[audio logo]

Speaker: OTAN. Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Barry Bakin: I'm Barry Bakin. This is video discussion prompts and other fun and easy activities for ESL classes. Let me see if I can get the chat up. If you by any chance are not an ESL teacher, go ahead and put that in the chat so I know what's happening. But by the title, I'm presuming that most of you are ESL instructors or ESL adjacent.

So I am, what's called in our division, instructional technology teacher advisor, which is an out of classroom position, helping teachers and students implement and integrate technology in their instruction. I've been doing this now for about five years. And about 30 years prior, I started out as an ESL teacher. So many of my projects that I introduced to people over the years are based in actual classroom use and projects and activities that I did.

But for full disclosure, I don't get a chance to practice them as much nowadays with students but I still think they're fairly valid. And I am also a OTAN subject matter expert, which means that I get to represent OTAN at training's like these online and also in person as the need arises. And I hope that as we move forward into the next school year, we'll have more opportunities to do in-person training as well as hybrid training.

So-- OK. Let's see in the chat over here. We have- Michael says teach AB ASC at Elgin Community College but many of his students are English language learners as well. So I hope that maybe you'll pick up a few ideas that are applicable for your students. Thanks for sharing that. So my goal is by 5:30 today, you will be able to implement several projects or activities, including video based discussion prompts with little or no preparation.

And if you stick around to the end, in fact, I've prepared a three really fun videos that can be used with your students. And I have loaded them up into the cloud in an open folder, and I'll be sharing with you a document with all those links. So when we get to that section, don't worry, you'll be able to actually get those videos. That's why I'm saying with little or no preparation. You we'll need a little bit of preparation there to copy the video clips into your own devices.

So anyway, let's get started. I'm still a big Kahoot fan. How about you guys? Is there anybody who has never used Kahoot? You can answer in the chat or-- oh, OK. Well, there we go. So we have one I don't and one love Kahoot and somebody who's a fan of the beard. The beard is a much wider and a lot shorter now, yes. OK. Well in any case, I'm still a big fan of using Kahoot.

And this is like the first fun activity that we do-- that I used to do in my classes. And I would just do a Kahoot to get the students to know the names of the other students. There we go. I've got one of these little automatic lights in my office. If I am too immobile for a long enough period of time, the light goes out. So that may happen again. OK. So basically, the main idea of Kahoot, of course, is you see a prompt and then you have some choices.

And it works in hybrid as well as in only online and only in person settings. And the students then answering on their phone, will see the four choices and select it. And then it's a competition. But what I would do is I would make the Kahoot in the first few days of class. I would start by taking photos, headshots of every student registered in the class and just pretty much stand them all up in a line up against the whiteboard so it's a pretty neutral background and just take a headshot.

And from that headshot or collection of headshots, I would produce the Kahoot. And it's really, really helpful not just for you to learn names, but for the students themselves to learn the names of their colleagues, their classmates. And the other nice thing about it that I found over the years is if you save these photos in logically named folders by semester or by year, they come in really handy when you see that student again sometime in the future and you know that person was your student but you just can't remember the name.

And so sometimes it's nice to have this little archive of student photos. And the other benefit, of course, is that it's sort of a non-threatening way to introduce your students to Kahoot and so that if they haven't had a class where they've used Kahoot, then this is the way you can introduce them in a non-threatening way. Their grades don't depend on this or anything, but it's just a lot of fun.

So I would recommend, if you're not a Kahoot user, to explore it. And of course, there's so many more things now that can be done since we first started talking about Kahoot four or five years ago. OK. So a great project for everybody, not just ESL. Of course, there's food projects. I don't know how many of you watch TikToks or Instagram or Twitter postings of people and food, but I think it's a very popular activity.

There's a new fellow that I've been watching, he's like a chef, and what he does is he creates-- he creates his own responses to people presenting food objects and then he rates their process and the product and at the end, he says whether or not he'd eat it and he's got a great sense of humor. And of course, he's very knowledgeable so it's just been real enjoyable watching him.

