Task 6: New digital trends
in the English classroom
Technology is something that most of us have in our hand and that is why it is a great idea to use it inside the classroom to make it more fun and engaging for all students. Also, it gives a lot of different opportunities, using tablets, computers, the teacher's phone... many devices that inside have a wide world of innovative tools for all the students. A part from being really engaging and enjoyable, it provides the teacher with resources to teach to different levels, as many tools have levels of difficulties which makes it easier for the the teacher to reach all (or almost all) rhythms of learning.
Having the opportunity to bring technology into class is great and all teachers should embrace the use of different types of technology and online/electronic tools.
If you click on the images of the logos you will open the web pages of all these tools.
Buncee is a tool that can help teachers to create content to present in the class in a dynamic way. It can be understood as a Powerpoint with a wider range of resources and much more fun to watch. You can make a presentation and include videos and voice over to make it a little more fun and avoid talking all the time. It is super fun to watch as each element can move and change as the presentation goes on. The moving elements and the attractive elements that they propose can help students engage much more in the tasks or explanations done in the class.
Any explanation can be done thanks to the tool. It is good if some topics are a bit more “boring” to explain and a teacher wants to fully engage his or her students into the topic. For example, I would use it in order to explain, for example, the cell in the subject of Science, it will allow students to learned it in a more visual and dynamic way.
Positive features:
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Fun for the students to watch.
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Engaging.
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It has lots of different options and resources.
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It has the voice over option.
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Direct links are easy to include
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After the 30 days free trial it downgrades your account to free, so, it does not require a credit card to register.
Negative features:
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Not completely free.
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It is quite more complicated than Powerpoint.
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It will require more training to learn how to use all features.
Go noodle is a great resource in order to use music and dances in order to learn, and at the same time have a lot of fun. Inside the page, you will find many different songs in English that have very different topics, rhythms and choreographies. I would use this page in order to, maybe, teach some vocabulary, a song is a great way to learn English and it is not often used. The songs are not pop songs, they are created around a certain topic, they are fun and have crazy lyrics.
I would use Go Noodle as a warm-up or a closing activity of a session, it can be something funny to make students start feeling engaged with the session they are about to be in. Also, it is a fun way to reward the good behaviour of students, 5 minutes before leaving, if the session has been smooth, students can have fun while learning. I actually did it as a reward for my students and they had a lot of fun singing and dancing together.
Positive features:
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It has many different resources and videos.
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They have a youtube channel that is free.
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The songs are engaging and fun.
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The songs are organised in different and multiple categories.
Negative features:
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It is not completely free.
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Older students can feel the songs are a bit silly (that is my older kids’ opinions)
Canva is a web page that allows you to create posters, infographics, card and also presentations. For me, it was very useful to create presentations, they are very beautiful and creative. My students in 5th grade are engaged in a project of cooperative business in which they have to create a company and create and sell their products. With Canva, I created some business cards to thank the people who participated in their market’s study and inform those people when the sell was going to happen. They helped me out with colours and the text they wanted to create, and at the end, they were very beautiful and they loved giving their future clients those cards.
I use Canva very often as it is very useful to create any type of certificate, curriculum,
presentation. In my opinion, it is much better than Powerpoint.
Positive features:
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It has lots of fonts, pictures, drawings.
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It is very simple to use.
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It has multiple useful templates for different purposes.
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A lot of the templates and resources are free.
Negative features:
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It is not completely free.
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It is not very dynamic, it does not have movement.
Natural Readers is a website that can help students to learn how to read in English, focusing, for example, in pronunciation. What I did, and I recommend other teacher to do, is to use the tool to create listenings. If you have a text and you put it on the site, you can choose different voices, accents and speeds for the text to be played as a listening. It is a great tool if you want to practice oral skills and pronunciation and also, for listening skills and activities.
Positive features:
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The free versions is quite good.
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It has many different voices, accents and speeds.
Negative features:
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The voice is a little bit robotic.
Sometimes, as teachers we are afraid of creating something like a book. Students write quite a lot during a school year and sometimes, their texts have no final purpose, they are not shared. Book creator is a great tool to publish your students books, stories or texts. There is a creative component to it apart from the writing process and the final product is pretty good and I think all students would love to have their books “published” or printed for all the class or their families to read.
Positive features:
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The free version allows you to store 40 books.
Negative features:
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It can only be used from an Ipad or through google chrome, if the school has Android tablets it won’t work.
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It is a bit complex and requires explanation/exploration in order to get as much benefit from it as possible.
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It is not completely free.
Here you can have a look at the symbaloo that my practicum V group and I created to share our online tools.
