An Educational Use of FRAME in an ESL Class

This is a guest post contributed to the FRAME blog by Régine Ballonad-Berthois, an ESL teacher in a secondary school in Brittany, France. You can find her on Twitter @regitice35.

FRAME is a tool that lets you create immersive, social spaces online. When I discovered FRAME 3D environments, I was immediately interested in using its "Small Gallery" environment as an exhibition place. Even if it is called a "Small" Gallery, it is big enough to exhibit all kinds of pictures and paintings. As I wanted the images to be interactive, I added web links for the visitors to access other resources (you can see how to do this here).

By clicking the picture with an ear, the visitor can open a linked page in a new browser tab. Then you can hear what my pupils have to say about the piece of work you are interested in. I have also linked movie posters with trailers. And before leaving the room, the visitors can fill in a feedback form for sharing their experience by clicking on the red box.

The fact that the visitors can move in the space is a great opportunity for creating a digital scavenger hunt across the museum. The pupils have to answer questions by finding the information in the museum. There is no point Googling as the questions are about details that can only be found inside the museum. For each correct answer, a piece of the jigsaw appears. The winner is the person who will put all the jigsaw puzzle together and find the mystery picture in the museum.

The use of FRAME in an ESL class is a great opportunity for the pupils to work differently. They can really be active because they have to move in the right direction to show their understanding. The teacher can help the pupils when they are stuck but he is standing back to observe them working. The pupils are really active because they learn by doing. They can interact and speak the target language. If they have a technical problem, they can use the chat box to communicate. The chat can also be very helpful formation shy pupils.

In conclusion, I will say that FRAME brings another dimension to both teaching and learning. FRAME makes social interactions easier and the teacher can guide the pupils in their learning process. It is a tool that can be used synchronously or asynchronously. It allows pupils to learn at their own pace and independently. We are really happy about using FRAME and my pupils want me to organize new sessions in another environment.

Check out a video of our project: