Why focus on ICT?

As the world around us evolves and becomes more computer-minded (or device-minded, if you want to get technical), we as teachers have to ‘evolve’ as well. In my experience, education is quite often a step behind because of the huge investments involved with new ICT developments and as such, there is quite a difference between schools concerning ICT development.

In other words: not everyone has the same possibilities to use all of the amazing online content in their lessons.

I know I don’t.

But I do want to use the flexible and often fun developments ICT and devices in class offer, so I searched for tools that can be very useful in a CLIL lesson.

So you don’t have to ;).

CLIL Evo

Last January I hosted a webinar on the topic CLIL & ICT during the Techno CLIL EVO event. If you do not know about this event, please contact the organisers. I have participated for three years in a row and it is simply very exciting to share ideas with many colleagues at the same time during online CLIL events like this.

ICT & CLIL

One more thing: one might argue the tools below are not CLIL only. They can be used in a ‘regular’ lesson as well.

And I agree!

Just as I think CLIL is not for (second) language learning only, it is simply ‘good teaching’.

But that is a discussion for another time..

The three (free) tools

Okay here we go!

1. Formative

Formative provides an interactive way of working with students. You can ask questions for students to answer to create live polls, but also ask students to draw things on their devices, which will be shown on screen. Live.

This is an amazing tool if you have tablets in your classroom, but even if you do not, you can still use the majority of the functions available.

Formative can also check answers for you, so you can immediately see how your students performed and provide them with live feedback.

This also works while students are still working on tasks. Setting up tasks that take up quite some time is also possible, as time limits are not needed and students can work at their own pace.

Lessons learned:

Do not use the drawing questions when you use mobile phones. That simply does not work…

2. Kahoot (+ Kahoot homework)

Who does not know Kahoot? If you are even a little ICT- minded you have probably heard of it before.

It is a fun, quick and engaging way to allow for some summative testing.

However, Kahoot has recently implemented for some interesting new features, which in my opinion make the tool even more useful.

With Kahoot Challenges, a teacher can turn a quiz into a test to be done at home. Students can do the quiz at home and the results are recorded, so the teacher can see this at the start of the next lesson and discuss the results.

On of the disadvantages of Kahoot was, in my opinion, the focus on the ‘winner’. If you do this in class and a student has the first couple of question wrong, he or she might not be motivated to continue anymore.

With this ‘homework quiz’, the students only see their final result in the end, keeping them motivated and providing you with valuable insights into their way of thinking!

Lessons learned:

Always give four options for answers, otherwise guessing starts to be more rewarding for students. Also, make sure you are aware of the time pressure. Some students find that to be a distraction.

3. Classdojo

Last but not least: Classdojo. My favorite!

This app/website allows for a random selection of students and rewarding of points. This is also where CLIL comes in, as one of the ways my students can receive points is by speaking English in class.

I also use classdojo to randomly select students for checking homework or selecting students to present a problem. Students want to score points because if they score enough points by the end of the term, they get a candy.

I frequently update the students on their progress and tell them if they are in the ‘safe zone’, which means they scored 10 positive points for each negative point. Seriously, the work they do for one candy over a period of 8 weeks…

Lessons learned:

I reward students personally, but only look at the class total for the rewarding of candy. Because students get selected randomly, some students are never chosen and do not earn candy.

Conclusion

I hope these three tools help you to provide feedback and motivate students. Feel free to add more ideas if you have any!