But in any case, how about a show of hands or in the chat, how many of you enjoy posting pictures when you're at a restaurant or when you're eating of different food that you like, that you are eating? Anybody? Guilty. OK, Gloria Garcia does it. All right. And I wager if you're doing it, your students are also doing it. It's very-- it seems to be very, very popular. So what can we do with that in terms of an activity other than just posting the pictures?

Well, first thing is add level appropriate writing tasks. This particular one was in one of our parenting classes. It's actually the format here is our learning management system but you can see that the teacher has set out the steps for the project, planning a special dinner with a given budget, and there's a little bit of a vocabulary lesson there about budget.

And then it suggested that using the internet, finding a flyer, or a weekly add, or a search so the example given is a safe way-- weekly ads. And then the person has to write about that particular meal. So this is a real example. One student talking about the special dinner that he's going to prepare for his wife and where he's going to get the ingredients and how much it's going to be. A really nice little project.

OK. And of course, you can elaborate on that by having them, depending on what programs your students know, doing something in Word, doing something in PowerPoint, giving a presentation about the recipes. Again, really unlimited and really, really fun and popular for students. Once you've introduced some real basic PowerPoint or Google Slides steps, really, you don't need much more than how to insert a picture, how to insert text and how to give the slide show.

You then can convert whatever the project idea that you're working on into a presentation on PowerPoint or in Google. And this one was most likely an EL civics type activity about safety, but good information to have. And student created projects. You have a couple of options with this. You can have everybody work on the same topic, or you can divide up topics or let students choose topics.

So again, basic PowerPoint is not that complicated, and I found even that lower level students are familiar with some of these basic steps of how to insert a text box with some words and how to insert an image. So we do use a learning management system. The one that we use in our district is Schoology but this is applicable to all levels.

But in this case, the idea was for-- or the project was in an IET-- in a parenting class to take pictures of the children's school spaces during the time of COVID, especially when everybody was working from home. But at the same topic would apply in any situation as well. Even now, do you do parents have a nice space in the house for students to feel that this is where they do their work?

But then notice the interaction that happens between the teacher once the students have posted the pictures-- then what happens is the teacher can interact by starting the discussions. Another similar project. This one were about how they organize the supplies at home and again, making use of student's phones as cameras, as source material for writing and discussion.

And again, you can adapt these ideas to virtually any level and topic. This was actually one of our IET courses that was pre-cosmetology in this particular project. In the past, maybe, they would be doing some of these things in the classroom. So the work area, the client preparation set up the supplies. All that used to be done only in the classroom. And so the teacher would walk around obviously and check the setup of supplies and things and see that everything was ready to go.

When we were in 100% online instruction, they could still do the project, but there were more photos involved. So you can, sort of, see there the different projects in sequence that the students had to do. And then the next thing would be the students are creating these series of photos, and then the teacher would, of course, be looking through those. But in terms of ESL, this idea of a sequence of photos is really, really a fun project that you can do with the whole class.

Let me just check here. And I started to call them scrambled PowerPoint puzzles. So let me open up one that I've got prepared. Let me find it first. And can everybody see that? Yes. Am I still sharing that or did I unshare it? Was-- I see somebody-- Anna said yes but that was yes to the question, are you-- am I still sharing it? I hope so.

Speaker: Yeah, we see the coffee--

Barry Bakin: Great. OK. So this is actually one that I made but I'm going to-- I want to use it because it's basic enough, and it really demonstrates how it works. OK. So this is just a basic presentation. What I've done is on the left side-- OK-- are a the slides to the steps of making coffee. And what I did do was I labeled it with letters. You don't necessarily have to do that for this particular-- you could leave it without it, and then students have to describe what they're looking at as they talk about the pictures.

But one of the things that a lot of people don't know is that under the view option-- I mean, most of us, if we do work with PowerPoint, pretty much most of the time use this layout where the work area is in the center, and then on the left side, you have the slides. But there are other ways to view them and the one that I like for this exercise is called slide sorter view.

