Most of the time I write about different tools that teachers can use in their work for and about education, but sometimes one needs to stop, look around and see if there are some basics that people seem to have bypassed without realizing their importance. In a course I am co-presenting, I noticed that many of the participants are not using hyperlinks, and when they do, they just stick the entire endless URL in and let that hyperlink automatically. So I'm taking a step back, to help some of you jump ten steps forward. The URL (internet address of a webpage) is long and complicated. I can remember when the Internet first came into my life, you used to have to go to the browser window and type in the whole interminable thing (MAN am I dating myself now! ;-) Even though on most digital platforms where you stick a URL (a website, an email, a wordfile, a Googledoc, etc) the gobbledygook URL automatically turns it into a live hyperlink (it gets underlined and turns blue without you having to worry your little head about it) but still ...it looks... how shall I put it...? Awkward. In order to prevent this, there are three things you can do. 1) You can add a hyperlink to a word, phrase or object (ex. picture/graphic) which, when clicked on, will take you to another website. 2) You can make a long URL shorter. You would want to do this for digital products that are going to be printed out, or presented via an online platform where hyperlinks are not live and clickable, or if you want to project something for an audience, so that they can go into a website (like with the new Q&A app;A tool for Googlesides that I wrote about in my previous blog). 3) For when you need to kill off a few trees and print material out hardcopy, or project it on a screen because you want an audience to go into a website, you can also turn the URL into a barcode. Barcodes are fun, and get people using barcode scanners. I did that - and wrote about it - in an activity last year, although that blog was about the activity rather than the technicalities of how I made the barcodes). But fear not, for Google URL Shortener (one of the tools I talk about in this tutorial) will do that for you easily. I hope the following tutorial, which introduces bit.ly, tiny.url, goo.gl url and the (ridiculously simple) art of hyperlinking, helps you get your head around this, in under 6 minutes. If you have any questions; if anything isn't clear, please write in the comments. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Promise :-)
Digitally yours, @dele Please be sure to subscribe to this blog and to my YouTube channel, Digitally yours - you don't want to miss anything! You can also follow me on Twitter! @AdeleRaemer or search for tweets with the hashtag #IsraEd
It's REALLY new, hot off the virtual presses: the ability to really interact with your audience, real time, regardless of how many people are there! It rolled out at the beginning of the month, and I had the opportunity to try it out this week at a workshop I gave!
Here is a short explanation of what it does:
And this is Karissa Bell's blog post on "Mashable" explaining a bit more.
It sounded so exciting, that I decided to jump straight into the deep end (that's the ONLY way to learn how to swim, right?)
I made my presentation using Google Slides, as you normally would. When it came time to start the session, I clicked on the "Present" button. With Q & A, you are given the options of "Presenter View" or "Present from the beginning". In order to use the Q& A, you want the first option.
Once you open that "Presenter View" you see a screen that looks like this:
Click on "Audience Tools" and another window pops open, giving you a short (relatively) URL, and you can see the window where all of the audience questions will be visible. The URL will be viewable at the top of each of your slides throughout the presentation.
Another convenient tool that is here is a laser pointer - try that, too! The tool worked really well. The only suggestion would have are the following:
1. Since the screen that is projected is the same screen you are working from, the audience can see all of the questions. They can ALSO see the questions on their devices, of course, which is where they write their own questions and vote for questions they "second". However while I was giving the presentation, I wanted to check the questions on my own, to see when they were coming in. I was not happy with the fact that I couldn't do that without obstructing my presentation slides. In future when I use this tool, I will have another device (either bring my laptop or view on my phone) so that I can check audience feedback without interrupting the flow of the presentation.
2. It would be REALLY helpful if, in addition to the URL, there were a barcode (which is easier to scan than it is typing in the letters).
I DEFINITELY plan to use this tool in future presentations, and highly recommend you try it, as well! It is a tool that will be making appearances in my future sessions and my high school classes! How about YOU? Have you tried it?
Digitally yours,
@dele
PS (I must admit that until now, I have used PowerPoint presentations more than Google Slides, but with this new function, it could be a game changer for me!)
