ePals: An Online "Teacher's Convention" for Social Learning

By the day, more and more educators from all subject areas are becoming more aware of both the value of social learning and the ways in which the internet can make this more and more feasible. Particularly in second language learning settings, the ability for students to interact with other learners and even native speakers is extremely conducive to an enhanced learning experience. However, until the last 10 years, and even less than that in some cases, classes and student groups connecting with these learners or foreign language speakers has been difficult and rare, if not impossible.

Today, with the ever-expanding internet where more and more of the world is connected and able to communicate in real-time while on opposing sides of the globe, learners and educators have a much higher capability to learn a foreign language in a social context ; the way which many researchers suggest it is best accomplished. A large assortment of tools make this possible: social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, blogs such as those found on Blogger and eduBlogs, and of course individual websites of organizations and teachers all provide (either directly or through reference/links to other resources) a sort of populist assortment of learning tools. The problem with such an expansive battery of resources is that there is, to date, no centralized collection of these user-created tools that saves an educator valuable time and attention by presenting a vast selection of tools that are "peer-reviewed"; not in the research sense, but in terms of user-ratings. Using the internet, it is indeed very possible to get completely lost from the comfort of your home. One site, ePals, is potentially the start of a solution to this enduring road block in using the internet for focused social learning.

ePals  is an education technology website that connects users to learning networks that are both safe for students of all ages and effective. The fields of study and project foci are greatly varied but are targeted on the primary and secondary school levels. The bulk of the site in terms of value are the Member Projects. These projects are social learning plans that are not only designed by educators, but are in practice now. Even more, the site allows registered users to rate projects. Of course this is subjective, but it provides at least some means of sorting through the fog in an open-community to find projects that are truly advantageous.With a self-reported 700,000 users, ePals does have what could be seen as an overwhelming amount of "stuff" to share with you, but keeps them all in one space where you can search it, sort it, sneak a peak it it, then use it. Or move on to the next project.

As an example, one project I find interesting and with great potential in the field of social learning of an L2 is Far or Close Language Always Flows (A Culture and Language Project) submitted by an educator in Turkey and a partner in Italy. The project aims to allow teachers and students from different language backgrounds to share and teach language to each other using lexicon from a number of practical topics such as household items, food, clothes, animals, etc. The project puts students from the larger group into pairings to provoke them to both teach and learn their partner's language socially. The aspect of this project that these learning exchanges was precipitated by an actual, physical visit to one anothers' home countries. This may or may not be feasible, depending on many contextual and environmental circumstances, but, while ideal, may not be necessary thanks to tools like Skype and web-conferencing. That's what the site is all about... finding projects out there that you can use or that inspire you to modify them so they suit your class' situation. Visit the project's own external site to learn more about it.

So how do you take the above project and make it work if you can't afford 20 airline tickets from Buffalo to Paris? Well, another project of value to me that would aid in putting a modified project, as discussed above, into fruition virtually is Connecting Classrooms with Skype submitted by educator Betsy Weigle of South Carolina. This project attacks the hurdles of distant social learning. The project synopsis linked above shares the teacher's goals for this specific project: "...to open my classroom to the world by bringing children from Washington state and South Carolina together virtually to share insights on Native American cultures".They did this in a shared virtual classroom by doing research, creating PowerPoint point presentations and other digital exhibits, and maybe most importantly, verbal presentations. "Combining these presentation techniques with Skype allowed in-depth, real-time interaction on shared content," according to the submitter.

Of course, the topic of Native American cultures may not at all be pertinent to my L2 classroom or your own. But, the topic of study in the projects you find on ePals is not necessarily relevant at all. The biggest advantage of the site is the ideas the projects provide regarding how to teach a lesson socially and how to use technology to do it. This is how I would use this site in the future; not to carbon copy a project and duplicate it with my students. Rarely would all of the circumstances be the same to make such a duplication as effective as it could be. The networking of information and ideas that you can incorporate into the best possible use for your specific classroom is what makes this site great. Again, these benefits are amplified by its centralized nature, ease of "search-ability", and its user-ratings.

