Guest post: Mobile Learning at Braztesol Brasília

Today, we have a special post written by a dear colleague and a ConnectMe Education student, Priscila Renck. At the moment, Priscila is an English teacher at Colégio Marista in Curitiba, Brazil. She loves exploring edtech tools and has kindly shared some of what she learned during Braztesol 2016 - Brasília with us.

Mobile Learning at Braztesol 2016 by Priscila Renck

I'd like to share some of what I learned with Geoff Stead about Mobile Learning during the conference. He got a lot of experience working in Qualcomm and now he wants to bring the lessons learned there out to the wider ESOL world.

He talked about different apps:

• Kahoot (a game-based learning platform), 
• Plickers (poll your class for free), 
• Quizlet (flashcards, games and learning tools) 
• Padlet (to create and collaborate). 
• Coursera and Future Learn give us the chance to study at different world universities
• Pluralsight (online training)
• Lynda.com (space to learn business, creative, and technology skills to achieve your personal and professional goals)
• GetAbstract (business books)
• Evernote (note-taking space)
• OneNote (note-taking space)
• Office Lens (mobile scanner)
• Google Drive (cloud storage)
• Goodreads (readers and book recommendations) you can save time using them. 
• You can use Matterport to create 3D spaces
• Google Card Board and Google Expeditions can bring a new view of the world inside your classroom 
• Virtual Reality (VR) to build confidence or immersion therapy
• Bluetooth Beacons (location-aware app) can connect you with places you like. 

He also recommended some interesting Cambridge web spaces to visit, such as Practice Test Bank, English Weekly, and Virtual Speaking Test etc.

I am a technology lover and I keep learning by myself, going to conventions and take courses to learn more.


Team Priscila Renck shares tips from Braztesol 2016

Quizzes on Google forms (without Flubaroo)

Now, it's possible to create gradable quizzes directly on Google forms without the help of the add-on Flubaroo. Thanks to Giselle Santos for the tip.

These are the steps you can follow to create your first gradable quiz:
1. Go to Google Drive, click the red button NEW, and look for Google Forms.
2. Before typing your questions, go to the settings icon (top right), look for TESTS and activate the CREATE TEST button. Save it.
3. There are two types of questions which can be graded: multiple choices and checkbox questions. Type your question, the answers and then below that click the blue text ANSWER KEY to indicate the correct answer(s). You can also leave a feedback about the correct/wrong answer.
4. To indicate the value of each question, on the same line as each question you will see some arrows to select the number of points you want to assign.

THAT'S IT! It's quite simple. Hope you find the tutorial (in Portuguese) helpful. I'm sorry if you don't understand Portuguese (my mother tongue), but I also wanted to help teachers who can't speak English.



Oh, I forgot! All your previous quizzes on google forms can be edited to be gradable too. All you have to do change the settings like I explained earlier.

Learning with String Phones

I remember Giselle Santos' workshop during Braz-tesol Technology Seminar in SP in 2015 and how excited teachers were when making their own string phones. I thought, "how can use this activity in an English Class?".

This post aims to share my first attempt of a "MAKER" activity with a group of undergraduates who are taking an English course with me. I planned it carefully, however, I have to confess I feared students would find it childish. After trying it out, I'm happy to say their reaction was rather positive.

These are the steps of the activity developed in class yesterday:

1. I prepared the plastic cups with holes and strings beforehand. (2 cups and a string)
2. In class, students were divided into groups of 3 or 4 students.
3. Each group received instructions in English (about how to make a string phone) which were out of order. Students had to read the sentences, try to understand the words and order the instructions.
4. I elicited the order of the sentences on the board and called their attention to sequence connectors.
5. Then, I asked them what the instructions were for. Many of them guessed right. I asked them to tell me what words helped them come to that conclusion.
6. At that moment, I took out the cups and strings out of a bag which I had hidden somewhere and told them we were going to play a little bit.
7. Groups followed the instructions to make their string phone and instructed to test their device by asking each other questions in English. Pairs stood up around the room and had some fun. It was nice to see that some of the students had never played with string phones and a few were pleasantly surprised at how well they work.
8. Making use of a text taken from the website Fun Science Projects for Kids, I used the site www.goconqr.com/ to create a fill in the gap activity. The text explains how string phones work scientifically speaking.
9. Each group used a piece of paper to write down their guesses for the missing words. I used my laptop and the projector to show them the sentences one by one. Finally, we corrected the answers.

Created with GoConqr. You have to sign in to play the game.

The aim of this activity was to develop reading comprehension, language awareness, speaking practice and have students play while making a physical object which they used not only during the activity, but throughout our class.