The Dictation Game function in Educaplay

 Educaplay has an activity format, called Dictation Game, which can be useful to English teachers in preparing their students for Dictations. You (1) input the dictation text, (2) record the text word by word or sentence by sentence, (3) 'publish' it, and (4) give students the share link. 

At home, students then listen to each word/sentence, and type it out. They can replay a word/sentence as many times as they like. When they have finished typing out the whole text, they click 'Check'. The screen will then show them (a) the original text, (b) their typed text, and (c) their mistakes highlighted. 

Below is a short P2 example that I have created. Give it a try and see if this function is useful to you in preparing your students for Dictations.

https://www.educaplay.com/learning-resources/12953324-the_story_of_fai_fai.html

Froggy Jump in Educaplay

 像Bookwidgets一樣，Educaplay 也是我早期用以製作interactive task的其中一個app. 但出現了其他更versatile 的app後(e.g., Wordall)，便被我冷落了。最近重訪Educaplay, 發現它有一個新的game mode稱Froggy Jump, 基本上仍是MC Quiz, 但它的版面 很有趣，答問題時令青蛙跳來跳去，初小學生應該會覺得很好玩。

還有，學生答完一次後，可以無數次retry, 每次retry, 题目的次序會改變，無題三個可能答案的位置都會掉換，這樣學生不能靠死記正確答案的位置，而且retry多次也不覺得悶。

下面是我用Froggie Jump製作了一個present tense verb form的game。

今天的Educaplay 還有一個Activity type對小學英語老師會很有用，就是Dictation Games, 可用來幫助学生温習默書。

https://www.educaplay.com/learning-resources/12899121-form_of_the_main_verb_in_simple_present_affirmative_vs_negative.html?fbclid=IwAR0LXREhsQ1U-hUB3afOtba1SmcTu3LANAqp-gsMeW1IA2Ac2SR1NS3sqs0

Thinglink vs Genial.ly

 GeGenial.ly is still worth subscribing to (HKD30 per month) as it has a larger variety of artifact types, and for presentations you can upload your PPT as a starting point.

 With Thinglink, to use a template you have to go to the built-in Canva connection, but sometimes you have to pay to use a Canva template. But Thinglink has (a) 360 artifacts which Genial.ly doesn't have, and (b) seats for students. These are two unique features that Genial.ly doesn't have. 

Ice vs water

 喜歡喝台灣的黑糖珍珠奶茶，但去不到台灣，惟有在香港小店買一杯來喝喝。

但是跟著途中一直找不到適合除下口罩的角落來喝這杯看上去也頗像樣的黑糖珍珠奶茶。走著走著，突然想：內裏的冰塊會隨著温度上升要溶化，杯內愈來愈多水，會否迫破膠杯的封口?

過一會想，冰溶化變水後，水的體積會否比先前的冰塊細小，以至愈多冰塊溶化，杯內液體的體積反而愈小。這一刻，發覺自己竟然不知道答案。

隨著想起中學的物理科老師兼中五班主任馬紹良先生，覺得有點愧對他，尤其是他教物理着實教得好。幸好幾年前碰見他，他還記得我的名字。

如果你在IT和e-learning 界的日子夠長，你也可能記得他的名字呢!不錯，馬绍良老師後來進入教署，做到資訊系統科首席教育主任，負責推動全港學校資訊科技教育，說他是香港資科技教育始祖，一點兒也不為過。

雖然我已經把老師教的物理知識全然忘掉，雖然我的專業不是資訊科技本身，但我愛上了computer assisted language learning, 也算是對馬绍良老師一點報答吧。

MIEE 22-23 LIST

 The MIEE list for 22-23 has just been released. This year, there are 53 MIEE's in Hong Kong. 

https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AL9xXbQeJNj3CAw&id=91F4E618548FC604%2111185&cid=91F4E618548FC604&parId=root&parQt=sharedby&parCid=E837B342D1C436C8&o=OneUp

Travel safe vs Travel safely

 Every time when I'm standing on an MTR escalator, I keep being bombarded by the announcement 'Stand firm, hold the handrail, and travel safely.'

Now, because I've been contemplating whether I should think big, start small, work smarter and not harder, and eat healthy, so that I can live simple but happy, I can't help starting to 'feel' that it's perhaps 'more correct', or 'better', for MTR to say 'Travel safe.' I'm even starting to form a visual representation in my mind of someone who travels safe as opposed to someone who travels safely (though I can't verbalise the difference). 

But what if an ESL teacher confronts me with the question: "Shouldn't we use an adverb after a verb?"

My first 2 split worksheets under the Bookwidgets Teacher plan

 As Bookwidgets has won back my affection, I have purchased a subscription to the app. The Teacher plan costs HKD33 per month, which is good value for money given the large variety of interactive tasks that one can create with Bookwidgets. 

