Learning strategies

Not really sure that this site is going to be that useful to teachers -- it's primarily designed for US college students -- but it does have a lot on learning strategies.

That might make it one you might recommend your learners (especially if they are taking an exam like FCE or CAE). I'd suggest that one of the best uses of the Internet you can make is that -- recommend sites of interest to your learners to use independently (assuming that they then do, that is ,-)!

Note the 14 suggestions on influencing teachers (!). (Suggestions on influencing learners, now that would be interesting!)

View thumbnails

The "view thumbnails" function is useful if you want to see what images you have got in a particular folder. In the image above we are seeing the files as a "list" -- and we can't actually see the images.

If you have saved things to your PC from a digital camera, for example, you've probably got names like "DSN5987" -- not terribly helpful, especially when you have several hundred of them!

Assuming you are using Windows, if it's Windows 2000, go to "View" and pick "Thumbnails".


If you have Windows XP, you have both "thumbnails" and "filmstrip" (as shown in the image, above). The latter gives you a much larger version of the image (great for determining which of those several hundred pix you just took on your camera should be trashed!).

If it's a Spanish PC, you want "vistas en miniatura" from the "ver" menu.

"Paste special" to copy content from the Internet

If you are copying text from the Internet -- say, a news story for use in class (see Links, right, for sources) -- you will often find that when you paste the text into Word you get unwanted formatting, largely in the form of tables.

Copying from a webpage will do that -- pick up the tables that have been used to lay out the page.

Avoiding that, and getting just the text that you want, is very simple -- and will be much quicker than trying to eliminate all those table cells.


Copy the text, go to your Word document, and -- from the menu, not the icon -- choose "Paste special" (see image, above).


Then choose "unformatted text" (see second image, above). And it's as simple as that...

To try it, go to Yahoo News, for example, copy a story, and then try both methods: paste with the icon, and then -- in a new document -- use "paste special".

See the difference...?

Keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard short cuts -- such as using the "Control" key +S to save the document you are currently working on -- are not something that you actually need to use.

If you aren"t using them already, you must be accessing the same tools either by the menus or by the icons. From the menu, File >> Save, for example, will have the same effect as Control+S, and clicking the diskette "Save" icon will do the same.

What are the keyboard short cuts?


If you pull down a dropdown menu you will be able to see what your keyboard short cuts are -- as you can see in the image above.

Start to use them and Control +A, +C, +F, +S, +V, +Z, +X (etc) will soon become second nature to you. Go ahead: explore the menus in Word and Internet Explorer and Firefox and you'll soon discover what each of those is for.
Why use the short cuts?
Two reasons. One is that they"ll save you time -- they're faster.

And, more importantly, if you learn to use them, you've learnt something new about using your computer -- and learning how to use a computer more proficiently makes you more confident about using it.

It's a bit like learning a language. When you acquire more words, better skills, you can do more; when you can do more, you feel more confident, and you then communicate more successfully. It's a snowball effect.

Try the shortcuts…!

Change the default start page on your browser

When you open Internet Explorer (IE) -- or Firefox, or whatever browser you are using -- by default it will open at a particular page. What page it opens on is something you can change.

I always have my browser open at Yahoo UK, partly because that takes me to my e-mail but partly also because the news headlines often contain interesting stories (often bizarre, fun stories) that I then copy and save for use in class. "Goat crowned king of Ireland", "Mobile phones for dogs" -- the headlines make you (and your learners) want to read, and that must be a good thing.

How do you change your default start page?

Assuming that you are using IE, actually go to the page you want; then pick Tools >> Internet Options (see image, above); and then click "Use current". Then next time you open IE, you will return to your page automatically.

If you are using Firefox, do the same thing: go to the page; pick Tools >> Options; and you will find "Use current pages" under the "General" tab.

Have things come to you
Doing that, watching for those interesting stories out of the corner of your eye, is one way to have things come to you, rather than going looking for them. "Don't search!" would always be my advice on using the Internet.

For learners, I always recommend that they have their browser open either at Yahoo UK or at the BBC World Service -- and then spend 5 minutes (every time they log on!) picking one item that looks interesting to them and reading it. 5 minutes extra reading practise a day -- great for your English!

