Hot Potatoes

Initial Impressions

When you first click onto the Hot Potatoes (HP) homepage you might think you've gone back to the 90's, and are doing some sort of dated time warp, but looks can be deceiving. You should never judge a book by its cover. Appearances are often misleading. Beauty is only skin deep. Okay, that's enough idioms. The point I'm trying to make here is that this tool is exceedingly powerful and shouldn't be dismissed for having a simplistic interface. You have to download the programme, but once you've done that you can start building your very own online materials.

The Building Process

The first thing you need to do is find an appropriate text for your learners. Once you've done this then you can start the process. There are 5 kinds of potato (JMatch, JQuiz, JCross, JCloze, and JMix) with each having the ability to produce different exercises, plus the Masher (that acts as a suite, which combines the tasks made). Here are a few screenshots of the stages I went through:

JCloze (Gap Fill Exercise)

JQuiz

The Masher 

End Product

Choice Of Exercises

Gap Fill

Quiz

Verdict?

It's an incredibly powerful tool, which actually requires very little training as it's so simple and straightforward to use. The 'Getting Started' tutorial, once you open the programme, is a useful place to start but being brave, relying on your intuition, and giving it a go is also a good way of doing it. It could be deemed slightly limited with only 5 options (but these can be adapted).

For Language Learning

• Like other tools, giving your learners exposure to the text beforehand is imperative.
• JMatch - Can be used to create a matching exercise with key words and definitions. Or you could get your students to choose the correct synonym/antonym. Verbs and prepositions could also be useful. In fact with high level students this could be a great way of presenting phrasal verbs or idioms.
• JQuiz - A fantastic way of either starting the lesson, as a warmer, or finishing the lesson by testing your students on what they've learnt. Useful for all levels as you can grade it appropriately. Teaming students up would be a good way of promoting collaborative learning, and introducing some friendly competition into the classroom.
• JCross - Semantically it seems like this is for the advanced student as it's a crossword puzzle but, like the JQuiz, it can be easily graded for lower levels. 
• JCloze - This is the classic gap fill which helps students with sentence structure, syntax, prediction, and reading skills. The Auto-Gap is a time saver, but be careful to double check everything before finalising.
• JMix - This is a really useful function where students have to recreate a jumbled sentence into its correct form. Once again this is beneficial as it promotes syntax and word order. Or present gradable vocabulary where students have to put it in order. This could work with lower levels (the alphabet) to higher levels (quantifiers).
• The Hint Button - This is an absolutely brilliant feature of HP as it enables you as the exercise builder to scaffold and help your learners to try and predict the correct answer. Suggestions, and hints I used in my materials were: the first letter of the word, the definition, antonyms, synonyms, and singular/plural forms. All very helpful for language learning.
• The Feedback Button - Once again, this enables you as the exercise builder to give your students thorough feedback on any wrong answers. Rather than just putting 'No,' a detailed justification of why an answer is wrong is more likely to help students for the future.
• The Score System - Useful for students as it could be good for morale, or initiating some friendly competition between groups.
• Could be used in the classroom, outside the classroom as a homework or pre-lesson task, or used in the flipped classroom - it's a very versatile tool.
• For advanced HP users, it is possible to embed audio and video files, with links to youtube too.
• Could be used for in class assessment - obviously all students would need a device, and the teacher would have to keep an eye on wandering eyes but it could be an innovative idea which saves teachers from having to mark written tests.
• It's free!

Breaking News English

Read all about it...

Breaking New English (BNE) is a website that contains a huge resource of content, which provides thorough lesson plans for all types of learners. There will always be one level with all of the resources available, and then the materials are edited and moulded for lower or upper level students accordingly. For lower level students, the new creations of the material provides an opportunity for them to work up to the main version, as this will improve confidence and ease them in gently. There are usually 20+ pages of materials, so it's important to be selective, by picking and choosing the most relevant activities for your students. Listening and reading takes the focus of the 4 skills, but you can tailor your lesson to include the other skills if needs be. There is also a wealth of resources which promotes lexis and grammar. Moreover, the news stories are really engaging and quirky, as can be seen below:

How can this site be used?

