Padlet can make our students work together effectively!

Padlet allows us to set up an online interactive themed wall in few minutes and then we can share its URL link with our students who can express their thoughts on the topic, add YouTube videos, website links, photos and documents by adding visual sticky notes to it. So, the great thing is that the wall is not created by one person but we can have several students work on it. This is a perfect chance to have our students collaborate with each other and experience the benefits of group work.

Some years ago in Greece we used to work individually most of the times and the only pair or group work I remember as a student is when the teacher requested her/his students to create pairs or groups and discuss about a particular topic for a few minutes. Students used to talk to each other for a while and then because they were bored and the teacher could not check them all at the same time they continued in Greek saying about irrelevant issues. Of course, I am sure that nowadays English language teachers do more than this and try to promote collaboration in their classrooms. I believe that Padlet is a very good tool which can bring fun to our lesson and maybe help some of our students realise that they actually learn more by building upon each other's ideas than competing with each other.

How does Padlet work?

Padlet is a very user-friendly tool, it is free but we will need to make an account.

• So, first we go onto the Padlet homepage and we click on "Login or signup" button where we can fill in our email address and a password. 
• Then, we have two ways to build a new wall. We can either click on the yellow "Build a wall" button or click on the"+" button at the top right corner. Next to the "+" button there are 3 more buttons which can allow us to view our account and change our password, view all the walls we have created and finally log out (Image 1).

Image 1

• That was it! Our wall is now ready but before sharing it with our students there are a few things that we need to do. We have two ways to modify our wall either by clicking on the yellow "modify wall" button or clicking on the icon on the right side of the page (Image 2).

Image 2

• Once we clicked on "Modify wall" we will see that more option buttons appear on the right part of our screen which can help us costumise our wall. We can type a tittle, give a brief description to our wall and add a relevant portrait choosing from the ones offered by Padlet or uploading a photo from our computer (Image 3).

        

Image 3

• Then, we can add a wallpaper which is a background for our wall. Again we can choose among the ones offered by Padlet or upload one from our computer or even find one on the Internet. Remember to choose a wallpaper which is nice and simple so that students can read easily the content they are going to add to the screen (Image 4).

Image 4

• Afterwards, we can decide on our wall's layout namely on how our students posts are going to look like. There are two options either users can post anywhere "Freeform" or post below each other's post "Stream" (Image 5).

Image 5

• One really important feature of Padlet is its privacy settings. We can have a wall that other people can view but cannot add content to it. We can have a wall that other people can view and add comment to it and finally we can have a wall that our students can view and add comment to it but the content will be added once the teacher agrees "Moderate posts". Finally, we have the choice to add a password to our wall which will be required by anyone who wants to have access to it or we can make it completely private by choosing the first option "Private" and adding the emails of the students we want to have access to our wall. I suggest either to choose the "Private" or the "Password" option and tick on "Moderate posts". (Image 6)

Image 6

• What is more we can pick a new address for our wall and change the address already given to it by Padlet. We can choose a simple word which our students will be able to remember and write down (Image 7).

Image 8

• Finally, we can make our first sticky note by double clicking on the wall. If we want, we can write our name and give a title and then start writing content up to 160 characters. It is possible also to add a link to a webpage or add a video, an image either from the Internet by copying and pasting the URL or by uploading from our computer. Keep in mind that a sticky note can be edited or deleted only by its creator or by the owner of the wall. Students can also change the size and the shape of the post even its location depending on the layout we have chosen (Image 9).

Image 9

• One last thing I want to mention is that we can share the wall via email or Facebook, Twitter etc, we can embed it on a website by coping the URL code and we can export our wall as PDF, Excel file etc or print it (Image 10).

Image 10

For more details you can check Russell Stannard's teacher training video about Padlet, formerly known as Wallwisher.

How can we use Padlet in the classroom?

There are many possibilities for using Padlet in the classroom but I am mostly interested in activities which can foster collaboration, enable group work and establish a friendly, collaborative relation among my students.

