1st CONDITIONAL

1st Conditional

If clauses 1st Conditional de Silvina L. Rossi

Learning Project

Customer Service Basics
Telephoning Skills

1.   Watching a 5-minute video about bad and good customer service 

     

2.   Comment the video with a classmate.

Answering questions based on key points of good customer service of the video embedded in Prezzi. (Google form)

3. Reading and studying expressions to answer customer service calls politely (embedded SlideShare)

Telephoning expressions de Silvina L. Rossi

Role-playing different situation showing they know how to deal with difficulties over the phone. (Instructions in Slideshare, link inserted).

Role playing Customer Service Basics de Silvina L. Rossi

7.   Recording role-plays several times.

8.   Choosing the best ones, and uploading them at Soundcloud.https://soundcloud.com/

    Leaving feedback to classmates’ recordings in Soundcloud. 

Students’ Experiencing with Recording Tools

Students’ Experiencing with Recording Tools

            After a teacher becomes efficient in the use of electronic tools to provide students with better learning experiences, the student will also have possibilities to learn from the teacher how to use technology as a tool to produce language.   These new experiences if guided with expertise may make students develop a keen interest in learning English by assessing their own performance while using these electronic tools.  Thus, among the most useful tools for acquiring and learning the language, there are some available on the Internet; e.g.: Sound Cloud, where students might upload their own recordings to create interesting language products, always subject to further improvement.  Besides, other useful resources are audio editing tools, such as: Audacity or WavePad.

            Soundcloud is easy to use either for teachers or students, simple to set up and associated with pictures in specially self-recorded materials that might be used as a tool for sharing podcasts with other teachers or students.  I highlight the social networking capabilities of Soundcloud, and the ability for students to listen to each other’s recordings and provide feedback to their peers.  I think this is a fantastic tool for audio sharing, and for creating higher order thinking activities.  In this platform, students may record and upload pictures to give identification to the podcast created, other students might comment on their classmates’ audio recordings.  Moreover, students could record their own speaking assignments, and the teacher could add their own comments for students’ improvement.  They might also prepare a project or presentation in powerpoint and record themselves to deliver their explanations.
            

            These tools might also be used in more complex projects that involve all kinds of tools.  For example: if used to tell a story, two students might record themselves taking different roles, then edit the audio tracks, and change the order of the story, asking their classmates to find the logical order.  Students can use it for book reports.  They can record audio book reports highlighting the meaningful parts of the books they read and invite others to interact with the audio by leaving comments.  Likewise, teachers could use Soundcloud, Audacity, Soundwave, Blogger, Scoop it, Google forms, and others to implement more interesting activities.  For example, teachers could assign students to read a short story, and ask them to speak, record and upload their written reports, and instead of handing a written paper, the student might continue updating his blog with different entries.

            To conclude, Soundwave and other audio editing tools later used to embed resources will enhance students’ possibilities of learning.  Also, teachers’ opportunities will expand to provide activities and instructions that will become part of an entirely new type of class.  I think that both, teachers and students, will take advantage of these resources becoming more efficient in their use and more proficient in the language studied. 

SCOOP IT!

How to Use Scoop it!

        This tool will enable us, teachers, to upload instructional resources for students embedded in other electronic tools, and making them available in a visually attractive way.  The pages you share in Scoop it, become an alluring publication as if it were a magazine, organized around topics or themes of interest.

          So teachers might include resources according to students’ levels or interests, as well as topics being studied in the classroom.  After setting an account, you might create filters like in Feedly.  This platform will allow teachers to scoop in the Internet the content relevant to the topics they want to deal with in the classroom, and post it as a new bunch of resources that also might be connected to other links.

          It makes easy to gather relevant content in one place and let your student explore it.  You can create a single page around a topic and keep adding documents and improving it through time.  Students might also use it to develop projects such as their own magazines and publication based on their assignments or projects of interest. 

           Finally, another possibility would be to create a blog in it by adding the teacher's publications to it, letting students leave comments after searching.

FOR HERE OR TO GO?

Taken from Vector Stock

Listening Quiz 1

 

Listening Quiz 2

Listening Quiz 2

Listening quiz 1 from Silvina L. Rossi

Listening quiz 2 from Silvina L. Rossi

Experiencing New Tools

Experiencing New Tools

 By experiencing with many Internet-based tools on a daily basis, we also develop our technical skills and new working possibilities.   These experiences help us create new trends that will change our working routine to improve the learning outcomes of our students.  Likewise, the continuous use of technology leads us to become more and more proficient in it.  Thus, our teaching practice challenges the traditional methodologies to give way to both, the improvement of students in terms of their learning outcomes and understanding, and our own improvement to facilitate working routines when getting our instructions and ideas across.

