ELT Maker Night 2

Block T hosted ELT Maker Night 2 on Tuesday.

Block T rents a studio space for artists and is located in the suitably low-rent Smithfield area, just off the LUAS line with a DublinBikes station just outside. There are a nice couple of little restaurants on either side of the tracks. Plus there is a little playground outside if you like swings and roundabouts.

Inside it's an eclectic jumble haven of furniture and a groovy coffee bar people. You can hotdesk in a cold room for the membership fee and a hourly rate. This gives you rights to rent a meeting room which is what we did. And hey, it worked.

Numbers were low (it's okay to be negative) but it was understandable... It was a perfect storm: two members gigging and Spandau Ballet were playing in The Point. A third member reportedly needed to 'eat' while another wanted to spend more time with his 'daughter'. (I wonder if his 'partner' knows about this.)

The Recap: 
Communications
We talked communications a bit and decided we can fairly safely leave the LinkedIn group behind. We will leave it as marker but it no one really seems to be interacting there. (Interestingly, the opposite of what C finds, two lines below.)

So lo-cal social media: the blog for starters, emails for mains and free-flowing refills on Twitter.

Show and Tell
G talked about his QR coded school. He promises to write about this soon. He'd better.
C was a long-awaited arrival to the group. Her nascent blog should have been shown at the Digital ELT Ireland Conference this November. Over a year after starting it the author has abandoned it. It was intended to be a point of interaction for her class. It never became that. Undaunted, she started posting the content to a Facebook page - and kablooey. Now there is interaction, comments, questions, a community of sharers. The blog wasn't the best platform because, I suppose, it wasn't 'local' most people are not the app/web explorers they used to be. We talked about how the whole digital native thing went out the window. Prensky had the dignity to let it go.
J talked about Thinglinks and that segues into our Maker Project which was fairly simple: discuss the pros, cons, means and ends of setting up a ELT Makers Thinglink account for local ELT schools and teachers. Like ELTpics but for local people.

Maker Project: Thinglink

We could photograph our own content for teaching the 'Elementalers' and 'Preints' in our lives and in our city. Labelled scenes like the ones we see in our course books could be swapped for interactive images from the actual spaces learners encounter in their new (albeit temporary) daily lives in our dirty old town.

So how would this work in our different practices? We divined three ways:

As attractive content or instructive feature for city, school and class social media
The teacher or students take the picture and then the teacher or students fill hang labels and hotspots on the image.
As set homework and quiz content for classes
The teacher preps the Thinglink; gives the link out in class or via social media/email; students have the evening to study; quiz first thing the next morning with the image projected on the whiteboard or on the teacher's laptop/tablet.
As a prompt for learners making their own artifacts
The teacher preps a sample and the learners have to mimic the work in their own setting preferably in pairs to maximise probability for discussion. So the teacher takes a photo of their favourite or local cafe, they hang labels from hotspots in the image. The students take pictures of their favourite or local cafe and they hang the same labels in their images. The links can then be shared in digital portfolios or simply on their social media.

Perhaps that last one has the biggest 'reach'. If students share their Thinglinks to their social media circles, they'll be showing an authentic side of life in their city and showing their work and new vocab. That might be a side benefit someone would be interested in- your social media person, marketing director, regional marketing co-ordinator... or your learner maybe.

It has to be remembered that this is really an A1/A2 activity. Labeling the eyelets and aglets on your Chuck Taylors is about as useful as knowing the spelling of eyelets and aglets even for advanced students its more of a party trick. Keep it useful.

As a starter, take a picture your in your local super market and take the look at the package nouns instead of the food nouns: boxes, cases, tubes, bottles, sachets etc...

or

take a picture of your local purgatory like I did below and get started where you are.

Hang your labels quickly and we're off.



I'll post some samples in the comments to this page.
...

All in all still a good night: 2 out of 5. See you at the next.

ELT Maker Trip: In The Making

If you live or teach in Dublin you probably know exactly where this is. 

Note the Castle-y building in the background.

Irish Design 2015 seems to be using this building as its Design Hub to host exhibits over this year. Coach House- the official name of the hopeful wannabe castle- is, at this very moment, holding a design exhibit called In The Making by a couple of cool designer types. Needless to say if you are reading this blog and teaching English in Dublin should take your students. 

Not only is it free, but they give stuff out. And that stuff... It's free. And there is English on it. 

