Have Fun with English A blog or a plog

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Have Fun with English!A blog or a plog?

• Teresa Almeida d'Eça
• 19th APPI Conference
• Creativity A Password to Success
• Lisbon, 21 April 2005

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Meet the Webheads in Action online!
Susanne (Denmark)
Elizabeth (CA, USA)
Hala (Sudan)
Aiden (Taiwan)
James Benenson (France)
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What is Have Fun with English? 1

• for me, it's a teacher-student blog
• however, some consider it a cross between a Web
  page and a blog
• then... should it be called "a plog"?!

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What is Have Fun with English? 2

• Buth When Tere created her T-S blog, blog
  providers were not as advanced as now, in the
  sense that the comment feature was not developed!
  Therefore, a blog is not the same as a webpage,
  at present,  as it used to be, earlier it 
  has become a useful, pedagogical tool that helps
  students and teachers to communicate and interact
  with one another outside the classroom in an
  easy, fast, and simple way. This is why they are
  great tools to integrate in EFL courses, based on
  blended teaching and learning.
• Bee3 I agree with you totally Buth...and think
  that it was difficult at the time to make the
  small kids open a blog by themselves and keep
  it...so Tere's idea was fantastic. It was a
  transition between the webpage and the blog as we
  know it now.  They sent her mails which were
  pasted on a webpage she opened for this purpose
  and formatted as a blog. She even included sound.
  Blogger did not have a comment area or sound at
  the beginning either. So Tere is a precursor of
  the blog in EFL -) A true webhead.
• (Comments taken from Webcollaborator project
  114, in preparation for the co-presentation Bee,
  Buth and I did on Blogs and Blogging for the
  Belnate Conference in Minsk, Belarus, 4Nov2004)

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How did it all start?

• Aaron Campbell's Weblogs for Use with ESL Classes
• gave way to Let's Blog! (7th grade 3rd-year
  EFLers), my first experiment in blogging
• real challenge Have Fun with English! (5th
  grade)
• would I able to spark motivation in absolute EFL
  beginners?
• would I be able to keep the flame on?

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Why a blog for absolute beginners? 1

• generate a two-way communication tool in the
  target language outside of class T ? St
• stimulate practice of the language learned in
  class 'anytime, anywhere' BUT class
• have a place to give students a voice of their
  own, to speak about their own interests, etc
• create an open door to an authentic and broad
  audience that can comment and suggest

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Blog provider or custom-made?

• a custom-made blog meant
• more layout flexibility (we are talking about Mar
  2003 things have changed quite a bit)
• more control over content (young learners)
• fewer problems for me (I controlled home pages,
  but not blogs!)
• I chose 'custom-made' in spite of the additional
  workload!

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What sort of layout?

• simple (a 3-column layout)
• colorful (different color fonts)
• attractive and lively (images icons)

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What type of content?

• anything
• that is of interest to the students
• in English!
• the only 'obvious' imposition on my part

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The first page

• my first posting (28Nov03)
• announcement of the blog
• invitation to send messages
• interactive exercises (Hot Potatoes)
• the first message from a student (6Dec03)

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Unexpected but welcome add-ons!
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Photos

• birds made with fruit (Dec03)
• Tommy in the snow (Feb04)
• Wojtek and sister in the snow (Mar04)
• a Portuguese class (Mar04)

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Drawings

• from João Vasco (9Mar04)

• the Homework page

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A European exchange

• a Portuguese-Polish exchange (10Feb04)
• bringing young people together online
• linking them to the global village
• started during the EVO BaW2004 teacher training
  workshop
• the Polish side replies in voice emails
  (accompanied by the corresponding text)

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Voice mail 1

• how 'voice mail' began for us
• HandyBits a very easy-to-use voice mail program
  introduced by Agata, the Polish colleague
• 'download play'!
• two versions
• standard kids
• Horizon-Wimba (EduVoice demo) has also been used
  by me (25Dec04 7Feb05)

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Voice mail 2

• the first message from Poland
• from Tommy (10Feb04)
• Hello, friends!
• My name is Tommy
• Warcholak.
• I am 7 years old. I like
• computer games.  
• I am from Przemysl, Poland.
• Bye!
• Tommy

