Tag Archives: videoconference

Remote Teaching: 3 Tools to Assess Students’ Speaking Skills

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And here we are. Trying to make the shift to online teaching as smoothly as possible. For most of us, it is uncharted territory. Lack of information as to how we need to assess our students does not help either. We are on a roller coaster of emotions and sometimes we feel stuck, restless and unsure about what to do to help our students.

But, we need to stay at home. This much is clear. For how long? Quite uncertain. What is certain is that remaining at home is an unprecedented act of love to take care of each other and that we need to stay safe to keep our loved ones safe.

How can we assess our students’ speaking skills?

Meanwhile, the question of how to assess our students remains unanswered. In this post, I am going to share with you 3 easy ways to assess your students’ speaking skills. The tutorials are in Spanish but I have added notes in English to help you understand the steps you need to follow. Most of the times, the notes are unnecessary as everything in the app is in English.

1. The Easiest One:  Audio Recording with Vocaroo

Why do I like it?

  • Students don’t have to register.
  • They just need to click a button and start recording.
  • They can upload their own recording and then share the link with their teacher.
  • They get a link for their recording and share it with their teacher. So, no need to upload or download their recording unless they want to.

2. As if you were in class: Videoconferencing with 8x8.vc

Why do I like it?

  • Neither the teacher nor the students have to register.
  • You can create your own room with a click and then share with your student the link for the room, which is always 8×8.vc/ (nameofyourroom)
  • It is a videoconference platform so the interaction is automatic as if you were in class.

3. The Whole Package: Video Recordings with Flipgrid

This is a more complex tool but it allows students not only to record themselves from their homes and then share the video clip in a secure platform but also interact with their classmates or teachers. Not in real time, though

Why do I like it?

  • It is very reliable and safe for the students
  • It is completely free.
  • Students can record up to 10 minutes
  • They can upload their own video clip or record their own computer screen
  • Teachers can send written or video feedback within the app straight to the students’ email.
  • Teachers can develop their own rubric.
  • Teachers are   100% in control of the videos
  • Teachers can even share the recording with the student’s parents.

(NOTE: you might want to watch the original webinar here) 

 

The Easiest Video Conference Platform- Need to Connect with your Students to Practise Speaking?

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Really, it cannot be easier!

 

Since half the world is in lockdown and we are confined to our houses, now more than ever, technology comes to the rescue.

We, dedicated teachers, are doing our best to keep in touch with our students and though some of us have been using learning platforms for some time now, this is not the case for many teachers.

For most of us, home teaching is something new and although it is fairly easy to give students grammar and vocabulary exercises or listening comprehension activities to do at home when it comes to practising speaking, things get a bit more complicated.

Today, I want to share with you a video conferencing platform  8X8.vc , which is really super simple. It takes just one click to start a meeting. Seriously. You don’t even have to create an account.

I learned this from the generous Ingrid Mosquera and it is with her consent that I am publishing this post.

Note: At the end of the post, you will find a step by step guide for both teachers and students. Keep on reading, please.

Why do I like it?
  • Neither you nor your students have to register.
  • It offers unlimited meetings and unlimited minutes.
  • You don’t have to download any program or plugin.
  • There is not a limited free trial.
  • Students simply start or join a meeting with the click of a button.
  • The maximum number of participants is 50 (enough in my case).
How to set up a room without signing up
  • Open your Google Chrome browser and go to 8×8.vc. This is the best browser for this platform.
  • Name your meeting and click Start Meeting. Note: you can name the room or you can choose to keep the weird random name the program gives you. If you are worried about being hacked, this is probably safer than calling a room Cristina.
  • You might be prompted to download the extension for Google Calendar and Office. I have not done it.
  • Share the URL of the meeting with your students and automatically they will be in the same room as you.
  • If you sign up, then you can record the meeting.
  • Among other features, you can:
  • Share your screen
  • Raise your hand
  • Chat
What I like less and what to take into account before setting up a meeting
  • On a mobile device, you will have to download their app  8×8 Video Meetings.
  • It works best on Chrome.
  • The current maximum number of participants in a single meeting is 50, however, for meetings requiring additional participants, hosts can select a live stream to YouTube option that will support unlimited viewers. See How to Live Stream 8×8.vc  on Ingrid’s Youtube Channel.  I also highly recommend visiting her blog here.
  • If there are too many students you can ask them to mute their mikes. There is an icon for that.

Link to a step by step for students

Link to a step by step for teachers

Hope it is helpful!

 

Teaching from Afar: an Online Project Using Technology

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"I am not telling you it's going to be easy. I am telling you it's going to be worth it" Art Williams

I’m going to scream this from the rooftops. Social media is more than meets the eye.

