Final reflections

The end of classes as well as the end of the year are drawing near, and as usual, it is a time for reflection. In this opportunity, I created A Voki to speak for me and tell you my reflections on what this subject at the Teacher Training College, ICT in ELT, has meant to me.



Thank you for visiting!

My PLN

Hello there! I have created this Prezi to explain what a PLN is and to share what mine is like! I hope you like it! 

Personal Learning Network (PLN)

A person's (or, rather, lerarner's) Personal Learning Network or PLN consists of the people that the learner enagages with and from whom they derive knowledge from in a personal learning environment. The specific purpose of building a PLN is to learn about topics of interest as a result of that connection.

I would like to share with you this very short video, which illustrates this topic beautifully. Short and sweet! Enjoy!

Learning from Vicky Saumell: Digital Storytelling in Argentina

I have chosen to discuss this case study in particular, not only because it took place in my own country, Argentina, but also because I find the work this school and especially the person who has designed it (Vicky Saumell), truly remarkable.

What I find remarkable about this is how the whole organization of English teaching as changed as from the implementation of these projects. After deciding to leave the coursebooks aside, teachers started designing their own material and relying much more heavily on Web tools, and it I for this reason that both teachers and students began to work much more enthusiastically as their motivation grew because the topics treated were of the students’ interests.

Another positive aspect of this innovative way of working is that it fostered not only students’ motivation but also their decision-making, which strengthened their individuality at the same time it allowed for collaborative work, all 21^st century skills. You can have a look at Vicky’s own article about her project here, and you can have access to the work she has been doing with the students at her school here. 

We should definitely take this as a starting point to wonder about what things we can do in our own particular contexts to move farther away from coursebooks and favour a closer relationship to a manner of teaching which will be more motivating and definitely more significant to our students, whether that be through technology or not, is left to each of us to decide.

And then SPENT came along

The game I tried is called SPENT, and, to be frank, I loved it! Before encountering this game, and the Charles Dickens one, I did not really see how games could enhance our students’ language learning, because I kept thinking about the traditional games I played as child, like Tetris, Mario, The Prince of Persia (this last one did contain some language input but not nearly as much as SPENT, for instance). And then SPENT came along. Not only does it offer lots of authentic language input, but it also provides lots of information about such an important and relevant topic as is unemployment. At the same time, I think the most important aspect of it is that it raises awareness in such blunt and formidable manner that this is what makes it excellent. I may be oversensitive but the game actually struck a chord with me. This is how it starts:

This is at the very beginning of the game, and then it is your own decisions that take you to the next step, so that is another fantastic feature: this game in a way fosters a sense of committed decision making:

Now, I thought this was very realistic. I don’t know about the numbers (statistics I man) but I am sure that it is possible for a person to have to be facing these questions. It may be that not all these situations coincide, but it may well be that they do, so, it is great if we can raise awareness of this sort through games like this. 

On the other hand, if language awareness is all you’re after, that’s alright too! And this game is great at that too because you may teach or practice lots of different vocabulary and structures through this game. 

I think this game in particular has made me change my mind about this kind of games. I guess I will have to be on the alert for more games like this in the future!

Why gamify our lesssons?

There may be multiple answers to this question, such as the ones provided by the expert on this topic: Graham Stanley.

Stanley proposes the following:

• Games are fun, and natural motivators,
• They capture learners’ attention,
• They encourage language production,
• They can be easily adapted to teaching,
• They can be used to practice all the language skills.

If I may, I would like to add a few more:

• They provide great sources of authentic language use
• They may (depending on the game) foster collaborative work,
• Because learners enjoy them, their learning becomes much more meaningful.

I believe playing is an essential part of learning. A lot of learning can be done through playing, irrespective of whether you are a child or an adult…

The good thing about games, and particularly online games, is that you can find them anywhere and there is a lot of variety, depending on what you want to focus on. 

The last thing I would like to add about this topic is a short interview with Marc Prensky, in which he speaks about video games. Although it is a little old (2007), the reasons and explanations he gives totally hold today.

http://marcprensky.com/videos/Marc%20Prensky%20FoxNews%2021307.wmv 

So, play on!

Curate on!

To discuss the topic of curating content, I will first borrow Scoop.it’s words on it: 

“Scoop.it is a content curation platform -- meaning awesome people (with a little robotic assistance) like you tirelessly search the internet searching out the absolute best content available online, enrich it with their own expert thoughts, and then share it with the world. Curation, in other words, is the meaningful selection and display of great content.” 

As Scoop.it tells us, there are three elements in content curation: you, who do the “curating”, the content, and an expert on the content you are interested in. To understand the concept of curating, it is useful to think of a museum curator. What does he do? He puts together the elements and materials which are of valuable importance and organizes them according to a certain criterion. Well, content curation is similar: you do research on a topic of your interest, and you get the info from the people who REALLY know about it, you make a meaningful selection of all the info (“content”) you find, and then you share, not only your selection, but your insight on what you have selected, with whoever is keen on seeing it! It’s that simple! Here’s my Scoop.it link in case you’re wondering, but I still have to add many things! 

http://www.scoop.it/u/aldana-diaz-figueroa 

Here’s a picture to help the visual ones and to make it more graphic: 

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSC4XL-tzJLBFDctC5ddAmbvPeZ0x-ZPS2PuEw6aXKQ7z3BNFYW