Please share 1 ICT tool that you love to use in this discussion. Make sure to:
1. Type its name correctly
2. Give a weblink to download or read more (if available)
3. Describe how you use it in your teaching?
My favorite ICT tool for teaching English is the PowerPoint in the Presentation tools. I've used it for a long time, it's been updated day by day. It helps me prepare my lesson plan, make students interested in the lesson. I can create many cool things in this one like games, quizes, pictures and videos. we can insert pictures or symbols on a slide, we aslo insert a media file or a video. Each slide also has some effects on it so it's interesting to use it. Im my teaching , I often design some games on the powerpoint like " Wo wants to be a millionaire? Crossword,.. to start the lesson. after that I put some texts amd pictures or videos to teach vocabulary, put some texts for students to do exercises. It also offers slide recording and narration. I like it because it's easy for me to design a lesson. However, I'll use some other tools in cool tools for school to make my teaching more interesting and effective, and my students will get all the best from my lesson
It can be said that if
learning English is like building a house, learning vocabulary is the
foundation of that house. Whether in standardized tests such as TOEIC, TOEFL,
IELTS, GMAT, etc., or everyday English communication, vocabulary is one of the
important factors determining success. However, one problem that most English
learners have is that they tend to forget vocabulary right after they learn it.
So, is there any way for teachers to help their students overcome this issue?
The answer is QUIZLET.
Quizlet, or <quizlet.com> is a website that supports users to create and
use online flashcards to learn vocabulary, integrating both sounds and
illustrations. Undeniably, learning vocabulary will be less boring when these
elements are added, and thus a teacher can take advantage of this tool to
review new words immediately after delivering the lesson, or organize
competitive activities between teams of learners.
Another outstanding feature of Quizlet is that it can be used on smart devices
such as smartphones or tablets, which will help students save time, have more flexibility
and and activeness in learning and reviewing new words.
To use Quizlet to review the vocabulary my students have just learned, I often create
some sets of words in advance. Quizlet offers different ways to organize
activities using these sets, so I recommend using them interchangeably to increase
the interest in learning. Here are some of the methods I frequently use:
1. Flashcards: this section helps you memorize vocabulary on two sides of the
flashcard, flipping back and forth to change between English and Vietnamese
explanations as well as pronunciation.
3. Spell: " type what you hear" -> simply hear a word, then rewrite it, which is very useful for listening skills.
4. Test: Quizlet will automatically generate random tests from the vocabulary that we have created based on 4 basic forms: writing, matching, multiple choice, and True / False.
5. Match: this is a form of "matching game" that allows you to "drag and drop" words to their corresponding meanings. The feeling of breaking a record of yourself or other friends in the group is quite interesting.
My favorite ICT tool for teaching English is Kahoot. I used Kahoot to teach both knowledge (vocabulary, grammar) and skills (reading skills, critical thinking, group-working, etc.) As teachers, we can adapt many different well-designed Kahoot topics from other teachers around the world about any topic or we can simple adapt and create our own for our students. The link to access to this is kahoot.com. With the students, using kahoot engages them in learning and creating the stress free environment for them to both studying and playing at the same time. I applied Kahoot in my teaching and 90% of the students like it because they find it very interesting. 10% of the remaining one is a little bit upset because they do not have the smartphone or laptop to play Kahoot. However, they joined the game by sharing with their friends' phones and they absolutely love it. I hope this will help you in creating interactive and effective lesson plan.
It is named SCRATCH.
With Scratch, you can program your own interactive stories, games, and animations — and share your creation with others in the online community. Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively — essential skills for life in the 21st century.
Please note that it is suitable for concept-based programming rather than real, authentic programming.
For more information please click on the link below.
My favorite ICT tool for teaching English is "Story Jumper" in writing. It can be downloaded at "https://www.storyjumper.com".
Writing, especially quality writing, requires a variety of instructions, and too often, this kind of education is viewed as an input process, rather than an output that challenges many leaners. And according to the National Council of Teaching English, without strategies for reading and writing course material and opportunities to write thoughtfully about it, students have difficulties mastering concepts. Writing is usually considered a very hard subject and in order to produce a piece of qualified writing, therefore, Story jumper tries to create a different view for both learners and educators.
Story jumper is free for all users, and has a design as an e-book.
The first advantage that story jumper can provide is the beautiful layout and background that students will feel engaged and interested in. They can add their favorite background that is related to the content of their writing, they can design the font and size of the text. They can also change colors, and use it as a comic book.
