Where to send my mark :)

Please forward my grade for this course to yatatu1@yahoo.ca.
Merci beaucoup!

Final blog post- July 14

This has been a really amazing course for me! I can honestly say that I have never felt so confident when it comes to integrating technology into my teaching. Through the demonstrations and guidance we received in class, I learned to manipulate these tools on my own. It might sound silly, but I feel really proud of myself for these accomplishments.  I now feel like I could successfully build my own 'lms' through a wikispace (if I don't have access to one through my school division). Until this course, I had only ever used a wiki for a communal workspace when doing group assignments.   I now know how to make and embed videos into the wiki and I also know how to create interactive quizzes and activities through hot potatoes and to embed them into my wiki. 

I think making wikis will be a really useful skill for me in my new job next year- not only for working with students, but also for providing PD for the teachers with whom I work.  I might steal Prof. Larouche's idea of offering a short 2-3 minute video tutorial and then open up a place online for discussion. A wikispace would be the perfect venue for that!  Also- since I will be working with a variety of ESL students from grades 10-12- all of whom will be arriving with different levels of English proficiency and different needs- I see the potential of using a wikispace (or lms) to have students working on different tasks at one time- and having a central place to house their work without going completely crazy trying to keep on top of everything!

Over the past two weeks, I have not only learned how to make pretty and functional things with a wide variety of web 2.0 tools, but I also have learned to problem solve and to stretch beyond my comfort zone.  This has been good for me (although frustrating at times), because I would usually avoid what is unfamiliar to me.

I am SO grateful to have got a spot in this course. What a wonderful way to end my  MEd degree. It was well worth the 28 hours of driving and 2 weeks away from my family!  Merci beaucoup!

my attempt at windows movie maker-

Attached here is the short video I created on Windows Movie Maker. The video is designed to go along with my TPack lesson plan- to introduce key vocabulary for a content-based unit on the environment for intermediate ESL students. It took me quite a while to produce this 2 minute video. With experience, it might take me less time, but it's a good reminder for planning if I ever want to try making a video with my class.

Follow this link to check out my video on youtube!

July 12- seventh blog post

Today we learned about Smartboards. I have been curious to learn more about this technology as it was just starting to come out when I took my maternity leave and so, I have little experience with it in a classroom. Our teacher in the am class uses one, but she hasn't really shown us how it works and it seems like she fights with it a lot.  Even after today's lesson,  the Smartboard still looks kind of complicated to me; I think I would need a fairly hands-on tutorial to really figure it out. I am really hoping I will have access to one in my new school. It really seems like a clever device- but only if used properly. I could see how a teacher could simply make use of it as a glorified overhead projector.  To me, that is a little sad, considering how many creative ways the Smartboard might also be used for student interaction and creative problem solving.  I really thought the 'clickers' were fun- and could envision using this tool in a number of ways, for example to make grammar study more fun or to do a survey of student opinions on a particular topic. I think this would also be practical for a teacher who works in a multi-level class- as it allows students to be working on different activities at once. I would use the 'clickers' to do a learning style profile of my students at the beginning of the year.

TPacK lesson plan

Content

General outcomes:  This lesson plan is designed for an ESL course in which the students are receiving language support for their content area courses.  Students have an intermediate level of English proficiency. The general learning outcome of this lesson is to help students formulate a convincing argument to persuade their peers to take action on an important issue; this outcome will be embedded in the context of environmental studies- which span several content –area courses. 

Specifically from the MB EAL Curriculum

http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/cur/eal/senior4/mod2.pdf

GLO 3/6/2: Students’ knowledge of and ability to use the English language to explore and manage ideas; to use learning strategies to enhance learning and communication; and to plan and produce accurate written, oral, and visual texts in a subject-area task

 Specific learning outcomes: A) Students will be able to manipulate persuasive expressions and conditional clauses (if….then….) in English so that students can frame arguments effectively.  B) Students will be able to acquire vocabulary that pertains to environmental issues. C) Students will acquire several phrasal verbs as they pertain to environmentally conscious behaviour (throw out, turn off, think about, etc. )

Pedagogy

The premise of content-based language learning is that students learn language as they learn about the world around them- and that this can happen when they are learning about math, science, social studies and many other disciplines. By interacting with each other and with the content, students will acquire the target vocabulary and language structures that are incorporated into this lesson plan. In the process of engaging with the content, language teachers can draw students’ attention to certain key vocabulary, grammatical structures and/or discourse features and students are provided numerous opportunities to encounter and to manipulate the new language in highly contextualized tasks.