Below are the first 2 artifacts I have created under the Teacher Plan. Can't wait to use them in the first week of September: 

(1) A split worksheet with a scrollable webpage on the left half of the page, and some blank-filling questions on the right (remember there are 36 question types to choose from for a worksheet!!)

https://www.bookwidgets.com/play/mQsB5rTC-iQAEHRSbwgAAA/FDLHGF5/4-approaches-me?teacher_id=5683224028119040

(2) A split worksheet with a Youtube video on the left, and an open-ended question on the right:😄

https://www.bookwidgets.com/play/GZ4QHMXI-iQAERO-cIgAAA/6DLPG6H/your-teaching-p?teacher_id=5683224028119040

Bookwidgets revisited

 Bookwidgets was one of the early apps which I explored for creating interactive tasks. But at that time, the dashboard for creating new tasks was not that intuitive, so that it would take quite a while to figure out how to create a 'widget'. After a while, I turned my affection to other apps such as Educaplay, Wordwall, Learningapps.org, Bitsboard, and puzzel.org, for creating interactive tasks. 

But recently when I visited Bookwidgets again, I found that the app has made huge improvement. The dashboard is more user-friendly, though still not intuitive enough. There is a large variety of task formats which are not found in other apps. The app now integrates with Google Classroom. But personally the functionality I like the most is its capacity for creating quizzes and worksheets: a sequence of interactive tasks within a single quiz/worksheet. And there are as many as 36 task types to choose from when creating a quiz/worksheet. This functionality is not found in other apps, most of which can only create standalone interactive tasks (e.g., MC; matching; sequencing). 

In other words, Bookwidgets has succeeded in winning back my affection. 

Self-directed Teachers and Self-directed Learners

今早浸信會沙田圍呂明才小學的兩位老師Fanfan Cheung 和Ka Chun CHIU分享該校推行自主教學的經驗時，我立刻想起他們的教師真正做到，甚至超越,由the sage on the stage, 轉化成a guide on the side的角色。

From Sage on the Stage to Guide on the Side, 是美國學者Alison King 在90年代提出的觀點。正如Fanfan所問，今天的小學生到18歲時面對一個怎樣的世界?我們如果真的為學生將來着想，光是把課程甚或只是書本的內容硬塞給學生，這不是令學生最得益的做法，最令學生受益的方法，就是培養學生自主學習的精神和方法。

自主學習今天已經成為時興術語，但真正要做到有效全面和深入，而不是流於片面和形式，就需要全校老師都要有這共同的信念，持久的探索，願意從sage on the stage (其實把書本內容轉成chalk and talk 最容易不過)，化身成guide on the side (如何有效地引導和支援學生學習，這才是最考功夫的地方)，這過程中，老師也要成為self-directed learner 。聽他們分享時，我想到他們的老師這些年來，專業能力一定愈來愈高，一定為眼見學生愈來愈會自主學習而自豪，教學的passion一定一天熾熱過一天。(還記得2月11日時我參加他們透過Zoom舉行的校本專業發展日，他們的老師如何專業地分享教學策略。)

一班self-directed learning 的老師，培養出一班self-directed learning 的學生，這是一幅何等美麗的圖畫！ 

Apple Summer Learning Academy 2022

 Having some professional development for myself in the run-up to the new academic year: Attending the Apple Summer Learning Academy 2022. 

聽完Fanfan Cheung, Ka Chun CHIU, Jasmine Pun, 和Leslie Leung 的分享後，令我更興奮地為新學年備課。

還意外地收到Apple贈送 的紀念品。

Woolcap

 Checked out Woolcap just now. 

It's an app for conducting polls and quizzes. 

The free plan allows for 2 questions only in an 'event'. 

What distinguishes Woolcap from other polling and quizzing apps is the variety of questions, including labelling a picture, word cloud, etc. 

Participants respond by scanning the QR code, or going to the event link. 

Blooket for creating gamified quizzes

 Finally found a bit of time to check out Blooket, an app for creating gamified quizzes. I had no difficulty coming to grips with the Classic game mode, which is like Kahoot and Quizziz. But the gamified modes were so difficult for me to understand, because I had zero background knowledge with computer games. It took me such a long time just to figure out one game mode, and even so, I was not sure whether I had got it right. I think what I should do is to get hold of a P4 or P5 kid, show each game mode's starting page to them, and I'm sure they'll be able to explain how to play the game to me in no time.

Baaboozle: my quick review

 Baamboozle, the free plan is good for creating teacher-led quiz competitions. The teacher shows a question on the screen, invites one team to answer it, discloses the answer, and awards marks to the team if answered correctly.

Quizzes can be livened up with the easy to find built-in pictures. 

