Blending mobile and e-learning

I thought I would just tell you about a lesson I did yesterday because I think it's a good illustration of the way that we can blend elearning inside the classroom with mobile learning outside. Now, by the way, I feel a little uncomfortable describing my own lessons this way as I think it's a bit 'hey, look at how wonderful my lessons are', but it's not meant to be that way. As a lesson it did go well, it was my ESL-mlearning-elearning perfect storm, but these are so rare I felt the need to share...

I teach a pronunciation and speaking class for intermediate/upper-intermediate students at the language centre of the University of Sheffield. They'd requested some individual feedback on their pronunciation and some ideas about how to work on them. So this is what I did..

• Took them to the computer room and checked that they were all signed up for Edmodo (a microblogging site specifically for private groups/classes). I then sent them a document outlining various steps they could go through during the lesson. 
• First off, I got them to look at a short extract I printed out for them and got them to practise saying it a couple of times to themselves. 
• They then used Audacity (voice recording software) to record themselves saying the short text and then sent it to me via Edmodo.

Just as an aside, I'm liking Edmodo more and more each day. Just as an example; when the students sent their recordings to me, it immediately showed up as a set of media controls I could use to listen to their recording. See: 

• Obviously they were all working at different speeds, some were able to use the software quite comfortably while others needed some support, so I spent some monitoring and helping those who were struggling a little. 
• As the recordings came in, I started to listen to them and jot down notes about what pronunciation problems individual students were having (both at the sound/word level), then went to speak to them individually to talk through the notes I made. 
• Once I was sure they understood, I pointed them to various websites/software to work on their pronunciation. For example, this Cambridge one is helpful for individual sounds, and I like this one for showing the mouth and tongue position. We also have Sky pronunciation software installed on all the computers, so some of them went there as well. If there were any particular words they were having problems with, I pointed them toward the online MacMillan dictionary where they could listen to their pronunciation. 
• I managed to listen to all the students initial recordings (bar one, who was having some problems with the recording software) and give them brief feedback and pointers to which websites/software to look at. And they had a fair chunk of time to work on their pronunciation and all of them were very engaged  in the process. 
• The next step was for them to re-record the initial text they read and see if they could improve based on the pronunciation work they had been doing. There wasn't really time for this in class, so I asked them to do it outside of class and send it to me. Quite a few of them said they didn't have computers or if they did they didn't have headphones/mics at home, so I pointed them towards the voice recording functions on their mobile phones and explained how record and then send (email, MMS or via Edmodo). 
• Not long after the lesson, I received most of the recordings and have been listening to them to see the differences (and luckily there are some). 

What I think this lesson does show is that mobile learning can serve as an enhancement to other types of learning, and in this case really helped those students without the necessary equipment to do the task. And mobile learning doesn't have to be a discrete thing, it can be blended easily into your daily lessons as a way for students to do work at home or on the move. The problem is that - like elearning or CALL - mobile learning sounds like an 'entity', something we 'do' that is somehow separate or different from normal learning, where in fact often it is simply providing the learners with access to the same content (listenings, readings, exercises etc) but with more flexibility over when and where they receive and use it. 

Mobile phones review lesson plan

A nice authentic reading that also gets students talking about and exploring their mobile phones in class.

Type: Reading

Level: Intermediate and up

Time: 70-90 minutes

Objective: Students will be able to identify which reviewers of a mobile phone expressed which opinion from the online review text in order to discuss which features of mobile phones they consider most important for their daily lives.

Lesson Stages :

1. As a lead-in, ask students to get out their mobile phones (which they generally do anyway in class!) and ask them to note the physical differences between them. Elicit terms like flip phone (or clamshell), slider, candy bar. Put on board round bubble containing the word mobile phone. Elicit one or two features their phones have (e.g. mp3 player, alarm, camera). Give them time to work in pairs/small groups to come up with a list of other features their mobile phones have.(5-7 mins)


2. T After they have had 4-5 mins to do this, ask one person from each group to come to front and add ideas to the board. if the class is big, you may just want to elicit or to give them papers to stick on the board. Check any vocabulary that students aren't familiar with. If you are not sure about some of them, get students to explain, they normally know more than the teacher about technology :-) (10 mins)


3. T Now give out a description of one mobile phone from a website - this one is the Nokia N95 - here it is - and ask them to look through and a) check which features it has that are mentioned on the board and b) any extra features it has that were not mentioned. Give them time in pairs to do this. There is a lot of technical info so don't get too involved in dealing with questions about strange technical words, though you may want to clarify some more obvious ones.Get feedback open class.(5 mins)


4. First reading: Explain to the students that they are going to read a text about mobile phones. Tell them that the first time they read, they just need to identify what kind of text it is. Give them three choices to choose from a) an advertisement for a mobile phone b) reviews of a mobile phone by users C) an article in a magazine about the phone. Elicit what will help them identify which kind of text it is (big pic for ads, personal opinions for reviews etc) (3-4 mins)


5. T Hand out the text, which is here, but put it face down on their desks and tell them not to turn it over. Explain to them that they will only have 15 seconds to answer the question. Check that they shouldn't try and read the text just look over it and look for visual clues. Tell them to turn it over and give them 15 seconds, then tell them to turn it back over. Then ask them to work in pairs to check their answers. Elicit open class the correct answer and ask them to justify (stars to show opinion, different names, no pictures etc)(5 mins)


6. T Second reading: Quickly elicit how they know which people like the phone and which don't (from the stars and words next to them like 'poor' 'excellent'). Ask them to suggest which adjectives can be used to describe positive feelings about something and which negative. Give them time to come up with ideas and add to board. Then ask them to read through the text and find as many as they can which they mentioned and also to see if there are any more. Give them five minutes to do on own, then check in pairs, then get feedback open class.(7 mins)


7. T Third reading: now explain to them that they are going to read the text more closely and try to match the statement to the reviewer. Below is the task to give them (if you feel it's too difficult for the students, you can reduce the number of questions or write your own).
   Task: which of the reviewers...
   
   a) is unhappy with the battery life of the phone (3 answers: Alex, Stuart, Mark)
   b) really likes the camera on the phone (4 answers: Alex, Ash, Adrian, Mark)
   c) took it back because of problems or general dissatisfaction (2 answers: Alex, Stuart)
   d) didn't like the fact that the maps were not included with the phone (2 answers: Alex, J Dixon)
   e) compares the phone with other phones (2 answers: Alex, Adrian)
   
   Do one of them as an example, then give students plenty of time to answer the questions on their own, and then compare their answers with their partner. Elicit answers open class, making sure that they justify their answer with reference to the text.(15 min)


8. T Post Reading: There are various options here depending on your students, their level and their interests. Option One: Get them into groups and get them to design the 'perfect' mobile phone, they can draw it on poster paper and write the description/features next to it. Option 2: Get them to do a class survey on what students use their mobile phones for most. So, they can write questions and ask each other how much in a day they use it for music, messages, phone calls, taking pictures etc. Option 3: get them to write a review of their own mobile phone for others to read and then they decide which other person's phone they would like to have. (15-20 mins)