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#Tech4ELs
#ELLEdTech
#ELLchat

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English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers in Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools are generating a lot of excitement over how they are transforming learning and changing the culture in their classrooms by integrating technology.

Our ESL teachers have access to various technology resources, but it is the iPad Tray project that is reinvigorating our teachers and students. Last year, after a rigorous application process, 30 ESL teachers were awarded a set of 10 iPads. Our goal was to use this device to create more opportunities for our ESL students to practice English language skills. In order for this to be successful, we knew these teachers would need ongoing and persistent support.

It Is Not the Device That Transforms Learning, It Is How You Use It

This was an initiative that was very intimidating and new to these teachers. Experienced teachers were now novice learners and our newer teachers, who are digital natives, were still learning how to teach. We knew we had to offer ongoing, blended learning opportunities and relentless support.

We began the year with a launch training, which was a combination of classroom procedures, learning new apps and how to incorporate these resources into the curriculum. Throughout the school year, we had required webinars, optional help desk webinar sessions where teachers can get personalized support and school visits from one of our ESL technology resource teachers. To hold teachers accountable, we had required assignments and an iPad Project Showcase, where they presented student projects.

No One Saw This Coming

This project has generated a lot of excitement throughout the district and the state of North Carolina. This cohort of ESL teachers is being recognized as leaders at their schools, in both English language development and instructional technology. Many began presenting resources to their colleagues at the school level. As they became more confident, we were able to spotlight some of these teachers in our district webinars as "Featured Teachers." We had momentum.

Soon the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction was asking our teachers to lead professional development for ESL teachers across the state. Our teachers have become leaders in instructional technology for English language learners. The recognition did not stop there. Cohort members were being nominated for teacher of the year at their schools. With this success, we were able to expand this initiative by another 30 teachers, known as cohort 2. We now have 60 ESL teachers changing the culture in their classrooms. Our teachers are not the only ones bolstered by the project-our students are too.

Our teachers are creating opportunities for our students to practice English language skills and be included in project-based learning assignments. We have novice English language learners creating eBooks, recording green screen videos, using apps that support close reading strategies and augmenting reality. In some of our schools, ESL students are the ones evaluating apps, not just the teachers. ESL students are demonstrating apps to their classmates, not just the teachers.

The culture change is happening.

How Do We Keep This Going?

Sustainability is always an issue in education when you are starting a new initiative, so it was important that we maintain our momentum. We continued our differentiated support, but we knew supporting 60 cohort members (and over 270 ESL teachers overall) was going to be challenge.

We needed our teachers to take on a leadership role and to collaborate with each other. With our support, teachers began school-based ESL technology professional learning networks (PLN's). Teachers are now inviting their colleagues to their schools for professional development sessions. Here they can collaborate, share project ideas and learn from each other.

Teachers are networking outside of their schools, discovering new concepts and strategies that will benefit their students. Continuing these PLN's are essential for this project to remain successful.

Next Steps

The hard work and dedication of these ESL teachers has enabled us to expand this project another 30 teachers. Cohort 3 will begin at the start of next school year! It is important to note that this project is only successful because of the effort of our ESL Technology Resource Team.

Want to learn more about our projects, apps, and teachers? Click on our online magazine to see our project in full detail.
This blog is part of the Supporting English Language Learners Series with support from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. For more, stay tuned for the culminating podcast, infographic and publication.
For more, see:
Bill King is an ESL Instructional Technology Specialist at Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools. Follow them on Twitter: @CharMeckSchools. Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update. This post includes mentions of a Getting Smart partner. For a full list of partners, affiliate organizations and all other disclosures please see our Partner page.

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Incorporating Tech to Support English Language Learners

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English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers in Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools are generating a lot of excitement over how they are transforming learning and changing the culture in their classrooms by integrating technology. Our ESL teachers have access to various technology resources, but it is the iPad Tray project that is reinvigorating our teachers and students.

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EdWeek - Schools Face Shortage of Digital Curricula for English Learners

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EdWeek - Schools Face Shortage of Digital Curricula for English Learners

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Facing a shortage of digital curricula for ELLs, educators often turn to general content

In California's Baldwin Park Unified School District, students just learning to speak English can use a combination of digital materials designed just for them, as well as general education software programs that allow teachers to adapt lessons to various learning levels.

