for the books they use in the school the homework this time to prepare something to present to the group – three simple questions would be addressed.

What did you chose? Why did you chose it and why did you choose to use X technology with it.

When it came to microteaching the next day, I was blown away. One by one the teachers came up suggested what they would use, why they would use, stating pedagogical reasons for using a piece of IWB material or showing how the material could be extended via the web tools we’d looked at.  Here they were , comfortably showing off a mind map,  adding to their  blogs. All of the teachers deserve mentioning for their efforts but the one that stood out for me was the woman who on day one asked if we were really going to use technology. Now she stood and showed off how to use the spotlight and reveal features on the board to enhance a piece of material  – something she had only learnt earlier that day. On top of that she had gone  – on her own – to voki and used it to create a blog exercise for her students.

Looking back now on the three days, I feel renergised, living in the tech bubble that I do it is very easy to forget the basic needs of teachers. This group has shown me that with the right investment and time and following the age-old mantra of keep it simple, practical and purposeful really does work.

Why did it work so well? I think the time to set up properly was almost as important as the training time and even with all the preparation (as with any lesson), we had to change our plans, reacting to the students.  Ensuring we picked simple tools and things they really had to use like the IWBs helped get motivation high.  Having ‘reward’ moments – the google doc, starting a blog, embedding something, all served to both give the feeling of satisfaction and the ‘wow I really can do this’ moment. But most of all it worked because it was hands on, apart from showing them how, they did it all, they made stuff, the worked how to use it and like learning a language, the moment it became personalized is the moment that learning took place.

I like the blog challenges that are set by members of my PLN but to be honest always forgot to join in until it’s too late. However, Truth or lie is one my favourite warmers.  I have used it many times throughout my career and on first days of teacher training courses for as long as I can remember. What I especially like about this challenge is that it takes a ‘traditional’ warmer and add a tech spin – not just because we can do it with tech, but for a real purpose. This is something that can easily be incorporated into online courses and on student blogs. Apart from serving as an intro activity, students practice speaking, listening,  writing and forming questions. As you can see from Sandy’s and Janet’s submissions, you don’t need  to film yourself.

So, anyway here is my submission. These are the rules (taken from Dave’s blog):

Here’s the challenge:

• Post a video, audio recording or just a regular post on your blog in which you state 5 facts about yourself – 3 truths and 2 lies.

Invite your PLN to quiz you and speculate on what the lies are!

So can you work out my lies, use the comment box to ask and speculate.

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Here are the answers:

#ELTchat is held every Wednesday at 12 BST and 21.00 BST  - we meet for one hour to talk about ELT related topics. You can find out more on the blog

What makes a good online English course?

From #eltpics on flickr

The Short Answer

The same things that make for a good face to face course. Good group, T-Ss dynamic, good feedback, challenging materials.

But…a major difference with an online course is that the student needs to be more disciplined.

What might be issues for students?

A course being run in English might make it more difficult for students to interact (esp. asynchronously) as they may think they are being judged all the time (a problem cited as an issue in Indonesia)

They don’t necessarily need funky tools or apps might cause more issues than they solve.  The important thing is that there is a user-friendly interface and tech support.

There is a cost issue dependent on the type of course asynchronous/ synchronous.

Should it be Asynchronous / Synchronous or both?

People agreed that for learners to choose the channel/platform they feel most comfortable with was a good thing but there was some discussion as to whether this was best achieved by being online at the same time or asynchronously?

Some felt that online courses should use Skype or a virtual classroom such a blackboard collaborate for real-time interaction.

People choose asynchronous as synchronous can be more expensive.

An advantage of asynchronous is one attraction of online learning is its flexibility – any time, anywhere, any way one can learn.

The medium of communication changes between (a)synchronous courses e.g. synchronous is likely to use the speaking and asynchronous, writing.

What about issues for teachers?

Working online the students can be in touch all the time. It’s not the same regime as the 9 to 5 classroom. It can be very heavy commitment for tutor if you’re not careful – Students can be very demanding. It is up to the teacher to set the limits and manage their a manage your availability.

A second issue is how is best to promote interaction between students online.

We need to give students learner training – preparing them for the differences between f2f and online is crucial. Teachers as well need to be aware of how their role changes online.

What they do need?

There was agreement that the important factor is to have everything really well designed. To be effective, online courses need to be as well designed as classroom courses and have as much teacher input.

They should also deal effectively with placement and testing / assessment. These always needs to be well structured and moderated.

So..drum roll….the good people of ELTchat think that a good online course needs:

1. A dynamic system – Dynamic help means the right input at the right time.

2. Successful online learning is lots of support via skype, im, sms, email etc.

3. Study asynchronous but help /feedback given synchronously.

4. They should have multimodel delivery – f2f, text, video, etc.

5. Opportunities to practice and get feedback and feedback not just from a machine.

6. Clear outlines of what the course is about, so as to avoid confusion, a student enrolled on unsuitable courses, at wrong level, etc.

7. Teachers must initiate contact in the beginning to let students know the options. Also reach out to those not participating.

8. Comprehensive use of English skills -listening, speaking, writing and reading activities included in lesson.

9. Building a sense of community and contact with peers so that students stay motivated.

Some Links:

An example of self-study courses - The Khan Academy

Teaching Checklist for designing an online course

Designing Interaction in an online Curriculum

RSCON3 Finding magic buttons for online learning

National Standards for Quality online learning

The cast list: @…AlexandraKouk, bethcagnol, BobK99, Cerirhiannon, Cherrymp, Collaborative, cybraryman1, escocesa_madrid, esolcourses, gallanteyun, gknightbkk, harrisonmike ,hartle, howellwright, kirkymon , Marisa_C, Mcneilmahon, Parrpakala, PatrickAndrews, pysproblem81, Rliberni, oxbridgetefl, Shaunwilden, Theteacherjames, yitzha_sarwono

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

Since taking an mlearning course a few weeks ago, I think I have become obsessed with QR codes.  Not that I hadn’t seen them before, I have been using one to give contact details at the end of talks for a while but I think the course heightened my awareness of them, well that and I think there has been a sudden rise in their use.

One of the things we discussed on the course was the fact they were few and far between but since then they seem to have started to appear everywhere.

Living in Oxford this time year of year the city is full, and I really mean full, of students learning English at one summer school or the other. The same goes for London where I had to venture for a meeting last week. Putting students and QR codes together it struck me that there is a project or two in making use of the rise of the QR code. So I set myself the task of ‘collecting’ all the QR codes I came across on my walk to and from the meeting.

Given the amount of smart phones and cameras the students seem to have this is something they could do, as well as using a QR app to go to the websites. Since the QR codes are on public display there is little chance that a young student will be directed to something unsuitable (though one code I collected was for a betting app).

Link to the site ( it wouldn’t embed) here

Simple tasks could involve ‘who collects the most’ but to ensure that language is involved the students need to display and label the apps.  I used linoit.com to show the QR codes I collected.   My reasons for using this are that it is easy to use, free and can be used collaboratively. It also has the added feature of having an app so I can do everything from taking a pic of the code to displaying it from my phone.

Other tasks can involve deciding which is the most interesting website that are taken to, which sites would appeal to which type person and so on.  Lots of chance for productive practice of English, all done via a phone and an internet collection. Seems to me that this type of mlearning could be an easy and relatively hassle free task to keep students purposefully occupied as they tour round the UK ‘must see’ towns and cities.

Now next up is turning the centre of Oxford into one big QR treasure hunt, any one up for that?