Task and technology

The task: for students to prepare a short 1 minute (max.) video to persuade other students in the school to be more environmentally conscious.  Students will work in small groups to accomplish this task. 

From the Mb EAL Curriculum:

GLO 3/6/2: Students research and present to the class a specific environmental problem in the form of a proposal to a public audience, supported by a computer (or video) presentation. As students work through the module, monitor their progress, checking for use of research process and of language features covered in the module. Students also use a listening guide to peer-evaluate final presentations.

 

 

The technology: To begin, students will explore what kind of student behaviour is environmentally friendly and what is not. To achieve this, students will brainstorm as a class (titanpad) how they could persuade students to be more environmentally friendly at school.

Students will divide into small groups (maybe 3 students). Each group will choose a problem (wasted energy, lack of recycling, pollutants, wasted water, too much lunch garbage, idling cars in the parking lot, littering on the school property, drinking bottled water instead of bringing a refillable bottle etc.).

They will work collaboratively (google docs- word document) to produce a persuasive argument how this behaviour impacts the environment and what students can do to change it.  This argument will form the script for their video.

Students mayl have to do some online research to find scientific evidence (from a reputable source) to support their claims.  They will use audio and visual supports to enhance their argument. They can take and adapt photos (Picnik), import images from Creative Commons and/ or take video footage.

Students will create a storyboard with their groups to plan out their video argument. Students can use google docs- presentation to collaboratively create their storyboard to tell their argument in a visual way.  Using the storyboard as a plan and the images and footage they have gathered, students will make an audio/visual video argument (like a public service announcement) with imovie, movie maker, Photostory, or something similar.

Scaffolding activities:

explore persuasive writing/speaking (watch a video)-
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNtg0N8_gx8

watch a sample video produced by the teacher
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRzfJeE6iHw

July 11-sixth blog post

Today we explored how video can enhance language learning. The one idea that really resonated with my practice was that students can use videos at home to prepare for the next day in class- ideally so that students can use class time to interact with one another in the target language.  It seems that there is never enough time to practice speaking and listening in a language course- but that in many cases these are the skills that the students most desire to improve. I think the idea of doing the 'lecture at home- practice in class' to be a logical and creative use of student and teacher time. In a high school, language classes are option courses. If students feel that their time is being wasted, they will drop out.


As ambitious as I am to implement many of the tools that I have learned about in this course, I had a bit of a reality check this afternoon. Technology is fantastic- when it works. When it doesn't, it can result in wasted time and frustration. The videos I took on my camera would not import into imovie, so I wasn't able to create my movie that way. As a consequence, my teacher graciously spent a significant amount of time trying to help me sort out my issue- which took away from his chance to help my classmates.  What did I learn from this?  Many things:

•  I need to have patience with the tools and with myself;
•  I really need to learn more about macs; 
• There is always more than one way to solve a problem;
•  If I were to do a project like this with my students, I should expect glitches and budget extra time for such anomalies to occur. 

*This evening I will create my film on movie maker- an alternative to imovie- without the benefit of the in-class tutorial. Hopefully I will be able to navigate the program without too much swearing. :)

July 8- fifth blog post

The discussion on TPACK today made me think of an experience from my student-teaching practicum that serves as an example of what can happen when the priority in planning is driven by the technology rather than the curriculum. My supervising teacher was big on purchasing technology. He had equipped his classroom with a large number of imacs (when they first came out). He wanted a chance to see what these computers could do, and so he decided that another student-teacher and I would co-teach a unit plan in which we created an imovie with our students. Nobody in the class (teachers or students) was familiar with this program.

Using technology in class without
adequate training
 can be frustrating for all involved! 

I don't know that our students actually learned any French that month, to be honest. Figuring out the technology as we went along was really frustrating and much time was wasted.  It was hard to organize as a collaborative task for the students because we weren't really sure how we could best manipulate this tool in order to maximize student involvement with the content and with each other. In retrospect, although the experience was not a great learning experience for our students, I gained a lot of insight from our mistakes.  The content and pedagogy must come first. If the task is all about the technology itself, it is doubtful that the students will really engage with the content.


On a different note, today's class was awesome!  I learned about a lot of great tools that I might be able to incorporate into my practice:
1. wallwisher (on line bulletin board)
2. picnik (photo editing website)
3. flipsnack (makes flipping books)- also quizsnack, photosnack, etc.)
4. symbaloo (bookmarking site)
5. prezi (moving ppt-type presentation creator)
6. xtrannormal (create a moving cartoon)
7. toondoo (create a cartoon strip)
8. tagxedo (create a word picture)