Starting the Delta

No, not time travel. Instead, a few questions for Chris Wilson, who’s about to start the Delta. He’ll be dedicating his blog, elt squared, almost exclusively to Delta for the duration of his course. Here are my questions and his answers:

1. Why did you decide to do Delta?

   As soon as I heard there was a higher level teaching certificate than the Celta, I knew I wanted to get it at some point. I heard that I needed two years teaching experience, something that I am grateful for, but I knew I didn’t want to be a “base-level” teacher, although since then I’ve realised there are plenty of great teachers who haven’t done the Delta but still have learnt a lot over time.
   I wanted to really know why I should teach in a certain way and how to craft better lessons. I guess I also just love learning about language, teaching and how the brain works. Really I just want to know more about teaching and help people more.

2. How are you going to do it? Why did you choose this method?

   I’m doing a modular distance Delta, which means I’m taking each module on it’s own when I want, fitting them in as I can. This was largely a practical decision tying in with the financial help that I could get from my school, but also because of difficulties in finding a local tutor for module two. I am probably going to have to do module two intensively at a local centre because of that.
   Also I’m interested in taking a closer look at how the distance delta does the distance learning aspect of the Delta so our school can hopefully steal some ideas too

3. How much do you feel you know about the course before you start?

   I feel I know quite a lot about the course thanks to ELTChat and the recent “How to survive the Delta” discussion (and the previous “what has the delta ever done for us” one). I’ve also spent the last few months just asking people who had done the course lots of questions. At the same time I don’t know anyone who has done it the way I am about to, so I’m still unsure how it will go!

4. How have you prepared for the Delta?

   I’ve been asking a lot of questions, blogging for professional development and getting my note-taking system in order. At the same time we’ve been really busy here at work recently (and I’ve been finishing off a few projects that I want to get done before the start of the Delta) so perhaps erratically would be the best adverb

5. What do you think will be the most useful part of the course?

   I am really looking forward to all of it, to be honest, and I am sure it will all be useful. I can’t wait to up my game in both knowledge of terminology and methodology, conducting a research project and lesson observations. In all honesty the lesson observations and classroom practice probably scares me the most and so is probably the part that will be most useful for me.

6. What will be the most difficult part?

   I think it’s connected to the point above, class observations. I am quite clumsy and forgetful at the best of times but with stress I know I can slip up more and take longer to recover.

7. Anything else?

   I guess thanks to everyone who has helped with their advice and recommendation in relation to the DELTA. I hope you don’t mind me asking a few more questions over the coming months!

I’m looking forward to following Chris’ blog over the next few months, and even more, to the end of my own Delta on June 5th! This post is, in fact, procrastination, as I’m supposed to be getting ready for the third of my four observed lessons. Hope you found it interesting!

Photo taken from http://flickr.com/eltpics by @senicko, used under a CC Attribution Non-Commercial license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

Ana Inés Salvi on her IATEFL research

Like Sandy, I was very lucky to be awarded with the IATEFL – International House John Haycraft Classroom Exploration Scholarship, which gave me the opportunity to disseminate a successful story, and meet and share experiences and ideas with other practitioners.

My research was on learner autonomy and exploratory practice which is a kind of practitioner/ teacher research which involves learners in researching their own learning. This research was motivated by an interest in engaging learners in the classroom. I realised that by giving them more control over their learning process they became more involved and interested in learning. Also, suggesting working with their own interests and issues led to a deeper engagement with their learning experience.

I conducted this research in two different contexts: a summer school with teenagers and a pre-sessional course with postgraduate students at university.

If anyone is interested in watching my presentation, it is now available in the Teacher-Research section of the IATEFL Research SIG website at http://resig.weebly.com/teacher-research.html

Ana Inés Salvi

Note: Ana sent me this a few months ago, but unfortunately I managed to save it as a draft, rather than publishing it. Sorry! If you want to read about my IATEFL experience, click here.

Setting up a self-hosted blog

This guest post was written by Chris Wilson, who has his own self-hosted blog at ELT Squared. On his blog one post is about choosing a blog provider to use with students. He has also written a step-by-step guide to for setting up a Posterous blog. Over to Chris:

If you reading this I’m guessing you’ve been convinced. It’s time to set up a blog.

Congratulations and welcome to the club!

