First of all, let me say that teaching/learning over the Internet has a number of limitations - one of the greatest of which is the Internet itself.
So, when I read about Zoom, I thought that most of my Christmasses had come at once! It is clearly targetting large corporations with a need for professional-quality remote meeting capabilities. It runs on a wide range of platforms including: Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome OS, IOS, Android, Blackberry, Zoom Rooms and H323/SIP room systems and offers the best quality audio/video signal processing that I have yet seen in any FREE software. Installation is a simple one-time process after downloading a very small install utility - once installed, a user simply clicks on a Zoom link to access the meeting they need. If you are the host and have not yet started a meeting by the appointed time, Zoom handily sends you reminder to get on with it! And, if you are frustrated with those packages that just drop one or all of your connections when bandwidth is compromised, forcing you and/or your meeting attendees to log in anew, you will be delighted with the resilience that Zoom shows - no, it's not magic, but it usually manages speedy and seamless reconnections when required. Sharing an application screen is a simple toggling exercise which allows you to choose from all of your open program windows and video AND audio sharing is enabled - yes, I CAN show movies for my students. Sharing a whiteboard is another very handy feature - and in text mode, I can copy and paste a specific passage from a text for editting by me OR THE STUDENTS! It is just a single click to grant control to a student if you want them to work on the whiteboard (or any other shared screen). I like to see my students throughout the lesson (stops 'em from playing video games or falling asleep when we get to the difficult bits!) and Zoom offers a range of display formats, including a rather neat "speaker focus" feature - whoever is speaking instantly goes full-screen. Even in "gallery" mode, the current speaker window is highlighted. There is a chat window which is simple to toggle between "Group" and "Specific User" mode for private comments. Another really valuable (for a teacher) feature is Cloud/MP4 recording of each and every session - not just the AV, but text from the chat window and audio stream only. Time-stamped and carrying the meeting booking title for easy reference. Zoom allows you schedule recurring meetings and links to several calendars, automatically creating meeting appointments AND (in Google Calendar, at least) even emailing invitations and meeting changes to listed participants. OK - I have been waxing eloquent about the benefits of Zoom - so, what's NOT to like? Just a couple of things that I would like the development team to take a look at: As far as I can tell, the only way to integrate file transfer is to have an independent chat active with each user - and not all of my users want to have ANOTHER "chat box" running - it would be wonderful if one could initiate a file transfer from the chat box in the meeting - of course, I would like to be able to choose whether or not to transmit to all attendees or to choose a private chat as my target. When scheduling a recurring meeting, it would be good to be able to set an end date for the series. Increasing the time limit for multi-user sessions in the free version to 65 minutes (currently 40) would be GREAT, but I understand the commercial reasons for not doing so. and schedule my multi-user meetings as 30 minute back-to-back sessions - time for a quick "comfort stop" between halves! For me, it would be a great benefit if the Zoom folk could sit down with the TenCent folk and hammer out their disagreement (whatever it is) - QQ email addresses automatically reject (505 error) emails authored from Zoom. And that's about "it" for my nit-picking - all in all, there are far more reasons to use Zoom than any other solution that I have found. If you want to try Zoom for yourself, look here: https://zoom.us/download
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Kaizena (derived from "Kai.zen", a Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement) is an unusual system designed to provide feedback to students as both written and audible (recorded) comments on their work. They have an excellent website which explains the features and philosophy behind the system here: https://kaizena.com/about - particularly impressive and useful is their page of documented research which led to the development of the system. However, as an on-line teacher, I am working one-to-one most of the time, and feedback is not so much an issue for me as it is in the classroom situation. But I decided to explore Kaizena anyway, and I am SO glad that I did. Both students and teachers can post materials to a "Group" (I think of these as 'courses'). The original intention was, I believe, that this should be student work for critique. And, as such, it works fine. But I have also found that it is very useful to introduce a piece of text, either from our coursebooks or from "real-life" materials for use by students. When a word or passage from that text is highlighted, either by the teacher or the student, a comment box pops up. In this, one can either:
These facilities can be used both in real-time - during the course of the lesson (especially useful for modelling and lexis development) or off-line (more useful for explanations which need research and for marking assignments). While I use the Lessons and Skills for correction and evaluation purposes (and they REALLY save time and effort, as well as ensuring that you provide consistent responses), the written and recorded comments are the bits that I find most useful. In one (real-life) scenario, I have a student studying Ovid's Metamorphoses. Always a tough assignment, but when your student has English as L2, even tougher. We are using the Internet Classics Archive translation by Garth, Dryden et al.