A quiz can also be shared via a link, for students to STUDY it themselves first. 

The Questions under the free plan must have one single definite answer. (e.g., What is the capital of France? Answer: Paris.)

Many of the other functions require paid subscriptions. 

https://www.baamboozle.com/

Hong Kong Book Fair - July 2022

 在偌大的書展中分別在3個出版社攤位看見自己的名字，不禁有些欣慰。

Language polls on www.usingenglish.com

 Just came across an interesting website where people can cast their votes on disputable English language usage issues. For example: 

A. 'I wouldn't have done it if I were you.'

B. 'I wouldn't have done it if I had been you.'

C. Both are acceptable. 

Here's another one: 

A. 'He's better than I.'

B. 'He's better than I am.'

C. 'He's better than me.'

D. Any of these can be used. 

After you have cast your vote, the overall result will show up immediately. In many cases, you will be surprised at how divided people are with their views. 

The website contains hundreds of such language polls. I'm going to include this website as a learning resource in my Language Awareness course next year. 

https://www.usingenglish.com/poll/

How to analyse 'a lot of'

 Why do we say 'A lot of people drink beer', and not 'A lot of people drinks beer'? Below is an explanation by a native AmE speaker, who is a senior member of WordReference.com, one of the major online discussion forums on language matters: 

'In the sentence "A lot of people drink beer," the subject "lot" is singular, so the rule tells us that the verb should be "drinks." But there is no native English speaker who would use the singular in this construction. The verb in this case matches the object of the prepositional phrase (something that is never supposed to happen) because the speaker intends the phrase "a lot of people" to mean "many people." '

An eye-opening analysis. 

https://forum.wordreference.com/.../tons-of-rubbish-is.../

2022-07-10 Adjudicator, The 33rd Annual Book Report Competition for Secondary School Students

 Adjudicator for English, Senior, Section. 

Obtained the Thinglink Certified Creator badge

Thinglink is an eTool for creating interactive multimodal artifacts based on images and video. It's excellent for multimodal literacy teaching.

https://www.thinglink.com/

some ways I use Padlet for

 I've just created a Wakelet collection showing some ways I use Padlet for: 

https://wakelet.com/wake/SR9pX0TgDSMrvW3TeLd4V

An exemplary Learning Journey diagram

 https://www.thinglink.com/scenariocard/1548681748722745345

Boom cards app

 Boom cards, https://wow.boomlearning.com/, is for creating microlearning units. Each deck can contain content slides and task slides. Tasks are mainly drag-and-drop. The published decks make heavy use of pictures for the content slides and tasks. Teachers can take published decks from the Studio. Can take a lot time if starting from scratch. Suitable for young kids. 

I think for teachers to create their decks from scratch, Kahoot Lesson, Quizziz Lesson, and Lumio, should be better choices. 

Reading is also a process to be enjoyed

 First, there was this practice by some platforms of indicating how much time it takes to read each subpage (e.g., 2-min. read; 5-min. read). Then, there was this enterprise which sells 15~minute~read ebooks that are condensed from the original books. Today, there are companies that sell 10~minute-read posters and infographics that are one~page summaries of the originals.

People want to get as much from as many books in as little time as possible. Another manifestation of the 21st century fast~food mentality.

But reading shouldn't be just for what we get out of a book, though that's an important consideration. READING IS ALSO A PROCESS TO BE ENJOYED!

幾生修到

 教書教了一段日子，你一定會有某些屆別的學生令你特別懷念，他們團結，彼此關心，彼此激勵，於是營造出積極，愉快，温馨的上課氣氛。教他們成為最enjoyable和rewarding的經驗。

這樣的class spirit背後是某些可遇而不可求的同學之間的group dynamics, 仿佛他們當中有某些很難解釋的chemistry,出現化學反應後形成團結，積極，彼此關心的氛圍。沒有這chemistry, 老師如何努力班级經營，也很難出現多年後你還很懷念的一班。

如果你的教學生涯多幾班這樣的學生，這便是幾生修到。

Baamboozle game app

 https://www.baamboozle.com/

An app for creating quiz competitions (2 or more teams). The free plan allows for creating questions with short answers only (e.g. What is the capital of France?). It looks like if it is played as a team game, it has to be teacher-led, i.e., the teacher will actually conduct the competition in front of the whole class, as opposed to students taking part in a live competition in teams/groups using their iPads (e.g., Quizlet Live). The teacher will invite a member of a team, or the whole team, to choose a question on the screen (or the teacher can name a question) and answer it, and award marks if it is answered correctly. 

I have tried the '1 team' option. In that case, it becomes a self-study resource, and when students are ready, they 'play' it to test themselves. But then, this use is similar to that of Quizlet. 

