Showing posts with label Web Tools. Show all posts

Teacher Training Videos: Get training on how to use Web 2.0 Tools

Higher Education, Web 2.0, Web Tools 0 comments

Teacher Training Videos

Get training on how to use Web 2.0 Tools

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.

School of English

Faculty of Social Sciences

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Post 248

On the web a lot different kind of information can be spotted, some of which has a tremendous value for professional development. For those who are autonomous learners, Russell Stannard’s Teacher Training Videos (TTV) are the door to get a whole lot to learn and then experience with Web 2.0 tools that can be used in higher education.

Among the gamut of videos that Stannard has to train learners, one about Edmodo caught my eye. In spite of the fact the we faculty members at the university where I work do use a Moodle platform, this virtual learning space is an institutional content management system (CMS) students do not have access after finishing their major. Moreover, once a course is finished and the quarter is over, the virtual classroom is disabled; neither do students nor the teacher have access to information that was posted nor the projects that were uploaded. Edmodo could be a way out to have students experiment with a different CMS and learn to use it for their future teaching endeavors.

What I have in my mind for this tool is to engage students in also uploading their projects on this platform, so they can refer to them later on in their teaching careers. As it can be seen in the snapshot above, as an instructor I can create a new group, manage it, design an assignment, quiz students, poll them, etc. It is a very complete platform though it is a free one.

I see my pre-service students creating their own virtual classroom at Edmodo. Since most of my learners during their Teaching Practicum do not have a place to store information for their courses in high schools, learning how to work with this platform can help them provide students with more than simply classroom instruction. Now they can create their own content, put it online, make it accessible for their learners, grade them, make their classrooms flipped, and enjoy their student learning beyond comparison.

I would have my pre-service learn how to create their course or courses at Edmodo. Then, I would like to have their other Teaching Practicum partners see the results of their activity in the platform to evaluate their teaching performance and student learning. No doubt this free platform can give my ELT university students room to improve in their electracy skills and competences.

Sunday, April 03, 2016

Jamie Keddle’s LessonStream.Org

Higher Education, Lesson Planning, Web 2.0, Web Tools 0 comments

Taken from http://lessonstream.org/

Jamie Keddle’s LessonStream.Org

Lesson Plans with Technology at its Best

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.

School of English

Faculty of Social Sciences

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Post 247

Hadn’t it been because of Prof. Michael Krauss, I would not have been lead to finding the wonders behind Jamie Keddle’s project: LessonStream. This site “is a collection of high quality lesson plans that incorporate technology. One of the advantages to the collection is its searchability” (Krauss, 2016). No doubt Jamie Keddle’s website is a great contribution for teachers worldwide.

What does a lesson plan include in Keddle’s page? When you start paying attention to how the lesson plan it is structure, you find lots of information that can allow you make the most sensible decision to start using it with your learners. First, we are provided with an introduction or antecedent to what the situation to be discussed is. Secondly, the language level, the learner types, time allotted, type of activity, topic, language covered, and materials are set. Immediately after this, we are provided with a lesson plan outline, which can be subdivided into two parts. Lots of information to make a decision on using the activity or not is supplied, as it can be noticed.

Though this seems to be a lot of information that is supplied by the site, the page has more features to help the user. For instance, if one clicks the “language levels” tab, one gets the suggested level for the lesson plan one is exploring. If the third tab is clicked, one is supplied with the types of students who can profit from the plan. Furthermore, time is also suggested for us teachers to calculate the amount of time that needs to be taken from our regular classes. The remaining tabs help us to identify –in other lesson plans- all sorts of main activities, language aims (adjectives, verbs, etc.), various topics, and materials include more information about the lesson plans included on the webpage. This last tab seems to be confusing since when one hits materials one expects –perhaps- to see what extra elements are required for a lesson plan. Yet, the best of the tabs in LessonStream are language levels and learner type.

As someone who enjoys art and artistic manifestations, let me choose a sample lesson plan to explore in detail: Scream by Munch.

1	Name of lesson	The Scream
2	URL of the lesson	http://lessonstream.org/2012/05/06/the-scream/
3	Tab under which I found this lesson	Materials – Image lesson plans
4	Brief description of the lesson	Language Function: To talk about past events and ongoing actions that were taking place during those past events
4	Brief description of the lesson	Objective: To infer from pictures what people had been doing before
5	Reasons to chose this lesson	To focus learners on the description of past events focusing on finished and ongoing actions
6	What can be hoped from learners to be able to do after finishing this lesson	It is expected that by the end of this lesson, learners can be able to discuss past events in terms of finished actions and ongoing ones during that event.

To sum up, LessonStream is a great repository of lessons plans. These plans can be worked on just the way they are, or –better yet-, they can be adapted to suit one’s objectives with our students. This is –for sure- one of those websites that must be stored for later use in one’s teaching practice with technology.

