Picks from Rod's Podcaster Guide and E-Learning NewsHigherEd Camp Philly - follow-up and link to their Ning community siteDoes Google Wave Mean the End of the LMS? - The Chronicle is asking whether Blackboard can be replaced by WordPress. How about Google's Wave as a replacement for the LMS?Blind Search - What happens when you remove the branding from Google, Yahoo and the new Microsoft "Bing" search engines? Livescribe Pulse SmartpenReviewThis computer in a pen records audio while you take notes on special "dot paper". Play back the audio by tapping on your hand written notes, dock the pen to recharge and simultaneously sync to your PC, and share notes and audio."Pencasts" are a great solution for student note taking and faculty who want to describe and animate difficult concepts.See my demo Pencast on Podcasting: Pencast on Podcasting by Rod Murraybrought to you by Livescribe Podsafe Music Selection from the MusicAlley by Mevio (aka Podsafe Music Network) "Summertime" by Brother Love - one of the most popular tracks on the network Duration: 13:09

Professional Development Services teacher trainer, Stacey Hughes, invites you to share your ideas. In our recent travels, we’ve seen some amazing and creative uses of digital technologies in the classroom.  As e-course books and educational apps become more common and as teachers begin to see the potential of online practice, they are finding innovative ways to use these tools to help motivate students and help them learn.  We have started asking teachers, "How do you improve language skills with e-books, apps, iTools, iTutor and online practice?" Here are some of the responses we’ve had so far. iTools: I love working with iTools because it allows me to make new practice activities that used to take me ages to make before the digital age. One of my favourite features is the thick white pen I can use to erase the words of a text.  For example, I erase the words of a picture story, children look at the pictures only and in pairs/small groups they have to come up with a dialogue that matches the messages of the images. This can entirely the same as the original or they could add to it depending on their language level. Once they have their dialogues, they practise them in pairs and finally act it out in front of the class. As children are the ones who choose the language to be used, it motivates them immensely and it helps develop their speaking skills. - Erika Osváth, Hungary iTutor: I like to get my students to prepare tasks for each other when they watch the video clips on their Headway iTutor. I ask students to choose one clip from the unit, watch the clip at home and prepare some simple questions/true or false statements/etc. about it. They then find a partner who has prepared a different clip to them and exchange tasks. They watch the clip at home and do the tasks. Some students like to give their partner feedback on the tasks e.g. language accuracy. This activity not only helps students to develop their listening skills but also allows them to create tasks that are the right level for their peers. - Jules Schoenmann, UK. A phrase a day app: At the end of the lesson, we (teacher and students) decide on the words/phrases to learn, aka ‘words of the lesson’.  For homework, students have to find a phrase based on one of the words of the lesson in their ‘phrase a day‘ app .  We don’t know which phrase each student has chosen. The only thing students have to do is write it down in their notebook. Their task in the next lesson is to use the phrase naturally in the course of the lesson at any time.  So, you need to make sure you offer some opportunities for speaking. You can do it the ‘competitive way’: the student who uses their phrase first wins. You may do it the ‘responsible way’: Each student is responsible for making sure they use it during the lesson. You nod approvingly when they do so - don’t worry, students will look at you the moment they’ve used it or even let you know loudly! You can do it the ‘hilarious way’ as an activity in itself: pick students in pairs across the table/room, or students next to each other. The situation is this for each pair: They are travelling on a train to a distant destination (tell them where). They are complete strangers and bored to tears. There is nobody else in the compartment.   So they decide to start chatting. The thing is that they have to use their phrase naturally in the course of the chat. So they have to steer the conversation.   Students are given no time to prepare and each pair improvises their chat in front of the class in turns.  It can be slow, fast, awkward at times but always surreal and hilarious, but never embarrassing for students. Just let them improvise and allow ‘silences’.  You’ll all have a jolly good laugh! - Anna Parisi, Greece. Let’s create a teacher’s resource! How do you use OUP digital resources? We are interested in your ideas! Please comment below how you use OUP ebooks, apps, iTools, iTutor, iWriter, and Online Practice. Let’s use each other as a resource and see how many new ideas we can share on this blog.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Multimedia & Digital, Teenagers Tagged: Apps, ebooks, iTools, iTutor, iWriter, Online Practice, Stacey Hughes, Teaching Resources

Here is a woman whose point of view very closely reflects my own. There are some things that simply cannot be quantified.I can’t believe nor understand how many companies can’t also accept the fact that deeper and broader personal connections can net stronger business ties, too, whether or not you can capture the data proof points that bear that out. It’s been that way since the dawn of time.Read the whole post here.

Picks from Rod's Podcaster Guide and E-Learning NewsBlackboard Pledges to Follow Open Standards - Blackboard’s Ray Henderson, pledges that the company will do more to follow industry software standards.Need to Learn Medicine? There's an App for That - The Medical College of Georgia is providing free health science education apps for their students.Harnessing the Power of Social Networks in Teaching &Learning - Dr. Alec Couros addresses social networking and education: open courses, control of knowledge, pedagogy, creative commons, and more.I'll Take My Lecture to Go, Please - A new study suggests a "clear preference" among undergraduates for lecture capture.Lecture Capture in a NutshellOverview of lecture captureLecture capture systems offer three important benefits: an alternative when students miss class; an opportunity for content review; and content for online course development.Resources on lecture captureLecture Capture Feature Comparison Chart - Features of Accordent, Echo360, Mediasite, Panopto, Tegrity and Wimba7 things you should know about Lecture Capture (2 page PDF from Educause)Previous interviews with lecture capture vendors:RPP #62: PanoptoRPP #63: TegrityRPP #71: Echo360RPP #72: WimbaRPP #77: MediasiteView Rod's "lecture capture" bookmarksPodsafe Music Selection from Music Alley"Maybe I'm Amazed" by Blake Morgan who has worked with Lenny Kravitz, Lesley Gore, Phil Ramone, and others. This licensed remake of the McCartney classic has topped the charts on the iTunes Music Store.Duration: 17:36