Just to help you along the way I thought I’d pass on a few tips I’ve learnt during my many years of blogging, and by the end of this post, you’ll have set up your own self-hosted blog. But first let’s answer some important questions.

Why do you want a blog?

This can really affect every subsequent step you take. If this is something for yourself and you don’t really want anyone else to see then you’ll choose something completely different from someone who wants a blog to make money.

Why should you choose a self-hosted blog?

There are many great free blogs but they do lack some features of pricey ones (such as audio/video hosting or advertising). The free ones are great to start out on but from experience of changing between blogs three times it’s best to stick with just one.

How can you choose a name/style?

Go through these questions quickly and answer them honestly. They can help you pick a good name to use for your blog/persona.

• Think of three adjectives to describe yourself
• Imagine your ideal reader then try to write to them
• Write down some books/blogs etc that you enjoy reading. What do you like about them/the way they write?
• What other influences do you have? What is it that you like about them?

Setting up a self-hosted blog

Self-hosted blogs are very different from hosted blogs in that they require YOU to buy your own webhosting, basically a place where you can upload information, or in this case a website, to the internet and then other people can access it. Self hosting is obviously a lot more technical and requires a great deal of computer competency. It also costs money, thought the exact amounts vary.

However, the advantage is it is completely customisable! You can do whatever you want with it, install any add-ons you like, change the theme to any theme you like, have your own unique domain name etc.

I recently changed over to a self-hosted wordpress blog (wordpress are generally considered the best blog option) and I have not regretted it.

Here is the more detailed instruction process I followed

1. Sign up to a hosting company.
   There are various webhosting companies which have different features and different pricing schemes. I use Zyma.com which is a British company that offers great support. Despite my issues in setting up, they quickly responded and helped me through every step. Their service costs only £4.95 a year, but there is a hidden charge. You also have to pay for domain hosting. Despite owning my own domain before I went over to Zyma, I still had to pay for it for 2 years at £18.98 in total.
   For a list of different companies check out this comparison list.
   Once you have your webhosting you will need to choose your domain name and you can even have one that ends in .com .co.uk or any other country domain!
2. Installing wordpress
   Once you have signed up you need to log in to your cPanel (control panel) and then install wordpress. Many hosting services have a quick install option which is usually under a category like software and services. One of the great things about Zyma is the presence of this quick install option and video guides on their website for how to install a blog.
   For more detailed instructions on how to install wordpress with or without a quick install option click this link.
   Consider where to install your blog. If you install it in a subdirectory (like /blog) then you can have a website with several sections including a blog! When you are installing, it will ask you for an account name and a password. This is very important as they are your administrator account details.
3. Getting the details
   Enter the email address where you want your blog details to be sent to (you may have got a free email address along with your domain and webhosting)
4. Done!
   Once you have installed your wordpress blog, you’re basically good to go! Except you have to wait 24-48 hrs for the domain name to be registered for your blog and for your use. However, you can get your first post ready, find a cool theme, write your about page and much more! You should be able to log in to your admin page via your server address (a series of numbers) and /wp-admin/ or once your domain is up using this formula: http://www.domain name/wp-admin/

If you are considering a self-hosted installation, then there is no harm in setting up a blog on wordpress.com first so you can get used to the style of using wordpress ready for when you have your own site. [The blog you're reading right now is hosted on wordpress.com.]

I hope this is a useful guide for how to set up a blog. If you have any more questions then leave a comment, visit me at eltsquared.co.uk or find me on twitter @MrChrisJWilson.

IATEFL Glasgow 2012: the emotional post

Ten days after the end of the IATEFL conference, and it feels like I’m living a whole different life now.

Back to earth with a bang and a serious case of post-conference blues, after one of the best weeks of my life.

As Adam Beale and Adam Simpson have already so eloquently said, it was a week of building (on) relationships that will hopefully last for a long time. It was a week of connecting with like-minded people face-to-face and immersing myself in an environment where everyone wants to improve, and I didn’t get complained at for talking about teaching at the pub!

I shared a room with Lizzie Pinard, so over breakfast each day and each evening after we returned to the hotel we compared notes, sharing information and impressions from the talks we attended and the people we met. And what people! Inspirational all, friendly, motivated and everywhere! No matter which part of the building I was in, or which talk I attended, there was always a fellow PLN member to chat to, and at no point during the week, even during the pre-conference events, did I feel alone. This is a major feat for such a big event, with over 2300 delegates. It would have been easy to become lost in such an environment, and I hope that those who went without a PLN managed to find support in the crowd.

