QuestGarden

http://www.questgarden.com

A task I designed using QuestGarden

  

What is QuestGarden? What does it do?

QuestGarden is a website designed to help users create a WebQuest [note] without fear of not knowing how to edit web page. By following the examples and standard procedure offered by the QuestGarden, users can attach or embed their photos, worksheets in the WebQuest they make. They can also play with the font, background color and create their own stylish WebQuest.

QuestGarden is also a community that allows users to share and comment on one anothers' work.

[note] Here is a link if you want to explore more about WebQuest.

http://webquest.org/

Why is QuestGarden relevant to language learning?

Teachers can find a variety of well-designed WebQuests on QuestGarden and are free to use them in their own teaching context. They can also adapt WebQuests to suit students' needs such as culture, background, English level, interest, etc. Most important of all, students can benefit greatly from meaningful and interesting learning process.

How can we use QuestGarden to foster language learning in class or outside class?

1. Teachers are free to choose sample WebQuests that suit their teaching contexts.

2. Teachers might be inspired by other teachers' ideas of teaching and want to create their own WebQuests, which encourages creative teaching.

3. Teachers might learn from one another through the process of evaluating others' WebQuests. 

What are the limitations with the use of QuestGarden?

1. It takes a lot of time and effort to carry out a well-structured and comprehensive QuestGarden work.

2. As the main idea of QuestGarden is to build up learners' English repertoire through meaningful and step-by-step tasks, it might take a certain amount of time to see their growth in English.

3. It might be difficult to assess how much learners have learned from the tasks.

 

Wordle

http://www.wordle.net/

What is Wordle? What does it do?

Wordle is a website made by an IBM software engineer, Jonathan Feinberg. Users either type or copy-and-paste text into the system, which then creates a corresponding 'word cloud' from it. Words that appear more frequently are made larger than others and users can play with the clouds using a variety of colour schemes, layouts and fonts. Wordle is a free tool and the pictures users create with Wordle are theirs to keep. Users can print them out or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with the public.

Why is Wordle relevant to language learning?

Wordle is relevant to language learning because it is visually attractive and thus can boost students' motivation. It can, moreover, show word frequency and highlight the key words of the texts given.

How can we use Wordle to foster language learning in class or outside class?

In class

Wordle is a great tool for teachers to use to engage students in pre-reading activities.

1. Teachers can show students a Wordle created from a text and ask students to guess what the text is about. For example, if I want to use Wordle to teach an English song, I will first show the Wordle I have made from the lyrics of a song and ask students to discuss what they think the lyrics are about.

2. Teachers can then ask students to find words they already know in the Wordle given and have them read those words out loud for practice.

3. Following that, students could be asked to find 10 words they don't know in the Wordle (or those they are least familiar with) and make a list of them.  

4. Before the class is dismissed, students could be set homework, making 10 sentences based on the list of 10 words.

Outside class

Teachers can ask students to go home, find texts that interest them, make their own Wordles, and then write 10 sentences, each containing a word they previously didn't know. By doing so, teachers encourage students' autonomous learning.

What are the limitations with the use of Wordle?

1. A Wordle file cannot be saved in a JPEG or PDF format directly from the Wordle website. You have to use other tools or apps to do that.

2. Despite the fact that Wordle makes gorgeous word clouds and can really draw students' attention in the beginning, they might not find Wordle interesting any more if teachers keep using it in class.

3. If the text is too long, the Worldle created might seem a bit disordered and cluttered.