Writing

• Starting the Lesson, Brainstorming, Group Discussion: We can put an image or write something on the wall and ask our students to work in groups or in pairs and comment on the topic. Students can brainstorm, use their background knowledge and their imagination. We can introduce almost every topic included in our coursebooks (science, environment, technology etc), for example healthy and unhealthy food and our students can simply write down food items or add videos and images or even better I would suggest to let them choose sides and support either healthy food or unhealthy food and work in pairs in order to find arguments and relevant videos. This can make our students really active, they will collaborate and negotiate with each other in order to create the sticky notes. In addition, the wall updates in a real time so students will feel the need to work and present something to their teacher and their classmates, so they might be quite motivated and they will probably not waste their time on irrelevant discussions. 
• Giving a different end to our lesson, checking for understanding: We can follow the above rationale and at the end of our lesson we can request our students to express their thoughts and feelings about what they have learnt. We do this most of the times in our classroom by asking questions and trying to elicit answers from our students. However, it is often the case that many of our students do not pay attention to their classmates answers. Furthermore, shy students will avoid to speak and share their thoughts. We can use Padlet to make them create a note, expressing their opinion about cyber robots for example and at the same time commenting on one of their classmates sticky note. Thereby, our students will have a motive to read and reflect on their classmates ideas (Image 11).
• Creating a story: We can put a phrase or a word on the wall and divide our students into groups and ask them to collaborate in order to create a story beginning with it. It is important to guide them through the whole procedure because collaboration does not simply happen. We should establish the rules for example each and every student will have to write a sentence and continue the story according to what their teammates have written. Moreover, we can ask them to choose roles, there will be a student responsible for the time, a checker, an organizer etc. Our students will have to sign a contract, promising that they will perform their roles. Thus, every student will be responsible for something and all of them will have to listen carefully to each other and collaborate for the shake of their story. 
• Peer reviews: I would like to point out that Padlet is a very good tool for an alternative type of assessment. For example, when all groups have created their stories (example mentioned above) we can ask our students to suggest their classmates ways to improve their story (other linguistic choices, better structure etc)
• Suggestions for further reading: Our students can create a note referring to their favourite book, they can include a brief review about the book, a photo or a video. Furthermore, we can ask our students to create a second post, selecting their three favourite book reviews on the wall. Students will have the chance to be exposed to different kinds of books and may develop an interest for some of these.

Vocabulary

• We can post a word and divide our students in pairs or groups and ask them to come up with as many synonyms as they can or create as many sentences as they can in 5 minutes. Another idea is to ask them to find pictures on the Internet which reveal the meaning of the word.

Image 11

Some Limitations to think about

First of all, we need to take into account the number of our students. If the students are many, it might be difficult for them and for us to work on one wall. The space may not be enough and students will not have the chance to reflect on what their classmates have written. In addition, too many sticky notes can make our wall look chaotic and us feel stressed. Finally, our students can upload only one photo or one video and the text can be up to 160 characters.

I would say yes to Padlet because it is a very good tool for collaboration. Our students do not need to create any account. They can have access to our wall simply by typing the wall's URL in the search box. However, we can make our wall password protected and choose to moderate all posts so that we can avoid other people from posting on it. Furthermore, our students can make personalised posts by adding pictures and videos. Finally, Padlet is very easy and free to use and no time is needed at all!

So, let's go ahead and use Padlet in our classrooms and give our students a chance to do funny yet formative collaborative activities!

Printscreens from Padlet

Word clouds are appealing and can be useful as well, thanks to Wordle!

Wordle can help us turn texts into word clouds. We can do this very easily and quickly simply by visiting http://www.wordle.net. The site is free and no membership or account is required. Once, we are on the page we can click on the "Create" button and then a box appears where we can paste any text we have already copied or type words, sentences or text (Image 1). Then we click on the "Go" button and a word cloud is created instanlty (Image 2). The site requires the Java programme which can be downloaded very easily.

