October 12: Columbus Day

This coming Sunday is Columbus Day, or El Día de la Hispanidad -- which might make an interesting webquest (not something your students will thank you for, if you make them do it Sunday ,-)!

You'll find ideas for other "Days of the Year" here; and on TeachingEnglish.org.uk there are some neat ideas for how you could exploit the days of the week, etc, with kids, just about any day of the year.

Series of online articles on reading

Reading: what kind of help and motivation should you provide?

Over on TeachingEnglish.org.uk, Dave Willis has started a four-part series on reading, the first being Reading for information: Motivating learners to read efficiently.

Among other things I liked in the first article of the series was the idea that we should we should provide "a context and a reason for reading", though if -- as suggested -- we're reading to answer the questions generated by discussion, I think some at least should be student-generated questions.

If some of the students' questions don't then get answered by your text, then go webquest (even if "only" for homework!)

The rest of the series:

>> Part 2 Form focus and recycling: getting grammar
>> Part 3 Techniques for priming and recycling
>> Part 4 Techniques for form focus after reading

More ideas for blogging projects, webquests

A couple of very recent news stories that might make good blogging projects and/or webquests...

I'm assuming that you have a class blog with a group of adults, on which all your students can "author" posts (write, and not just comment, that is), though if you only allow your students to comment, the first at least would still work well.

1. Virtual fashion
In Britain and France, "the world's first virtual fashion game" Miss Bimbo has been a huge success with young girls (it's addressed to 9-16 year olds), allowing them to create a virtual self and earn "bimbo dollars" to give themselves plastic surgery etc. Needless to say it has sparked controversy -- and it's the controversy that I think would make it an idea that would work in class: your learners will want to talk about it, find out more, etc.

2. The worst food in the USA
The New York Times has a book review that lists the worst foods in America, based on their fat content, calories, etc (like the Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie with Vanilla Ice Cream, with a mere 1,600 calories). The article gives you a starting point for discussion and though they might not be able to find out all of the actual details, calorie counts, etc, researching "the worst foods in Spain" (or wherever), or "the worst fast food", might make a good project.

3. Plastic rubbish on the beach
The BBC's environment correspondent David Shukman has a report on the threat of plastic rubbish drifting in the ocean, which might make an interesting project particularly if you are teaching a content-based curriculum (or have just got to the "Environment" unit in your coursebook!), and particularly if you teach somewhere close to the beach. You might not be somewhere as dramatic as Mr Shukman gets to (the historic Pacific island of Midway), but you might try to persuade your learners (for homework!) to go down to the beach, see what rubbish they can find and report back (via their blog, that is).

Homemade webquests
If you wanted to turn these ideas into webquests, I'd talk about the stories first and see what sort of unanswered questions class discussion produced -- as I much prefer my learners to generate their own questions, their own webquest, rather than one I impose on them.

Alternative technologies
If you don't have a blog, you could still do all of the above, and could produce PowerPoint presentations or things to display on your classroom walls.

Using webquests in teaching and learning

This one came to me via my RSS feed for the excellent SearchEnglish site...

A basic introductory article on using webquests in teaching and learning, with some interesting links at the end of the article.

More about webquests too, here on this blog.

Christmas lessons

Happy Catalan Christmas!

It must be getting round to that time of year again... Christmas! There are some Christmas lesson plans on DevelopingTeachers.com, if you are looking, and another 2 million plus on Google, it would appear.

A webquest would be one idea, and here's a Christmas webquest from OneStopEnglish.

If you have a class blog, they could post their results there, or they could write about their own Christmas traditions as well as ones they discover in a webquest (in the image, above, a Catalan Christmas tradition).

If you've got young learners, somewhere I would always look for ideas would be EnchantedLearning.com, where there are some results.

A Christmas card is always fun with kids -- you could get them to draw a nativity scene and then label the different things (shepherds, kings, donkeys, the Baby Jesus, etc) so that they learn some English too.

Chocolate!

Get me my daily dose of chocolate, quick!

October 15-21 is Chocolate Week, according to the weekly tip DevelopingTeachers.com sent to my mail box this week.

Not sure I'd "use chocolate bars as prizes in class competitions", but the Tip comes with lesson plan ideas and some great links -- like a chocolate tasting competition as a warmer!

"Chocolate" might also make an interesting class discussion -- and you might then turn it into a webquest.

