Welcome to Online Language Learning and Teaching
A workshop given by Vance Stevens on July 16, 2020
at the First Online Doctoral Seminar Series (May-July, 2020) on “Language, Culture and Society”
organized by the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco
‘Traditional’ teaching and learning often refers to how these acts were conducted before the arrival of computers, and now that computers are ubiquitous, before the Internet became commonly used in learning. These have allowed teachers to divide their teaching into synchronous and asynchronous components, whether face-to-face or online, in so-called ‘flipped’ and ‘blended’ approaches. Because of the learning curve and technologies involved, not all teachers have been able to equally apply the affordances of technology in learning, but with the sudden closure of schools in time of pandemic it appears that those most capable of adapting have been those already adept at working in blended learning environments. This workshop is about approaches to teaching online that serve to maintain teacher presence and student engagement. It will be conducted in a way that enables its participants to experiment with tools that will help them understand through experience the concepts discussed.
Prose write-up of the rationale and plan for the sesson
Visit https://tinyurl.com/vance2020ollt
Return to Workshop Orientation
Your guide in Online Language Learning and Teaching will fill in more information here in the days prior to the webinar.
Meanwhile, you can do the first step in SOFLA, your "Pre-work" mission, any time from now until July 16.
There is a Google Classroom course called
The First Online Doctoral Seminar Series (2020) - Doctoral Program: Language Culture and Society (FLSHR-UM5R)
Class code 2qf2thh
https://classroom.google.com/c/ODU4OTU1NTk3Mzda
My topic is Online Language Learning and Teaching, scheduled July 16, at 14:00-15:30 GMT+1 (Moroccan time)
Join Zoom
https://iesabroad.zoom.us/j/98216887677
Meeting ID : 982 1688 7677
(try without password)
This happens on Thursday July 16, 13:00-14:30 UTC
When working with students and colleagues, I avoid the word "assignment", and use the word "mission" instead.
The PURPOSE of this mission was
In preparation for (i.e before) your attendance at the webinar on July 16, please see this podcast blog post
ALL of the links BELOW are at that link ABOVE
Have a look at the post, get an idea of what it is about, and then focus on at least ONE link.
For example, you could ...
It is expected that you will spend about an hour exploring one of these links.
If after an hour, you want to stop, go on to Mission step 2, complete the form for what you have done so far.
If you are interested in what you are doing, please continue.
If you find yourself following link after link, and want to report on other links, please fill in a separate form for that.
When you have read, viewed, or listened to at least ONE (or part of one) of the suggestions mentioned above,
then fill in this Google Form to report on how you accomplished your pre-work.
Please address only ONE link in any ONE Google Form report.
You can fill in more than one report if you like, but in that case, please use additional Google Forms.
It is expected that you might spend 5 or ten minutes filling in any one Google Form.
The Google Form asks
When you have done that, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
On the day of the webinar, the Google spreadsheet with all the responses will be made available for anyone with its link to VIEW
Note: On July 15, Bendaoud took us from ZERO (responses) and put us on the way to HERO.
Thanks Bendaoud for being the first in your class to have accomplished this mission!
Well done Bendaoud!!
And Mustapha Mourchid and Ezzahra!
And when we checked again in the workshop itself, we found that there were 14 responses.
You can see them all here if you wish
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dBFlzsa_EEjmF-1gTDQRKnvkcT_HSXx3sEULx5hveMo/edit?usp=sharing
Return to Workshop Orientation
According to https://coi.athabascau.ca/coi-model/ the Community of Inquiry approach "represents a process of creating a deep and meaningful (collaborative-constructivist) learning experience through the development of three interdependent elements – social, cognitive and teaching presence."
Garrison, D.R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87−105. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222474115_Critical_Inquiry_in_a_Text-Based_Environment_Computer_Conferencing_in_Higher_Education
The article is also available on the CoI portal page, https://coi.athabascau.ca/coi-model/,
which displays this graphic encapsulation of the CoI model
I used this logo in a webinar where I discussed my presentation with colleagues
It comes from a plenary talk I gave at ThaiTESOL 2020 https://tinyurl.com/vance2020thaitesol
In reaction to so many presentations I have attended which had effective powerpoints but no way to take anything away from the presentaton, i have decided to flip all of mine.