ELT Maker Trip:

There are physical artifacts in the room on the left. In the room on the right there are photo compositions of what you have just been seeing. Photos are welcome but both are 'look but don't touch'. That said in the room on the right, your students can pick up a souvenir. In the photo above you can see racks of white blocks on the wall. These are all booklets that unfold into cool posters. Don't overdo it but take one or two.

How can I use this with them back in the classroom?

I can see process writing, passives, presentations coming out of a visit here. 

Talk to your DoS or give a heads-up to your school's Events Coordinator and put it on the school calendar before the end of March. They also do tours and talks.

So what is it?

You will see the stuff modern factories make (MacBooks and Football shoes) and stuff people make (wine corks and curraghs).

The objects are all interestingly incomplete... 'paused' mid-make...

Coracle, mid-make

Tennis balls 

ELT joke- Q:What level is this exhibit appropriate for? A:Uppers

Old school

Marble us.

If you are bringing a group of more than three write to designhub@IrishDesign dot /ai/ /i:/ 

ELT MAKER NIGHT RECAP (or how to make an ELT Maker Night)

Where:
I called about 5 places looking for a venue. Visited 4. Bridge21 is excellent for this stuff and I was thrilled they said yes. I didn't want to meet in a school because schools are competitors, so teachers risk black-listing or grey-listing for associating with other teachers from other schools. There will always be inter-ELTO snobbery. There are old grudges and snoops. And we spend enough time in schools anyway. Pubs were out because we also have spent enough time in them already. Perhaps we still do.

+The Bridge21 space and project is excellent and has so much to offer ELT that it's a wonder they aren't doing ELT already. I volunteered there for a number of months.
-Google maps isn't exact on the doorway, so almost half the participants had to call me to find the door as the doorway was dark. Next time I hope one of the Makers will make us a map. Tea facilities had to be learned.


When:
After the afternoon classes and with enough time to get a snack. I wanted people to be able to get home before bedtime. The best of us have jobs to get up for in the morning and Netflix isn't going to watch itself. 6:00-7:30 was proclaimed. 6:35-7:45 was reality. Tuesdays seem pretty good for this sort of thing.

+More people showed than initially expected. Plenty of laid-back getting-to-know-you time.
-One Maker couldn't arrive until 6:45. Maybe we could start a few minutes later?


Who:
(I won't do names or pictures. It's about making ideas into stuff and stuff into ideas. When I need to talk about someone I'll use initials.)
8 ELT Makers and one newbie. There were 9. About half BYOD'd. There were spare laptops and tables everywhere in the room. See Space Demo Below.


+Everyone had something to talk about.
-We were 'in 9' as the Italians say. Odd numbers made pair work awkard. But English Language Teachers seem to always have a few solutions for that.

How:
After everyone was done WiFying in, ELTea and brownies finished up at about 20 past 6. We did official hellos and roughly sketched the agenda. (This is more what I wished it went like but it WILL be like this next time.)

• Stop chit-chatting and prepare something (and maybe something else) to show. Now.
• Show 'n' Tell One Next we'll ask you to show your work to a partner.
• Show 'n' Tell Two Then we'll ask you to change partners and show your work to another partner.
• Show 'n' Tell Three (repeat)
• Please take a couple of notes and think about these topics
  -why they made it and
  -who it's for
  -where it's going and
  -why they love it (or why they abandoned it)
• Maker News
• Makers' Mini Project

JN arrived late and had missed the first show and tell. So we played the name game to reset and include the newcomer... It was something we should have done at the start.
Person A says their name. Person B says A's name and their own. Person C says A's, B's and then their own. Person D etc... 

+There was an air of serendiptity about the place. The brownies and tea helped.
-There weren't very clear lines between one activity and the next. Next time we'll mind the timings for the show 'n' tells but I will stop short of giving out questionnaires. Fixable.

What:
In the end seven people were on the presenter's end of show 'n' tell. I was monitoring and answering the door, prepping the Mini-Project. So we were one presenter short. I saw over a lot over shoulders.

Projects included:

• P's newscasts and an absolutely terrifying horror film set in a classroom
• L's old student-written collaborative class blog
• G's QR code-enhanced school and a tumblr on a conference recently attended
• J's super slick vocab app which is the envy of all Makers in Dublin; a bonafide pro
• S's class FB page and his role assignment theories for media project work (He assigns a 'skeptic'; Seems Machiavellian; Works a treat for keeping the learners on task); has a great blog too.
• P's intro to Articulate Storyline for... well that may be classified
• R's G+ page series on grammar & vocab for students which help his learners and set him up for writing a learner's book while giving a boost to his schools SEO

As things really got cooking a half hour late we had to stop after 2 show and tells. I put up this whiteboard of reflection questions and suggested doing a bit of writing.

