ESL Technology

Wow, it has been way too long since my last post. I have a huge list of excuses, but the bottom line is that this is one area where I’ve been dropping the ball.

Last week I got my new batch of ESL students blogging for their first time. A handful of them were with me last year and remember the ropes, but for most of them, this is their first time. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of the look on their faces when I show them the ClustrMap of people who have been looking at their work. Some comments include, “Look, someone from Japan is reading our blog!” and “You mean that anyone in the world can read what we write?” These are the moments.

Every year I’m going to try to come up with a slightly different look. This year’s student blog is actually a pretty simple theme, but I think it will really teach them the basics. It is really pretty similar to last year’s blog. One other major thing that I changed was the web address. I found that a lot of my kids had a lot of trouble typing accurate web addresses, so I made a shorter one. I registered the domain horne.ws and then I just added /class to the end. The percentage of students who get it right the first time has gone up dramatically from last year when it was esltechnology.com/blog. Sometimes I even spell it wrong; and there’s nothing more frustrating for a kid than to look around and see everyone else on the right page and not know that you transposed the “o” and the “n” and you’re getting an error.

We should start publishing new posts any day now and I hope to pick up where I left off blogging myself last year. I think it’s pretty hypocritical for me to have them blog and then not to blog myself ;-).

Obviously, by looking at the date on my last post, I have taken the summer off from blogging. I’ve been doing more important things like celebrating life with my one-year old son, visiting elderly relatives, going to the Oregon Zoo, taking classes for my administrative certificate, and much more.

I haven’t given up, however, I’ve been trying to keep up on my Google Reader (I think I only have about 600 unread posts). I begin my administrative practicum next week, that will go through the end of January and I should be finished with my master’s in Education Administration by spring if all goes well. Needless to say, it’s going to be busy.

My excitement is mounting for next school year. I am greatly looking forward to introducing a new group of kids, and some old-hats to blogging and podcasting.

I just wanted everyone to know that I’m still out here, listening, learning, and surviving the busiest time in my life, certainly so far, possibly ever. Until next time, keep up the good work.

Oy! Recently I have had some very affirming events occur that are related to my teaching. So, although putting myself in danger of my own head exploding, I’ll brag about a few here.

First, on June 5 I received an e-mail from Jeff Felix titled “Chosen as one of America’s blogging educational leaders.” Now, to be fair, he was buttering me up to get me to agree to an interview for his doctoral disseratation on the use of blogs in the classroom. It worked. He started out with 165 blogging educators responding to his survey. 50 educators filled out his second, more detailed survey, and he chose 16 to interview for his doctoral dissertation. He did send me a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com before I ever completed the survey. Nice touch. Anyway, this made me feel special.

Next, at our end of the year staff get together on June 6, my principal announced that I was chosen as the “Educator of the Year. ” I got a nice marble plaque with my name engraved on it. Nice touch. Personally, I think there must have been some mistake in the tallying of the votes, but I’m not complaining. Somehow our 50+ staff decided that I deserved this award for the year *blush*. On an equally important note, my friend and ESL paraprofessional Fil Chavez won the award for Classified Staff of the Year. I’m very proud of him. He certainly deserved it. Go Fil!

Lastly, I’ve been e-mailing back and forth with Maria Gonzalez, a reporter from one of our local newspapers, the Walla Walla Union Bulletin regarding “a story on ESL or using technology.” She said that she had “found my personal blog using a Google search and then realized I had a blog for students.” She also commented that I had a “nice site.” Nice touch. Anyway, it looks like I might be collaborating for a story using the old media, newspapers. Aren’t I the little celebrity? Oy! I better stop, my ears are popping under the pressure of my expanding head.

Much credit goes to those who surround me: my wife, my paraprofessionals, my students, my colleagues, my principal, my superintendent, and on and on. No man is an island. Thanks everybody for your support!

Today was the last day of school for our 8th graders. I was so proud of every single one of my students for passing my class (no failing grades) that I decided to reward them. I brought my Nintendo Wii for them to play. It was a tremendous hit and there was, surprisingly, some amazing analytical conversations going on. As an ESL teacher, I am always looking for ways to get my students to use English in new ways and ways that will extend them. Today, I found a good one.

My students were having conversations about the twisting of one’s wrist and spin that it causes on the bowling ball. That might not sound like a big deal, but one must consider that these are first-year English Language Learners and those are some pretty complex concepts to be conveying. Anyway, I got to put on my proud-hat once again today as my students were using English in a way that exceeded even my high expectations.