Dr. Ann Snow, writing consultant for Q: Skills for Success, Second Edition, discusses the particular challenges of writing in an academic context. This month I will be teaching a new academic writing course for second language students at my university. I am thus thinking a lot about writing these days and looking forward to helping my students become better academic writers. I’ve promised a lot in my course proposal. I will: Cover characteristics of expository writing and help students apply them to their own academic disciplines; guide them through a cycle of awareness and analysis leading to self-assessment; expose them to different text types (e.g. problem-solutions, methods, discussion sections) and genres (e.g. critiques, case studies, literature reviews, research papers); help them improve their sentence and discourse-level grammar and be better proofreaders of their own writing. In addition, I am determined to go outside the traditional boundaries of a writing class because I think that writing cannot and should not be taught in isolation from the other skills that students need in order to be effective writers. Therefore, I have added academic vocabulary and strategic reading skill components. I also plan to integrate critical thinking skills so my students improve their abilities to make inferences, synthesize, develop arguments and counter-arguments, and evaluate sources in their writing. My task feels a little overwhelming right now, but also helps me as the instructor appreciate the complexities of academic writing and understand better the challenges our second language students face. Finding the writer’s voice Stepping back from the details of my new course, let’s consider the big picture of what writing entails. Writing is a complex language form practiced by users of all languages (both native and non-native) for everyday social and communicative purposes and, for many, for vocational, educational, and professional needs. It has been variously described as a product - a piece of writing with a particular form and the expectation of "correctness." And as a process - a journey that takes writers through stages where they discover they have something to say and find their "voice." From the cognitive perspective, it is seen as a set of skills and knowledge that resides within the individual writer and from the sociocultural perspective as a socially and culturally situated set of literacy practices shared by a particular community (Weigle, 2014). With these perspectives in mind, all teachers of writing must ask: How can I help my students improve their writing and what are best practices in the classroom? As I design my new course I am asking myself these same questions. Needs assessment An important first step is undertaking a needs assessment, whether informal or formal, to learn what kinds of writing students need. From this assessment, a syllabus or curriculum can be developed or a textbook series selected that is a good match with your students’ needs. Typically, the instructional sequence starts with personal/narrative writing in which students have to describe or reflect on an experience or event. This usually leads to expository writing in which students learn to develop a thesis statement and support this controlling idea in the body of their writing. Analytic or persuasive writing is the most challenging type of academic writing because students must learn to state and defend a position or opinion using appropriate evidence (Ferris, 2009).  These kinds of academic writing tasks require students to become familiar with a variety of text types and genres, one of my course goals. Improving vocabulary and grammar The academic writing class also provides the opportunity for students to fine-tune their grammar and expand their academic language vocabulary. Typically, by the time our second language students are engaged in academic writing, they have been exposed to the majority of grammatical structures in English (e.g. complete tense system; complex constructions such as relative clauses and conditionals), but they still may need to learn how to integrate these structures into their writing. They also need to match text types with the kinds of grammatical structures needed. For example, in order to write a cause/effect essay, students need to use subordinating clauses with because and since and they need to use the appropriate transitional expressions like therefore and as such. Student will most likely have learned these structures in isolation but now need extensive practice and feedback to use them accurately in their writing. In terms of academic vocabulary, students need to differentiate the types of vocabulary found in everyday usage (e.g. the verbs meet and get) with their more formal academic counter-parts encounter and obtain (see Zimmerman, 2009, for many other examples.) In sum, the English for Academic Purposes curriculum must integrate reading and writing skills, and, as mentioned, grammar and vocabulary. Cumming (2006) points out that a focus on reading can lead to writing improvement and an opportunity to learn discipline-specific vocabulary. It also gives students something to write about. Combining reading and writing also provides needed practice in analyzing different text types so students see the features of these models. These kinds of activities create opportunities for more complex tasks such as summarizing and synthesizing multiple sources. A curriculum that integrates reading and writing also exposes students to graphic organizers for reading comprehension which student can recycle for pre-writing (Grabe, 2001). Finally, students need many exposures to similar tasks in order to master the complexities of academic writing and build confidence in their abilities. I look forward to teaching my new academic writing course and I hope this brief glimpse inspires others to undertake this challenge as well. References and Further Reading Ferris, D. (2009). Teaching college writing to diverse student populations. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.  Grabe, W. (2001). Reading-writing relations: Theoretical perspectives and instructional practices. In D. Belcher & A. Hirvela, (Eds.), Linking literacies: Perspectives on L2 reading-writing connections.  Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Weigle, S. C. (2014). Considerations for teaching second language writing. In M. Celce-Murcia, D. M. Brinton, & M. A. Snow (Eds.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (4th ed., pp. 222-237). Boston, MA:  National Geographic Learning Heinle Cengage. Zimmerman, C. (2009). Work knowledge: A vocabulary teacher’s handbook. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Skills Tagged: Academic writing, Ann Snow, EAP, English for Academic Purposes, Q Skills for Success, Writing skills

Picks from Rod's Podcaster Guide and E-Learning News Campus Technology 2009 Presentations 7 Textbook Publishers Move to Electronic Format Interview with Dr. Alec Couros, professor of educational technology and media at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada Open Thinking - his professional blog Social Media and Open/Networked Learning - his open course Harnessing the Power of Social Networks in Teaching & Learning - his recent keynote at the University of Delaware Podsafe 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: 29:13