A good model for this is https://www.downes.ca/presentations.htm
Another good example is a presentation I made on the topic of thinking SMALL at the 2019 PELLTA conference on April 19, 2019 in Penang Malaysia -
https://learning2gether.net/2019/04/19/vance-stevens-on-thinking-small-at-the-2019-pellta-conference-in-penang-malaysia/
and also my Thai TESOL plenary, which was on the topic of flipped learning
Truly flipping a PD sesson is normally not pedagogically possible, because, according to
https://flippedlearning.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/FLIP_handout_FNL_Web.pdf
“Flipped Learning is a pedagogical approach in which
What I might not have time to say is written out here -
Precursor flipped presentations
SOFLA stands for synchronous online flipped learning approach.
SOFLA focuses on the Teacher Presence part of the CoI venn diagram. SOFLA is most recently described in
Marshall, H.W. & Kostka, I. (2020). Fostering Teaching Presence through the Synchronous Online Flipped Learning Approach. TESL-EJ, 24(2),
Forthcomng but soon to be published working draft available for viewing only: http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume24/ej94/ej94int/
You may cite this article only after the paginated PDF appears online here, first week of August, 2020: http://tesl-ej.org/pdf/ej94/int.pdf
This diagram comes from the above article
SOFLA proposes a means of establishing teacher presence and promoting student engagement in eight steps.
Laine Marshall explains the 8 steps in this video, queued to 19:28 min:sec here, https://youtu.be/gLW1mNWlo_0?t=1167
There is more in prose about the SOFLA approach to synchronous online flipped learning SOFLA
It was hoped that participants would do the pre-work but failing that we can start from the beginning.
We have an hour and a half :-)
Pre-work might comprise a video introduction, focusing material, work on learning strategies is “anything that can be processed without your immediate feedback and assessment can be placed out of class, while in class, you provide activities that demand your facilitation, ongoing informal feedback, and guidance” (Marshall & Parris, 2020, p. 24)
Suggested tools: Playposit and Perusall, Google Forms, video preview, readings
For our Pre-work task we used Google Forms to collect responses, and by the start of the workshop, we had got 14 responses
You can see the responses here
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dBFlzsa_EEjmF-1gTDQRKnvkcT_HSXx3sEULx5hveMo/edit?usp=sharing
There is more informaton in the written version here Step 1. Pre-work
Sign-in "usually occurs on a collaborative whiteboard available in programs such as Zoom, or in web-based programs such as Flipgrid. This warm-up draws from the pre-work but asks the students to either apply content or relate it to their own immediate needs." (Marshall & Kostka, 2020, forthcoming)
Suggested tools: whiteboard available in programs such as Zoom, or in web-based programs such as Flipgrid, or share in chat
There is more informaton in the written version here Step 2. Sign-in
For the sign in task we'll do more of a warm-up for this group.
I like Survey Monkey because it has flexible templates and can display results in graphic form.
This is a task designed to get you thinking about what it means to "teach"
and relate what we discuss here to your "own immediate needs".
The procedure started with a visit to the survey link https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TKHY5CX
using the link above, or this QR code
This survey refers to a teaching philosophy I had articulated to participants in my workshops in Thailand
http://workshops2020.pbworks.com/
There were 5 questions. Here are the answers given by the class, off the top of their heads, without prior preparation. This was just to guage how they saw themselves on the learner - teacher - master learner spectrum. The identities of the individual respondents were neither requested nor preserved:
Afterwards I showed them the three slides here,
http://workshops2020.pbworks.com/w/page/137978496/Model_Teacher_Unit_1#Aquickorientationontodaysworkshop
The images show where I had asserted in a plenary in Cairo in 2004 that there was no such thing as a language teacher, only language learners (you can train students to do well on exams, but you can't teach them what must be inherently learned - you can only guide them in their process of learning).
The best qualified guide would be someone who had learned how to learn; who had become a master learner. Stephen Downes said in a plenary he had given in 2007 at one our online conferences that teachers model and demonstrate and learners practice and reflect (the most concise, and possibly accurate, encapsulation of their respective roles that I had ever heard). Therefore, what David Warlick has referred to as a master learner must do all four of those things in percolation.
