American Councils for International Education Moldova

EFL Blogging School

Teacher Guide
of Online Tools
Inside this Teacher Guide:
The project aims to equip EFL Moldovan teachers with the
necessary skills to use online tools such as blogs to enhance
their English language teaching experience. Participants will
learn how to engage students in online projects and raise up
their interest in studying English using online tools. By the end
of the project, participants will have experimented with
creating a class or school blog, inviting members, posting and
editing entries and commenting on other blogs. In addition to
that, participants will have looked into comment management,
template personalization and will learn how to enhance their
class or school blog using other online tools, such as Voki,
Animoto, Pow Toon, Google Polls, free online dictionaries,
DVolver.

Blogs as platforms for Project

Based Instruction.........................2
Blogs as platforms for EFL
E-Portfolios............3
Blogs as platforms for online
lesson planning.........................4
Connecting to online mentors
through blogs......................5
Blogs as platforms for flipped
instruction...........................6
Online tools to develop student
speaking skills............................7
Blogs as platforms to share digital
posters...........................8
Enhancing student vocabulary
through blog posts....................9

Blogs as platforms for Project Based Instruction

Blogs can be used as online platforms
for students to:

Blogs can be used as online platforms

for teachers to:

Post online projects, such as

videos or picture slideshows

Post instructions for Project

Based Teaching

Share comments, impressions,

questions with each other

Find useful online resources

posted by EFL teachers

Publish useful resources for EFL

students, such as online
dictionaries, links to online
grammar quizzes

Learn about specific topics, such

as civic engagement, a healthy
lifestyle, environmental issues

Give students feedback

Connect the classroom to the

outside world

Share authentic resources, such

as BBC articles or CNN Student
News subtitled video news

Display artifacts of their best

work, such as online essays,
picture poems, digital posters

By bringing real-life context and technology to the curriculum through

a PBL approach, students are encouraged to become independent
workers, critical thinkers, and lifelong learners. (Edutopia)
Where to find online
project ideas?
iEARN
(International Education and
Resource Network)

eTwinning
(The Community of schools in

Case study: Access Microscholarship Moldova

Online collaboration with over 200
students from vulnerable families
from various regions: Bli, Edine,
Cahul, Ungheni, Ceadr-Lunga,
Comrat, Bender, Ialoveni

Project Structure:
1. Name of Project:
2. Brief one-sentence description of
project:

Teaching English through Skype

3. Age/level of project participants:

Implementation of online
collaborative projects with schools
from US throught the iEARN
network

4. Timetable/Schedule for the project

(please include exact dates in which
the project will be active):

Most succesful online civic

engagement projects:
- A Letter to Santa Clause
- Access Youth in Action
Flashmob
- Plant a Flower, Save the Planet
- Sharing is Caring
- Talking Kites Around the World
- Informing the Mihai Eminescu
Community
- A New Life for Sport and Youth

5.Possible project/classroom
activities:
6. Expected outcomes/products:
7. Project contribution to others and
the planet:
9. Curriculum area:
11. Names/email of all participants :
12. WWW page of project (blog,
school website, Facebook group/
page):

An ESL E-portfolio:
is a collection of student
writing that demonstrates ESL
ability, achievement, and
progress, often used for
assessment purposes.
OMalley & Valdez Pierce
identify three types of
portfolios:
showcase portfolios
(containing only a
learners best work),

Blogs as platforms for EFL e-portfolios

Blogs can serve as wonderful
online platforms to create
e-Portfolios
for
language
learners.
As methods of assessment,
portfolios provide ways for
teachers to continuously collect
and assess student work.
Electronic portfolios allow the portfolio developer to collect and organize
artifacts in many formats (audio, video, graphics, and text).
A standards-based electronic portfolio uses hypertext links to organize the
material to connect artifacts to appropriate goals or standards.
An electronic portfolio is not a
haphazard collection of artifacts
(i.e. a digital scrapbook or
multimedia presentation) but
rather a reflective tool that
demonstrates growth over time.
Easiest platforms to use are:
Weebly and Blogger
Portfolios might include the following pages:
1) Welcome
2) About Me
3) Educational Goals
4) My best coursework
5) My certificates
6) Evidence of my language proficiency
7) My volunteering activity
8) My extra-curricular activities
9) Collaborative projects
10) Leadership skills
3

collection portfolios
(containing all work), and
assessment portfolio
(containing systematic
collections to check
learner growth).
Since portfolios can give a
broader and more complex
picture of a writers ability
than a single piece of writing, it
is a more authentic form of
assessment.
While hardcopy portfolios are
collected and stored on paper
and manually shared with
teachers and students, all work
in
e-Portfolios
is
done
electronically.

Blogs as platforms
Blogs can be used as online
platforms for teachers to:
Create online lesson plans
Share useful online resources
integrated in the lesson plan
Plan their step by step online
instruction
Bring the world into their
classroom
Turn paper lesson plans into
online, digital instruction

Blogging is to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more

free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many
ways, writing out loud. (Andrew Sullivan)

Useful platforms:
Teachnology

Online lesson plan generators

www.teach-nology.com

Plankbook.edu

Google Lesson Plans

www.educationworld.com

Ways to connect to
online mentors:
Google Hangouts
With Hangouts On Air, you
can broadcast live
discussions and
performances to the world
through your Google+
Home page and YouTube
channel. You can also edit
and share a copy of the
broadcast.

