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| Interactive whiteboards (Source: Google search) |
If you are looking for interactive, user-friendly and versatile language activities,💡 Triptico Plus 💡 (TP) is certainly one of your preferred tools to start exploration!
How TP works?
Until Mid-January 2013, TP provides an amazing variety of 12
FREE and 3 paid-up visually engaging resources for English teachers to run
simultaneously inside and outside classrooms (Figure 1). Generally, it incorporates
a series of 5 colour-coded Quizzes, Selectors, Timers, Tools and Legacy
Resources (Figure 2), encouraging teachers to bring innovation and motivation to
a unique ESL/EFL classroom.
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(Figure 1 - Several resources run simultaneously) |
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| (Figure 2 - Five colour-coded resource categories) |
Interesting Pedagogical Facts or Positive Comments of TP
1. According to The Triptico Blog and current Twitter comments, these resources are proved to be adapted to diverse learning needs, abilities, topic interests and teaching contexts at different years of age.
2. Indeed, most teachers are often in a predicament of striking a balance between breathless pace of teaching schedule and preparation for school-based materials. Personally, TP is a generous gift to ALL teachers as we do not need extra professional training, but simply familiarize ourselves with the available resources.
3. The Triptico Cloud is a platform for us to save, edit and share school-based resources among colleagues, generating a stronger sense of belonging and bonding in the English team. It should be noted that you will receive updates once new resources are developed and new blog posts are added.
2. Indeed, most teachers are often in a predicament of striking a balance between breathless pace of teaching schedule and preparation for school-based materials. Personally, TP is a generous gift to ALL teachers as we do not need extra professional training, but simply familiarize ourselves with the available resources.
3. The Triptico Cloud is a platform for us to save, edit and share school-based resources among colleagues, generating a stronger sense of belonging and bonding in the English team. It should be noted that you will receive updates once new resources are developed and new blog posts are added.
4. You don’t need to panic if you experience difficulties while
creating interactive learning resources. You can always (i) click Open Resource
and view a demo (Figure 3); (ii) visit The Academy Home and read the
step-by-step instructions (Figure 4) and/or (iii) watch demonstrations on
YouTube. Moreover, it is noteworthy that the TP pioneer, David Riley, is
receptive to any feedback and requests from you! And YES! He does respond
actively and constructively in both blogs and Twitter.
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(Figure 3 - View a demo) |
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(Figure 4 - Step-by-step instructions at Academy Home) |
Hong Kong Context
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| (Source: Google) |
In a typical primary ESL/EFL classroom, teachers often commence the lesson by asking students to recite vocabulary or tense table in a particular textbook chapter. From my past teaching experience, it seems that students easily feel monotonous and demotivating. 😞
Resolution
👍 Tools: Word Magnets (WM)
It comprises
various templates for sorting, grouping, labelling or matching unlimited verb
tenses (e.g., present, past, past participles…etc.) (Figure 5) This implies that WM is
able to provide ALL students equal learning opportunities to practice target
language. While students are waiting for their turns to categorize the verbs on
the IWB, they can engage in collaborative learning – interact and negotiate
meaning in pairs or groups and check if their peers’ answers are correct or not.
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(Figure 5 - Tense table with WM) |
👍 Quizzes: Word Mix
Depending on
the lesson aims and objectives, teachers can create interactive vocabulary
quizzes with Word Mix and play on the IWB or personal computers. For example, if
you want to check students’ spelling and understanding of the vocabulary meaning,
you can type the correct answer along with either text clues or image clues.
Similarly, audio clues can be inserted if you want to enhance their spelling
and pronunciation of the newly learnt vocabulary.
Situation 2
In the spirit of Vygotsky’s
(1978) sociocultural theory of mind, English learning is mediated and
influenced by social interaction. Therefore, collaborative learning along with time
management are often of teachers’ primary concern in a 35-minute lesson.
Resolution
As mentioned earlier, available resources can be adopted simultaneously.
👍 Task Spinner is an appealing tool to invite more students as individuals to articulate their thoughts in English confidently and excitingly.
👍 Student Group can help teachers assign students into mixed ability group randomly.
👍 Task Timer is highly recommended within the Timer category. Perceivably, it is very likely that students are motivated to engage in different tasks at an ideal stress level when time and the following tasks are displayed on the screen according to teacher’s set-up.
👍 Task Spinner is an appealing tool to invite more students as individuals to articulate their thoughts in English confidently and excitingly.
👍 Student Group can help teachers assign students into mixed ability group randomly.
👍 Task Timer is highly recommended within the Timer category. Perceivably, it is very likely that students are motivated to engage in different tasks at an ideal stress level when time and the following tasks are displayed on the screen according to teacher’s set-up.
General Limitations
1. Since Triptico Plus runs on Adobe Air, its program is
unfortunately not functioned with other technological devices such as an iPad
and iPhone. Yet, it works on interactive whiteboard, personal computers and
MacBook.
2. In Hong Kong, the average class size is as large as 30-35
students. Unless the school purchases at least 35 personal computers plus a permanent
online connection service, or else it may not be feasible or inefficient to give
every student the same learning opportunity to practice English skills with the
tailor-made resources in class.
3. Despite Triptico Plus incorporating a vast variety of learning
resources, some of them such as Quizzes Word Mix cannot cater the three major
learning styles (i.e., visual, audio and kinesthetic) simultaneously. In
practice, teachers can only insert either audio, image or text clues for the
vocabulary consolidation. Also, it is unfortunate that the list of vocabulary can only use one
type of clue throughout the whole activity.
4. Teachers may need to install Adobe Flash Player plus buy a
microphone if the computer does not support audio recording function.
Wrap-up Thoughts
After exploring Triptico Plus, I think it is WORTHWHILE to spend more time exploring and creating our own game-like materials by trial and error. With CONSTANT PRACTICES on the 5 distinct available resources, as well as ENGAGE YOURSELF in COLLABORATIVE + INTERACTIVE DIALOGUES with other educationalists, not only have YOU realized TP is a powerful tool empowering your 5Cs (i.e., Creativity, Confidence, Consciousness and iCt Competence) in English language teaching, but also become frontline change agents in motivating learners in a digital generation era! 👏
HEY! I hope YOU have gained
some inspiration after BLOGGING my first post!
💭 What are your instant thoughts and feelings towards TP?
Please feel free to 💬 / ✍ / 📧 below!
More updates will be available next week! Have an insightful Friday! 😄
Reference
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher thought processes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Dear Hei Yu
ReplyDeleteI found this post has interestingly given the details of Tripticoplus through discussion and video. I loved the way you have linked to your own context. Yes, I too think that asking students to recite vocabulary or tense table can be boring whereas if they are involved in a kind of interactive activity through the use of tool like Tripticoplus, it would certainly help them get engaged in the activity. As you have mentioned, 'word magnet', 'quizzes', 'task spinner' are really the good tasks to engage the learners fully.
Your wrap-up thoughts on 5Cs, creativity, confidence, consciousness and ICT competence which Tripticoplus tool helps teachers to gain is really a gripping idea. Aside from the tasks that directly benefit students, we, as teachers too get opportunity to develop ourselves by involving in designing and redesigning such tasks.
Sagun