The Maker News was basically that I thought this was a success and that we got consensus on doing it again next month- and that further communication would be through the LinkedIn Group, ELT Makers.

Finally everyone grabbed one of the little letters I'd made up to mock the logo pulled from my November Presentation at the Digital ELT Ireland Conference and L shot a movie on his phone (and edited overnight).



Everyone made a dent in the room rent, packed up, swapped contacts and drifted out the door or to the 5-minute Bridge21 tour.

+I went home. Fairly happy. Lots of happy texts.
-'...too few to mention'

A good night.

ELT Maker Night Brownies

After the 1st ELT Maker Night on Tuesday a few people were saying they liked these and I said I'd post the recipe (only 6 ingredients).

ELT MAKER NIGHT BROWNIES 

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 squares chocolate, melted (6 tablespoons cocoa & 1 tablespoon butter)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2/3 cup flour

Cream butter and sugar.  Add beaten eggs and vanilla.  Add sifted flour and chocolate.   If you like nuts or other stuff, put them in. Bake in greased 8" x 8" pan @ 325 degrees for 25-30 minutes. 

Based on Best Brownies in America
Mom Whipple


Advice:

1. Convert all non-metrics to metrics using... mathematics.
2. Butter firmness is an issue, I hope someone has a way to measure this in the future Randall Munroe I may need to call on you.
3. Get a glass baking pan. The size does matter because the stuff should stack up about 2 cms or 3/4 inch at least.
4. They don't pop out well. So bring them in the glass pan. I wrapped mine in a clean tea towel and then stuck it in a puzzle box. You might bring a knife or spatula.
5. If you like them chewy, keep them covered as they cool- and let them cool. That's going to be like... an hour... at least.

Recipes for ELTea welcome. 

(If I go to IATEFL and see someone selling ELTeacups... )

ELT Maker Night

When- Tuesday 3rd of February 2015 6:00 pm
Where- Bridge21 (See the map. It's on Westland Row behind TCD.)
Who- ELT Makers of any level 
Why- For the good of humanity, wait...
What- on Earth is a Maker Night? See below


It's an hour where you get together with other ELT Makers (Creative non-technophobe English Language Teachers). You meet each other and do a show-and-tell in small groups. There will be no important speeches, it's about making stuff. You show them what you've made and ask them about what they've made.  Sound good? See you there.

Yes, this just got real.

Cutesy Waffle and Details
If you want biscuits and tea you will have to make them yourself. Bring a laptop or whatever you like to use. This is not a coding session, don't be afraid.  It's 2 euros in to cover the cost of renting the place any extra money can go to paying for tea or something nice like that. If you make food or bring tea you get in free.

If you have nothing to share yet that's ok. In fact that's half the reason for it- to see what we can make. The other half is 'show and tell'. Remember: there will be no 'presentations to the class'. It will just be small tables and group work.

So let's review: In small groups you will meet the other ELT people and show your projects. They will be showing their class blogs, resource sites, videos, Edmodos, Facebook groups, podcast projects, G+ feeds, Thinglinks, (books?!) and whatever you've gone through the effort to make. They'll tell you

1. why they made it and 
2. who it's for, 
3. where it's going and 
4. why they love it (or why they abandoned it). 

What you are showing doesn't need to be online if you've made a really excellent crossword puzzle, bring it.

Never fear. Maker Night is near.

Write to john.b.whipple at the old gmail dot commie to clarify, confirm details or book. But you are welcome to just show up.

A Positive Pronunciation Resource: Sounds Perfect

*You'll need to have Flash running on your computer to see the above. iPad users and iPhonistas can download an adapter like this or check it out on a 'proper' computer.  

THE IDEA
I remember one of my favourite co-teachers looking at the phonemic chart in the back of an English File book one day and saying: I don't sound like that. She had a point. The classroom phonemic chart is a description of an accent which isn't used by even a single percentage point of the local population here in Dublin.

Often the pronunciation chart is a drag. It can be a little condescending too. I hope the approach above helps by making it a bit less RP-centric and a bit more grown-up. I made this in Flash and uploading it was done through Google Sites without going to paid server. For you ELT Makers, let it be known: if you want to upload an interactive thingy you can. Follow these handy directions.

I learned Flash on a Technology and Learning course. It was seen as a dying technology but there are converters which change Flash files to HTML5 files which are readable by even those pesky iPhones. That'll be a project for later.

