Hello!

This week I was invited to do a remote professional development on “Easy Tech for Language Learners” for Westboro Academy in Ontario Canada.  We used YouTube Live & it was AWESOME!

One of the “easy tech” ideas I would suggest is the tech you have in your pocket or your purse.  Do you by chance own a phone that takes video?

Here is an example of a 2 min video I made when I was recently in Austin, Texas.

I used to show these in class.  I still do but now I am asking students to check the class Facebook page to see if I’ve made any videos for them to think about.

This opens the class with a lot of questions! Many of the students have been thinking critically about topics before they come to class.

One more example of a video I made for my ESL students when I was in Galveston recently.

I work with language learners so an added benefit here is that some of the students have begun making their own “pocket videos” and sharing them with the class.  Here is Sonbul who was making a video DURING class.  I wasn’t upset because his video was for another student at a different school who had sent a video to us for inspiration.

The digital communication has been fun!  Recording video messages seems to work better for my ESL students than live video chats.  They are much less nervous and lots of payoff from the practice.

There are, of course, many other things you can do with the record feature on an ipad or phone.  Authentic messages of communication for ESL students are just one that is working for us.

Hope that is useful!

Happy Teaching!
Carol