Image 1

Image 2

How does Wordle work?

What Wordle does is to create word clouds by distributing the words randomly all around. The more frequently a word occurs in our texts the larger it appears in our word cloud. Look for example at the above word cloud. The text I have typed is: "Look at the dog named George barking and jumping all around. How silly is George the dog. " The most frequent words are "George", "dog" and "the" which appear larger in contrast to the other words.

Why does Wordle stand out from the other web tools which allow us to create word clouds?

Wordle is special because it is easily costumisable. Once we created the word cloud there are four categories: language, font, layout and colour which can help us recreate our cloud according to our teaching aims. Below you can find some of the most important choices offered in each category which can make our lives easier.
Language: I believe that the choices make all words lower case, make all the words upper case, guess case for each word, remove common words can permit us to create appropriate clouds so that we can ask our students to either indicate which words should be written with capital letters and which with small letters or in cases we have removed the common words (which are usually functional words like the, in, and etc) we can ask them to recreate the sentences.
Layout: Choices like all horizontal and any which way can make our word clouds easily to be read or suitable for tasks where our students have to categorize the words in it respectively.
Colour: Apart from the colour options offered we can easily costumise colours so that for example we can choose a nude colour for the majority of the words and intense ones for the words we want to stress.

Other important tips

Right click on a word can delete it from the word cloud.
When we create or paste a text we can keep words connected simple by using a tilde between them.

Finally, we can either print our clouds or by clicking on "Print " we can choose to save them as PDF files. Another option is to save our cloud by clicking on "Publish to Gallery" (there are many already made word clouds there available for us to use) then copying the embed code assigned to our cloud if we want to embed it on a web page.

Ideas for classroom practice

First days of class

• We can ask our students to use adjectives or/and nouns (including toponyms) to describe England or their school.
• We can ask them to use adjectives and describe how they want their teacher to be. We can also create a similar word cloud.
• They can make word clouds with their expectations from our lessons or refer to their learning difficulties (grammar, past tense, speaking, prepositions).

Most of us tend to ask lots of these orally but now we can use Wordle for a change and make our lessons more interesting and colourful. Students will be more engaged and will get to create something of their own from the very first day. We can use these word clouds as posters to decorate our classrooms. In addition, in our first days we usually have plenty of time so we can give our students the time to explore Wordle.

Reading skills

• Wordle can help us do pre-reading activities. We can make a word cloud with difficult words including in the following reading exercise and ask them to predict their meaning. Something else that we can do is to make a word cloud with the whole following text and ask them to tell us (predicting from the most common words) what they think the text will be about. Finally, we can make word clouds with words summarising the main ideas of the following text and ask our students to brainstorm and talk about these.
• We can also do some post reading activities focusing on the vocabulary and grammar of the text. For example, we can ask our students to make clouds with the words they do not know or with difficult words. They can make clouds with synonyms or antonyms of particular words in the text or find the compound words, collocations, motion verbs, regular or irregular verbs, cohesion words. Our students can make sentences with the above as homework.
• They can work in groups and use the most common words of the text to make a story

Writing skills

• We can give our students two word clouds generated by texts on the same topic but the first will be formal and the second informal. This is a way to make them realise the different writing styles by actually letting them discovering the distinguishing features by themselves.
• We can give them essays that other students have produced and ask them to compare these. They might find spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes, repeated words, limited vocabulary etc.
• Our students can also work in groups and brainstorm on the topic of the essay.

Vocabulary

• We can make a revision on the vocabulary. After each chapter they can work in groups and make word clouds with words they have learnt and liked the most. We can use these word clouds to decorate our classrooms and as a reminder of what they have achieved.
• We can have them match words, find collocations. For example, we can type everyday habitual activities like take a shower, brush my teeth etc and ask them to match them.
• We can give them a new word and make clouds with every word they associate with it (Image 3).