I love the possibilities social media offers for both students and teachers alike. Today, I want to share with you a project I did with my B2 students using technology and my professional social media network. But, before we dive in, let me ramble for a little bit here.

Social media is more than meets the eye. True that most people use it just for fun, to catch up with friends old and new and read the occasional news, hardly ever bothering to check the source of the news, but there are also lots of people who are using social media for other purposes.

Right now, social media provides teachers with lots of opportunities to learn and see what other teachers are doing all around the world. Instantly. For free.  You do not have to wait to read in a journal about the latest methodologies, about what teachers are doing on the other side of the world. You just follow people or communities, open your Facebook or your Twitter and there it is, opening doors and pulling down borders.

I grew up watching the news in black and white and using a landline phone to ask the operator to dial a number for me to be able to make a phone call so when in my 30’s there was talk of the possibility of making videoconferences, I thought it was science fiction. I couldn’t be more mistaken as we all know nowadays.

Today I would like to share with you a successful project I recently carried out with my B2 students using my professional social media and a free video/audio conference platform.

You are not one of my followers yet? Don’t worry! It is never too late!

Topic: education

Motivation:

  • to offer my students the opportunity to interact with native speakers from different countries ( something that is not easy in the north of Spain)
  • To ask them questions about their education system
  • To offer my students the opportunity to do a meaningful activity using the vocabulary learned during the lesson.
  • To make them realize they can understand and be understood by native speakers.

Tools:

  • Twitter/Facebook
  • Zoom
  • Slips of paper

Project: to interact with British/American native speakers and ask them questions about their education system using Zoom, a reliable  free video platform

Thanks to

My most heartfelt thanks to Tamara Parson, who is an English teacher living on the south coast of England; Trudi Rogers, also an English teacher living in France, and Hollin Wakefield,  a French teacher form Berkeley (California) and creator of the awesome app Fluentkey. Thank you very much for your generosity and patience. I couldn’t have done it without you.

One week  before the activity
  1. We worked with the topic of education and learned and practised vocabulary related to it.
  2. It was my first time using Zoom. I had to make sure I knew how to use it so I needed to persuade someone with enough computing skills to help me set a fake conference. (Thanks MªJosé)
  3. Using my professional social network Facebook and Twitter (bait, click to follow) I asked for collaboration of teachers from the UK and the USA.
The day before the activity
  1. I explained the activity and told my students we were going to have a video conference with experts on education from the UK and the USA. The conference was going to last about 30 minutes
  2. I asked my students to write interesting questions about things they wanted to know about the education system in the Uk and the USA. I instructed them to ask open questions.

This way we practised writing questions, which is something students always struggle with.

  1. Once they had their questions, I gave them a slip of paper and asked them to write their question there and at the back of it, their name.
  2. Using blue-tack, I displayed their questions on the walls of the class.
  3. I asked students to stand up and read all of them and then do a second reading choosing the ten questions they liked best. To indicate they liked a particular question, they just had to put a tick.

  1. I also read the questions, correcting grammar and spelling mistakes.
  2. The 10 questions which got more ticks were the ones students had to ask. However, if we had any spare time, any student could volunteer to ask any of their questions. In fact, in one of the groups, two or three extra questions were asked.
  3. I gave back each and every question to their owners and we worked on pronunciation.
  4. I told all my students to practise their questions at home as homework.
  5. I went home, set up the meeting on Zoom and emailed the collaborating teachers the invitation to the Zoom conference.
The day of the activity.
  1. We practised asking the questions again so that students felt more confident about their pronunciation.
  2. We moved chairs in front of the screen and at the appointed time, the videoconference began.
My personal experience

It is with immense satisfaction that I can say that it was a tremendous success.  Trudi, Tamara and Hollin were just awesome and even though I had never seen them before and could have easily pulled back, they didn’t and they were really generous with their time.

From an academic point of view, my students were really motivated and it was really a boost to their confidence as not even once did they have to repeat their questions and they could easily follow the answers and sometimes lengthy explanations.

What is more, in the answers given by the native teachers, they could recognize most of the vocabulary they have worked with in class and this made studying this vocabulary more meaningful to them.

As for me, I was delighted. I am not going to say, it did not take time to set it up because I would be lying but it was really worthwhile.

Besides, the press caught wind of the activity and we made it to the local news as you can see in the photo below.

Thanks to Illán García from La Nueva España and to José Alesson for the photographs.

"I am not telling you it's going to be easy. I am telling you it's going to be worth it" Art Williams