As you know, I have been job-hunting lately. And I've been thinking about the history of job-hunting... or at least my experience of it.My first few jobs were part-time or holiday affairs while at school and drama school, and they were a case of word of mouth. I was advised by someone in the know that John Orr's was looking for holiday sales staff for the Christmas rush. I was advised that Communikon School of Performing Arts was looking for part-time drama teachers. I was advised that the provincial board needed adjudicators for drama eisteddfods. This was in the very late 70's and early 80's.Once I graduated from drama school, and while I was waiting to be discovered by Hollywood (or at least the SABC), I found a couple of jobs in the small ads of the local newspaper. This was in the early 80's.My first office job was found via newspaper ads, again. But this time, it was a feature ad. The same applied to my next office job.In much the same way (feature ads in the newspaper), I found a job at a theatre agency in Cape Town, but I treat this one separately, because this job led to my getting a few photographic modelling assignments and a contract as a TV presenter (at which I sucked, royally).During this phase, I met and married my husband. For a year after this, I tried and failed to find a steady, 'proper' job. Of course, my efforts were never enough to please the in laws, who felt that I was sponging off their son. This was in the late 80's, and my search consisted of cold-calling and responding to newspaper ads. It was soul-destroying. But I took every opportunity to upskill, and did run the occasional computer applications training course (as they were then known) during the dry spell. This was to prove the best move I'd ever made. After nearly a year, I finally landed a job working in a learning centre... and found my vocation. The company that had set up the learning centre was way ahead of its time for the market, and the initiative didn't take off. I found myself back on the job market within 16 months. But this time, I had built up something of a network and a reputation.I went freelance. I tapped the network for opportunities, and they came. I worked as a freelance training consultant until we left South Africa, fitting my career around my children. During this time, I got to work with some of the big names of South African industry, as well as taking on ad hoc overflow work for specialist training organisations. I was offered a few chances to take full-time posts with some of my clients, but, with my husband's full support, I opted not to accept them. I will never regret having been able to be a hands-on Mom, even though it almost certainly impacted my career development.When we arrived in the UK, in 1999, I took a year out to settle the family in to our new home. By the time I started job hunting again, it was via the local newspapers. I took a part time job at an FE college. We had pretty much decided that I would go back to work full time only once both our sons were in secondary school. However, I continued to scan the papers for opportunities. When a 'perfect fit' full time job came up earlier than expected, we decided to take the plunge. The office was 3 miles from home. I could make the trip in 7 minutes. Our kids were 11 and 9, and would be home alone for 1.5 hours each afternoon. We lived in a safe neighbourhood. This was 2002.During this period, the Internet began to come into its own as a place to go job hunting. I found and applied for my next job via the world wide web. I felt so modern! This was 2005.In 2008, the wheels fell off and I found myself at a crossroads. I decided to take the plunge and go back to being self-employed. But it had got a whole lot more complicated since my last shot at it. And I was under pressure to earn more, because our commitments had been based on what I had been earning while working for 'the man'. That was in 2008. I did look for alternatives, and didn't find a whole heck of a lot, so the Learning Anorak was launched.Now that that venture is coming to an enforced close, I am job hunting again.... and it looks very different.I have automated searches in place with several of the biggest recruitment agencies. Almost daily, there are jobs I can apply for. Sadly, as I have mentioned before, the first-line screeners are not the very clued up. They are utterly unable to identify that skills in X map across to requirements for Y. So I get turned down for a lot of jobs I could do blindfolded... sometimes within minutes of submitting my application.I also check out the online vacancies pages of some of the organisations I am consciously targetting. This is a huge plus.But I am also able to be far more pro-active than before. When I was job hunting way back in 1988/9, I was at a loss as to what else I could do. Other than cold-calling and responding to ads, what was there? Especially in a city in which I was unknown (ergo, no network). This time around, I have put feelers out across the network, which is global. I have made my position known on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. I have written a blog post. And all of those have taken several hits.The support from my beloved community, while thus far not yielding anything, has been enormously comforting. Harold Jarche even created a hashtag for me on Twitter (#YesYouShouldHireKaryn). Okay, so it didn't get a lot of take-up, but the fact is that he did it. It was a very kind gesture from someone who has become a real friend, even though we have never met face to face. This is the beauty of the network. And it didn't go unnoticed. Someone, a complete stranger to me tweeted something to the effect that he didn't know who this @karynromeis person was, but she must be worth hiring, based on the support she's getting from Twitter "big hitters".I have had several job offers, actually, but all of them have been spam, bar one. The one genuine job offer I received was at a lower rate of pay than I was getting 5 years ago, and involved 3 hours of commuting time every day. It wasn't easy to pass up on the bird in hand, but I decided that I had to. The level of sacrifice by my whole family simply wouldn't be worth it. Fortunately, my incredible husband has been staunchly supportive. He simply will not have me sell myself short. He has always had more faith in me than I do in myself.It remains to be seen if this method of job hunting yields something more quickly than previous methods have done.Watch this space.

Note: This is a standard audio-only mp3 podcast. See RPP #82EP above for Enhanced Podcast. Picks from Rod's Podcaster Guide and E-Learning News Internet Archive: A Future for Books - BookServer is an open system to find, buy, or borrow books, just like search to find Web sites. An E-Textbook Program Aims to Benefit Students and Professors - Professors create digital textbooks bringing prices down from their average cost of $100 to a much more moderate $15. Embracing Electronic Textbooks - Electronic textbooks offer convenience for professors, who can easily review a new textbook online, then make a quick decision to include it in a course. Interview on E-Textbooks with Scott Beadenkopf, Director of Academic Technology at Neumann University CourseSmart - benefit from instant access to the largest single source of electronic textbooks available anywhere Connexions - a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses and books Flat World Knowledge - books by leading experts, rigorously reviewed and developed to the highest standards are free to read online Podsafe Music Selection from the Podsafe Music Network "Stress" (song and flash animation) by highly caffeinated Jim Infantino of the band, Jim's Big Ego. Buy at Amazon Duration: 23:25