• the first message from Poland
• from Wojtek (11Feb04)
• Hello!
• How are you? Thanks for
• your email!
• I'm Wojtek. I live in Przemysl,
• Poland. I'm 9.
• I like computer games and
• sports. I like football
• and basketball.
• Bye, friends!
• Wojtek

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Voice mail 3

• the first message from Portugal
• from 5F (1Mar04)
• Hello friends!
• Thank you for your
• messages.
• How are you? We (half
• of 5F) are fine.
• Please send more photos!
• What are your favorite
• computer games?
• Good bye friends! Have a
• nice week.

• the first message from Portugal
• from 5G (1Mar04)
• Hi, friends!
• How are you? This little
• group of 5G is very well.
• Is there Carnival in Poland? In
• Portugal it's very fun people
• with costumes in the streets.
• We like rabbits, but we are
• afraid of snakes.
• See you!!!  -)

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Voice mail 4

• Student ? Teacher (Feb05)
• Rodrigo to me
• me to Rodrigo
• João Vasco to me
• My colleagues ? My students (Feb-Mar05)
• Leanne
• Dafne
• 6F to teachers
• Easter poem (Tommy Agata)

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Voice mail 5

• SitePal the latest innovation
• voice mail with animated avatars / images
• demo version
• choose you avatar
• record your voice message
• listen to your avatar saying it
• save it
• send it by email

Rodrigo
Pedro L.
Joana
Aiden
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e-Cards ( singing)

• Happy birthday!
• to Wojtek (9Mar04)
• to Tommy (6Jan05)
• singing 'happy birthday' to go with the cards
• to Wojtek (9Mar04)
• to Tommy (6Jan05)
• Easter
• from Susana Ana Luisa (Mar05)

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Photo story

• a family holiday Piodão, North of Portugal
  (6Feb05)
• created with Photo Story 3
• no examples from students yet!

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Interactive map

• students post the names of the teachers who send
  them messages and see where they are in the world
• created at Bravenet
• variation some students and teachers have
  entered their own names

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Mystery Guest

• finding out information from a message
• person's country of birth
• country the person moved to
• next step
• an Internet Treasure Hunt to find out where my
  friend Sharon lives

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CALL lessons

• a separate activity, though often closely related
  to the blog
• extra practice for all, in class, with
  diversified activities
• last year 10 extra English lessons (during
  Estudo Acompanhado)
• this year same number of lessons (once a week
  during the 3rd term)

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Final curiosity the need for flexibility

• a compromise between high and low tech (to allow
  all students the chance to send messages and see
  them answered online)
• handouts of an email template (low tech)
• the next best thing to the real email (high tech)
• the students loved the idea
• it caught on!

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Conclusion

• a simple experiment in writing to practice the
  target language has taken on different dimensions
  in a year's time
• all of them have contributed to added motivation
  and learning, and the opening of new horizons
• the unexpected has become reality and has gone
  beyond my 'wildest dreams'!!!
• Thank you!

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Teacher-created blogs

• BLOGS
• Bee Online A meeting place for students to share
  opinions and chat (Barbara/Bee Dieu)
• Blog for Internet Class Comments on projects and
  assignments students are working on (Chris Jones)
• Supelec NetClass All the interesting things
  engineering students have been doing (James
  Benenson)
• Sus Nyrop's K-Log (Susanne Nyrop)
• Taiwanbuzz Listening to News and Current Events
  (Aiden Yeh)
• PHOTO BLOGS
• Cake Baking (Leanne Mackenzie)
• Fabulous trips (Rita Zeinstejer)
• Webheads (Teresa Almeida d'Eça)
• AUDIO BLOGS
• Adelaide, Education and Life (Michael Coghlan)

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References

• My Website
• http//wwwin.malhatlantica.pt/teresadeca/
• Have Fun with English! (the current blog)
• http//wwwin.malhatlantica.pt/teresadeca/schoo
  l/fun-with-english5.htm
• Let's Blog! (the precursor)
• http//wwwin.malhatlantica.pt/teresadeca/schoo
  l/blog7.htm