Considering all of this, the most fun and surprising thing that happened today was the involvement of staff members who ordinarily would strongly oppose such frivolity and use of technology. Early in the morning, about an hour before school, when I was setting up the Wii in my classroom one of my colleagues walked by as he always does at that time and dropped in to see what I was doing.

This particular math teacher is in his 30+ year of teaching and is openly cynical about most new technology or programs implemented at our school. Don’t get me wrong, he’s an amazing teacher, one of the best I’ve ever met, and he is very wise, but it is well known that technology and frivolity are not his thing.

I told him that he needed to try the Wii because I knew that he liked bowling. He consented and ended up spending about a half-hour playing video games in my room. He had a huge grin on his face and I couldn’t get him to leave so I could finish getting ready for the day! Later that day he came to me and asked, “Okay, what do I need to buy to do that?” I told him that Hastings probably had one for $249. He wrote down all of the information about it that I would give him and then he asked if he could come in after school to play some more. He did! He was in my room with some other staff members showing them how to use the Wii! He golfed and bowled for about an hour before I told him that I needed to pack up and go home. It was an amazing experience and a real breakthrough with one of the tough cookies at our school.

Darren Draper e-mailed me yesterday and told me that he was giving the keynote presentation at the upcoming TTIX conference (which I already knew because he had blogged about it previously and I was proud of him) and asked me if I’d mind if he talked about what I was doing in my classroom with blogging and podcasting. I replied that I was honored that he would even ask me. Really, I had to read the e-mail message twice, and then I was honored.

Darren e-mailed back asking for some elaboration on my experiences with blogging. I had already written some about my podcasting experiences, but I hadn’t spent much time reflecting on my blogging experiences with my students. So I composed this e-mail to him. It started as an e-mail and then turned into an article, so I decided to ask him if I could blog about it, he consented, so here are my most recent reflections on blogging with my class:

As for blogging, I’ve absolutely loved the results. Kids who would usually be petrified to have someone else read their work are sharing it with the world and loving every minute of it.

It has been an adventure. Probably the biggest secret that no one knows is the amount of class time it takes to produce a quality blog. To be honest, it takes probably 1.5 times as long to produce a blog post than it would for the same kid to produce two drafts of something on paper. If you asked me if I thought it was worth it, without hesitating, I’d say, “Yes! The results are well worth the time investment.” Part of the reason for the extended time in my case (and another secret) is that I’m being extremely careful with how it is used. We are the first class to podcast in the school, even in the District as far as I’m aware, and I have been rather vocal about getting the word out about what we’re doing. I’ve told the kids, “Everyone is watching us. We have the power to make blogging and podcasting work in this district and we also have the power to destroy the opportunity for everyone.”

A few of my fellow educators are very hesitant about blogging and podcasting. In fact, the first e-mail response that I got back after I sent out an e-mail explaining what blogging was and asking staff to take a look at what the ESL students were producing was: “How is this any different than MySpace?” After talking to that teacher and others in the building, I discovered that, to them, MySpace was synonymous with the gateway to hell. There were security concerns raised: “What about child predators?” “What about our privacy policy?” There were logistical concerns raised: “How will you monitor all of this?” There were plain distrust issues raised: “I’m concerned about letting kids say anything they want to in their podcasts.” (Here, clearly not understanding what was going on in the classroom and obviously doubting my professional integrity.) These were all real comments from teachers and staff members, oy!

Being a quasi-technology evangelist is not always easy. However, it is all worth it. To see the looks on those kids faces when they press “Publish” and then I refresh the screen on the overhead projector and they see their post come up to the top of the blog for everyone in the world to see is amazing. To watch them sit down and open the laptops as fast as they can to check the ClustrMap to see what new little red dots have shown up is so refreshing. I’ve never had them run in, sit down and open their textbooks to see what we’ll be reading about. A couple of times I got frustrated with them because they wouldn’t tear their eyes from their screens to let me make a 30 second announcement (I’m embarrassed to say I may have even sounded exasperated with them); but then I got to thinking, these laptops are their textbooks and their notebooks for this project, would I really be upset if they were so engrossed in the textbook that I had to ask them several times for their attention? What a great problem to have!

My favorite additions to the students’ blog page would have to be: 1) The List Authors Widget from Mike Smullin. This little plugin allows me to put all of the studnets’ names in the sidebar so when I, or anyone else, want to see all the posts from a specific student, we just have to click on their name. 2) The ClustrMap. My kids love seeing this thing. For probably 75% of them, it’s the first thing they click on when they sit down. 3) The WP-Sticky plugin from GaMerZ. This handy plugin lets me stick any one of my posts to the top of the page so it doesn’t get blogged down by the students.