What are the building blocks of skills teaching and how can these help your learners listen and read for tomorrow? Take a look at this infographic to find out more. Navigate is a brand new General English course that takes an innovative approach to reading and listening based on this academic research as to how adults best learn languages. It teaches reading and listening from the bottom up, giving learners the skills they need to understand the next text they will read and hear, not just the one they are reading or hearing now. The course content also has been extensively piloted and reviewed in ELT classrooms across the world, giving teachers the confidence that it really works. Find out more at www.oup.com/elt/yourdirectrouteFiled under: Adults / Young Adults, Skills Tagged: Adult, Adults, bottom up, decoding, Listening, Navigate, Reading, top down

Last night was 'parents' evening' at my son's school. It isn't officially called parents' evening anymore, and hasn't been for some years, because the students themselves are a very important part of the three-way meeting. Nevertheless, the name has stuck on a colloquial level.Our younger son is a grafter. Always has been. Every single one of his teachers spoke highly of his work ethic. This was no less true in the subjects where he is struggling. His classwork is always done, as is his homework. He contributes to class discussions, and raises excellent questions. He participates wholeheartedly in group work.For the duration of his school days to date, every teacher (bar one) has found this child a joy to teach.And it has been a joy to address his education as a parent.This may have something to do with the fact that he has known since he was just three years old that he wants to be an explosives demolitionist. Of course, when he was three, he didn't know that it was called that. We didn't either. But as his commitment to this career path has remained strong for the past 14 years, we have learnt a lot about it along the way.The problem for him at the moment lies with the assessment model. Particularly in respect of pure maths. In order to take Maths with Mechanics, which is essential for his future career, he has to take Pure Maths. And he isn't doing terribly well in the tests. In fact, it is fair to say that he is doing poorly.Part of the problem is that he was placed in a rather low set for maths (over our objections, just by the way) and that set did not cover some sections of the syllabus. As a consequence, what constitutes revision for the rest of the class, is totally new work for those who were in that set.But the teacher (Ms Verity who has previously made an appearance in this blog), has said she only wishes he could produce the same work in the test situation that he does for homework. His homework, apparently, is excellent.The difference is that, when it comes to homework, he can open the text book (yes, they still use them) to the example page, and adapt the worked example to the problem(s) at hand. Or he can look it up online. If he struggles to make sense of the example, he can contact a friend via text message or instant messaging and they can work through it together. He has identified a study buddy, and he checks in with this kid, if he's unsure of his workings.This sounds rather a lot like life, or like the reality of a working environment to me. Don't you agree?In a test situation, you're deprived of those options. You can't research the solution and then apply it. You can't get a friend to check your work. You can't ask for support from someone with particular skill in this area.But I think he is demonstrating a very mature, resourceful skill. A skill that will stand him in great stead for the rest of his life. A skill which far outweighs being able to manipulate surds... whatever the heck they are - I don't think they had been invented yet, when I was at school ;0).Sadly, we haven't yet figured out how to assess that particular skill. We have only figured out how to subject kids to sensory deprivation and expect them to work purely from memory, and fail them on their inability to manipulate surds under these conditions.You might think that I feel this way just because this is my son we're talking about, here. But I hope that my track record on the subject of assessment stands on its own merit.In order to better equip my son to meet the current assessment criteria, we have decided to hire a private tutor (as an aside here, I should point out that the school has laid on extra lessons to help kids like ours catch up, but that these clash with rugby practice and we consider his sporting interests to be a valid component of a well-rounded school education).Oddly enough, the tutor himself has made his own appearance on this blog before! Thanks to his background, we believe that this young man will be the right person to help our son make up the deficit. Of course, this is going to cost a fair amount of money, but our son has amply demonstrated over the years that he is more than prepared to put in the work from his side. Like I said: a grafter. And he needs this, if he is to get into the university he has identified, to get the qualification he has chosen in order one day to "blow stuff up and get paid for it". Because of that, we consider the money well spent.But it doesn't mean that it sits easily with me. It is a little like training a performing monkey.But I am satisfied that my son already demonstrates the sort of characteristics that an explosive demolitionist requires: he is sensible, responsible, hard-working, resourceful, determined... Put that on a report card!

Bonus Enhanced Podcast formatted for viewing in iTunes or iPods.See RPP #82 post below for details.

Picks from Rod's Podcaster Guide and E-Learning News The Complete Guide to Google Wave - Google Wave is a new web-based collaboration tool that's notoriously difficult to understand. This guide will help... Purdue U Brings Social Networking to the Classroom - Some professors--especially those who teach in large lecture halls--have come to embrace social networking as an instructional aid.... Diigo - Like Delicious and Digg but better, with web highlighting, sticky notes, and annotation. Interview (Part 2) on E-Readers with Scott Beadenkopf, Director of Academic Technology at Neumann University:  Amazon Kindle Sony E-Reader Plastic Logic E-Ink - originator of electronic ink technology used in most e-book readers Barnes & Noble Nook Podsafe Music Selection from the Music Alley "Winter Moon" by Rhonda Lorence - from the new age viola album "Winter Moon" which was nominated for four Lifestyle Music Awards including Album of the Year and Best New Artist. Duration: 26 min

