Basic tools

In our introductory session, the following things were all mentioned in your "Task 1". Click the links provided here to learn more.

Task 1
The following are things that you should know how to do:

• Create and organise your Favourites (aka Bookmarks)
• Run Windows Explorer (for exploring what's on your PC, not what's on the Internet, for which you need Internet Explorer, or another browser)
• Find images on the Internet, store them on your PC, and then reuse them
• Use the "paste special" function to paste text from the Internet into a text document
• Use "view thumbnails" to see what images you have in a particular folder
• Change the default start page on your browser
• Use your keyboard shortcuts
• Create a Word document using a Word template
  

The following are things that you might want to use:

• Firefox (an alternative to Internet Explorer)
• Podcasting
• A blog
• RSS

Understanding the technical terms

"I just don't understand the technical terms," someone said the other day.

There are various places you could turn to for help:

• Someone that knows who happens to be right there at the time! Ask us in the Internet Room, if you are there...
• The ict4lt.org site (that's Information and Communications Technology for Language Teachers) has a good glossary (as well as lots of other interesting links under "resources")
  
• Webopedia, which describes itself as an "online dictionary and search engine for computer and Internet technology definitions"
• Google-is-Evil (or some other search engine). On G-is-E, try adding "define" to your search [example]

The above are in approximate order of preference, note. First a person, not technology at all, with a specialist site (possibly one you have bookmarked) before a search engine.

Finding information on the Internet

My own advice would always be "Don't search!" -- don't use a search engine, that is -- if you can possibly help it. If you've got a book or a tutor or a colleague at hand, often you'll find that that they're faster and more authoritative sources of information.

But then again, at some point, you won't have any choice (or at least a search engine will seem to be the most readily available choice).

If you are going to use search engines ("Not just Google-is-Evil!" I would say), it pays to know how to use them efficiently. Some resources:

Refining searches
A tutorial from the BBC

Tutorials
More tutorials on searching the Web (Pandia.com)

Finding information on the Internet
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/

Information Literacy: Search Strategies
How to choose the best search option for your information need

More "21st Century Literacies"
http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/21c.html

Webquests

A series of links if you want to learn more about webquests...

Finding the information -- and then using it
In Kathy Schrock's introduction to webquests (first link below), she says that in a webquest the learner "analyzes a body of information [ie information found on the Internet] transforms it and demonstrates understanding by presenting it in some way".

I would suggest that the best webquests involve exactly that, not just finding the information, but using it in some way, for example as either a verbal or a written presentation.

I would also suggest that if you have a class blog (on which your learners can all be authors), then a blog is an excellent place to make that presentation.

Links
A neat little slideshow introduction to what webquests are
http://kathyschrock.net/slideshows/webquests/frame0001.htm

A look back at the 1960s – an example webquest
http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/museum/webquest.html

Designing webquests
http://www.ozline.com/learning/index.htm

Study Groups and WebQuests
An article from the excellent techlearning.com website*

How to Succeed with WebQuests
Another article from techlearning.com*

Webquest templates
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/LessonTemplate.html

WebQuest Taskonomy: A Taxonomy of Tasks
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/taskonomy.html


*TechLearning.com
The TechLearning website (and newsletter) is one I can highly recommend if you are interested in using technology. Definitely worth the 2 minutes it will take you to register...

Portraits of Learning - superb use of technology

The Portraits of Learning project (a contest, actually) requires K-12 students to submit a photograph and "a short description of no more than fifty words about how your photograph reflects your personal universe".

Note the photo tips page, and don't miss the galleries of entries for 2004 and 2005.

Put together a similar project, create a website (or a blog) on which to display them and that's a superb use of technology in the classroom...!

Windows Explorer

Windows Explorer is used for exploring what you have on your computer -- and also for organising what's on it, by creating folders and subfolders.

It's not the same as Internet Explorer, which is used for exploring what's on the Internet.

How you get to Windows Explorer


There are various ways you can launch Windows Explorer, all of which you can see in the image, above:

• Using "My Computer", which in effect launches Windows Explorer for you
• Via the "Windows Explorer" icon
• By right-clicking on the "start" button (bottom left of the image), and then choosing "Explore" from the pop-up menu
• By clicking "start", choosing "Run" and typing "explorer" into the box
  

What can you do with Windows Explorer
There are lots of useful things you can do with Windows Explorer, some of them essential to then being able to find things easily on your PC.

• create a new folder (via File >> New >> Folder, shown in the image, right)
  
• create sub folders (right-click within an existing folder, choose New >> Folder, and name appropriately)
  
• rename a folder (right-click it, and choose "rename" (or select the folder and hit the F2 shortcut key))
• examine what is in the folders, with the "view thumbnails" function the best way to see what images you have in them
• reorganise files into other folders (select whatever you want, holding down Control or Control+Shift to select multiple files, and simply drag to whichever folder you want them in)
  

If what you have created doesn't seem to appear, hit the F5 key to refresh the view.

Organising and naming your files and folders logically becomes vital when you have a lot of things on your computer.

Go to "start" >> "search" if you still can't find it!

>> More on Windows Explorer

Lesson plans in your mail box

You've got mail, lesson plans, in fact...

There are lots of places on the Web where you will find lesson plans -- some of them with an email subscription service, a handy way of having things come to you, rather than having to go looking for them.

All of those listed below are free resources, though most require registration.

In alphabetical order, with [weekly], [monthly] or [none] indicating whether or not you can subscribe.

