New Present Day English for Foreign Students

 

by E. Frank Candlin; published by the University of London Press. 

Dr Victor Lim's multiliteracy teaching resources

 The second and third links on this webage of Dr Victor Lim will take you to two collections of lesson packages on multiliteracy. 

https://victorlimfei.wordpress.com/resources/

The second link contains 7 lesson packages (under 'Resources') created by their R and D team in trying out Multiliteracy lessons with upper primary and lower seconedary students in Singapore. 

The third link contains lesson packages created by student teachers at NIE. These lessons on NARRATIVE multiliteracy were targetted at upper primary students in Singapore. 

How Microsoft Reading Progress Works

 Phase 1: The teacher sets and assigns the reading aloud task

1.1    On the Class Team dashboard, the teacher clicks on 'Assignment', and types in the Title of the Assignment. 

1.2   The teacher clicks on 'Attachment', which will open a drop-down menu. The teacher selects 'Reading Progress'

1.3   The next screen will ask the teacher whether he will upload a WORD reading passage, or choose one from ReadWorks. The teacher acts accordingly. 

1.4    The teacher sets the assignment deadline, and assigns the task. 

Phase 2: The student will try the assignment. The student will: 

2.1   Open the Class Team, and open the respective assignment. 

2.2    Click 'Start'. The passage will appear, and he will start to record his reading. 

2.3   When finished, he will be shown 5 words from his reading that the system invites him to repeat. (This segment is called the Reading Coach.)

2.4    The student then submits the assignment. 

Phase 3: The teacher checks the submitted assignment. He will: 

3.1    open each assignment on his dashboard and sees the student's performance in terms of an overall score (e.g., 94%), mispronunciations, omissions, etc. He will also see the reading passage marked with mispronunciations, insertions, etc. 

3.2    write in the feedback box if he wants to.

3.3     'return' the seen assignment to the student, with or without his own grade. 

Phase 4: The student checks the returned assignment. He will: 

4.1    go to his dashboard and open the (returned) assignment;

4.2     sees his performance results (as in 3.1) as well as his previous video recording, and the teacher's feedback and grade if given. 

Can Bing really chat?

 我嘗試用口語和Bing 交談，它懂得用文字答我，互相問候後，它問我可以為我做甚麼，例如為我作詩，我問它可否繼續無目的地閒談。

這時候弹出一個交談已被终止的通知。原来Bing 不是真的會聊天。

My quick review of 4 AI-powered apps for creating DIALOGUES

 So far, I have tried out 4 AI-powered apps for creating DIALOGUES from a dialogue script. Below is my quick review of the 4 apps: 

- Narakeet

- Text-to-speech-robot

- Murf.ai

- Typecast

https://wakelet.com/wake/fyTJd1VvaogdWtq-ll7f5

Two things that have impressed me: 

- Typecast can generate an avatar-talking dialogue video (but you have to enter the script line by line); the resulting video is fun to watch. 

- Murf.ai is very easy to use, and it can also generate a dialogue video (but not with cartoon-like characters) using the built-in images and videos, or your own images and videos. 

Using Typecast to generate Dialogue Videos

 here are now many apps which can create AI-powered monologues (e.g. Speecify; Natural Readers), but what about DIALOGUES? 

Yesterday, I explained how we can do that with Narakeet by naming the Speaker Voice for each speaking turn in the imported script. After that, I continued to explore other apps, and found that Typecast can even generate a dialogue video with the speaker avatars talking! Below is a very short one which I have created. (The free plan only gives you very short generated videos.)

https://youtu.be/fV0fBEivbxQ

What I like about Murf.ai

What I like about Murf.ai is its use of use for creating AI-generated dialogues. The few other apps for the same purpose, such as Narakeet, Text-to-Speech-Dialogue, and Typecast, involve more steps in  inputting the dialogue text, and/or assigning Speaker Voice to each speaking turn. 

Murf.ai, however, involves much less fuss. Just prepare a WORD file containing the script, and in the script, indicate each speaking turn as a new line. Then import the WORD file into a Murf.ai project. The speaking turns will appear automatically in the project. Then, for each speaking turn, click on the avatar on the left and choose the Speaker Voice. This step can be finished quite quickly. Then, generate. 

Under the free plan, the resulting dialogue can be shared via a link. You can even import an image, or a video, so that the generated audio works like a voiceover. 

(The paid plan has a few other cool functions.)

Creating TTS dialogues

 There are now dozens of AI-powered apps for turning text to speech, and the resulting speech is usually a monologue. When you start, the app will usually ask you to choose a voice. The other day, I started to wonder whether these apps could also create a dialogue consisting of 2 voices. If the answer was yes, that would be a great bonus to language teachers. 

I then did an online search, and found a few apps which claimed to be able to do that. I then headed to Narakeet, which I had used before to convert a PPT with speaker notes to a narrated video. It turned out it was actually quite easy. After pasting in your dialogue text, just insert some 'stage directions' indicating which voice (among those provided) to use for which segment of the dialogue. Below is a TTS conversation which I have generated from a dialogue in Ch 1 of Open English I (an open-source textbook project). (Yes, it's very short, because you have to pay in order to get a longer dialogue audio.)