As you can just make out in the second image, above, the BBC World Service has the added advantage of a 5 minute audio news (and sport, and business) bulletin. 5 minutes extra listening practice too!

RSS: Don't search -- have things come to you

Above: my Bloglines site this morning, with the sites I am currently tracking on the left

RSS (or "Real Simple Syndication") is one of the ways in which we can have information come to us, rather than have to go to places like Google to search for it.

Basically, you use what is called a "news aggregator" to go off to the sites you are interested in (blogs and an increasingly large number of websites) and then alert you, on a single page (see image above) if it finds new content on the sites it has trawled.

There are a number of possible choices, with Bloglines being the one I use personally, and can recommend.

You can pick and choose which sites you want, can subscribe and unsubscribe easily, and have a variety of options such as seeing just the headlines, summaries (my setting on the BBC Learning English site you can see on the right of the image above) or the whole articles.

Learn more
There is an excellent introduction, RSS: A Quick Start Guide for Educators, from the (also excellent) Weblogg-ed site.

What can you do with a blog?

A blog is the simplest, fastest way to create a website, either for yourself or for use with students.

A blog also has an important added bonus: it's possibly also the fastest way to becoming confident about using technology.

Some of the advantages of a blog:

• Easy to set up
• Easy to use (with great "Help!" files, apart from anything elese, at least on blogger.com)
• Looks professional
• Can be used to communicate
• Gives a purpose to writing
• Allows things to be shared
• Good for motivation

What could you use a blog for?

• As a purely personal diary, or for some other personal purpose (photographs? travel? recipes?)
• For the purposes of professional development (to reflect on your teaching...)
• As a means of giving your confidence about using technology a huge boost
• For providing your students with something to read / do
• etc

You can also have a "team blog", with more than one member, which you could use with colleagues...

• For sharing ideas that work
• For action research
• etc

And you could of course have your students write them, too...

• Individually, as "learner diaries"
• For creative writing projects
• As a class blog, in which all of the class are members
• etc

You will find step-by-step instructions on how to set a blog up on Blogger.com and on Zoomblog.com here on this blog.

CATs and muddiest points

The "muddiest point" (one which you will find a number of posts on this blog) is one of many classroom assessment techniques (CATs) which are popular in US colleges.

The muddiest point basically involves giving your learners a slip of paper on which they record the one thing they are left most puzzled about at the end of the lesson, which they have understood least clearly. You then collect these in, and respond to them.

It could be that you respond at the beginning of the next class; if you have a blog, however, you can respond there...

Some CATs at least you could apply to language teaching...

How do you set up a blog (with Blogger.com)?

Setting up your Blogger account is very easy, but I've provided the screenshots below to guide you through the process.


Step 1: Take a quick tour
First of all you have to go to www.blogger.com and create a new account. Remember when you set up your Hotmail or Yahoo account? Well, this is pretty much the same.

To give you an idea of what blogging involves, you might "take a quick tour" first. Choose that link (shown above).

To set up your account, click where it says "Create your account now" (also shown above).


Step 2: Set up your account
The first screen you get is shown above. Your "user name" and "password" you could make the same as what you are using on Yahoo, or wherever -- which makes it easy to remember them.

Your "display name" is what it says when you post to a blog (what appears on the webpage). Under what you write it will automatically say "posted by" and whatever name you have chosen. I suggest you use your own preferred first name, with a capital letter. My "display name" is Tom, for example.

Accept the "terms" and then click "continue"...


Set 3: Give your blog a name
The next screen looks like the one above. For a first blog, I suggest that you choose one of your hobbies and use that as the "blog title" (you can always change it later, or create a completely new blog) -- "Mountain biking in Spain", for example.

You'll see another example below -- "Jumping up and down on the bed", my favourite sport when I was a kid!

The "blog address" is the address you will have to go to to see your blog. Don't put any spaces in it -- "mountainbikingspain", for example.


Step 4: Choose a template
You then have to choose a "template" (screen shown above). The template controls what your blog looks like. You don't get many choices, and you can change your mind afterwards (and will in fact then get more choices).

I suggest you choose whichever you think is least horrible!

Click "continue", and then you'll get this:


Step 5: Sit back and watch
"Your blog has been created" (above). It really is that simple!