This step "solidifies students’ learning, clarifies what they may have missed in the pre-work, or applies what they have learned from the asynchronous work." (Marshall & Kostka, 2020, forthcoming)
Suggested tools: something allowing users to create a chart, categorize, sub-categorize, move up Bloom's taxonomy
There is more informaton in the written version here Step 3. Whole Group Application
Mentimeter is a tool that allows you to gather poll data during webinars and present these attractively to audiences. It has many kinds of displays, and is a quick and easy tool to set up.
I asked participants to go to https://menti.com and enter this code: 18 88 72
Or use this direct link: https://www.menti.com/ggo37ry27z
or this QR code ...
First, I wanted to know how many were already familiar with flipped learning.
We learned that half our respondents were not familiar with the concept.
Next I asked them to brainstorm some tools -
What are your favorite tools for Online Language Learning and Teaching? (Enter one word at a time at the link below)
This produced a word cloud with the following suggestions:
I wanted to elicit tools in order to get them to write the names of some of the tools on sticky notes on a Jamboard and connect the various tools with where they would be appropriate to the different steps in the SOFLA cycle.
I seeded the Jamboad with the following material
I wanted them to add stick notes for the last 4 steps and then contribute more notes for tools.
In order to use this you must be logged in to your Google account. After that it's easy on a PC,
but on an Android or IOS device you need to first install the Jamboard app
Participants were directed to go to this Jamboard, which at the time was set where anyone with the link could edit
https://jamboard.google.com/d/1vcJdivdyjDckHLxLFyJ3wCpvkeyq70bmC6ru1HyKF6g/edit?usp=sharing
or use this TinyURL, https://tinyurl.com/ollt2020jam
or use the QR code (which may prompt you to install Jamboard on an Android device)
In testing I found that Safari on my iPad wouldn't open the link underlying the above code, so I made a code for the full link.
However I finally discovered if I installed the Jamboard app on IOS or Android, you could launch the Jamboard through the app using these QR codes.
This is what the participants produced
The first time you show students or participants a tool like this they have to figure out what it does. Then they have to workout what you want them to do. When time is limited and the task is ill-defined, results can be sparse, but I think this would go better if you used Jamboard more regularly with participants you could hit a stride as facilitator and as both teacher and participants became more aware of the potential lurking in the tool.
Miro has more potential but it is limited in its free version.
Another tool similar to Jamboard, but harder to use, is Miro.
My colleagues and I tested it in two webinars recently:
Although Miro is an interesting workspace., it wants to be paid before it releases much functionality beyond one board and participants have to join teams in order to play. It's hard to understand the ecosystem in brief testing.
Breakout Rooms provide "a synchronous opportunity for the students to meet in small, separate groups and work as a team." (Marshall & Kostka, 2020, forthcoming)
Suggested tools: polling tools, such as Mentimeter or Poll Everywhere, Heike's technique of selecting group they want to join
There is more informaton in the written version here Step 4. Breakouts
I planned to introduce a puzzle that participants could solve in breakout rooms. Participants were assigned randomly, approximately half a dozen to a room. I gave them a puzzle to resolve, asked each room to come up with an answer in 5 min, and return them to the plenary room to pool their answers. Puzzles and coding are good language elicitation techniques but mainly I want them to see how breakout rooms work, and it is step 4 of 8 in the SOFLA process.
I set this up in a second frame in the Jamboard. Here is what it looked like:
But the sticky note was hiding the puzzle that the participants would take to the breakout rooms with them
Share-out is where "students present what they worked on and learned about in their groups. Depending on the breakout activities, the nature of this step shifts, but it will always include a peer feedback element." (Marshall & Kostka, 2020, forthcoming)
Suggested procedures: Share, Help, Ask, Comment (SHAC) (Fethi & Marshall, 2018)
There is more informaton in the written version here Step 5. Share-out
When participants return from the breakout rooms, the ones who successfully solved the puzzle tried to explain to the others how they did it. We used the Jamboard to help with the explanation.