Anna Parisi is course tutor and materials designer for teacher development courses at ACCESS, in Greece. Anna has extensive experience in syllabus design and producing supplementary materials for private language institutions in Greece. Ahead of her webinars on 27th and 28th January, she gives us a preview of what she will be talking about… I envy new teachers! When you are a new teacher, everything you do is new. While ‘learning the ropes’, you constantly take risks and experiment, evaluate and take decisions. There are so many surprises: your students surprise you, you surprise yourself. It can be highly stressful but exciting because it’s an on-going process of observation and discovery. We call this ‘enthusiasm’. And then, routine starts settling in. We know we have to cover the curriculum no matter what, finish the book, and after so much trial and error we know what works best ( well, most of the time) so why take risks?  We change our routines when something goes seriously wrong or when we are bored out of our wits. We call this ‘experience’. Occasionally, both enthusiastic new teachers and experienced old-hands attend conferences, listen to experts and take notes. Later, we may use 1 or 2 ideas in class but generally we find ’there is no time’, ‘you can’t do this in the real world’ as real students often respond in a different way to what we want them to. We also share fabulous ideas and photographs on the social media; we follow gurus and mentors online in search of general truths and successful practices. But still most of our issues in the classroom remain unresolved, and out of date or over-demanding curricula remain in place. In the meantime, there is so much that goes unacknowledged, devalued or ignored: teachers’ tacit knowledge, the knowledge that teachers have acquired through the years but find it difficult to articulate or transmit. While PLNs (Personal Learning Networks) have helped in this respect with sharing lots of ideas, thoughts and insights, teaching lives as depicted online have left a lot feeling they are missing out on developments or even with undeserved feelings of inadequacy. This wealth of ideas from teachers, trainers, authors is a host of wonderful recipes but not a better diet overall. The gap between theory and practice remains as large as ever, published material sometimes seems to come from a parallel universe, and although everything takes place for the good of students, they are not part of the decision making and are not even asked what they think some or most of the time. For teachers to take control and have greater professional responsibility over what we do, small scale teacher-led research is the next step in teacher development. Why research? Research is by definition questioning, challenging preconceptions, discovering, experimenting. Teacher-led research is action taking place where the action is: in the EFL classroom. If we, teachers, would like to see change and improvement then we are the best placed to initiate and undertake it. If we want greater autonomy, we will have to seek and welcome greater responsibility. If we believe that we, teachers, should be involved in curricula change then we ‘need to take a critical and experimental approach to our classrooms’ (Nunan 1989). Solutions to practical problems in the classroom can rarely be imported from outside the classroom. It’s the teacher who is best placed to investigate and resolve issues by taking some course of action.  By researching our own classes we can better understand our own classroom procedures. We can become better able to assess what actually happens in the classroom as opposed to our own assumptions about what happens.  Teacher-led, classroom based research also means consulting our students, understanding and catering for their differences. But what does teacher-led classroom based research involve? Carrying out research should be a collective project, not a solitary task.  It’s really about discovering, sharing and transmitting knowledge, problem-solving. It’s an integral part of teacher development. Carrying out such a project can be a collective experience inclusive of all teachers in all stages of professional development. Teachers being part of this experience is the heart of a collective, teacher-led research project. In the upcoming webinar, we’ll look at some of the basics of teacher-led classroom based research and how it can transform our teaching lives. You’ll be surprised! You can register for the webinar here. References Nunan, D.  and Bailey, K.M. 2008 . Exploring Second Language Classroom Research : A Comprehensive Guide. Boston: Heinle Nunan, D. 1989. Understanding Language Classrooms . Cambridge : Prentice Hall InternationalFiled under: Professional Development, Skills Tagged: classroom research, Personal Learning Network, Research, Webinar

I'm sure you already know that we don't have Thanksgiving in the UK. That would just be silly. But I have many American friends, readers, followers, etc. in the various spaces I occupy online, to whom this holiday is very important.This post is for you. I would like to wish you a happy Thanksgiving, although I'm sure you have better things to do than read my blog today.Americans tend to be much-maligned in the UK, but my own (entirely unscientific) observation is that the very people who thus malign them are often equally guilty of the characteristics they disdain so very vocally.So may I say that I am thankful for you?Thank you for your warmth, your acceptance, your support, your enthusiasm. I am glad you and I have crossed paths.

Season's Greetings and a Happy New Year from Rod's Pulse Podcast Podsafe Holiday Music Selections from Music Alley "The Christmas Season" by Sudden Death - combines hip hop beats with what Dr. Demento calls "some of the funniest hip hop lyrics I've ever heard" "Jingle Bells" by Natalie Brown - soulful vocalist/songwriter with a dynamic, multi-ocatave vocal range "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" by Twisted Sister - yes, that hard rock group from the '70s "A Soldier's Christmas" by Jay Goeppner - a Chicago singer/songwriter who has shared his message of peace and love in the style of his hero, John Lennon "If Every Day Were Christmas" by Podsafe for Peace - Buy the song for 99 cents and all the proceeds will go to UNICEF Duration: 22:03