One hour. That's all you get. But it's one hour jam packed with ideas, revolving around a specific topic. Last night at two minutes to nine, I realized that I just happened to be at the right place at the right time to participate in a Twitter Chat. So I dove right in. A Twitter Chat is a discussion, or "event", the time for which is predetermined, as is the topic (usually), and led by a moderator (again - usually). Last night's ELT Chat was due to be EITHER about using Twitter in the classroom, OR about Snapchat. The topic is usually democratically decided for this chat by taking a poll before the chat begins, but last night's topic was tied. In the end, it wound up being about BOTH, in a way. We discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the two different tools. The discussion goes on fast and furious, and in order to keep up with the conversation, you need to be tuned into a hashtag. Does that sound like Greek to you? Hopefully it will make sense by the end of this post. First of all you need a Twitter account, and it helps if you use a tool like Tweetdeck which can isolate the topics into columns depending on how you label them. For example, I have a column for any tweets that use my Twitter handle; another column for tweets that include specific hashtags. I add or remove columns as suits me. It's an easy tool to learn and use, with tons of tutorials out there (I made two in Hebrew, if you prefer).
Using Tweetdeck, I opened a column for the tweets that use the hashtag #ELTchat and a few minutes before it was due to begin, I grabbed a glass of water, logged in and hunkered down. At exactly 21:00 (Israel time) the conversation set sail! If you wanted to respond to something someone said, you hit "reply", if you wanted to say something unconnected to what anyone else had said, you sent a new tweet. All interactions in the conversation had to have the #ELTchat tag, (something which I realized a bit late... I had thought that if I wanted to respond to someone, the hashtag would be included, as it were, from the person's comment which I was replying to, but I learned the hard way.) Although it's annoying to type it in each time, you can just copy it and then bang it in anywhere in your reply (beginning or end, usually) and your two cents will be seen by all those participating, thus keeping you in the conversation.
It wasn't always easy to keep up (and the moderator said that this had been a relatively "tame" chat ;-) ) but you can always read back (even now I am looking through the chat which can be found on Twitter any time, by going back to the hashtag and the date and time when the chat took place). At 21:50 someone (the moderator, maybe?) called for people to start summing up the chat... and at 22:00 the window closed, and everyone logged out. WOW did I learn a LOT! I "befriended" some experienced and knowledgeable people, who I am now following on Twitter, and I took away some REALLY good resources for learning about Twitter and using it in the classroom, and even more importantly, as a PLN (Personal Learning Network) which is in essence, what we did in the Twitter Chat, itself. (I'll tweet the resources out over the next few days, follow me - @AdeleRaemer - and look for them via the hashtag #IsraEd). So....are you ready to jump into the fray? All you need to do is to find a tweetchat that is interesting or relevant to you, at a time that suits you. They are going on, quietly, quickly, behind our backs in Twitterdome virtually 24/7 on practically any topic (not only digital pedagogy) you could ask for - and LOTS for EFL educators. Have a look here. Hope to see some of you join the #ELTchat which takes place every Wednesday at 21:00 Israel time! If you want to be on the directory of educators on @ELTchat, get to vote for the topic and be notified of the next chat, you can register here. Do YOU participate in tweet chats? If so, please tell us what they are about, which language they are in and what the hashtag is! Digitally yours, @dele
....but taking the time, travelling, finding relevant and helpful sessions.... it's not always that easy.
If only you could do it from home....
Oh! You CAN!
Have you ever participated in a webinar? A webinar is a seminar that is conducted via the Internet. I had the great honor of being able not only to participate in one, but to teach part of it, as well!
The session I co-presented with my colleague Sigalit Arditi, was about why teachers should be on twitter. I also ran a twitter backchannel for the Webinar (which can still be seen by searching for the hashtag #e_kenes on twitter). A back channel is a twitter feed which houses comments, questions, insights and discussions about the sessions going on, as they are going on (sort of like passing notes during a lecture - but not considered rude ;-) .
The webinar was one of the first I am aware of for teachers in Israel, conducted in Hebrew. The instructors were lead counselors for digital pedagogy in the Israeli Ministry of Education. It was deftly hosted by CET (Center for Educational Technology) and had multiple parallel sessions, organized according to topics including social networking, interactive lessons using Web2 Tools, tools for presenting information, digital assessment and even more!
If you missed this webinar, you can go into webinar site and watch recordings of some of the sessions. Ours is here.
You can find out more about free webinars on different educational topics in English here.
