shyer students often turned out to be very active communicators when they used WhatsApp and other social media apps.
Tasks that are carried out via WhatsApp or social media platforms tend to be perceived as more casual and relaxed which makes them feel less intimidating, especially for more shy students.
Students are also familiar with WhatsApp, with many young people actually preferring this type of communication to face-to-face interaction.
Asserting that younger students prefer virtual interaction to face-to-face interaction is a bold claim. I am wondering if this backed by evidence or if this is merely a generalized observation. I am interested in incorporating social media into the classroom, but not as a replacement for face-to-face interaction between students.
accessible by everyone at any time, allowing for easier communication and exchange of materials.
Asynchronous accessibility is especially an important feature in a context in which students have different schedules and availabilities due to different work/family obligations and time zones.
After noticing his learners needed to practice their productive skills, but without sufficient time in class to address it, he set up a WhatsApp group with regular tasks that required students to write or record their speech in English
I think it's could be quite helpful to include production practice outside of class. Since traditional language homework has been limited to reading and writing, many students have not had the opportunity to spend extra time on production and comprehension.
students benefit from having their own personal space, and as a result don’t feel as lost as they otherwise might in a very large class
As a student, being a part of a WhatsApp study group has been essential to combatting feeling lost during this time of distance education.
Yassir started a WhatsApp group where his students record voice messages, send them to the group, listen to their peers’ messages, and then comment on them
I love the idea of using voice messages for practice. This adds and extra challenge because comprehension is more difficult without being able to see a person's mouth moving. It also seems like a good way to get comfortable speaking an L2 on the phone, I still sometimes feel intimidated speaking my L2 on the phone since I don't practice this regularly.
most teachers are at least somewhat familiar with WhatsApp and its capabilities.
I imagine students would appreciate also being able to use WhatsApp for language practice since most already have it downloaded, it's one less application to manage and regularly keep up with. There are already so many that most students interact with daily (email, Canvas, Slack, Facebook, Instagram etc.)
Say a sentence that describes one of the images in the grid and have students put a “virtual stamp” on the image they think it is. I’ve done this to play vocabulary Fly Swatter games, but also to give directions on a map; it was fun to see where students ended up.
I like this idea of this game because students can all participate simultaneously. Another option for practicing with map directions could be Google Earth or an actual city map.
An alternative is to use iClicker
I would not require my students to buy an iClicker for distance learning. There are too many free web-based alternatives that serve the exact same purpose (Zoom polls for example) and I wouldn't feel right asking my students to spend money on this. Not to mention they are made of plastic and likely to end up in the landfill after only a few semesters of use.
Let Students Share Their Screen
As a student, being asked on the spot to share my screen feels quite stressful
Set the chat to private (“host only” option), so that students don’t see each other’s answers
Although I understand the reasoning behind not wanting students view each other's answers in the chat box, I think being able to see each other's thoughts fosters connection, which is one of the greatest challenges of distance learning. An alternative strategy could be to ask open-ended questions that have more than one "correct" answer and leave the chat set to public so that students can interact.
have students find images of places in the countries that speak the target language.
My classmates and I were taking about this during our breakout discussion last Tuesday. We thought it could also be interesting for the teacher to tailor their Zoom background to relate to the lesson material of a given class session.
Lyricstraining.com is a free resource with popular songs in multiple languages. Select your target language and search for a popular artist.
This seems like a fun way of incorporating music into the virtual classroom. This website features an activity similar to the classic "fill in the blank with missing song lyrics" activity but because it is formatted more like a game it could be a fun way of keeping students engaged
Annotate Feature
I learned about the Zoom annotate feature recently in my Language Analysis course and have since been incorporating it into my online tutoring sessions. I've found that it can be a bit tricky for younger students, but I enjoy using it with older students because it allows me to see their thought process in real time so that we can spend more time on areas of difficulty.
Teachers’ physical health was put at risk when required to provide face-to-face education for the children of essential workers and vul-nerable children
Especially since recent studies have shown that exposure time increases the chance of contracting COVID19, so even if students are divided into smaller groups and go to school at different times of day, the teachers remain in a high risk position
reasonable accommodation.
What constitutes "reasonable accommodation"? What about students who previously worked with aids who offered individual support in the classroom?
some countries were able to put in place virtual kindergarten for children 3−6 years of age
I would also be curious to learn about the educational and socialization outcomes of virtual kindergarten, as I am quite skeptical
Relatively few countries are monitoring the effective reach and use of distance learning modalities.
It seems like this monitoring the efficacy of various distance learning programs would provide extremely valuable information. I am curious why this is not being studied more; is this simply because everyone is already (justifiably) overwhelmed by the transition?
health and psychosocial ser-vices, since education institutions also serve as platforms for prevention, diagnosis, and counselling.
Even if students are able to continue working with school psychologists/counselors remotely, many students don't have private or space spaces in their homes where they can feel comfortable sharing their thoughts
Children with disabilities who were already mar-ginalized before the outbreak are not always included in strategies of distance learning.
This brings up additional questions about accessibility and formatting of distance learning
universities have postponed learning and teaching until further notice, due to the lack of information technology (IT) infrastructure for both students and teachers.
I wonder if this is an issue that could be solved through global/national collaboration since the benefit of IT support is that it can be remote
In the most fragile education systems, this interruption of the school year will have a dis-proportionately negative impact on the most vulnerable pupils,
I believe this pattern unfortunately also applies to students who will be most impacted by consequences of our climate crisis
Some 387 million or 56 per cent of primary school age children world-wide were estimated to lack basic reading skills.
What is the underlying issue here? Is this a flaw in educational systems or are these students lacking basic survival resources (Maslow's hierarchy of needs) that must be secured before they can devote time and attention to reading?
employability programmes;
I appreciate the idea of creating more employability or vocational programs. The lack of these types of programs in our current educational system leaves those who are unable or do not wish to pursue higher education with fewer career options.
The single most significant step that countries can take to hasten the reopening of schools and education institutions is to suppress transmission of the virus
Interesting how during this time when viral suppression is the main goal, retail and other "high-touch" commercial establishments have remained open, at least throughout most of the U.S., while education is exclusively online
These decisions carry enormous social and economic implications and will have lasting effects on educators, on children and youth, on their parents – especially women – and indeed on societies as a whole.
I have been thinking about how women have been especially impacted by the current situation. In many (most?) cultures women are the traditional caretakers of children and also work outside the home and now that outside work is also taking place in the home, this is comparable to working two full-time jobs simultaneously.
The crisis is exacerbating pre-existing educa-tion disparities by reducing the opportunities for many of the most vulnerable children, youth, and adults
Online education has brought a lot of attention to inequality in terms of access and resources. Since these inequities have existed since long before the pandemic, I am hoping that shedding light on these issues will spark long term change.