Wallwisher or Padlet: An incredible online board to create your 'wall' as you wish!

What is Wallwisher/Padlet?

Wallwisher or Padlet is a free online electronic board (wall) that you can create, share it with people and they can add sticky notes, comments, videos, links, any content you wish them to incorporate into the wall. It is a great interactive tool and promotes collaborative work.

You can find Wallwisher/Padlet in the following link:

wallwisher.com

How to use Wallwisher/Padlet?

You can watch this video to learn how to use Wallwisher/Padlet:

Why is Wallwisher/Padlet relevant to language learning?

• It promotes collaborative work in the classroom. Teachers can ask students to group themselves, discuss about a topic and add their comments to the wall. 

• It also enhances interaction among students in groups by favoring the practice of speaking to get to some agreements on what they would write or include on the wall.

• Students can develop their critical thinking by expressing their opinions.

• It can be used as a warm up to engage students' attention and they can start thinking in English.

• In the same vein, teachers can also use it to brainstorm and activate some previous ideas. Therefore, it favors constructivism view of learning a language, because teachers consider some previous students' knowledge.

• It contributes to interactive teaching and learning.

• Teachers have the possibility to use it in many different ways to promote the socio-cultural view of learning. This theory states that learners can acquire a language through the interaction with other 'more capable peers'.

• Teachers can also create a real need to communicate in the target language by contextualizing the topics to discuss.

• It is also safe for teachers and students. Teachers, can control what it is seen on the wall after they give their approval to students, so they can participate.

How might you use Jing in class/outside the class?

1. Within the classroom

• As I mentioned before, teachers can propose a topic, for instance, 'environmental issues in my country' and ask students to add some causes and consequences about this problem.

• Teachers might also ask students to describe some traditional food in their countries, add some pictures of it, recipes, or videos on how to prepare it.

• Teachers and students can summarise together the main topics for a particular test.

• Teachers may stick some pictures on the wall and ask students to create a storyboard with these pictures.

• Students can also give some advantages or disadvantages about any topic such as, having a pet, watching TV, playing video games, helping with the house chores, etc., any topic that may be relevant for them.

2.  Outside the classroom

• Students can add some reflections about their learning of a particular content.

• Students might also make a list of the different things they have to do during the week.

• Teachers can ask students to add some pieces of homework to the wall and then they can give them some feedback.

• Students can always use this tool to complete a variety of activities as homework. Some other examples are in the paragraph above or you can adapt them as you wish.

What limitations can you see with the use of Wallwisher/Padlet? 

• It is not appropriate for large classes, because the wall may look busy with too many comments on it and not all of them could be readable.

• The wall you created is not downloadable. 

• Students have to manage well their time because the internet connection may be slow at that moment and they may not be able to edit every post they made.

Here you can find an example of a wall that my colleagues and I created when our tutor Russell Stannard presented us this tool:

Jing: The amazing screen capturer!

What is Jing?

Jing is free downloadable program which allows you to record the screen of your computer, basically, everything you do in your computer and your voice at the same time, it's incredible, isn't it?. It is space saving because it gives you a free account to save your videos, or if you want you can also save the file on your own computer, you can be selective and capture the specific part of the screen you want to show. Within the area of teaching, it gives the opportunity to use it in different ways, for instance, teachers can provide some feedback to their students, guide them how to find some information in websites, give them support on their homework, and also students can use it to record themselves talking.  

You can find and download Jing in the following link:

techsmith.com

How to use Jing?

You can watch this video to learn how to use Jing:

Why is Jing relevant to language learning?

 

• It is a tool that encourages students autonomy because the teacher can provide some feedback about an activity without giving them the correct answer. Teachers can point out or highlight some specific or precise mistakes and students can revise, understand and correct them by their own.  

• When learners get some feedback through the use of this tool they are also receiving input of the language as they can listen to the teacher talking, hence promoting auditive learners. 

• Jing also favors the visual learning style because when students who learn better by seeing check their feedback, they can remember better the mistakes they made and they are unlikely to make them again.

• Students can get highly motivated and engaged by receiving feedback in this unusual way. Moreover, when teachers give them some feedback about an activity by recording their voices they can also add more than just one positive reinforcement  such as, good or well done, because it is easier and quicker to say it than to write it in a piece of paper.

• Teachers can elaborate and explain better a complex content or linguistic point and give more information about it in less time by talking.

• It can be also used to record an explanation to guide students about how to use certain tools, such as Vocaroo or Dvolver to do some activities or homework at home.

• Jing can also help to build up confidence in pronunciation because students can use to record themselves talking about a topic in their own context, at their own time and if they are not pleased with the result they can record as many times as they want to until they feel secured about it and send it to the teacher.

 

 

How might you use Jing in class/outside the class?

 

1. Within the classroom 

• It is important to bear in mind that all speaking activities that students would be required to do using Jing have to be organised, prepared and practiced in the classroom with the help of the teacher, and then, students can develop them on their own.

• Teachers can record the guidance, for instance, on how to use Jing or how to search a certain content in a website in advance and save class time, which is always limited.

• It is also more attractive and interesting to present a content, topic, grammar rules, instructions or vocabulary by using technology rather than doing it in the traditional way.

• Teachers can use this tool to show students how to search for specific information in a certain website. For example, teachers can ask students to do a research project, but during the development process teachers can support them by showing them a recording about what they expect students to include, write, read, etc. to accomplish the activity successfully.

• Teachers can also ask students to write an essay about a particular topic and then ask them to send it to the teachers.

     2.  Outside the classroom

 

• Teachers can provide detailed feedback to students about any written activity in relation to vocabulary, grammar and assess them formatively about their progresses.