Another free option for learning online, is participating in tweetchats, which are learning opportunities that take place completely on twitter - a superb tool for professional enrichment AND push you to hit the ground running with twitter, improving proficiency and self-confidence in tweeting! You can find tweetchats on different education-related topics literally round the clock. The REALLY cool part of it is that you can find the discussions, long after they're over, by searching for the hashtag used. If there was a tweetchat that you wanted to attend but couldn't, you never need to miss a thing! One of my favorite hashtags is #GoogleEduOnAir but there are lots out there... seek # and ye shall find.
Sigalit and I are continuing the discussion we began at the webinar, by tweeting ideas and resources for utilizing twitter as a PLN as well as a tool in the classroom tagged #IsraEd. Follow us at @sigardit and @AdeleRaemer. Look up #IsraEd and join us in the conversation!
Just writing a "mini"blog post in response to talk on a program this morning, all excited about Siri - the built-in "digital assistant" on iPhones, now coming in Hebrew. But we've already GOT OK Google! And when one of the show hosts mentioned OK Google and the others hadn't heard of it, I decided that I MUST write about OK Google. So... what IS OK GOOGLE?
You know how when you are driving and you have to call someone but your hands need to be on the wheel? Or when you need directions? Or when you're baking and your hands are full of dough? Just say: "OK Google" and say what you need!
"Show me directions to get to 35 Ben Gruion Ashkelon" "How much is 3 ounces in grams?" "Where is the nearest supermarket?" "What's the weather forecast for Tel Aviv" "What is Purim"?
Try it with your students and see how it works for them! Maybe they need to work on their accents a bit to get it understanding them. Now THAT's a good thing! Besides - it understands Hebrew, too! Go into Google Play and Install Google Now to start playing around with it! Google now has a sense of humor, too! Try these, for a laugh (well..because..... PURIM! :0) Try these questions: 1. "What is the loneliest number?" 2. "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" 3. "Who are you?" And my favorite: 4. "Do a barrel roll" Any ideas for how to use this with your EFL students? SHARE!!!! Digitally yours, @dele
We all know and love (or hate) Google Translate. As a teacher, I have seen more than a few Google-translated compositions that came out as gobbledygook. I constantly warn my students that I can smell a Google-translate composition from a mile away. I also moderate an international group on Facebook that aims at encouraging communication and empathy for others, yet when people with no understanding of English posted using Google Translate, it turned into mayhem and I had to gently explain the pitfalls of the application. It’s
simply that unless they know English well enough to communicate their ideas clearly, despite their good intentions, discussion process deteriorated into shouting matches.
Here’s just a sample of what can happen to the well-loved Bohemian Rhapsodywhen Google translate gets its teeth into it.
Funny - right?
But Google translate has a really important role in today’s shrinking world, where people move around more than ever before and need to communicate effectively. From the smallest request like finding the nearest public bathroom to an urgent need to locate the nearest drugstore in a foreign land when you have sprained your ankle and need to buy an ankle support, Google translate is an essential companion.
Google Translate uses algorithms based on statistical analysis. But as we all know, languages are tricky things, and despite the innumerable texts that the mechanism uses to develop the translations, it’s far from perfect. This is the reason why Google is trying to harness the Wisdom of the Crowds (first credited all the way back to Aristotle!) in order to improve its capabilities. And this is why a Google representative asked me if I could think of a way to get our students involved, to improve Google Translate for Hebrew.
At first I thought… nah…. why would my 12th graders, pre-occupied with tests, army call-ups, driving lessons and hormones, want to do that?
But then I thought… hhhmmmm…... It’s worth a go! It could get them thinking about language AND help others who need to use Hebrew!
In class, I showed the following explanationof how Google Translate works, and asked how many of them used Google Translate.
In fact, many of them use Morphix, but some use Google Translate…. Unless they were wary of admitting it ;-) . Then I gave them this article, anticipating their response: “English matriculation exams are coming up, and don’t waste our time on your techno-App-Web2-Googledocs-sites-Twitter bird brained ideas, Adele”. (FTR - it’s not easy being my student - they are often my guinea pigs, and they know me well enough after almost 3 years). I also prepared accompanying work (one NEVER knows WHAT subject is going to pop up on the Bagrut, and if anyone is listening out there, I would REALLY appreciate it if you could base module G reading passage or composition on using bots to translate, or something Googley similar).
