Interview with Dr. Matthew W. Stoltzfus, Chemistry Lecturer and Faculty Fellow, Digital First Initiative at Ohio State University OSU's General Chemistry course with "Dr. Fus" enrolled over 100,000 iTunes U students in the first year it was offered!We answer the questions:Why not use Khan Academy?What recording technology is used?Who does the video editing and iTunes U management?Is the course linked to a textbook?Was the MOOC concept accepted by faculty?What's the ROI for using iTunes U?Are there incentives for faculty to produce these MOOCs?How much effort was put toward marketing?Flipping the classroom: what activities are done in class?LinksGeneral Chemistry at OSUPaperShowCamtasiaLearning CatalyticsiTunes U Content Tops One Billion Downloads (Feb '13)Using Inquiry and the Scientific Method to Enhance Face to Face Time with StudentsPodsafe music selection from Music AlleyThe Christmas Season by Devo Spice, a comedy rapper from New Jersey who has become one of the most popular artists on the nationally syndicated Dr. Demento ShowDuration: 27:43

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. David Pearce, a Digital Learning Manager at Oxford University Press, looks at the issues surrounding the implementation of digital technology in the classroom. David will be presenting on this topic at IATEFL 2015 on Sunday 12th April. A charming image created in 1910, by the French artist Villemard, attempted to depict what a classroom would look like in the year 2000. To the right of the image stands a hand-cranked machine with a feeding chute at the top. A boy stands over the handle, cranking it round as the bewhiskered school master feeds books into the chute. Wires run from the machine to the ceiling of the classroom, leading eventually to headsets worn by the attentive pupils. Knowledge, ground out of the pages of the books and metamorphosed into some kind of energy, is transferred directly to their brains. The scene says as much about the theory of knowledge at the time as it does about the imagined labour-saving transformations of technology. We are now less inclined to believe that learning is about the passive reception of knowledge. These days we think of knowledge as something actively constructed by the learner, and of knowledge as being only one part of learning, with skills like collaboration, communication and critical thinking forming as big a part, if not bigger, of what students need to learn. As for the technology portrayed, part of the charm of the image lies in how naïve the machinery seems to us, reflecting a time when the electrification of life was starting to become commonplace, it’s possibilities apparently boundless. And yet Villemard was surprisingly accurate. A lot of the features of the 21st century classroom are as he depicted them. The classroom itself remains, there are still children seated at desks, and there is still a teacher presiding over events. And of course there are still lots and lots of books. We may not be grinding them into energy to beam straight into our students’ heads, but we are grinding their contents into data to go online, or into e-books, or onto interactive whiteboards. And perhaps we still hope that technology will somehow make the job of learning effortless - this is what the picture seems to say to me. The centrepiece, however, is the machinery itself: for the time it is modern, bizarre, and a little bit fantastic. And isn’t this what a lot of us feel about the technology we’re expected to use with our own students? Although the technology depicted seems strange to us, is it any more bizarre than the actual technology we’ve ended up with? Just as Villemard was an artist working when electricity had become an everyday reality with boundless potential, we live at a time when the same thing is happening with digital technology. Making sense of its potential is not always straightforward. My workshop - "Digital or Analogue: Making Choices About Technology in Lesson Planning" - is intended for those educators who want to bring modern technology into their classrooms, but who may be unsure about how or when to use it. There are lots of reasons why using technology might be difficult: a lack of expertise or confidence, inadequate equipment, poor internet connectivity - and sometimes simply not knowing where to start. In the workshop we will explore together how simple principles can be applied in our everyday teaching, and how small changes to our practice can build technology into what we do. Learning with technology may not be as effortless as Villemard suggested it might be, but teaching with it needn’t be a grind.Filed under: IATEFL, Multimedia & Digital, Professional Development Tagged: EdTech, Educational technology, EFL, ESL, IATEFL, Language learning, Technology in education