So what I would do is I would have them look at it in slides, sort of, review. OK. And then you can enlarge that, of course. Let me see if I can enlarge it. We'll get the Zoom. We'll make it a little bit larger. OK. That may have been a little bit too much, but you can see it. OK. And then the idea is to look at this and give me some ideas about what is first in this sequence of events. Let me bring it down just a little bit so we got all of them.

OK. How's that? Can everybody pretty much see all of the different slides? So the point is these are-- you can click and move them. So I can click on this one and move it to anywhere I want in the order. OK. So the idea would be either as a discussion first as a whole group activity. You know, let's work together and see if we can come up with the most logical order for these slides.

So this is the time where you can either speak or shout out or write in the chat. So it looks like somebody has already gone ahead and said, H. They feel slide H is first. So we're looking at H. OK. Does anybody have any different ideas? Should I go with H? Nobody has an opinion? OK. So we have at least two people who have said H is first so let me go ahead and move H up into the first location and maybe the rationale might be this teacher is thinking about having some coffee. OK.

And I will also say that it's possible that there may be more than one correct answer and that becomes part of the discussion. OK. What would be next? Yes, I think that's Anna saying she's tired and if it's a typical teacher, yeah, probably. OK. So we have a couple of people, it looks like, saying C is next. So C-- and then you can ask the students to elaborate what do they see in the picture.

So again, it depends on the level that you're working with. So it sounds logical to me. You've done a good job so far. Let's grab it, click it and drag it. OK. All right. So that's C. So looks like she goes to the cabinet to get the supplies. Can we get some-- OK. A couple of people are suggesting G. So several people. OK. So G would be putting the coffee into the coffee maker.

And then in any case, you can obviously-- what happens now. So after you do a demonstration of how it works-- OK. There are different ways to roll this out in the class. One way you could distribute the sequence in the original order, and then the students, as part of their task, would be to save it in the correct order. So you distributed like this and then they have to return it to you-- they have to save it and return it to you in the correct order with their rationale about why they think it's this particular order.

Then the next thing would be you assign them a particular-- you assign them that they take the pictures. So if they've already done something like this, they already have the pictures. They could make their own. So I do have a sample-- let's see-- of that. So this is an actual student created slideshow as well. And there could be a lot of variations on this.

The other nice thing that they can do with this afterward, they can create the order, then they could create a scrambled version so that they can run the game for the other people in the class. And then they become the teacher working from their own project. But the other nice thing about PowerPoint is that they can record their voice.

Speaker: Now wait at least another minute for your nails to dry. Finally, enjoy your new glamorous nails. Then file--

Barry Bakin: Did it come through or not really?

Speaker: Yes, we heard it.

Barry Bakin: Ah. OK, great. Thank you. So again, the ability of PowerPoint to record-- to have students record their voices is so beneficial in the ESL context. You really can drill down and make sure that each sentence has good, clear pronunciation so this can be a really fun project. It may be a good idea to caution students about how many pictures they should include because this can-- when you really break things down into steps, it can be quite lengthy.

OK. So another activity that I found was a lot of fun for students-- I used to call it, find English in real life. And basically, what we would do-- this is something that if you establish at the beginning of the semester, then your students are cued in and are aware that at any time during the semester, this can be an activity that they can participate in. And basically, it's like a treasure hunt where every time you introduce a new topic, or you talk about something, their goal is to try to find an example of that in real life.

And this one was good enough that when the student brought it in, I actually turned it into a worksheet because of the nature of what happened. So for some reason, I'm not sure how it started other than the fact that we were working on contractions. It came up with ain't and I did the usual explanation. Well, in academic so-called good English, we probably wouldn't be using ain't but in more casual or colloquial English, you may find it and you may hear it in songs.

And wouldn't you know it, sure enough the student, the next morning, came in with this Boondocks comic strip, and I'm sure you're familiar or you've heard of Boondocks. But right there, he said, look, I found it. You ain't that young either. And so then a student gets recognized for finding the English that we talked about in class. In real life, you can print out a certificate. Nowadays, of course, you could like give a badge or something in your learning management system.

