Hot Potatoes has been around for quite a while in the field of educational technology. Yes, the design is a little archaic and drab, but that just goes to show that its functions and user-friendliness withstand the test of time. If you're looking to generate quizzes and all sorts of exercises, ranging from cloze, matching, to crossword on a computer program without having to go online, Hot Potatoes is your perfect match.

It's said that people's number one fear is not actually dying; it's public speaking! I, myself, break out in cold sweat when having to speak in L1 in front of an audience - imagine how daunting it is for students to have to speak publicly in a language they don't usually communicate in. This is what is referred to as foreign language apprehension, which I believe is perfectly reasonable as when speaking face-to-face, students have to think on their feet with only split-second processing time. Linguistic, pragmatic and strategic competence all come into play simultaneously - this is a lot of pressure thrust upon students, especially those with timid dispositions. Even more when students live in regions where English is not used in daily interactions, the English lesson is basically the only platform for them to practice. This is where Movenote, a  handy presentation recording tool, steps in to allow more individualised practice and thinking time, rehearsal and repetition to formulate ideas, and not to mention, self-assessment.

Why use Movenote in my English lesson?

Although slightly limited in terms of video-editing affordances in comparison to Camtasia or Screencast-o-matic, the pedagogical potential for using Movenote in the English lesson is worth looking into. One reason to use this asynchronous CMC tool is that it gives a reason for students to use the target language outside of the classroom. Asking students to keep a video diary about their day, getting them to explain about a favourite music video or retell past experiences using their own photos provide that urgency or interest to actually speak up. As we know, people generally have a lot to say about themselves and they enjoy sharing to others. Students can  upload these videos into their class blog, Moodle or a Padlet and exchange comments - giving them an actual purpose to talk and real addressees (essential for practicing discourse competence). If you're managing large classes where students don't receive equal chances to speak and monitoring in class, try getting students to record their answers at home.

Another reason is the opportunity for students to rehearse, restructure, reflect on and modify speech at their own pace until they are satisfied with it. Students can keep the trade-off between fluency and accuracy at a low, as they have time to focus on their language as well as keeping a conversational speech flow. Having the internet to access information, dictionary resources and pronunciation models is great input for brainstorming and formulating students' own speech, in turn reshaping their interlanguage (all good traits of autonomous learners!). What about prepared or scripted talks? I suppose reading aloud from a script rather than directly speaking into the camera has its merits: focused attention on pronunciation and intonation. On top of that, when the speaking task is personalised and emotion-provoking, the script will be student-made reflecting their own personal views. For example, you can ask students to pick out a photograph from today's newspaper and talk about it, or respond affectively to pictures of social problems happening in their context (city or country), the Paraolympic games, and the like.

A flipped classroom approach is definitely doable with Movenote because of its really simple and straightforward functions. You can easily record yourself presenting a simple theory or a task that students can ponder on at home before coming into class. Movenote's features that appeal to me most are:

1. You can  record a presentation with or without showing a video of yourself. After uploading your document (ppt, pdf or picture) you can choose to disable the camera, and start recording with only audio -- For students, it's good to have the option not to show their faces if they're generally shy.
2. The highlighter function lets you direct viewer's attention to parts of your presentation just like a real laser pointer would do. You simply hold the mouse and the cursor changes into red dotted lights. 
3. The Pause button lets users temporarily stop a recording and resume with ease. This is useful when you or your students need time to think about what to say next. However, when I think about it, we'd most probably start over from the beginning as the shift would be quite noticeable. 
4. The Start Over button lets users erase all recording done and begin with a clean slate. Although  it's convenient to begin again from scratch after making mistakes, it tempts you to stop and keep starting over for fixing minor errors - this could get a bit time consuming and borderline obsessive for perfection.
5. All the video recordings made will be archived. You can keep record of the videos for sequential modules, or keep track of students' speaking improvement throughout the study period.
6. Viewer statistics lets you know how many times your video has been seen, giving you an overview of whether students actually take a look at it before class if you're opting for a flipped classroom approach.
7. You can reply to the maker of the video personally. Because viewer statistics only provide a broad description of how many and through which method (url or embedding) the video is played, we can't exactly pinpoint which students haven't accessed it. If in the video, students are required to give a certain response after viewing, the Reply function for both text or video message ensures that students' actually process the content. 
8. In the case of poor internet connection, the videos are downloadable and can be played offline in the form of .mp4. 

Take a quick glimpse of Movenote through this short video I retrieved from MovenoteYoutube channel:

What are the limitations of using this tool?