Padlet's latest new feature: The expanded view

 Every time I look at my Padlet dashboard, I'm reminded of how lucky I am - as an early adopter of Padlet, I have been offered 58 FREE walls by Padlet since they started to offer only 3 free walls to new users. 

And when I run out of new walls, I just delete some old ones which I don't need any more, and I get some new ones again. 

It's delightful to see the new features that Padlet has been adding to the app - the latest one being the Expanded view, which makes Padlet a magnificent presentation tool. 

Are we lifelong learners ourselves?

 昨天EDB的eLearning for self-directed learning工作坊，其中一個活動我請老師以7-point scale 就自己作為lifelong learner 自評，結果沒有我預期的高。當然這不是一個有代表性的sample,回應的老師也可能傾向客氣。

事後我想到，今天我們從事教師教育的，除了訓練教師如何在教學上培養學生self-directed learning的能力，也要想想如何加深老師作為self-directed learner的特質。於是我決定下學年嘗試在任教的科目在course delivery中加入self-directed learning 的元素，作為自己終身學習的一部分。

The 5 attributes of elearning teachers

 剛剛完成EDB 的三小時ZOOM workshop，雖然run這些workshop不能像自己上網課要求學員全程開著video(Master's 學生我也要他們這樣做)，和加入一些計平時分的活動，去engage學員，但我仍然享受這三小時看不見對方的online workshop，我想原因是我又有機會把我的eLearning 心得和點子和人分享。

這令我想起每次在大學教Computer-Assisted Language Learning 一科時,第一課我都會和學生列出eLearning teachers的五大特質：

- They are fun-loving. 

- They are curious. 

- They are creative. 

- They enjoy sharing their ideas with others. 

- They are lifelong learners. 

Online Workshop on eLearning, Catering for Learner Diversity, and Self-directed Learning

 “Catering for Learner Diversity in the Primary English Classroom through Effective Use of e-Learning Resources and Developing Students’ Self-directed Learning Capabilities”

Online Workshop for Primary English teachers; commissioned by EDB ELE section; organised by the Centre for Learning Sciences and Technologies, CUHK. 

Becoming Prezi Certified

 

Receiving a T-shirt from Prezi

 先前完成Prezi Certified Educator Trainer課程並取得digital badge and certificate, 想不到他們還從美國用UPS速遞這件T-shirt給我。T-shirt的設計不算特別精彩，但難得的是金錢買不到。

我對一眾e-learning app developer 是敬佩的，開發過程需要投資，競爭又不少，由於用家是學生和教師，subscription fee不能定得太高，很多時還要用free plan去吸引用家，縱使是熱門的app利潤也不會很高，而且很多時還要像Prezi, Nearpod, Edpuzzle, Adobe, Wakelet,  Formative, Kahoot等同時建立training 和certification 的program，聘請人手去管理；但它們又不像Google，Apple, 和Microsoft等科網王國的財雄勢大，有龐大資源去建立和管理educator training 系統。在今天要開發e-learning app, 少一些sense of mission 也不能成功。

First experience with Jotform fillable PDF form

 昨天第一次用由Jotform convert成fillable PDF form,在教師工作坊中作為學員的self workshop progress report form使用,發覺效果也不錯。在三個小時中每階段完結時，我請學員回到report form, 紀錄已完成的任務，這讓學員有sense of progress和sense of accomplishment。工作坊完結時我請學員save 一個copy,然後post往class display board padlet。

這個處理好處是學員即時有一個自己的file copy，而更奇妙的，是這個完成的fillable PDF form，學員可以照樣submit, 於是我在Jotform dashboard 可以立即看到個別的紀錄和summary(雖然昨天我沒有這樣做)。用付費的Adobe Acrobat DC 製作fillable PDF form,反而沒有這個功能。

Jotform的free plan可以同一時間保存5個form, 和它類似的Typeform卻沒有這麼慷慨了

Creating a fillable PDF form with Jotform

 有時候想create 一個fillable 的PDF form,給學員填，相對於Google Forms 或Microsoft Forms, 好處是學員填妥後可即時save一個copy, 但最適合的app Adobe Acrobat DC 要HK$108一個月，但我只想偶然玩玩。

最近發現用Jotform 來create 一個form後，除了用link去distribute給人填寫外，也可以save as fillable PDF, download 後便可以分發给學員填寫。它的funtionality雖然不及Adobe Acrobat DC, 但用來create 一般的fillable pdf form, 已綽綽有餘了。而且這個fillable PDF form 填妥後，除了自己save一個copy外,還可以照樣submit！

Vibby for putting segments from a video into one link

 Just tried this app which is good for extracting a few segments from a Youtube video to play in a lesson. Sometimes, rather than playing a whole Youtube video during a class session, I may just want to play a few parts from it. Of course I can note down the timings of the sections, and skip from section to section while referring to the timings, or add timestamps to the video, but I still have to manually jump from section to section while playing the video. This app, called Vibby, enables me to put the wanted segments into one link, so that in the classroom, the only thing I have to do is to play this link. 

