School kills Creativity

Engaging Students

Tech Log Week 6

After the storm comes the calm! :-) After the work overload of the past weeks, comes an apparently calmer week.

I particularly enjoyed this week’s topics – Powerpoint and Interactive Classes, a way to engage students – because they’re all related to PBL activities I so much appreciate.

Although I make use of PPT presentations a lot, and so there was nothing transcendental for me in this week’s readings, still I managed to learn some new handy hints. I discovered new keyboard techniques I was not familiar with – the B key was a complete surprise ;-) and I tried it immediately!

As for the basics of slide creation, design and composition, two things caught my attention. First, the meaning of Serif and San-serif fonts (quite interesting!) and second, something I must confess I had never thought about – colorblind people. I tend to stick to black and white presentations (with some exceptions, of course, depending on my audience), but I had never ever thought about avoiding certain colors. I will pay more attention to this important question in the future!

I loved creating my own Jeopardy Game! I think students will like it, but I just loved creating it! :-) This is exactly the fun of it – being able to create our own materials, and then see the sparkle in our students’ eyes. I would love to have time to design and create my own materials for all my lessons! One day…. :-)

It’s pretty obvious the potential PPT has in engaging students. Not only is it different from having a teacher delivering the lesson all the time (imagine having to listen to the same person for 90 minutes non stop! Yuck! :-)) but we may create interactive lessons. The students don’t just sit and “enjoy” the “film” (where’s the popcorn?? LOL), they really have to participate – move around, complete tasks, predict, search for information… you name it!

And something really very important is that we need to teach our students how to create their own PPT presentations. Sometimes we just take it for granted that they know how to do it, or that they learn it in ICT classes, but reality is quite different. We mustn’t keep this knowledge to ourselves but share it with our students. I’m sure they will appreciate it and their future presentations will be much better.

I will take the rest of the week to work on my Project Plan, trying to tie up loose ends. I’ll try to write a reflection about that, if I manage to. ;-)

PPT Presentation Techniques

"Blanking the screen" technique, in order to interact with the audience:

APPI Conference, 6 May 2011

Keeping the eye contact with your audience:

APEAA Conference, 13 May 2011

Life after Death by Powerpoint

I just loved Don McMillan's 2008 presentation (HERE) but this one is an expanded version with some more examples. You will laugh out loud!

Tech Log Week 5

This has been the hardest week for me so far! Not because of this fantastic course, but also because of it. :-)

This week was (still is!) particularly intense and strenuous! I’m really looking forward for my vacation in a week’s time! :-) I had (still have) so many things to do that you can’t possibly imagine! I’m still alive, though… although I’m not sure about the kicking part! :-)

Our technological voyage brought us this week to the shores of PBL, Rubrics, Assessment and WebQuest land! What magnificent sights! The PRAW mountain range proved no praw, after all! :-) And, in spite of the altitude, the mountains were not that difficult to climb! ;-)

Designing PBL activities is my favorite hobby. Yes, I consider it a hobby and not work. I love designing and developing original, creative and meaningful projects, and so I have great fun throughout the whole process: creation, implementation and evaluation of the results. Somehow I can’t start working on a specific topic without having a clear idea of how to link it to students’ lives. Teaching something without making students realize the importance it will have for their future lives is absolutely intolerable for me. Of course, I learned this from experience. I will never forget what one of my students said, in my first year as a teacher, 20 years ago! He didn’t like going to school and English was a subject he found particularly difficult. He told me: “Well teacher, tell me what I need English for. I’m going to work in agriculture, as my parents, and I won’t need to speak English to the potatoes and cabbages.” (He said this in Portuguese, of course!) That was my first year teaching and I realized things had to change. Textbooks were not THAT important, we needed to give every student a valid reason to learn English. If we create a link between the subject and our students’ interests and lives they will find a purpose in learning English. Having them involved in decision-making is essential to make them more autonomous and this you can get by using PBL activities. You guide them but they’re the ones to choose the path they want to follow. And they feel so accomplished when people get to see their final product that it makes for all the work you have had.

So PBL is not new to me, but still I enjoyed reading these week’s articles. I got some more ideas to put to work. I particularly liked Susan Gaer’s activities and the way she brought the school community together!