References

Krauss, M. (2016, March 3). Exploring Web 2.0. Retrieved from Exploring Web 2.0: https://webdisk.lclark.edu/krauss/cwis/exploring20web/syllabus2b.html#day5

Sunday, April 03, 2016

Feed Reading and Ideas Generated by this Practice

Education Technologies, Higher Education, Integration of Technology into Teaching, Web 2.0, Web Tools 0 comments

Taken from https://www.iconfinder.com/

Feed Reading and Ideas Generated

by this Practice

What one can gain from this simple professional practice

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.

School of English

Faculty of Social Sciences

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Post 246

After being introduced to Feedly.Com by Prof. Michael Krauss in his course Exploring Web 2.0: Tools for Classroom Teaching and Professional Development, we participants were asked to go to Prof. Peachey’s blog Nik’s QuickShout to add it to our Feedly.Com account for in-depth exploration later on. Formerly I had visited Nik Peachey’s blogs, especially after meeting him at Homerton College, University of Cambridge, GB. Though I was not his student in his Web 2.0 training, partners at Homerton taking his class got very enthusiastic at the ideas that Prof. Peachey spread across his students. Now it is my turn to see how his Nik’s QuickShout blog has evolved.

Scrolling down his many ideas, I got caught by one of his entries entitled Video Creation Activities (Peachey, 2015). What was so eye-catching in this blog entry? Since I work on video production with my university students, I wanted to see what other learning tasks I could devise for my learners in literature courses. And this is what I found:

a)	Blog post title	Video Creation Activities
	Date of publication	Tuesday, September 8, 2015
	URL to access	http://quickshout.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2015-11-05T06:08:00Z&max-results=1&start=2&by-date=false
b)	Suggested tool	None provided by Nik Peachey
		My suggestion is https://www.youtube.com/capture, which allows the user to create movies on the go for iPhones or iPads. For Android phones, it is suggested the following: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.youtube.creator&hl=en, YouTube Creator Studio.
	Tool description	Any of the two tools suggested above allows the user (student) to record videos and upload them to his/her YouTube channel, and then they can be shared or posted in the course’s webpage, Moodle classroom, Edmodo, etc.
c)	Target Students	Idea 1	Literature students who can create a Vodcast (a podcast combined with video) in which they can discuss their personal analysis of a literary piece, such as poetry, short story, or novella.
		Idea 2	Pronunciation students who must work on intonation patterns, and by means of reading poesies, selected sections from prose writing (stories or even essays) they can read it aloud.
d)	Why this activity & Why these tools	1) For digital natives, this can be a catchy way to have them work on areas that need improvement if applied to pronunciation. 2) If applied to literature students, who usually have to write their analyses, what about having them react to literary pieces in video format? It is a different way to present ideas and to check pronunciation and understanding. 3) Though these are just examples of possible tools that can be downloaded from the Apple Store or from Google Play, probably there are more to explore. However, no matter which one your students get to use, it is important to become familiarized with it to avoid problems.
e)	How to use this technique in literature	A) After demonstrating how the tool can be used to learners, select a piece of literature for analysis. B) Instructionally design your learning task to make sure students are guided from beginning to the end. C) Create a rubric for summative assessment and to provide pupils with formative assessment, too. D) Ask them to rehearse before the actual recording of task.
	How to use this technique in pronunciation	A) After demonstrating how the tool can be used to learners, select the area of pronunciation you want learners to practice. B) Instructionally design your learning task to make sure students are guided from beginning to the end and that the chosen pronunciation issue is addressed. C) Create a rubric for summative assessment and to provide pupils with formative assessment, too. D) Ask them to rehearse before the actual recording of task.

No doubt that Feedly.Com is a great tool for academic and professional development. There are many things I am interested in, and those articles posted in education blogs are things that help me generate more ideas to continue innovating in my teaching practices. For sure, my higher education learners will benefit from my on-going training in Web 2.0 tools.

Reference

Peachey, N. (2015, September 8). Video creation activities. Retrieved from Nik's QuickShout: http://quickshout.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2015-11-05T06:08:00Z&max-results=1&start=2&by-date=false

Sunday, April 03, 2016

Exploration of Web 2.0 Tools

Higher Education, Web 2.0, Web Tools 0 comments

Taken from https://moodle2015-16.ua.es/moodle/pluginfile.php/26063/mod_resource/content/2/pagina_03.htm

Exploration of Web 2.0 Tools

A mere short sample, but with ideas

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.

School of English

Faculty of Social Sciences

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Post 245

Web 2.0 tools and their systematic and corresponding analysis to visualize where they can fit in our instructional design is a must and a necessity for the 21^st Century teaching professional. While taking an online course on Exploring Web 2.0 facilitated by Prof. Michael Krauss from the Lewis & Clark University in Portland, USA, one gets to deepen the importance of the gamut of possibilities we have to explore and then to use in one’s teaching. And though Prof. Krauss wanted his course participants to express which of the many activities we had during the second week of his training we like the most, it is very difficult to isolate one and say, “This is better than the rest.”

