Liber Espresso

What the resource is, how it works and what you need to make it work:

Liber Espresso is a multimedia archive with different pedagogical material like pictures, movies, interactive exercises and texts about all kind of topics. It is original from England so you can find material in English (on the English pages) that are all in English.

It is an Internet learning material and it covers all the subjects from preschool to school year 6 and the content of the resource is connected to the curriculum LGR 11.

The requirement to use the resource is that you have to have access to Internet. It does not matter if you have a PC or a Mac – computer because Liber espresso is built on flash.

It is not for free, the school can subscribe the resource Liber Espresso at a fee of 129kr/year/user. The users are the teachers and the students within the school.

Liber Espresso works splendid with a Smart Board for example, then you can watch the movies and do the interactive exercisers together as a group or the whole class. It is at the same time a recourse that one student can use by one computer. They can listen to facts, read and do the exercisers for themselves. It can be used as a starter of new topics or as a “on the side” material, with extras. If you are a teacher in a school that subscribe the resource you will get a password so you can make it work at home also. If you are interested to learn more about Liber Espresso it is possible to ask the staff from Liber to come to your school and give you a demonstration. The best way of learning to use the material is to book an education for the teachers when you decide to try this ICT –recourse.

How teachers can use the resource:

The teachers can use Liber Espresso to create whole lessons/themes using the films, exercisers, texts and so on. There is a special tool called the presentation creator to help you to do that. It is possible to just pick some of the numerous ideas from the material as a starter for a new topic. It can be provided for the pupils who need some individual practise/challenge. The resource can also be used to find new articles (the archive is being updated every week), find different topics that can be discussed. The teacher can also see the connection with the syllabus for each area.

To use the English pages are contributing to develop the language because you can find good materials for the actual group you are teaching in within all kind of school subjects.

  

How pupils can use the resource:

The pupils can use this in their own levels. If you have difficult with reading, you can easily get the text read to you with a simple button click. There are figures at the top of the exercisers that can give you as a student an explanation how to do. The pupils can use the presentation creator and make their own presentation to report what they have learnt or show a work that they are going to share with their classmates. It is an excellent “on the side” material also for extras if you are done with your exercise and want to know some more. They can work with it one by one or in pairs watching and reading and practising the topics we work with.

Other considerations when using this resource:

This ICT- recourse is very popular among the children and the teachers at the school I am working at. The material is easy to find and the site is friendly for both students and teachers (even if you are not so familiar with Internet learning materials). If you are going to use this it is saving a lot of time as a teacher. You do not have to look for all the material from so many places, it is all in one place. It cannot, in my opinion, be the only material to use in the education but it covers a lot if you use the English pages. The English site has more material than the Swedish and even if your student do not know the English language that much yet, the content in the site is useful.

If you or your pupils chose to make your own presentations with Espresso it is good to know that you cannot save it on the resource, you need to save it on a USB – stick or on your server. It could be some questions that you want to know more about, then you can visit www.liber.se/espresso. There you can also find the contact to order the resource or to get someone out to your school to give you a demonstration of the product. Good luck! / Kristina William

Google Drive

What the resource is, how it works and what you need to make it work: 

Google Drive is a free tool for collaborative writing offered by Google. In this ICT-tool you can create for example documents and presentations and work together with others on the same document at the same time. You can see the changes other writers are doing in the present, letter by letter, in the word processor. The word processing program is rather similar, but not as advanced, as Microsoft Word for example. Google Drive is using cloud storage for all the files so the writers can open and work on their project wherever. You can access your files from any computer, home or in school, given internet access. As a creator of a document, you can decide which ones who can access your work and choose whether they will be able to edit, comment or only view and read your work. Google Drive also has ha chat function, where they will practice their interactions skills and discuss their writing. You can go back and look earlier versions of the text and see who wrote what. To be able to access Google Drive you need to have a Google account (g-mail account). 

