Session 13 Reflection

I have tried a series of playful applications such as  "Kahoot", " Quizlet live", and "Quizizz" in the last lesson. I found these applications are quite interesting and I was really excited while I was playing with the apps with my classmates. Due to its "nature" of competitiveness and the "countdown" system, the players need to be extremely focused and efficient so as to find the most suitable answers for the tasks in the apps. 

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Quizlet live

I  like the application "Quizlet live" in particular, it was deliberately made for building up students' cooperative skills because students need to hold their own sets of answers and compare them to their groupmate's one at the same time. This action brings a real discussion to each groupmates and it makes sure that  everyone in the group can contribute to the competition. As a result, the information gap will be closed after the discussion, students must reach an agreement and find out the only answer from one of the groupmates. I am sure I would try this in my teaching to develop my students' "team spirit" and to test their memorization of vocabulary!

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Goformative Quiz Sheet

This is another handy application for teachers to set up quizzes in a very short time. Teachers can add questions or content into the quiz they uploaded on the app, and the questions and content are clickable; students can complete the tasks by using the tablets. This app can make the class activities more fruitful and interactive. 

The limitation of this app is that I cannot change the sequence of the questions so I have to upload the text again if I make any mistakes when setting questions. 

Other than setting reading tests via "Actively Learn", this app could be another convenient app for teachers to set quizzes for different papers, simply due to its different questioning functions. Sometimes, when the answers are too complicated for students to express in words, they can just draw it out using the "show your work" function. I would like to turn some activities into Goformative Quiz sheet so as to accommodate students with different learning needs and styles.

All in all, I would like to adopt the CALL approach in my teaching so that I can create an enjoyable and interactive learning environment for my students.

Session 13 Activities

Google Forms (Questionnaire)

A simple questionnaire with 7 questions to find out  my classmates' learning situation is created via Google Forms. It includes 2 MC questions, 2 short questions, 2 "linear scale" questions and 1 "check boxes" question:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd40AcQZUJfQkadjBb-GljX2hALOsfxIYiWsjrdq1iGOpsQBw/viewform

GoFormative quiz sheet 

The main target feature of the reading test is the expression, "I want to..." , so a GoFormative quiz is generated for the P3 students. The test is composed of  7 questions which include 4 different types of questions; they are typed responses, MCs, show your work, true or false. Students can key in the code as shown below and join the test together within the lesson time.

KJTU674

Session 12 Reflection

Flipped Classroom

Thanks to the guess speaker, Ms Zoe, who shared her lately teaching experience with our class. It was inspiring and motivating to the front-line teachers. I am really impressed by her three flipped lessons co-planned with Dr Paul Sze. I could tell that it is worthwhile dedicating days and nights on designing the flipped lessons. It is because the well-planned flipped lessons can help students learn English more effectively, they first studied the basic theories at home, and then they can just focus on the practice of the target objectives in the lessons; teachers can fully make good use of the time in the lesson to drill the students.  I want to become a more passionate English teacher and create an "enjoyable" flipped classroom  for my students in the up-coming term as well.


Nearpod - live lesson


I haven't experienced any "live lesson" before studying this course. I was amazed that the live lesson created by Nearpod can be composed of different kinds of teaching materials including PowerPoint shows, images and PDF files. On top of these functions of presentation, a live lesson also allows teachers to implement instant activities such as the poll, blank filling, picture drawing, etc., Rather than the printed quizzes, I believe my students will be more interested and excited when doing the quizzes on the tablets.  In fact, what teachers need to do is just to transfer the lesson plan to a Nearpod live lesson, which is more appealing and motivating;  Luckily, in my workplace, teachers are allowed to use the tablets and implement CALL lessons when needed, I want to create live lessons in the future even the application is not free of charge. I will pay for the premium version since I would like to enhance the interactivity with my students and cater learning diversities in my lessons. I strongly suggest that English teachers can hold more live lessons to make the boring Grammar lesson "alive" and "distinctive .