This edtech development is good news to language teachers, but bad news to those people who work as voice artists. 

https://youtu.be/UX2-hy5M8Ug

Chatting with ChatGPT vs Chatting with a Human

 So I asked ChatGPT to generate a poem for me. It not only gave me a poem in 5 seconds; it asked me what I thought of his poem. I gave him a thumbs--up. He then thanked me and told me he actually enjoyed writing poems, and asked me if I would want another one. 

That's why ChatGPT can be addictive;  it can be even more interactive, rewarding,, and heartwarming than voice/text chatting with a human!

Classkick, or Classcake

 Classkick 是一個eLearning app 的名字，但不知為甚麼每次在課堂介紹這app時， 我都會不期然說了Classcake！是因為我的課大多在晚間進行，有點餓，還是我渴望和學員一同吃蛋糕?

https://classkick.com/

Bridge is also a sport!

 先前我詫異gaming也是運動，原來更靜態的橋牌也是亞運項目。當然我在某次運動展看過下棋也包含在內。這也好，令我坐著玩新eLearning app時也覺得自己在做運動。

Jamboard sunsetting in late 2024

It's a pity that Google will be sunsetting Jamboard in late 2024. Jamboard is an app that I use from time to time for my students to work on simple graphic organizer tasks. It's easy to use, and excellent for collaborative work. And, it's always free!

https://www.engadget.com/google-is-sunsetting-its-collaborative-jamboard-app-101658315.html

My review of 9 AI-powered apps for generating Reading Comprehension questions

 When teaching and assessing Reading Comprehension, ESL teachers used to write their own comprehension questions to go with a reading passage. Thanks to generative AI, this task can now be taken up by AI-powered question-generator apps. 

There are now dozens of such apps. Below is my quick review of the free plans of 9 more wellknown ones. The common features include: 

- There is a text box for users to paste in their passage. Many of them also allow users to upload a WORD/PDF file. 

- The common question types that can be generated are: MC; blank-filling; open question; T/F; and matching. 

- There are 3 levels of difficulty to choose from. 

- The question set generated can be copied, or exported as a text document, or pdf. 

At the some time, some of them have certain unique features. Examples: 

- Some of the apps (e.g., Conker.ai; OpenExams) allow users to start with just a topic (instead of a passage). Type in a topic, and the app will first generate a passage, then a question set, for you. 

- Most of the apps will generate a question set consisting of one question type (e.g., MC), but Conker.ai can generate a mixed bag of question types in one set. 

- Quizbot.ai can even generate a question set from a Youtube video! (...making use of the Youtube transcript, I think.)

- Some, like Quizgecko, can start with a URL. Just type in a URL (a webpage; a newspaper article), and they will generate a question set for you. 

- Quiz Wizard can even generate a question set from an audio/video file that you upload!

- Questgen can generate questions that correspond to the 6 levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. You can ask for (a) one quiz containing all 6 levels, or (b) one quiz with all questions on one particular level.

My own observation is that at the moment, these apps are good at creating questions that ask for specific information. They are still not very good at generating higher-order-thinking questions. (So we ESL teachers still have an important role to play in teaching Reading.)

MY REVIEW: 

https://wakelet.com/wake/c4BvKKoqhQDPQAgDH9nWP

Classpoint for making a PPT presentation more interactive

 https://www.classpoint.io/  is a PPT add-on for inserting interactive activities into a PPT. Works like PPT and Pear Deck, except that you can use your existing PPT immediately. (No need to upload your PPT to Nearpod or Google Drive first.) The free plan has fewer interactive types, and can accommodate a maximum class size of 25. It has fewer interactive types than Nearpod, though. 

The paid plan (class size of 200 students; more interactive types) costs about HKD50 per month. 

Obtained Wakelet Certified Educator badge

 

Received the MIE Expert 23-24 badge

 這其實是2023/24 學年取得的第一個eLearning  badge(第二個是Microsoft Educator Trainer 2024), 但今年不知為甚麼等到10月Microsoft 才正式發出。Anyway, better late than never. 而且很榮幸是香港高等教育界唯一擁有這eLearning badge 的educator。

GoFullPage: Chrome extension

 GoFullPage is quite a useful Chrome extension. It can save a webpage as an image, or a PDF, even if the webpage scans several pages. So sometimes this can be useful if I want to share a PDF with others to show them what a webpage, or parts of a webpage is like. 

What is meant by gaming?

 昨晚的computer assisted language learning一科談到gamification意念在製作interactive task中愈來愈流行，例如Blooket ，Gimkit, 和Minecraft，原因是"Kids, especially boys, love gaming"。但這樣說gaming (指playing computer games)，總覺得不自然，因為最初認識gaming 一詞是在澳門，是指到賭場賭錢耍樂!

eShare: a very useful tool

 以前到校做workshop, 由於我喜歡用自己的laptop, 總要提早抵達處理用線接駁(例如HDMI)至場地投影系統的問題。但這兩年發現愈來愈多學校在課室裝了ESHARE, 我抵達後只須登入學校的wifi,  連接入課室的eShare, 乾手淨腳，有聲有畫面，我甚至可以把laptop 放在課室任何角落去present, 或從我的tablet 去present， 這真是一項德政。有趣的是，間中發現學校老師原來不知道課室已有這設施！(那天有老師問我大學學室的設置如何。我只能說，大學不少課室的設置，仍然很二十世紀。)