If you take a look at my example down here, you'll see that I've used Movenote for a short storytelling. The story is called Monkey's Paw originally written by W.W. Jacobs. I used visuals from a wonderful Youtube video created by Ricky Lewis Jr. and script adaptations by Palm Beach Schools. Here I ask the students to predict the ending of the story. Their predictions will be submitted through a video reply message to the teacher - all done on Movenote.

Do you think Movenote will appeal to your students? Why not give it a shot.

Mobile-Assisted-Language Learning (MALL) has been rather favourable since its first appearance in 2009 with language learning mobile apps, such as those from the British Council and popular English video search engines and podcasts like FluentU and Podbean. It's great that these apps enable learners to practice independently in their own time, but MALL also fosters learning and exploration inside the classroom just as well as outside of formal school hours. Especially now that new mobile devices are rapidly emerging and cutting-edge features are constantly updated on a monthly-basis, there's so much we can do within the lockstep of the classroom to produce more language output with MALL in addition to controlled practice. I recommend Nearpod for simple and effective implementation of MALL in your ELT lessons.

Why use Nearpod?

Here is an introductory video from Ryne Anthony on how to use Nearpod in the classroom. Have a quick look at it if you're not already familiar with this tool.



One of the perks of using Nearpod is the level of engagement from the students. It's a more hands-on experience where students can complete tasks and at the same time produce linguistic output during the course of the lesson - be it a recorded speaking, some piece of short writing or quick responses to the teacher's prompts. Students submit their work and teachers are present to provide instant feedback. Furthermore, teachers are aware who are on track and who still needs further assistance in class. The quiz feature lets students retain materials recently introduced to or provides a venue for reading and listening comprehension practice. What sets Nearpod apart from other resource compiling and quiz generating site, like Blendspace, is this live session feature, that lets teachers control the pace of the lesson (when necessary) and monitor students' in class participation and progress. Another leg-up, you can say goodbye to photocopying handouts as all your resources are all archived on the site - videos, PDFs, slideshow, quizes, you name it.

What are some limitations to using this tool in the English classroom?

Collaboration is set aside for this type of MALL application as it facilitates more whole-class teaching with the teacher controlling the pace of the lesson like a lecturer would, and students responding in short instances within the limited T-S connection. More analytical learners would benefit from this teaching approach as they would visually see concepts, and break down linguistic patterns as they are introduced. Conversely, more global/synthetical learners who rely on trial and error in producing the target language and thrive in a more social-constructive learning atmosphere would not necessarily enjoy the restricted student-tablet interaction and rather teacher-controlled lesson flow. Therefore, if the activities are constrained to gap-filling exercise or polls, although MALL in the classroom is technically face-to-face, the lesson is heavily centred on the teacher as the disseminator.

How can I use Nearpod in my English lesson?

When designing MALL for your classroom, it's good to keep in mind the SAMR model (Substitution - Augmentation - Modification - Redefinition)  to assure that your activities are optimally "consuming" technology and not for the sake of merely looking fancy or techy. For my peer teaching in one of my MA modules, I''m attempting to use Nearpod for an inductive grammar teaching approach.

I'll start with a listening activity which is filled with the linguistic pattern (i.e. Adjective Clause) I want the students to notice. Students respond to the content of the listening through answering questions and submitting them to the teacher for me to share to the class to prompt a discussion. This step I believe encompasses the Substitution and Augmentation level.

For a consciousness-raising activity, students are sent the transcript of the video which they will highlight the structure being learned. This way students are picking up on the grammar form and how it's used in real context. This may well be included as another substitution activity (replacing the use of pen and paper to highlight text).

For a Modification level of MALL, I'll ask the students to work in pairs to derive the pattern of the grammar until the are able to produce a solid easy-to-remember grammatical rule for adjective clause.  Here the tool enables them to scaffold each other, rehearse, trial and repeat their understanding and concept-building.

I'll end the class by having students write a post (perhaps for a personal or class blog) on a certain topic using the target structure - this calls for another Modification activity for generating rehearsal and revising in producing output.

Have a quick skim through my Nearpod lesson below and tell me your thoughts on it. My personal limitation is that I am completely at a loss for designing Redefinition activities using MALL. Perhaps you have brilliant ideas that you don't mind sharing.

Because there are so many great reviews of this tool, you might as well try it out to see what the hype is all about. Maybe you'll find that it transforms your lesson in a positive way, or instead you might notice some other glitches or barriers that we should know about. Update me on how it goes!

All you need is to sign up with your already existing social accounts (Google, Facebook or Twitter) and get right on to tagging.

Larry Ferlazzo's Blog