I can always tell when there has been a learning event somewhere in the world, because I suddenly get a whole raft of new Twitter followers coming through at once, instead of the trickle that is the daily norm.I don't use any auto-refollow tools, so there is always a bit of a lag as I catch up, because I go through the list 'by hand' and decide whom to follow (or not).I tweeted about this after the recent Learning Technologies conference and was asked:This is a question I get quite often, so let me give a comprehensive answer in a space that affords me more than 140 characters for the purpose.First, and almost without saying - no spambots, as David mentions. It isn't always easy to tell a spambot right off the bat - they're getting devilish smart. But a few indicators are:Their names are often firstname+number. So Maxine1234 (or something like that) would have me doubting her humanity from the outset. However, I do have some Twitter friends whose names are something along those lines, so it's just a rule of thumb, not an absolute.They tweet the same flipping thing (or a few very similar flipping things) over and over and over again.They have no biography.They follow thousands of people (and may be followed by a similarly large number), but have only ever tweeted a handful of times.Second, I like to see a bio, and the more interesting or quirky it is, the better. For example, my Twitter friends' bios include such lines as:Dad, entrepreneur, and Star Wars freak (@dbswe)I'm all about learning, fashion, football, social media + cricket, not always in that order :) (@kategraham23)Often laughing. Always learning. Collaborating nonstop. You ready? (@marciamarcia)I'm passionate about training, L&D. I also bake fantastic chocolate cake. (@susiefinch)You see? You know something about these people already. You know that Dave (@dbswe) takes being a Dad more seriously than he takes himself. You know that Kate defies stereotypes with girly girl interests and a love of sport. You know that Marcia is all systems go, and she'll take you with her if you give her half a chance. You know that Susie doubles as a homebody and would be good company over a cup of coffee. Real people. Just like you.I also prefer a link to a blog/website, so I can get an idea of what floats your boat. If there is no bio or blog link, only a kick*ss series of tweets will get me following you. If you're following me on my @learninganorak account, it must be because we share a passion for learning (I have a personal account for more eclectic musings). So I will visit your page, and see what you tweet about. If you only ever tweet quotable quotes, homilies and truisms forget it. I want to know what you think! If you only ever retweet (RT) what someone else has posted, hmm... probably forget it, too. I can read those things first time around. Don't get me wrong, I use the RT feature a lot myself, and I appreciate it when other people do, too. But if that's all you do, what value are you adding?And if you only ever tweet about one narrow subject, such as LMSs or PSS or whatever, then after a couple of days, I'll probably have read everything you're likely to say.Twitter is a conversation. A hectic, everyone-talking-at-once conversation, and it is my number 1 personal learning tool. So... contribute already.I don't choose to follow only those people who agree with me. How boring would that be? I could sit at home and talk to myself (yes, you're right - I do that, too!), but if you're going to disagree (with me or anyone else), be grown-up about it. I can't be doing with name-calling, peeing contests (to put it politely) and slanging matches. I think that's about it, really. I know it sounds like a lot, but I'm not really that precious. I do follow over 900 people, and keeping up with them is a tall order. How people manage with thousands, I have no idea! Maybe I'll find out one day.

Interview with Claudia Reuter, Founder and CEO of SchoolChapters, Inc.Pruvalu by SchoolChapters is an integrated ePortfolio for Higher Education.We answer the questions:What is Pruvalu used for? Institution AccreditationStudent Assessment and EvaluationStudent Personal PortfoliosStandards-Based Faculty PortfoliosDoes it integrate with the LMS?Does it support mobile devices?Does it integrate with Facebook or LinkedIn?Related ePortfolio LinksRPP #100: TaskStream: Interview with Courtney PeaglerRPP #97 Interview with Trent BatsonRPP #10 Electronic PortfoliosPodsafe music selection from MagnatuneVivaldi: Concerto No. 4 in G Minor "Winter" (Allegro movement) from The Four Seasons by the American Baroque Orchestra. Duration: 26:00

