Week 10 The Beginning of a New Adventure

The week 10 has finished. However the LOTI framework and its survey where really impressive for me. I could see more clearly a lot of other possibilities to use technology for teaching. Also the article “Seven Principles”  left me the clear idea of committing to “ eschew materials that are simply didactic, and search instead for those that are interactive, problem oriented, relevant to real-world issues, and that evoke student motivation.”  As Janine said this is just the beginning of a new adventure!

That’s why I would like to mention:

What topics where more successful?

I think that the Webquest, PBL, One computer classroom, teacher resources online, peer review for final report and learning styles where the topics that more caught the attention of the classmates.

What topics where more successful for you?

The most successful for me is the Interactive Power Point presentation, Webquest, PBL, the Employment of CALL in Teaching Second/Foreign Language Speaking Skills, Standards for teaching language, and the blessing of Rubistar! It seems that I won’t finish.

Which tools will you use in your classes?

I want to try ANVIL, Voice threat, podcast, student inventory.

And all the other tools were suggested and used by colleagues like Pretzi and Voki.

Which if any do you think were not relevant to what you do or will do?

I did not find irrelevant any topic from this course.  Even if I felt a topic was less applicable for me, I tried to look for a way to put it in practice with my students. I think I can learn something of every article here. I still want to dedicate some time to create lesson plans using tech tools I haven’t tried yet. 

What other tools might we have covered or would you suggest that we could have looked at?

I would like the course can include something for 3D environment. Like http://www.alice.org/ I am really interested in using it with my students too. I think it would be a great tool to teach language. It can be used for story telling, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web.

I want to give a long lasting applause to:

Janine my prepared instructor.

Jeff Magoto.

University of Oregon.

US Embassy-Mexico City.

Office of English Language Programs.

US State Department.

Thank you to all my classmates for creating a wonderful atmosphere for learning.

Best Regards

Aida

Week 9 and Keep Using Technology in the Classroom

This week was very active but also was one more week full of treasures. We learned and discuss about multiple intelligences, learning styles and technology usage based on student centered classroom.

I was impress to find so many articles related to teaching using technology trying to address the different learning styles. I never thought that there were so many research about how having specific activities using technology would impact different students’ learning styles and intelligences.

The discussions on Nicenet left great contributions to our own learning experience. I fell in love of the 5Cs and of the Standards since “The Standards document states that learning strategies are an integral part of the -weave- of curricular elements that help students to learn -what to say to whom and when- (Standards, p. 29). The Standards authors call for creating -rich curricular experiences- by bringing in such notions as critical thinking skills, cultural knowledge, and learning strategies.” I would add that Standards promote learner’s autonomy too, since is based in the “assumption that -All students can be successful language and culture learners- (Standards, p. 7). The Standards statement of philosophy states that the ultimate goal is -a future in which all students will develop and maintain proficiency in English and at least one other language, modern or classical- (Standards, p.7). This concept is integral to language strategies instruction, since learning strategies provide a way for all students to become proficient in a foreign language.”

 Then I finalized my Webquest based on what I learned from the articles. I created flash cards using power point and I include them on it. I used all the resources from it during my classes with great results. After applying a student survey, I notice the students were happy with the usage of technology and without a doubt developing more their different intelligences. They are like sponges absorbing all the new knowledge and new experiences.

I worked on my final project. I made the changes suggested by my partner and I traduced to English the class syllabus to include it on the final project. This left me a great satisfaction feeling and at the same time I realized that the end of the class was getting closer. I updated my class site and I had good comments from parents accessing to it.

Then I completed the course evaluation and I gave my compliments to our very well prepared Instructor who set the example of using the model the University of Oregon created to develop web skills with us. The way she was discovering the information and triggering our background experiences with our present learning was exactly the best way to be a role model for us.

The interaction with the classmates is profoundly appreciated by me.

I am planning to keep using more technological tools into my teaching. I want to create an online survey for parents. And I am creating a list with ideas that I am going to develop during the summer where I will be using the different tools I haven’t used yet with the students. Like improving my class site and have a delicious link on it. I will  incorporate Voicethreat and ANVILL, avatars’ creation and some many more tech tools etc! I can wait!

Thank you all for another great week!