But this is an activity that can take place throughout the semester. Here's another examples, again, other student finds where they brought these things in. This obviously-- we were studying passive voice and there's a lot of passive voice out there in the world and sure enough, students found them very easily. A tap card is required. Dog defecation must be removed.

And that's really nice too, because it even has the by-- by owners. And so very, very easy to turn all of those photos that they bring in or they email you into a nice little slideshow. But again, this is something that can happen throughout the semester. OK. So the next project, I like for quite a few reasons but one of them is also students get to learn a little bit about some of the other functions that can find in Publisher or PowerPoint depending on which programs you have.

Not as many people have Publisher easily available anymore. But it can actually be done in PowerPoint but I will say that the most recent versions of PowerPoint and Publisher-- they still do this, but it's a little bit, a little bit more difficult to manipulate. So let me just show a few examples. So that one obviously is coffee. That one is baby. Team. A little bit more conceptual, the idea of friendship. Well, there you go.

So let me just get an idea. How many of you are aware that you can insert pictures into words? Just give me a shout out. So hopefully this will be at least one brand new thing for many of you today and really fun for lower levels because you're not dealing with a lot of language. So let's go ahead and take a look at how this can be done.

I'm looking for the original. But I guess what I'll do is I'll just go ahead and we'll start from scratch with a new PowerPoint. OK. So again, basically, this is your typical PowerPoint slide. On the left side, you see all the slides that you would create. The center is your work area for this-- under-- let's see where were we-- I want to get rid of the-- oh. What I want to do is get rid of these little things here.

Layout. OK. So under layout, I just choose a blank slide. OK. Now what we're going to do is we're going to use WordArt. OK. So under your insert menu, you look for WordArt and just pick one with a lot of area. OK. So you have your WordArt box and what you're going to do is you're going to type your word. OK. So let's say we pick a word. I'll probably use all capital letters. OK. Sunflowers.

And then the next thing that I do is I highlight the text. OK. And we need to find the menu item that says text effects. OK. Actually, I think I probably want to-- we'll do it under the home menu instead. OK. Highlight text effects. So under-- got to find the right one. So sorry. Let's see. I just did it this morning. Let's see-- let's look at it again.

Home. Or maybe it's under the WordArt. Insert WordArt. There we go. I'm not sure why I don't see it right now. It was there just this morning. Not SmartArt. Well, if somebody else can help me with that, that would be great.

Speaker: Isn't it shade fill?

Barry Bakin: Well, before that-- before that, there's one that we got to get it into the WordArt. Let me start from the beginning. OK. We'll try it again. Insert WordArt, and I pick one. You don't want that. OK. So we'll write the word. I've got summer on my mind but really what I was writing was sunflowers. OK. So let's see. It's not--

Speaker: You had just right clicked on that and then we saw the effect.

Barry Bakin: Right. But I'm looking for a special one that says text effects and it wasn't that. It's not the format. There's another menu item. We may have to come back to this. It's not that one. No. Hmm.

Speaker: Barry.

Barry Bakin: Yeah?

Speaker: After you've typed in your text, select the WordArt text.

Barry Bakin: Yeah.

Speaker: Navigate drawing tools, format, WordArt styles. Click text effects.

Barry Bakin: Drawing tools.

Speaker: Drawing tools, format, WordArt styles.

Barry Bakin: Over here on the right? I'd rather go ahead and skip it.

Speaker: OK.

Barry Bakin: There we go. Shape format. That's it. Text effects. And there you see transform. That's the command I'm looking for. Again, this is a-- even though I review this before I do it, I don't do it enough with students. OK. So sorry for that. Transform. And see then you have all of these great shapes. See that? And what I suggest is you try to get one that provides as much coverage as you can of letters, and then you can make it larger.

There we go. That looks pretty good. So that's the text effects and you get to this transform. OK. Then now what we want to do is we want to use the idea of the pictures. OK. So now we can go to our color of the text. And under the colors-- oh, not there either. Let's see. It's not there either. This is where we want to fill it in. Let's see. OK. There we go. The format now it's a shape. So we use this one-- picture fill.