Prior to becoming an Editor for Oxford University Press, Mexico, Lysette Taplin worked as an English language teacher and author for a number of primary and secondary series. In this post she promotes World Poetry Day by sharing some practical tips to use in the ELT Classroom. Poetry is an effective tool in English language teaching as it enlivens the class, giving the students a motivational buzz while stimulating their creative writing. The emphasis on the sounds and rhythm of language aids students’ phonological awareness, building a foundation for correct pronunciation and intonation, which in turn has a strong correlation to proficiency in reading and listening. In order to celebrate World Poetry Day, this blog aims to present a selected poem from the OUP series Step Inside and provide ideas for ways to exploit poetry in the English language-learning classroom. As an ELT Editor for OUP, I had the opportunity to work on an inspiring series of reading anthologies for primary school students. The series Step Inside promotes extensive reading by using texts from a variety of genres, including poetry, fables, myths and legends, fairy tales, fiction, non-fiction, and comics. The following excerpt has been selected from a poem included in Step Inside, level 4: Wayne the Stegosaurus Written by Kenn Nesbitt Meet the Stegosaurus, Wayne. He doesn’t have the biggest brain. He’s long and heavy, wide and tall, But has a brain that’s extra small. He’s not the brightest dinosaur. He thinks that one plus one is four. He can’t remember up from down. He thinks the sky is chocolate brown. Using poetry to teach pronunciation This humorous poem can be used to focus students on English pronunciation by working with rhyme. In your class, put students into pairs and give each pair the lines of the poem cut up into strips. Have them work together to identify and group the lines that end in rhyming pairs. Tell students that rhyming pairs are two words that end in the same sound, for example Wayne and brain, tall and small. Highlight some of the difficult spelling patterns, for example Wayne, brain; tries, eyes; white, night, etc. while emphasizing the pronunciation of each of the sounds. Then, tell students that they are going to create a rhyming chain. Instruct students to choose four rhyming pairs from the poem and write down as many other words that rhyme as they can. Have some volunteers write their rhyming words on the board to check answers as a class. Next, read the poem aloud and have students order the lines from the poem. Ask volunteers to read the poem aloud to check answers as a class. Rhyming Schemes The pattern of rhymes in a poem is labelled with the letters A, B, C, D, etc. To identify the rhyming scheme, tell students to look at the last word in each line. Tell them to label the first set of lines that rhyme with A, then label the second set B, etc. In the case of the poem above, the rhyming scheme for each stanza is AABB because the first two lines in the stanza rhyme with each other as do the last two lines. Below is an example of an ABCB rhyming scheme, excerpt taken from Step Inside, level 2: Art Class Written by Penelope McKimm Art class can be lots of fun, With so many things to do! Cutting, coloring, painting, drawing, Sticking things with glue! Have students illustrate the poem Have students work in groups of six. Encourage them to think about what happens in each of the stanzas and then, choose one of the stanzas to illustrate. When they have all finished illustrating their stanzas, have them put them in order and present their work to the rest of the class. Writing Give students a handout of a poem with some words missing. It could be the same poem students were working with before, or a different poem. Wayne the Stegosaurus Written by Kenn Nesbitt Meet the Stegosaurus, __________. He doesn’t have the biggest __________. He’s __________ and __________, __________ and __________, But has a __________ that’s extra __________. Put students into pairs and have them brainstorm words to complete the gaps. Encourage them to include rhymes, but tell them that they can change the rhyming scheme if they wish. Another activity which provides students with scaffolding for their poem is to tell them to write a five line poem with the following structure: First line: a noun Second line: four adjectives Third line: an action Fourth line: how you feel about the noun Fifth line: the noun This activity can be carried out individually or in pairs or small groups. Encourage students to use a thesaurus to think of exciting adjectives, for example superb instead of good. Below is an example of a five-line poem T. Rex Fierce, fast, green and scaly Goes out hunting daily Makes me shiver to the bone T. Rex Both students and teachers often tend to fear poetry, but by providing the proper scaffolding, we advocate creativity and give our students sense of accomplishment. As teachers, we need to make it clear to our students that it is okay to make mistakes. The most important thing is to let their imaginations run wild, and then have them go back and edit their work once they are finished. Please note that not all titles are available in every market. Please check with your local office about local title availability.Filed under: Grammar & Vocabulary, Teenagers, Young Learners Tagged: Activities, Creative writing, Intonation, phonological awareness, Poems, poetry, poetry activities, Pronunciation, rhyme, rhyming scheme, Step Inside, teaching with poems, World Poetry Day, Writing

Interview with Charley Miller, Head of Product at TouchCastTouchCast is a new startup out of bMuse from New York that is reinventing video content creation using touch via the iPadWe answer the questions:What is TouchCast?How is it different from other video editors?What is a Vapp?How do you create and play a TouchCast?What is TouchCast Cloud Collaboration?Linkswww.touchcast.comTouchCast on iTunesTouchCast ExamplesGreen Screen Augmented Reality Technology to Use in the ClassroomNEW! TouchCast Cloud CollaborationPodsafe music selection from MagnatuneVivaldi: Concerto No. 1 in D Major (Spring, 1st Movement) from The Four Seasons by the American Baroque Orchestra. Duration: 24:54

