Category Archives: Instructional Design

Climbing Up and Sliding Down the AI Slope of Enlightenment

It has been a year since OpenAI released its generative chat app, ChatGPT. As an avid education technologist, I must confess that I jumped headfirst into the ChatGPT spectacle. This enthusiasm is documented by more than twenty professional development activities that have been facilitated or written over the past months. These are listed in the Resources section below. 

Recently, I have taken a breath to reflect on ChatGPT and how it has dominated the conversation in education technology in 2023. Within this reflection I have mapped my experience against Gartner’s Hype Cycle of new technologies to document how I am faring in relation to education’s adoption of generative chat technologies. 

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Web Accessibility for Language Teachers

Educational digital accessibility is often viewed as a set of practices  dedicated that assist disabled individuals with challenges to participate in online and blended courses.  In fact, accessibility practices endeavor to more than eliminate barriers to education; they ensure that digital content is enhanced for everyone. Digital accessibility practices are something we all should practice because: 

  • they remove barriers to education and training
  • legislation requires accessibility across Canada 
  • many Canadians live with at least 1 disability 
  • they improve all digital resources for all users 
  • it is the right thing to do 

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Teaching and Learning Movements- Where Are We Now?

Image taken from: BigStockPhoto

Schools were first developed not as a past-time, but as a way to elevate the rich and then as a way to educate the masses before they entered the workforce. One of the most basic reasons for this was the need for a literate workforce. Literacy and mathematics have been at the core of global educational systems for hundreds of years, and maybe not surprisingly, these subjects are still there.

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Humor in the ESL Classroom

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

Learning English (or any new language) requires student focus, repetition, and practice, so it’s easy to see why students may often feel disengaged or even bored in the classroom. This is why ESL teachers love to try off-the-wall ways to liven up their classes and infuse some enthusiasm into the topic. Continue reading

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Create Visual Interactive Activities with Quizlet Diagrams

Quizlet Diagrams

image source: John Allan

A commonly used tool for teaching and learning vocabulary are labelled visuals. Labelled visuals are especially important for lower-level language learners when visual examples of concrete vocabulary items are essential for conveying meaning. They are also helpful in teaching English for Specific Purposes, such as studying the parts of an electric motor. However, learning parts of a scene, diagram, chart, illustration, photograph or a map is often boring and tedious for language learners, but the Quizlet Diagram feature can make this much more interesting for learners. 

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Effective Online Tools & Resources for Teachers and Learners

Education, distance education, internet studying, e-learning flat vector illustration. Online classes, training courses, tutorials, online education design for mobile and web graphics
Image source: www.bigstockphoto.com

Over the past two years, I have been attending a lot of webinars, presentations, conferences, dialogues and online courses. I’ve also been reading blogs and articles as well as doing presentations and writing blogposts. I’ve gained knowledge and collected remarkable resources. Tools like the ones below can help us design tasks that will engage and motivate our learners.

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#CDNELTCHAT & #TESLONCHAT : JOIN THE CHAT ON THURSDAY!

Image Source: #CdnELTChat Team
Guest Contributor: Jennifer Chow
 
Join #CdnELTchat & #teslONchat to chat about designing inclusive pedagogies in #ELT on Thu, Feb 25 (note the date) at 6PT 7MT 8CT 9ET 10AT.

If you can, join @Jessifer ‘s webinar earlier on Feb 25 as this will be the basis for our chat (but not essential): https://asuevents.asu.edu/content/design

Below is a recap of the January 26 chat written by #CdnELTchat moderator Jennifer Chow.

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Tools and Resources for Online Teaching (Part 1)

In this article, I am going to share some of my ideas about how to keep Google Classroom neat and organized, as well as how to use Jamboard as an effective whiteboard.

Tools and Tips

Image source: bigstockphoto.com

Google Classroom

Google Classroom (GC) has become the primary instructional platform for most teachers in Ontario since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. I like it and I hate it. I like it because it is such a powerful platform for teachers to deliver content to students. I hate it because it can sometimes be messy and challenging when it comes to organizing content. It took me a while, but I found a way to organize it.

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Summary of the #InstructionalDesign discussion with Anna Bartosik

December 11th, 2020 marked our final #teslONchat of the year. We gathered on Twitter to discuss Instructional Design with Anna Bartosik (@ambartosik). Anna is a doctoral candidate, an instructional designer, a teacher, and a teacher trainer. Anna develops online and blended courses and works on curriculum development. Her interest in self-directed professional development informs her work as a teacher and instructional designer, but also inspired her research of teacher professional development on social media platforms, like Twitter.

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