BBC "Words in the News" [none]
The BBC has a weekly lesson plan on a topical story with "notes and instructions for teachers, worksheets for students and a full answer key" -- and the added advantage of an audio version of the same story.

Business English lesson plans [weekly]
MacMillan will send you a weekly Business English lesson plan -- which you can register for and get the Inside Out lesson plan (see below) in the same mail. Further Business English lesson plans on OneStopEnglish (see below).

DevelopingTeachers.com [weekly tips], [monthly newsletter]
DevelopingTeachers has both weekly tips and an excellent monthly newsletter (ideas and activities (...) centred around a different subject (...) links to web sites for resource material" etc. Also a great archive of useful things, including lesson plans.

Inside Out [weekly]
Inside Out is a popular general English coursebook with a weekly "e-lesson".

OneStopEnglish [monthly update]
OneStopEnglish is an excellent website for English teachers, with stacks of resources, lesson plans and articles of interest, including an excellent lesson plan bank, with lessons at three different levels based on articles in The Guardian Weekly. The monthly update keeps you in touch with new content.

And not just lesson plans...

Humanising English Teaching [6 issues a year]
HLT is an online magazine -- though in fact "online" means that you have to done load it. In your mailbox, you'll get only an alert that a new issue has come out. In your download, some very interesting articles...

TeachingEnglish.org.uk [monthly update]
The BBC / British Council TeachingEnglish.org.uk website is -- like OneStopEnglish -- one of the best: for lesson plans, articles, ideas, tips... Like OSE is has a monthly update to tell you about new things on the site. If you become an information junkie like myself and get into RSS, it also has a feed: you get updates by the minute, instead of by the month...!

Today is...

Because it's Valentine's Day or Halloween or the anniversary of some historic event -- or because you just want a change from your coursebook -- "Today is..." can sometimes make for a topical lesson, and out there is cyberspace there are some great resources:

1.-- Calendar events
Below, some examples. For other events, you could try searching on either DevelopingTeachers or OneStopEnglish.

• For Valentine's Day, you have lesson ideas and lesson plans, on DevelopingTeachers.com
• For Halloween, there is lots of stuff on the British Council kids site
• For Christmas, there's a webquest (and lots more) on OneStopEnglish
• For New Year, Snopes.com has a section on superstitions

DevelopingTeachers also has a list of days, and resources for them.

2.-- Bizarre calendar events
On bizarrenews.com you can get a list of (bizarre) "today is..."

• February 23 is International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day
• October 9 is Mouldy Cheese Day
• November 19 is "Have A Bad Day Day"
• November 28 is "Make Your Own Head Day

3.-- Holiday (etc) orgins

• Wikipedia has excellent focus on days of the year
• HolidayOrigins.com explains the origins of US holidays
  
• EarthCalendar.net is a "daybook of holidays and celebrations around the world".
  

4.-- Historic events

• The BBC has BBC an "On this day" page...
• The Guardian has a wonderful section of "Historic events as The Guardian saw them", going right back to 1834.
  

Business English, links and books

Websites
Some of the ELT publishers have useful resources for teaching Business English on their websites -- including MacMillan (at OneStopEnglish)...

There are also interesting Business English resources on the OUP site.

You will also find things of interest (notably a Business English blog) on te4be.com -- which stands for Technology for Business English.

There's another (horribly designed) Business English blog here.

The wonderfully named "Business Balls" site has "free materials, articles, and ideas for ethical personal and organizational development", which anyone teaching Business English may find useful.

You will find a fuller list of Business English links on the IH Barcelona website, including primary sources like the BBC and Financial Times.

In your mail box
The discussion forum of the Business English SIG (Special Interest Group) will bring things of interest to your mailbox. The group also has an interesting links page and is part of IATEFL.

MacMillan has a Business English site which, among other things, will send you a weekly Business English lesson plan.

Don't search -- have things come to you...! More links to stuff in your mailbox here on this blog.

Books
Business English basics
On our Celta Course website there's a brief introduction to teaching Business English. But never turn to the Web if the information is readily available to you in a book, I would say.

The Web can be useful if you are looking for authentic materials for your Business English class but if it's how to teach Business English, then there are a couple of good books on the subject that are well worth reading.

• Teaching Business English, Mark Ellis and Christine Johnson (OUP, 1994)
  
• How to Teach Business English, Evan Frendo (Longman, 2005)

Both will give you the basic notions of teaching Business English (and make you feel you are better prepared for it, and hence more confident) as well as practical ideas.

Coursebooks
If it's a coursebook you want, then -- among the scores of Business English courses available -- I can highly recommend the excellent Market Leader series. Market Leader is particularly good for its "case studies".

There is also a Market Leader website, with additional materials on it.

More on case studies in Business English.

Teaching 1-2-1
You may also find yourself teaching Business English "one-to-one" (as private classes), in which case there are a further two books I would recommend, again both for getting the basic principles and the practical ideas:

• One-to-One: A Teacher's Handbook, Peter Wilberg (LTP, 1987)
  
• Teaching English One to One, Patricia Osborne (Modern English Publishing, 2005)

On the Web, OneStopEnglish also has a section on Teaching 1-2-1.

Like to suggest something else?
Use the "comment this post" link below...

Video storytelling

An article, from the excellent techlearning.com, on using the video in the classroom to get kids to tell stories.

Working with kids who were doing poorly, the author says that:

"... rather than have students silently read essays and short stories, I asked them to read the works in front of the class. Before long I couldn"t get them to stop. This simple act made a huge difference to them. It turned reading into performing"

More ideas on using video in the classroom from the also excellent teachingenglish.org.uk.