Technology in our daily basis

I loved this course! I learned a lot about new gadgets and electronic tools that we can use to reach our main goal - make our students learn - more effectively, but also I learned a lot with our readings, which made me reflect about the importance and use of technology in our lessons. I'm sure that technology if well-planned and applied with discretion is a wonderful tool that gives us the possibility to pass our content knowledge with more interactivity, therefore more effectively because the students can experience while they are learning. Especially for language students, technology is an awesome help, with blogs, videoblogs, voice blogs, smartboard lessons, pedagogic videos, etc... I'm glad I took this course and I'll recommend it for all teachers who are commited to create a more engaging lesson on our daily basis. Thanks, Ms. Mislevy for all your help, knowledge and enthusiasm toward our challenging profession! See you all soon. Merry Christmas and a blessed 2011 for us all!!!! Bye.

Examples of electronic teacher portfolios

I thought Danielle E. Van Patter’s electronic portfolio was a good portfolio for a undergraduate, but not for a professional teacher. The materials she included work together as a cohesive unit, each adding an essential element to the whole. She included her resume, cover letter, teaching philosophy, students’ evaluations of her, letters of reference, a letter to parents, a wide professional development report and her academic achievements. As she still is a student, she didn’t include many materials about activities developed in her classes, what can be seen as lack of experience. So, I think her portfolio didn’t displayed her as a competent professional.

Her electronic portfolio: http://eduportfolio.org/vues/view/2874#section71767

Stephanie Ladner’s portfolio, on the other hand, showed an also young but experienced professional. It’s more complete and accurate than Danielle’s, showing all the materials that Danielle posted and many examples of lessons done, and activities that she took part of during the years, and also she included pictures of her experience as a volunteer at Nalopa Primary School in Arusha, Tanzania, with a brief description of the work done there, what showed her as a mature and determined young woman.

Stephanie’s portfolio: http://sites.google.com/site/stephanieladner/Home

How creative and instructive we are!

I think Mrs. Mislevy had a great idea of changing the regular classroom presentation of our notebook projects to on-line presentations. It was amazing, much more interesting and interactive, as I could leave some comments on my classmates’ blog.

 I really loved this Notebook presentation project: as Joe said, it really showed how diverse we are, but at the same time how creative and instructive we surely are. I learned a lot reading, watching and listening to the presentations. Ryan Marie video about cyber bullying was very informative and she did a great job editing it. Both Mike’s and Julie’s glogster were very informative, easy to read and get the information using their links to the articles or videos. Josh’s mp3 file was incredible, his music was very catchy and informative as well. Judy’s video was very creative with the use of Mr. Moose and Mr. Bear, but also I learned a lot about the help of technology used with reading disabilities. Sarah’s prezi presentation was the one that surprised me the most: it’s easy to ready, very catchy and informative with all the videos, but at the same time, it was very clean, without so many distractive colors and pictures. I’m sure I’ll use glogster and prezi to prepare some interactive classes or to present some of my researches in the future, as Mike, Julie and Sarah showed, they are great tools to make a regular article very interesting and interactive. I’m very proud to be part of such creative and smart class. Great job, everyone!

The "magic" whiteboard

The first time I saw an interactive whiteboard was in my graduate course. I used to hate the regular whiteboards, even though they were an advance from the chalk blackboard. They are difficult to clean, they can be damaged easily and they are usually not very big.

But, with the INTERACTIVE whiteboard, it’s different. I loved to work with it in class. We can’t say that there aren’t any problems, but what you can do with it overhaul any of those.

What I thought about preparing lessons using it was that we have to get used to it and as my professor said, we must use it, train on it. It takes time until you discover all the resources in it, so I’m sure that preparing the next lesson will be easier that the previous and so on.

I’d really love to have one in my classroom to teach at daily bases, especially because I usually teach foreign languages to adults that could really appreciate all its potential with the games, and the possibility to watch videos and to write on it when you are giving an explanation. It’s for sure far more interesting and interactive than a powerpoint presentation.

I’m sure not only adults, but students of any age will be engaged in a class that uses it as a tool to make the subject more interesting and easier to visualize. All students would appreciate the teacher’s effort to prepare a lesson using it, giving them the sign that the teacher is also engaged in the course and wants to make it more fascinating and interesting to them.