One way of developing PBL activities is by using WebQuests. It is time-consuming to create, no doubt (I’m still struggling to create one!), but it’s the best way to have your students in charge of their own learning. You are the observer and not the “deliverer”. I have never used this resource before, for the reasons I mentioned in our discussion thread, but I’m trying to create a WebQuest now that I will use in the future. The most exciting is that you have everything there. The students know all the steps they have to follow and the expected results. They know exactly how their overall performance will be evaluated and so they are entitled to a choice – they can work more or less, according to the level they want to achieve. They are not mere recipients or spectators, they are in control and they share responsibilities. Alternative assessment methods – checklists or rubrics – are also an essential part of this whole process of making our students independent learners and I think we can conciliate traditional methods with alternative assessment. One thing does not exclude the other. I usually give my students one formal summative test each term (marks 1-5, as explained in the discussion) but then I have formative tests the rest of the term (this is not the usual method, I must say. I’m the only one in my school to do this, for example). So, they know exactly what is going to be assessed in the final test. It’s a way to make them study more regularly and at the same time have them realize if they understood everything; if not, they will have to revise the contents for the summative test. I always give them the necessary feedback, of course.

One thing I especially liked about this week was the fact that we had to think about possible solutions to the problems we identified last week. One small step in the completion of our future plan, a giant leap in the right direction. :-) And have you noticed that we’re reaching solutions in collaboration? This is a brilliant strategy! This e-course is really very well organized, structured and designed. Congratulations to Donna and all the teachers involved. We’re actually doing what our students need to do: identify our own problems (they are ours to be defined), but then find solutions with everybody’s help. We’re not working alone, as our students won’t. We have our instructor’s guidance and each other to rely on. That’s what we need to implement in our classes: we, as facilitators, and our students helping each other, in collaboration, and using all these wonderful technological resources we have been discovering or rediscovering.

So, our ship just reached the open sea and now we’re starting to have a glimpse of the wonderful world awaiting us.

The True Value of Learning

WAKE UP! - IT'S MONDAY!

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Since my lesson plan focussed on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, here's a video I sometimes use in class. Hope you like it!

Tech Log Week 4

Another fabulous week! Time-consuming no doubt, but challenging!

After discussing the importance of technology to improve the aural and oral performance of EFL students, this week the emphasis was on reading, writing and vocabulary. As usual, the articles suggested were very well chosen, and the most difficult task was to leave some out. :-) There are always so many interesting things to discover in each article that it is a shame to be forced to dismiss some just because you don’t have time to read everything you wish. Sad, but true!

However, the ones I managed to read (and I did read a few!) gave me fantastic ideas to try in my future lessons. Keypals, skype, e-books, teaching writing genres using internet, multimedia glosses, internet projects will all definitely have a place in my lesson plans and my teacher sessions. What Donna stated in one of the comment threads or blogs, I don’t remember where, is true: we think we already have a pretty good mastery of technology but then we keep discovering things we had never imagined (I can’t wait for Web 3.0 and The Cloud!!) and new ways to use what we already know. That’s exactly the beauty of it! You may have the same ingredients but cook a completely different meal! :-)

The Project task we did this week was extremely important, not only because it represented one more step towards the completion of our Project Report/Plan, but because it made us look at our classes in a different way. We had to stop and reflect on our students’ needs that technology could help with. Although we didn’t have to comment on possible solutions it’s only natural that we did! So, we’re actually developing our critical awareness, by critical self reflection.

This leads me to the Week Task, which, for me, was highly motivating. I chose a lesson plan I had already used, because I wanted to improve it and make it more technology friendly. I created more opportunities for the students to use their laptops and I can’t wait to implement the new lesson plan. This is something I love doing. I never give two equal lessons; I always change something after reflecting on what happened. I try to get better and better and understand what the best options/solutions for my students are. They are my compass, in my voyage to become a better teacher!

Critical Thinking

This week the comments on our Discussion thread have been revolving around Critical Thinking. Here's a video you can use in class, or in teacher sessions. I think it's quite simple and effective.

What is Culture?

Celebrating our Course

Unity

WE SHOULD WORK TOGETHER

NO MATTER WHAT THE WEATHER
LOVING EACH OTHER
IN UNITY

Like a hurricane moving
a thousand miles an hour
breaking down barriers
UNITY has power
Like the links of a chain
constructed in a circle
we all have a part to play
the part we play is vital
Nothing stops an idea
which time has come
so make UNITY the idea of everyone
Because every community
should work cohesively
think GLOBALLY
and act LOCALLY
Yes tolerance and cooperation
will only serve to benefit
each and every nation
so stand united
because we will fall divided
The time has come to establish UNITY

Because…

WE SHOULD WORK TOGETHER
NO MATTER WHAT THE WEATHER
LOVING EACH OTHER
IN UNITY
Levi Tafari, Rhyme Don’t Pay

Benjamin Zephaniah

I've mentioned Benjamin Zephaniah's work several times in my Nicenet posts. This is one of my favorite videos. You can use it when dealing with such topics as Youth, Relationships, or others you think it may be fit for. I just love it!