The second advantage is students can use grammarly .com to identify and correct their grammar mistakes while they are writing their texts.
The third advantage is students can also record their voice, and sell online. This will help create motivation for those who hate writing. Students can also use QR code to read the shared books created by others and hence, teachers can make a little library for the whole class.
With the effort to help students feel more interest in writing, story jumper
In reply to Đỗ Thị Ngọc Phượng
Re: My favorite ICT tool for teaching English
by Huỳnh Quang Phương -
Nowadays the role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays an important role, especially in the process of empowering the technology into educational activities. ICT is a diverse set of technological tools and resources used to communicate, and to create, disseminate, store, and manage information. These tools have changed the way of teaching and learning process. ICT tools are seen to be more advantageous for students in education such as communication, learning tools, administration, information sources, and distance learning.
According to the definition of ICT tools above, they can be considered the synonym for E-learning, which includes other types of learning, such as open learning, online learning, and blended learning. There are several reasons for using technology in language teaching. In addition to the fact that technology can be motivating, it offers the possibility to work autonomously or interact and collaborate with others. Technology also provides instant feedback on language performance in various tasks and exercises. Technology can also be an extension of the classroom and can be time-saving. Besides, technology can promote language learning with fresh authentic and motivating materials directly usable from the Internet. Finally, using ICT tools can help students to perform their assignments easily. They make students’ projects and assignments presentable, clean and organized.The most important reason for using ICT in learning aspect is interaction and communication. As mentioned by Rodrigues (2002, pp. 134-135) “effective learning happens when students are interactively engaged in a learning task.” It allows the learners to experience their learning processes, being interactive, enjoy and have fun with technology. By using technology to support collaborative learning, there will be not only human-machine interaction but also human-human interaction. Web-based- learning context, for instance, allows the students to interact with teachers or other students mediated by machine. Secondly, the implementation of ICT in the field of education gradually replaces the traditional teaching pedagogy. By using ICT tools, students’ learning is not limited to the school hours, demographically where they are, and who their teachers are. Face to face classroom interaction is getting replaced by online communication, traditional white or blackboard is getting replaced by an interactive whiteboard, and books or printed resources are getting replaced by on-line resources. Therefore, students become self-managed in their learning process. There are some ICT tools that are very essential to language learning and teaching such as Rewordify, Text Summarization, and Youtube. The first one Rewordify is naturally a user-friendly website allows you to adjust the reading level of a text. All you need to do is copy the webpage URL of the text you want to adjust and paste it into the yellow box at the top of the site, then click “Rewordify text.” Rewordify will simplify the text to the reading level you selected in the settings. If you don’t want the whole page to be Rewordified, you can copy, paste, and Rewordify text excerpts as well. You also can change how the text is displayed. My favorite part of the tool is to have simpler words displayed next to the challenging words that were in the original text. Finally, if you click on the “Print/Learning Activities” page, Rewordify will create vocabulary lists with definitions from the text, generate vocabulary quizzes for the text, and create close activities for the text. With this website, you can make more challenging texts accessible to all students. The second one is Text Summarization, which is a handy website that summarizes any text or webpage to the exact number of sentences you want. Like Rewordify, all you need to do is copy the text you want to summarize and paste it into the box on the page, set the number of sentences you want, then hit the summarize button. You can also paste in URLs to summarize an entire webpage or upload files to summarize. What makes this tool even more user-friendly is you can drag the bookmark widget to your toolbar so that when you are on a website you want summarized, all you have to do his hit the Text Summarization widget and it will summarize the page without even going to their website. And the final ICT tool I like best is Youtube. One way to collate the videos created by a screencast tool is to start a YouTube channel and upload them all there. This is simply your own YouTube home page – you can style the background, upload profile information and follow other channels of interest. You can also create playlists within your channel to organize videos into topics and allow students to find them easily. If creating your own videos is not for you then you can create playlists of videos that are already out there that relate to the topics you are studying.
As a conclusion, we can say that ICT tools are highly significant in the fields of education because they are very essential in helping students acquire the skills they need, deepening and enhancing the learning process, offering countless resources in the online world, changing the way teachers teach, helping teachers make their teaching and learning more meaningful and fun. Using ICT tools in teaching and learning in the 21st century can enhance the level of education as well as the quality of education among the students, and the teachers (Ager, 1998, p.8).