A student in the 14,500-student district might, for example, log on to BrainPOP ESL, an animated computer program that helps teach English-learners grammar and literacy. Or a student might use Voki, which allows students to create animated avatars that can speak using a student's recorded audio or listen to a digital voice that articulates text.

Though one program was created specifically for English-language learners and the other wasn't, educators are finding that both types of resources are helpful, said Arturo Ortega, an assistant superintendent in the district.

"With Voki, a student can either record audio or type in something and let the robot or the dog speak their words," he said. "Students feel successful producing something in English, even when they may not be comfortable with the accent."

Because there's not a plethora of digital curricula designed exclusively for English-language learners, teachers often rely on digital curricula used for all students that help individualize lessons, as well as software programs tailored for English language learners, said C. Patrick Proctor, an associate professor of literacy and bilingualism at Boston College. But today's digital offerings make both varieties useful, he says.

"There's no question" that technology has bolstered efforts to help students learn English, Mr. Proctor said. "Just the options the kids have in terms of using language and being expressive-the potential is huge."

In 2011, Mr. Proctor, along with several other researchers, published the results of a study that used digital curricula designed specifically for ELL students. In a project dubbed Improving Comprehension Online, or ICON, researchers created multimedia folktales and informational texts that included clickable words with definitions in English or Spanish, along with images for students whose English proficiency was very low. The text contained built-in audio, so that students could hear it in English or in Spanish, as well as embedded activities for reflection in both languages.

"We wanted to get at the content, rather than having the text be a barrier," Mr. Proctor said.

The researchers followed 5th graders working with the curricula and found a measurable increase in vocabulary knowledge and text comprehension, said Bridget Dalton, an associate professor in literacy studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who also worked on the project.

Mastering Math Literacy

Other resources have also been shown to help ELL students make gains. The program HELP (Help for English Language Proficiency) Math was developed to aid ELL students in grades 3-8 in acquiring academic vocabulary and math language skills. The program, which can be individualized for a student's learning level, focuses on "explicit instructional content," said John Ramo, the founder and CEO of Boulder, Colo.-based Digital Directions International Inc., which produces HELP Math. "Many programs just focus on 'drill and kill,' and don't offer comprehensive instruction," he said.

HELP Math includes manipulatives, assessments, pre-tests, and post-tests and its content is fully bilingual. Every problem, exercise, or key word and its definition can be viewed in English or Spanish, and the program also includes audio support, Mr. Ramo said.

In 2012, the federal What Works Clearinghouse, which works under the Institute of Education Sciences to vet research, gave HELP Math its highest rating for effectiveness after reviewing research on student improvement related to the program.

Gina Kell, an instructional facilitator focused on math and science at the 800-student Elmwood Middle School in Rogers, Ark., said she trains and works with teachers using HELP Math. It's the only program that she knows of that addresses the literacy aspect of math for ELL students.

"If you can't read the math and you don't understand the terminology, you can't do the math," she said.

The 14,000-student Rogers school district-which includes Elmwood Middle School-also uses Imagine Learning, language arts software that can present some of the directions and concepts surrounding literacy in 23 different languages.

The district has about 4,800 English-language learners, and its students speak 40 different languages, said Tricia Holliday, the ESOL/migrant director for the district.

Seeking Versatility

Very few digital products are backed by research proving they work, and that's important to educators, Ms. Holliday said.

"We have limited time and money and space, so it does help to find items that have been shown to work with this population," she said. "There's not a lot out there."

That may be why educators are instead turning to programs aimed at all students, but which can differentiate for various learning levels.

Ms. Holliday said the Rogers district often uses Scholastic's Read 180, a literacy program that can be adapted to a student's needs. However, she added, it's useful only for students who already have some basic level of English proficiency.

That can be a problem with digital curricula not targeted for ELLs, Mr. Proctor said. "Most interventions like that exclude very limited-proficient-English students because they don't speak enough English to use them," he said.

Educators also may be turning to more general educational programs for cost reasons, Mr. Ortega of the Baldwin Park Unified district said.

"Principals are trying to get the biggest bang for their buck, so there's a migration away from those specialized products that are going to cost money to be used with just one group," he said. "They want a product that can be used with English-learners, special education students, everyone."

Professional development to prepare educators to use digital curricula for English-learners is critically important, too.

