GLOGSTER EDU

GlogsterEDU is a platform that enables students to create their own online digital encyclopedia combining information from different supports (video, music, pictures, text, attachments, etc.). I got to know this tool through our microteaching (group 6: My Wellbeing) and… I love it!

Although it has recently become a non-free tool, for me is still the nicest one to enhance our students to show their creativity making a poster which includes the most relevant contents embedded.

Furthermore, right now students are digital natives, so don’t try to engage them with books or common materials. However, Glogster not only is a cool tool for our students, it also is extremely enhancing for us to use in our lessons: meaningful learning may need further involvement from our students.

This is a great example of a glog, in this case, dedicated to Ancient Greece. Isn’t it just amazing? 🙂

TEACHERSMEDIA INTERNATIONAL

This time I want to talk a bit about this great website: Teachersmedia International.

At this website: administrative and support staff, teachers, students, governors and parents can all find relevant information about their own wellbeing, students’ wellbeing, students’ development through stages, educative issues, etc. It really is an amazing resource for anyone involved in education, plus right now registration is for free!

WEBQUEST

A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented online tool exclusive for learning! So, lessons become classroom-based and students become explorars and evaluators of the information they find on the Internet. The task of the teacher using WebQuest is to provide students with the resources they’ll need to answer the questions successfully.

The WebQuest consists of the following parts:

An introduction of the activity
The task itself
The progress of the activity
The evaluation
The conclusion
The credits that the teacher may give for the activity.

WebQuests are completely web-based lessons in which all materials needed to complete them are available on the same site or through Internet links.

More info can be found here and here!

WIKIS

A great tool we saw in ICT class was the use of Wikis. Google Drive has certainly evolve a lot in the recent years, but Wikis still offer us some great features that Drive cannot yet. For example, Wikispaces allow us to see clearly what does any student inside a specific work team, which is quite helpful to assess them fairly.

It is true that Drive today has a lot more good-looking interface and also allows different users to work on the same file simultaneously, a feature impossible to find in Wikis. However, even if the Wikis’ interface might not be as appealing as the Drive one, it is always good to have different alternatives in order to preserve a cloud that also bring us the opportunity to work in a collaborative way with all our material uploaded.

But… What is a wiki?

Wiki refers to a web application which allows different users to add, modify and/or delete content in collaboration with others, but not simultaneously (as Drive does). The clue factor is that users become participants, not just readers and that’s what made wikis so popular before Drive become what is today. This way, authorship faded away in favour of collaborative work.

The main goal about this tool is that allow participants to share and get involved in a collaborative and creative process, as well as to produce something with others.

As teachers, we can use Wikis as a tool to develop projects related with the contents we teach or we can also use them to communicate with parents and share the work of their kids. Bear in mind that the greatest potential of the tool is sharing knowledge and helping students to become active participants and builders of this mesmerizing common knowledge.

More information could be found here.

And just for fun… Have you ever notice “wiki” and “wicked” pronunciation resemblance?

Wiki, wiki!!! 😀

BLOGGING RULES

As secondary and high teens’ teachers, we’re going to teach teenagers and that means, certain limitations and constraints must take place when we teach them to blog. For this reason, some guidelines are needed in order to know how to create a blog and what should they do and what shouldn’t they do when blogging.

I thought of an activity based on the one we did in class. That activity would enhance the understanding of these useful rules and guidelines. First, students should form groups of four and do an agreement in 15 minutes about how to order the following blogging guidelines. Then, each group will have the rules and guidelines and they would have to justify the order they chose.

The rules and guidelines to be discussed are the following:

Be careful with the register you use.
Check your spelling and grammar.
Respect the others, don’t make anybody feel offended by your post nor comments.
Whatever you write is permanent, so be careful with what you write.
Make sure you are sharing the contents you want to share with others.
Make your entries attractive and engaging to read.
Use pictures or some sort of images to illustrate your message.
Coherence in the text is essential.
Don’t ever give personal details (e.g. surnames, contact details…).
Choose a nickname for you and use it always when commenting and posting (privacy).
Respect and accept others’ opinions.
Keep your blog updated.
Quality is better than quantity: bear that in mind.
Be careful with copyright. Link and quote your sources.
Keep your class blog always educational-oriented.
Learn from your peers and improve your knowledge and skills!