And then we can insert a picture from an online one even though this may be the background. Let's see what happens. Pick one with a lot of sunflowers. OK. So that did the opposite of what I intended. So it's not the shape. It's the-- let's undo that. It's the letters. So home. Maybe I have to highlight it first. And again, I'm not sure-- I'm not seeing the menu that I want. It's not the shape, it's the text. Picture. Again, that's giving me the background, I think.

Yeah, it's giving me the background instead of the text. Maybe if I click on text options. I don't want to take up more of your time. But the idea is you should be able to get it into the actual text. I'll come back to that later. Let's insert-- but one thing I did learn, if you insert a text box-- and you can really do the same thing. Just make your letters really large.

That's a little bit too big. OK. OK. So now when we go to the colors, hopefully, it will be there. Again, I'm not sure why-- I'm so sorry. So this is the text option, picture fill. There we go. Look, it went ahead. See? There's the sunflowers. Again, so it has to be in the text fill and there's the picture, and there's the sunflowers. So it's an option. Something probably you can experiment with and see if you can get it to work a little bit better than I've demonstrated.

OK. Let's see. Adrian says something like this, and I'm not sure what he means. Oh, he found some instructions. Basically, yes. Thank you for that. OK. In any case, let's move on. You probably want to practice with that. So the section that I've always really had fun with for ESL is what I call video clip predictions. What do you think?

And I've already separated this out into sections. So this particular one only has three and they really do work best if you edit the clips to only what you want to see. I used to try running the whole clip and stopping it but I was just-- I was always so inaccurate so I finally used a very basic video editor and started editing to see only the portion of the clip.

So let's all do this together. Let me make sure that the sound is working. I think the sound should still be on. So let me know if you hear the sound.

[footsteps]

Did you get the sound on that?

Speaker: Yes.

Barry Bakin: OK, great. So you saw what happened. So now in the classroom, you could separate into groups and online setting, you could go into breakout rooms but the idea is as a group, I need you to give me some predictions about what you think will happen next. So obviously, there's also a lot of good room for practicing present continuous tense-- what do you see the person doing? And then moving into future tense-- what do you think will happen?

So we can just work as a whole group. Why don't you put in the chat your suggestions about what you think will happen next. OK. So some of the ideas are starting to populate. He's going to steal the car. OK. He's going to be locked out of his car. Let's see if we can get a few more.

Oh, my. He's going to dead lift the car. I think that means pick it up. OK. He's going to drive away. Someone is going to come out of the car. He's going to buy this kind of car in the future. All those are great. OK. All right. OK. So now what I would do is go to the next one and play that.

[splashing water]

OK. Did any of you expect that. Really surprising, right? But nevertheless, then you can go, what happened? You get a lot of good vocabulary about oh, gosh, the monster and the lake and grabbed him, but after you do all of that discussion, again, we get back to what do you think will happen next? And let's get some ideas. See now you know how absurd this thing-- this particular video is so you can make your predictions a little bit wilder if you want.

Play that again because it's so fun.

[splashing water]

OK. So what have we got? We've got it will spit him out. He's going to swim out and throw the cardboard into the water. The monster will put him back. OK. Let's see. J.H. Jessica, in your sentence there you're saying that the monster will put the person back? Oh, look what Adrian said. Adrian said the arms will put the cardboard up for the next victim. Well, let's see who was right.

Let's give Adrian a big round of applause. Very good, Adrian. Yeah. The actual name, when I first found this clip, was actually called Bait Car but it's some sort of commercial. So when I edited it, I trimmed off that part of it so it wouldn't be a clue. So what do you think? You know your students. Do you think your students would get a kick out of that? And how many of you think your students would ever guess that second step? It's so surprising. So surprising.

OK. So that's one. The Bait Car. Let's take a look at another one. This one is called Thanksgiving Turkey. So appropriate obviously in November. Save it for November.