Image 3

Grammar

• We can use Wordle to make a revision or to present new grammatical points. For example, we can create a word cloud with sentences including "used to + infinitive" and "I am getting used to + gerund" and ask our students to recreate these (Image 4).

Image 4

Special occasions

• Our students can make word clouds with happy birthday wishes when one of their classmates has his birthday.
• They can make clouds to describe Christmas or Easter.

Some limitations to bear in mind

The main problem is that we can not edit the word clouds once they had been created. Our word clouds will be lost if we try to refresh the page or return back to the box. So we will have to rewrite the text or paste it again! This can be very frustrating and very time consuming so we need to warn our students about this and keep reminding this to ourselves.

Why I do suggest Wordle

Wordle can be very appealing which can make our students willing to participate. In addition, it can help students who have a visual learning style and others who love collaborating with each other. Moreover, our activities will be more memorable since students will be more engaged and creative. It is also important to remember that to generate a word cloud once you have come up with the words takes not even a second! So let's give our students this time to produce word clouds, I am sure that they will love it!

Printscreens from Wordle

Triptico- a tool that can trigger your imagination and bring fun to your classroom!

Triptico is a tool which I would highly recommend to any language teacher in my country. It is very easy to download it and works in any brand of Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) and with any kind of software you use. I am sure that nowadays most of you have already been asked to use an Interactive Whiteboard in your classrooms or if not, well, then you should get prepared because Interactive Whiteboards are in fashion lately. Triptico can transform IWB and makes us see it from another perspective. Phrases like "it often doesn't work the way I want it to work" can occur less frequently. Of course, when it comes to technology we should always expect the anticipated and never get frustrated when this occurs. So, Triptico can make things easier and give us the chance to get used to IWB. What is more, we can use it even without IWB as long as we have a computer and a projector. This was enough to make me download and give Triptico a try but what actually fascinated it me and convinced me to use it in my classrooms was its variety of resources which are costumisable. We can use these resources and make them do what we want to do depending on our students needs. These are just frameworks with no limits but our own imagination.

How can we download it?

As I have already said, first we have to download it. It is free! Of course, you can choose to subscribe and pay 15 pounds for one year if you want to take advantage of more resources. You can download it really easily, just visit the website here click on the" individual user" button and on the next page make sure you scroll down and click on the Triptico download icon. Triptico uses Adobe Air so if you have not installed this in your computer, you will need to download it. This will happen almost automatically when you click on the Triptico download icon which will let you know if you need to download or update Adobe Air. Then save and run the application. That was all!

About Triptico and how it works

Once you have downloaded it, you will see that Triptico offers four categories of resources (see Image 1) : tools, timers, selectors and quizzes. In total the application is constituted of around 20 different resources

•  which can promote vocabulary, grammar and text oriented activities ( "Word Magnets", "Order sorter"). 
•  Timers which can help us keep time for our activities, breaks and make class funnier and more appealing.
• Selectors can help you manage group work by actually making the groups.
• Finally there are some games/quizzes which can be fun and formative at the same time ( "Find Ten", What's the question?").

I will focus on the "Word Magnets" which is one of the most popular tool of triptico.

Image 1

Word Magnets

You click on the "Word Magnets" option and then you have two choices:

1. either to create a new board
2. or load a saved board

Let's assume that this is the first time we use Word Magnets, therefore, we will click on "create a new board". 

1. Afterwards, we can copy a text from somewhere and paste it there and then we choose a background (among 42 choices: triangles, two boxes, many boxes, arrows showing process, letters of the alphabet, graphs) and our text will be broken up into words randomly allocated on the board which our students will be able to move like refrigerator magnets. We can colour these magnets or change their size.
2. Alternatively, we don not have to copy and paste a text but we can simply overlook the steps copy paste and choose a background and create an empty board where we can add words immediately as magnets.

We can save the board we have made for future use!