How the resource can be used by teachers:

 

Teachers can use Google Drive for planning projects, writing weekly information, writing homework, etc. They can also use it for giving the pupils comments on their work and other types of feedback. As all the documents are saved they become like an ePortfolio online and you can use them for assessment and together with the pupil see progress.

The teacher can use Google Drive to plan theme work together with teachers they work with. Then it is not necessary for all the teachers to be at the same place at the same time.

How the resource can be used by pupils:

I see Google Drive as a good tool for collaborative writing where the pupils can create texts or presentations together in groups. Another way to use the resource is to write a text alone and just to get feedback on how to improve it, a form of peer correction. Google Drive has a chat function that can be used for discussion.

The group of students might get a task or problem they will have to solve together. They can then sit at separate computers, searching the internet for information and write together in the word processor.

As in wikis you can see who made changes and additions and you can go back and look at earlier versions of the text. After the author or authors gets comments and feedback on the work and improves it you can go back in earlier version and see the progress that has been made.  

It is probably for the best if the pupils are a bit older, maybe in fourth grade and up. Previous experience from collaborative work is probably for the best along with time to get familiar with Google drive alone first. But I think this tool is a great way to practice to collaborate and to give and take feedback. The comment function and its feedback will probably develop their language and improve the overall work. If the pupils have some experience of word processing programs Google Drive will not be a bigger problem.

Other considerations when using this resource:

If you like the whole wiki idea with collaborative writing this is a good tool and the comment and chat function makes it very useful. I have used Google Drive myself with classmates writing longer and shorter assignments or just planning a speech.

Both receptive- and productive/interactive skills will be practised. I believe this tool is a good way to work with language if you are a follower of the socio-culture perspective. They will help each other to make better posts and get better in the English language.

It is for the best if all pupils can access on computer each but if not the different groups will have to work at separate times.

Lina Hallin

Fun English - Learning games for kids

What is it and how does it work?

The picture are borrowed from this site

Fun English is an application created by a group of teachers, called Pumpkin Online English. It's available for iPads, iPods, iPhones and androids and can be bought and downloaded from Google Play and skolappar.nu among several other sites. 

This application can be used by children between 3 and 10 years old, and even older kids or adults who needs to develop their English knowledge, and introduces the children to English words, meanings, speech and spelling. The application is divided into "lessons", and every lesson is helping the child to get an elementary vocabulary and uses the words in different situations to make the memorization easier.

There are both male and female voices with both English and American accent to let the user listen to the variation between the pronunciations. The child gets to use its listening skills, reading comprehension and its own voice to get through the different lessons.

The games in Fun English are divided into these following lessons:

• Colors - including the verb "to be"
• Numbers - including spelling exercises
• Animals - including singular and plural
• Fruits - including "likes/doesn't like"
• Parts of the body - including "have/has"
• Clothes - including "he/she is wearing"
• Vehicles - introduction of adjectives

Only the color lesson is included in the free version of Fun English, the other games cost about 15 SEK each. Every lesson includes a number of games, spelling or memory for example. Some of the games is getting harder and harder to finish, just to keep up the motivation to keep going. And in some of the games the user gets to catch points or finish the game on time. When you've finished a game, the time or points are saved in a high-score-list. If the children aren't about to compete to each other, there's also a possibility to delete the saved time/points from the list.

These two pictures is borrowed from this site

How can it be used by teachers?

The teacher is deciding which games to download. Before letting the students use the games, it's important that the teacher knows how to play and which games that are included in every lesson. It's also important that the activities are connected to the syllabus and that the teacher knows what the students are about to learn from these games.

The games in this application are, among other things, helping the students to develop their ability to understand and to read the content in spoken English and in different kinds of texts.

The picture is borrowed from this site

How can it be used by students?

The students can use the application one and one or in small groups. By using it the children get to develop their skills in reading, listening and speaking, and also get to challenge their reading comprehension and logical thinking. If the students are about to use the application in small groups of two or three, they also get to develop their cooperative skills.

The picture is borrowed from this site

Enjoy this playful application!

Cecilia Brötte