While I was adding a new recipe to my cookery blog this morning, I remembered the little tuck shop that I had for my kids when they were really small. I remembered it with great fondness, but it occurred to me that it might fill some people with horror that I was prepared to take money from my children. In fact, it was a wonderful learning experience for us all, so I thought I might share it here:When the kids were little, I chose not to go back to work full time, operating instead as a freelance training consultant with a few other odds and ends thrown into the mix, and working on an ad hoc basis. This choice meant that money was tight. So we couldn't really afford to give our children large amounts of pocket money, but we did want them to learn about having money, spending it, saving it and so on. We knew that they would want to buy sweets, but a single packet of sweeties cost more than we could afford to give them. So I hit on the idea of Mom's tuck shop.I would buy packets of sweeties and empty them into a large Tupperware cake container. I also used to make things myself (one of which is on my cookery blog today) to go into the container. Then, each day after lunch, I would open Mom's tuck shop. I would stand one one side of the kitchen counter, and they would stand on chairs on the other with their coins clasped in their little fists and select individual sweeties from what was on offer. There was a whole role play thing involved. I would call them 'young sir' and talk to them as if they were terribly important customers whose patronage was the highlight of my day (which, I don't mind telling you, it was - I'm all choked up, just remembering it!).Of course, the sweets were heavily subsidised. I didn't want to make my money back. I wanted them to experience the purchasing process. Looking back now: the early spending patterns are still in evidence. My elder son was somewhat tight with his money. He carefully figured out how to get the largest return in his investment, and would often choose to go without rather than part with his wealth. This is still the case today. My younger son bought two of everything: one for him, and one for "Daddy, when he comes home." I don't think Daddy ever tasted anything sweeter! My younger son is still generous to a fault, and will happily blow everything he has on a single gift (but he is learning a little caution).Of course, they sometimes wanted to buy things that weren't available from the tuck shop. Then they would have to save up to go to a real shop. And this meant standing by while the other child bought his daily sweeties - going without for the sake of the reward being saved for. It used to break my heart to see the longing, but it was an important lesson, so I clenched my teeth and took a big girl pill.I have to confess that the interest rates on savings accounts at the Bank of Dad were brilliant: save for five weeks and you'll get double! My elder son often went that route. My younger son, not so much.Mom's tuck shop didn't form part of our lives in England - by then both boys were at school, and the English school day goes on into the afternoon (unlike the South African school day which ended at lunch time). When they were 13, our boys were switched from pocket money to an allowance, with which they had to buy their own clothes, airtime, toiletries, etc. (except for anything to do with school or sports club commitments) we carry those costs.When they hit 18, the allowance is increased to include train fares, and they have to learn to budget for the termly expense.But I will never forget Mom's tuck shop. Maybe I will introduce it with my grandchildren one day...

Victoria Murphy, Professor of Applied Linguistics and author of Second language learning in the early school years: Trends and Contexts, shares her thoughts on the importance of L2 development in childhood, ahead of her forthcoming talk at IATEFL 2015 on Tuesday 14th on the same subject. How children learn second languages has long interested me. Looking back, even from a very young age I was fascinated with the notion of bilingualism. As a child growing up in Ottawa, Canada I was fortunate in that I had very early second language instruction - indeed I was taught French as part of my pre-school and kindergarten education. When I was in grade 3 I recall that a very nice lady came into the class and told us that if we were interested in having all of our school day in French in grade 4, that we should take the letter she was distributing home to our parents and get them to sign it. I vividly remember how excited I was then at the prospect of speaking French for the whole day! Little did I know then that I was to end up participating in an early cohort of French Immersion education, a form of bilingual education that I would later go on to study as an academic. That very early interest in bilingualism stuck with me and eventually motivated me to go on and study Linguistics and Psychology at undergraduate level and then as part of my graduate work examine more closely some of the mechanisms which underpin child L2 learning. Why is child L2 learning important? More than ever I believe the field of child L2 learning, and particularly the role that formal education has in developing plurilingual citizens, is critically important to our futures, for a variety of reasons, which include social, economic, political and cognitive perspectives. I think too that we need to have a much better understanding of the factors and influences that shape successful L2 development in childhood, and again, to identify more precisely the role that educational policy, schools and teachers can play in determining successful L2 outcomes. This understanding is all the more important because increasingly governments around the world are lowering the age at which children are being taught a foreign language as part of their formal primary education.  However, the evidence which directly examines questions about the most effective or appropriate age at which to teach foreign languages to younger children is mixed, where some studies clearly show advantages to older learners while other studies argue for benefits to young learners. One worries (at least I do) that the reason why governments are making these decisions is due to a generally held belief that ‘younger is better’ in language learning in general, and L2 learning in particular. Without a doubt there is plenty of evidence in the literature to demonstrate age of acquisition effects, and clear relationships between the age of the learner and their L2 outcomes. Contributing factors for L2 learning However, many other variables are implicated in this relationship in addition to age (i.e., it is not just the age of the learner that determines the ultimate success of L2 learning). This is the point of the volume Second language learning in the early school years:  Trends and Contexts. I wanted to show that by examining L2 learning across a range of young learner contexts - where the children in each context can be argued to be at an advantage age-wise - we see that age is not the only, and probably not even the most critical, variable in determining the success of L2 learners.  Implementing policy to formally teach L2/Foreign Language to children, or developing bilingual education programmes to help support different languages, ought to be considered within a solid understanding of the research that identifies what we can realistically expect of L2 learners across different contexts. Furthermore, particularly in those contexts where children’s bilingual development is being supported by the school, we need to pay very close attention to the nature of the provision in these different bilingual or L2 programmes so as to ensure that we offer maximal support for the development of the L2 (while at the same time maintaining and developing the L1). It is my hope that the discussions in the volume Second language learning in the early school years:  Trends and Contexts will be informative in identifying major themes and issues in different contexts of child L2 learning, and that possibly, future generations of educational policy makers will make decisions concerning educational provision with a greater awareness of the complexity of child L2 development.Filed under: IATEFL, Young Learners Tagged: English Language Teaching, First language, L2, Second language learning in the early school years: Trends and Contexts, Victoria Murphy, Young Learners

