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Play To Learn: Digital Games in ELT

By kylemawer  |  2012/10/19 03:59 Posted in Research, Uncategorized  |  Comments (0)

Play to Learn:Digital Games in ELT is an online course being run by Consultants-e aimed at English language teachers, trainers, tutors, facilitators, lecturers and mentors, who are interested in introducing digital games into their teaching.

On the 12th of October Digital Play was invited to participate in an online video conference and answer a number of questions posed by those attending the course.  Here’s a list of some of the questions we were asked:

1) imagine you are both big gamers and playing games in the classroom was something that came naturally to you.  What if a teacher is not a gamer but would like to start playing games in the classroom – what advice would you give to this teacher?

2) We have just learned about gaming genres – what types do you often play in the classroom?  Any favourite?

And how do you use them with say beginner level students?

3) How effective can games be if students know the teacher has no experience with games?  Isn’t that stretching my credibility too much or asking too much of their credulity?

4) How feasible is it to integrate games into day-to-day teaching when you have 8-10 different groups os students per week with 4-6 different levels?

5) What percentage of in-class and out-of-class gaming do you suggest?

6) What would be your top 5 things to do for a ‘newbie’ wanting to get started with games in the classroom?

 

If you would like to hear what we have to say to these and hear more then why not view the recording to our video conference session?  Keep an eye on the chat box on the bottom left for some useful links and comments too.

NOTE You may need java to run the conference in the link below and we’ve been told that a warning appears when you follow the link but accepting the program to run the recording doesn’t affect your computer adversely.

To View the Video Conference Session click here

The 5 Levels of Digital Storytelling

By kylemawer  |  2012/03/30 03:07 Posted in Guest Posts, Uncategorized  |  Comments (23)

It’s our pleasure to introduce a guest blog post by James Taylor, who has been adapting gaming elements (such as leveling up) and applying them to digital storytelling. Thanks, James for a very interesting blog post and loads of great web links and resources which you’ll find near the end – Some of them we’re familiar with here at Digital play but we can’t wait to dip into all the others.  Over to you James . . .

When we think of introducing web-based tools into our classrooms, as teachers we often obsess over the technical side of things. We worry about setting everything up, about dealing with passwords, about computers crashing and our students not doing what they are supposed to do.

We are not wrong to consider these things, whether we teach kids or adults. However, we shouldn’t lose sight of the reason for doing the activity in the first place, which is for language practice not IT skills. By using the right tools in the correct order, it’s possible to build learners linguistic confidence and increase their technical capabilities, just as you would structure the activities in a traditional, ‘off-line’ lesson.

In this article, I will demonstrate how you can increase the levels of complexity both technically and linguistically in web-based storytelling by using tools that ask more of your students at each stage. This is always prefaced by an offline warm up, which will enable you to connect the digital version to the analogue. If necessary because you don’t have access to a computer room or enough computers for it to be feasible, you could spend most or all of the lesson time with the offline activities and set the online activities as homework.

I should point out that I haven’t included any language activities in this article, instead concentrating on the type of storytelling practiced at each level. In my view, these activities create numerous opportunities for language work and should be used as a resource for generating interesting student created content which can then be mined for learning.


Level One – Mad Libs

Mad Libs is a very basic parlour game popular in North America. It’s based around the simple premise of ‘fill in the gaps’. Players have to choose random words with only a lexical category to help them, and these words are then placed into a short story. The results are often silly and nonsensical, but are very effective in raising grammar awareness, and for our purposes, can serve as a basic introduction to narrative structures. (Read here for a more detailed explanation of the rules.)

You can start off line by using the books or, if they are not available to you, with some Mad Libs you have found online and printed. Give them out to students and let them play around with them, becoming accustomed to the format. You can then take them online where there are numerous websites where they can complete more Mad Libs. If you think they are able, you can even give them the chance to make their own and share them with each other on wordlibs.com.

Below is a list of links that you may find useful at level one of storytelling:

Level One web-links

http://www.eduplace.com/tales/
http://www.links2love.com/poem_generator.htm
http://www.funbrain.com/cgi-bin/wt.cgi?A1=s
http://www.rinkworks.com/crazylibs/
http://www.madlits.com/
http://www.wordlibs.com/index.php?
http://www.write-better-english.com/Create-a-silly-story.aspx
http://www.elibs.com/
http://www.madglibs.com/createyourown.php

Level Two – Photo Stories

With photo stories, students will have to start using their imagination. There is no vocabulary for them to rely on and it has a much freer structure. The lack of right or wrong answers means that they can come up with their own versions, although they don’t have to be long, one sentence per picture or less is fine if that is all they can come up with at this stage.