Well, that’s probably more than you needed. I just have one more question for you: Do you mind if I blog this, or would you prefer that I wait until after your presentation?

Hope this helps. I appreciate your work,
Matt

Here are some excerpts from Jeff Felix?s survey regarding blogging in the classroom. I thought the questions were thought provoking, so I?ll share my answers to his questions (as you can see, I didn?t include all of the questions as some of them were matrix style questions that did not lend themselves to copying).

As you may remember, I’m Jeff Felix, Superintendent of Bonsall Union School District in Bonsall, CA. I am also currently a candidate for the Ed.D. in the Joint Doctoral program in educational leadership at the University of California San Diego, CalState San Marcos, and San Diego State University.

Thank you for taking the initial survey. From your responses, I have been able to ascertain that you are an active blog user and I could learn more from you to add to in my ongoing study. In addition it appears that blogging teachers are achieving some unexpected outcomes in the classroom. It would be helpful if you would complete another survey, one that goes deeper into blogging as an instructional support. This survey was not originally planned, but was created as a result of overwhelming feedback from you and your blogging colleagues across the country. Your additional input will help to make this study an even greater resource for classroom teachers.

Survey #2 will show me to what extent you are using blogs in your instructional practice as it relates to your interaction with the students and their interaction with each other. The survey and subsequent research will be used to provide data to better understand the use of blogs in instruction and to inform educators of the potential of blogs to support student learning.

If you have any questions before completing the survey, or would like to know more about my study, please feel free to email me at jfelix@sdcoe.net. Thanks again!

The first survey showed some unique ways of using blogs in the classroom. Let’s investigate that further. . .

1. What percent of your students feel comfortable using the blog?

• 75-90%

2. What percent of your students actually seem to enjoy using the blog?

• 75-90%

3. What percent of your students seem to feel more comfortable communicating through the blog versus face to face communication?

• 91%-100%

4. What motivated you to begin using a blog for instruction?

As an ESL teacher and quasi-technology evangelist, I wanted to find a way to use technology for my students to express themselves through reading, writing, listening, and speaking; Blogging and podcasting was the answer to this query. Blogging is like writing for their peers to read, but they’re not afraid. Podcasting is like public speaking, but they do so without fear. Amazing!

5. Discuss what and who have supported your use of a blog for instruction?

Unfortunately, classroom blogging was a mostly single-handed effort. Conversations with other edu-bloggers, such as Alice Mercer (http://mizmercer.edublogs.org/) gave me the ideas I needed to get started. Other than that, the technology and impetus was initiated and carried out by me. Solo.

6. Discuss what and who have constrained your use of a blog for instruction?

Some faculty members express their hesitation for “security” reasons. In short, they don’t like the idea of students putting so much as their name on the internet.

7. How are you using the blog differently today compared with when you first began to use a blog for instruction?

Wow, big question. Podcasting really opened the door for blogging with my class. Lately they have been creating original material (paintings) and then uploading those and blogging about them. Most profoundly, the beginning of my blogging experience with my students was all about content creation. We spent almost all of our time creating posts and spent little, if any, time reading and commenting on other’s posts. Now, I encourage (require) them to read and comment on fellow student’s blogs. They have enjoyed this and I really feel that commenting and collaboration is at the heart of the blogging experience.

8. Student to student interaction seems to occur naturally as a result of blogging. Do you encourage student to student interaction in your blogging lessons?

• Yes

9. Why do you encourage student to student interaction? Check all the reasons that apply to your instructional practice.

• Help students make sense of what they are learning
• Allow for deeper thought on the subject
• Help students make connections with previous experiences
• Proofread each others’ work
• Other: Motivation: receiving comments on their work motivates them to do better and more complete work.

12. What are your communication goals for student to student interaction? Choose all that apply.

• Strengthen student relationships
• Increase peer collaboration
• Enhance their interaction with the teacher
• Foster positive emotions about learning
• Expand their sharing of ideas

14. What changes to your instructional practice have you observed as a result of blogging? Check all that apply.

• Increased the amount of time spent using blogging as an instructional practice
• Increased the frequency of updating the blog
• Blog assignments are used as an important form of assessment
• The Internet is used as a source of information more frequently

This video, which was first shared with me by a colleague more than a year ago, is resurfacing as a discussion point at my school. I wonder how many schools have a “tuck in your shirt” dress code. I wonder how much that would really help. What does your school do? Has this video made the rounds at your school yet? Is this really as compelling as it seems?