[water running]

- [sighs]

Barry Bakin: All right. You saw it. What do you think will happen next? OK. Adrian first out of the gate with the turkey is going to attack her. OK. See now you guys are sort of thinking about wild and crazy things because you saw that first one. Oh, the turkey will suck her head in. Oh my gosh, too many alien movies. Fly out the window. She will turn into a turkey. These are great suggestions. OK. Let's go ahead and look at the next one.

[video playback]

- [breathing deeply] [sighs]

[end playback]

Barry Bakin: OK. So that's what happened. What do you think will happen next? OK. The turkey will run away. OK. Through the magic of CGI, the turkey is going to walk out. The turkey will jump back into the sink. She's going to wrestle the turkey on the floor. OK, let's watch.

[video playback]

- [grunting]

[end playback]

Barry Bakin: Now, that was a short one. OK. So now what's next? She will pick it up and place it back in the sink. OK. Oh, there was she'll go to McDonald's for dinner. OK. Any other suggestions? She's going into the sink with the turkey. Oh, I like that. OK, let's check.

[video playback]

- [grunts]

[glass shattering]

[end playback]

Barry Bakin: Every time I see that I still chuckle. What do you think? Also fun? Again, really good way to talk about things and get a lot of vocabulary into it. OK. So the final one I have is called Making a Commercial for Samsung washing machine. OK. Oh, so I saw a little comment there before we go to the washing machine. Christie says, the moral of the story is the husband should help. Yes, if he wasn't outside there minding his own business watering the lawn nothing would have happened.

OK. So again, you're ESL teachers, you might want to first elicit ideas from the students about what they're looking at in the picture. So let's see. Let's get to play the first one.

[video playback]

- Just putting the feeder hose into the back of the machine. We're getting water directly from the lake over there. Is there a blanket or get like a warm--

- Hey, guys, guys, we've got company.

[end playback]

Barry Bakin: OK, let me play that again.

[video playback]

- Just putting the feeder hose into the back of the machine. We're getting water directly from the lake over there. Is there a blanket or get like a warm--

- Hey, guys, guys, we've got company.

[end playback]

Barry Bakin: OK. So what do you think will happen next? The last thing he said was, we've got company. OK. So Gloria, if you've seen this then let's refrain, OK? Don't spoil it. OK. So Bigfoot, a bear, a bear will approach. OK. Well, let's see the next one.

[video playback]

- We've got company. Let's just move away from--

- It's a bear. It's a bear.

- It's fine. We're fine. Just calmly walk over here. We're fine. You too, sir. Now, please. It's fine.

- What's it doing?

- Let's just give the bear a minute. He's got to move on. Just let the bear be.

[end playback]

Barry Bakin: OK. We'll go right through this because it seems like many of you have a fairly good idea. But again, your students won't.

[video playback]

- Whoa, what's-- oh.

[end playback]

Barry Bakin: OK.

[video playback]

- Um--

[machine whirring]

- Incredible.

[end playback]

Barry Bakin: All right.

[video playback]

- He's sitting in my chair. He's sitting in my chair.

[end playback]

Barry Bakin: So again, a lot of little fun clips here.

[video playback]

- --sitting in my chair. He's sitting in my chair.

[playing guitar and singing]

[bear grunting]

[music playing]

[end playback]

Barry Bakin: OK.

[video playback]

[indistinct chatter]

- That is insane. It got that clean on a cold cycle?

- OK. Can we go back to work now, Mr. Ranger?

- The bear's now leaving. OK, gang. That's good-- it's clear for us to go back to the site.

- It's a polar bear.

- All it wanted to do is use the washing machine.

[end playback]

Barry Bakin: So there you go. You pretty much got it right for those of you-- but it's fun too obviously and total imagination. I mean, you're never going to guess that the bear is going to juggle the fish. But notice, of course, it's not just drawing, it's washing. He changes from being a dirty brownish looking bear to a beautiful white coat. So in any case, what I've done is I have these three clips,

Now let me see. Maybe I can-- while we're still all here, let me see if I can find that file and just drop it into the chat, and then you can open it and see if it works for you. Let me find it. So that should open as a Word doc. All right. And then why don't one or two of you just pick different clips and see if it opens for you on your device.