They are all based on the blog guidelines written by Mr. Jorgensen’s Blog.

The conclusion is that no rules are more important than others, is essential to bear them all in mind when blogging. And now… Let’s start blogging! 😉

SHOULD WE USE A CLASS BLOG?

Exchanging knowledge is the main goal in creating a blog for our EFL sessions but we should never ever forget we teach teenagers, so before deciding using a blog in our classrooms we should bear in mind thoughtfully if this tool is adequate for the activities and tasks we want the students to perform.

PROS

Anything concerned with creating their own text, edit it and publish it on the Internet engages our students. Don’t ever forget they’re digital natives.

Also, the fact of sharing their improvements make them feel proud of their work and make the rest of the community (parents, teachers, other students, etc.) value it too.

They don’t need to lose class time to prepare or publish posts, they can do it at home or even by their cell phones.

Students can feel free to show themselves how they really are or to show their thoughts on particular topics, opinions they’d never share if they were force to verbalize them in front of other students. Thus, blogging can be a great an artistic escape mechanism for most students. Even shy students can get a say because they don’t have to get nervous over how to speak and how the others will react, they have time to think their answers trough and to organize their thoughts.

They can help create a sense of a class community, as they facilitate interaction within the group.

A blog is also powerful because it lets users post images, videos and audio, as well as it makes things more dynamic than writing it on paper.

A good way of incorporating a blog into the daily life of any high school subject would be to make logbook entries, so that they could share with their parents, friends and classmates all their work: reports, presentations, visits to museums, etc.

CONS

As blogging is working online, there are some disadvantages of working this way:

First of all, there are the privacy issues. On one hand, if the blog is completely open, it can receive unwanted comments. On the other hand, as teachers we should limit our students’ posting freedom in order to control what they publish. This way we can’t avoid unsuitable situations were unrelated content might appear in the class blog or even insults and lacks of respect.

Last but not least, we should warn our students about the legal “dangers” of the internet: copyright infringements, digital footprints, quality of the information, spreading personal information and some serious digital crimes.

So, all in all, it is clear we should consider all of these pros and cons before deciding to use or not to use a class blog in our class and, if we do, how we should do it.

GOOGLE DRIVE

The unbelievable development of the Google company in the ICT field leave us no option but to use its amazing software. The company itself was established in 1998 but in less than two years it already overcome other browsers till becoming the first one. Its other free services soon became the most used and shared ones: Gmail, Blogger, Youtube, Picasa, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Translate, Google+, Google books, Google Chrome, etc.

The company not only became the worldwide software leader in ICT, but its services also were improved quickly, so far from remaining on its sudden huge success, the company worked hard to offer us the best software tools we can reach today and yes, for free. Wouldn’t just be stupid if we teachers didn’t take advantage of using the Google tools?

Application to your own / future teaching practice

There are several Gtools that can be useful for any kind of individuals, but I believe it is a must for teachers to know how to use Google Drive and use it every day, cause it’s the only tool that allows you to use all kind of documents (docs, forms, images, presentations and spreadsheets), to have them available anywhere you have internet access (just entering to your Gmail account) and, last but not least, share any document you want with others and even allow others to edit their contents. The only thing you have to do is opening a Gmail account and force you to use it! Using Google Drive is the first step to become a teacher who integrates ICT in his/her teaching practice!

In case you are not familiar with this amazing tool, here you have a great tutorial:

ICT IN EDUCATION

WEEK 3. 23/10/14

Technology in education is the future of the classroom. For that reason, the aim of this subject is to link technologies with theories of language learning.

New information gained:

Integrating ICT in ELT

It is important to know from where we came, where we are now and where are we going… So let’s meet the web classification:

CALL, 1.0 Read-only web. Computer Assisting Language Learning (CALL) was the beginning, Before ICT (80s).
ICT 2.0 Read-write web. Information and Communications Technology (ICT, 90s).
TELL 3.0 3D, Technology Enhanced Language Learning (TELL): creating new material, the future classroom (Web 3.0).

Nowadays we still live in the ICT world (web 2.0) but it’s not going to be long till we arrive to the 3.0 era, so it’s a must for a teacher to be trained in the most recent and useful ICT tools for his/her teaching practice.