I do not think they were the least bit suspicious at this point.
After they had all finished reading the article,if not yet all the questions, we started checking their work. I used a small squishy ball to keep them on their toes. I throw it to a person and they translate the next word or answer the next question. (They are always impressed at how well I catch ;-)
And then, when they hit the zone of being fuzzy and comfortable, I hit them with it.
Google Translate Community needs YOU!!!
Now, it was the end of the lesson, and they were itching to take a few minutes to look over their notes for their big history test the following hour, so I didn’t push the issue, but DID prepare them for the fact that they were going to be participating in a competition that will help our country (a little patriotism, here) and that there was a “to be continued” segment coming up.
But I CAN tell you that when one of my really strong students finished early I told her that we were going to have a competition, and I was going to let her try it out first. I instructed her to scan the barcode and start playing. She REALLY got into it! (But she is not representative of my class… nor any class, probably.)
The “to be continued” part will happen in class tomorrow.
I intend to have a short discussion with them about the nature of the problems with Google Translate, and to show the first few minutes of Adele’s “Hello”used with Google Translate (I believe they will be more familiar with it than the cool one I used to open this blog).
I want to hear what THEY think about the tool, how it can help them and then to demonstrate how THEY can help others, those who need to use Hebrew, or Hebrew speakers who need the English.Really - a little patriotism can go a long way in the 12th grade in my school ;-)
They will be told, in tomorrow’s lesson, that a portion of all the upcoming lessons until our Passover break will be devoted to spending 5 minutes to help the world communicate with us. They’ll be asked to go into the site and either translate or validate. At the end of the session, they will need to take a screenshot and send it to me in our class What’s App. There will be prizes for the top 3 scorers, and they will not be limited to class time to accrue badges!
So...what do you think? Will it catch on? Will it flop? Will I be stuck with all of the prizes?
Do YOU have any ideas for how to get kids turned on to thinking about language and translations AND helping others in the community at the same time? I would LOVE to hear about them!
And you can be sure I will share a follow up note here.
Digitally yours,
@dele
P.S. Here’s how to sign up for Google Translate. And here are some other ideas about how to take advantage of Google Translate for education and educators.
I'm excited and exhilarated, despite the late hour and the exhaustion of chugging into the end of a VERY long week (with three too many long rides into Tel Aviv). But I was at one of my favorite places there today, at one of my favorite learning opportunities: a Google Teachers' Academy alumni reunion at Google Tel Aviv. We heard about the hopes and plans of the people at Google, learned about what it is like behind the scenes at one of the world's biggest extravaganzas of taking advantage of the wisdom of the masses: Waze. Then we went for dinner. (As important as the presentations and lectures are, no less important is the schmoozing done between the sessions.) When we came back from dinner we were ushered back to our seats through a part of the hall that had earlier been filled with rows of chairs, now set up with tables and paper all over the place. We were told that we were going to experience one of the latest teaching trends. We were handed clear bags each containing a piece of colored plastic with holes in it, batteries, a box for a motor, assorted plastic paraphernalia, a gazillion rubber bands and some suspicious looking wires. We were told that we could scan a barcode that would show us an instructional video, but were encouraged to try and figure out for ourselves how to "go forth and build a Drawbot"!
I couldn't view the video properly on my phone, anyway, and I was chomping at the bit to crack this one on my own. It took a while, and I needed a few leg-ups along the way, but I finally did it! I looked at my beautiful (albeit wonky) DrawBot with pride, kvelling over the way it puttered along (even if it only moved in a straight line, rather than in graceful circles like the really "cool" ones did... a Bot only its mother could love). And then I looked up, and saw a room full of some 50 teachers all building and helping and laughing and watching their DrawBots -together and separately - draw a montage of mechanical drawings on the huge sheets of paper on the floor.
This is Maker Space. This is Maker Culture. This is when the magic happens. Can you imagine bringing this excitement into the classroom? I haven't processed the idea enough yet to figure out how to harness this energy and experience for the EFL classroom. I asked one of the presenters. He said: "It's all about language! Following instructions in English!" Hmmm.... but WE didn't bother to follow instructions. We preferred to figure it out. Why would our students? Still...... I have no doubt that there is great potential here. What do YOU think? How could this be used for EFL? You can find out more on their website: ForReal Digitally yours, @dele