Students often find it difficult to engage with reading and writing instruction and practice, particularly when large, intimidating texts are involved. This is the first in our series of insight blog posts, aimed at helping teachers to overcome this problem. Here are the Top 10 Tips for Reading, from teacher-trainer Zarina Subhan. What does reading really mean? To your elementary students it involves letter recognition and decoding the letters so they can decode words. To your advanced students it’s a process of decoding ideas which may be stated directly, or a process of ‘reading between the lines’. Either way, your students are practising a form of decoding. This decoding is a perfect way to expose them to vocabulary because it’s embedded in a context. This technique is similarly useful for grammar study, but whether it is vocabulary or grammar that we highlight, this is a chance for students to see models of language that they can then put to use in conversation or writing tasks. In our L1 we read for information, whether it’s following signs at an airport, or doing an internet search to find a relevant article online. When reading in English, it’s important to maintain a purpose for reading the information. We need to remind ourselves as ELT teachers that our students are not English language specialists; 9 out of 10 are very likely studying English because it’s on the school timetable, or someone has decided for them that it’s best they take English classes. So don’t treat reading as the teaching of vocabulary and grammar structures, because that won’t be what persuades them to read. So what can we do to encourage our students to read? Try these top 10 tips: Get that schema warmed up Always warm up students’ background knowledge (known as ‘schema/schemata’) first. We cannot guarantee that our students all have the same knowledge on a topic or theme, so it is important to get everyone to the same point. Images are an ideal way to gather together what your students know - and allow time for a quick brainstorm where they can discuss their thoughts first. Get them using all the clues, in true Sherlock Holmes style Focus on headings, images and subheadings (if there are any) to help students to predict what the topic or content might be about. This stimulates ideas further and prepares them to read, allowing for a subconscious awareness of what type of vocabulary might be found. This also illustrates that a handful of words can help us understand and that we don’t need to know every single word to appreciate a piece of text. Peer checking After their first reading of a text, get students to discuss it with each other. Speaking about something you have just read helps to clarify your understanding because you can’t explain something until you’ve understood it. You’ll also find that students voluntarily re-read sections to make sure they’re explaining their thoughts correctly. It also allows them to get help with sections they may not have understood well when they read it themselves. Question their understanding To reinforce the main ideas of a text, ask questions that check understanding of the context, rather than finer details. If we focus on overall comprehension, we encourage students to skim the text to find areas that are relevant to questions, rather than them reading in detail. Word recognition The quicker we learn to read, the more efficiently we can get information, so it is helpful to encourage this in L2 as well. Have a competition to train students to ‘see’ a word/collocation/phrase in the text. Project a text onto your whiteboard and bring a group of students to the front of the class. You say a word that is in the text and they have to point to it. Speed them up Get students to time themselves reading a text so they have a record of how many words they read per minute. Then, at intervals throughout the academic year, give them a similar text, in both length and complexity, to see how they progress. In each instance, ask questions that bring out the main points of the text after, so you know that they are not simply glancing at the words, but actually reading them! Recall and highlight words Once the context has been understood, highlight vocabulary by using flashcards. Use different coloured cards to differentiate between different parts of speech - main verbs could be on a green coloured background; auxiliary verbs on yellow; nouns on blue, etc. If students are in groups, get them to take turns to give a definition, synonym or antonym. Recall and highlight structures Take sentences from the text and write each word on a separate card, jumbling them up into the wrong order. Then, get students to place them in the correct order. This could be done in groups or on large flashcards at the front of the class. Do these with useful sentences, or ones that include important phrases so that they are subconsciously reinforced. Lure them into reading Have lots of reading material available - pamphlets, brochures or graded readers for students to pick up and read. This can play on students’ curiosity and encourage reading in L2 for pleasure as well as for information. Nurture a love of reading Finally, get students to find a piece of text on a topic of their choice and have them talk to you about it and why they chose it. If you don’t have time to do face-to-face interviews with each student, they could record themselves talking about it and send it to you as an mp3 recording, along with a link to the text. As Krashen said, "Reading is good for you…Reading is the only way we become good readers, develop a good writing style, an adequate vocabulary, advanced grammar and the only way we become good spellers." (1993:23) With all these benefits, reading is something we need to ensure is developed, but without necessarily making students aware that all the above is going on. It’s like enjoying a meal - who wants to be told about all the nutritional value of everything you eat when you can enjoy the taste?! Reference Krashen, S. (1993) The power of reading: Insights from the research. Englewood, Co.: Libraries Unlimited.Filed under: Teenagers Tagged: insight, Reading, Secondary, Teaching tips, Top 10 Tips, upper-secondary

Those who still adhere to an older business model are puzzled by those of us who engage in the various social spaces with people who, in effect, are our competition. Happily, we advise each other on the best way to tackle this or that problem, and we take uncomplicated pleasure in the knowledge that we have helped one another.Today, courtesy of a new Twitter follower, Indira Balki, I was reminded of this poem which reflects much of this attitude:One Star Fell and Another by Conrad AitkenOne star fell and another as we walked.Lifting his hand towards the west, he said--How prodigal that sky is of its stars!They fall and fall, and still the sky is sky.Two more have gone, but heaven is heaven still.Then let us not be precious of our thought,Nor of our words, nor hoard them up as thoughWe thought our minds a heaven which might changeAnd lose its virtue, when the word had fallen.Let us be prodigal, as heaven is:Lose what we lose, and give what we may give,-Ourselves are still the same. Lost you a planet-?Is Saturn gone? Then let him take his ringsInto the Limbo of forgotten things.O little foplings of the pride of mind,Who wrap the phrase in lavender, and keep itIn order to display it: and you, who save our lovesAs if we had not worlds of love enough-!Let us be reckless of our words and worlds,And spend them freely as the tree his leaves;And give them where the giving is most blest.What should we save them for,-a night of frost? . . .All lost for nothing, and ourselves a ghost. I have nothing to add to that.

Picks from Rod's Podcaster Guide and E-Learning News Facebook Apps for eLearning - Here is a list of 20 facebook apps for educational use  'Horizon Report' Highlights 6 Technologies to Watch in Education - The open-content movement now joins mobile computing as the two trends most likely to enter mainstream learning in the next year, says the report (40 page PDF), from the New Media Consortium and Educause Repositioning Higher Education: Factors Driving Online and Blended Program Enrollment - by Kristen Betts, Kenneth Hartman, and Carl Oxholm III, Drexel University Because of the recent economic downturn, higher education must re-examine and reposition itself to meet new and emerging challenge Learning on Demand (29 page PDF) - This Sloan Survey of Online Learning reveals that online enrollment rose by nearly 17 percent from a year earlier Apple iPad - Apple's new tablet computer with an unfortunate name ScrollMotion to Develop iPad E-Books for Major Publishers - ScrollMotion will make textbooks compatible with the new Apple iPad for four major publishers Diagnosing the Tablet Fever in Higher Education - Tablet-style computers bring classroom collaboration and push the adoption of electronic textbooks Create Your Own iPhone or Android App in Minutes With iSites - iSites is a new service that take an RSS feed and quickly transform it into an iPhone, iPad or Android app Podsafe Music Selection from IODA Promonet  "As The Wind Blows" by Kitaro Duration:  26:35