The example below contains 5 extracts from a Youtube video. I will start this Saturday's Macao workshop by playing this link and inviting the teachers to listen for the word that pops up again and again, and again. 

https://www.vibby.com/v/QyGfas2y6

MEC migrating to Microsoft Learn Educator Centre

 如果不是因為Microsoft Educator Center要migrate到新的Microsoft Learn Educator Center, 我翻看先前自己的profile ,也不知道原來不知不覺己完成了這麼多MEC的training course!

A scheduled premises

 "Premises", when it means the area around and belonging to a building, is classified as a plural noun by all dictionaries. That's why we say 'these premises' and 'school premises'. Because 'premises' also refers to the land concerned, it is usually preceded by the preposition 'on' ('on these premises'), while in HK, the usual 'error' is to say 'in these premises', or 'in this premises'. (The singular 'premise' has a different meaning.)

That's why the first time I spotted the following notice, I found it odd: 'a scheduled premises', and 'another scheduled premises'! I almost jumped to the conclusion that this was another piece of HK English. To play safe, I googled it, and found, as I had suspected, that 'scheduled premises' is used in Hong Kong law. In fact, the term is also used in legal documents in some English-speaking countries (UK, Australia).

I went one step further to find out how the countability of 'premises' is dealt with in the law in these English-speaking countries. To my amusement, they do say 'a premises' to refer to individual instances of scheduled premises.

I looked up the respective ordinance in HK (Cap. 599). It uses 'scheduled premises' in a general sense most of the time, but in the appendix where it lists out the exact establishments which come under the law, such as fitness centre, beauty parlour, and swimming pool, it uses the term 'type of premises'.

Though the 'a scheduled premises' usage is still quite restricted, it is another example showing that a noun is never inherently count or noncount, something that ESL teachers need to be aware of. 

Pasting screenshots into another app or platform directly

 以前要在網頁或desktop app輸入content ，如果要輸入的是screenshot, 便要先把screenshot儲存成image file, 然後上傳至輸入content的地方。

但最近發現愈來愈多app 和platform, 容許你把剛取得的screenshot, copy後即時paste 入要輸入content 的地方，毋須先儲成image再upload。

Desktop app 如WORD, Onenote, 和PPT;  web app如Canva, Blogger, Padlet, Google doc, Google Slides, Evernote, Notion, Formative... 等已容許直接paste in剛取得的截圖，最近發現連Facebook也可以這樣做。下圖便是直接把screenshot paste into 這個  post, 而不是upload 自電腦。如果喜歡把截圖加入作品，使作品看起來較visually appealing, 這個功能長遠令我們省回不少時間。

先前我發覺仍然有學生不認識這技巧，於是我screencast了下面3個explainer video, 顯示如何用Lightshot,  Awesome Screenshot, 和Windows Snip and Sketch三個截圖app，截圖後插入Facebook, WORD,和Canva。

From Awesome Screenshot to Canva: https://watch.screencastify.com/v/GZ9XpE682Df8HxXWxSmJ

From Lightshot to Facebook: https://watch.screencastify.com/v/LOjwTg68shsNghEKvJVs

from Snip and Sketch to WORD: https://watch.screencastify.com/v/K711crIOuX1gw8VGTuRL

Sense of purpose in life

 This study on sense of purpose in life by Greater Good Science Center, a nonprofit, may not have been a very rigorous piece of research. But the results analyed according to profession should be encouraging (but perhaps not particularly surprising) to those of us working in Education. Among the major professions, Education came second, just after Mental Health/Social Services, in terms of practitioners' sense of purpose in life.

Teaching is a highly stressful job. But on the other hand, if you're looking for a sense of purpose in life ......

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_strong_is_your_sense_of_purpose_in_life?utm_source=Greater+Good+Science+Center&utm_campaign=051cae00d3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_GG_Newsletter_April_12_2022&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5ae73e326e-051cae00d3-51548983

This semester's CALL course has come to an end

 這學期碩士班Computer Assisted Language Learning一科最後一堂網課三十分鐘前完結了，突然覺得有點失落，這是我很喜歡教的一科，今天之後又要等一段時間才有機會再教了。

教這一科我的得益比我的學員更大，因eLearning的發展實在太迅速，每一個topic都需要我refresh我已知的，和不斷發掘新的Ed tech tools和e-learning 策略，真是何止教學相長。

要成為lifelong learner,要保持心境年青，最簡單的方法就是愛上eLearning。

Obtained my Screencastify Certified Master Screencaster badge

 

LOVE should not be used in the Progressive form?