As well as the Twitterati, I also had the pleasure of meeting members of the Learner Autonomy SIG for the first time, fellow scholarship winners and an inspirational teacher from Sicily. I hope to stay in contact with them after the conference too.

I have already put together all of the tweets I sent out during the conference, which shows the diversity of talks which I was able to attend.

I was lucky enough to get the International House John Haycraft Classroom Exploration scholarship to be able to go to the conference. Without it, it would have been difficult for me to get there, and I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity I was given. As a condition of the scholarship, I had to do a presentation at the conference, and this was one of the highlights of the week for me. I’m one of those strange people who enjoys public speaking and I was on such a high after the talk that I found it very difficult to get to sleep that night! Mike Hogan took an excellent photo (just one of many he took during the conference!) after it had finished, which sums up a lot of my memories of the week:

The PLN after my talk

Memories of my first IATEFL conference will stay with me for a long time. I very much hope to be able to go to the next conference, and I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible there!

Twitter and Blogs for Professional Development (post-IATEFL)

During IATEFL I had quite a few conversations about joining Twitter and starting blogs. I know that both of these processes can be quite daunting when you’re new – it’s only 18 months since I started, and the learning curve at the beginning was pretty steep!

To that end, I’ve collated a few blog posts which might help:

• Twitter for Professional Development - my complete introduction to using Twitter and a couple of other tools to help you with CPD
• A Whole New World of ELT – my first ever post about Twitter and blogs, based around a prezi presentation which includes links to various interesting blogs to follow
• Online Professional Development Survey - the results of a very informal survey I did in January 2011 to see how people use online tools for PD
• Which blog platform should your students use? - by Chris Wilson. The guide is very useful for teachers who are interested in blogging too.
• 11 things you should know about blogging – from ‘Free Technology for Teachers’. A good set of tips to start you off, although I disagree with #2 a little – ‘EFL’ has been working pretty well as a niche for me
• 7 things you really shouldn’t forget to do (Edublogging) – by Karenne Sylvester. Some great advice about things to remember to include on a teaching blog page.

When I have a bit more time, I’ll hopefully write a beginner’s guide to blogging along the lines of the Twitter one above or my Independent English blog (shameless plug there!)

I hope these links help, and if there’s anything you need advice on that isn’t covered here, leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do!

Web tool recommendations (#eltchat summary)

This is the summary of the second #eltchat on Wednesday 29th February. To find out exactly what #eltchat is, click here.

(Since this post is full of links which may change/move at a later date, please let me know if any of them are broken. Thanks!)

“If you could recommend one particular webtool for the classroom, what would it be, and why?”

The Tools (over 40 of them!)

The famous ones

• Skype - phone calls through the internet, including video. Simple, effective, reliable, and it works all over the world. It can be used to bring experts or other teachers into your classrooms. You can use the ‘chat’ feature to share files and write in vocabulary. You could use Skype instead of traditional listening tracks to Skype friends in the UK/US (or other countries!) For example: “With my [Shelly Terrell's] 4 to 6 yr-old German students they learned how to do origami from @EHerrod‘s son in the UK via Skype”.
• YouTube - even those who hate tech will still try it! It’s easy to forget how helpful thousands of the clips can be, although some schools block it.
• Facebook - the groups function is useful for educators
• TED - hundreds of inspiring videos by thinkers and leaders in every field imaginable

Voice recording

• Vocaroo – voice recorder. Easy to use (single click), no need for registration.
• Soundcloud – voice recorder with the added facility of voice commenting. SImple to upload to the internet and share. James Taylor wrote a post about it. Audioboo is useful for this too.
• Fotobabble – upload a photo and record yourself talking about it for one minute. Some fotobabbles on this old blog  (see November/December archives)
• Voicethread – comment collaboratively on slides/pictures/whatever you want
• Voxopop - create talk groups to get your students discussing things together
• Voki – create avatars to do your speaking for you. Shelly Terrell created this guide to using vokis
• Audacity – downloadable software which can be used to record students and put together podcasts
• You can also record voices on a smart phone
• Videoant - video annotation which is easy to email to students/observed teachers
• Jing - create video annotation to provide feedback to students or show them how to do something. Students can also create their own files. You can make screenshots with it too. Great for essay feedback, and useful extra listening practice. Teacher Training Videos guide to Jing