• In the classroom - You could print out the PDF of the lesson that you like the look of, and identify the activities and tasks which you think are most beneficial to your students.
• Flipped classroom - You could get your students to read an article or listen to an audio at home, so they're ready to pull it apart and analyse it when they come to class.
• Outside the classroom - You could highlight the activities that you want your students to do at home, but it's probably wise to show them how to navigate the site, and where they can access the activities in class so they're prepared to do it autonomously.

Which level?

Some useful and engaging activities

Jumble

• After students have been exposed to the text, you could put your students in pairs or small groups to try and rebuild the text collaboratively.
• Although there might be some L1 usage in monolingual classes, the students use their language processing to complete the task effectively. Plus they'll be continuously debating, clarifying, questioning, and confirming, which are useful skills for learners to take outside the classroom.
• This will help students vocabulary, syntax and grammar by highlighting other skills such as collocation and colligation.
• The scoring system offers the opportunity for friendly competition between teams.

No letters

• Similar to how a dictogloss used to be. After being exposed to the text, students are required to input the words they think appeared in the text. Students will most probably think of articles (as can be seen above), and prepositions first but will have to cast their minds back to the text in order to recall all of the words.
• Perfect for pair or group work as students will have to negotiate and collaborate to rebuild the text from scratch. They'll be throwing out lots of vocab and previous knowledge too.
• The incorrect words and your score will show on screen which adds a competitive element to proceedings. You could encourage students to use dictionaries. For the incorrect words, as an extension activity, you could get students to think of synonyms or antonyms which obviously helps language learning.
• Helps with lexis, grammar, tests high level discourse analytical skills such as collocation (verbs and noun phrases), and encourages autonomy.
• Teacher's can look at the common words that students are getting wrong and make a point to teach this as a whole class.

A few final thoughts...

• This is a very dynamic site as it presents language in an innovative and non-static way.
• The feedback you receive on the site is instant...but fairly limited as it only tells you if it's right or wrong, but not why. This is where teacher intervention is very important to explain any ambiguity.
• The dictation function on the site is very good for learners to repetitively listen to an audio. For example, this would be great if they wanted to focus on weak forms from a US or British accent. However, non-native speaker accents aren't available which could be a limitation.
• The search function is very useful and can take you wherever you want to go.
• Listen A Minute  is the offspring of BNE - this site is ideal for lower levels (A2 - B1) as it takes the essence of BNE but contains less material, shorter texts, and the lessons are organised by genre/topic so it's easier to navigate.
• It's free and contains a ridiculous amount of resources. The most important things for teachers to be aware of is that you should be selective when choosing activities, and  expose students to the site by bringing it to life in the classroom before asking them to do activities outside the classroom.

Ted Ed

What is it?

Having spawned from the hugely popular TED which is based on innovation and spreading ideas, Ted Ed is an education platform which enables teachers to amplify and expand their thoughts on a global scale. It contains 5 stages called Watch, Think, Dig Deeper, Discuss and Finally, which can be implemented or ignored at the teachers’ convenience. Here's some I made earlier:

How?

As a teacher wanting to incorporate Ted Ed into your classroom, you have two options: to use a video stored on the sites archives, or create your own lesson.

With reference to the former, there are thousands of ready-made, useful, and engaging lessons for teachers to utilise and search for at their perusal. There is a wide range of levels covering primary up to University, and subjects ranging from Psychology to Social Studies.

As for the latter, it really is easy as pie to create your own Ted Ed lesson. This video shows how to do it:

Why?

• Basing a lesson around a video (whether you’ve uploaded it from Youtube, or created one yourself) will engage students from the outset, and contain a context which will hopefully induce learning.