ELT teacher, teacher trainer and course book author, John Hughes, shares some classroom ideas for teaching pronunciation in your business English classes ahead of his webinar on 19th February. Register now. Is there any essential difference between teaching pronunciation in business English and teaching pronunciation on a general English course? In many ways the answer is ‘no’. After all, in any type of ELT classroom we need to work on pronunciation in two ways: firstly, to help students with receptive pronunciation; in other words, to help them recognise features of pronunciation which affect their ability to listen and understand. And secondly, to help students improve their productive or spoken pronunciation; this doesn’t mean that they need to sound like a native speaker but that they are intelligible to a wide range of other people when communicating in English. However, when we teach pronunciation in business English I do think our approach should be tailored to learners’ business needs and that they should have plenty of time to practice pronunciation for specific events. In addition, your business students can also use pronunciation to make their communication skills more effective. Let’s take a closer look. Tailored pronunciation Typically on a business English course (especially with one-to-one or small groups) we ask students about their needs for using English. Part of this will include asking them who they need to communicate with in English. If they answer, ‘colleagues working in our China offices’ then we already know that the students will need to listen to recordings of Chinese speakers in class. If, on the other hand, my students make phone-calls to the United Kingdom, then I might spend time focussing on the features of different accents within the UK. Prepared pronunciation In business English we also have to prepare a student for speaking at particular events; for example, if your student has a meeting in English coming up soon then you can predict the type of language he/she will need to use. You can practice using that language and identify any pronunciation problems that may affect the student’s intelligibility for the other participants. One useful technique is to role play the upcoming situation with the student and record the conversation. Then listen back to the recording and then pick out potential pronunciation difficulties. Powerful pronunciation Many effective presenters and speakers in the world of business also use pronunciation to make their message more powerful. So in my presentation skills classes I help students to work on stressing certain words and adding pauses for emphasis. Take this example which shows an extract from a presentation in which the stressed words are underlined and the / indicates short pauses between words and phrases. Try reading it aloud as you think the presenter said it: Now I’d like to present the figures / for our most recent quarter / and / I’d like us to consider / the implications / for the rest of our financial year. The speaker stresses the content words in the presentation and adds short pauses to break the sentences down. In particular, the separation and stressing of the word ‘and’ in the middle emphasises that the presenter has two distinct aims to the presentation. Having students mark transcripts of their own presentations like this can really add power to their communication. To consider more of the issues behind teaching pronunciation in business English and to get more classroom ideas for teaching pronunciation in your business English classes, join me for my webinar on 19th February. Register now. John Hughes is a teacher trainer and course book writer. For Oxford University Press he has co-authored on the Business Result series and the video courses Successful Meetings and Successful Presentations.Filed under: Business & English for Specific Purposes, Pronunciation Tagged: Business English, Communication skills, John Hughes, Pronunciation, Pronunciation skills

Picks from Rod's Podcaster Guide and E-Learning News YouTube - What Would Google Do? - blogging pioneer Jeff Jarvis reverse-engineers Google to discover forty clear and straightforward rules to manage and live by... Integrating Google Apps with Blackboard - digitalteacher from the Google Apps community shares 12 ways teachers integrate Google Apps with their Blackboard courses...

I have identified a situation in which I am anything but an enabler.My younger son is learning to drive. He's doing very well, and his instructor speaks very highly of his progress. Whenever possible, I let him drive me around. On short jaunts to the shops and such, this is fine. It's the longer trips that are the problem.The other night, I let him drive to rugby practice. It's a distance of some 8 miles or so, along a minor road. He has a tendency to drive rather close to the left side of the road (this is the UK, remember, where we drive on the left), and, when he changes gear, he tends to drift even further.I'm sure his instructor deals with this kind of thing day in and day out, and is inured to it (judging from the utterly unscientific sample of my two sons, this seems to be a fairly common tendency). I, however, am less accustomed to it, and my rising stress levels were doing nothing for my son's confidence.Eventually, he pulled into a side road and instructed me to drive the rest of the way. I was mortified.It seems that when I fear for my personal safety, I am unable to be the unfailingly encouraging person I would like to be.L plate image by canonsnapper

Picks from Rod's Podcaster Guide and E-Learning News Rod's Delicious iPad Bookmarks - Links to more than 20 sites that were viewed in preparation for this podcast Interview: Dr. Mary Ann Gawelek, Provost, Seton Hill University on "An iPad for Everyone" - Dr. Gawelek tells us about their Griffin Technology Advantage Program and how they prepared their faculty and IT infrastructure to handle iPads and MacBook Pros for all their incoming students. iPad Apps for Education - selected iPad Apps faculty and students might find useful GoodReader - read and store Office docs and PDF files The Elements: A Visual Exploration - the periodic chart comes alive Netter's Anatomy Flash Cards - navigate through 324 fully annotated images Molecules 3D - manipulate 3D renderings of molecules; download more from the protein databank iTunes U on iPad - free lectures, language lessons, audiobooks and more for students CourseSmart eTextbooks for iPad - rent electronic textbooks Podsafe 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:  23:36

