1. EFL Blogging School
Teacher Guide
of Online Tools
American Councils for International Education Moldova
Inside this Teacher Guide:
Blogs as platforms for Project
Based Instruction.........................2
Blogs as platforms for EFL
E-Portfolios…………….….……..........3
Blogs as platforms for online
lesson planning.…........................4
Connecting to online mentors
through blogs..................……..…..5
Blogs as platforms for flipped
instruction.……..…........................6
Online tools to develop student
speaking skills..........................…..7
Blogs as platforms to share digital
posters............….…………..............8
Enhancing student vocabulary
through blog posts..................…..9
The project aims to equip EFL Moldovan teachers with the
necessary skills to use online tools such as blogs to enhance
their English language teaching experience. Participants will
learn how to engage students in online projects and raise up
their interest in studying English using online tools. By the end
of the project, participants will have experimented with
creating a class or school blog, inviting members, posting and
editing entries and commenting on other blogs. In addition to
that, participants will have looked into comment management,
template personalization and will learn how to enhance their
class or school blog using other online tools, such as Voki,
Animoto, Pow Toon, Google Polls, free online dictionaries,
DVolver.
2. Where to find online
project ideas?
iEARN
(International Education and
Resource Network)
eTwinning
(The Community of schools in
Online collaboration with over 200
students from vulnerable families
from various regions: Bălți, Edineț,
Cahul, Ungheni, Ceadîr-Lunga,
Comrat, Bender, Ialoveni
Teaching English through Skype
Implementation of online
collaborative projects with schools
from US throught the iEARN
network
Most succesful online civic
engagement projects:
- “A Letter to Santa Clause”
- “Access Youth in Action”
Flashmob
- “Plant a Flower, Save the Planet”
- “Sharing is Caring”
- “Talking Kites Around the World”
- “Informing the Mihai Eminescu
Community”
- “ A New Life for Sport and Youth”
Project Structure:
1. Name of Project:
2. Brief one-sentence description of
project:
3. Age/level of project participants:
4. Timetable/Schedule for the project
(please include exact dates in which
the project will be active):
5.Possible project/classroom
activities:
6. Expected outcomes/products:
7. Project contribution to others and
the planet:
9. Curriculum area:
11. Names/email of all participants :
12. WWW page of project (blog,
school website, Facebook group/
page):
“By bringing real-life context and technology to the curriculum through
a PBL approach, students are encouraged to become independent
workers, critical thinkers, and lifelong learners.” (Edutopia)
Blogs as platforms for Project Based Instruction
Case study: Access Microscholarship Moldova
Blogs can be used as online platforms
for students to:
Post online projects, such as
videos or picture slideshows
Share comments, impressions,
questions with each other
Find useful online resources
posted by EFL teachers
Learn about specific topics, such
as civic engagement, a healthy
lifestyle, environmental issues
Display artifacts of their best
work, such as online essays,
picture poems, digital posters
Blogs can be used as online platforms
for teachers to:
Post instructions for Project
Based Teaching
Publish useful resources for EFL
students, such as online
dictionaries, links to online
grammar quizzes
Give students feedback
Connect the classroom to the
outside world
Share authentic resources, such
as BBC articles or CNN Student
News subtitled video news
2
3. An ESL E-portfolio:
is a collection of student
writing that demonstrates ESL
ability, achievement, and
progress, often used for
assessment purposes.
O’Malley & Valdez Pierce
identify three types of
portfolios:
showcase portfolios
(containing only a
learner’s best work),
collection portfolios
(containing all work), and
assessment portfolio
(containing systematic
collections to check
learner growth).
Since portfolios can give a
broader and more complex
picture of a writer’s ability
than a single piece of writing, it
is a more authentic form of
assessment.
While hardcopy portfolios are
collected and stored on paper
and manually shared with
teachers and students, all work
in e-Portfolios is done
electronically.
Blogs as platforms for EFL e-portfolios
Blogs can serve as wonderful
online platforms to create
e-Portfolios for language
learners.
As methods of assessment,
portfolios provide ways for
teachers to continuously collect
and assess student work.
Electronic portfolios allow the portfolio developer to collect and organize
artifacts in many formats (audio, video, graphics, and text).
A standards-based electronic portfolio uses hypertext links to organize the
material to connect artifacts to appropriate goals or standards.
An electronic portfolio is not a
haphazard collection of artifacts
(i.e. a digital scrapbook or
multimedia presentation) but
rather a reflective tool that
demonstrates growth over time.
Easiest platforms to use are:
Weebly and Blogger
Portfolios might include the following pages:
1) Welcome
2) About Me
3) Educational Goals
4) My best coursework
5) My certificates
6) Evidence of my language proficiency
7) My volunteering activity
8) My extra-curricular activities
9) Collaborative projects
10) Leadership skills
3
4. Useful platforms:
Teachnology
Plankbook.edu
Google Lesson Plans
www.teach-nology.com www.educationworld.com
“Blogging is to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more
free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many
ways, writing out loud.” (Andrew Sullivan)
Blogs as platforms
Online lesson plan generators
Blogs can be used as online
platforms for teachers to:
Create online lesson plans
Share useful online resources
integrated in the lesson plan
Plan their step by step online
instruction
Bring the world into their
classroom
Turn paper lesson plans into
online, digital instruction
4
5. Ways to connect to
online mentors:
Google Hangouts
With Hangouts On Air, you
can broadcast live
discussions and
performances to the world
through your Google+
Home page and YouTube
channel. You can also edit
and share a copy of the
broadcast.