Aida

Technology and Learning Styles

Inspired by the articles and recommendations found on Howard Gardner’s website “Technology and Multiple Intelligences”,  I created a Webquest including activities that during the process can be good for learners with different learning styles and MI.

a)    I include songs where they can use musical intelligence.

b)    I ask them to have a conversation, this would develop linguistics.

c)    The usage of videos for visual learners.

d)    The flash cards develop logical and mathematical because they need to figure out the day of the week that needs to match with the phrase which has the same color. Also they need to complete the seven days or seven phrases one per day.

e)    The usage of puppets and writing the words help bodily/kinesthetic students too from being just sitting in front of a computer.

Also I had the chance to see the excellent results with my students after using it.

I could probe how “by understanding a student's strengths and weaknesses in each intelligence, we can help students become more successful.”  I also learned “that integrating multiple intelligences into the classroom involves changing our idea about teaching and learning. It requires addressing individual differences and providing a range of activities and experiences to facilitate learning.”

The main point of including technology is to use it to “facilitate learning in each intelligence area. There is no "right way" to integrate intelligences or technology into the classroom. The key is to provide the most effective learning environment for students.”

Regards

Aida

Week 8 Tech Tools for Teaching

AVILL tool was a total hit for me. I could not stop thinking of how to use it with my students since clearly Jeff mentioned in the webinar this tool is being used just for high school students and adults. When I finish my readings and took the seminar about ANVILL I learned that we can use the tool as audio journals. I am still thinking about how to make this opportunity available to my students. I bet recording their voices when they’re talking in English would be motivating for them too.

During the webinar I really had a nice experience watching the video and communicating using text and voice with the rest of the teachers and moderators in real time.  Later on I explored ANVILL myself and it was an amazing experience. I saw the courses created on ANVILL and I learned a lot from them. This tool definitely let the “teacher put digestible amounts of content in front of students” as Jeff mentioned in his article Authoring with ANVILL. This is a well thought-out tool to develop oral/aural skills.  Another admirable feature is that teachers can make use of cooperative activities like WebQuest, and ANVILL can embed tools like Voice Threat on it.

While I was reading the assignments for this week, I was also thinking about my specific situation with parents without computers or with computers but without internet service. I decided to create the class site to post materials and encourage parents to be involved in their children’s second language learning. It is common for most of them to use internet cafes and I am sure they would do an effort to check the materials from it. I had a concern after I created the class site; most of the parents do not know English and the site is written completely in English. This made me think about the necessity to use it in class every day for children to become familiar with it. Also I would like to invite parents to learn how to use it in a short workshop. These things are going to make students and parents use this tool with ease.

When I saw PO-YU’s alphabet using a tool for Taiwanese to learn English, it made me think about creating a bilingual class site too in order to facilitate parents to guide their children. I am going to hold on to that thought for now.

As Mohini mentioned, “I need to practice the same to get more familiar with the tools so that I can use them effectively.” Teachers need more time to learn how to make the most of every tool.  It is a good investment of time because after we learn how to use them well, we can start saving a lot of time developing materials and better delivering the contents to our students. 

I learned a lot from finishing my draft and reviewing my peer’s draft. I had the opportunity to see other’s work, and the way they are planning or had addressed their specific situations incorporating technology in their classrooms.

It was a remarkable experience and great collaboration exercise.

Regards

Aida

Learners Autonomy, One Computer Class & Project Task

This week, I realized how important the connection between student motivation and self-determination is to develop autonomy in the learners. Research made by Thanasoulas has shown that motivation is related to whether or not students have opportunities to be autonomous and to make important academic choices.

Having choices allows students to feel that they have control or ownership over their own learning. This, in turn, helps them develop a sense of responsibility and self-motivation. When students feel a sense of ownership, they want to engage in academic tasks and persist in learning. We teachers can offer them those appropriate choices to help them to be responsible and autonomous.

It was really impress to find out what research mentioned about how teachers are afraid to lose control over classroom management if they to give students more choice in their learning process. In fact if the teacher allows more choice to students the opposite happens. As long as the students understand their role as the one in control over their thinking, self esteem, learning behaviors, they are more likely to be responsible or being in charge of their learning.