(http://classics.mit.edu//Ovid/metam.html) as our primary text, and supplementing this with the prose version by A.S. Kline (www.poetryintranslation.com). As the Garth work appeared originally in 1717AD, the English is very traditional and demands extensive "re-translation" into modern English. And Kline's excellent work is sometimes rather inaccessible for a G6 ESL student. So, there is extensive need for explanation, translation and speech modelling as the student reads through the work. In my on-line class, much of this can be achieved real-time using Skype or Zoom. But Kaizena enables us to make these observations and explanations permanent, in the form of written and spoken comments, which are associated with the highlights in the original text. At this point, maybe I should remember that sometimes "a picture is worth a thousand words": If a student clicks on a comment (left-hand pane) the right-hand pane scrolls to the highlighted text. But if the student clicks on the highlighted text (right-hand pane) the left-hand pane scrolls to the associated comment. Cool? SUPER cool! When either of us highlights text in the right-hand pane, a comment box pops up that can be used for a written or spoken query or answer, or for a "lesson" reference or for a "Skills" rating. Even better than "feedback", this is "dialogue". Comments can either be recorded in a public conversation, which both current and future students can see, or in a private conversation, specific to each student. I do NOT work for Kaizena, but I DO owe them a debt of gratitude for making me a more effective teacher and for reducing the load of "doing it right". For my parents and students, you are always free to ask to enroll in a Kaizena-based course (I have not yet found a course that does NOT benefit from using Kaizena). For other teachers, if I have piqued your interest, I suggest that you check out the site (link is at the beginning of this article) and, if you have questions, chat with the folk at Kaizena - they are friendly, enthusiastic, helpful and very knowledgeable. Well.....yes, it is possible - but you can make life a whole lot easier if you pay attention to these tips. As a teacher, I have learned several lessons about what does (and does not) work in communicating over the Internet, and the key points are discussed in this article. Start with the fact that our Internet connections are quite fragile - anything can interfere with them - from a TV set placed too close to a router to a man with a road drill digging a hole in the wrong place. WiFi connections are notorious for dropping out when we most need them. And there are certain "rush hours" when it seems that the whole world wants to text, email or stream and the Internet slows down to a crawl because of the high traffic. POINT 1. Wifi is convenient, but it is also generally slower and less reliable than a "hardwired" connection. Look at the Ookla Speedtest results from the same computer, taken within minutes of each other - one on Wifi and one on hardwire: Almost TWICE the download speed and 20% better upload speed - and the hardwire connection maintains fairly similar speeds all day long! (NOTE TO MYSELF: Change my WiFi password regularly just in case someone is "piggy-backing" on my connection!). Remember, download speed determines the quality of what YOU see and hear - but upload speed determines what your TEACHER will see and hear. So, how do you get a hardwired connection? Simply buy an RJ45 "patch" cable from your friendly computer shop. You will need to estimate the distance from your router to your desk, but you can almost ALWAYS get a cable "out of the box" in multiples of 5 metres. If you need something longer, a GOOD computer shop will make up a custom length for you in minutes. Explain that you are connecting your computer to your modem - otherwise you might get a "cross-over" cable which is used for directly connecting one computer to another and which will usually not work for our purposes. Your laptop will almost certainly have an RJ45 socket (see the pictures below) but, even if you are using a device that does not have an RJ45 socket, you can buy a USB - RJ45 adapter for very little cost. Connect your device to your modem/router as shown below and that is IT! POINT 2 - I said that it is possible to use a Smartphone - but four things make Smartphones and tablets quite difficult to use for language learning.
If you really feel that you MUST have a tablet, I suggest that you look at a hybrid device such as the Asus Transformer series (I have to admit that I like mine a lot for reading E-Books), the Surface series or one of many others. CNet made some sensible recommendations here: Tablets with Keyboards POINT 3 - invest in a reasonably good headset. This will make your speech clearer to the teacher, and enable you to concentrate with less distractions from the noises around you. Desktop and in-built microphones tend to pick up lots of unwanted sounds - just try making a recording when you are not speaking - and external speakers can contribute to bad feedback (that horrible "howling" noise) and echo which can make your conversation quite difficult for both you and your teacher. Things to look for in a headset:
Adjustable lighting can be very helpful – but try to avoid using fluorescent lights – they can cause flickering in the image unless you adjust your camera setting to cancel out the effect. POINT 5 - Camera. You do not need to spend a fortune on a camera – but the better your camera, the easier it is to use. Many Smartphones have only a front-facing camera, which is impractical for two-way communication, but even those with a "selfie" mode are very hard to use for our purposes. Any of these options will work for you – but the separate camera on a tripod is most flexible. The “clip-on” for lap-top screen is OK (but most do not fit screens for desktop computers) and even the laptop built-in camera is OK – but you can’t really adjust the angle and usually they have very few options for adjusting colour, low light, flicker reduction and auto-focusing etc. POINT 6 - Software. More and more communication platforms are bringing out mobile "app" versions - but it is very important that you check that the program that your teacher/school uses is supported on your device and operating system. Skype is still a favourite, but I have also had success with Zoom and Google Hangouts. Important things to check before you commit include:
If you are not satisfied with the result of your test call, Skype allows you choose which microphone and speaker/headphones to use and alter their settings. Choose Tools : Options : Audio Settings to access this screen.
You can also control the camera settings by choosing Tools : Options : Video Settings Last tip: Only open the programs that we are actually using in the class – Skype, Zoom, Kaizena or your PDF reader. Other programs, especially “chat” programs, can slow the computer and the network and distract you from the lesson. So, can you use a Smartphone to learn a language? Yes, indeed you can - but you can make the process much easier for both yourself and your teacher(s) by investing in equipment that is more suitable for the task. |
AuthorTony is an experienced on-line English and Science teacher with an extensive background in IT support and training. Archives
December 2016
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