Bookmarking / link collection / organisation

• Evernote - online notetaking and bookmarking
• Dropbox - cloud-based file storage, useful for sharing files with students
• Pinterest - an online noticeboard to organise and share things you like. Shelly Terrell has Pinterest boards on various ELT topics. There have been recent worries about copyright issues related to the site though.
• Scoop.it - a way of bookmarking links in a magazine-type layout
• Lino-it / Wallwisher - online noticeboards where you can post notes, videos, pictures and more. Here is an example of a lino-it created by @clivesir about bringing fun into the classroom. He likes to use lino-it for feedback. Both are great for letting students weigh in on a topic, no matter their location.

Ready-made materials

• Movie segments to assess grammar goals - activities based on films, through which teachers can present grammar points
• EFL smart blog - a blog for students with complete mini lessons, including authentic listening and accompanying activities
• Knoword - a vocabulary guessing game based on randomly generated dictionary definitions
• Speakout video podcasts - the link takes to the pre-intermediate video podcasts. Each unit of the book is accompanied by one podcast.
• Film-English – an award-winning site by Kieran Donaghy with complete lesson plans based on short films

Tools for teachers to create activities / materials

• Triptico - a single software download providing loads of free tools; especially good for classrooms with interactive whiteboards (IWBs). Word magnets are good for colour-coding grammar explanations. The card game is good for randomly choosing speaking topics. It’s really easy to use and @David_Triptico is constantly adding new resources to it.
• Quizlet - a great tool for vocabulary where students (and teachers) can create flashcards and immediately play games with them. Students really enjoy using it.
• Hot Potatoes - freeware including “six applications, enabling you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web”
• Socrative - “a smart student response system that empowers teachers to engage their classrooms through a series of educational exercises and games via smartphones, laptops, and tablets” and it’s free [this was my personal favourite discovery of the chat]
• Puzzle Maker - a site which allows you to create printable wordsearches, crosswords and other puzzles. Crossword Maker just lets you create crosswords. Wordsearch Maker creates wordsearches. Nik Peachey describes how to use the latter here.
• Wordle / Tagxedo - word cloud generators. Could be used for simple ‘word find’ activities such as ‘Spot the word with a prefix’
• Language Garden - language plants make sentences, poems and grammar look beautiful, as well as providing visual prompts for students.

Creative tools for students

• SP-studio - create cartoon characters based on the style of South Park cartoons. Kids can then create profiles for their cartoon characters.
• Survey monkey - helps students to practise question forms by creating online questionnaires, as well as finding out more about their fellow students. Very easy to use.
• GoAnimate - online video creator
• iMovie - kids can create “movie trailers” about books they like
• Google Docs - word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software available online for collaboration, sharing or private use. Can be used for essay writing and other writing assignments as well as for individual vocabulary banks for students.

Tools which you can integrate other things into

• Edmodo - a closed social network for education (my post about Edmodo) – I use it to share resources with my students.
• Wikis – but you need lots of tools to put in them. Some wiki providers include pbworks and wikispaces. They allow embedding of other tools.
• Blogs – spaces to provide information, links and create online texts. Some providers include wordpress, edublogs and Posterous (see below). They allow embedding of other tools.
• Posterous - it focuses on all four skills; it’s easy to use; there are free apps on various platforms. Intuitive, and great for introducing blogging to students.
• Moodle - a tool for creating complete virtual learning environments (VLEs). It allows embedding of other tools. Safe for kids too.
• Glogster - good for project work. It allows embedding of other tools too.

For independent learners

• English Central - students can use this outside the classroom to practise listening, reading and pronunciation as well as improve their vocabulary.
• Lyrics training - students can listen to songs and complete the lyrics

When you implement a web tool in the classroom, what is the criteria for using it with learners? What do you look for in a web tool?

• Accessible for free on many platforms
• No (or at least very easy) registration
• User-friendly for both teachers and students
• Supports various skills
• Fun!
• A way to make English a tool, rather than concentrating on the language aspect
• Free
• Easy to use
• Offer various activities
• Practical
• Allow students to practise their English in a meaningful way
• Justified from a pedagogical point of view, not just because it’s a cool new toy
• Ease of integration with other tools

How do we get non-tech-savvy teachers excited about web tools?

