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You need English to do business, not just to talk about business.

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Left you all a message!

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This is a great tool for creating a blended learning element to your face to face courses or even for building 100% online learning.

Using Flipgrid you can create a number of grids based around top level themes and then build 'topics' into these that explore specific areas of the overall theme.

When you build a topic you can add various video based resources and then students can respond by recording short video clips giving their opinion on the topic.

I've built a quick example here which you are free to respond to. My grid is based on the theme of EdTech in ELT and here's a topic based around Exploiting YouTube apps for ELT.

The free version gives you one grid that you can use to create any number of discussion topics. The paid version which is $65 a year has a lot of additional features including the ability to connect up with other Flipgrid classrooms around the world.

It's well worth looking through the existing grids that have been created on the platform to see how it works and look at some of the really great work that's being done with the platform.

This is a great tool to set up speaking homework tasks and get students exploring a wide range of issues whilst developing their digital skills and confidence in front of their webcam.

I hope you enjoy using Flipgrid with your students. You can find more tools and activities like these in my ebook 20 Tech Enhanced Activities for the Language Classroom.

The book is available on iOS or as PDF for other devices.

Sign up for my twice monthly free newsletter and get a free copy of Digital Tools for Teachers at: https://tinyletter.com/technogogy/

Nik Peachey

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Create Blended Learning with Video Based Discussions

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This is a great tool for creating a blended learning element to your face to face courses or even for building 100% online learning. Using Flipgrid you can create a number of grids based around top level themes and then build 'topics' into these that explore specific areas of the overall theme.

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Examples of Vokis in my Blogpost

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Voki | Speaking Characters For Education

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Voki is a fun tool that students can use for homework, classwork or projects. Customize their appearance and what they say, and share with others!

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Voki

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My first post in the series is about three applications

1. ReadtheWords in which an avatar speaks out a text you have pasted into a text box

2. Voki which does the same but which also allows you to record your voice

not

xtranormal which allows only text to speech but which offers a range of animations.

In all cases, I looked at the free option - I have not even considered any applications in which you would need to pay an annual subscription of any kind, unless I got so thrilled with their usefulness I thought it really a good idea. But in my experience where I am, teachers are battling to even get an internet connection in their schools or a photocopier, so free was of prime importance.

Here are my trial runs with these applications

Voki - my own voice

This is a voki embedded in my CELTA trainees' wiki and using this tool with your voice is a nice, friendly way to welcome students or trainees to their workspace or friends to your blog.

Voki has added a new fun page where you can upload your photo and be an ogre for a day etc. quite a lot of fun for some of your younger pupils - you can find it here: http://www.voki.com/play.php
N.B. This tool no longer exists; the video was made by one of Karenne Sylvester's students
Comparing the three applications

Restrictions to free accounts

30 second recordings

Approx 60 seconds

Approx 60 seconds

Not sure; no info but at least 5 mins maybe more

Quality of Avatar Voice

Flat and monotonous robotic voice

Flat and monotonous robotic voice

Depends on who records, teacher, students

Same as for other pre-recorded

Additional featuresand issues
- Speaker speed can be adjusted- Advice given on how to deal with mispronounced terms- Can insert longer pauses- Video is saved on the application server but can also be downloaded and brought to class in a flash stick or CD

- Can choose from a limited number of male/female voices and accents- Video is saved on the application server but can also be downloaded and brought to class in a flash stick or CD

- Microphone can be external or internal- Can have two voices recording a dialogue too (though only one avatar)- The message can also be sent by phone.- Sometimes start of recording gets chopped off

- Two characters can be used who interact- Variety of backgrounds/ settings- Camera anges (10)- Characters can be given additional movements and expressions

- Cues to all these tools are visual

- online video tutorial available

Some General Comments and Issues

As you may have guessed, I don't particularly favour avatar/synthetic voices for listening skills work either in the class or at home, nor for dictation work for reasons that have to do with the problematic pronunciation of the avatars. This is not the fault of the applications - they were not originally made for learners of English as a foreign language and although I have seen the enthusiasm with which first language teachers encourage their use, I am a little hesitant to use these synthetic voices for foreign language learning when there is so much nicer material to use out there.

Which is why I would not, personally use Readthewords or Voki with synthetic voices for any classroom activities.

But overall, I find Voki with human voice recordings as well as xtranormal to have great potential for different reasons each.

Here is a great xtranormal video created by one of Karenne Sylvester's students to show the difference between future simple, continuous and perfect.