And teachers need to learn how to help students develop the ability to make appropriate choices and take control over their own learning. When we keep students engaged with meaningful assignments the result is positive motivation without any disturbances or complains. Here is the point where the teacher gained their respect and concentration. I had a conversation about it with a colleague this week, she teaches Math and said to me “as long they see I am prepared to guide them, they are the best students.” For example, I like to set classroom rules; I have assigned rule watchers one or two per rule. Then at the end of the class they self evaluate their behavior to improve their learning experience. For example for the rule “everyone must participate” (sounds like a strong statement and it is for young learners in behalf on their learning) the rule watcher assigned stands up and ask the rest of the class: did we all followed this rule? And then, their answer is YES!!! There is always a moment where they reflect (how many times, what did you do? etc) about what they did to learn. This exercise helps them to develop class ownership and autonomy. Young learners are less willing to be acting up and more motivated to find out what they are going to learn during the class. Step by step they are developing a sense of responsibility and motivation that will transcend everything except their desire to learn.

About one computer class, well I’ve learned many different tips to use it effectively in the classroom. For example I loved the recommendation of using it as a journal and as learning center. I know how exited students go with the idea of being in front of it typing for a few minutes.

Also this article gave me more confidence to teach with just a single computer and take the most of it. It really expanded my horizons about the possibilities for usage. I was so used to teach adults inside of fancy computer labs in the company I used to work for that the lack of technology in a school setting was not letting me being creative about how to use a great resource with the little ones.

For my project task, I asked at the very last minute to some parents that are good with computers to stop by to help out the class. I was surprised to see two of them arriving to help. Children’s natural reaction was surprise too. They were not used to see parents during their classes. They enjoyed the interactive presentation so much. They were laughing hard when they hit the wrong answer at the end of the presentation. They were celebrating every good answer too. One child said: This was the best class ever! In my opinion, it was a little too much for my humility. It was really rewarding to hear that.

I am still working in having internet connection in the classroom to use more and more resources from the web! Also I am planning to have connected the computer with the TV soon.

Regarding to choose a peer to review my draft I just hope Mohini accepts my request.

Thank you for a great week 7.

Aida

Week Six and Project Task

Well there is no better way of starting the week that trying to implement something new. So I took my computer with me and I started to check the internet connection. I realized the WIFI signal was not as strong as I was expecting. The walls were blocking the signal. For a second I felt discouraged. However it did not take long for me to start thinking about other ways to use the Webquest.  I talked to the IT guy about what I was planning to do and he suggested me to use a signal repeater. A WiFi repeater is used to extend the coverage area of a WiFi network. It works by receiving the existing WiFi signal, amplifying it and then transmitting the boosted signal. With a WiFi repeater it id possible effectively double the coverage area of the WiFi network so reaching far corners of at home or office, different floors, or even extend the coverage to the yard.  I said to him “if the device is expensive I won’t get approval from the financial department”. At least I have a chance to change the situation. I went into the process to ask for it. And while I was waiting for the answer I decided to star downloading some of the resources from the WebQuest and try to get the videos from YouTube to get started with my students. The surprise was that I did not find the resources link activated on the WebQuest. The result I could not really work with it this week.  I tried during different days and I was not successful. I needed to work with plan B.

At least the week did not have a bad ending even if I did not accomplished what I originally was planning; the financial department approved the buy.

Do you know what an achievement is that?

Greetings

Aida

Week 6 Preparing an Interactive PowerPoint Lesson-Student Centered

Without a doubt, I got advice from the Duquesne University’s School of Education. This article mentioned how graduate students were learning, like me how to use available classroom technologies to teach. During this week number six, I could prepare an interactive Power Point lesson having the main focus “the  students”.  I was thinking about young students that barely can read on their native language. I started to concern a little bit about the amount of text I should be including on my presentation, and how to reach the class objective at the same time.

I knew that interactive lessons take the form of self-paced, student-controlled, individualized learning opportunities embedded with assessment events along the way, so I started to search in the web for extra materials (more examples) especially for children. I used Internet Explorer and Netscape Communicator as my tools of choice for accessing the web. I included action buttons to assess student understanding. “By creating a simple question with several possible responses, PowerPoint transfers students either to new information (if correct), or to remedial information if additional instruction is necessary triggers a Hyperlink to advance to the feedback, and from there continue the lesson”. I could enable this interactive feedback using them in my presentation.  This and the use of hidden slides combined were ideal to produce an attractive and well executed effect with the sounds that needed to be played.  It would consider that I learned almost how to trick the usual sense of power point. To learn what power point was created for helped me to create a more attractive tool for my students.  I’ve used a summative (final) assessment while ensuring that students will complete the lesson, mastering all the learning objectives, and receiving some reward for their efforts.