• Show the real pedagogical value
• Through their students - if you get the students enthused, they will tell their other teachers
• Start with showing them examples of why they can get excited, not how to use web tools
• Show them how much time it can save them, although at the beginning it feels like they take more time
• Lead by example
• Introduce things in small doses
• Give them a task that must use a web tool / taster sessions
• Present them with simple, quick and practical classroom uses of these tools
• Go back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and help them see why they need a tool
• Encourage them to play with tools for personal use first, for example by making birthday greetings
• Visit their lessons and suggest alternatives
• Do workshops which teachers bring their own laptops to - doing IT is better than watching
• BUT: We shouldn’t feel we have to. Some teachers don’t have this option, and others are really not interested. Gareth Davies wrote a blog post expanding on this after the chat.

Tips for teachers

• Be consistent – don’t flit from one tool to another.
• Don’t get swept away with new tools.
• Don’t try to do too much too soon.
• Play around with tools to help you become more confident.
• Test things out throughly before you introduce them. OR Experiment together with the students. (a language learning task in itself)
• Introduce them in small doses
• Make sure you have a plan B, just in case the tech fails. Don’t freak out! You could teach the 3rd conditional – If they program had worked you would have seen…
• Ask students to share their favourites too – they might know about tools you don’t
• If students know that the tech exists, they can decide whether to use it or not.
• Prepare for excitement from kids! Never be afraid to learn with them.
• Some tools may seem too childish for adults.
• If something doesn’t work the first time, try to analyse why and work out what you could do differently. Don’t just assume the tech was wrong. It might work with one group of students but not with another.
• Make sure that the pedagogy comes first – don’t just use tech for the sake of it.
• Remember that you can often do the same things without tech – do you really need it? If you can’t justify why the tech version is better, there’s no reason to use it.

Make the most of your old computer – image by @mscro1 on eltpics

Provisos

Some of these tools are not available in every country or at every school. Technology is still far off for a lot of teachers. You also need to make sure all of the students have access to the technology outside the classroom.

Remember that some teachers are limited to time – they have to finish a coursebook and tools take time and have to be appropriate. Ideally, you need to use a tool that will allow students to USE what they studied in the coursebook.

Other links

• Independent English – my new blog to share technology tools with learners and help them work out how to use them
• A post from my blog about ’Teaching 2.0 in the one computer classroom‘ featuring Triptico, wordclouds and powerpoint
• Ideas for using word clouds and voicethread from Marisa Constantinides
• Resources for English and Spanish second-language learners. The home page is in Swedish, so click on English/Español to find the links.
• Ozge Karaoglu‘s A-Z of web tools
• Russell Stannard‘s Teacher Training Videos – step-by-step guides to many tech tools
• Steve Fulton‘s experience of having trouble with technology in the classroom.
• Arizona K12 Centre Technology Integration Matrix

A small plug

On Wednesday 21st March 2012 I will be doing a presentation at the IATEFL Conference about ways teachers can encourage students to use online tools, based on action research done in my classes. Subscribe to my blog to find out the results if you can’t be there!

Update: here is my IATEFL 2012 talk.

My new blog: Independent English

As if two blogs weren’t enough

I set up ‘Independent English‘ for students, with the aim of giving them ideas to help them practise English at home. I plan to post roughly once a week, with each post being a step-by-step guide which they can work through alone or with a teacher. If I have time, I will also record myself reading the post so that students can listen to it if they are not confident readers. It is probably best for B1/Intermediate and higher at the moment, although some posts may be suitable for lower levels later.

The first entry is about podcasts, including a list of links to (in my opinion) good podcasts for learners and native speakers to listen to.

There is also a facebook page for you to ‘like’.

Please feel free to pass the link on to your students, and/or to give me feedback on how to improve the site. Hope you find it useful!

Twitter seminar for CELTA students, January 2012

Here is are the most important things from the seminar which I did this morning for the IH Newcastle CELTA students.