Voicethread
A VoiceThread is a
collaborative, multimedia
slide show that
holds images, documents,
and videos and allows
people to navigate slides
and leave comments in 5
ways - using voice through
a Facebook Fan Page (with a
mic or telephone), text,
audio file, or video (via a
webcam). Share a
VoiceThread with friends,
students, and colleagues for
them to record comments
too.
Blogs as platforms to connect to online
mentors
The last 20 years has witnessed a
spectacular growth in the use of
mentoring internationally and
across a range of contexts.
Mentoring has been traditionally
conducted on a face-to-face basis.
Student teachers are each assigned
an experienced practitioner or
“wise counselor” who has the
responsibility to support them as
they engage in their professional
practice.
Blogs can serve as online platforms
to connect to international
mentors.
Mentors can be connected through
Skype or Google Hangout on Air
sessions. Specific topics can be
chosen, such as How Americans
celebrate Thanksgiving or
Advantages or Disadvantages of
Living and Studying in US.
Online mentors can leave voice or
text messages on Voicethread
projects created by EFL students
and posted on class, school or
teacher blogs.
5
6. Flipped instruction:
is a form of blended
learning in which students
learn content online by
watching video lectures,
usually at home,
and homework is done in
class with teachers and
students discussing and
solving questions.
allows teacher interaction
with students to be more
personalized - guidance
instead of lecturing.
Eric Mazur developed peer
instruction in the 1980s. He
found that computer-aided
instruction allowed him to
coach instead of lecture.
Lage, Platt and Treglia
published the paper
"Inverting the Classroom: A
Gateway to Creating an
Inclusive Learning
Environment" in 2000.
Blogs as platforms for flipped instruction
The flipped classroom describes
a reversal of traditional
teaching where students gain first
exposure to new material outside
of class, usually via reading or
lecture videos, and then class time
is used to do the harder work of
assimilating that knowledge
through strategies such as problem
-solving, discussion or debates.
Blogs can be used as platforms to
deliver EFL lipped instruction:
EFL teachers can post key
content for students to access at
their own convenience and to
suit their pace of learning (e.g.
lecture material, readings,
interactive multimedia),
Blogs allow EFL teachers to
present learning materials in a
variety of formats to suit
different learner styles and
multimodal learning (e.g. text,
videos, audio, multimedia),
Blogs provide opportunities for
discourse and interaction in and
out of class (e.g. polling tools,
discussion tools, content
creation tools),
Blogs empower EFL teachers to
provide immediate and
anonymous feedback (e.g.
quizzes, polls) to signal revision
points,
Blogs capture data about
students to analyze their
progress and identify areas for
recommended improvement
(attention to grammar and
spelling for example).
“Ultimately, flipped learning is not about flipping
the “when and where” instruction is delivered;
it’s about flipping the attention away from the
teacher and toward the learner.”
6
7. Online tools to develop students’ speaking skills Movenote is an online platform
connected to the Gmail account and
allows us to create presentations
using the files in our Drive and share
them on Gmail or Drive.
Movenote lets us record
a video of ourselves talking about a
presentation via a webcam, and it
syncs it to the slides we are talking
about.
Vocaroo allows users to record voice
messages, these messages can then
be attached to emailfiles or posted
on the Internet. Users must have a
microphone in order to record. There
is no fee for using Vocaroo, and
recorded messages are deleted after
one year for those without an
account.
Voicethread is a totally web-based
application that allows you to place
collections of media like images,
videos, documents, and
presentations at the center of an
asynchronous conversation. A
VoiceThread allows people to have
conversations and to make
comments using any mix of text, a
microphone, a web cam, a telephone,
or uploaded audio file.
Voki is an educational tool that
allows users to create their very own
talking character. Voki characters can
be customized to look like historical
figures, cartoons, animals, and even
yourself! Give your Voki a voice by
recording with a microphone, using
our dial-in number, or uploading an
audio file. Voki characters can be
emailed, shared on social media, and
embedded on websites!
Blabberize allows you to quickly
animate any image to make it talk, by
simply adding audio and specifying
the bottom lip or jaw section. It is
free and it only requires a PC with
Internet access. If the computer you
use doesn’t have a mic, the message
can even be recorded via any phone.
The website will record your message
and attach it to the image of your
choice.
Narrable is a storytelling platform for
students to use their voices to share
what they're learning in class and
experiencing in life. When finished,
share your Narrable slideshow using
email, Facebook, or the embed link
code. Narrable allows you to create 5
projects for free.
7
8. Blogs as platforms to post digital posters
There are many websites which can
help teachers and students
experiment with links, images and
text.