Reasons to use ICT in ELT

Engagement and motivation: teens like it (they are digital natives).
Effective and efficient.
Richer source materials. They don’t know how to search for information.
Dynamic and interactive
Internet access
Collaboration
Communication
Coursebooks + CDROMs
Mobile
Exposure

Benefits for teachers

Repetition of the main ideas without being repetitive
Propel both individual and collaborative work
Motivation
Interactivity
Multimedia
Adquisition of IT skills

What to consider

Students’ needs and interests
In class self-access
Pedagogical aims
Careful lesson planning
Technical support
Back-up lesson (plan B if the connection is not good)
Integration with the course program
ICT skills and software familiarisation
System failure

I’d like to end this entry with a video edited by The Norwegian Centre for ICT in Education reflecting on the benefits for their society could reach if they did a smart use of the ICT in education.

TASK 4: CLASSROOM LAYOUT

WEEK 2. DATE 16/10/14

New information gained:

Today we talked about the classroom layout, which doesn’t seem such a big deal but it’s extremely important as it determines a lot the kind of atmosphere in the classroom. The typical layout where students sit in pairs and all of them face the teacher is useful for lectures and paired activities but it becomes old-fashioned and quite strict when we want to have a more relaxed atmosphere in the classroom.

In this sense, there are several basic principles that we need to take into account when deciding the classroom layout for the lesson:

Distance decay between the teacher and the students.
Students are creatures of habit, so don’t change the classroom layout for every lesson. Moreover, changes in sitting affect to students production and interaction.
Rows reduce interaction.
>4 students. Groups of more than 4 students don’t work.

Application to your own / future teaching practice

I believe the classroom layout is a very important aspect to take in to account both in the designing of the activity and the task and its implementation. That’s the reason why I think this lesson was extremely important to make as reflect on this particular facet.

The ideal layout

In my ELT group (group 6) we decided that the ideal classroom layout should be like this:

A class with individual desks which will usually be in U-shape but that can be also put in many different ways depending on the kind of task to do.

A whiteboard and an interactive board on the frontal wall of the classroom.

The teacher’s desk in the left corner in order not to interfere with the digital and the black/white board.

Bookshelves with books and lots of other materials in the right corner. It is important to have a class plenty of materials, students should have access to these any time they want.

5. Huge big windows are important, as the more natural light the classroom has, the better atmosphere we can get inside the room.

We should follow the Finnish schools’ classroom layout, whose great windows cheer the students up.

Light green painting on the walls, inspiring messages and student’s work

A motivating English teacher who moves around the classroom as it is also important to reduce the teacher-student physical distance.

Do you agree? Why/why not?

TASK 1: Creating a PLE (Symbaloo)

WEEK 1. DATE 09/10/14

1. New information gained:

First of all, we did some dynamics in class in order to be distributed in different groups. We normally sit close to those students we are more familiar with, so that’s why we usually do the work teams with that same people. Thanks to that dymanic, most of us are getting to know other nice people in the class trough the classgroup.

I’d say that the most important things I’ve learnt in the first ELT lesson are the concepts of CLIL and ELT, two words I’ve never seen in my life. On one hand, CLIL are the initials for Content and Language Integrated Learning, which is teaching any subject in a foreign language in order to not only use the L2 in a natural situation, but also to take advantages from teaching two subjects at the same time. On the other hand, ELT are the initials for English Language Teaching, which is the name of this subject and quite an important concept to me as far as I want to become a great English teacher!

Another great and more practical thing about the first class was the first contact with Symbaloo and the PLE (Personal Learning Environment).

2. Questions raised (they may be still unanswered) e.g. Could this task be used ?

Of course! I find that Symbaloo is a great tool for both teachers and students and even for parents or anyone else! This tool allows the users to connect and organize all their resources in a relevant way, so they can work and study through it anytime. Moreover, Symbaloo allows users to connect and see other users’ symbaloos, so they can always learn about new tools or resources.

3. Application to your own / future teaching practice?

We all had to open an account and start our own PLE through Symbaloo, so there’s an immediate application of it! Anyway I’m quite positive about its benefits, especially for teachers in our daily practice, so no doubt we’ll use it along our professional careers.