No Good Videos to Use in Your L2 Classroom? Make Your Own with Stupeflix!

Various means of multimedia and entertainment, such as film, music, online digital photography and so on are, in my opinion, well underrated in terms of their potential in augmenting L2 education as a whole and are thus under-utilized. Surely upon consideration, nearly any L2 educator can see the value that foreign language media and art can have as part of an immersion in L2 language and culture. So it follows that if a student can not in fact be physically immersed in an L2 environment, then certainly a kind of "sensory immersion" would be the next-best thing.

This is not to say that the arts, again meaning to include film and music, are not already frequently used in foreign language and second language classrooms; indeed, they are, though maybe not as much or in ways that they should. In addition, maybe you can't find enough of them that are "just right" for your usage, you'd like to do more with multimedia. Now the internet and its seemingly endless supply of applications and websites, provide students and educators with an opportunity to experience and create these modes of L2 inputs (and outputs, as it relates to the creation of multimedia discussed below) via the "cloud" from anywhere at anytime with a computer and an internet connection.

Of course viewing and listening to foreign language films and music, respectively, on the web or at home is not a new possibility. But the capability to use these art forms to put SLA into practice using written and orally-based L2 compositions to produce a personal audio-visual presentation (without the need to purchase editing software at exorbitant costs) is a relatively new advent.

An example of, but certainly not the only, web-based application / website for user-created multimedia productions is Stupeflix.

Stupeflix allows users, aftera short registration process (or a convenient option to log-in with one's Facebook or Google accounts), to upload personal photos or downloaded images (appropriately licensed ones, that is!) and join them with site-supplied video-esque backdrops and transitions to liven up a typical slideshow to a more feature-like exhibition. Allowing the addition of captions to tell the story and backing music from your own audio files, you are left with the potential for fun-to-produce, fun-to-watch, and even fun-to-grade L2 assignments. Below is a silly Stupeflix production I created based on a vacation I took a few years ago. While watching it, imagine that this type of presentation was elicited from a non-native speaker of English as part of a skills task...





So how do you turn something apparently goofy like this into an assessable exercise? Simply supply your students with a language-learning objective, be it proper usage of verb tenses, syntactical features, pronoun selection, newly introduced lexicon, or the appropriate location of negatory clauses. In fact, the options here are as endless as they would be for any standard writing assignment. Then, ask your students to tell a story with their own images (I prefer the usage of personal photos, as they are more expressive) while following those linguisitc features being assessed. Now you have a fun (possibly even fun-ny), engaging task what will be entertaining for the creator/student, his or her peers, and you, the instructor.


A key to successful and consistent SLA is prolonged interest and attention from the student. A "changing-up" of the methods and  means of working with the TL is critical to this. In addition, an aresenal of varying forms of input and output exercises provide greater contextual expanse and depth for linguistic interaction, helping to bettew attain L2 proficiency. Stupeflix, and its numerous counterparts, are excellent for fulfilling these roles.

VoiceThread: Speaking Aloud in the Cloud

When teaching your L2 students, do you find yourself wishing you could expand the discussion beyond the walls of the classroom? Are you instructing a "distance learning" course and feel you are not fully connecting with the students because oral communication is absent? Well, VoiceThread may be just the web-tool for you.

After a quick registration that takes no more than 5 minutes, you can get started right away. After creating your account, just click on the "myVoice" tab for step-by-step tutorials on how to get the most out of this web-based application. Suddenly, you are verbally communicating with your students through the "cloud."
Since the discussions are recorded, class participation can occur at the convenience of the instructor and the students. (Of course, the creators of VoiceThread were thoughtful enough to include the option to type comments in addition to audio recordings.)


A screenshot of a prepared VoiceThread with several users.


As for the content and objectives when utilizing this tool, the choice is up to you. You can do anything from simple discussions on a given topic led by the thread initiator to activities based on images uploaded by users. Tools such as the color wheel allow users to interact with images and "virtually draw" on posted images. Other features include the ability to upload webcam and/or audio files directly to the thread from your computer.