Mr. Proctor sees digital options bringing even more innovations to the field in the future. He envisions a situation in which a student could "converse with the text" in a digital sense. The text might have the ability to pose questions and respond, or even connect the student to another student to talk digitally in real time about the reading.

"That way, they're using language to understand and deal with the text," Mr. Proctor said.

When digital materials work with students, it's rewarding to see success, Ms. Kell said.

"When you hear a kid say, 'Oh, I get it,' it makes up for all the days you are frustrated," she said. "That one little noise makes up for a lot."

Published in Print: May 22, 2013, as English-Learners Going Digital

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Schools Face Shortage of Digital Curricula for English-Learners

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In California's Baldwin Park Unified School District, students just learning to speak English can use a combination of digital materials designed just for them, as well as general education software programs that allow teachers to adapt lessons to various learning levels.

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English language learners' experience with technology can vary greatly from one student to the next. Some kids may have never used a computer. Others may be doing all of the troubleshooting! This resource section provides ideas for using technology with ELLs, activities for using multimedia tools, and bilingual tips for managing media at school and at home.

Recommended Resource from Understood.org

For more great ideas, take a look at the bilingual resources on Assistive Technology from Understood.org, a free website focused on learning and attention issues.

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English language learners' experience with technology can vary greatly from one student to the next. Some kids may have never used a computer. Others may be doing all of the troubleshooting! This resource section provides ideas for using technology with ELLs, activities for using multimedia tools, and bilingual tips for managing media at school and at home.

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http://acsdesl.blogspot.com/2015/09/elaborated-text-using-rewordifycom.html

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One issue that content teachers deal with frequently is finding appropriate, adapted text to use with students who have lower English proficiency levels. Using adapted text allows English Language Learners (ELLs) at lower levels to still have access to core content. The concern is where to find text that doesn't "dumb down" the content but instead uses scaffolding or supports to make complex content accessible to students at lower English proficiency levels.

This is where the Rewordify website comes in. It allows you to copy and paste (or type in) a text, and then it automatically "rewords" or elaborates the text. An elaborated text is one that contains additional information such as definitions of challenging vocabulary or phrases, images, charts, maps, graphs, or other supports. This allows ELLs to be exposed to academic vocabulary and complex syntactical patterns while providing additional explanations to help them understand.

Rewordify has multiple styles to display the adjusted text, but I recommend either Inline or Two Column. For more details including a step-by-step description of how to elaborate text, see the document below.

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One issue that content teachers deal with frequently is finding appropriate, adapted text to use with students who have lower English proficiency levels. Using adapted text allows English Language Learners (ELLs) at lower levels to still have access to core content.

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ELL Frontiers: Using Technology to Enhance Instruction for English Learners: Heather Parris, Lisa M. Estrada, Andrea M. Honigsfeld: 9781506315089: Amazon.com: Books

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ELL Frontiers: Using Technology to Enhance Instruction for English Learners: Heather Parris, Lisa M. Estrada, Andrea M. Honigsfeld: 9781506315089: Amazon.com: Books

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ell frontiers: using technology to enhance instruction for english learners

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english language - computer network resources

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english language - study and teaching - computer-assisted instruction

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english language - study and teaching - technological innovations

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language and languages - study and teaching

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education/teaching methods & materials - general

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teaching of students with english as a second language (tesol)

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ELL Frontiers: Using Technology to Enhance Instruction for English Learners

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Your GPS for improving ELLs' academic outcomes Grounded in the latest research on EL language and literacy development and technology integration, this timely book will serve as your road map for navigating the exciting new frontier of digital instruction. Learn how to improve academi...

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EL Educators to Follow on Twitter Who Integrate Tech

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EL Educators to Follow on Twitter Who Integrate Tech

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https://twitter.com/The_ESL_Nexus
https://twitter.com/ESOL_Odyssey
https://twitter.com/gardnerkb1
https://twitter.com/TanELLclassroom
https://twitter.com/MsSalvac
https://twitter.com/emilyfranESL
https://twitter.com/ESLTechies

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Kindergarten | The Multicultural Classroom

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Resources that teach language, diversity and acceptance through play and STEM activities.

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Evaluating Tech Tools for Learning & Academic Language.pdf - Google Drive

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Evaluating Tech Tools for Learning & Academic Language.pdf - Google Drive

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Evaluating Tech Tools for Learning & Academic Language.pdf