Lesson Ideas for video activities in Foreign Language class

I think the activity of creating a video is such a cool “tool” for us – teachers of Net Geners – because through the process, the students can learn so many things, such as how to organize and plan their actions before shooting the videos, how to use a video camera and its features, how to use the softwares to edit the video (usually the ones they don’t know how to use properly yet), and also it is a great exercise for them to practice making decisions in group and working as a team, but with each person having its own duty in the process, like in a movie crew.

A good idea to use video with foreign language classes is “PSA for Foreigners”, in which the students (from 8^th grade on) should create a PSA about any fact of daily life that is different here in Usa from the specific foreign country, like cultural differences: for example, the fact that here we don’t change plates when we eat pasta, and then meat: in Italy, they change plates every time they change “dishes”; or the fact that here we eat salad in a small bowl before or together with the main course, in Italy you eat in a regular plate, but after the “second course”; or the fact that in Spain when you go to a grocery store you have to pay for your plastic bags at the check out; or the fact that you have to insert one Euro coin in the kart to use it, but you can have your coin back if you take the kart back to its line… For the project, teacher would have to use a computer lab and at least 4 or 5 video cameras.

So, the students divided in groups of 4 would have to:

• research about those cultural differences in the web;
• choose one that they thought was the most interesting;
• show the teacher their option and get approval;
• decide each one’s role in the process;
• create the storyboard with the scenes to be shot;
• film the scenes;
• edit the video using Movie Maker in class with the help of the teacher, inserting effects, transitions and copyright free music;
• Post it on youtube;
• Write a report detailing the process;
• Finally, present the PSA in front of the class in the language studied.

I’m sure it would be a nice way to make students research about cultural differences and use the foreign language in a very practical and fun way. It would be a great opportunity to teach new vocabulary and correct the students’ pronounciation, and most important it would be real team work, but with a lot of fun and excitement.

Our PSA video project

This group video project was really fun to make. It was a relatively simple, but time consuming project, through which we were able to learn how to use different gadgets and softwares, such as a video camera, Movie Maker and Audacity. The video camera and tripod were pretty simple to operate, first we did some regular takes, then we used more of the camera features, like the zoom in and out. Transfer the video to the computer was easy, even if we had to use an USB drive to save it. The funniest, but more time-consuming part was editing it: selecting the scenes, putting effects and transitions using Movie Maker was really fun; it was more time-consuming because our video came as one file (without the scenes  separated), so every time we want to select a scene, we had to copy all the video and make the cuts using the timeline. Finding the “right” music to insert was a little challenge, because at freemusic.com there are so many options that after a while we were confused by all the music we had heard, but eventually we made up our minds and used three musics in the video, depending of the scene and effect we want cause. Post in Youtube was easy as well, because we already knew how to do it.

I think this project show us how fun, entertaining, exciting is to use video as an assignment in class. It makes students work together, make decisions as a group, organize the ideas and plan the actions before shooting. Also the excitement of posting it on-line, the possibility that anyone can see it, gives them more enthusiasm to work to have an more elaborated and well-done project. Nowadays, we must use everything possible to engage students in assignments, nothing works better with the Net Geners than the use of more advanced technology, with which they can create new things and also learn new tools and concepts. Video is definitely a great activity for our Net-Gener students.

They surprised me, but what would they say about some other issues?

    When we think about the Net-generation students, mainly college students, we assume that they are geeks who could do anything they want with their computers, but this is not always true. Reading Robert B. Kvavik’s findings, I was surprised to learn, for example, that in general the tools to create a web page and edit/ create video and audio are the least used. Another thing was their statement that they spend more hours using their computer for homework or school related activities than as a mean of communication. Also, the courses requirements for using a variety of technology tools are the main motivation for students learn how to use new tools or softwares.

    Even though they are net-geners, their skills are basic, just enough to accomplish their homework or work. This is well illustrated by Sharon Fass McEuen: “student technology skills can be likened to writing skills: Students come to college knowing how to write, but they are not developed writers. The analogy holds true for information technology.” But, when asked students stated that they are very skilled, what is very problematic when they begin a job, as confirmed by Judy Doherty, director of the Student Technologies Resource Group at Colgate University “Students state in their job applications that they are good if not very good, but when tested their skills are average to poor, and they need a lot of training.”

     But, actually what surprised me the most was the 2.2% of students who prefer totally on-line courses, I thought that number would be much higher. That’s great to learn that they still think teacher-student interaction is very important for their learning development.

    I would love to know what net-geners have to say about privacy issues, copyright violations (so common among youngsters) and plagiarism, as internet and technology makes them easier to be at the reach of their hands.