A Wonderful Online Discussion Platform -- TodaysMeet

TodaysMeet is a wonderful online communication tool. A public meeting room can be created easily at any time, making online group discussion effortlessly accessible.

Teachers can use TodaysMeet to

•       organise the students to brainstorm on certain topics as a warming-up activity in the class
•       collect the students' feedbacks of the previous classes, and prepare for the following classes
•       open a Q-A session outside the classroom
•      disscuss the outline, syllubus, teaching aids, etc. with other colleagues within the school or far away

Students can  use TodaysMeet to

•       discuss and negotiate with their partners converning their cooperative work
•       ask and answer the Qs their fellow students post
•       comment on the class immediately after the class

The reasons for teachers to choose TodaysMeet:

•      More room for the Ss: when applying the tool to the second language teaching and learning, the teacher's role is pulling back. In other words, students are given more room to express their ideas, thus rather student-centred.
•      Motivation: many students of shy personality or lower target language proficiency level tend to be reluctant to speak in the public, especially facing an authoritative role as a teacher. Without the concrete appearance of the teacher, the students can be motivated and more actively involved in the group work and the discussion.
•      Effectiveness: the creating of the meeting room is not limited to the time and place. Besides, it aslo cost-effective.
•      Recorder of the discussion: with an easy click on the "transcript" button in lower right side of the disscussion box, the the lines of every participants can be automatically recorded for future use. 

Limitation:

          This online communication tool does not allow the users to share any images, audio or visual files. It may bring about difficulty for the illustration of some discussion, the sharing of the resouce between the Ts and Ss, and so forth.

Wallwisher

Wallwisher? Wish to stick a note on the wall?

What is Wallwisher?

Wallwisher (http://www.wallwisher.com/) is a free Web 2.0 tool. As indicated by its name, it allows users to build a colorful 'wall' of a given topic, and anyone who get access to the wall can 'stick notes' on it. You can share a text, website, an image and even a vedio with Wallwisher notes!

Here is a tutorial vedio to help you quickly learn how to use Wallwisher.

The reasons for choosing Wallwisher for ELT?

• Wallwisher is free and easy to use.
• The wall built is colorful, eye-catching and can be edited, thus motivating for students, the young learners in particular.
• The employment of Wallwisher in ELT classroom is a practical materialisation of the learning theory of constructivism, since every learner has an opportunity to contribute to the knowledge, share the learning resources with peer students and teachers, etc. 
• The sharing function is powerful and cater well for the users' needs.

                           A demo wall (http://www.wallwisher.com/demo)

• It can be used both in and outside of the class, making e-collaboration and e-learning more easily.

Limitations?

• To use Wallwisher as the sharing and discussion platform in the class requires a well-equipped modern classroom with internet access and one computer for each student, or at least one computer for each group.
• To show the name of the notes' owner,  Wallwisher requires the users to regester with a valid email address, which may annoy some people who are conservative to reveal personal information.
• The wall can possibly be completely messed up when too many people post their notes, and it is really hard to orgnise the messy notes again.

Suggestions for teachers

• Using Wallwisher in a speaking class-- A story telling activity

The teacher can randomly post different story elements (such as the people, place, event, time, etc. ) on the wall, and ask the students to create their own interesting story with these elements as a group.

• Using Wallwisher in a reading class -- Put the disorganised reading materials in the right order

The teacher is suggested to disorganise a reading material, stick different parts randomly, and ask the students to put them in the right order -- it is a very good reading activity aimed at training the studentst the capability of activating their own schemata and making prediction as well as the logical thinking style when doing the reading activity.

• Using Wallwisher in the writing class -- An ice-breaking or brainstorm tool

As a warming-up activity in the writing class, the teacher can organise the students to brainstorm the ideas for their topic of writing task.

•  Using Wallwisher as the discussion board in and outside of the class

When doing a group task, it is a very smart choice to use Wallwisher as the disscussion platform. The students can follow each other's working progress, share the ideas and resources, and contribute to each other's work.