Session 12 Activity

Nearpod

The sample below is made for teaching the junior students the basic knowledge of object pronouns, with some images, a poll quiz, a Youtube video, and a PowerPoint presentation, a brief Nearpod lesson is created. Teachers and students can enjoy a real-time "live lesson" very easily.

https://share.nearpod.com/vsph/pQc1vMY5Ny

Session 11 Reflection

Padlet & Pinterest

Again, I have learnt to use more functions in Padlet so as to present my own ideas as a whole. How do I make one page to include all information, for example, Youtube video, documents, PowerPoint slides, or PDF files, on only one page? The application "Pinterest" serves the similar function that users can collect and gather different kinds of information in one page: 

I like "Pinterest" because of its convenience that the users can just click on the "save" button on the files and then the application can automatically download and save the file in your designated folder. It is an incredible application for my teaching and learning English  because I did bother to categorise thousands of millions of files and put them into the right folders so that I can dig them out easily when I want to use or look for the related information one day. I would like to tell my students to do so because there is nothing can be easier than just saving something useful on Webpages by just one click. They could continue their self-learning according to different topics created by other users of Pinterest as well. This application can train students to organise learning materials and help stimulate their schemata as well as show their whole project when presentation.

Prezi
In my opinion, it is an application dedicated to education because teachers who have any emails that are given by education institutes can register and use this app. The slides movements of Prezi is smoother and more attractive than the other software's (PowerPoint). The slides made by Prezi can be zoomed "out" or "in" in order to give the audience a glimpse of the overall planning of the presentation and the detail parts of the slides respectively. This application suits the presentation which is needed to explain the  "processes" or "description"  very well in my teaching situation. I planned to use it when I have any chance of presentations to my colleagues  because I believe the app can help me to map out the overview and the points that we need to discuss in a more interesting way. Also, I can use it when I teach students how to make an outline or a mindmap at the pre-writing stage; I believe it is suitable for teaching students the skills of planning.

Session 11 Activities

Padlet

The Padlet wall is a tool that teachers can use to gather the teaching materials altogether on one page. I have created a wall which contained all  materials of a double writing lesson, it included the lesson plan (Word document), two comic strips (jpg.), one Powerpoint file, and one link of Youtube video:

https://padlet.com/yimping1028/ow2hqvuooha0

Prezi

"Prezi" is another tool which is often made for presentation; its function is very similar to PowerPoint .  I made one Prezi that looked like a mind-map because I want to explain how can the students write the article "The school's 40th anniversary". People can see how the text boxes zoom in and out and move to the next steps:

Session 10 Reflection

A creative writing experience with Storybird

Everyone including teachers would love this application because it is simply colourful and fruitful to catch their eyes. Storybird provides a series of pictures and frameworks for users and lets them choose the themes they like so they can start writing their own stories freely. Other than teaching students to write stories or book reviews, teachers are encouraged to give freedom to students to choose the topic they want to write, this can motivate them to write and imagine. 

Although the pictures provided by the application is fixed and the students need to write according to the content of the pictures, they still have thousands of pictures to choose from. Extensive writing is still workable when using this application, I will try this application in the after-exam period with my students because I would like to see how creative they are when the content of their writings are not all set up by teachers but by themselves. 

My Story book

My Storybook let students write their own stories as well. Other than the pictures, backgrounds, and themes provided in the application, students can use their photos to make a very authentic digital book. As a teacher, I can make many of them to show my students how convenient and intriguing of the digital books can be. At the beginning of the term, teachers can make one to introduce themselves as well as the class rules they want their students to notice. In English lessons, teachers can turn students' stories into digital books. Students can make one to introduce themselves to the new classmates and teachers at the beginning of the term, and make another one, to conclude what they have experienced in the school year at the end of the term. It seems there are many possible ways to make use of this application, and I would like to make one story book about my study journey in the U.K. I will certainly show it to my students and let them know more about studying abroad. 

Book Creator

http://bookcreator.com/ipad/comics/

I actually found that my students like reading comics and I would like to teach them writing comics when teaching dialogue. While I am searching for the application for making comics, I discovered the application "Book creator". Students can write story books as well as digital comics with this app. Students can add authentic videos and sound files into the comics so the products will be always interesting and eye-catching. Teachers could train students writing and speaking skills through this app, and I guess my students would love the function of choosing the stickers very much as they like collecting stickers! However, this application is not free of charge. I suggest to teachers that they should purchase it through the schools so they could have the 50%  discount . It is worth purchasing the app for students to learn writing happily!