True, I am wild about chocolate (see picture of my breakfast, above), but I'd be prepared to bet a King Size Mars Bar you've got several chocolate freaks sitting there in your class, too!

>> Another Weekly Tip idea

Why is it wrong to steal images... and text

Not actually stolen from Google, legally downloaded flashcards... But, if there's no involvement, that's almost as bad!

Why is it wrong to steal images?
First a misconception most users are under: no one has given Google (or any other search engine) permission to grab all their images off their websites. It is therefore wrong for Google to steal images in the first place -- and that doesn't make it right for you to steal the same images from Google. Neither does the fact that "everyone else does".

As an educator, I think that you have a moral responsibility: you cannot condone and must condemn theft, and therefore can neither steal other people's images and use them, for example, on a blog, nor allow your student's to do that.

Images or content -- text, that is.

Why bother creating your own?
But there's more to it than the moral considerations, which I imagine are not going to convince many people nowadays.

For example, with text, in a webquest you have asked your learners to find the answers to certain questions, and then to "publish" them in some way -- in a Word document, as a PowerPoint presentation, on a blog. If they merely "copy and paste", as many will do, they are very unlikely to be doing very much manipulation of the language; they are not getting to grips with it, getting "under the bonnet" and getting their hands dirty, tinkering with it and reformulating it in any way. Merely copying and pasting it isn't going to do a lot for their language learning.

Teach your learners not to copy and paste, but to copy and paste; select judiciously, cut ruthlessly and quote correctly... And provide the language for that ("(....), according to Yahoo News"; "says a report on CNN" [+hyperlink]; etc)

And images...
If it's images, it's far better for them to create their own, than handle stolen property from Google. Why?

What you want, for learners to be truly engaged in their learning, is for them to be creative, to be imaginative. Google Images is not creative.

You want affective involvement in their learning -- you want them to care. When they do, they learn more.

What you want is for them to be proud of what they've created. There isn't a lot of pride to be had in handling stolen goods.

How do they create their own images?
Images can come from digital cameras, from mobile phones, from hand-drawn art work (which is then either photographed or scanned), or be created in a simple image editing program like Paint.

Is it worth the effort?
Yes. Why? Because of the pride to be had in the creation...

Student-generated webquests

Student-generated questions for a webquest...

One thing which I think makes a successful webquest is to have the students produce the questions, rather than the teacher dictate to them what it is that they have to find out. Why find out what the teacher is interested in? Maybe that's not what interests the learners...

In the illustration, above, from a course I did last month, my learners pooled what they knew about the running of the bulls in Pamplona (San Fermín). As you can see, they knew something at least, but came up with as many questions as answers... That was their webquest.

Holiday plans, anyone?

May's DevelopingTeachers.com newsletter has a holiday plans lesson that looks interesting.

It doesn't actually use the term "webquest", but you have the makings of one there in the links provided.

>> More about webquests
>> More about email newsletters for ELT

Webquest: world's weirdest creatures

The idea for this one came to me from my RSS feed [explanation] from the crazy people at BoingBoing, and looks as if it might make a neat webquest [more information].

The basis of the webquest would be to find what the following have in common:

• The long-beaked echidna ("an egg-laying mammal")
• The Hispaniolan solenodon ("a venomous shrew-like creature")
• The Bactrian camel
• The pygmy hippopotamus
• The Slender Loris ("a shy, nocturnal primate with gigantic eyes")
  

The original (which includes 10 such creatures) is a campaign by EDGE to save the "world's weirdest creatures".

I'd suggest not specifying the URL of the EDGE site, but having your learners use a search engine or online encyclopedia, like Wikipedia (otherwise it's too easy!).

National icons: a webquest, blogging project?

A cup of tea, a national icon... Not so the Digestive biscuit (yet!)

Among the Yahoo headlines this morning, "Underground map and red telephone boxes become English icons".

The website www.icons.org.uk has a long list of "England's best-loved things" -- including cheddar cheese, a cup of tea, The Archers, Dr Who and fish and chips. You want to suggest another, you can...

Apart from the possibility of using the site (and others) for a webquest, you could probably build an interesting blog project on the same idea -- the things that your learners regard as being icons for their own country.

Note the "what is an icon" section.

You want a digital copy of the Yahoo article for use in class? Ask me...

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...