Blended Learning.

One of the topics we have been discussing in ECO is blended learning. Blended Learning is an approach to learning and teaching which combines and aligns learning undertaken in face-to-face sessions with learning opportunities created online. These are:

• Full provision of module related documents in electronic format;
• Regular formative assessment with feedback,
• Opportunities to learn from each other collaboratively,
• Electronic personal development planning,
• The opportunity to submit all appropriate summative assessments electronically,
• And that all face to face learning is interactive

The rationale for supporting each of these perspectives on blended learning is that every learner is able to:

• Have 24/7 access to all learning content, and to ensure equality of access;
• Gauge their progress against the learning outcomes, to receive supporting feedback on this progress, and for staff to have information on student progress;
• Participate in, and engage with interactive learning opportunities in her or his face-to-face learning sessions. 

There is no expectation that this need necessarily involve the use of technologies.
use asynchronous collaborative learning which extends the face to face learning, creating supportive learning networks, managed by learners at a time and place best suited to their needs;

• understand better her or his learning process, act on feedback, so as to become more effective and successful, as well as collecting evidence on achievement to enhance our learners employability;
• save time and paper, and provide feedback quickly to each learner.

Source: University of Wolverhampton.

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Using blended learning as a teaching and learning approach does not mean that technology is the center of your teaching, but rather a tool of your teaching. I think that blended learning is a good way of breaking the mould in schools, because teachers have been using coursebooks as their only tool for years now. Using blended learning would mean that learners would have many opportunities of using different software and webs to be in contact with teachers and at the same time, do activities to practise and learn new contents. Some of the difficulties that I found in blended learning is that teachers and students need technological resources that enables them to work comfortably. This means that schools need at least a good amount of computers that work well. Also, teachers need to know what and how to use technological resources. Not being able to use them properly would be a setback, but luckily this can be solved by teaching teachers how to use technological resources.

Here I found a video in which teachers explain their experience using blended learning:

In this video, you can see Monique Markoff talking about blended learning in a Tedx Talk.

WEB 2.0 in the Classroom

Hey, there! The last time I posted, I wrote about web 2.0 and great 2.0 websites that could be used in the classroom. This time, I will write about how to use two different web 2.0 resources in the classroom.

For our 3rd practical work,  Each group was given a topic (in our case, verb phrases with 'go', 'have' and 'get') and we had to think about a didactic sequence in which we included a least one web 2.0 resource.

Our group (Candela, Micaela and me) decided to work on these topics and use vocabulary of routines. We came up with the idea of a final task which included the use of two 2.0 resources. For the final task, students would create a comic using Toondoo, a website to design and create comics. On a side note, it is important to mention that we decided to use Toondoo because it is free and it has many characters, props and cliparts to use. This was very important because I think that it helps to develop our student's creativity, since they have many things they can choose to include in their cartoons. As a preparation for the final task, we would introduce the topic of verb phrases and routines and provide our students with an example of a cartoon they could create. Here's ours:

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After having presented and talked about routines in Argentina and gave our students the model of the final task, we would ask them to find in the comic and the dictionary phrases with go, have and get, and classify them using Popplet. Popplet is presented as a tool for learning:  "Used as a mind-map, Popplet helps students think and learn visually. Students can capture facts, thoughts, and images and learn to create relationships between them." This is the popplet we presented to our students:

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We decided to use ToonDoo and Popplet, but there are many other resources and different uses for the same resources we chose. In my opinion, the key is to use them as a motivation for our students and as a way to bring about novelty in our proposal. 
If you would like to see the whole didactic sequence we planned, you can take a look at this Prezi. If you would like to know more about web 2.0 resources, take a look at my previous post.
See you soon!

The Web 2.0 Revolution.

Since its invention, the web (or world wide web) has greatly evolved. The idea of the world wide web dates from the 1980s, but it wasn't until the 1990s that the first website was created. From then on, the world wide web has grown at a very fast pace and it got to be what we know now, web 2.0.

What is web 2.0?

"Web 2.0 is the term given to describe a second generation of the World Wide Web that is focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share information online. Web 2.0 basically refers to the transition from static HTML Web pages to a more dynamic Web that is more organized and is based on serving Web applications to users.Other improved functionality of Web 2.0 includes open communication with an emphasis on Web-based communities of users, and more open sharing of information. Over time Web 2.0 has been used more as a marketing term than a computer-science-based term. Blogs, wikis, and Web services are all seen as components of Web 2.0."