“Once created using Kemp’s Model for Designing Effective Instruction, the presentation can be captured onto a” very light usage of memory and disk space, “1.44MB… unless there is an inordinate number of graphic images”.  Mine actually was a little bit heavier than that. I enjoyed learning an uncountable number of techniques to apply to interactive presentations using or not power point. Also I realize how this interactive presentation can be saved on show format and to be included in WebQuest too.

I found this video targeted to teachers (with only a basic knowledge of PowerPoint) who would like to use PowerPoint as an interactive tool in their classrooms. For example: To create multiple choice quizzes with automatic feedback based on which response is chosen. The URL is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUVbXCAqrs0&feature=related.  This template can be downloaded and adapted to our students’ needs.

All this interactive presentations reinforce our PBL, enhancing the engagement of our students. Take a look to this other example I found inspiring http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9JoGXxUooA&feature=related .  This is a tutorial that shows how to use the Big Wheel PowerPoint game. With really no preparation required, teachers can just have a sheet of vocabulary or review questions in their hand. Simply students need to click "Spin the Wheel" and total up the points in the columns on the right. There is also a version called “Big Wheel Elementary” that is the same game except that it has smaller numbers on the wheel.

This week I learned how there are lots of interactive presentations ready to be used by us. Some of this donated by other teachers or experts on power point too. It is really amazing the amount of time they are dedicating to create them and then just letting others benefit from them. At the end, when using one of those templates, we should at least recognize the credit they deserve.

Best Regards

Aida

PBL and WebQuest Week 5

This week 5 I have learned that “the project-based learning approach creates a "constructivist" learning environment in which students construct their own knowledge. Whereas in the “old school" model the teacher was the task master -- in the "new school" model the teacher becomes the facilitator”.  Yes, I confirmed my theory!  I was navigating through the different websites and I found the information in the URL http://www.globalschoolnet.org/Web/pbl/whatis.htm .  I learned how all age students can develop more confidence in their ability to learn English incluiding the ones that can be resistant to learn it.

 We  need to convert the learning experience in something meaninful. We always are going to start form  our objective related with our student’s needs. I was very moved to read the story of Susan Gaer when she developed a PBL with their inmigrants students. She helped them to document traditonal recepies from their countries. She impacted a learning objective and a historic momentum. Why? Because I am sure that there where not documentation for the mayority of those recepies before of that project.

The usage of PBL has with it the opportunity to apply alternative assessment in to the classroom. That opened for me the oportunity to create  a rubric using an online tool.

Also, for the URL http://www.educationworld.com/a_issues/chat/chat015.shtml I learned that “A WebQuest is built around an engaging and doable task that elicits higher order thinking of some kind. It's about doing something with information. The thinking can be creative or critical, and involve problem solving, judgment, analysis, or synthesis. The task has to be more than simply answering questions or regurgitating what's on the screen. Ideally, the task is a scaled down version of something that adults do on the job, outside school walls.” Here is when a teacher need to find the task that is going to lead to thinking about the web content.

Our multidisciplinary touch can make the WebQuest a real display of cooperative learning strategies.

I learned that a great WebQuest is one that through creating situations or tasks can make students to develop a strong dependence on one another.

PBL, Alternative Assessments, Rubrics

There is no better way to strengthen our students’ confidence in their skills in L2 than providing them with the resources that are going to make them successful. This is one of the most powerful ways of motivation.  When using a rubric we are letting our students know what we are expecting from them at the end of an assigned task.  We are also teaching them how quality matters, and how they are going to be evaluated based on that.  As the URL http://health.usf.edu/publichealth/eta/Rubric_Tutorial/default.htm with the topic Creating a Rubric: Tutorial says, “Rubrics identify the specific elements an instructor uses to differentiate between the qualities of performances. i.e. it helps the student answer the question ‘why did I get a point taken off?’”

This is very common with the students.  Even I experienced that situation with low grades on my blog during the first two weeks. Fortunately, it did not take long for me to realize that I was missing something from the rubric to achieve five out of five on my posts.

Alternative assessments also provide learners the opportunities to reflect on both linguistic development and their learning process. The main point for students to learn language is communication for meaningful purposes. The students can demonstrate things learned and they take responsibility because they are self directed.  Alternative assessments either are in the form of a checklist or a rubric, providing students the opportunity to display progress to the school, community, and family members.