The first decade of the 21st century has already seen some strong web 2.0 features emerge. Web users can easily create, network, personalise, share and self-organise. So language-learning content also needs to be co-created and not just delivered by 'experts' but by teachers, school staff and learners. With English360 www.english360.com , a whole new approach to materials development and course design is now available. This method involves mixing and matching material from learners, their company, authentic web resources, mp3 or pdf files, and other shared resources from teachers worldwide. Teachers can also integrate their own course material seamlessly with 45+ Cambridge University Press titles that have recently been repurposed for online/blended delivery within the English360 platform. This new generation of content creation (which is free for educators) moves beyond the traditional book, photocopier or scissors-and-glue approach. It enables teachers to create tailor-made activities that are uniquely relevant (real-world) performance-based.
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English360 Mix & Match
1. Creating personalised blended learning paths for BE students BESIG Summer Symposium – 24 June 2011 University of Central Lancashire, UK Teaching Business English with Digital Technologies Valentina Dodge English360 Mix & Match
welcome bio – teaching / training Q: do you create personalised learning paths?
Some of the tools teachers use today
Web 2.0 – from the early ‘ noughties ’ - 2003/4 a platform which offers new possibilities for connecting and interacting with others instead of working on the Net, we can now network
we can far more easily and immediately provide distance learners with materials (no more postage costs or books getting lost in the post!!) speeds up the process of learners submitting work for us to review, too enables us to keep an automatically-retained digital record of everything that our learners have done
DELIVERY English360 provides you with CHOICES as to how to deliver course content: Y ou don ’ t need to change your approach high-quality printouts of all course content can be given out in class with access to the Internet, we can reduce the labour-intensive process of supplementing course books with ‘ cut and paste ’ worksheets. can provide our learners with consistently professionally-presented handouts handouts can be revised, added to, re-sequenced at any point these new digital tools enable us to bridge the divide between the classroom and independent learning beyond the classroom for homework and provision of supplementary materials freeing up F2F classes for skills development (speaking) and completion of performance-based tasks
Approach student-generated coaching task-based performance-based just-in-time teacher-generated emerging language lexical approach learner autonomy L earner-centred M aterials-light
Best of both worlds – combine them in one place, on English360 CUP content and own lesson plans
Listening to teachers ’ PAIN Looking through text books for activities Loading audio files Need to make lessons more relevant Headache from multiple accounts and passwords need to create quizzes or multiple choice Collate emerging language and consolidate understanding Link to up to date articles A llow for student generated activities interested in making the most of new opportunities available to me; incorporating new internet technologies into my teaching: example: BBC news podcasts + worksheets; researched news items; created PP slides and ‘ presented ’ news broadcast, videoed and played back to learners. example: told learners they ’ d create their own photo story; wrote it, took photos and created photo strip, adding speech bubbles. scoured Web for interactive activities to complement course book I was following, and supplemented with own extension activities that reflected more directly on my learners ’ experience. found it made course content more motivating, brought language focus covered by course book to life, and related it directly to their own experience.
Admiring teachers enthusiasm and creativity these technological advances have shaken up the teachers ’ offering for storage of lesson materials and learners results opportunities - a kind of technological ‘ cut and paste ’ to ‘ mash up ’ different types of content to share with our learners, but combining it seemlessly (replacing photocopier, cueing up video/audio, putting together worksheets) easier to update
drawing on all of these sources, we can provide highly personalised materials to our learners, targeting each individual ’ s needs, and helping them to achieve their specific learning objectives, whether this is in media, medicine, education or nursing, for example.
English360 ’ s been developed to make it easier for you to put together a personalised course for your learners, selecting activities from over 30 CUP titles, currently, with your own lessons. so, what is English360? English360 ’ s an online learning platform. provides ‘ tools ’ for you to choose from to help you create and deliver courses to suit your teaching context and learners, as well as an online filing cabinet that contains resources you can quickly access, edit and add to can also track learners ’ progress as said before, doesn ’ t require technical knowledge or that you download any software. a wide range of content types – not just texts and pictures, but also video, audio, links to websites, pdfs and interactive activities. English360 originally promoted to BE/ESP teachers, due to teaching background of Cleve Miller, the founder, but it can be used for general English teaching, too. many on the team are teachers – I personally have more experience of teaching general English, but some of my colleagues have a mainly BE or ESP background.
