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

Working on speaking skills: Three

Tool: Fotobabble

Group: 1st year students

Level: Intermediate

Aim: speaking, Writing and pronunciation

Activity: Virtual show & tell

Working on speaking skills: Two

Group: 5^th year

Level: Upper intermediate

Activity: My future job

Students are asked to create a presentation regarding their future course of studies using Present.me. The teacher will give some guidelines as to what info MUST be on the presentation. Extra information which is considered relevant by the students may also be included.

Students can be encouraged to bring a newspaper article which may help explain or describe the field in which the students will want to develop their careers in the future.

Then, students do the presentation and they upload it or it is also possible to have all the class share the presentations at school.

Working on speaking skills: One

Group: 6th form (primary)

Level: Pre-intermediate

Aim: To improve students’ speaking skills

Activity: Collaborative story writing

The Teacher divides the class in groups of 5, ideally. The teacher gives sts each group a different title for them to use as triggers. Each student is supposed to write a part of the story at home (no longer than 2 paragraphs) and bring it to the class for the Teacher to check. Once it is checked, the following student takes it home in order to write the next paragraph. When the whole story is complete, they record it using Voxopop (www.voxopop.com) and adding pictures chosen by themselves.

Afterwards, students are asked to explore 2 of their classmates’ productions. Then, they report on them in the class.

Variant: The teacher may choose to host a Collaborative Story Festival (watching all the productions at school when they are all finished) and have students comment on the positive aspects of the stories their partners have produced.

Let's go mural!

One of the requirements of this course is to explore a number of webtools we may be able to use with our students. Ouut of a list of some 6 tools, we got to choose and explore as many as we liked. Luckily I started with one I actually loved, which is Murally:

This is the first time I have ever created a mural so it might look kind of poor, but eventually I will improve my skills as I think it can actually be useful. One great thing about it is that more than one person can create murals, as long as all of them have accounts in this page. This is wonderful as it really fosters collaborative work. Of course, as with all tools, it takes some time to learn how to use it, but if you see the point in doing that, you will manage. Another good thing about it is that you can sign up for free, although there are also Premium accounts, and I am not sure if the accounts which are not premium have an expiry date. I hope not!

Another point to mention is that this tool might actually be useful to students in their lives, perhaps to make a presentation or in the future when they look for a job and things like that. 

As I am not sure how to share my mural online, I took a picture of it, which I am posting now.

As last class we talked about our PLNs, I made my mural with that in mind. I thought it was fantastic!

Ah, I almost forget to post the link. Here it is: http://mrl.li/10vxTZb

Not a Twitter fan? Try Twister!

Hello there! This post is to share with you my experience with Twister, which can be used as a class tool. I think it's a good tool, but for example I didn't like the backgrounds I got at all! So this might be some of a turn-off for your students if they take things seriously! :) On the other hand, students can still have a lot of fun with it! Of course, it is important for us teachers to feel comfortable using the tool... 

Have a look at these!

To be honest, the very first Twister I made (which somehow got lost in my computer) had the picture of a rather fat woman wearing something violet... I didn't love it, but now, come to think of it, it wasn't that bad!

So... this was MY experience with Twister. How about yours?

Hello? Books speaking

Case study 1.3: Talking books

We have been looking at a series of case studies where the use of technology was deeply significant for the developing of language learning. Most of them were interesting to read, but I have chosen one to reflect upon: Talking books. Take a look:

Case study:	Talking books
Where:	Hampshire, UK
Participants:	Pre-school children whose first language is not English
Webpage used:	Mantra Lingua’s TalkingPENs (www.mantralingua.com)

 

This study was aimed at children between the ages of 3 and 5 whose language spoken at home was not English. Some well-known books were chosen and a retelling was made of each one of them, in English as well as in the languages most spoken in the local communities. The site the EMTAS (Ethnic Minority and Traveller Achievement Service: http://www3.hants.gov.uk/education/ema/) used to record the retellings was Mantra Lingua’s TalkingPENs (www.mantralingua.com). The bilingual books were then made available for the children to loan and then share the book orally with their parents.

I thought this project was wonderful, not only because of the clever use of technology but also and most importantly because it favoured children sharing something meaningful with their parents. Too often we are concerned with using technology to connect our students with people from other countries, just because we want them to speak to native speakers of English. While this is fantastic, and it sure is profitable for our students, we tend to forget that we may also use English to enforce our closest relationships – with our parents! In my personal case, I started studying English at a relatively old age (9 years old): I mean I did not go to a bilingual school to start studying English at 2. My mother does not speak English at all, and I know she felt bad for not being able to help me while I was studying… I would have liked to have something like this to share with her… Of course, I was 9 in 1996 so chances of this happening then were very slim or nonexistent at that time! J So I believe it is great that we do not lose sight of the fact that the main purpose for language learning is communication, and it is a great idea to help our students develop their communicative skills with their parents first and foremost.

Now, over to YOU! What do you think?

I say Diigo

Hello everyone!

Here is the link to my Diigo account and library. I have included Online Dictionaries as well as some pages which offer ideas for teachers and others connected to Education.

https://www.diigo.com/user/aldana099

Feel free to come round!

See you

Aldana