Link to the longer post on Twitter for Professional Development

Sandy Millin on Twitter

The tweets which were sent to us from other Twitter users (from newest to oldest):

Thanks to everyone who sent tweets!

duncan_lydburyDuncan Baker

@

@sandymillin Twitter is a really good way to have almost instant communication with all friends and colleagues round the world – friendly!

elizzabetttamartha ador

@

@sandymillin Hi! I love it because you can interact with people any time and get inmediate response! Greetings from Mexico ! Good luck !

1 hour ago

»

WinnersSchoolsWinners Education

@sandymillin #ELTchat Twitter’s great once you find the right connections.Groups you share interests with or “following” belong to are great

1 hour ago

»

leoselivanLexical Leo

@

@phil3wade @sandymillin I was in Paris for best friend’s bday so didn’t hang out much in the eves with conf crowd – so missed all the action

1 hour ago

»

daveclearyczDave Cleary

@

@sandymillin#eltchat New to twitter but finding it great because of the people, it is a social network not a technological one

1 hour ago

»

phil3wadephil wade

@

@leoselivan @sandymillin I wasn’t there but it seemed like a real benchmark in the EFL/Twitter world.

1 hour ago

»

leoselivanLexical Leo

@sandymillin as someone commented yday – attending confs is a whole diff ball game when you get to meet your Twitter followeres f2f

1 hour ago

»

leoselivanLexical Leo

@sandymillin seems half of my twitter buddies were at #TESOLFrance in Nov – I wish I’d been on Twitter then – could’ve met many inspiring Ts

1 hour ago

»

PhilPethybridgePhilip Pethybridge

Twitter brings things to your attention; provides help/ideas; links to blogs/sites; online staffroom; fun diversions! #eltchat @sandymillin

1 hour ago

»

cgoodeyCarol Goodey

@

@sandymillin Hope I’m in time! Twitter’s a gr8 way to keep up w/ what’s going on in ELT world, learn new ways of doing things, & get support

1 hour ago

»

aClilToClimbChiew Pang

@

@sandymillin hi y’all. It’s grt PD bc the world’s open to us. We shr probs, thoughts, reflectns, resources, life, stories,… #eltchat

1 hour ago

»

cerirhiannonCeri Jones

RT @DaveDodgson: @sandymillin  it takes time to build connections & reap the benefits. Definitely worth it though #ELTchat > agree

1 hour ago

»

DaveDodgsonDavid Dodgson

@

@sandymillin Twitter IS great for PD BUT it takes time to build connections & reap the benefits. Definitely worth it though #ELTchat

1 hour ago

»

michaelegriffinMichael Griffin

@

@sandymillin Been using Twitter for about 2 months N have been really impressed with the active engagement in ELT from all around the world

cerirhiannonCeri Jones

@

@sandymillin  Hi!  twitter offers the most amazing variety of voices & experiences of committed, questioning Ts from all over the world

1 hour ago

»

cioccasLesley

@

@sandymillin Twitter has led me to the fabulous community teachers that is #ELTchat & increased my PD 100-fold!

worldteacherAndrea Wade

@

@sandymillin Hi from Vietnam! I get all my best links and info from Twitter and I meet some great people who can answer all my questions!

5 hours ago

»

marekandrewsmark andrews

@

@sandymillin twitter gr8 to share ideas,resources+ 4 you,entering the world of EFL,it’s gd 2 be in touch w/ people whose books u will read!

English students and their use of online materials

I’m currently in the process of preparing for my IATEFL presentation in March 2012. Here is the title and abstract:

Go online: getting your students to use internet resources

What factors help or hinder students’ uptake and continued use of online materials to aid their English learning outside the classroom?

What can teachers do in class to encourage students to take advantage of available materials and help them to overcome any obstacles?

This talk will detail the results of action research done in my classes.

It’s supposed to be based on classroom research, and I have been collecting information from my students, but I would really like to widen the research to make it a little more valid, since most of my learners come from similar backgrounds, and one of the things I am aiming to create is a list of characteristics of students who do and don’t take advantage of online materials. If it’s only based on my 20-40 year old students at a private language school in the UK, it’s not going to be relevant to many

I would be very grateful if you could ask your students to complete the questionnaire below. Could you also forward it to other teachers you know who may not be on Twitter/blogs for their students?

If they cannot access it through this blog post, the link is http://bit.ly/EnglishOnlineResearch (case sensitive) and the QR code is here:

It is completely anonymous, unless the email address field is completed at the end of the survey.