Blogs as platforms to connect to online

mentors

The last 20 years has witnessed a

spectacular growth in the use of
mentoring internationally and
across a range of contexts.

Mentoring has been traditionally

conducted on a face-to-face basis.
Student teachers are each assigned
an experienced practitioner or
wise counselor who has the
responsibility to support them as
they engage in their professional
practice.

Blogs can serve as online platforms

to connect to international
mentors.

Mentors can be connected through

Skype or Google Hangout on Air
sessions. Specific topics can be
chosen, such as How Americans
celebrate
Thanksgiving
or
Advantages or Disadvantages of
Living and Studying in US.

Online mentors can leave voice or

text messages on Voicethread
projects created by EFL students
and posted on class, school or
teacher blogs.

Voicethread
A VoiceThread is a
collaborative, multimedia
slide show that
holds images, documents,
and videos and allows
people to navigate slides
and leave comments in 5
ways - using voice through
a Facebook Fan Page (with a
mic or telephone), text,
audio file, or video (via a
webcam). Share a
VoiceThread with friends,
students, and colleagues for
them to record comments
too.

Flipped instruction:
is

form

of

blended

learning in which students

learn

content

watching

online

video

usually

by

lectures,

at

home,

and homework is done in

class

with

students

teachers

and

discussing

and

solving questions.

allows teacher interaction

with students to be more
personalized

guidance

instead of lecturing.

Eric Mazur developed peer

instruction in the 1980s. He
found that computer-aided

Ultimately, flipped learning is not about flipping

the when and where instruction is delivered;
its about flipping the attention away from the
teacher and toward the learner.

instruction allowed him to

coach instead of lecture.

Lage,

Platt

published

and

Treglia

the

paper

"Inverting the Classroom: A

Gateway to Creating an
Inclusive

Blogs as platforms for flipped instruction

Learning

Environment" in 2000.

The flipped classroom describes

a
reversal
of
traditional
teaching where students gain first
exposure to new material outside
of class, usually via reading or
lecture videos, and then class time
is used to do the harder work of
assimilating
that
knowledge
through strategies such as problem
-solving, discussion or debates.
Blogs can be used as platforms to
deliver EFL lipped instruction:
EFL

teachers can post key

content for students to access at
their own convenience and to
suit their pace of learning (e.g.
lecture
material,
readings,
interactive multimedia),

Blogs allow EFL teachers to

present learning materials in a

variety of formats to suit

different learner styles and
multimodal learning (e.g. text,
videos, audio, multimedia),
Blogs provide opportunities for

discourse and interaction in and

out of class (e.g. polling tools,
discussion
tools,
content
creation tools),
Blogs empower EFL teachers to

provide
immediate
and
anonymous feedback
(e.g.
quizzes, polls) to signal revision
points,
Blogs

capture data about

students to analyze their
progress and identify areas for
recommended
improvement
(attention to grammar and
spelling for example).

Online tools to develop students speaking skills

Movenote is an online platform

connected to the Gmail account and
allows us to create presentations
using the files in our Drive and share
them
on
Gmail
or
Drive.
Movenote
lets
us
record
a video of ourselves talking about a
presentation via a webcam, and it
syncs it to the slides we are talking
about.
Vocaroo allows users to record voice
messages, these messages can then
be attached to emailfiles or posted
on the Internet. Users must have a
microphone in order to record. There
is no fee for using Vocaroo, and
recorded messages are deleted after
one year for those without an
account.
Voicethread is a totally web-based
application that allows you to place
collections of media like images,
videos,
documents,
and
presentations at the center of an
asynchronous
conversation.
A
VoiceThread allows people to have
conversations
and
to
make
comments using any mix of text, a
microphone, a web cam, a telephone,
or uploaded audio file.

Voki is an educational tool that

allows users to create their very own
talking character. Voki characters can
be customized to look like historical
figures, cartoons, animals, and even
yourself! Give your Voki a voice by
recording with a microphone, using
our dial-in number, or uploading an
audio file. Voki characters can be
emailed, shared on social media, and
embedded on websites!
Blabberize allows you to quickly
animate any image to make it talk, by
simply adding audio and specifying
the bottom lip or jaw section. It is
free and it only requires a PC with
Internet access. If the computer you
use doesnt have a mic, the message
can even be recorded via any phone.
The website will record your message
and attach it to the image of your
choice.
Narrable is a storytelling platform for
students to use their voices to share
what they're learning in class and
experiencing in life. When finished,
share your Narrable slideshow using
email, Facebook, or the embed link
code. Narrable allows you to create 5
projects for free.

Blogs as platforms to post digital posters

Key features of
digital posters:
engaging and interactive

There are many websites which can

and

help

students

creative! Make your images come

experiment with links, images and

alive with video, text, images, shops,

text.

music

teachers

and

the class in a unique

manner.

to

create

virtual

posters

combining text, audio, video, images,

and hyperlinks and to share them

As opposed to a standard

with

others

more!