We can use the Lino board, similar to Padlet, to have the group report what they have learned so far that they didn't know before
Here's where you access my LINO in the OLLT2020 community space
http://linoit.com/users/VanceStevens/canvases/OLLT%20Morocco
By this time in the program we had been going for almost an hour and 40 minutes (that time in the video) so we used the Lino board as a means of addressing all the remaining steps:
This step is for "priming students for their upcoming assigned work." (Marshall & Kostka, 2020, forthcoming)
Suggested procedures: the teacher can pre-teach terms and concepts, activate students’ prior knowledge, and build new schemata - motivate students to reach the next step - with professionals prepare a follow up reading
There is more informaton in the written version here Step 6. Preview & Discovery
Of course as there will be no follow up to this PD session it might be a stretch to attempt this one.
If there are any teachers in the group we can get them to articulate a lesson plan in which they try and envisage what they would do with their students in this step, or construct a lesson flow with the first 5 steps covered so far.
Here the "teacher explains what students are expected to do for the next out-of-class work and reminds them of where the resources they will need to access are located." (Marshall & Kostka, 2020, forthcoming)
Suggested tools: e-learning platform and/or at an internet-based application site
There is more informaton in the written version here Step 7. Assignment Instruction / follow up for PD
As I do in all my flipped presentations, I made clear that particpants could find everything they needed to know in three places:
Students might be expected to "write a short statement on the whiteboard, reflecting on what resonated with them most in one or two sentences. The response is typically completed in the online virtual classroom on the whiteboard where all students can see each other’s replies." (Marshall & Kostka, 2020, forthcoming)
Suggested tools: VoiceThread or Flipgrid
There is more informaton in the written version here Step 8. Reflection
Had I had more time, I would have shown them in step 7 Flipgrid.
This is where I would have explained this tool, and encouraged them to leave a reflection if they wished.
However, if anyone reads this far and wants to record a message in FlipGrid.
I had set one up for the webinar here, but didn't have time to mention it.
Or leave a message on the Google Classroom at https://classroom.google.com/c/ODU4OTU1NTk3Mzda
I'll check in both places from time to time.
How to sign up and get started in 1.5 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49YQifsXwLA
Once you're signed up, take a tour (look for it in the left hand sidebar) at
https://app.genial.ly/create (basically shows you how to select a template)
I have been having trouble with some templates but here's one that seems to work
https://view.genial.ly/5ee0e4eac232630cedc59247
Return to Workshop Orientation
Jing stopped functioning worldwide in a planned outage July 14, 2020
Techsmith's replacement tool is Techsmith Capture
Gone is the familiar sun, but apart from that, the new tool is free, creates mp4 rather than the old deprecated Flash video, can be run in the background, and can be launched in a key combo, by default Shift-F11 (can be changed in settings). This works better for capture than the sun wheel that sometimes got in the way, was easy to move, but then hard to find, and slow to respond to the click for crosshairs. Shift-F11 brings up the crosshairs right away.
Another tool that I like is Lightshot, but it's for static screen capture, not video. It's listed here
https://alternativeto.net/software/jing/
I also presented Lightshot in my English Language Specialist workshops in Thailand
http://workshops2020.pbworks.com/w/page/137978502/Model_Teacher_Unit_2#FreealternativestoJing
On that same page I cover more of the tools I use in my own blended learning environments
While on the page I can show it to the workshop participants, but I don't plan to cover these tools in this workshop as they are not tools that the participants can actually work with in the 1.5 hours I'll be with them, but they are definitely tools they'd want to know about.
Lightboards are also interesting tools to "know" about; again not something we can work with in this workshop
Parise, Jim. (2014, September 2). Lightboard at Notre Dame, College of Science - Introduction. https://youtu.be/5WIP1sByg-c
May, James. (2015, May 29). Lightboard Update! Circles of Innovation. https://youtu.be/BQfMKDaamwA
More info: https://lightboard.info/
Return to Workshop Orientation
These materials were compiled by Vance Stevens, https://learning2gether.net
You are free to share-alike and with attribution under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
The date of this update is July 18 2020 04:00 UTC
PBworks reclaims URLs when they have not been revisited for a year.
This wiki was visited and altered by adding this text on January 24, 2022
Edited January 9, 2023 by adding this text.
edited dec. 13, 2023