Oh, good. So what you would do is create a folder on your device where you're going to store all of these and pretty much download them in order and have them available and make use of them when you need it. And I've already-- Donna, that really nice video work for you. So that's most of the work with these. But of course, there are so many funny videos with unexpected endings out there that it's like an unlimited resource.

I'm sure that you can find other videos or you've already seen other videos that will be real suitable for use in this situation. I did want to share one app that's pretty helpful. Let me get-- let me go back to this share. 123apps.com. And if I'm not correct, I think I learned about this from Melinda Holt.

However, regardless of the source, you can go to the web page but if you have Chrome, they also have a Chrome browser extension, and you can get the menu right from within your Chrome browser. But very simple online only tool for working with video. Very, very simple. Trimming the video, cropping it, rotating it, flipping it. And then you can see up at the top, they also have audio tools, PDF tools, other types of converters.

So if you find a video that has that a twist to the ending, a surprise ending, you can use this on your own to trim it and present it to your students. And if and if you do that, then it would be great. Share it with me. I'll put my email address in the chat there because these are so fun. They're really, really great. OK. So there is one-- a final website that's been around for quite some time that I'll introduce you to.

Really a lot of fun for ESL. It's called makebeliefscomix.com. OK. There is so much stuff here in this website since the gentleman who created it created it many years ago that you can really spend quite a lot of time on it. But basically, the idea is working within comics, getting your students to use these comics to practice their English. OK.

So let me just show you the one example-- oops. Sorry, sorry, sorry. So again, basically what you have is characters, and then speech balloons. OK. And the students will choose a character, choose the language and produce a comic. And it's so very flexible because in your directions to the students, you can say you know what? We've been studying past tense today or this week, please incorporate some past tense into your comic.

Or we were working with simple, compound, and complex sentences. So in your comic strip, please make sure you include at least one simple sentence, one compound sentence and one complex sentence. So basically, the way it works is under the create comics or-- the interface is pretty simple once you show students what to do.

This is the number of panels like the default is 3 but-- 1. But you can say, OK, I'm going to have the third panel, the second panel, the first panel. You can add more panels, make it four panels. So then you give it a name, and you put your name. OK. And then you have all these characters so you scroll through the characters, and there's so many now with a really nice variety.

OK. And then you're given some options. All right. Oh, OK. You know what? I was in the third panel. Let me go ahead and click on the first panel, and we'll get something. OK. And then you have some tools here. Move lets you move the person around or the character around. Scale lets you make that smaller or bigger. Bring to friend is if you have more than one character. You change the position.

Flip flips the character and then delete. So once you get the character-- OK. And you can put more than one character as well. All right. Oh, sorry. I went-- I clicked on the wrong thing. We have to get the little speech balloon. And there's also the backgrounds, but you get your little thought balloons or speech balloons so you have different ones. And then when you click on it, you get the words.

And then you can move it into location, see? And then you might say, you know what? That balloon is a little bit too big. So you get a smaller one. Try that. Oh, so that looks a lot better. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to delete that one, and move this, one up into place. So basically, that's the idea. And what you do is you build your comic and, again, the same type of idea where you just tell your students, see if you can include something that we've studied.

And then they have the print, share or email. If you don't create a little account, it doesn't get saved. But what you would do is you just basically email it to yourself or you have your students print it out or email it, and then you can put it up in the classroom or display it on the web page. But it's really a great little website. We have so many other-- so many topics now. I'm not going to go into everything but other types of writing prompts that you could use, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So that's called Make Beliefs Comix. The only thing that over the years that I wish he'd done a little bit differently was somehow change the name so that it's a little bit-- to me, it sounds a little bit weird, Make Beliefs Comix. But I was fortunate to meet Bill Zimmerman at a TESOL conference years-- maybe like 10 years ago. A really nice gentleman. But anyway, it's a really fun activity. Students making their comics, printing them out. There you go.

So that brings me to the end of the activities that I wanted to share with you today. I hope that we met the objective that at least you'll be able to implement one or two activities or projects right away in your classes if not tomorrow then next week.