Step 6: Create your first post
Now you can start "posting" to your newly created blog. The interface is shown above, with lots of those buttons probably already being familiar to you:

You will need to write something in order to be able to actually view the blog, and have to click "publish post" (not shown above) first. You also get a "save as draft" button, which allows you to save what you've written and post it later.


Your "Dashboard"
One final thing... Top right, you'll see a link "Back to Dashboard" (circled above).

Your dashboard shows you all of your blogs -- you can have lots of them -- and you can access and edit them from the dashboard.

My "dashboard" (I would click -- for example -- "Young Learners" to edit my Young Learners blog, circled):


There's more to learn about blogs, of course -- but the best way to do that is to try a blog out for yourself...

>> Go to blogger.com in order to set an account (and blog) up for yourself

How do you set up a blog (with Zoomblog.com)?

I originally chose Zoomblog.com rather than Blogger.com for this blog to some extent because Zoomblog offers a particular tool that Blogger.com doesn't have (yet), namely categories.

Without categories, you can only really navigate a blog chronologically. With categories, you can also navigate via author-defined subjects (blogs and blogging, the introduction session itself, muddiest points were three that I set up).

As on blogger.com, a Zoomblog account is remarkably easy to set up...

Step 1: Choose "Start a blog now"
Go to Zoomblog.com, ignore anything you don't understand, and hit that button!

Step 2: Choose your "level of expertise" -- easy, intermediate or expert

Basically, "easy" means you don't get all the options -- I'd recommend you go for "expert" (even if you are not!): you can always change if you find all the different options confusing.

Step 3: Fill in the form...
I suggest that you stay with a password that you already use, say, on your Yahoo or Hotmail account, as it will then be easier to remember.

At this point you'll have to wait for Zoomblog to send you a confirmation link -- which will go to the email address you fill in above.


Step 4: Start your blog
Think of a subject that interests you -- fishing or crochet or bike mechanics, it doesn't matter want -- that goes in the blog title (the first field, above).

The important field is the "blog name/address" -- that's where you will go to actually view the blog once it's online. No spaces in it.

The other field that is important is "who can read this blog". Pick something other than the default "everyone" if you are concerned about privacy.

Personally, I'd suggest making it private at first (you can change later), at least until there's something there worth reading.


Step 5: "Format and style"
You then have to choose what is called a "template", which determines what all of your pages will look like. Click one of the buttons to make your selection.

Step 6: Create your blog
Hit the "create blog" button at the foot of the page to do so -- it's really that simple.

Step 7: Your first post
If you chose "Expert" your editor looks as shown above. Click "publish" to create your first post.

If all those options look confusing, and you want to change your settings, clicking "Level" allows you to go back to "Easy" (shown below), or Intermediate.

For the sake of comparison, here you can see the Zoomblog version of this blog (no longer maintained).

In October 2006, I switched back to Blogger.com in order to be able to publish on our own server (ihes.com).

Zoomblog vs Blogger

Among the advantages of Zoomblogs over Blogger:

• the availability of categories (so that you can navigate the content on a blog by theme, not just by chronological order)
• the choice of 3 different levels of expertise
• it uses terms anyone can understand -- "blog address" rather than the technical "URL", for example
• the "editor" (the bit where you write) is slightly more user-friendly than on Blogger (except for images, see below)
  
• you can make a back-up copy of your blog
  
• the fact that it is not owned by Google-is-Evil

Advantages of Blogger over Zoomblog:

• if you are going to be uploading a lot of images (and images undoubtedly make a blog more interesting), Blogger is easier to use
• the Blogger "help" file is much better -- indeed there is no FAQs or single help file on Zoomblog (though each section has minimal help), a huge oversight
• Blogger offers you a "delete format" button which is handy when your paste text from somewhere else and it looks "wrong" (because you also pasted in the format, font type etc)
• Blogger is bigger and better maintained; in 4 years it's never given me a serious problem -- in 4 weeks Zoomblogs has, and there are several blog service providers that have temporarily, at least, stopped service
• Blogger also gives you better privacy, if that's important to you
  

Which should you choose?
I'd suggest Blogger if you want to include lots of images and want something really robust, Zoomblog if categories are important to you (which is why I shifted this blog from Blogger).