What can we do with Word Magnets?

There is no limit when it comes to this tool so feel free to be creative and challenge yourselves. Here are some ideas:

•  If we copy and paste some text we can ask our students to move around the magnets and create it from the beginning. Our students will have to focus both on sentence structure and meaning at the same time, thus, the activity has a purpose and becomes memorable.
•  Furthermore, there is flexibility since we have to decide how to use the text. For example we can work on the grammar of the text or on the vocabulary. We can delete some words and ask our students to replace them with another one or we can check if they can remember the word that we deleted. Moreover, we can create sentences with spelling and grammar mistakes and ask them to correct these or we can ask them to establish cohesion in our text by creating words like nevertheless, on the contrary etc.

• In addition, if we choose not to copy and paste some text, we can choose the background which divides the screen into 2 parts and make 2 lists with singular and plural, countable and uncountable nouns, words with positive or negative meaning. 
• We can make a revision on participles, idioms, regular and irregular verbs.
• We can further divide the board into more parts or boxes and work on parts of speech or give our students one noun for example and ask them to create the equivalent verb or adjective.
• We can match synonyms.
• Another idea is to use the letters of the alphabet background to make a revision of the taught vocabulary.
• We can make family trees.
• There is also the possibility to upload a picture and have our students come up with words describing this particular picture. 
• We can present the process of the recycling by using the background with the arrows showing process or we can ask them to make a recipe.
• Finally, we can have fun with the boxes and ask them to create magnets with what they need to shop from the supermarket or what they want to take with them when they will travel to England.

Downsides

• Keep in mind that the text we aim to copy and paste should be short in order for the students to have enough space to work.
• We have to monitor the whole activity and make sure that only one student interacts with the board and the others have to wait for their turn.

Why I do suggest Word Magnets

First of all, I think Word Magnets is appropriate for English language teachers in Greece. All of us, have to work on grammar and vocabulary and devote a large part of our class time to these. Directors, our students parents and even our students sometimes expect from us to do only grammar. Word Magnet can give us the chance to teach English grammar in a funnier and efficient way for the below reasons.

• Promotes interaction and collaboration. We can work with whole classes or divide them into groups.
• It is visually and orally appealing and students have the chance to move around the classroom. So students with different learning styles can have the chance to benefit from our lesson.
• Students can create their own magnets, so the activity becomes personalized and more memorable. Apart from creativity, motivation is also promoted.

Why I do suggest Triptico

Word magnets is only one of the resources that Triptico can offer. There are many other tools which are all easily usable and adaptable according to our students level of English and needs. It is free and available for all of us. One last tip I want to give is to have a look at the Timers and Selectors. We can use them to keep time of our activities in class or to make groups. I would use them with funny tasks in class so that I can increase my students anticipation and create a playful and pleasant atmosphere in my class. Smalls details can make the difference! 

Have fun with Triptico! 

Printscreens from Triptico

Dvolver can be a nice start!

ICT in ELT may sound complicated for many English language teachers. I was worried that ICT may result in wasting so much of our precious classroom time on explaining to our students how to use web tools rather than allowing time for them to actually use these. However, Dvolver-movie maker seems to be a nice start for inexperienced teachers like me as well as for students who are not yet introduced to web tools. It is very easy to use, simply by following clear steps. Dvolver can give us and our students the chance to get used to using web tools in class before moving on to more complicated web tools and apps.

What is Dvolver?

Dvolver is a great tool to easily create short animation movies online. There is no need to register on the site since it is free. You get to choose backgrounds, characters, add dialogue bubbles and background music to accompany your movie and when you are done you can choose among embedding your story in a blog, posting the link or sharing the story by e-mail.

How can we use Dvolver? 