For some ideas, check out the following VoiceThreads created by fellow instructors: This VoiceThread by Wenjing Zhao is an example of a basic open discussion-based thread, this one amongst educators sharing their ideas on how VoiceThread might assist learning in an L2 classroom. This thread by Meng Zhang is an example of a "hands-on" L2 activity that utilizes the virtual drawing feature. Take a look and poke around to see exactly how these users made the most out of their own VoiceThread accounts. These are great examples of how to get started putting VoiceThread to good use with your class. Of course, the discussion can be about anything, and the images can be of anything (withing the confines of classroom appropriateness, of course).

However you see fit to use this interactive, user friendly tool, it surely provides educators one more asset, a tool in the belt so to say, that can increase interpersonal dialogue and class participation.

Digital Storytelling in L2 Learning



Screen capture from the Bookr website


Digital storytelling has not only become an important form of social media and expressive creativity, but it is steadily growing in its importance educationally. While many varying forms of social media can be considered a means of digital storytelling, from short fictional films and narrated presentations to online documentaries and musically-backed slideshows, one very simple but unique and fun way to share a story is with the webtool Bookr. With Bookr, users can search for photos on flickr that are part of the Creative Commons' licensing and legally use them with their own writing to publish a virtual mini-book on the internet.

While it can serve only as a toy for some creative and amusing illustrated tales, it can also serve the classroom as part of a short assignment that incorporates creative thinking with a personal touch that keeps both the writer / student and the reader interested. Here is an example of a short Bookr creation I have made to demonstrate how simple it is to manage either for personal or educational use, though it is maybe best-suited for older adolescents and adults (the Bookr tool and the example!).
Specifically for ESL or foreign language classrooms, a creative writing assignment utilizing Bookr can be an exercise in compositions skills, with the objectives of putting into practice one's proficiency levels in syntax, grammar, and lexical depth and flexibility. Also, in examining fellow classmates' projects and being asked to respond to the stories, reading comprehension can be evaluated.

One can picture a lesson where students are asked to compose an illustrated Bookr story with a given number of "pages." Part two of the assignment would ask students to expand on each others' stories by adding one slide to all of the other Bookr creations (depending on class size, of course). This would lead to a progressive story construction that would certainly be amusing while watching where the story leads. This assignment would provide a reasonable opportunity for an informal or possibly a formal (depending on rubric flexibility) assessment that examines the skills mentioned above.

Telling the Story of Education

Since the beginning of civilization, storytelling, in its spoken or written form, has been a key means for people to communicate information to one another. And, just as storytelling served an important role as an important (if not informal) educational tool thousands of years ago, it still does today. While the so-called "art of storytelling" is ever-changing, its value and impact is not.
While we may not huddle around a campfire for orally-relayed tales and accounts of events as frequently as they once have, there certainly is no shortage of storytelling in the 21st century. In fact, it may be becoming even more frequent. The advent of social media and photo-sharing internet tools, coupled with new websites and technologies that allow even amateurs to produce their own mini-films and productions allows more individuals to creatively tell their own stories - and in ways that are more refined and reach wider audiences.

by  mollyjolly 

This method, using technology and the internet, is now commonly referred to as "digital storytelling." This article from educause.edu defines it more clearly as "combining narrative with digital content, including images, sound, and video to create a short movie ... a set of slides with corresponding narration or music." With the tools currently available and continually in development for this form of sharing of creativity, it is impossible to limit the number of ways in which digital storytelling can be used for entertainment, cultural enrichment, communication, and yes, even education.
For some fields, such as media arts and communication, the role of digital storytelling in the educational process may be fairly obvious. In the modern media production industry, both small and large-scale, skills in using various computer software and an array of online tools are not just new trends, but a virtual necessity. In fact, many schools of higher education across the United States are recognizing this and incorporating digital storytelling into their curriculum.  Again, educause.edu sheds some light on this topic, citing the growing number of institutions including digital storytelling in their coursework. For example, the University of Houston, Carleton College, Maricopa Community Colleges, and Ball State University all offer programs with specialization in digital storytelling, according to the article. This outlines the growing importance in preparing individuals in how to use digital storytelling both for personal growth and professionally as an artist of sorts.