WHY NOW?
Well it would have been earlier but I've been busy. I'll be writing about the IPA chart and the history of our classroom phonemic chart in the upcoming ELT Ireland Bulletin.  Writing got me thinking what a useful chart would do. It would describe the sounds of your own accent as a teacher, or that of your students- but at least someone in the room should be represented. It should be useful for other things too. I should have made this years ago. When talking to other teachers in Ireland, I've said on at least one occasion: I could do better than Adrian Underhill's Interactive Phonemic Chart (Macmillan). We'll see about that.

Adrian Underhill has often said that the symbol set he decided to adopt is a kind of 'one size fits all symbol set'. I've tried to follow this and choose phrases that allow me to fit inside this view while maintaining my own voice. We'll see about that too.

USING PHRASES NOT WORDS
There are a million ways you could lay out a chart and just as many reasons to use it. I always wanted to turn away from a 'one symbol, one word' chart. Taking a little inspiration from the Michael Lewis' lexical approach I set my samples as phrases you could use at your job or in your school, even on the street.

If you have a better idea, bring it the comment carpet below. Most of these phrases are responses to seeing or hearing about a good idea. We come across good ideas all the time.

Enjoy it /ɔɪ/

*Special thanks to John C. Wells and his work on getting the IPA symbols working. The choice of Lucida Sans Unicode for the font was due to his work.

An ELT Thinglink for Christmas, or Rudolph gets a ELT Nosejob.

Again it's Christmas, the most consumer loving time of the year. Make it a goal to make- not purchase- a gift for at least one person this year. If you are a good maker, make it for someone you like.

Again it's Christmas and it was Monday so ELT Ireland were doing their #ELTChinwag. (not chat). Last night on Twitter, Peter Lahiff mentioned he was trying to use a new app for word clouds. I think word clouds should be used only rarely and mostly after you've just discovered Wordle.

But it's the holidays.

He sent me a sample of what he wanted to make.

I complained that it had no red nose.

He made some crack about my design sensibilities. He forgot I have this blog.

Note: No nose.

Let's review: If the words in the visual refer back to 'the red-nosed reindeer' it should- you know- have the red nose.

It's not like Rudolph is ashamed of this feature. Would Frosty be happy if you photoshopped his button nose?

So, Photoshop: I put the nose back on.

Note: Nose. Mine is blue because I used a screen shot of Peter's instead of downloading.

And it needs the song. The teacher will be looking for it anyway. So can we stick a song in the picture?  Is féidir linn, baby.


Again I go back to Paul Driver. He introduced us to Thinglink in one of his talks at the Digital ELT Ireland conference. It lets you add little hotspot links to an image you upload.  So I uploaded my Rudolph to Thinklink.

So I placed a hotspot link on the nose and changed the icon to a circle with a red border. I set the link to a YouTube version of the Rudolph with lyrics.

But the song is really just a souvenir of the 1964 stop-motion animation tv special* for me.

So also I gave RTRNR (completely unnecessary acronym) an eye which is a link to a full version of RTRNR (I love this silly acronym as much as I like the film) on DailyMotion so that learners can go enjoy it at home. The videolink is in an eye because... you... watch... stuff... with... your eyes.

 The finished Thinglink lives in my pitifully shoddy Thinglink page. But here's a link so you can put this RTRNR thinglink in your class blog for your learners or those teachers you share stuff with.

EMBED Link

<img style="max-width:100%" src="//cdn.thinglink.me/api/image/596269464324931584/1024/10/scaletowidth#tl-596269464324931584;1043138249'" class="alwaysThinglink"/><script async charset="utf-8" src="//cdn.thinglink.me/jse/embed.js"></script>

Note: Nose

If you'd prefer the iframe embedded version try the codey goop below. Just copy and paste. The iframe code is what I used to get the actual interactive version below. The only advantage seems to be you can see and play with the interactive hotspots in the blogger interface as you are writing, whereas the embed link above seems like a static image.

Switch your blog view from 'Compose' to 'HTML,' copy the code and paste it in your blog post's code. That allows the codey magic to to shine... just like noble Rudolph's light guiding us on to a brighter felizier navidad.

IFRAME Link

<iframe width="313" height="398" src="//www.thinglink.com/card/596269464324931584" type="text/html" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen scrolling="no"></iframe>

IFRAME Link added in HTML

*This little retro jewel and maker's inspiration was made by a company called Rankin/Bass which even in the 60s and 70s was outsourcing their work to Japanese animators some of which went on to work for the mighty Miyazaki, a total legebag as young D4 Dubliners might say.