• Students might record themselves giving a description about a picture of a place they visited, or a famous person. 

• Students can also discuss or comment about a topic, for example, they can make an outline about the different points they want to talk about in a word document, and use Jing to record themselves.

• Jing not only records a static screen but also allows students to record videos, and give comments on them.

• It gives the opportunity to use it for distant teaching.

What limitations can you see with the use of Jing? 

 

• It might be time consuming to give every student a very detailed and personal feedback if the class is large.

• It may be difficult for teachers to deal with the students who can not complete the homework because they might not have access to computers easily, or face problems to download the program.

Here, there is an example on how you can use Jing to give feedback to your students:

http://screencast.com/t/HJxuhixqAaJ

Dvolver: The greatest moviemaker

What is Dvolver?

Dvolver is a great tool to make free movies online. You can create your own movie by choosing the background and sky images, selecting the plot, character(s), adding speech bubbles to create your own dialogues for every character in every scene, and selecting the background music. It is an easy online tool  to use for language learning and teaching. 

You can find Dvolver in the following link:

dvolver.com

How to use Dvolver?

You can watch this video to learn how to use Dvolver:

Why is Dvolver relevant to language learning?

• It is a motivating and interesting website for students because they can create their own animated movies and feel more engage with the lesson.

• It gives teachers a new way to present contents. Therefore, students would also feel more motivated.

• Teachers can create suitable dialogues according to students' proficiency in the language, the content they are learning, grammar and vocabulary aspects as well.

• Students are free to create any scene using the different elements available for them. In this way they are developing their creativity.

• It is suitable for all ages because it has a range of different characters.

• It encourages both individual and collaborative work.

• This tool also enhances the development of critical thinking through evaluating information, reasoning, thinking and assessing information in a more comprehensible way. For instance, when students have to create dialogues they have to decide the content, vocabulary, grammar, etc. in order to link the conversation, and connect the series of scenes together in a well organised way, in other words, follow the flow of it. 

  

How might you use Dvolver in class/outside the class?

1. Within the classroom

Teachers can present any new teaching point more interestingly to the students by using Dvolver. For example, teachers would like to present through the communicative approach the function of 'introducing themselves', therefore, teachers can create a  dialogue including the specific function, vocabulary and grammar required to present it. This example would be embedded as a real dialogue to show you how you can use it and the content that you can add in the animated movie. Then, teachers can ask them to work in pairs and create a dialogue in which they would introduce themselves.

     2.  Outside the classroom

• By following the example from above, teachers can ask the students to send the movie they made during the class and they can assess them formatively to check the progress of their work and also to give them some feedback in the next class.

What limitations can you see with the use of Dvolver? 

• There are limited number of words for the sentences you intend to incorporate, limited scenes, characters which are pre-determined and limited in number, too. 

• Students and teachers are not able to listen to the conversation. Therefore, they can only read it. However, if a student is proficiently better in the listening and not in the reading skill, they would face some difficulties because the tool would favor one skill over the other.

The next movie would show you a simple example on how you can use Dvolver in the classroom:

TodaysMeet: A simple tool to share ideas in realtime!

          

What is TodaysMeet?

TodaysMeet is a backchannel tool through which people can exchange ideas about any topic in immediate time. As a backchannel tool, it enables to engage everything that may happen in any room or classroom but that it is not provided from a 'presenter' or a teacher. It is a simple tool to be used by teachers and students in the classroom, and it allows them to ask and answer questions, share ideas or notes and give feedback in 'realtime'. 

You can find TodaysMeet in the following link:  

 TodaysMeet

How to use TodaysMeet?

         You can watch this video to learn how to use TodaysMeet:

Why is TodaysMeet relevant to language learning?

• It is a useful tool for language learning because students can use it to work collaboratively by leaving some comments about a certain topic.

• It is motivating and interesting for students, because it breaks with the traditional method based on the behaivourist view of teaching-learning.

• Students can work in groups, share ideas and get to agreements.

• Students can practice and develop the writing skill of the English language.

• It favors some other higher cognitive skills such as critical thinking because they are required to reason, argue, question and give their opinions immediately about some topics they are discussing during the class. 

• There are also some approaches to language learning that support the use of TodaysMeet such as the Socio-Cognitive view of the language which establishes that students learn better through social interaction with their peers.

• It is also based on the constructivism view of the language which states that students have their own knowledge about language, and from there, they can construct some new ones in collaboration with others classmates.

• The chats or conversations can be saved, therefore any students in the classroom can revise them whenever they want to.

  How might you use TodaysMeet in class/outside the class?

1. Within the classroom

• Teachers can propose a subject of relevance to the class, for instance, current and controversial issues such as, the abortion, racism, the use of drugs, etc., ask them to discuss with their group of classmates, be able to support their answers and then share with the class as a whole in the TodaysMeet chat room. This also allow other students to add some comments on it, and get everyone involved in the subject, as well as in the classroom, and the discussion flow will be fast.

• Teachers can see and listen what the students are expressing by writing and speaking about different subjects. Therefore, they have the chance to praise them by using the correct vocabulary and grammar, help them when they might have a problem on how to express themselves or correct their mistakes immediately.

2.  Outside the classroom

• Students would have the opportunity to revise the different discussions after the class because the conversations can be saved, they are organised as the form of a transcript, very clearly, so students can have access to them in the future.

• Teachers can also choose for how long the room will exist, therefore, it  is not only limited to class time.

What limitations can you see with the use of TodaysMeet? 

• The users can not send or receive files while chatting. This can be a barrier when students are working together online because they can not share documents, pictures, power points, links of webpages, etc. Whilst other softwares such as Skype allows them to do it. Therefore, the efficiency of the online communication can be disrupted and students can end up using another virtual tool.