  by  digistorytellin

But what if you are already a professional, a teacher perhaps? More specifically, an ESL or foreign language teacher? Well, there's a digital story to be told for that, too. On this webpage from the University of Houston you can find some concrete examples of how digital storytelling can be used in a language education context. The aforementioned webpage explains how a short video can be used to expand vocabulary by helping students make visual-sound associations with new L2 terms. Expanding on that, it's not hard to imagine having your students use digital storytelling to work on their composition skills such as verb tenses and various grammatical and syntactical rules for the target language.
With students both composing their own and experiencing those of their fellow students, digital stories can serve as a catalyst for the sharing of personally meaningful narratives that keep the "producer"/ student interested and engaged and learning all the while.

Teachers Tweeting on Twitter?

As Twitter has swept the U.S. and to an extent the developed world by storm, there are seemingly two main types of people created by its arrival on the web: those who use it and love it, and those who have not heard any compelling reason to get their feet wet tweeting with their thumbs (and fingers, if you're at your computer).

After all,  using Twitter effectively can appear time consuming and seems like a full-time job for some (or something that they just do all day AT their full-time job). There is a middle ground, however.
More and more, professionals and specifically teachers are diversifying what this application can be used for. Undoubtedly most people have the conception that Twitter is no more than an endless stream of celebrity gossip and pompous athletes spouting off in between fawning and attention-seeking by the laypeople who subscribe to their accounts. Well, that is in fact what most people using it do, but by no means is it limited to this role. As this article by Dr. Ernesto Priego notes, Twitter has an amazing potential to keep instructors, researchers, authors, and even students just as tuned in to what is relevant in their respective fields as it does for keeping teenagers informed who may want to see what Lady Gaga or LeBron James had for lunch this afternoon.

Even more, Twitter along with other 'microblogging' apps and websites is changing the way many educators and researchers go about sharing their ideas, findings, and experiences. In some respects, it is the embodiment of the term "peer review" on the grandest of scales. Twitter is a so-called two-way street, where everyone who has others following their posts on Twitter (and without followers, you may as well write in a journal as this defeats the purpose of social networking) is subjected to responses by those followers. And just as with the tweeting celebs, inevitably some of the responses will be critical, or downright negative, but this is the point - putting your ideas out there, along with recommended articles, possibly some original writing of your own, your research, etc. so that the tweeting public (including your colleagues, peers and even students) can check these things out, and Tweet back their opinion after following your links or reading your thoughts.

Beyond the dissemination of information and resources, it serves as a great tool to get in touch with others in your field of work. In this regard, it is as much a professional networking tool as it is a social networking tool, and you might find more people in one day on Twitter who can be of some use to you than you will in a life time of conferences and brunches through any professional organization. How much you pursue these new connections will determine where it takes you. If you're still not sold, check out this blog post by an edu-blogger for a first-hand account of how Twitter might impact you as a professional, teacher or otherwise.

Of course, I would be remiss to ignore the downfalls of Twitter, and there are indeed negatives that will turn people off. for instance, if you simply use a Twitter account and start following a educator or ESL researcher, you will get every post they make about ESL, linguistics, teaching technology, and so on. The bad part is, you will also be subjected to every tweet they post about their drive to work, the rude woman in line at the grocery store, and their complaints about their bratty kids (just examples of course). In short, anything they say, you will receive on your Twitter feed. There are ways around this with additional applications and tools, and this article is a good way to get started in figuring out how to filter out the junk from the meaningful information that really is available on Twitter.