Source

What is great (and also risky) about 2.0 is that anyone is allowed to create and share information or material of their own creation. This technology allows people to create,share, collaborate and communicate with others. It differs from other types of websites because you don't need to be a web designer or have publishing skills to participate in it, which makes it easier for people to share their work with the rest of the world. This means that websites passed from being static to be the result of the collaboration of many people. For example, a few years ago people accessed websites to look for information and nowadays is people who create and distribute information in the web. Web 2.0 also allows us to make choices: we can choose who we want to share information with, when and how. We can choose to communicate with friends, coworkers or students. There are many web 2.0 tools available for everyone: wikis, blogs, social networking, podcasts, etc. 

Why is it important to know about it? how can it help us as teachers?

It is important to use this tools as a way to encourage students to develop their skills since it makes the learning process more appealing for our students. Nevertheless, we need to ask ourselves some questions before using a web 2.0 tool in the classroom: is it easy to work with? does it require any kind of teaching? will it distract students from the task? will it be helpful to complete the assignment? As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, it is important not to use technology just for the sake of it, but to have a clear purpose in mind and use it as a partner to our teaching, not as a distractor. 

2.0 websites and tools.

Many of the websites we visit every day are 2.0 and can be tools for us to use,for example blogs, YouTube, wikipedia, etc. but there are some others that are great for teachers. Here are some links with lists of web 2.0 tools:

• EdSurge is an independent information resource and community for everyone involved in education technology and they made this great list: Teachers' Favored Web 2.0 Tools
• Here’s a website by Discovery Education with very interesting tools. 
• This list is from 2011, but it has many interesting and useful tools: The 35 Best Web 2.0 Classroom Tools Chosen By You

What are Digital Literacies?

Welcome again! In this post I will discuss digital literacies. I suppose you don't know what digital literacies are and... Why should teachers take them into account? Well, I will try to answer both of these questions through my words.

The first question that comes up is... 
What is digital literacy and what does it mean to be Digitally Literate?

According to the University of Illinois, digital literacies are: 

• The ability to use digital technology, communication tools or networks to locate, evaluate, use and create information. 
• The ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers. 
• A person’s ability to perform tasks effectively in a digital environment... Literacy includes the ability to read and interpret media, to reproduce data and images through digital manipulation, and to evaluate and apply new knowledge gained from digital environments.

Source: University of Illinois

This means that being digital literate doesn't mean to have only technical skills to use technology, but other knowledge about its use. "We are not just talking about a checklist of technical skills, but also about the social practices that surround the use of new media. So not just knowing how to create a blog entry, but knowing how to use this to connect with a wider community of readers and writers, and what sort of online persona one projects though one's post. Not just knowing how to upload photos to Flickr ( a photo sharing site), but knowing whether to publish them under a Creative Commons license and what this implies in terms of digital rights and usage."

Source: TeachingEnglish.org.uk

Why are digital literacies important for teachers and students?
After reading a lot of information about digital literacies and its importance to teacher and students, I found this website that contained these 3 main ideas that I think are very clear and useful:

1) Digital literacies promote the acquisition of higher-order skills like analysis of information or cooperation. These are transmutable from the tech world to real word. Integrating digital literacies in the classroom creates opportunities to practice these higher-order skills, ranging from students working collectively via a Google Doc to developing the ability to analyze a web source’s credibility (and everything in between).

2) Another pro is that digital literacies break down the walls of learning and information. By promoting digital literacies, student can break through the pen-and-pencil walls and become producers of knowledge. This could be done by allowing our students to find their own learning resources and analyze the sources, which creates a truly personalized learning environment. They are no longer given a text that dictates how and what they should learn. Instead, they have the ability and possibility to seek out and utilize knowledge resources that help them create a personal learning connection.

3) Last, but definitely not least, digital literacy prepares students for a digital Post K-12 world. It is important to bear in mind the fact that the workplace is becoming increasingly digitalized. It is vital for students to be ready to roll when sat down in front of a digital device. Today, being able to familiarise with new digital devices and their functions is now just as important as learning to read and write.