Some Suggested Classroom Activities

Listening (main skill but other skills involved as well)

I think the highest value of these tools is that they can help the teacher generate a great amount of extra listening for the children. There never seems to be enough listening in children's materials anyway. With Voki, the teacher can record

some sentences for listening and repeating and embed them in a class wiki - the parents can be involved in this

a short telephone message the children have to listen to and fill in a small form

a short poem or chant which the children learnt in class; a fun character can be used like a bear or a cat

the description of a picture; the children can be asked to draw it

a very short story read to or with children in class; at home the children can write the story and draw some pictures to illustrate it

with higher level children, the instructions for the tool itself can form the basis of a listening lesson ( you can play the tutorial scene by scene without sound first to elicit what they think is happening, to introduce some necessary words of phrases and design some comprehension checking tasks). This is useful both for the listening exposure to real talk as well as ICT training for children to be able to use applications independently of the teacher. (this can be done with all other tools as well.

Listening for Language
A short story or report spoken by you or by an imaginary character can be recorded in Voki or stories or recordings created by your students can be used for further language work.

My favourite so far is xtranormal which seems ideal to give life to dialogues you as a teacher might want to write to replace boring coursebook conversations and which can be used with or without sound, exploited first for content and later to notice and highlight/showcase language patterns or functional areas.

Karenne's student's animation is a nice example of how you can create material which would take other visual aids to contextualise properly.
Speaking & Writing
Speaking with these tools will probably not be free but planned and prepared because of the time restrictions on the recordings. So, inevitably, there will be some integration with writing, hence I have lumped all below.

The children can rehearse and record

a chant

a poem

a few sentences from a story

a short text as part of a reading aloud challenge

instructions on how to do something - e.g. how to play a game

a recipe

a class or group blog welcome message

an introduction to a topic/theme or some other challenge

If two children are recording you can get them to record

a short exchange as part of a dialogue or roleplay

a song, poem or chant

a story (narrator and character in story)

an interview - avatar can be a celebrity with voiceover from one of the children and the other child can be the reporter asking them questions.

The more advanced students can also be asked to think of genre issues and to try to speak 'in character' - again that may not be spontaneous talk but later teachers can also introduce this aspect into using these tools.

A lot of the speaking may also be the negotiating language needed while the children are making decisions on what to say - some of the language needed for such activities is pretty standard, e.g. suggesting, describing, persuading and agreeing using polite language!

If they are creating a mini play or video with xtranormal (or other animation programme) of course there is going to be a lot more negotiating language used as there are a lot more decisions to make.

The writing aspect is quite nice, because of the time restrictions. Any text to speech piece prepared does have to be tight and concise and to the point. This can be a good thing, especially with people who don't follow the same discourse rules about brevity (I mean, look at this blog post already!!!!) and this will force them to just pare down to what is relevant and to the point.
Pronunciation focus

Recording students can sometimes seem threatening but listening to one's voice and accent is often a revelation for them. You cannot hear yourself properly from "inside the voice box', the wonderful hi-fi system that produces human voice needs to be hear from outside for students to become aware of their own problems and how they sound in English. Of course this can also be done with a simple and free application such as Audacity but with younger pupils and teens, voki type applications are much more fun and much more motivating.
Some Assumptions practicalities

For these activities even one computer or laptop in class may be enough - unless of course you have a very very large class - but even so, you could give half your children some quiet work to do while a few at a time visit you and work with you on creating their vokis or animations.

In some locations, not every child has a computer and fast connection available at home so, if that is the case, I would suggest doing most of the work in class. If, of course, you are teaching children or older learners who have access to the web at home as well, you can use most of the activities I have suggested and many more as homework, too.

You don't need that much time to create small projects such as these but at least half an hour each week would be lovely to put aside and work on ideas which pull your taught areas of language together in a fun way.
Some points about adults
Some of these activities may be useful for adult learners but not in all cases. Our own adults, for example, are mostly unemployed, mostly refugees, very few have access to computers, so if we do use any online tools with them, we do try to make them more relevant to their lives and aspirations,, but there are adult groups, especially young adults, who would enjoy some of the activities suggested.

I am inviting you to ...

... consider this a draft post ( I had to rewrite it at least three times with edublogger crashing and losing my post updates anyway) so do please feel free to suggest other ideas you have used so that I can add them to this post later.

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Related Posts

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Tech Tools & Pedagogy I - ReadtheWords, Voki & Xtranormal

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My first post in the series is about three applications ReadtheWords in which an avatar speaks out a text you have pasted into a text box Voki which does the same but which also allows you to record your voice not xtranormal which allows only text to speech but which offers a range of animations.

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Voki | Speaking Characters For Education

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Voki is a fun tool that students can use for homework, classwork or projects. Customize their appearance and what they say, and share with others!

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Conferring with an Avatar: Using Voki for Proofreading

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Students use text-to-speech software (Web 2.0 Avatars) to listen to their writing aloud. We use this 21st century method for proofreading when students do not read over their writing or are unaware of mistakes in their story. Students use this self-discovery strategy of revision and editing in order to privately critique their own work before conferring with the teacher.

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Responding to a TED talk

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Transforming media into collaborative spaces with video, voice, and text commenting.

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This is a thread about the notes I took on the 5-Step Writing Process