As in the world in general, the seas can be rough, but if you navigate well, the journey through Twitter can be rewarding. Will it revolutionize the way education functions as the first article suggest? Well that's probably a stretch from someone in an early infatuation with the Twitter-verse, but nonetheless it is part of a networking revolution. It won't make one a better teacher necessarily, but it can definitely help you get there, and as a user, I would recommend it to even the very slightest tech-savvy individual.

A Learner in 2012 is Like...

Today’s leaner, in ESL, other L2 learning, and virtually all categories might be compared a helicopter pilot in a war zone. Of course, though sometimes painful, no one’s life should be at risk while enduring the learning process. Likewise, you probably would probably hope to never hear the word ‘learning’ if you were experiencing such a helicopter ride.

Nevertheless, the short-term chaos and ever-changing situation that a pilot would face while trying to complete his objective is probably a good metaphor for today’s learner in their long-term objective of gaining mastery over a certain field. Though the learning process never truly ends, if one were to examine this comparison in terms of reaching a certain stage in learning development as the objective, the analogy becomes more clear.

Basing this comparison on George Siemens’ theory of Connectivism (Siemens, 2005) as a model of the learning process, we can illustrate this idea more clearly. While connectivism would state that “a diversity of opinions” is the dominant factor over the learning and knowledge acquisition process, certainly in such a situation as navigating a chopper in a hostile environment would require not only trained skill and instincts, but also intellectual decision making. The best course of action for a pilot may vary considerably from one pilot to another based on his own ideas, what his instructors have trained him to do in the past, and what his superiors might be telling him at the moment. Likewise, learner must consider all that he has already been taught, his or her own experiences in the past and compare this with the task at hand.

The second principal explains that connecting “specialized nodes” and other information sources is how the learning process works. Imagine our pilot at the helm, taking advice and intelligence from other pilots, sources on the ground, his own visual field, and the array of dials and displays in his cockpit: fuel gauges, radar, infrared displays, and so forth. He must ‘connect the dots’, compiling and processing all of these inputs and formulate a course of action. A learner in today’s world also has an array of educational tools and resources, and must successfully make similar connections to acquire knowledge in a useful and efficient manner. Similarly, this same description can be used to draw comparisons to principal three, that learning may come from within “non-human appliances.” While a pilot will rely non-human tools like dials, meters, radars, etc. to complete his objective, a learner may use an assortment of technology tools in his or her journey, including internet tools like blogs, social networking, software applications and so on.

Building on those points, we can examine Siemens’ discussion in his video The Network Is the Learning. Here he says “Adding a node to a network increases the entire network.” Let’s say our pilot is suddenly given one more tool, or node, to add to his intelligence network, such as a location of an enemy threat via a source on the ground behind enemy lines. This piece of information, or knowledge, does not just stand on its own. It will change how every other piece of information is viewed and what steps will be taken. It increases the value of all the other ‘nodes’. Likewise, when a learner is given a new tool, or a node, his learning potential can increase ten-fold from that one new node. For example, an L2 learner may come across a new blog on ESL. Within this blog, the learner may find countless new learning strategies, links to additional sites previously un-encountered, and start networking with other learners and teachers. This provides new nodes, but increases the value of the old ones by providing new ways to use them, thus exponentially strengthening the network.

Principal four states that the capacity to know more if of greater significance than what one already knows. Of course a learner will continuously, and probably forever, draw on previous knowledge, it maybe even very old indeed. But much knowledge becomes obsolete very quickly. To stay relevant, the learner must be capable of further acquisition. Our pilot, too, will need to use what he has learned over the entire course of his training, but he also can’t go ‘stale’ , so to speak. His situation is changing every second and he must adapt and be able react properly in new, unseen circumstances.  Principals six through eight are similar to one another, seemingly echoing this point. This further helps us illustrate this metaphor.

If you’ve decided you would now rather like to become a fighter pilot and seek that path of adventure, good luck. But if you are still interested in learning more about theories of learning (that would also apply to ESL) and the effects of technology on the learning process, you can read the entirety of Siemens’ article on connectivism at via this link. The video on connectivism referenced above can be seen here: The Network Is the Learning.