Technologies become more accessible and easier to use to more and more people daily.  So, new platforms and applications are created for all users on everyday basis.  With the Internet of things being implemented everywhere, we should acknowledge at least the minimum tools not to be left behind as teachers.  It is impossible to avoid technologies.  I wish I had more time to research on my own the use of technologies in the classroom, and outside the classroom for the sake of students.  I want to implement technologies to the level of Integration (4), and Expansion (5) within the Loti Framework. I have started using google classroom with no much success because I do not know how the tool actually works, and I would need both instruction and full Internet access for my students in the classroom.  In order to have full Internet access, I will have to get a router because the school does not provide it.  On the other hand, I have an advantage, students quite often teach me how to use certain tools, and download movies or music.  So, my students (especially IT students) are probably at the fifth Loti level I would like to implement.

Thus, I think I will use different technical resources for students' implementation in projects to solve problems or real issues.  I plan to use slideshare as an embedded tool in practices and quizzes in google forms.  I could upload presentations or class materials while sharing on social networks or my blog for the use of students. I will facilitate it in a real-time making it available to everyone.  I will upload the presentation of resources used in class, and my students will have the information at hand from their cell phones and they will be able to study at home.

Then, I will also use other tools, such as Fotor and Blogger.  I will implement Fotor with students to make them tell stories or experiences when working with literature as well as in projects to illustrate their points in presentations.  Regarding Blogger, I think it is the best tool ever, especially to work with writing in an EFL class due to many reasons. First, it is simple for teachers to embed other resources by using html tools, shared from webpages, making teaching assignments more professional.  Second, it allows students to edit their own writing and learning continuously, being impelled to improve.  Likewise, students may check or change ideas on their blogs.  Thus, it is an interesting tool for communication among peers. I currently use Google Blogger as a tool for technical projects where students upload their resumes and offer their services as technicians to their communities.  They write their blogs at home due to poor Internet access at school, but they experience with language and an electronic at the same time while visualizing the possibility of using it for making a living.

Concluding, slideshare, fotor and blogger (mainly when embedding things with html protocol) will let me go a further step in the implementation and integration of technologies in the EFL classroom.  I cannot disregard the Internet limitations, because it is essential to continue improving.  I think that both my students and I will use these resources becoming more efficient both ways teaching and learning, especially upon using blogger for writing classes.

My Top Six "Beautiful Costa Rica"

1. Fotor might be used to retell an anecdote by sharing a series of pictures organized around personal experiences.

2. Fotor might be used to work in pairs making up a short story.

3. Foto may be used to describe amazing landscapes, situations, sceneries. 

Whoop, Goes the Pufferfish Quiz

60744 whoop-goes-the-pufferfish from Silvina L. Rossi

Reflections on Loti Framework

https://www.loticonnection.com/loti-framework

 Reflections on Loti Framework

by Silvina Lopes Rossi

To start with, technologies are reshaping human life as we know it, in every single aspect so fast that makes us difficult to predict how those aspect of life will be like, especially education.  Children attending to school now will have to develop in a much more highly technological world that they know today. So, one of our main responsibilities as teachers is to provide them with essential tools to face the future. In order to do so, we should be updating our technological knowledge and using it in the classroom on daily basis to facilitate them knowledge access as well as to make them develop technological needs, they will be improving while growing up.

        Loti framework is an intent to make better education simple by implementing the use of technologies in and beyond the classroom.  We as educators are able to teach in new ways, with new tools, and students are able to begin working with computers and other devices being very young and they will have access to a high-quality education that puts the student at the center of the learning process.