 Today, some ESL teaching materials and websites are still telling us not to use Verbs of Emotion in Progressive form: 

================

DON’T USE THESE VERBS IN PROGRESSIVE FORM:

ENGLISH VERBS THAT CANNOT BE USED IN THE CONTINUOUS OR PROGRESSIVE FORM

Verbs of Emotion:  love, hate, prefer, mind, like, dislike, please, surprise, astonish, impress ...

(https://www.englishcoursemalta.com/.../english-verbs.../)

================

But as the following screenshot shows, it's perfectly OK to say 'loving' (not just McDonald's "I'm lovin' it"). 

Below is an example I like to give in my Language Awareness course to show that even 'hate' can be used in the Progressive: 

If a woman says to a guy "I'm hating you for what I've done for you", the guy still has a chance. But if it is 'I hate you for ..." that the woman says, he is in real trouble.

Self-wrapping area vs Wrapping area

 In Hong Kong, any sign that begins with 自助invariably becomes "Self-" in English. As this sign in an Ikea store shows, the prefix "Self-" is often unnecessary. In fact, adding "Self-" when there is no need to can result in funny interpretations. A self-wrapping area is where the goods bought will wrap themselves (which is not impossible given today's automation technology)? An area where customers wrap themselves?

Thank you, Ikea. 

I can upload a PPT to create a new Formative

 Just found out that when starting to create a new formative, I can actually upload an existing PPT from my computer. The slides from this PPT will then be converted to separate pictures in a new formative. From that point onward, I can continue with the usual steps: Add further content; add questions, etc. This is a useful function to me because instead of buidling the content from scratch, I can start with an existing PPT, which I have plenty of.

Became a Wakelet Ambassador

 

Became Kahoot Academy Verified Creator

 

Loom vs Screencastify

 It's always interesting to watch these cut-throat competitions between app developers. For creating screen-recording videos using a Chrome extension, I started out with Screencastify. Later, I switched to Loom because Loom trumped Screencastify in terms of the length of the screen-recorded video that could be created. Just two months ago, I switched back to Screencastify, because Screencastify had a new function: inserting quiz questions into a screen-recorded video. 

Then, this morning, I received this update from Loom announcing an upcoming new function. Will I switch back to Loom? It depends on how useful the new function is. 

The bottomline: 

1. As an edtech user, I have no loyalty to any particular app. 

2. These apps are free. How do the developers make a living

Became a Formative Champion

 

Excelling as an online student

 There's now a plethera of web articles for educators on how to conduct effective online lessons. Interestingly, it was not until this morning when I came across this web article from Yale University on how to excel as an online student. I will show this article to my 60 Language Awareness students this evening (though most of them have already been following my online classes conscientiously). 

https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/7-Tips-for-Online-Learning

Padlet Map activity again

 So I tried this Padlet Map activity again this evening. This year, I have 50 students taking my Master's course in Computer Assisted Language Learning. After the second session, we had to switch to online classes abruptly. And I'd been wondering how scattered my 50 students were around Hong Kong,

This evening, because of the session topic, I had the chance to invite them to indicate their locations on a Padlet map. Below is the result. The result is not particularly surprising, except that one of them is living in Tai O!

Becoming MIE Trainer

 

Become Flocabulary Certified

 

Ditch the Zoom room

Just came across this short web article titled '5 easy tricks for successful online teaching', which begins with the attention-grabbing slogan 'Ditch the Zoom Room'. The writer, Eileen Kennedy, who was a Senior Research Associate based at UCL Knowledge Lab, was writing in the context of MOOC courses for teachers. She contends: 

"You don’t need to abandon video conferencing completely – but use its power wisely and infrequently. Live video conferencing can be stressful for educators and inconvenient for learners. ..."

These words resonate with me, as my online classes can be as long as 2.5 hours in duration. And sometimes I do sympathise with my students, who have to sit through such long sessions in front of the computer. 

One solution may be to cut down the length of each Zoom session, and present the rest of each lecture in the form of mini MOOC-like learning paths, for students to follow on their own. In fact, when I follow an online PD event myself, most of the time I prefer the MOOC format, or at least a self-paced learning path, to attending a live webinar. But of course, for busy course instructors, even designing a self-paced Nearpod lesson takes a lot of time (much more than live lecturing), not to mention MOOC-like learning units. 

https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/2020/06/17/5-easy-tricks-for-successful-online-teaching/

Becoming a Formative Certified Educator

Just obtained my first e-learning badge in 2022: Formative Certified Educator

 

https://www.formative.com/

My current use of GoFormatives

 I have used GoFormative for a few years. In the past, I mainly created some example Formatives to show to my teacher trainees (pre-service and in-service) to show how they could use GoFormative to create engaging and interactive Reading Comprehension tasks to be attempted by their ESL students. In other words, I seldom used GoFormative for my own lectures at the university. 

