www.skolplus.se

To practice English in a fun way with younger students

In our school we have a license with www.skolplus.se. If you don’t have a license only some of the practices are open for you, but you can buy a prescription for 320 Swedish kronor if you are a privatperson and a bit more if you want to buy for the school (no exact prise a given at the webpage, but it starts at a minimum of 1400 kronor.)

This is a Swedish website filled with funny practice for the younger and the older pupils. Most of the tasks are in Swedish and you can practice for example mathematics, Swedish and geography.

There are three very good tasks to practice English, two of whom my pupils are very found of.

 The first task is ”Build a sentence”. The same task is available in Swedish so my pupils knows how to do. They learn the words and the way to make a sentence very quick.

Here is a guide for the pupils.

How to do:

First, read the words and ask if there anything that you don’t understand.

Secondly, drag the words to the lines in the right order, don’t forget the dot or the question mark. Then press done.

If you did it right you will now se the sentence that you wrote. (The bird and the cow are acctually jumping on the screen.)

Even if the pupils don’t know every word when they start they will try and try and after a while they will recognize most of the words.

For me as a teacher I often use the tasks at my cleverboard when I have the class at my carpet in front of me, maybe if we have five minutes to kill, while we are waiting for the dinner to get ready. Together we read the words and make sentences. Sometimes we talk about the different part of the speech, it’s easy to see since they are marked in different colours.

We also use “Guess the word!”, a form of hang man. You can choose short words and longer words. For my second graders the short words are perfect. This is tasks that we do at least three times a week, maybe ten minutes at a time. We try to say the letters in English and guess the words in English even though it can be hard. The pupils thinks it very exciting to see if he is going to fly or crash and the whole class is very engaged.

The practices works excellent for working in pairs.

In the future I hope the makers come up with more English practices.

This was my contribution to the blog, I hope you will find some new things to try in your classroom.

Yours, Susanne Bernlind

(All the pictures from www.skolplus.se)

AV-Media

Our school and municipality has an agreement with "AV- media" and that gives us a great opportunity to use a lot of digital media. For example we can stream film and use for some of our English lessons. I teach in second grade and we have found series of films called "Kids English Zone". Each film is about 15 min and with contents relating to children’s experience and living conditions. The children appreciate the funny actors and the English children, everyone are native speakers, and the topic in each film is well known. For example the topic can be family, breakfast, lunch, colors or feelings. It is very good for pupils to listen to well spoken English and the repetition of essential words is beneficial for the students.The pupils often says after the actors spontaneously. 

Using those films connects to Lgr 11 (teaching English) in several ways:

Aim: "…In order to deal with spoken language and texts, pupils should be given the
opportunity to develop their skills in relating content to their own experiences,
living conditions and interests…"
 "Content of Communication
• Subject areas that are familiar to the pupils.
• Interests, people and places.
• Daily life and ways of living in different contexts and areas where Englishis used…"Listening and reading – reception• Clearly spoken English and texts from various media.
• Simple instructions and descriptions.
• Different types of simple conversations and dialogues.
• Films and dramatised narratives for children…"    ( from Lgr 11)

To be able to use such digital media as we do when we are streaming films it is necessary to have a computer, internet connection and possibility to use a multimedia projector. I really recommend "Kids English Zone" for young children beginning to learn the English language. The films are funny, simple, familiar topics and contain a lot of repetition.

//Carina

Facebook

Most teachers want to have an easy way to communicate with students and their parents. We need a way to send information and assignments so that everyone will receive them. At the same time, students need somewhere to be able to ask questions, both to the teacher and their peers. All my students have mobile telephones and all of them use

Facebook daily. That is why I like to create closed groups on facebook.com as a tool. If one has a Facebook account, it is very easy to create a closed group to which one can invite students and/or parents. One presses the “create group” button, which is found under groups on the left-hand side, when working on a computer. Doing that, one will see the following image:

The only thing left to do now is pick a name for the group; for example, the name of the school and for which class and year the group is meant. Choose to have a closed group, and then it is finished. The students do not need to be friends to the group creator on Facebook to be able to join the group. The teacher can invite the students or parents by sending an email to each of them; then the students/parents will have access to the group. It is easy to post information, assignments, videos and whatever else the teacher wants to share with the students or their parents. It is also easy to see who has read or seen what, as it appears next to each of the posts.

The teacher can choose to use a group for only one subject or for more. The class teacher can use a Facebook group to share information with parents. A potential problem is that not all parents or students have Facebook accounts. However, it is easy and free to create an account. For students who struggle with homework or other assignments away from school, the Facebook group can be used as a discussion between peers or to ask questions to the teacher. The group can also be used to correspond with other students, in other parts of the world. There are many possibilities. It is important that the teacher and the students discuss what purpose the group has, so that everyone agrees on how it should be used.      

Malin Holmén

Popplet

Bloggpost

Popplet – A place for your ideas

Från skolappar.nu

About this ICT-resource and how it works

A mind map is a presentation that includes a central idea surrounded by connected branches of topics. The app is a mind mapping tool. You can brainstorm; make diagrams or other arrays of information, making lists, notes, scrapbooking, travel plans, photo albums, collages, portfolios, presentations, and more. You can choose the colours, size / shape and content of thought bubbles rather freely, which makes the app very useful. It is also possible to bind them exactly how you want or do not bind at all.

When you are done, it is easy to mail off your map as a pdf or jpeg file. You can also choose to save jpeg and then you get the picture in your album.

It´s very easy to use this app. When you click on a box where you can add text, images or even draw inside. You create a new box by double clicking. The boxes can be dragged everywhere on the screen.

What do you need to make the resource work?