For example:
Glogster is a Web 2.0 tool that allows
users to create virtual posters
combining text, audio, video, images,
and hyperlinks and to share them
with others electronically. Using
Glogster’s educational site, Glogster
EDU, teachers can establish class lists
and monitor student activity while
protecting privacy and anonymity.
ThingLink is the leading platform for
creating interactive images and
videos for web, social, advertising,
and educational channels. Be
creative! Make your images come
alive with video, text, images, shops,
music and more! Every image
contains a story and ThingLink helps
you tell your stories.
Listly—Discover and create great
lists. Share your interests. Engage
your audience. Collaborate with
friends. Make beautiful and fun
listicles. The simplest way to create,
curate and share.
Padlet is a virtual wall that allows
people to express their thoughts on
a common topic easily. It works like
an online sheet of paper where
people can put any content (e.g.
images, videos, documents, text) .
8
Key features of
digital posters:
engaging and interactive
tools that students can
use to present material to
the class in a unique
manner.
As opposed to a standard
piece of poster board,
with digital posters,
students can add video
clips, sound, and
stimulating backgrounds.
They can alter text and
photos in an appealing
manner as well.
Other key features:
Customize the wall title
and description.
Customize the
background (wallpaper).
Choose how posts appear
on the wall.
Freeform: posts can be
put anywhere and can be
resized freely.
Stream: posts are placed
one below the other.
Grid-like: posts are placed
in a grid-like format.
9. Online tools to develop students’ vocabulary
9
Wordle is a toy for generating
“word clouds” from text that you
provide. The clouds give greater
prominence to words that appear
more frequently in the source
text. You can tweak your clouds
with different fonts, layouts, and
color schemes. The images you
create with Wordle are yours to
use however you like. You can
print them out, or save them to
the Wordle gallery to share with
your friends.
Tagxedo turns words -- famous
speeches, news articles, slogans
and themes, even your love
letters -- into a visually stunning
word cloud, words individually
sized appropriately to highlight
the frequencies of occurrence
within the body of text.
Lingro is a cool tool for both the
“wow” factor and for its
usefulness. Simply type in a
website address on the Lingro
website and it instantly turns the
website into a clickable dictionary
that translates text in 12
languages. To use, students
simply click on any word and
several definitions of the word
are instantly displayed.
Quizlet: is a free website
providing learning tools for
students, including flashcards,
study and game modes. It was
created by a high school
sophomore in 2005 and now
contains over 40 million study
sets. All of the material is user-
generated.
10. Picovico is an online video
creation platform. It takes
photos and texts and converts
them into a beautiful video
slideshow which expresses
your story in a meaningful way.
The video creation process is
simple. Begin with selecting
one of the available styles of
presentation, add photos and
text, select music of your own
choice and then put in the
titles and credits if required.
Once these four steps are
completed the video is created
in a minute. You can download
offline and share via email or in
social networks.
PhotoPeach is a Web-based
slideshow builder that makes it
easy to get started. The service
directs you to upload your
photos, either from your
computer or an online service.
Once your photos are
uploaded, you can set the time
interval for photos and the
music you’d like to accompany
your slideshow.
Slidestory.com is a website for
creating and sharing audio
slideshows. Take your photos
and add your voice to describe
details not apparent in the
picture. You can make an audio
slideshow for your special
project, your vacation, or even
to help sell your house. The
Slidestory Publisher from is a
Windows application which
allows you to easily create
audio slideshows, publish them
with a click of a button to your
own space and share them
with your friends over the
internet.
Bring your pictures and your
video rushes alive! Stupeflix
makes it easy for you to create
a video of you memories It's all
done online, automatically and
in 4 easy steps:
1/ Choose a theme
2/ Upload pictures and videos
3/ Customize with music, texts,
maps and transitions
4/ Export, share & download
your video.
Online video making tools for EFL students
10
11. Online video resources for EFL Teachers
11
www.howcast.com
Howcast is a website that
provides instructional short-
form how-to video and text
content that combines practical
information with various
filmmaking techniques such as
humor, claymation and animati
on.
www.englishwithjennifer.com
I've been teaching English in
some form since 1996. My
online work began in the fall of
2007. I have a collection of
instructional videos for English
language learners on YouTube
under the name JenniferESL.
www.teachertube.com
TeacherTube is a video sharing
website similar to, and based
on, YouTube. It is designed to
allow those in the educational
industry, particularly teachers,
to share educational resources
such as video, audio,
documents, photos, groups and
blogs.
www.bbc.co.uk/education
Learning resources for adults,
children, parents and teachers:
find videos and audio clips by
level, subject and topic.
www. edition.cnn.com/
studentnews
CNN Student News is a ten-
minute, commercial-free, daily
news program designed for
middle and high school classes.
It is produced by the journalists
at CNN. This award-winning
show and its companion
website are available free of
charge throughout the school
year.
12. By the end of the
project, participants
will have:
created a class blog;
posted and edited
entries;
commented on other
blogs;
tried team blogging;
explored options for
comment management;
compared different blog
hosts;
compared aggregators
and other syndication
tools;
discussed the potential
of blogging as a teaching
tool and as a tool for
professional
development.
If you are interested to participate in the next round of
EFL Blogging School Project,
please write an official request to:
daniela@americancouncils.md
