Week 2: Motivation

Triptico: Where learning is fun!

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

“ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY” is a famous proverb that warns us that continuous work without any rest or relaxation is harmful to one’s personal life and well-being. In the context of ELT teaching, the underlying significance of this expression reminds teachers that by having “all work and no play” during our lessons will consequently make our lessons boring to our learners, thus, making them bored and feeling unmotivated in their learning. 

As teachers, I am sure we have asked ourselves questions such as “are my lessons too tedious and monotonous?” and “how can I make my lessons more interesting for my students?”. Thinking of new and creative ideas to make our lessons interesting for our learners is a very difficult challenge and can drive some teachers crazy. Well to all educators out there, worry not! If you are reading this then today is your lucky day. Introducing Triptico – the website that helps teachers with their teaching and makes learning fun for the learners.

Triptico homepage

 What is ‘Triptico’? 

Triptico is a website that offers a collection of interactive resources which enable imaginative educators to create engaging learning for their classroom or workplace. It is a powerful online tool that allows teachers to create fun activity, games and quiz for their learners. Triptico is the brainchild of David Riley who himself is a teacher. 

David Riley [Source: Twitter]

 Who are the target users for Triptico? 

According to its website, educators from any parts of the world can use Triptico in their lesson. The website has been designed to be user-friendly and can be used with a huge number of different languages. However, basic ICT skills are needed to use Triptico’s resources in your lesson but for teachers who might need a helping hand, there are plenty of tutorial videos provided in the website that act as a useful guidance to help familiarise yourself with its content and usage.

 [Source: YouTube - 'An introduction to Triptico']

How can teachers or educators use Triptico in their classroom or workplace?

If you are an English language teacher, you will be spoilt for choice when it comes to using Triptico as your teaching resource. In the ‘Resources’ section, there are 11 different types of ‘Quizzes’ for you to choose from. ‘Find Ten’, ‘Bingo’, ‘Word Mix’, ‘Swipe!’ and others are some of the quizzes available for teachers to use in their lessons, whether to teach or to test their students. Triptico allows teachers to customise their own materials and task using ready-made layouts of activities and quizzes that greatly help teachers to save their time and energy in preparing materials for their lessons in a matter of minutes. However, if you are a busy teacher with little time to spend on making your own material, fret not! Another advantage of using Triptico is that it offers a number of ready-made activities and quizzes that you can save and use in your classroom too. You can join or create a specific group with other teachers and share your materials and build your own vault of teaching materials.

Triptico has 11 different and fun 'Quizzes' from its 'Resources' for teachers to choose from

One favourite quiz that I really like from Triptico is ‘Find Ten’. I believe it is a useful tool to use in introducing and teaching new vocabulary to my young learners. The game will ask my students to match 10 words with their pictures in a fun and interactive way that I believe my students would really enjoy. There are other quizzes that are just as interesting and it is entirely up to the teachers’ creativity to use them in any ways that they think are most suitable and interesting for their lessons.

'Find Ten' is a simple and fun vocabulary game by Triptico

 In addition to ‘Quizzes’, Triptico also offers options such as ‘Selectors’, ‘Timers’, ‘Tools’ and ‘Legacy Resources’ in ‘Resources’ which are convenient options for teachers to use, whether to nominate students, form groups, keeping track of time during a task activity and of course, to create even more fun and educational activities in the classroom.

'Selectors' provide 8 different options for teachers to make random selection:

Example of 'Text Spinner' by Triptico

'Timers' are customisable digital clocks that are easy, fun and interesting to use in the lesson:

'Flip Timer' by Triptico

'Tools' allow its users to not only be creative in creating interesting and different learning activities but is also useful and convenient for classroom management:

[Source: YouTube - 'Another Word Magnet Update']

 

'Student Group' by Triptico

Limitations

Perfection is an ongoing process and there is always room for improvement especially when it comes to innovation in teaching and learning. In my opinion, there are several issues that teachers need to consider when it comes to using Triptico in their lessons:

1. Triptico uses ‘Flash’ as a plug-in and not all internet browsers supports it. If you are using MacOS Safari browser like mine, you need to change your setting and allow it to use ‘Flash’ before you can use Triptico on your MacBook.

Not all internet browsers support 'Flash'

2.     Triptico is not a free and open source website. It does offer its users a 7-day free trials but after the trial period is over, you need to consider whether you want to continue subscribing to Triptico or not. If your institution is willing to pay for the subscription fees then I believe it is a good website to subscribe but if the answer is ‘No’ then cost is a factor that you need to seriously think about. 

If you're good at something, never do it for free?

3.     In low-resource context, such as certain countries in the Global South, Triptico might not be a viable option as a teaching resource. In order to get the best out of the teaching and learning experience using Triptico, the classroom must first be equipped with a fast and reliable internet connection as well as having a projector and an interactive smartboard to support and facilitate the use of Triptico’s technological features in the lesson.

[Source: MalaysiaKini Online News Portal - 'A classroom in rural Sabah, Malaysia. 1st April 2019' ]

4.     Teachers must also be motivated to use technology in their teaching as well as possessing a certain basic level of tech literacy in ensuring the success of Triptico in their lessons. Since Triptico comes with numerous features and tools for the teachers to use, they themselves must be interested in exploring the website, learning, practising and creating their own materials that suits their local teaching contexts and needs in order to make the most out of it.

[Source: Pixabay]

To play or not to play?

According to Avedon and Sutton-Smith (1971), the use of games has the transformational power to change a mundane classroom into an interesting one as well as increasing the level of motivation in learners than any other activities. A little play can surely create a huge difference in the classroom and get learners to be happily engaged in the task at hand. Carefully designed tasks on websites like Triptico can make learning fun and increase the students’ motivation to learn and increase their level of engagement with the lesson. As teachers, it is up to us on how to use games judiciously in our lesson to help motivate our students and get them interested in the lesson whilst not letting it to be too overpowering or even as a distraction in our lessons. After all, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy right?

So what is your opinion? Do you think the use of online games is effective in motivating our learners in the classroom? Will you give Triptico a chance and try it out in your own lesson? Feel free to share your views or ideas on the comment section.

References:

Avedon, E. M., & Sutton-Smith, B. (1971). The study of games. John Wiley & Son. In Khan, A., & Shams, A. (2017). Adaptation of games as a teaching aid in grammar classroom. International Journal of Current Advanced Research, 6(6), 4400–4404.