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!

Session 10 Activity

My Story Book
Ebooks are always generated for textbooks or fictions but for this time, a story eBook of a personal experience is produced. In my story eBook, I shared some of my unforgettable experience while I was studying and travelling in the United Kingdom; it is a real story that happened a few years ago. Readers can know more about how a Hong Kong student enjoyed her life in a foreign country through reading this authentic eBook.

https://www.mystorybook.com/books/279001/

Session 9 Reflection

By using the same fable, "The lion and the mouse" , I have set up a JCloze and a JCross game within 10 minutes . For the JCloze program, I chose words with different parts of speech so students can not only rely on the content but also the clues with part of speech to guess the answers. Also, the JCross program can help students to find the definition of the words and it can make the students to spell the words out. JCloze and JCross can surely  help teachers to train the students' reading skills and the wonderful thing is that the time taken for the production of the games was extremely short. If the text is ready, teachers can just finish their preparation with these interactive games promptly because they just need to import the text and choose words from it. I highly recommend teachers to use the two interactive programs as extensive reading tasks, and let students play the games in the reading lessons so that they would not think that "reading lesson must be a boring lesson" anymore.


Another highly recommended tool which best works with Google is "Actively Learn" . I have never thought that there is a tool can offer you thousands and millions of passages for free! Teachers can choose their favorite passages from the catalog or upload their own texts. Although it can just work out with Google Documents, it is still a wonderful tool for teachers to create reading comprehension tasks. Teachers can add notes and questions into the texts, and then assign the task to students through the classes he or she created. It is really awesome because the grading system is included as shown below. Teachers can set and show the marking rubric, and check individual or class grades for each question. If  teachers want a detail report, they can upgrade their account to a premium one and get the insight report from the tool. Besides, teachers can analyze the tasks with the students through reading the report and they can give feedbacks and guidance to students in no time . It is probably the most convenient tool ,which can create online reading comprehension, I have ever seen!

Session 9 Activities

1.  JCloze and JCross for the reading passage

The reading passage is a fable, "The lion and the mouse".
According to the content of the fable, a cloze passage and
a word cross game are generated from JCloze and JCross 
respectively.



https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1lg0ro75kr36kbb/AAAF6nvqpAAQfuOGXkAC4S-5a?dl=0

JCloze

JCross

2. An interactive reading comprehension unit with Actively Learn

Using the same text, here is a reading comprehension unit created with Actively Learn. 3 notes and 4 questions including multiple choices and short questions are inserted in the text. The paragraph numbering and note-jotting function really facilitate teachers to make reading comprehensions efficiently and decently. 

Class code: 4f46d
https://read.activelylearn.com/#student/reader/281216/notes

Session 8 Reflection

The two applications which I have tried are Adobe Spark Video and Screencast-O-Matic. These two applications can mainly help teachers with making the digital visual and audio resources.

Adobe Spark Video is quite user-friendly for teachers or even primary school students to manage the production of a video. Since the users may just pick some photos, the suitable layout and music, they can out them together and generate an attractive video. The most convenient thing of  Adobe Spark is that the users can read aloud and record them simultaneously. The sample, My Amiable Rabbit, created by a P4 student surprised me due to the students' angelic voice and lovely presentation ,and I think my senior form students can make one like this as well. On top of that, if the teachers want their students to write a story, they can change the presentation of their stories from a written one to an animated one. This can encourage students to write more and on the other hands, it is actually a speaking training for students because they need to record their stories. I suggest teachers can collect the videos and make a video collection for their class, the feeling of making a video successfully can definitely motive students' learning of speaking and writing.

Screencasting with Screencast-O-Matic is another free but noteworthy tool that can help teachers to explain their thoughts and the teaching contents to students. The most important function of this application is that all the things that have been shown and taught by the teachers can be recorded. With the video of the teaching content recorded by the teachers, students can review at any time such as revising dictation, explaining grammar rules, and analyzing difficult points of the tests. Furthermore, I believe this tool can be used in students' reflection or presentation as well. Apart from writing journals, reflections or lecture notes, teachers may ask students to take turns to make screencasting reflections so teachers can check students' understanding and also train student's metacognitive skills, to evaluate their learning by themselves. What teachers need to do is just check their screencasting, give marks or comments.

Teachers can use the applications very freely and flexibly. It reminds me that the new technology brings about the infinite possibilities for education; they are all beneficial to teachers and students if they can utilise the tools well.

Session 8 Activities

1. Adobe Spark Video
https://spark.adobe.com/video/LHxJgRdlLpv8m

By adding background music, captions, photos, and recordings, everyone including young kids can manage this application and produce digital storytelling. How do students add recordings into the videos? They can simply press a button and record their narrations while they are generating the videos but users should know that each slide can only hold on for 10 seconds maximum. Kids always enjoy so much in making their own storytelling.





2. Screencast-O-Matic.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8dgb2bpbcziip4p/Screencasting%20for%20P3%20Chapter%201%20Revision.mp4?dl=0

I had a pleasant experience of screencasting! Teachers can explain the teaching content or tests to students through screencasting. All actions shown on the screen are recorded and adjusted to an appropriate size for the audience. The recordings can help students to learn and study at home by just watching this "teachers' explanation" .

Using "EDpuzzle" to give a talk?

Last Friday, I have been assigned to give a 15-min talk to the whole school in a monthly assembly. When I planned the procedure of the talk, I wanted to make a difference. I did not want to hold a boring moral lesson for my students so I used "EDpuzzle" with an authentic video I made in the questioning session. The last part of my talk is to check their understanding of the topic, I put some questions in the video using EDpuzzle and  reminded them to pay attention to the clip because the questions would  appear while they were watching the video. 

To be honest, the students and the other teachers had a great fun in this session, they enjoyed the authentic video I made because they can see their classmates or students on the screen and the students from P.1 to P.6 can answer the questions I prepared as they really looked for the answers easily from the video. After that, three of my colleagues came to me and showed their appreciation of the fruitful talk I have given, they all loved the functions of "EDpuzzle", and I was happy to share my experience of using this tool with them. I finally realized why my Professor said that using these kinds of e-learning tools is so"fashionable". It is because the tool can make a big difference from the traditional presentation of a talk or lesson!