For many teachers the extension of language learning outside the classroom can really benefit their students, but how can you be sure they’re using the right materials to further their practice? Freelance teacher trainer, Zarina Subhan-Brewer, looks at how Oxford Online Practice can complement their classroom activities. "For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them."            - Aristotle How do we get students to continue practicing the things we want them to learn outside of the classroom? Normally, we give them homework and hope they do it. We no longer only have workbooks to depend upon for further practice, we have online material nowadays too. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to learn a language online, but there’s a lot out there. Parents, understandably, will assume that if their child is on an educational website that they don’t need to be monitoring their child and will feel happy that their child is learning. However, much of what is out there seems very ad hoc, with materials jumping about from grammar point to grammar point and sometimes with a very strange focus on some obscure vocabulary. The quality and suitability of some visual imagery out there being used for educational purposes, may not be ideal. So why and how can students use online learning safely and effectively? Firstly, Oxford Online Practice is not random - it is designed to complement, but not duplicate, what is being studied in the book. It looks like the book, with similar or identical images, but the activities are additional to those in the textbook and workbook. The units cover the same topics and language content, with an opportunity to extend language and interact with it on the screen, for example clicking for further information, or dragging to match a response to a question / vocabulary / grammar item. Grammar practice in the Engage edition of Oxford Online practice.   When it comes to differentiated learning, online textbooks are very powerful tools. I’ve always found that it requires a lot of preparation and organisation to constantly have something up my sleeve for the students who are picking up language quicker. While helping those requiring more time to grasp things, you have to keep the others occupied, right? All this with the dilemma that you don’t want the quicker ones getting too ahead in the book/workbook, while at the same time you don’t want your slower students to feel they’re having less fun and are ‘behind’. The beauty of online textbook material is that not only is it relevant and related to the topic of the book, your students can also do additional activities without the knowledge of whether their peers are ‘better’ than them or not. Because of the nature of the technology, a simple click of the mouse in a computer lab, or a tap on the tablet in the classroom gives them access to further practice of any sort. Previously, reading and writing were the only skills that could be practically improved outside class, which meant students rarely heard any English outside the four walls of the classroom. Nowadays it is possible to assign an additional listening activity, without controlling a CD player or standing at the computer at the front of the class. So if you feel some students could do with going over a listening activity again in more detail, you can assign it to them. Did you know students can even record themselves if they’re working on a computer / tablet? This means that students get the chance to really listen to their own pronunciation and compare it to the native speaker recordings on the Online Practice platform, so they learn much more in terms of both listening and speaking. Online Practice takes homework to a whole new level, with students assuming more responsibility for their learning - autonomous learning at its best. But this isn’t to say that the students are simply left to their own devices - teachers can allocate particular activities, tailoring each class or student’s progress to suit their needs. You can also organize your students into particular online groups. You can then monitor which exercises have been completed by which students and also what scores they achieved on each activity they try. Without collecting in physical work and marking it (because it is marked as soon as the student clicks on the ‘Submit’ button), you have a record of names, activities completed and grades for each student. This will save you from hours of administrative tasks, leaving you more energy for the actual teaching. So your students will find varied and engaging activities that allow them to practice exactly the same language areas that you have been working on in class, with the added bonus of it being visually familiar. By allocating activities to students, they feel their individual needs are being met. Parents can breathe easy knowing that their children are on carefully designed websites that are entirely appropriate learning tools. And you as a teacher have more time to assess, monitor and actually teach. I’d say that was a win-win-win situation, wouldn’t you?! These features are all available on the Online Practice components for the courses pictured below. Features and/or capabilities may differ for other Oxford courses.  Filed under: Multimedia & Digital, Teenagers Tagged: 4 skills, Digital, engage, Language practice, Online Practice, Secondary, Zarina Subhan-Brewer

Being in the job market has made me the target of many 'top ten tips' type articles and posts. Just do these five/seven/ten things, and you'll have a new job in no time. If you don't it must be because of something you're not doing.As a few of us were saying on Twitter yesterday, this is more than just a little disingenuous. With unemployment figures soaring in many places, and some industries/sectors being harder hit than others, it only serves to make people feel even more like failures when they load their weapons with silver bullets... and still remain unemployed.Signing up for automated searches on some of the larger sites automatically means that you receive their regular little homilies about what you need to do better. And, if you're serious about looking for work, you read them, and try to follow their advice, in the hopes that it will make a difference. But after you've tweaked your CV, and honed your cover-letter-writing skills, and tapped your network, and pro-actively approached the people you'd like to work for, etc. etc. What then?If everybody follows the 5-steps to a standout CV, recruiters still wind up with a slew of CVs with none that stand out. Because, to quote Syndrome in the rather Rand-ian The Incredibles, "Everyone will be special, and then no one is."The fact remains that there are many more job-seekers than jobs out there, and being over-qualified turns out to be just as much of a disadvantage as being under-qualified. And the job-seekers range from those looking for minimum wage, all the way up to those who have worked at C-level.Let me share a personal perspective:My CV has been professionally reviewedI write (if I do say so myself) a pretty kick-ass covering letterI have more than 20 years of experience in my fieldI hold a Masters' degreeI'm not exactly a global mover and shaker, in terms of innovation but many of the global movers and shakers know my name and are on hug-terms with me (so perhaps I could be called part of the second wave)Doesn't that sound pretty darned employable to you?And I haven't been over-selective. I have applied for some fairly humble posts, which have offered the opportunity to make a real difference to an organisation. After all, I don't need to be rich. I only need to be able to meet my commitments. But I do need to be fulfilled at work. I am not a person who is prepared to do something I hate day in and day out in service of Mammon. I don't measure success in Sterling.So let's just take a look at one of the jobs I've applied for. It's fairly local, and they're looking for an 'innovative L&D manager'.You will support the business to drive performance through the effective design or management of the design, of learning solutions globally. In order to build their internal capability you will need to deliver learning solutions to help support their strategy and ensure methods and content utilised within design reflect leading edge practices and deliver the learning outcomes specified in the design brief.The role requires a high level of competence in learning design and evaluation methodologies and in training delivery skills.You'll also have the ability to manage multiple projects concurrently and deliver on time and to quality and to manage and influence multiple stakeholders.Anyone who actually knows me, would think I was a shoo-in for the role. But within 90 minutes of my application, I received an email telling me that they had received an unprecedented number of applications for this post, and several of them more closely matched the skills and experience required by the advertiser. Since my covering letter had taken their description and identified how I had every point covered, I didn't see how this was possible... and I emailed them to ask for feedback on these grounds. I respectfully requested that they give me guidance as to how I might better demonstrate, next time around, that my skill set and experience did in fact map across to what was advertised.No response. Not a squeak.And to make matters worse, that job continues to be advertised, week in and week out.I have been advised by people who claim to know about these things, that some (many? most?) of the jobs advertised on the really big recruitment sites are bogus, and that this appears to be one of them. What they would stand to gain from such a practice?And how do they have the temerity, in the light of these bogus posts on offer, to keep publishing these silver bullets that tell us that the onus is on us to do better?