I stumbled across an interesting looking ad-banner today and it took me to the Windows Live Search page. I was most interested in their image search. It definitely has the coolness factor and it’s worth a try. The most notable thing for me was the content quality of the images. I tried several searches like “kiwi,” “Milton-Freewater,” and so on, and I was extremely surprised at the relevance and photographic content quality (I’m not talking about resolution). It did a much better job at finding what I was looking for than Google Image Search, which I use several times a day. I think I’ve become a convert (at least for image searching). I don’t know how Microsoft is doing it, but their results seem to be more relevant and their features for image searching allow for much faster location of the images I need. There are a number of other cool features too like resizing images, seeing all the images on one page, sorting images, and more.

Disclaimer: usually I’m a huge Google fan, but I’m also a huge fan of productivity, and if Microsoft Live Search can deliver me the images I’m looking for in 15 fewer seconds than Google, they’ve earned my business.

All this week my students have been adding podcasts to their class blog. The process has been both exhilarating and exhausting. Exhilerating, because I’m so proud of the work that they are producing and the speed at which they are catching on. Exhausting, because it has, to be honest, taken quite a bit of extra work during class time. There is a lot of running around with a flash-drive and “shh-shhing” noisy students when trying to record podcasts in a classroom setting.

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The “shh-shhing” noisy students part of the job is evident by the background noise in some recordings, such as this one from Veronica:

and this one from Maria:

I didn’t have time to teach the students how to use the noise-filtering features of Audacity. That probably would have helped quite a bit. All in all, even with as timid as some of my students are, their podcasts turned out about as understandable as they are in real life. Some of them are very clear in real life and in their podcasts, and some of them are very quiet and hard to understand in real life and in their podcasts.

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The first project was to have the students find a poem or the lyrics to a song that they liked to read as their first podcast. I created a quick list of appropriate web sites by using the “export” feature of the bookmarks in Firefox and I uploaded it to the website so all the students could access it. I was pleased at the selections that the students made. Most of them chose poems or lyrics that were appropriate to their level (funny how that happens). Even some of my newcomers like Omar:

and Juan:

did a fabulous job, considering their limited English skills. I had them find their poem, print it out, and then read it from the paper. That seemed to be easier for them than when I tried to have a couple students read from the screen and use the screen to record. Some of my intermediate students did a very clear and, in some cases, expressive job of reading their poems or songs. Take Aracely for example:

or Jose, who also did a great job:

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The second project was to find a joke that they liked from one of a few approved pages, and then to read that joke as a podcast. There are only a few students who have finished that project, but so far, they have had a good time doing it. A one of my favorites so far is Nanet’s:

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The order that I used for podcasting this time seemed to work quite well:

1. I spent some time introducing students to podcasting and getting them excited (20 minutes).
2. I introduced the students to the poetry and lyrics pages and showed them how to print just the selection (10 minutes).
3. The students had time to look for a poem or a song that they wanted to read (1 class period for some, 2 class periods for others)
4. The students practiced their poems by reading them to one another (10 minutes) — I think I will skip this step next time. The students did a better job of practicing by themselves by recording themselves with Audacity.
5. I taught the students how to use Audacity, a very simple program (10 minutes)
6. The students recorded their poems or songs using Audacity (about 1 class period)
7. The students wrote a short blog, with which they already had experience, and included the code to insert the audio file (20 minutes)

The biggest problem, and this really is a problem with any lesson like this, was when some students finished early and others still had a long way to go. The problem was, students know how, and very much want to play games. I didn’t really want them playing games so I had to think of something else for them to do. I ended up assigning a new project (the jokes), the problem is, the ones who finished the first one the fastest will do the second one the fastest as well and the problem will just get worse. I need to figure out something for the kids to do, on their own, that isn’t just playing games. I wish I had that figured out ahead of time.

As for the technology, it worked perfectly. Wordpress, Audacity, the Audio Player plugin, and my 1and1.com website all functioned without a hitch.

Today and next week I’m going to ask my students to try their hand at Podcasting. In honor of this effort, I think I’ll do this post as a podcast. In short, they’ll be using Audacity to record their voices and the Audio Player plugin to embed them in their blogs. So, here’s my disorganized, and completely unsophisticated podcast on the matter: