MY TOP 5 DIGITAL TRENDS
Our society is in constant change and so does our educational system to adapt to the emerged necessities and interests of our students. It is not a trend that new technologies are now part of our daily lives and we are becoming more and more dependent on them. Likewise, our students' childhood is surrounded by a lot of technological devices such as tablets, computers and mobile phones and as teachers, thus, it is important to take profit of these new technologies giving them an educational role and using them to enrich our teaching practices.
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In this page you will find my top 5 digital trends, those technological resources that I personally consider more useful and interesting for my English classes. Hope it is helpful for you!
(Click on each resource title to go directly to the link)
TOP 1
Canva is a free-photo editor and graphic design tool that I use a lot to design all my teaching materials for the students such as flashcards, worksheets or posters. The website allows people to create from A4 templates or posters to presentations and labels. It is a very easy tool that gives another aesthetics and visual attraction to the teaching materials. You can take a look on some of my creations here.
TOP 2
Kahoot is an app that provides teachers with a wide variety of quizz games regarding specific unit topics and even has the option to personalize, adapt and edit your own quizzes to your interests and needs. It is a very encouraging way to assess and check the pupils' learning without making use of worksheets nor exams. Children love it!
TOP 3
Pixton gives the kids the chance to become authentic comic designers. It is a tool to create and write comics and so it is very useful to develop the students' writing skills in a fun and entertaining way. Besides, it has a very simple functioning and this makes it easier for students to understand how it works.
TOP 4
Powtoon is a resource to create and edit video-animated presentations. It allows the users to make animated videos with their own voices recorded. This tool might be very beneficial to practice oral communication skills, apart from also developing ICT competences. It can be used as well by the teacher in order to work listening comprehension with her/his pupils.
TOP 5
Go noodle is the surprising discovery that I have made this year. It is a platform that offers teachers a lot of entertaining motor videos related to movement, mindfulness and music. I consider this app very useful for teaching fun dance-along songs in English and even to create a relaxing atmosphere when the students are a little bit nervous. The creators have the philosophy of learning content through music and body language and always in an entertaining and enjoyable way! The songs that Go Noodle upload are very catchy, rhythmical and easy to learn and besides, they are divided into different categories regarding the teaching goals. It is a perfect tool if you want to do something out of the ordinary activities and to introduce some Total Physical Response techniques.
As said, depending on the purpose, you will need to check some videos of the platforms or others. In my opinion, these videos can be used as an addition to certain topic to make English learning more enjoyable. For instance, if you are working on the topic of food you can warm up or introduce some vocabulary singing this simple and fun chant:
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In order to work deeply on the concepts of the chant, I would sequence the activities in the following way:
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Firstly, I would introduce the main vocabulary with flashcards or with pictures in the computer.
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Then, I would teach them the lyrics. First, with the visual supports and afterwards including the dance.
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Finally, I would challenge my students to create a new chant using the same rhythmical base to see how creative they are!
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