appedELT

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This week’s app has to be the ‘The fantastic flying books of Mister Morris “.  If you have been paying attention to the news then you might have heard of it. At the Oscars ceremony, the film won the oscar in the short animated film category.   If you have 15 minutes then go watch it on youtube.

The app (book) came out last year  and is widely regarded by many of one of the best apps yet to grace the Ipad.  It is currently on sale for £2.99 in the itunes store.

If you never use it with students, £2.99 is a snip for an absolutely gorgeous book. With sound, text, and animations it is an excellent example of a multimodal text and as such is a good way to introduce multimodal literacy to the EFL classroom. 

As you can see from the picture, a 'page' has a picture, text and in a gesture controlled animation. However through the menu system on the right you can also jump pages, turn on the audio and sound effects. You can even switch the text off so there is just a picture  or change the text into one of ten languages. All of these options allow for a number of lesson ideas so here are 7 ways you can use it.

1. Pictures only to guess the story - either by screen shooting just a few of the images or  by turrning off the text and audio get the students to work out the story. Then use the pictures to come up with the ideas (or even develop the whole story if the students like writing). Once they have done, they can read / listen to the story and compare.

2. Picture Description

A 'skill' needed for almost all oral exams is picture descption and the book has some wonderfully colourful pictures, perfect for developing spoken skills. 

3. Audio Only - students listen to the story and try to visualise what the pictures are for each page. As well as allowing for creatvity, this checks students comprehension of what they heard.

4. Book versus film - The students read the book on the ipad then watch the youtube clip and talk about any differences and / or how the film was adapted for the app.  Would they have done it the same way? 

5. Translation - since the book has 9 other languages (10 with English) for the written text, students can listen to the English and then compare the translation.

6. Recording the story. Though there are many arguments about the worthwhileness of students reading aloud, students could record themselves telling the story using the written text then compare their way of telling it to the audio.

7. Simply read, listen and enjoy the story making the most of it's features

 

 

There a couple of apps produced by Optimum drama presumably as a fun way to use photos that can be utilized for project work in the mlearning classroom.  They are InAWorld…Drama and InAWorld....Comedy. Both cost £1.49.

Both apps turn a chosen set of four photos into a spoof movie trailer. The app give you a set of sentence structures that you can choose from in order to create your dialogue for the trailer and sat at various points you choose a photo to accompany your work. 

It's very easy to use. Once you have chosen to create a trailer, the first step is to give it a title and choose the typeface. You then have to choose your opening line. As you can see from the photo below there is quite the choice, simply tap the one you want to use. 

Don't worry you can always go back and change it if you change your mind. Now opening in place you need to choose a photo to go with it. And so it continues until you complete your trailer.

After that simply choose your music and then review. It's a definite positive that there is a review screen that let's you see all the lines used and photos which allows you to change anyone thing if you want, rather than have to go back and start again. 

 

Once the review is complete you can watch the trailer. One slightly annoying thing is that in order to get the video to use on your own site you have to upload it to inaworldonline.com and this means making an account. However the whole process is easy and you could also share by facebook or twitter.

So given it provides all the language, how is this of use in the English classroom? Well clearly students could simply use it as part of a ‘film’ lesson.   However like many apps, perhaps it’s best use comes as part of a project.  Put the class into groups and ask each group to come up a trailer. You could set the genre or leave it up to the class. They then work together in English to decide their trailer – they’d need to decide on the photos to use and the story arc of their trailer.  When all groups have done then they share and decide on which fulfils the brief best.

Such a task brings in language work and allows students to consider how a piece of writing is constructed.  The students can use the sentences to analyse areas such as linkers and other discourse markers. In such cases the app acts as a stepping-stone to freer work, with the students using a recording  app to record their own trailer voices afterwards.

Four photos are needed so the students need to collaborate on taking four or finding four. If they are going to use the Internet to find photos then bear in mind copyright. I used pictures from #eltpics on flickr as these have been uploaded for teachers to use.

Pictures used are from eltpics and taken by @aClilToClimb, @ Raquel_EFL, @ pysproblem8, @ dan64pell