so, what exactly does the platform comprise? we ’ ve brought together all the strengths of Web 2.0 well, it ’ s NOT a course, as I ’ ve said before! Think of it as a toolbox containing: social software – integral emailing system, ability to leave feedback on learners ’ work that they can in turn comment on; use forums to generate discussion on a particular topic with your learners, you can extend your network of contacts. authoring tools – using a range of templates, you can quickly and simply create interactive activities to either print off for your learners to complete in class, or to complete online; these could be existing school activities you ’ ve uploaded onto the platform, be based on content from the Web; and could be cross-referenced with other components of your course (e.g. a workbook) content repository – CUP is the first publisher to see the benefit in working hand-in-hand with teachers in course preparation, and is providing a wealth of disaggregated BE, general English and ESP materials for teachers to select from, and incorporate into your course – in any order, and this could be a single activity, a unit from a course, or indeed an entire course. light, flat LMS – you can schedule classes and link them to specific pages on the integral calendar, identifying performance events, such as a presentation, exam or a Skype call, can track class attendance and generate reports, review learners ’ submitted work, provide feedback and monitor progress throughout the course. without the need for technical expertise or great expense, you can set up an account for your school, create bespoke courses for your learners guided by their completion of a digital needs analysis which automatically identifies their respective levels of need, and then pull in content from a range of sources and create interactive activities to guide your learners towards their learning objectives.
An example of a how a videos and audio summaries are embedded
An example of a how pdf downloads look
An example of a how a course looks when you ’ ve added content – you can get to this stage – creating folders into which you can then place content, from CUP and your own lesson plans and other school resources. Search for CUP content on imperatives, dealing with complaints, etc
An example of a how pdf downloads look
** who has an mp3 player / creates ‘playlists’?** you can quickly search for content relating to the area(s) you address in your course, and copy them in, in the same way that you can create ‘playlists’ on an mp3 player, to suit your mood iPod explanation, photo
Copy / Duplicate Organise tools manage content of courses you ’ ve created/of which a member easily in CO can copy, move, delete folders/pages/items of courses, and resequence items within folders/pages/items easily tailor each course to meet learners ’ needs
Copy / Duplicate Organise tools manage content of courses you ’ ve created/of which a member easily in CO can copy, move, delete folders/pages/items of courses, and resequence items within folders/pages/items easily tailor each course to meet learners ’ needs
Copy / Duplicate Organise tools manage content of courses you ’ ve created/of which a member easily in CO can copy, move, delete folders/pages/items of courses, and resequence items within folders/pages/items easily tailor each course to meet learners ’ needs
drawing on all of these sources, we can provide highly personalised materials to our learners, targeting each individual ’ s needs, and helping them to achieve their specific learning objectives, whether this is in media, medicine, education or nursing, for example.
Copy / Duplicate Organise tools manage content of courses you ’ ve created/of which a member easily in CO can copy, move, delete folders/pages/items of courses, and resequence items within folders/pages/items easily tailor each course to meet learners ’ needs
you only need to add the course title at this stage, and can later add an icon for that particular course, a description, and decide copyright Licence settings and whether you would like to provide discussion forums linked to the course, amongst other things.
you only need to add the course title at this stage, and can later add an icon for that particular course, a description, and decide copyright Licence settings and whether you would like to provide discussion forums linked to the course, amongst other things.
you only need to add the course title at this stage, and can later add an icon for that particular course, a description, and decide copyright Licence settings and whether you would like to provide discussion forums linked to the course, amongst other things.
you only need to add the course title at this stage, and can later add an icon for that particular course, a description, and decide copyright Licence settings and whether you would like to provide discussion forums linked to the course, amongst other things.
Redirect Change Review their opinions What did you like?
you only need to add the course title at this stage, and can later add an icon for that particular course, a description, and decide copyright Licence settings and whether you would like to provide discussion forums linked to the course, amongst other things.
you only need to add the course title at this stage, and can later add an icon for that particular course, a description, and decide copyright Licence settings and whether you would like to provide discussion forums linked to the course, amongst other things.
rather than working towards generalised goals, prepare learners for tasks that they will be required to perform, either within their company, their forthcoming studies or a post that they are being trained up to fill. base activities around genuine materials provided by the company or educational establishment the learner belongs to