But amidst the current need to conduct lecture sessions online, I have found that GoFormative is also useful to my own teaching. This is because my lectures at the university (my students are pre-service and inservice teachers training to become qualified ESL teachers) are each 2 hours and 30 minutes in duration. When these long lectures have to be conducted online, you can imagine the challenge that I have to face in engaging my students for that length of time. 

Recently, I started to include GoFormative tasks in my own lecture sessions. So far, I have mainly used Formatives for mid-session knowledge check, i.e., about half way into a 2.5-hour lecture, I will assign a Formative to the class for them to try. The formative questions mainly provide a chance for them to either check their understanding, or apply what they have learnt in the first half in solving a problem. 

What follows is a recent example that I tried out. The lecture session was about English modal verb phrases (The Chinese language has an entirely different way to express modal meanings.). The first half of the lecture was mainly concerned with (a) the form of the modal verbs in English, and (b) the possible functions that English modal verbs can serve. Half way into the session, I invited the teacher trainees to try the formative. 

The first question invited them to match 10 utterances to 5 functions. This was a way for them to check their understanding: 

The second question made use of a public sign that I spotted some time ago, and which I took a picture of. The question invited the class to re-write the announcement using the correct form of the modal verb in question. This question gave them a chance to apply their knowledge of the form of the English modal verb phrases: 

This experience turned out to be quite a useful knowledge check format to be used half way into a long lecture. 

Actually, I have noticed the new functions that GoFormative has taken on, one of which is 'Add Sections'.  My next attempt will be to use this new function to create a longer unit for presenting parts of a lecture as well as providing periodic knowledge check during a lecture. 

故天將降大任於斯人也

 我和林溢欣有過一面之緣，一直都很欣賞他的幹勁。他今天在星島教育專欄的一篇文章我很有共鳴，他說到凡事不要斤斤計較，不怕吃虧，到頭來得益的往往是自己。

他說到中學家貧，做暑期工也盡心投入，成為很好的毅力鍛鍊;我中學時也因家貧，做過不少暑期工，例如在工廠做包裝，在另一間工廠做金屬打磨，還有在官塘百士可樂廠做汽水車跟車，這是超大的體力勞動，每天放工時倦得虛脱，暑假完了廋得回校後老師也認不到我。但當時沒有悲惨的感覺，因同齡的青少年大都如此，今天回想起來更加是很好的歷鍊。

中文諺語有所謂「千金難買少年窮」，我絕對同意，我的一代大都家貧，我少時住過廟街的板間房，東頭村的木屋區，官塘雞療的徙置區，日後出社會工作的頭幾年，仍然住在黄大仙下邨的七層大厦;但是大部分時間我仍可以積極和快樂地生活，還令我不會養成 entitlement mentality 。

中文名師林溢欣也一定曾經從孟子的教誨中得到啟發：「故天將降大任於斯人也，必先苦其心志，勞其筋骨，餓其體膚，空乏其身，行拂亂其所為，所以動心忍性，增益其所不能。」

https://std.stheadline.com/education/article/1809062/%E6%95%99%E8%82%B2-%E4%B8%AD%E5%AD%B8-%E6%95%99%E8%82%B2%E5%B0%88%E6%AC%84-%E4%BA%BA%E7%94%9F%E7%9A%84-%E4%B8%8D%E5%8F%AF%E8%83%BD

From Purely Listening to Listening + Viewing

 以前談到英文科的macroskill, 不外Listening, Speaking, Reading, 和Writing，但因著technology 的發展，製作及發佈video愈來愈容易，2005年YouTube 的誕生，更是扭轉了先前Listening 就是純Listening 的生活模式。

2010年，新加坡官方的英語課程下的四個language macroskills, 把Listening 擴濶為Listening and Viewing,  列出當中需要的skills。(香港2017英語課程反而沒有這樣處理，仍然是純Listening。)

昨天晚上的一課，我便用了這個例去反映現代人愈來愈多Listening and Viewing 而愈來愈少純Listening (除了學生考DSE英文聆聽)：今天我們都知道甚麼是iphone和ipad，但年青一代有多少人知道十多年前，蘋果公司有一個產品名iPod ，iPod 就是供純聆聽的，但YouTube 出現後，iPod消失之快不可想像。

當然亦因此，我們今天更加沒有耐性作單純的聆聽。

Padlet's Map template

 Padlet's Map template is a gem. Yesterday evening, I had my students go to a Padlet map and indicate their favourite/dream vacation destinations. Below is the result. (No surprises: Europe and Japan turned out to be the most popular destinations.)