Alternatives
Another good free option is a blog at edublogs.org, also very easy to set up and giving you the option of setting up a wiki, too, besides also being a service for teachers. There is also eslblogs.org, specifically for ESL students.

Just out is a blogging service from Yahoo (still in its trial version). It's dead easy to use, but very limited in what it offers you if personalising your look (etc) is important to you. You want something really simple? This might be what you're after!

The professional alternative (not for the beginner!) is Word Press and they now provide a (limited) free service, which I can recommend. You get categories and the possibility of (new) "pages" (not just always posting on the same one) but virtually no possibility of editing the appearance of your blog -- unless you go for the professional one. You can also import a blog from Blogger, complete with comments!

Firefox, not Internet Explorer

Firefox is a browser (shown above), for viewing websites -- an alternative to Internet Explorer (IE). It's very similar from the user's point of view, but has a number of interesting features.

Among its advantages:

• It's arguably safer than Internet Explorer, being less likely to trigger some of the malicious things lurking out there on the Internet
  
• It adheres to "standards", not something that can always be said of Internet Explorer; standards -- among other things -- allow designers to create websites that you can then use no matter what browser or computer you are using
• It has lots of neat little "extensions", which include the ability to add search engines (and other things) to your toolbar. In the image, right, you can see that I can thus make the same search ("lesson plan ELT") on several different search engines; I didn't find what I wanted on Google-is-Evil, so now I'm going to try Yahoo. My other additions include Answers.com and Wikipedia (good alternatives for search) and -- for films -- the superb Internet Movie Database (IMDB)
  
• It gives you "tabbed browsing", which is great if you're the kind of person that likes to have lots of different web pages or sites open at the same time. You can just see the "tabs" in the image at the top of this post -- I've got the Barcelona-Online directory open, as well as a site called PC Hell, for example
  
• You can save bookmarks where they are more readily accessible. In the image at the top, you can see that the one on the left takes me to my Bloglines account
  
• It works much better than Internet Explorer on some sites -- like Hotmail for example (try downloading something from your Hotmail inbox in the Internet Room and you'll see what I mean: using IE you can't!
  
• It's not Micro$oft
  

Among its disadvantages

• Google-is-Evil is at least partly behind it
• A few sites you can"t view properly in Firefox (generally because the design of the page was sloppy)
  

Don't waste your time on the Internet!

You have to teach the difference between the present perfect and the present perfect progressive.

Which of the following would you turn to, in what approximate order?

• A good grammar reference book
• Google
• Your "Favourites" (aka "Bookmarks")
• A second grammar reference book
• CeltaStars (our email support group)
  
• The notes in your Teacher's Book
• A second search engine (eg. Yahoo or MSN...)
• A colleague or tutor
• Something that might be in your mailbox
• A directory or portal
• A news aggregator (which uses RSS)
  
• Something else...

In the hand-out for the session, I provided further notes on the above, and in the "comments" (see below), I've suggested my own answer.

Is technology going to lead to more, better learning?

Before you begin to use technology -- either on your own (for your classes) or with your classes -- I think there are at least two key things you should ask yourselves:

1. How much time is it going to take -- before, during and after class?
2. Is that going to be time well spent -- ie will it lead to more, better learning than would have been possible without technology?

Will using technology lead to better learning? "It depends," you are probably thinking. But it depends on what?

Is a particular website suitable for use?

Suggested criteria for whether or not you want to use a website with students Do you actually want to take your learners to a site that you have found?

Considerations include:

1. Is it going to be of interest to your learners?

2. Is the content suitable? Is there any possibility that it might break taboos?

3. Is the language of a suitable level of difficulty? (And is it actually correct English?)

4. Is it time-saving or time-consuming?

5. What interaction is it - and the tasks you set - going to produce? Is it going to get people to talk to each other?

6. How much English is the task you are setting going to produce?

7. What useful language are they going to learn from it?

8. How are you going to organise the task you set - with students working individually, in pairs, in groups...?

9. Could you do exactly the same without making any use of the Internet?

10. Could you do the same more easily without the Internet?

11. Is it attractive to look at?

12. Is it easy (intuitive) to navigate?

13. Is the URL (address) you have for the page current (when was the last time you checked it)?

14. Do all the links work?

15. When was the page last updated?

16. What is your "Plan B" if something goes wrong and you can't access the page – or the Internet at all?

Can you think of any others? Add them, via the "Comment this post" link below.