Every

Be

image

you tell your stories.

Glogster is a Web 2.0 tool that allows

users

and

channels.

contains a story and ThingLink helps

For example:

tools that students can

use to present material to

educational

electronically.

Using

Glogsters educational site, Glogster

ListlyDiscover and create great

lists. Share your interests. Engage
your audience. Collaborate with
friends. Make beautiful and fun
listicles. The simplest way to create,
curate and share.

piece of poster board,

EDU, teachers can establish class lists

with

and monitor student activity while

Padlet is a virtual wall that allows

students can add video

protecting privacy and anonymity.

people to express their thoughts on

clips,

ThingLink is the leading platform for

digital

posters,

sound,

and

stimulating backgrounds.
They can alter text and

creating

interactive

images

and

videos for web, social, advertising,

photos in an appealing
manner as well.
Other key features:
Customize the wall title
and description.
Customize the
background (wallpaper).
Choose how posts appear
on the wall.
Freeform: posts can be
put anywhere and can be
resized freely.
Stream: posts are placed
one below the other.
Grid-like: posts are placed
in a grid-like format.

a common topic easily. It works like

an online sheet of paper where
people can put any content (e.g.
images, videos, documents, text) .

Online tools to develop students vocabulary

Lingro is a cool tool for both the

wow factor and for its
usefulness. Simply type in a
website address on the Lingro
website and it instantly turns the
website into a clickable dictionary
that translates text in 12
languages. To use, students
simply click on any word and
several definitions of the word
are instantly displayed.
Quizlet: is a free website
providing learning tools for
students, including flashcards,
study and game modes. It was
created by a high school
sophomore in 2005 and now
contains over 40 million study
sets. All of the material is usergenerated.

Wordle is a toy for generating

word clouds from text that you
provide. The clouds give greater
prominence to words that appear
more frequently in the source
text. You can tweak your clouds
with different fonts, layouts, and
color schemes. The images you
create with Wordle are yours to
use however you like. You can
print them out, or save them to
the Wordle gallery to share with
your friends.
Tagxedo turns words -- famous
speeches, news articles, slogans
and themes, even your love
letters -- into a visually stunning
word cloud, words individually
sized appropriately to highlight
the frequencies of occurrence
within the body of text.
9

Online video making tools for EFL students

Picovico is an online video
creation platform. It takes
photos and texts and converts
them into a beautiful video
slideshow which expresses
your story in a meaningful way.
The video creation process is
simple. Begin with selecting
one of the available styles of
presentation, add photos and
text, select music of your own
choice and then put in the
titles and credits if required.
Once these four steps are
completed the video is created
in a minute. You can download
offline and share via email or in
social networks.
PhotoPeach is a Web-based
slideshow builder that makes it
easy to get started. The service
directs you to upload your
photos, either from your
computer or an online service.
Once
your
photos
are
uploaded, you can set the time
interval for photos and the
music youd like to accompany
your slideshow.
Slidestory.com is a website for
creating and sharing audio
slideshows. Take your photos
and add your voice to describe
details not apparent in the
picture. You can make an audio
slideshow for your special
project, your vacation, or even
to help sell your house. The
Slidestory Publisher from is a
Windows application which
allows you to easily create
audio slideshows, publish them
with a click of a button to your
own space and share them
with your friends over the
internet.

Bring your pictures and your

video rushes alive! Stupeflix
makes it easy for you to create
a video of you memories It's all
done online, automatically and
in 4 easy steps:
1/ Choose a theme
2/ Upload pictures and videos
3/ Customize with music, texts,
maps and transitions
4/ Export, share & download
your video.

10

Online video resources for EFL Teachers

www.howcast.com
Howcast is a website that
provides instructional shortform how-to video and text
content that combines practical
information
with
various
filmmaking techniques such as
humor, claymation and animati
on.
www.englishwithjennifer.com
I've been teaching English in
some form since 1996. My
online work began in the fall of
2007. I have a collection of
instructional videos for English
language learners on YouTube
under the name JenniferESL.
www.teachertube.com
TeacherTube is a video sharing
website similar to, and based
on, YouTube. It is designed to
allow those in the educational
industry, particularly teachers,
to share educational resources
such
as
video,
audio,
documents, photos, groups and
blogs.

www.bbc.co.uk/education
Learning resources for adults,
children, parents and teachers:
find videos and audio clips by
level, subject and topic.
www. edition.cnn.com/
studentnews
CNN Student News is a tenminute, commercial-free, daily
news program designed for
middle and high school classes.
It is produced by the journalists
at CNN. This award-winning
show and its companion
website are available free of
charge throughout the school
year.
11

By the end of the

project, participants
will have:
created a class blog;
posted and edited
entries;
commented on other
blogs;
tried team blogging;
explored options for
comment management;
compared different blog
hosts;
compared aggregators
and other syndication
tools;
discussed the potential
of blogging as a teaching
tool and as a tool for
professional
development.

If you are interested to participate in the next round of

EFL Blogging School Project,
please write an official request to:

daniela@americancouncils.md