I totally agree with these 3 points because they reflect the needs and possibilities teachers and students have as regard Digital Literacies. It is very important for teachers to bear in mind the benefits of teaching and integrating digital literacies in the classroom, because these do not only help the process of teaching and learning, but also will be useful for our student's future.

In case you'd like to know more about Digital Literacies, here's a list of links with information:

• Digital Literacies: A Research Briefing by the Technology Enhanced Learning phase of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme. By Julia Gillen and David Barton
• Digital literacy across the curriculum
• No Longer a Luxury: Digital Literacy Can’t Wait

Selfies in the classroom: why not?

Last Monday, we attended a workshop coordinated by Mathilde Verillaud, an EL fellow. This workshop was about the use of selfies in the classroom to boost Student's motivation. 

In case you didn't know, According to Oxford Dictionaries, a Selfie is "a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media."  In 2013, 'Selfie' was chosen as the word of the year by Oxford Dictionary.

One of the most important things to know about the use of selfies and its objective in connection with our students is that a selfie is a tool for our students who are part of the Y or Z generation to learn about themselves. These kind of students are visual, kinesthetic learners and they like to use selfies to talk about themselves and to promote themselves. 
We discussed why adolescents take selfies. Some of the answers were: because they a have an obsession with technology, to correct false perceptions, to fit in, or just to be cool.

As we all know, adolescence is a moment in life where we want to fit in and at it's a time of self-discovering. Using selfies allows teachers to connect with students and facilitate this self-discovery process.

Mathilde showed us the work of her students using selfies to do writing tasks. It was a very interesting workshop because we got to see how she managed to use one of the trends of these last few years, the selfies, bring them to her classroom practices and manage to take the best result out of it. With a lot of preparation and dedication, she and her students did a great job. 

About the project:
As preparatory work, she introduced photography vocabulary and photography tips for her students. Then, she showed us famous "selfies", like the one from the Oscars so that students discussed their impression of the photographers from their self portraits. Then, they brainstormed the infinite possibilities of telling about themselves in a selfie by asking some questions like: What do they want to show? what makes them unique? what do they own that reflects who they are? which environment reflects their personality?,etc- 

This Oscars selfie is the most Retweeted selfie of all time.

She showed us the final product of all their work and also some activities that we could do with our students to use selfies and how they could be displayed in gallery walks, tells stories, play description games,  and other writing activities. 

I will show you my favourite from the selfies and stories Mathilde showed us. 

" Hu Zi and his master"

“Hu Zi” and his master. 

“He barks at everyone passing by except you!” The old lady told me with a shy smile. 
“Don’t touch him”, she looked embarrassed as I was about to touch the dog. “I try to keep him clean but you should know it is hard to do so, considering my condition.”
She holds her hands tightly together the whole time we talk. I bet it’s the first time someone stops to talk with her. 
“I found him one month ago.” She smiles beautifully and you can see the light in her eyes.” He was abandonned by someone else. I called him “Hu Zi” (which means Little Tiger in Chinese).”
She is in her 60ies and a junkwoman. Her daughter-in-law doesn’t like her so she was abandonned by her son. “I had a hard time bringing him up all by myself. My husband has been gone for several years.” I’m not sure wether she used the word “gone” to say that her husband passed away or simply left them, but I do feel very sorry for her. 
“But now, I got company thanks to him.” She gently strokes the dog. “He would never leave me!”
It’s amazing to me that she can get out of the sad mood so quickly.
And before I leave, she says: “I don’t blame my son or his wife. I can support myself well. Besides, I’m so proud I support myself by working instead of becoming a beggar.”
I swear I saw the light twinkling beautifully in her eyes at that moment.

All of the works Mathilde showed us were beautiful. They were all unique and told amazing stories of the students or people in the photographs. I would love to use selfies with my students because I know that they love taking selfies and it would be awesome for them to be able to tell their own story or something they like not only through a photograph, but also using their words to write in English.
I hope you liked my post, and in case you would like to see more of Mathilde and her student's work,you can click here.

10 Apps and Websites Useful for Teachers and Students.

As you know, I'm very interested in technologies. I've been writing about SAMR & TPACK, digital natives and the use of technologies in the classroom. That's why I thought it would be useful to think about some apps and websites that are useful for teachers and students to use in and out of the classroom.