You can begin offline by giving the students five pictures which seem to have no connection at all. In groups they can put the pictures in any order they like and come up with a short story to match.

When you go online, you can start by using the site 5 Card Flickr, in which the students choose five random images and have a space to write an accompanying story, which then can be easily shared. This can then be developed through a host of photograph and storytelling websites, ideally encouraging the students to use their own photos whenever possible.

Below is a list of links that you may find useful at level two of storytelling:

Level Two web-links

http://web.nmc.org/5cardstory/index.php
http://www.fotobabble.com/
http://www.pimpampum.net/bubblr/?custom=
http://www.pimpampum.net/phrasr/index.php
http://www.pimpampum.net/bookr/
http://everyphototellsastory.blogspot.com/
http://photopeach.com/
http://www.piclits.com/
https://www.tabblo.com/studio
https://voicethread.com/#home

Level Three – Comic Strips

This the first activity where the students are really restrained by the conventions of a particular narrative format. In the comic strip, there is obviously limited space for dialogue and a finite number of panels. For this reason, I think it’s a good idea to begin by making them aware of some of the conventions of the format. You can do this by handing out comic strips divided up into individual panels and then the students have to rebuild the comic in the right order. Obviously they all need to have the same strand of comic, whether it’s Garfield, Dilbert or Andy Capp.

There are numerous ways of doing this, one of which is to give each learner a panel each and get them to find each other by doing a mingle. Once they have successfully found the people who have panels from the same strip as them, you can collect class feedback on how they knew they belonged together. This should bring up some areas including subject, style, background art, panel size, other characters present and so on. This should then lead to them having a basic understanding of how a comic strip is put together.

Online, there are many comic strip building websites, where students can create their own mini-narratives, share them with each other and print them for posterity. One example is makebeliefscomix.com, where students can create simple, good-looking comic strips. Aware of its educational potential, they are many resources for teachers on the website, including 21 Ways To Use MakeBeliefsComix in the Classroom, writer prompts and printable handouts.

Below is a list of links that you may find useful at level three of storytelling:

Level Three web-links

http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/
http://www.mainada.net/comicssketch
http://marvel.com/create_your_own_superhero
http://chogger.com/
http://www.comicmaster.org.uk/
http://www.creaza.com/
http://www.wittycomics.com/make-comic.php
http://www.stripcreator.com/make.php
http://pixton.com/uk/

http://superherosquad.marvel.com/create_your_own_comic

Level Four – Storybooks

We have been building the level of narrative complexity as the levels have progressed, and now we take a bigger leap by creating story books. The leap is bigger as this time the students are required to make longer narratives, but they still has the support of images to rely on.

As with comic strips, you could begin by introducing the students to the format of the books. Obviously most learners are familiar with story books, but rarely will they have considered how they are put together. This knowledge becomes important when you have to create one of your own.

To introduce my students to this format, I divide a storybook into two parts, then take the individual pages, shuffle them and give them to two groups. The students then have to follow the narrative and put their half of the story in the right order. Once this is complete, they can look at the completed other half in order to get the finished narrative.

This kind of activity helps warm the students up before they go online and create their own storybook. They become more aware of what is required of them and how they can create their own. Of course, it’s too much to ask them to draw as well as write, at least in the limited time frame in which most of us operate, so a website like storybird.com is priceless. It has a beautiful collection of illustrations available for your to choose from as well as an intelligent, well put together, and most importantly, easy to use interface.

Below is a list of links that you may find useful at level four of storytelling:

Level Four Web-links

http://storybird.com
https://www.tikatok.com
http://www.artofstorytelling.org/picture-a-story
http://www.kerpoof.com/#/activity/storybook
http://alpha.zooburst.com/
http://myths.e2bn.org/story_creator/
http://www.storyjumper.com/

Level Five – Animated films

The final level gives students the opportunities to make their own animated movies. By now, having been through the previous four levels, they are familiar with many of the narrative conventions that are used in films as well as comic strips, story books etc, and they’ve had plenty of opportunities to practice their storytelling skills too. Hopefully they picked up some language along the way as well. Now they can put all of these newly acquired skills together in a short film.

Again, you probably don’t have time for the students to create their own artwork, so zimmertwins.com is perfect for allowing your learners to make their own stylish short films while concentrating on the key objective of language. Furthermore, the website contains activities and a version for schools where you can sign up for a teachers account.