1. First, we need to select one background (among 15 choices) and a sky (among 12 choices) for our story.

2. Then, select a plot which will determine how the two characters will interact. We have four choices:

a) Rendez-vous: The two characters enter the scene from opposite sides, they talk to each other and then they leave the way they came.

b) Pick-up: The two characters enter from opposite sides, they converse and leave together.

c) Chase: The two characters chase each other back and forth across the scene, they converse and chase each other again back and forth the scene.

d) Soliloquou: It is a monologue. One character enters, speaks and leaves.


3. Afterwards, we can choose one or up to two characters among 33 choices.
















4. The next step is to add dialogue bubbles up to three for each character and each scene. There is a limit 100text characters per character's line and we can have up to three scenes for each movie.

5. Then we can choose a background music for our story. We also have the choice to add two more scenes. If we do not want, we can click on the "finish button". Then, we give our story a tittle and name the director of the move and, finally, we can either click on the "preview" button and watch our movie or share it with the ways I wrote above.

One of the good features of Dvolver that makes it so easy is that if we are not happy with what we have done we can just click on the "back" button which it does not undo anything but allows us to change what we have done. For more details about Dvolver check Russell Stannard's teacher training video .

What kind of activities can we do with it?

I believe Dvolver is appropriate for elementary school students whose level of English is quite good and for lower secondary school students. The more I explore Dvolver, the more potentials it seems to have. Here are some ideas I would like share with you.

Very first day of class

• You can introduce yourself to your students.
• You can ask your students to introduce themselves. If there are many students you can ask them to make a video at home introducing themselves and in the next lesson you can have the class guess who created which video.
• Use the character's to establish "do's or do not's " for your class.

Post-reading activities

• Check their understanding of a text by asking them to transform it into a movie (be careful of the limitations of Dvolver which I will mention later on).
• Ask them to summarize what they have read or give an alternative ending to it.

Writing activities

• You can ask your students to make a video about smoking or other topic areas and have the characters disagree with each other. This can be a kind of pre-writing activity for a persuasive essay.

Speaking activities

• Ask your students to make a video about Christmas or holidays at home which they will present and talk about in the next class. The video can help them feel safe while talking in the classroom and make them elaborate further on their topic.

Grammar, vocabulary

• Instead of drilling your students you can try presenting the new grammar points or vocabulary through Dvolver videos. Your students can create individually or in groups their own stories and practice on the new language in classroom or at their homes.

Good points of Dvolver

1. Membership is free.
2. Easy for the teacher and students to use. Clear instructions and technology skills to create a movie are minimal.
3. You can create stories really fast as long as you or your students come up with the dialogue.
4. Students tend to love animation stories so they will be happy to participate. Pleasant activities can promote students motivation.
5. Students can make their own stories, choose the background, the characters and make the dialogues. Hence, the activity will be quite personalized and there is a greater possibility that students remember the taught language.
6. English lesson becomes meaningful because students will have to make dialogues appropriate to the plot and the background that they have chosen.
7. Students creativity is also fostered.
8. Can enable collaboration.
9. The finished movie can be sent by e-mail to the teacher.

Some limitations to think about

1. Computers and internet are necessary. Fortunately, nowadays in Greece more and more schools give us the opportunity to often conduct our lessons in computer labs. So make sure you take advantage of this.
2. Big number of students. Even when there are enough computers for everyone, it may be hard to use Dvolver with many students. However, do not be disappointed, you can have them work in groups or at their homes. Remember that they can always send you the link of their movies.
3. You can only use two characters per scene, have three scenes in your movie and choose among four plots. 
4. You cannot embed voices and non verbal behavior is also limited.
5. Some characters or content choices might be inappropriate for classrooms. Characters are overtly sexual. Nevertheless, you can use it under supervision depending on your teaching context.

Tip to bear in mind when using Dvolver in Greece

I believe that it is essential to let your director and your students parents know about any web tools you might use in your classroom in advance. You should explain the reasons why you choose to implement that particular tool in your classroom and what you expect your learner to gain.

I say yes to Dvolver because it is a useful, fun and formative web tool.


Printscreens from Dvolver