What's more: After students have pinned a location, they can edit their pins by adding pictures, text, video, weblinks, etc., to provide more information about their pinned places. And that's what I will ask the students to do later in the course. 

https://i.imgur.com/T6VW8b9.jpg

Knowledge Check

 Just finished a UCL online course on how to create a MOOC course from scratch. The course has reminded me of one useful strategy for online teaching that serves to sustain students' attention and give them a sense of progress: a low-stakes formative assessment halfway into a class session. They call it "Knowledge Check". Will try it this Wednesday in my Language Awareness class, which is 2.5 hours in duration.

Loom vs Screencastify

 A few years ago, I started with Screencast-o-matic for creating a screen-recording instructional video. The free version had a time limit of 15 minutes, though. When the Screencastify Chrome extension came along, I switched to it immediately, because as a Chrome extension, it was so convenient to use, although the maximum video length was only 5 minutes. 

Later, when Loom, another Chrome extension came along, I abandoned Screencastify immediately, since with Loom, there is no limit with the video length, and if I like, I can include my 'talking head.'

Then a couple of days ago, I discovered that Screencastify has taken on a new function: Inserting quiz questions into a screen-recorded video. (If you have used Edpuzzle or Playposit, you'll know what I mean.) So, will I abandon Loom, and return to Screencastify? I don't know yet. 

But it's always interesting to watch these competitions between app developers: how they keep trying to one-up each other (another example being Kahoot vs Quizizz). Of course the users are always the beneficiaries. Just that sometimes, I wonder how these app developers make a living, since the free plan is often good enough!

'in the list' vs 'on the list'

 When I was in primary and secondary school, I was taught to say 'in the list', but I've noticed in recent years that 'on the list' has become more and more common. So I did a Google Ngram search: the turning point happened towards the end of the 70s. 

ESL teaching materials like to lay down often over-simplified rules for preposition usage (e.g., 'in' vs 'on'). But how useful and reliable are these rules? The case of 'in/on the list' again points to the need for enriching grammar teaching with language awareness training (or what Larsen-Freeman calls 'grammaring'). 

New functions in Kahoot Lessons

 Kahoot started as a quiz app, but some time ago they added the 'Kahoot Lesson' function (inspired by Quizziz Lesson?) which I like a lot as it is not just about quiz competitions. In addition, they recently added some new functions to 'Kahoot Lesson'. I have just created one that includes all the new functions (slide, quiz, poll, word cloud, sequencing) which I will use as a warm-up activity for my next class on Language Awareness (this one is about Article usage). If you're interested, have a go before Feb 14, 12:00 p.m. 

https://kahoot.it/challenge/6777bfe3-5c59-4258-ba67-d6f34f9993cd_1643945904642

Two things to note: 

1. When you start the game, you can only pick a name from the ones generated.

2. If you're looking at a slide, click 'Got it' in the top right to advance to the next slide/task. 

Catching up with Ed Tech developments

 When I was browsing my previous teaching notes, I couldn't believe that back in 2017, I was still teaching my MA students how to use the desktop app called Hot Potatoes to create interactive tasks (e.g.,matching, grouping, sequencing)! Today, we have all these web-based, user-friendly, apps for creating interactive tasks, such as Wordwall, LearningApps.org, Bookwidgets, Educaplay, Bitsboard, GoConqr, Classtools.net ...., not to mention those apps for creating learning paths that can contain built-in interactive tasks, such as Nearpod, Pear Deck, Quizizz Lesson, and Kahoot Lesson. 

Ed tech is developing at such a phenomenal speed!

Good news: Teaching gets more and more interesting and engaging. 

Bad news: There is no way I can catch up with all the latest developments. 

Iorad for creating e-learning demonstration tutorials

 I came across the app called Iorad about two years ago, but was then too busy to follow up on it. Iorad is for creating e-learning demonstration tutorials, and at that time, I thought it would take quite some time to learn. 

Yesterday, I stumbled on an Iorad tutorial which demonstrated how to create an iorad tutorial. I was totally awed by how easy it was to use Iorad. I quickly had a go, and here is my first Iorad tutorial which demonstrated how to create a quiz using a Google Form (which many of you will know already). It was created in less than 5 minutes. 

https://ior.ad/81cn

Although such demonstrations can be created in the form of explainer videos, using screen-recording apps such as Loom and Screencastify, Iorad requires hands-on response from the viewer, who actually has to follow the steps indicated on the screen. This should increase the learning effectiveness. 

Another feature of Iorad is its text-to-speech option. Each step shown on the screen will be accompanied with voiceover explanation. 

This Chrome extension will come in handy for my course on Technology Enhanced Language Learning, which often requires me to explain how to use different e-learning tools.