Hello to all the attendees of the TESL Ontario workshop on Utilising Social Networking and Other Internet Sites in Language Teaching!
Thank you for choosing my workshop and the kind words you had to say afterward! I really hope you enjoyed it and can either use the suggestions for activities directly or adapt them to your specific contexts. Each introduction to a web application mentioned is meant to give examples, but definitely are not limited. With some preparation, I’m confident any number of skills or target language can be facilitated for a variety of levels.
As I mentioned, PDFs of the slides and a notes handout are available to grab if you click on the DOWNLOADS tab on this blog. They will be there indefinitely, so there’s no rush if you are in a hurry. Feel free to share them with coworkers and other educators.
Also, since the Twitter portion of the presentation was sped through more than I’d want (I hadn’t realised the useful questions many had would bite into the time so much nor that some of you had other workshops to start at 1PM–I’d read that there would be 30 minutes between sessions; evidently that is just with regards to the specific room!), I will create a blog post here that details more ways to use Twitter in the classroom and for your own personal development. Please check back within the next week for that!
Once again, thank you for your time. Please follow me on Twitter (@seburnt), comment on posts in this blog or get in touch with me via email (tyson@coursetree.ca). I’m always interested in an ongoing discussion about these or other language teaching-related topics. Teaching is collaborative and I’m sure we can all benefit from each other’s ideas.
Hi Tyson and thanks for the gentle push towards using social media in class. I really needed the encouragement as well as some creative ideas – and you’ve provided plenty. Will try my hand at these wonderful tools. Look forward to the Twitter post. Thanks again.
Thanks,Olga! I’m glad to hear that you’ll try your hand at some of the internet tools we looked at today. Hopefully you’ll welcome that gentle push towards Twitter eventually too.
Cheers and have a wonderful weekend!
Hi Tyson,
Thank you for being so generous with all your experiences with social media. You offered a lot of sources that can be easily applied to the classroom.
I tried out voti.com after your presentation. I had no trouble creating an avatar, and using my e-mail. However, how do students use this in a computer lab? Is there a way to collect all the avatars together for all the class to enjoy?
Hi Bonnie,
I’m happy to hear that you feel the sources are useful. Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with voti.com as I didn’t discuss it. In fact, it doesn’t seem to be a real site.
Possibly my brain isn’t working at the moment, but I can’t figure out which site you are referring to from my presentation. Could you clarify?
Cheers,
Tyson