How to leave comments on a TUMBLR blog?

This question was sent to me by a friend, Camila Sousa Sakai, after I left a comment on her Tumblr. She's been sharing her first experience as a future mom via videos on a TUMBLR blog I've been following, http://cssakai.tumblr.com/

Camila is very creative and this is how she announced to her friends that they were pregnant.

Well, now back to the purpose of this post. 

How can we leave comments on a TUMBLR?

It seems simple if you think of Blogger and Wordpress blogs which by default have comments allowed. Now, with TUMBLR, you have to go to your Tumblr settings and allow comments from people YOU FOLLOW.

So, first you have to allow comments, and then you have to follow the blogs you want to send comments to.

This is a simple tutorial I created for her.

Camila, hope this is useful. And CONGRATULATIONS, once again.

App Smashing a study guide

This post is a simple app smashing I created for my students today using two great apps:

COMICS HEAD + THINGLINK

I usually try to make the revision guides I provide to my students more visually appealing. Apart from a paper revision sheet, today I'm going to offer them a VISUAL STUDY GUIDE to help them study the topics we've covered so far.

1. First, I created a comic strip with the COMICS HEAD app (IOS) with the images you can see.

2. Then, I linked resources which I had curated using the THINGLINK app (IOS).

And this is the result:

If you hover over the image, some clickable links will appear.

 Let's see if they are going to find it useful.

A day later, a colleague of mine inspired by my interactive study guide, created her own for her teenage students. With Bethânia's permission, this is her app smashing creation:

Mobile Activity: Secret SMS

 

Is it possible to have students use their cell phones in class to learn languages even with no internet connection? Oh, yes, IT IS.

Yesterday afternoon, during a workshop I presented to Cultura Inglesa Uberlândia teachers, Ana Cláudia, a colleague of mine, shared a very creative activity she has tried with her students. I'll call it Secret SMS.

These are the steps we followed:

1. Ana Claúdia asked each teacher/student present for their cell phone numbers and wrote them on a whiteboard we had in class.

2. Then, she asked us to choose one of the numbers on the board to write a text message to. The message should include 2 things we did last weekend.

3. Once everyone had written the message, she gave an OK for us to send it.

4. The student who got more messages was the winner and got a candy.

5. She then explained that in class, she elicited the messages students got on their cells and wrote them on the board calling attention to verbs in the past.

VARIATION 1:

- As we don't know who sent us the message, students could then stand up, mingle and try to find the sender of the message by asking questions such as:

"Did you go to the cinema last weekend?"  "Did you eat out last weekend?""

VARIATION 2:

- Instead of writing the phone numbers on the board, the teacher could ask students to write their names and cell phone number on a slip of paper. Then, after collecting all slips with phone #s, the teacher would hand one number to each student, making sure no one got their own number. Each student would send a message to the cell phone number they got (this way all students would get a message). Again, as a follow-up, students could mingle to try to discover the sender of the message.

VARIATION 3:

- The teacher would write his cell phone number on the board and ask students to write a message (with their names) to send to the teacher using specific vocabulary, structure or topic. When teacher says OK, they all send the message. The first message the teacher receives is the winner.

Any other ideas?

My research: Living Social Presence

I normally post in English because of the different people who follow this blog and speak other languages. However, today I'd like to share the result of the work I've been developing (in Brazil) for the last two years: my M.A. thesis.

Why did I decide to study about Social Presence?

Well, I start my thesis telling a story about a period of my life that because health problems I couldn't be in a real classroom in contact with my students. In an attempt to feel useful and share some knowledge with other teachers, I created an online course for EFL teachers and for the first time moderated an online course on my own. With this experience, the virtual learning environment was no longer a cold and impersonal place, but a space where I met people in order to exchange ideas and learn. This is my personal reason for the interest to understand about Social Presence.

What were my objectives?

I wanted to observe and analyze how participants of an online course live Social Presence and some implications of our conceptions of Social Presence to the learning process during the course.

And what is Social Presence?

Although there is no unique definition for this concept, based on my studies, I believe Social Presence is the degree in which you perceive your presence and the presence of others in a virtual interaction and the willingness to develop an interpersonal relationship aiming collaborative learning.

My defense took place this morning and as I promised to share my presentation with the research participants and my friends, here it is. The research was carried out in Brazil in Portuguese, so the slides and the recording are in my mother tongue.

This is a recording I made in order to practise for the defense: (IN PORTUGUESE)


Presença Social from Ana Maria Menezes on Vimeo.

And these are the slides (PREZI) I used for my presentation this morning.
http://prezi.com/aicu8mvelpf1/vivendo-a-presenca-social/#

The experience of having my work discussed by Cláudia Hilsdorf and Valeska Soares Souza was pure enjoyment. I have to thank them for the contributions to my work.

If you wish to read the whole paper (in Portuguese), there's a version online at the blog where I've shared my writing since the beginning of the research  http://ufuanamariamenezes.blogspot.com.br  or flipping the pages below. This is the version I handed in for my defense. Please, bear in mind it's not the final version yet.

At Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/209558265/Vivendo-a-Presenca-Social-historias-de-um-curso-online-para-professores-de-Ingles

E-course: Mobile Learning EFL

I was planning to propose an e-course for English teachers involving studies related to the use of mobile devices in the EFL classroom when I was contacted by a dear friend, Jennifer Verschoor.

Last year, Jennifer devised and monitored an online course on the same topic and we had been thinking about developing a project together.

Our collaboration in planning this online course has been quite interesting with once-a-week skype meetings, a google docs for our planning and little my little we've put together an online course for Brazilian and Argentine teachers.

This is the poster we've been using to invite participants:

If you're interested in joining us, the enrollment information can be found at the bottom of the online poster.

Mobile Activity: Introduce a family member

How can I use the many smartphones in the classroom for a simple and real communicative activity? This post describes a mobile activity I have already tried where basic learners use their own devices to introduce family members to their classmates.

Level: basic

Language Skill: speaking

Topic: members of the family

Device: students' own cell phones

Internet Connection: off

After having learned vocabulary related to family, ask if students have pictures of any family member on their cell phones. Let them browse their photos and tell them if they haven't got a phone that day or a photo, there's no problem.

Once students have selected a photo with one or more family members, model the exchange below with one of the students:

Student A shows the photo: This is my brother.

Student B asks: What's HIS name?

Student A: His name is Maurício.

Ask students to stand up and mingle while they show photos and ask questions. Students who don't have a photo to show, just go round asking questions.

I know this activity is VERY SIMPLE but believe me, I saw some smiles while they interacted with each other.