Review of Tricider

Today's sharing is on an online collaboration tool - Tricider (link embedded in name).

What is Tricider?

Tricider is a free online tool that allows for collation of ideas from participants which they can then vote on.

As a tool for brainstorming of ideas, this is a fast and easy method. A private space can be created so that only invited participants can be part of the group.

When adding ideas, participants can add a description and image to the idea, which helps participants have a better visual understanding. This is particularly useful when trying to decide on a logo or a particular image to use for something. Pros or cons can also be given for the idea. Moreover, other people can add their own pros and cons to someone else's idea.

Uses & Tutorial

As English Language teachers, this tool can be used to conduct argumentative or discursive essay writing practice. The picture below shows how this can be done.

The essay question can be typed in the main heading in orange and students can then be invited by the teacher to collaborate in this room through clicking the "Share and Invite" button on the right. Students can then state their stand under the "Ideas" column and give their reasons in under the "Pros and Cons" column.

Students can indicate if their reason is a pro or con by clicking on the '+' or '-' sign. Students can vote for the argument they like best, and also give feedback by clicking on the 'thumbs up' button to show that they agree with what their friends have said.

As there does not seem to be a word limit in either of the columns, students will not be hampered by it should they have a lot to write for a particular reason.

Disadvantages

A possible downside - apart from students not having access to a computer or the Internet - is the fact that since everything is so open, students are liable to copy or simply paraphrase what another student has written. As such, it might be not practical to have the whole class working on only one "tricision" (as each page is called). Rather, the teacher can break the class up into smaller groups and each group has one tricision since each tricision has its own unique url. This can minimise the problem of copying.

The teacher should also encourage the students within the group to provide constructive comments and vote on their friends' work. This way, the collaboration between members can help students to refine and polish their own arguments.

Advantages

While it is possible to achieve the aforementioned using the traditional method of pen and paper, the wonderful thing about this tool is that, since it is online, students can do this as homework. The teacher can then give comments and even prompt further discussion in class based on what students wrote, maximising classroom time. Since everything in Tricider is stamped with a name, it is easy for the teacher to monitor who has or has not contributed.

All this presupposes that students can be self-directed and will complete their homework. Even if that is not the case, this tool can still be used in class during lesson time, in the computer lab or using borrowed laptops.

In Singapore's context

As long as teachers have access to the computer lab or mobile carts, having students do this task in class is possible. However, knowing the time constraints that Singapore teachers face, it might not be feasible to do it in class. Since most Singapore households have at least a computer at home, or students have access to a computer in the school library, setting the expository writing task via Tricider as homework is the better option.

Conclusion

It will definitely provide a change of pace for the students, and will provide more opportunities for students to collaborate and work together to produce a better piece of work.

Review of Triptico Plus

Today, I will be sharing more about the ICT tool, Triptico Plus (link embedded in the name).

What is Triptico Plus?

Triptico Plus is a very comprehensive ICT tool with lots of different functions that can help a teacher not just conduct the lesson in a fun and engaging manner, but also help with classroom management. While I will not be going into every aspect of Triptico Plus as there are too many features to cover, I will be highlighting one component which I think is pedagogically useful.

But first, Triptico Plus in general.

As you can see, Triptico has many different tools - "Quizzes", "Selectors", "Timers" and "Tools". Quizzes contains 10 different templates which allow teachers to create quizzes in a fun and creative way.

Selectors help teachers to make selection of students more interesting while ensuring that it is fair as it is done randomly. While there are other websites that do this function, I find it very convenient to have this tool in the same website as other tools since it is almost like a one-stop shop where I can find almost everything I need.

Timers are not anything new, but, again, it is very convenient to have this tool that I can put up on the screen and have students aware of the amount of time they have left to complete the given task.

Tools contains an assortment of things that the teacher can use for various tasks that can help with classroom management, like sorting students into random groups and even conducting a poll or creating a seating plan.

Focus: What's the Question?

I will be focusing on the quiz template "What's the Question?". This particular game requires students to formulate questions that will match the answer on the screen and is set up to be played in teams.

Uses

The most straightforward way to use this tool is to help students recall concepts, since students have to be able to recognise the concepts that are shown in order to formulate the correct type of questions. Therefore, as English Language teachers, the simplest way is to design a game around asking for concepts like definitions of grammatical components. 

However, that does not only have to be the only to use this tool to teach the English Language. Another way could be to design a game that requires students to use a particular grammatical structure to form the question in order to obtain the answer shown. Or if the teacher wants to tests the students' knowledge of idioms and/or proverbs, the teacher could have the students ask the question using the meaning of the idiom and/or proverb.

The other useful part of this tool is the scorekeeping it does automatically. This little competition it creates helps to spice things up a bit in the classroom.

Pedagogically, it reduces the monotony of teaching while also putting a spin on the lower order thinking skill of recall in Bloom's Taxonomy (Revised). The other interesting part of this game is that, since it is difficult to provide the exact same phrasing of the question which the teacher provides as the "answer", the students can discuss and debate if the phrasing of the question given by the team is appropriate or suitable before the teacher awards the points. This way, the students are given the opportunity to produce language and while also practicing their analytical and reasoning skills. 

In Singapore's context

It will be fairly easy for Singapore teachers to use this in class as the typical class size ranges from 30 to 40 students. Hence, it is possible to use this tool and in particular, the game features on it. That would definitely break the monotony of practising the four skills. 

However, I would suggest using certain of the game functions in smaller groups, possibly after school remediation lessons, where only the weaker students attend. This way, they will get to practise using English in a manner that is more engaging and interactive. Hopefully, this will increase their motivation to continue learning English. Moreover, when students are in a smaller group, there are more chances for everyone to have a say. They might also feel less self-conscious since they are among peers who are of the same level as them.

Conclusion

This particular tool requires a bit of creativity on the teacher's part when designing the game should he/she want to use it for something other than basic recall. However, that should not be a deterrence as the more creative the game, the more fun the students will have.

I hope you enjoy exploring and using Triptico Plus!

Comments on an ELT blog

Why I like the blog

I looked at http://www.freetech4teachers.com/  and I think it is a really wonderful site. However, it feels more like a proper website than a blog to me. I think this is probably due to the layout of the site, which includes use of banners to link to other sites, and the buttons at the end of each article that allow readers to like it on Facebook or to tweet about it. Having said that, there do still seem to be features of a blog, including the use of the archive gadget, which is typical of blogs and not websites.

This blog is very user-friendly and contains a wealth of information on the topic that is also the name of the site. It is also eye-catching and looks like it is created by someone who knows his way around technology and how to use it effectively.