Interview with Ray Henderson, Chairman, In The TellingIn The Telling is a platform and service that helps educators deliver Flipped Instruction.We answer the questions:What is In The Telling all about?What market does it serve? What is synchronized transmedia?How does it flip the classroom? Is it like Lecture Capture?Does it use open standards?Who are some of your clients? Linkshttp://inthetelling.com/pulsepodcast/ (Higher Ed Examples)e-Literate TVPodsafe music selection from Music Alley"New Soul" by Yael Naim, the acclaimed singer/songwriter from Israel, from her album Yael Naim. 'New Soul' gained fame as the music played during Apple's Macbook Air ad campaign.Duration: 28:31

In my last job, I worked with a director who was a font of witty labels. One of these was the 'zone of absurdity' (the other labels in the graphic are mine), which arose during a discussion on the stages of performance support.Initially, we bumble about in the dark. Things aren't going quite as they should, and we're not sure why. During this phase, the biggest obstacles arethe people who refuse to acknowledge that there is a problem at allthe people who are part of the problem and are frantically trying to deflect blame onto someone elsethe people who know where the problem lies, and consider it a personal triumph that their team isn't it (this time)During this stage, the important thing is to find out what is going wrong, not to attach blame. When we figure out what the problem is, we move into the zone of potential. Now that we understand the problem, we can figure out how to solve it. The AA and various other support organisations will tell you that admitting what the problem is, is the most important step. In a blame culture, it is hard to achieve this stage, and even harder to stay in it. In this stage, we need to stay focused on finding a solution. What have we already got that we can use? What do we need to set in place? What resources do we need? All that malarkey. We're aiming for that optimal, target zone.This is not to say that everything runs smoothly in the target zone, but we stand a far better chance when we're all in the know. Of course, this is an almost mythical zone, because before we get here, the challenge changes and we start again.But my biggest bug bear is the zone of absurdity. The zone in which the solution is known, although the problem has not been defined. Sensible people like you have never even visited this zone, of course, so you can't even imagine what it looks like. Well, I encountered a small example of it yesterday, which I will share with you.I was in the grocery store picking up ingredients for last night's dinner. I had only a few items in my basket, so I headed for the self-service checkouts. One of the items was a single Granny Smith apple. I weighed it and placed in the bagging area, as instructed by the faceless lady who voices the tillpoint programme. But it seems she wasn't really ready for me to place it in the bagging area, because she had a slight seizure. The supervisor came over and set about impressing me with her speed and efficiency... dashing headlong into the zone of absurdity.She didn't even look at the instruction on the screen. She didn't even pause to listen to my explanation of what had happened. She logged in with her magnetic key thingy, pressed this button and that button and sashayed off again, not even noticing that a completely different error message had appeared on the screen. I had to call her back. With equal speed, and with similar lack of interest in the details, she pressed a second sequence of keys. At this point, there was no error message, but I now had a Granny Smith apple in my bag, although I hadn't been charged for it. I removed it from the bag and gave the voice-over lady another seizure. She begged me to return the item to the bag, even though doing so meant she would be giving it to me free of charge.As the supervisor headed to my till for a third time the security guard standing near me said, "She isn't really paying attention, is she?"I'm sure the supervisor lady thinks she's very efficient. She bustles about, pressing keys faster than anyone. But she makes no effort to identify the problem before she applies a solution. Net result? Three visits to a single till to resolve the issue of one Granny Smith apple worth 27p.Sigh.Absurd.