• You can log in through Facebook, or set up a TED account in minutes. Oh and by the way, it’s free!

• It’s exceedingly simple, straightforward and manageable for students of all ages and levels.

• For the teacher, it isn’t very time consuming to make and it’s stored permanently in your area.

• You can give instant feedback to your students on the multiple choice questions in the Think section, and review their work in other parts, therefore as a teacher you can keep tabs on student progress. There is also a space for students to respond to this feedback if they require more clarification, or if they just want to contest it!

• The Discuss section allows the teacher to create discussions based on the lesson focus, aims and objectives. They can be guided or open, which doesn't only aid teachers and students but helps to connect the vast community to each other.

Why not?

• You can’t embed other tools into Ted Ed (such as Kahoot which was reviewed in January on this blog).

• The Think section only allows you to use 2 types of question (multiple choice or open).

• There is only one framework available which could potentially lead to de-motivation or complacency if overused.

Teaching context?

• Could be used as part of a flipped classroom, with the video being viewed before class then the activities done in-class. For example, the Dig Deeper questions could be used to tie in the external, online work back into the classroom. 

• Or alternatively a Ted Ed could be the whole focus of the lesson in a face to face environment. By putting students into groups, teachers would be encouraging collaborative and cooperative learning.

• It could also be set as homework, which would most definitely aid the quieter students in the class as it’d enable them to work at their own pace.

• You could hand over autonomy to your students by asking them to create their own video/lesson, and asking other students to complete it. This would actually be a really innovative and hugely powerful way of encouraging your students to become proactive outside the classroom, as well encouraging them to gain presentation literacy prowess.

Final thought

Here is a webinar I presented about Ted Ed (from 30 minutes – 60minutes) so feel free to check it out:

http://bit.ly/1M2rW1q

Movenote

What is it?

Quite simply, Movenote is a video and audio presentation tool that allows you to communicate with your intended audience in an innovative, and fun way. You can use it with any device, on any platform, anywhere. The easiest way to begin is sign in with your gmail account, then you can upload slides/pictures from your computer or google drive. Once you've inserted your aforementioned material, hit record and start presenting. You can change the slides using your keyboard or the arrows on the presentation, and during the presentation your cursor will act as a laser pointer tool. When finished, press save and preview, then share it with social media or gmail. It's seriously easy and straightforward to use, as the tutorial below will make apparent:

Why?

• It's an asynchronous spoken tool which requires the most time for thinking and correction, therefore students will be able to rehearse and perfect their presentations until they're 100% satisfied with their final product.
• If students are set an essay for homework, teacher's can actually use this tool as a means of giving feedback. You could do this as a separate presentation, or reply directly to theirs. Teacher's could screen shot their essays into a powerpoint presentation, use the laser pointer as a means of emphasising certain points, and use video as a means of making it more personal and fresh.
• Face-to-face error management can sometimes be a problematic notion for some teacher's, however Movenote takes away this potential awkwardness.
• As we know, some students are exceedingly shy especially when having to give presentations to the class. Movenote eradicates this live performance anxiety by giving them the platform and opportunity to present their work under their conditions.
• Could be used for group projects where students have to collaborate and work as a team.
• It's a tool that should increase student engagement and motivation.
• Teachers could set students an assessed presentation where they can incorporate speaking (video) and writing (powerpoint slides) in a dynamic and live performance.
• Most importantly - IT'S FREE!

The Alternatives

• It's similar to Present.me but Movenote seems to have a simpler premise and interface.
• Screencast-O-Matic is much alike, but you have to download this tool. It's free but for $15 a year you can edit videos. It has more affordances for sure, but takes longer to set up, therefore if you were going to use this in class you'd have to make sure everything was downloaded and in place before the lesson as it'd waste valuable class time trying to set up. This in turn is very similar to Camtasia but it's cheaper, slightly easier to get to grips with, but has a lot less functions.

Example

Here's one I made earlier...enjoy!

Interview about Niagara Falls