Pay attention to the accent! ;-)

Tech Log Week 3

No doubt the amount of work was higher this week: much more readings to do and more websites to browse.

In spite of the workload I found all the assignments highly stimulating and challenging.

The emphasis on aural/oral skills is extremely important, as listening represents “more than forty percent of our daily communication” (Lindsay Miller), and paradoxically it is probably one of the most neglected skills in our classes. In my school we started having this notion a couple of years ago and tried developing more listening activities, but I must confess the teaching of the four skills was not equally distributed. The lesson plans I’ve read this week and the websites I browsed made me understand things will not be the same when I go back to school. ;-) I’ll have a teacher session with my colleagues and show them all we can do, the materials we can use and all the available resources just waiting for us to use them. I really liked the way listening activities were intertwined with the other skills, allowing us to prepare lessons including all 4 skills, which sometimes is not that easy. I learned a way to make listening a pleasure, by simply not asking the students to take notes. They will feel more relaxed if they know there is no testing involved.

The easiest and “tastiest” part of the assignments was creating our Delicious page. :-) I hadn’t created one before because I hadn’t felt the need yet, but I’m sure I will be glad I have one now. I already feel it’s going to be essential, if not for accessing my saved websites - I’m working at home and don’t really need to work elsewhere for now – but to check what other people saved that relates to my interests. I also recognize its potential as a student learning tool and I learned a lot from Steve Mackenzie’s “Social Bookmarking in relation to teaching and learning activities”. Meanwhile I found this other blog post on Delicious Blog that gives further ideas on using Delicious in class. Check it HERE.

Finally, step 2 of our Project Task: scary but exciting! Just by reading the Report Samples we get a hint of the work expecting us over the next weeks… Will I be up to it? That is the question! However, Camila Pagila’s report made me wish to learn more, on account of all the excellent tools she used in her lessons. It really is exciting having a whole unknown world in front of us, just waiting to be discovered and explored.

I’m glad I embarked on this fantastic journey!

Do you speak English?

Another fun video you can use in class (I've already tried it and the students love it) to improve your students' oral/aural skills. You'll find it is related to this week's assignments. ;-)

English Accents

While preparing my text for our Discussion Task this week I remembered this video I find extraordinary! Watch it and have fun!

Tech Log Week 2

This is only Week 2? It seems impossible!! I feel I “know” everybody for a long time and I already got addicted to our Nicenet discussions. :-) Everybody shares their experiences, their motivation and their goals and we all learn from each other. For me, that is the best part of it all. Learning through collaboration and sharing of different worldviews makes us understand the real potential of the web as a communication and learning tool. The way the participants comment on each other’s posts, giving suggestions, praising, encouraging is fantastic and a lesson the whole world should learn.

Week 2 signaled the beginning of our Project Task/Plan, and I’m really anxious for the next steps in this process. I’d love to develop something which would join Technology and Solidarity. I’d like my future students to engage in some sort of web solidarity project, perhaps related to the right of children to education, street children, women’s rights… Don’t really know what yet, but with everybody’s help and Donna’s guidance I’ll do it. ;-)

I was already familiar with the ABCD method and I do believe it is of great importance when writing our learning objectives. Still, D hasn’t completely convinced me… I do think it needs a different formulation. If it “identifies the standard that the learner must meet to reach acceptable performance” (URL), then we could ask what “acceptable performance” means. As Donna said “the degree of mastery is very context specific. It really depends on what and where you are teaching” and I couldn’t agree more. I continue to believe that there is some confusion between a learning objective and assessment. While preparing my reflection post I did some research on this and found this interesting site, which links the learning objectives with the assessment rubrics, as I think they should be: “Ideally, learning objectives should be accompanied by measurable outcomes, which describe ways in which students will be asked to demonstrate that they have achieved the learning objectives. Methods of assessment of student learning can take many forms—exams (written or oral), papers, oral presentations, team projects. Criteria for success (often called rubrics) should be developed so that students understand what is expected of them, and so that they can use feedback to see where they need to strengthen their performance.” (URL) So, a learning objective should be followed by a rubric and both given to the student.

My moment of Zen :-) was the revelation of NoodleTools. My eyes sparkled at the sight of that enormous quantity of search sites. How I reveled in trying some of those amazing sites! I usually present workshops at the annual conference of our Portuguese Teachers of English Association and write articles for its magazines and I already have a fairly good idea of what I’m going to prepare for the next event. ;-) Also, I will use some of the sites to prepare my lessons, as I found extraordinary things, as I mentioned in the discussion thread.

Can’t wait for next week!