Level	Category	Description
0	Nonuse	These teachers use technology as an aid for the traditional class, text-based. They use technology likewise they use chalkboards, textbooks and paper.
1	Awareness	These teachers use technology just to learn how to use the equipment.  Almost no instruction is provided by technological means at all.
2	Exploration	These teachers use technology just as extension activities (fillers) enrichment exercises to provide instructional programs to students.
3	Infusion	These teachers use technology as other tools in the classroom and to support already designed syllabuses and programs (databases, spreadsheets, graphing packages, probes, calculators, multimedia applications).
4	Integration	These teachers include tools integrated while providing students' understanding of concepts, themes, and processes. These teachers use technology to identify, explore, analyze, or solve authentic issues.
5	Expansion	These teachers use technology beyond the classroom. They use it to solve real problems or start new researches, business or applications. The student becomes very active to solve issues surrounding a major theme/concept.
6	Refinement	These teachers use technology as a process, product (e.g., invention, patent, new software design), and tool to help students solve authentic problems related to an identified real-world.  The students are really skillful and manipulate technology at a higher level, even developing software.

Further Reflections

My personal involvement with technology is really deep. I have been trying to cope with the challenges, technology poses daily.  Of the descriptions presented by the Loti framework, I think I am between the second and third stage.  I wish I were really developed in computer technologies, though I was not born in a digital era.  I personally consider technology as a facilitator in the classroom, and outside the classroom for me and the students.

I look forward to learning all I could about technology and its uses in teaching-learning.  So, a year from now, I am very likely to take a Master program in Virtual Environments just to learn more about developing instructional materials to be used later in the classroom. Besides, I would really like to learn programming to be able to develop applications.

I consider using technology in the classroom facilitates both teaching and learning.  I can experiment more in pedagogy while getting instant feedback.  Besides, technology is a plus to get the students involved in the real world.  Although they demand a high level of preparation, the products a teacher might develop can increase engagement. The teacher might regularly check in with students to get feedback on instruments or other resources.  Countless resources might be used to make learning more stimulating, interesting and challenging. I believe the main point is always having in mind clear learning objectives when using technology.

Other important aspects of technology are the free access to reliable sources of information for the students, (textbooks are no longer updated when compared to the resources available on the Internet).  And finally, by using technology in the classroom, students develop a deeper understanding of the digital environments, working with others in collaboration to resolve real-life problems.

Tools for Improvement

by Silvina Lopes Rossi 

Improving Learning Outcomes 

by Silvina Lopes Rossi

By implementing the use of electronic tools the whole learning and teaching environment improve a lot producing really interesting outcomes.  They offer many advantages while posting some challenges, especially to those (teachers or students) who are not fully computer literate.  Engaging students into participating in collaborative learning environments might help them develop confidence and make them become more active and committed towards their own learning.  Quite often, students avoid interaction in the language classroom since they are afraid of making mistakes.  By using online learning students do not longer feel embarrassment to participate, but they feel encouraged to improve gradually.  Likewise, teachers who are able to cope with the tiny difficulties posed by the use of technologies will see their personal and professional development enhanced.

          If Feedly is used properly will help either students or teachers to succeed in their endeavors. First, this tool is very easy to use.  It is free, and it helps organize your search by categories.  Then, it lets teachers and students select among a wide range of reading and video resources.  These resources quality might also be easily assessed by having a quick glimpse of the content offered by this platform.  For example, the teacher will have access and will evaluate the content and quality of many articles just in minutes.  Otherwise, this process could require a longer time investment.  So, it helps you save time and work.  Another advantage of Feedly is that it might be customized to the user’s needs who can also save articles and documents, and organize searches by using keywords.

          Likewise, the use of google forms might open up a whole new virtual classroom.  It makes learning easily accessible.  It is really helpful to create quizzes, reading, listening, and writing practices for students, creating valuable tools that might be improved and edited later, changing it according to the need.  It is possible to upload videos, listening practices, reading materials, and even powerpoint presentations. Then, the teacher might have a quick assessment of the students’ performances very fast, and the students might have the opportunity to evaluate his own performance and take every practice more than once, storing and classifying his own learning resources.  Another interesting feature to mention is that these forms might be adapted to any kind of electronic device; such as, tablets, cell-phones, and computers.  These forms also let teachers see information in different forms (pie or bar charts, and numbers) while getting individual or group information.

          Teachers might also get feedback from students using forms to gather and organize information for professional improvement. There is no way out, if teachers are able to use this tool wil improve their professional practice a lot.  All the information saved might be consulted later for further studies following up different processes both ways, by one side student’s improvement, on the other side teachers’ betterment. 

         Concluding, tools like Feedly and google forms might change the learning environment, potentializing the teaching-learning process by multiplying the learning possibilities, and acctivities. 

The Three Billy Goats Gruff Quiz