I searched on many educational websites which apps are the ones teachers use in their classrooms, and I found out I have been using some of these for a while as a student. There were some other apps I didn't know about, and I started using them to know if I would include them in this list, or not. 

I found many lists of apps, but there were many apps that are not used in Argentina for different reasons, for example, some of them use software that is not available or broadly used in Argentina (For example, Apple's IOS), or hardware that needs to be imported or that is very expensive. 

What I wanted to do was to make a list of Apps that any teacher or student with either a computer or smartphone could profit from. To select the Apps I would include in this list, I thought of their usability in and out of the classroom, if they have an App available to use it on cellphones (something that students do a lot), and if it serves to the purpose of bringing technology into the classroom. Besides describing some of the things you can do with this apps or websites, I will give you my opinion on them, since I used them all.

Here they are! *drum roll please!*

1- Google Drive.
Google Drive gives students and teachers the ability to create collaborative documents and presentations, serves as a backup for documents and allows storing photos and files. It has many useful functions: you can suggest editions, edit documents on-line, use/edit images and pictures. 
One of the things I like about Google Drive is that there is an Android app, which makes everything easier. I have it installed on my smartphone, and it's great. Another thing to point out is that it is constantly being updated, adding new tools or ways of using it. You can use google drive to edit and make comments on your student's works, and they would be added automatically, which means you won't need to send and receive e-mails.

2- Evernote.
Evernote is an all-utility tool for note-taking. It has many functions: Clip web articles, capture handwritten notes, and snap photos to add to your notes. It has an impressive function: There's no need to build slides, just one click and your notes are transformed into a beautiful screen-friendly layout. Besides those, it has many more interesting functions. There are windows and Android apps available, and also a Google Chrome extension. I like this app because you can sync all you notes and have them at hand in all your devices. Besides, it's very easy to use. In case you are wondering, it works without internet connection, and it syncs your notes when you have internet connection. In this case, students can use evernote to make lists of things they have to do so they won't miss any deadline.

3- Foxit reader
Foxit Reader is a small, lightning fast, and feature rich PDF viewer which allows you to create, open, view, sign, and print any PDF file. Its viewer is configurable, you can edit and add bookmarks and you can also convert Word documents to pdfs, and many other functions. There's also an Android app if you want to use it in your phone. If you have Conectar Igualdad's netbook, Foxit Reader should be installed in your netbook but in an older version. The best thing you can do is to update it to the last version, you'll see it's great. I have it on my netbook and It's much better than the old version. 

4- Libre Office
"LibreOffice is a powerful office suite; its clean interface and powerful tools let you unleash your creativity and grow your productivity. LibreOffice embeds several applications that make it the most powerful Free & Open Source Office suite on the market" I couldn't have explained it better myself. What it's most important about Libre Office is that it is compatible with many document formats such as Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Publisher and it allows you to use an open standar extension, the OpenDocument Format (ODF). I've used it for at least 4 years and I think it's the best alternative to Microsoft Office. The best thing about it is that it's free. 

5- Edmodo
Edmodo was created to bring education into a 21st century environment. It takes learning beyond the classroom by providing a free, safe place for teachers and students to connect and collaborate—anytime, anywhere. Edmodo lets you seamlessly integrate and manage e-learning. Some of its features are: you can create secure groups that take learning beyond the classroom, connect and collaborate with students and fellow teachers, post and turn in assignments, polls, and more. There's an Android app that works very well. I use it to communicate with my teachers and I know some people that use it with their students and they think it's awesome! So do I, of course. 

6-Prezi

"One of the greatest innovations in education was the blackboard. For the first time in history, teachers could present their lessons visually and engage students to participate in the conversation. The whiteboard has done the same for business—helping us to explore and share ideas more effectively." Prezi is a virtual whiteboard that transforms presentations from monologues into conversations: enabling people to see, understand, and remember ideas. It's a great alternative to Power Point presentations. I use it because I think it's innovative and the best thing about it is that you can edit Prezis online along with other team members, for example (something you can't do with Powerpoint). Students can use prezi as a way to innovate in their presentations and to edit online and simultaneously.