Classroom management in the computer room

You are about to take your class to a computer lab....

Apart from taking with you a good lesson plan, plus your "Plan B" in case it turns out that there's no Internet access at all, or that the site you were going to use doesn't seem to be there any more, there are a number of classroom management issues that you might consider.

How would you answer the following questions:

1. You get to the room first (before your students) and turn all the chairs round to face away from the PC screens -- why?
2. Which is best, and why: 1 student per PC; 2 students to a PC; 3 students to a PC; or more than 3?
3. Your students are busily engaged on doing their "task" -- and you want their attention. How do you obtain it (not easy, when you're competing with the Web!)
4. What percentage of the lesson do you think your learners should spend looking at their computer screens?
5. What other classroom management issues do you think might arise?

Finding texts for use in class

Where can you find texts to use in class? The following are places that I look...

• The BBC, where you will find texts on virtually anything under the sun…
• Among other things, you have an "on this day" section, with historical events of the past for every day of the year
• A good newspaper site, like The Guardian, particularly if you want something topical (but do you need to edit the text to bring down the level of vocabulary difficulty?)
• The Guardian also has a "Historic events as The Guardian saw them" section, where you will also find links to similar "Today is…" sites
• The wacky news items to be found on eg. Yahoo (look for the "Oddly enough" section) make fun texts
• Ananova has a similar section (look for the "Quirkies" section). The bizarre crime stories make good texts for class...
• On Netscape you will find any number of "pop culture" items (some of it, note, perhaps a little risqué for use in class)
• Songs are also "texts", don't forget... AllMusic is an excellent site, but type the name of just about any song, together with the word "lyrics" into any search engine, and you'll find it
  

Don't forget that you can change the default start page on your browser, so that it opens on a page like one of these. "Don't search, have things come to you," I always say -- and, if you look for them out of the corner of your eye when you log on, that's one way in which you can do just that.

Finding images for use in class

Possible sources for images:

1. Magazines and newspapers
2. Draw the image yourself
   
3. If you must use the Internet, the Microsoft site has thousands of useful images on it (though it can sometimes be tricky to download from)
   
4. Clipart is sometimes a good option, apart from anything else as the images are designed to be clear (need pictures of animals...? vegetables...?). Example, above.
5. More clipart on Discovery.com…
6. Another clipart site that that I can recommend
7. Yahoo News, if you are looking for something topical (choose 'News Photos')…
   
8. Google… and most of the other search engines, too (a9.com, Dogpile, Yahoo and Windows Live, for example) -- don't just use Google!

Note the two items that I've put first on my list -- and which (in)famous name I've put last. You want a good image -- don't go to Google-is-Evil: it has zero interest in the quality of the images it steals, and how suitable they are for use in a language class certainly isn't one the criteria it uses.

More on finding and using images from the Internet on our Celta course website.

Bibliography

I can recommend all of the following, with the Dudeney book and those published by OUP being particularly good for one-off lesson plans based on a particular website/page.

• The Internet and the Language Classroom, Dudeney, G. (Cambridge, 2000)
• Dave Sperling's Internet Guide, Sperling, D. (Prentice Hall, 1998)
• How to Use the Internet in ELT, Teeler, D. and Gray, P. (Longman, 2000)
• Internet and ELT: the impact of the Internet on ELT, Eastment, D. (Summertown Publishing, 1999)
• Internet English Gitsaki, C. and Taylor, R. (OUP, 2000)
• The Internet, Windeatt, S., Hardisty, D. and Eastment, D., (OUP, 2000)
• The Internet and Young Learners, Lewis, G. (OUP 2004)
• Teaching English with Information Technology, Gordon-Smith, D. and Baber, E. (Modern English Publishing, 2005)
  

Note that most of the above -- all published fairly recently -- make no mention of blogs, one of the big phenomena, the big success stories, of the Internet. Some don't even mention Google! What is published about the Internet quickly becomes dated (note particularly how the links the books give will quickly break).

Some publishers have companion websites for their "resource books" (also course books) -- partly to combat this problem. The three OUP books above all do (registration required):

Other ELT publishers websites