My Final Reflection on the Course…

I liked the fact that we were introduced to websites and web tools that I didn’t know and that were really easy to use both for us and students. I also liked the way we worked over the subject in groups and through reflection and sharing personal experiences. Technology is an interesting way of integrating knowledge, content, pedagogy and activity, while engaging students with more real-like tasks. This subject has contributed to my knowledge and resources as a future teacher. With this subject, I realized that technology can be really interesting for students and for teachers. Technology can help us to develop different ways of learning; and can make our lessons more entertaining and appealing for students.

Finally…

Case Study: Digital Storytelling in Argentina

Vicky Saumell is co-ordinator of the EFL Department at Instituto San Francisco de Asís, a private school in Buenos Aires, Argentina that has 800 students at all levels, from kindergarten to secondary. She has worked there for 20 years and has been using learning technology with learners and teachers for six years. Since then, she has developed from using ICT in her own classes to helping other teachers integrate technology into their classroom practice and training other teachers as well.

When taking into account how English was taught at the school, she felt that students were not offered the best option for learning because teachers were relying too much on the coursebook to drive the English curriculum, taking the risk of forcing students to work on something that didn’t reflect their personal interests or that wasn’t completely suitable for them. So, she decided to develop a new curriculum, and as the department agreed with her, they did away with coursebooks, which they found were not appealing to students and sometimes forced teachers to deal with topics that had nothing to do with students' interests. Then, teachers started designing and planning their own projects taking into account students’ interests, what they wanted and liked. Another important feature of this project was the assessment, because the department also decided to do away with formal testing. In this way, teachers assessed students' work on the process of creation and on the final product.

This project was welcomed with enthusiasm because it provided interesting and attractive ideas and offered a creative output, which resulted in increased motivation for teachers and students as well.

As regards the context, Vicky Saumell used "Digital Storytelling" with three classes of twenty learners aged 17. The idea of this project was to combine the art of telling stories with a variety of digital multimedia.

Taking into account the TPCK Model, we can identify the use of technology in the creation of wikis to keep record of the projects being carried out and to upload the final products of each of them, the different tools for digital storytelling, such as Windows Movie Maker, soundtrack recorder, animated cartoons from Zimmer Twins software. 

As regards pedagogy, the idea of one of these projects was for students to work in groups, choosing famous paintings and writing a narrative that linked the stories together and finally, through Windows Movie Maker, they had to create an animated slideshows and record a soundtrack saying what they liked about the graffiti.

Recreating a part of Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare was another project within Digital Storytelling. Here, students had to use different tools to develop digital literacy skills.

In my opinion, Vicky Saumell found a successful way to modify the whole syllabi and made it meaningful to students and to teachers using appealing and authentic materials. I think she succeeded in getting to the different levels of Puentedura's SAMR Model. Parts of these projects are at the Subtitution level , for example students write a story but instead of doing it in paper, they do it online and surrounded by multimedia and web tools. In the case of soundtracks, we can say that they stand at the Modification level as they couldn't have recorded it without technology.

Most important, I think she reached the Redefinition Level because she used technology to improve the way students learned and the contents they acquired. 

Personal Learning Network

A Personal Learning Network is a network that you create in order to develop your learning. The idea of a PLN is that you can be part of a group of people who you can consult because they are always available, and willing to share their knowledge. This network can be used as a way of keeping up to date, keeping in contact with different people (mates, experts, etc.), and a way of exchanging ideas. It is important to create a PLN in order to access quality information. To do this, you should:

Nik Peachey, for example, proposes in the British Council Roadshow:
• Join or ‘Like’ a page or group on Facebook
• Take an online course
• Follow educators on Twitter
• Collect and curate online resources
• Subscribe to teaching websites
• Read blogs by other teachers
• Write my own teaching blog

My PLN, so far, consists of my blog Tech-in-the-English-class, a Diigo and a Scoop.it account. I find it really useful because it allows me be up to date and learn about other people and experts’ ideas.

My blog

    

My Diigo Library

My Sccop.it account

Digital Play: Games in the Class

There are a lot of games that can be interesting when it comes to dealing with different topics. Students usually get more involved if the activities they do are related to playing. I’ve never thought of playing digital games with my students but I think they will find them useful and entertaining.

I played “Charles Dickens’ London.” I found it really interesting for literature because it is a different way to learn about the writer!

Here are some photos of the game:

There is a very interesting blog by Graham Stanley where you can find more games to play with your students; here goes the link: http://www.digitalplay.info/blog/

Content Curation

Content Curation has to do with the organization of the information on the web. There are a lot of tools that can help us do so, for example, Scoop.it. With this tool we can create different boards with different topics, bookmark sites, articles, follow experts and add their articles to my library. In this way, Scoop.it gives me the opportunity to have useful tools at hand in a creative way.

Scoop.it is really interesting because it makes suggestions of articles I may find of interest according to the topic I selected for my dashboard.

Here's the link to my Scoop.it account: http://www.scoop.it/u/antonela-ferrero

In order to curate content, you should find sources and organize content, for example according to your interest; then, you should select what you think is important and make your comments about it, that is to say, add knowledge and your opinion to that content. 

Speaking Skills

Speaking skills can be encouraged through different activities. We can implement some of them during the class but sometimes we don’t get all students to participate. Web tools can help us encourage speaking skills among others. The result of the work with web tools can be shared in class or not, so shy students can be tested only by the teacher with no need of their mates listening to them.