In spite of knowing the existence of Voki.Com and having shallowly explored its content, Prof. Krauss’s activity prompted me into deepening my comprehension of the tool. Voki.Com is a webpage that allows the user to create an avatar, which can easily be embedded into many different Internet-based html-supported environments. Creating this kind of avatars, and thinking ahead for my next term of in college, I was wondering how ELT students coursing literature can use this to create some sort of storytelling with a real narrator, whether is with one of the voices provided by the system or with their own recordings. And this is just one idea that came to me.

Understanding the importance of collaboration in today’s education blended/hybrid formats, Diigo.Com, Google Sites, and Jumble Puzzle can be very much handy. In college, learners are often looking for information when developing projects, topic analyses, group work, and so on. The exchange of websites they come across in their online searches can be much faster if all partners do hold a Diigo account. In my case, what I see now is to use Diigo to share links, articles, videos, and the like by creating specific “groups” interested in a given topic, literary genre, short story, etc. It is indeed a great tool.

Collaboration can be taken to a higher level through a wiki format, like the one developed by Prof. Krauss in Google Sites. Depending on the topic to cover along a course, having students collaborate on a single document, usually divided into sections, is a great idea for learners. In this way, pieces of the summary can be created by individual students or teams. Questions can be posted to partners developing a given part of the document and they can get peer coaching from them for better understanding. No doubt that this has great potential to be used with digital natives in higher education.

Something that came to me by surprise is Jumble Puzzles from Jumble.Com. Puzzles are always fun, and fun can be taken into the classroom to try to find a solution with one’s students. This site provides you with a daily Jumble Puzzle and contains an archive of puzzles for us to explore. The advantage of this site is that one can try to solve it first and then, with the answers tucked under the arm, one can walk and play with words with one’s learners.

If everything is instructionally planned carefully, I am sure that all of these Web 2.0 resources, free of charge and ready to be used, can be of great help for one’s courses, whether they are in high school or in higher education. I just look forward to having some time to start constructing my new learning tasks around these Web 2.0 tools.

Saturday, April 02, 2016

Scoop.it! A Free Online Link-Sharing Service

Hybrid and Blended Learning, Online Instruction, online learning, Online Teaching Practices, Scoop.it!, Tech Tip, Web Tools 0 comments

Scoop.it! A Free Online Link-Sharing Service

How current should our understanding of the tools available to us as an online / blended learning instructor be? Is it crucial to stay up to date with these web enhancements to be a more effective professional? As we have to keep current with the latest developments in our content areas, professional-wise it is mandatory to know what new tools are emerging and how they can be used to help our students learn and achieve course learning goals. Let’s review http://www.scoop.it to create a curated topic directly linked with students’ favorite social media and to gather information for courses, about their community of practice, or to keep current with new trends in their fields.

What’s Scoop.it!? Scoop.it! was built and launched to the public in November 2011 to enable professionals “to share important ideas with the right audiences giving them an opportunity to create and maintain meaningful Web presence” [Scoop.it! Company Manifesto]. This Web presence can be translated for educational purposes into a sort of bookmarking service where the “curator” [user] can visually see what s/he is adding to its page content and share its content with peers via Facebook or Twitter, or by simply sending his curated topic web address. To sum up, this tool is some sort of link-sharing service connected to the social media working as a storage where topic-related links can be added by its curator/user and shared with peers or the world.

How can Scoop.it! be used for educational purposes? This Web 2.0 tool can be used either by faculty or students. Oftentimes professors and learners have a collection of Websites and pages that they find helpful for their courses or for their professional practice. But if these sites and pages are not stored properly, teachers and pupils are bound to lose track of them. Sometimes, people store these links in their favorites on their computers, but if they are not at home, they won’t have direct access to them for they are not stored on the cloud. Scoop.it! will allow the user/curator to have access to his/her links visibly, with a picture depicting the link’s content, and with the chance to include a brief description of its content [see picture above]. Other tool users can also leave a comment on other curators’ links, or, if they prefer, they can re-scoop the link and make it part of their collections. Additionally, with the search interests … option on the page, the curator can also browse the content of all topics and find information another user has included in his/her topic.

If wondering how this Web tool can be used in one’s course or courses, let’s review some simple and practical uses:

1. To have students create their own curated topic to store links for research papers, presentations, homework, and the like

2. To share their curated links with their community of learning in class via the course wiki

3. To browse information on their specific professional field within local or international communities of practice

4. To keep current with new developments in one’s professional field by using the RSS option that tool offers

5. To get the latest links submissions by other curators on one’s curated topic via the suggestions provided by the tool system

As a conclusion, Scoop.it! is a great tool to keep current and to keep track of communities of practice. It can become a great link storage place to have information just one click away and on the cloud.