7-Any.Do
"Any.do Moment is a quick & playful experience that helps you plan your day every morning. It makes planning your day fun & simple.
With the Any.do web-app you can easily sync your tasks from your mobile to your home computer." 
There's and extension available for Chrome users and allows a quick short cut to manage your tasks right from the browser. With Any.do's reminders you'll never forget to do the things you wanted to, at the right place or time. It's a good app for you and your students. For example, they won't forget to hand in practical works or assignments. There's also a twin app for Any.Do, it's called calendar. It syncs with Any.do, so you can see your tasks right inside your calendar. You can use both of this apps on Google Chrome and smartphone. I have both of them on my Smartphone and I love them. Since they're synced, I add notes or things to do on Any.Do and are automatically added on my calendar along with their notifications.

8- BeFunky
BeFunky is a website where you can design posters. It has many features. Any tool you need is at your fingertips: crop, straighten, adjust exposure, saturation, and more. Add anything from a vintage filters to artsy effects, or stack them to create a whole new look. There are also apps available to download to you Android Smartphone. BeFunky can be used to make posters of interesting topics, teachers can make posters too to present new topics.

9- Save As PDF
This extension lets you easily save web pages to pdf. 
The available options include page size, page orientation, margins, password protection, initial view, etc. It's very good to save web-pages you don't want to print or don't have time to do so. 

10- AtubeCatcher
It is a simple freeware application focused to individuals and students for personal, private and non-commercial purposes, this application is a download manager that helps you to backup videos from social sites like Dailymotion, MySpace, Yahoo, etc. to play back them offline and export them to many formats (MPG,AVI,MP4,3GP,3G2,WMV,PSP,MOV,FLV). With the quality that you choose, you can encode your videos to standard formats as DVD,VCD,IPOD,PSP, etc. It's great, I've used it many times and it's very easy to use. Teachers and students can use aTube Catcher to download videos they want to use in their classrooms and have a plan B in case their's no internet connection. 

I chose these apps and websites because I have used them and I think teachers and students really can take advantage of them. For me, the success of integrating technology does not lay in using it, but in to know how to use it and profit from it. 
I hope you liked my post. See you soon!

SAMR & TPACK

I bet that after reading the title of this entry you are wondering what SAMR & TPACK are. I was, too when our teacher presented them to us. The simple answer is: SAMR & TPACK are two ways of looking and integrating technology into our classroom.
Technology, yay! I love technology. As I said in one of my previous posts, I am a digital native. I am constantly carrying my phone, (checking facebook, twitter, instagram and more) and I cannot live without my computer. But something important to take into account is that my students will also be digital natives like me and I have to know how to catch their attention and integrate technology in the classroom.  


SAMR:

The SAMR Model,describes technology integration through four levels:

1. Substitution: Technology is used as a direct substitute for what you might do already, with no functional change.
2. Augmentation: Technology is a direct substitute, but there is functional improvement over what you did without the technology.
3. Modification: Technology allows you to significantly redesign the task.
4. Redefinition: Technology allows you to do what was previously not possible.

Source: Models for Understanding Technology Integration.

This means that our tasks will not be always the same and will have different outcomes.
Here's a Prezi presentation with examples of the SAMR model in the classroom.

TPACK:

TPACK stands for Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge, and the interaction between these three concepts as they relate to teaching in a technology enhanced learning environment. It looks at the collaboration between technology, pedagogy, and content and argues that teachers need knowledge of all three.

At the heart of the TPACK framework, is the complex interplay of three primary forms of knowledge: Content (CK), Pedagogy (PK), and Technology (TK). 

The TPACK approach does not see them in isolation. TPACK also emphasizes the new kinds of knowledge that exist in the intersections of these three: four more knowledge bases to teach with technology: 

• Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), 
• Technological Content Knowledge (TCK), 
• Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK), 
• and the intersection of all three circles, Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK).

Source: What is TPACK? 

I think both of these ways of looking at technology integrated in our classroom are very important and useful. Nevertheless, I think it's not necessary to look at them as separate ways of integrating technology. Maybe it would be useful to take into account both of them and even though teaching with technology is important, we have to bare in mind that teaching is the essential and technology should act as a tool to enhance learning.

If you want to know more about SAMR & TPACK, take a look at this prezi