There are different web tools that can help us when it comes to speaking skills specifically.  Some of them are Brainshark, Voxopop, Present.me, Blabberize  and Woices.

Brainshark allows you to add voice to your PowerPoint presentations. Brainshark can be a good option to present the results of a research project. In the case of education, students can make a PowerPoint presentation with the most important items of their projects or activities. Finally, they can add voice to their presentations with Brainshark and share them on their blogs with their classmates.

Voxopop can help you to improve speaking skills and collaborative work. With Voxopop you can create talk groups and students, for example, can create a narrative together! First students have to create a Voxopop account and then start a talkgroup. Before students record a part of a story, they will have to listen to what their mates uploaded.

Present.me can be used with Upper-Intermediate students. Here, students may be asked to create a presentation regarding their future course of studies using "Present.me". The teacher will give them some guidelines as regards what information should be included in the presentation, such as articles related to their subject, topic or activity. 

Diigo

Diigo is a social bookmarking website which allows signed-up users to bookmark and tag web-pages. Also, it allows users to highlight any part of a webpage and attach sticky notes to specific highlights or to a whole page.

I find Diigo very useful!

Here is the link to my Diigo account.      

https://www.diigo.com/user/Antonelaferrero

Nik Peachey & Blipfoto

I found Nik Peachey's conference "Evaluating Web Tools and Apps" really interesting. In this talk, he presents some tools that will lead to enhanced language learning.

I decided to try Blipfoto which is a place to tell your story through photos, one day at a time. Everyone can use Blipfoto; whether you are an enthusiastic amateur, a seasoned pro-photographer, or simply use your camera to take the occasional photo, Blipfoto is the best way to document your life and share it with the world.

For many users the challenge is to take just one picture they're happy with, while for others it is choosing one which best describes their day. That's the whole point of Blipfoto: one day = one photo.

The best thing of Blipfoto is that it is moderated by our own moderation team and the community as a whole. Also, it is free!

I think that students may find Blipfoto interesting because here they can create a profile and share their pictures and thoughts with their classmates. Blipfoto is a good tool to be in touch with your students!

Here is the link to my Blipfoto  http://www.blipfoto.com/Antonela

Twister!

Look at my twists!

Case Study: Travelling through Arts

In this case, researchers have been working with trainee teachers to investigate how computer mediated communication can facilitate English language learning between children based in two different countries.

In the first year of the project, six-year old Catalan speakers were linked with peers in a Canadian school in order to work on a cross-curricular project, integrating art, social science and language learning. Children in each school researched the life of a local artist by visiting galleries. Then, each school was able to share their findings via blogs and wikis. Children were brought together to discuss the work of both local artists on a virtual world called Second Life. Here, they were encouraged by their teachers to use simple English commands to direct their virtual guide around the gallery, to inspect the exhibits and answer their questions.

Finally, both schools produced an e-book on an imaginary meeting between the two artists from each country.

We can see how the SAMR model is reflected in this case of study. From the very beginning, students were encouraged to get in touch with students from other countries. This activity couldn’t have been performed without using technology. The Modification level is really present in this case of study and this can be seen in the tools students used to perform their tasks, for example using blogs, wikis and virtual platforms.  Finally, students and teachers were able to accomplish their activities when both schools succeeded in creating an e-book, which was showcased via Glogster entitled “Travelling through Art”. This is clearly part of the Redefinition level in which the most remarkable improvements in students’ performance are made.

The SAMR Model

The SAMR model was created by Rubén Puentedura in the late 80’s in order to determine what types of technology use would have greater or lesser effects upon student learning.

In this model there are 4 levels: S (Substitution), A (Argumentation), M (Modification) and R (Redefinition).

In the Substitution level, technology is used to perform tasks similar to the ones done without using technology.

In the Argumentation level, technology acts as a substitute for a tool, but doing some improvements that weren’t present in that tool.

In the Modification level, the use of technology will redesign significantly the task you are carrying on with your students. Here, common classroom tasks are being accomplished through the use of technology, incorporating tools such as, email, blogs, and social software among others.

In the Redefinition level, technology is used to create new tasks that have been previously inconceivable without using technology. In this level is where you see the most remarkable improvements in your students’ performance.

In my opinion, I am in the Argumentation level. I’m working as a freelance teacher and I don’t have many students right now, but whenever I can, I try to use technology with them; for instance, I usually send students links to do exercises online, to practice for tests or to revise contents. This is very useful because I get feedback from students immediately. Above all, I think that they enjoy using technology, especially when it comes to learning through online games.

Avatars in the English Classroom

First of all, I want to say that this is the first time I’ve created an avatar, and it was fun to do it.

Using avatars with our students could be an interesting way of introducing vocabulary related to the body, clothes and accessories. I think that students would have an enjoyable time creating avatars, and this would probably help them to remember specific vocabulary.

Avatars can also be used in a guessing game. This would be appropriate for an oral activity. The idea is that all students exchange their avatars, and then their classmates have to make questions while trying to guess whose avatar the other student has chosen.

Finally, avatars may be useful for creative writing. The teacher could provide the students with a picture of an avatar, and then they have to write a story, paying special attention to the description of the avatar.

Here is my Avatar...