By now your students should be comfortable with storytelling, both online and off. Of course, if you wish, you could extend this further by getting them to write their own stories or make their own movies or radio plays. That is when you know that they have reached the highest level of digital storytelling.

Below is a list of links that you may find useful at level five of storytelling:

Level Five Web-links

http://www.zimmertwins.com/
http://sketchfu.com/home
http://www.doink.com/
http://dvolver.com/live/mm.html
http://www.masher.com/index.jsp
http://www.xtranormal.com/
http://www.creaza.com/
http://www.kerpoof.com/ – choose the ‘Make a Movie’ option.
http://www.digitalfilms.com/index.php
http://www.fluxtime.com/animate.php

Note: This article is based on a course I taught and created with Dan Conyers, a British Council teacher based in Saudi Arabia and South Korea. Thanks to him for his contribution.

James Taylor is a freelance EFL teacher based in Brussels, Belgium. When not teaching business and general EFL, he can be found at his blog, on Twitter and hosting the #ELTchat podcast.

Building a sustainable city with Enercities

By grahamstanley  |  2011/11/18 09:30 Posted in Game Plan, Uncategorized  |  Comments (1)

Level: Intermediate+

Location: Computer room, class set of laptops (or game play for homework)

Skills Focus: Reading, Speaking

Game: http://www.enercities.eu

Enercities is a computer simulation game which lets you build your own city. It is suitable for  intermediate and above students and worth playing for the vocabulary of cities and discussion possibilities. Topics that are relevant include: Cities, Politics, Money, Renewable energy, Global warming, etc.

The aim of the game is to build a sustainable city with a population of 200. It’s probably best played in a computer room or with a class set of laptops. Alternatively, you can introduce the game to the students and ask them to play at home.

There is quite a lot of reading in the game, so I recommend looking at the instructions how to play with the students, letting them play and then doing a post-game follow-up discussion about their results and the best strategies for playing the game.

Here’s a class handout (PDF): Digital_Play_Enercities

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Magician

By kylemawer  |  2011/07/08 03:10 Posted in All Posts, Game Plan, Uncategorized  |  Comments (1)

Level: Upper intermediate

Location: Connected Classroom

Language Focus: going to, modals of deduction (present & past).

Game: The Magician


A nice little game with plenty of language opportunities.  First you see the magician’s stage with the trick ready to go.  You can then watch the trick performed.  You then get the chance to see how the trick is really done as you point and click the screen in the order each part of the trick is done.  Here’s the beginning and end of the first trick:

Play

  1. Open the game and show learners the first screen.
  2. Get learners to predict what the magician’s trick is (left above).
  3. Then ‘show the trick’ (short video sequence to image above right).
  4. Learner’s then guess how the trick was done (speaking or writing).
  5. They then direct someone at the keyboard to repeat it.  This is done by pointing the mouse cursor and clicking parts of the magician in the correct order.

Example language:

As learners guessed how each trick was done I monitored and input language as necessary.  It’s also quite fun – especially if you haven’t watched the trick before yourself – to join in with the guessing.  Great way to model the target language yourself and possibly inject a little humour into the process.  I thought my suggestion that ‘it might be a projected image of a bird – look at the circle of light around it’ was quite good.  After a or two minute I interrupted and in feedback I wrote any new language as well as the best suggestions on the board. For this I reduced the window the game was in so it wasn’t visible but was still ready to continue with.  New language was highlighted so as to draw learners’ attention to it and also make it easier for them to see and use later.

The Magic Tricks

There are about half a dozen tricks in total but I’ve never really got past the first few.  The first three are enough to practice the language with and, to be honest, some of the later tricks get quite fantastical and could prove to be too challenging linguistically.  Take a look at the screenshot on the left here to see how complicated things can get.  Both red levers on the left and right, the two guys, the chains, the pendulum, hidden keys, a screen, the cage and the candle (a red herring by the way) all make this quite a difficult task.  The first few tricks involve:

  1. Disappearing bird
  2. Levitating woman
  3. Escape the water tank

 

These are quite well-known magic tricks and so learners should have a good idea about what happens in the trick, remember the trick once it has happened and have some good ideas over  how the trick was actually done.  The added bonus is that it’s quite fun discovering how they are actually done.  Hope none of you are too disillusioned by finding out it isn’t actually magic after all.

Post Play

  • At home learners play the game and choose one trick to describe to the class.  They make notes and in the next class they describe what the audience sees when the trick is performed and then how the trick is done.
  • Learners write up how a trick of their choosing is presented and done.
  • If you or your learners can research a card trick or a coin trick to perform for the next class then get learners to use the target language to guess how it might have been done.