If you have any questions about the survey, what it will be used for or my research, please let me know. All of the results will be published on this blog after the conference.

Thank you in advance.

Sandy

My Edublogs nominations

This time last year I was just starting to lurk on social media, and the flurry of Edublogs nominations gave me lots of ideas for the sites and people that I could follow in the footsteps of. I enjoyed looking through them, and many have since become firm favourites. A year on, I love blogging and social media, and I appreciate the fact that the Edublogs Awards support this.

Here are my nominations:

Best individual blog

This was a very difficult choice to make as there are so many great teaching blogs out there. I follow about 90 blogs, and Ceri Jones’ ‘Close Up’ blog, constantly makes me rethink how I approach my classes. She provides ideas to reflect on and great lesson plans which I’ve used again and again. I had the pleasure to meet Ceri at the TESOL France conference in Paris in November 2011, and know first-hand that she is such a friendly, helpful person too!

Best individual tweeter

Chiew Pang (@aClilToClimb) tweets about all kinds of things, from photos for #eltpics and video interviews he has done to useful links (many from his multiple blogs) and grammar tips. He is humorous and always happy to get involved in any challenge.

Best group blog

I think the #eltpics blog “Take a photo and…” blog is definitely shaping up to be a great group blog with lots of resources and ideas for using the #eltpics tweeted by teachers all over the world. Since I’m a co-curator of #eltpics, but Fiona Mauchline does most of the curating for the site, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to nominate it…

If not, then my nomination for best group blog would definitely go to Teaching Village, curated by Barbara Sakamoto. She has posts from teachers all over the world, covering a huge range of subjects. They are always interesting to read, and give many teachers an opportunity to blog which they might not otherwise have.

Best new blog

Dale Coulter’s Language Moments blog has loads of great lesson skeletons, and really makes me want to experiment more with dogme teaching. I met Dale at the TESOL France conference too, and was impressed by how passionate he is about using dogme, and how quickly he got over new-teacher syndrome to experiment in his classes. His posts on reflective teaching have also made me think about how much more I could reflect on my lessons and how to turn this into action research. Very influential!

Most influential blog post

Way back in May, Brad Patterson invited us to get to know Cecilia Lemos through this post. In it, he also challenged us to interview members of our PLN and post the interviews on our blog. This was probably the point at which the people I had been interacting with on Twitter and blogs went from being pictures and text to real people. It encouraged me to get in touch with Naomi Shema and Lizzie Pinard on Skype, and through the whole challenge I learnt so much about the people behind the profiles. It really got Twitter buzzing, and (for me anyway) formed so many connections.

Best Twitter hashtag

This was the easiest nomination for me to make. The #eltchat hashtag is what got me hooked on Twitter. It has provided me with hours of mental stimulation, loads of ideas for my lessons and access to a group of amazing educators from around the world, many of whom I had the great pleasure to meet at the TESOL France conference. Without the buzz that every #eltchat gives me, I don’t think I would have dived into social media in quite the way I have, nor would I have got anywhere near as much out of it. The accompanying website includes summaries from the weekly chats, and is an invaluable resource for ELT teachers.

Best free web tool

Triptico is a great resource, full of different activities to use with your classes, including spinners, timers, word magnets, games and more. It works best with an IWB or projector, but can be used with a laptop too. David constantly updates it with new kinds of activity and is always on hand to solve problems through Twitter and his website. It looks great too.

Best educational use of a social network

Ann Foreman works incredibly hard to keep the Teaching English | British Council facebook page full of teaching ideas from across the web. She’s also recently started question and answer sessions using comments on the page. It has become a thriving community, with over 37,000 likes at the time of writing this post.

Lifetime Achievement

Jason Renshaw’s English Raven blog was one of the first I became aware of on entering the world of social media. He produces an amazing volume of posts, and every last one of them is worth reading. He creates beautiful freely-downloadable materials, then gives us video tutorials on how to produce our own, each running to about half an hour. He has put a lot of his own money into self-publishing the Choose Your Own Adventure ‘World Adventure Kids’ book, then chosen to offer it for free on his blog. I have no idea how he finds the time to do all this, since he is also evidently a very active dad and works full time too, but however he manages it, he never lets up on the quality of what he produces.

So there you have it. I look forward to seeing what other gems are brought to my attention by other people’s nominations.