You need to download the app. The app costs 38 skr. They have a lite version but then you can only work with one map.

How can Popplet be used by teachers?

You can add pictures from the album and by taking direct so why don´t ask the pupils collect things in one colour or all circular things they can find. They can illustrate a presentation about a country or present a work they have done in English. I think a timeline should be easy to do in this app. The challenge is to make the right long distance between thought bubbles.  Of course, it is advisable to make a mind map for the writing of a factual text.

Teacher can use it to manage lesson plans and present lecture information. And even matrices for formative assessment (and of course summative assessment).

Why should you use Popplet in your class?

I think this is a good tool that can be helpful in many ways. As a teacher you need to help the pupils’ to organize their notes it don’t get messy and contains too much text. It is a cheap resource that anyone can use and it makes learning more exciting and interesting.

My considerations about this ICT-resource

This is a resource that can be used in many different ways, the limit is your imagination.

Åsa Törmä

Skydrive and iPhone

I’ve been using my iPhone a lot in the classroom. I take pictures or record videos of the children in the classroom or when we are out on concerts, theatres or fieldtrips. Then I easily upload the pictures to my Skydrive-app in the phone and open them on Skydrive on the computer in the classroom. We have a projector in the classroom which projects the computer screen on to the whiteboard. I’ve also taken pictures of books that I read aloud to the children so that everyone can follow the text and look at the pictures in the book on the big screen while I’m reading. You could also let the children record videos of each other or take pictures of their work and show it on the big screen.

Skydrive is one of many “clouds” that loads your information on a server which you are able to reach from any computer. All you have to do is log in. It is also possible to share your photos and documents with others. Skydrive also has an app for iPhones that you can download from App Store.

If you use your private iPhone you need to remember to delete the photos and recordings from your phone after you’ve uploaded them on Skydrive. It doesn’t feel right ethical to have a lot of photos of the children in your private iPhone. The best thing would of course be if the school could buy at least one iPhone or iPad for each class.

The advantage of using iPhone and Skydrive instead of an ordinary digital camera is that it is wireless and much faster. One drawback is however that you depend on the company that owns the cloud. If they decide to shut down the cloud you lose all your information if you haven’t saved it anywhere else.

Photo Story 3 - Create your own stories

Photo Story 3 

Create your own stories with pictures

I would like to tell you about a Windows program that I have used in preschool with children as young as 3 to 6 years. It is a program from Microsoft and it is called Photo Story 3. The best thing with the program is that is for free to download to your computer and very easy to learn and use. You can use it as a private person to personalize your pictures adding sound, titles or background music of your choice so that you can enjoy your favourite moments or you can make a professional presentation out of your photos and images. Photo Story saves your photo project as WMV files (window media video files) so that you can play it on your computer. Finished picture files can be small enough to send by email, too.

When you download Photo Story 3 and open the program the wizard offers you three choices, that is: Begin a new story, edit a project, or play a story. 

The program offers help to all beginners by explaining every step and even provides extras as advises, tips and tricks so that you can get the best out of your picture project. It is very simple to use for teachers in any subject or theme. By showing pictures and adding text the children are more likely to remember and learn. What better way to learn than to do it yourself. You can as teacher ask your pupils to make a project in small groups about a subject letting them search the web and gather information and pictures about the subject. Then when they are finished they can play the presentation for their classmates.

In my preschool department where I was working the children ages were 3 to 6 years. We the teachers always worked after a theme and we always took many pictures and did portfolios to every child. The children where always so good at dramatization and the parents only saw the pictures and not the real show. So one day we decided to create a story with our pictures by using Photo Story 3. It was a perfect way to show the parents what their children do in one day when they are at preschool. We collected many photos of children’s performance and imported them in Photo Story. Then by the help of children we recorded their voices so they could tell us what was happening during the picture film. The children even as young as they were they could help us by telling us in which order the pictures should be. They could then say what they did in the pictures and we recorded their voices. I think it was fun and educational for them as it was for us.

Photo Story 3 is a great program for beginners even as young as preschool children. It is a great way to introduce ICT (Information and Communications Technology) to pupils. 

So start sharing your stories today!

 This is a YouTube video of how a Photo Story works

Interactive resource

In my previous teaching position I have the possibility to use the digital Cleverboard. It is the same as a digital Whiteboard. We had one in every classroom on the school. Before we got the Cleverboard all the educators had to undergo training in how to use the Cleverboard. We also get some ideas on exercises and webpage we could use when we teaching English and other school subjects. On Projector and a computer was connected to the Cleverboard. I also had a small plate, like an IPad, that I could use and write on and then the text come up on the Cleverboard.

When I started a new area in English I prepared short movies, texts that we could read together in the classroom. We also write texts together on the Cleverboard. In Västerviks municipality there I was working, we had an agreement with AV-media there we could borrow movies, also a camera and a video camera as we could use when we take pictures and record  movies when we worked with theater.

A program I often used was Lynx 4 there I could prepare different exercises as I then used when I teach English, such Memory as the students could use when we practice new words. The problem we often have is that we don´t have enough time to prepared own exercises.

A very good webpage is prissans.blogspot.se there is it a lot of ideas you can use when you working with the Cleverboard. Another means as useful is “Inläsningstjänst”. The school must have an agreement with them. There you can download audio books as we can listen on together in the classroom. A very good function is that you can scan in books and mail them to your email then you can see it on the Cleverboard.

On my school there I worked today we don´t have Cleverboard but we have a Projector and I can still use the web and the computer when I teach English together with the students.

To use interactive resource give me the possible to make varying, fun and stimulated English lessons together with my students.

Pernilla