WHAT I HAVE LEARNED

What were most useful for you?
 The tool that was the most useful for me was Interactive PPP. It was the rediscovery of PPP, which I had abandoned.


Which tools will you use in your classes?
I will be using the one that I have tried in my classes - Interactive PPP, tools to foster PBL, englishbreakingnews.
I would like to try webquests.


What other tools might we have covered or would you suggest that we could have looked at? I would have covered Social Learning Platforms. I think they can offer many possibilities for our students to communicate with us and share their work with their peers.


I gave my students a writing assignment: Tell me the project that you liked the most this school year.

I would like to share some of their thoughts:

Diego

"I have done several projects along these years, however, I think that the radio project is the most interesting of all."


Carlos

"One day, our teacher told us about making a radio programme, but there was a rule, we were going to do all the project on our own, he would just guide us a little. My group worked on advertisements and it was really funny because it was the first project whose limit was our imagination."


Pedro

 "We did a project for the University of Oregon. First of all, we decided the different topics or categories that we were going to talk about. Later, each group chose one these categories. My group was in charge of the interviews. The result was incredible!!! The app used for the project was very good and it had a lot of options so it really seemed like a radio programme. I enjoyed the experience!"


Lucía

"Mr López was chosen by one university of the USA. Because of that, he had to do some projects like the radio programme with one of his classes. He chose us and we started with the project. All the groups presented their part and Mr López recorded it. It was very funny!"



THIS IS WHAT I HAVE LEARNED, WHAT MY STUDENTS HAVE LEARNED. SO, THANK YOU ALL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON, THANK YOU DONNA (YOUR SUGGESTIONS, UNDERSTANDING AND HARD WORK ARE INCREDIBLY VALUABLE), AND THANKS CLASSMATES (YOUR EXPERIENCES HAVE BEEN REALLY INSPIRING FOR ME)

LEARNING STYLES AND MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES

I have always found these two topics as something really interesting and as something which can make our students be successful or be unsuccessful when learning. We, as teachers, are supposed to get the best of our students and lead them to success. Knowing their learning styles and knowing the kind of intelligence that is stronger for them can be a perfect tool to direct our teaching.

I must say that I have never been good at arts and crafts and I have always considered that my spatial intelligence is not good. That has been one of my weaknesses as a student but it has not been a hindrance to be successful. I think that is what we have to bear in mind, that our students have a lot of possibilities and that they can exploit a lot of technology tools to try to develop those intelligences that are not so strong.

As for classes, I consider that PBL is a good way to make our students exploit their strengths and best intelligences as learners because they can focus on what they can do and try to do their best. However, there is one danger about this, since sometimes our students only work on that that they can do and leave aside things they should focus on. That would be the challenge for us, to make them move on to those things that they neglect because they think they can not do.

I must say that both topics this week are extremely interesting for me and we still have a lot of work to do, above all, a lot of possible technology tools to discover and use so that we can exploit our students' learning styles and intelligences to the max.

ANVILL is here to stay! It is admirable seeing people who work hard on something and then they offer their work and findings to the world for free! Thanks Mr Magoto, you are an inspiration! I do not have the time to explore this tool with my students because my students are taking their finals and I was chosen as part of the board of examination for the university entrance tests and I will not be at my school for a whole week. But I find this tool a good one and I want to put it into practice next school year!!!








Well, I made it! I wrote my final project report using the good suggestions that Wadha gave me. Thanks Wadha, you made me go over things that I had not noticed and I am now very proud of my report. I owe you one ;).

Our course is coming to an end, mixed feelings showing up!!!

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

We are getting ready to finish our course and our projects. Wadha uploaded her project and I gave her some feedback. I must say that I did not have to make many suggestions because she has done a really great job. I uploaded mine and I am looking forward to getting feedback from her. In fact, my draft was an incomplete draft, since I used the technology (Spreaker and Podcast) on Friday and we were supposed to upload it on Wdednesday. I am really happy about the results and the good work my students have done. I will share all my findings and impressions next week!!!

This week we had to go online and take a look at different webpages and create a resource online or offline. I went for "Tools for Educators" and created three different worksheets: a sport vocabulary handout, a sport crossword puzzle and a sport search word. I decided to do those because I will use them as a good chance to review the vocabulary we have learnt in class.

I must say that I have some mixed feelings: the course is ending and I feel sad for that but it is also the beginning of a lot of experimentation and new teaching possibilities!

Hey!!! We are linked now on Facebook!!!

USING MOBILE DEVICES IN CLASS / MY FINAL PROJECT

I normally use my Ipad in class, my students are used to it. But now, we have taken a step further because I am promoting the use of SmartPhones since I want them to communicate with me using EdModo through the app this platform has both for IOS and Android. The good thing about it is that communication is more fluent and obviously quicker.

I am in as far as mobile learning is concerned. I have taken a course about it and I am learning a lot of possibilities. One of the apps that I used in the course is the one I will be using for my project - SPREAKER. This app allows to record podcasts as if they were a radio program, since you can include music, background music, audience reactions, applause, etc.

We have used a new tool, PADLET. It is quite useful when you want to post short messages or links. I think I will use it in class to include links of my students' works and put them together according to the topic we are working on. This can be done when they publish on-line on Glogster and Prezi.

                           Example of Padlet taken from
   http://www.fundacionluminis.org.ar/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Planetas.png


Apart from all that, I have a peer-partner. It is Wadha from Kuwait. She is working with her students on implementing an ICT tool to make her students speak in English. I am very interested in this skill and since my students will also focus on speaking (making a radio program), I think we have a lot in common and we will review our final projects in a very effective way and giving good and interesting feedback to one another.



WHAT WE DID FOR THE PROJECT THIS LAST WEEK

1. Students decided what the sections of the radio program want to include.

2. Students decided who the components of the different groups are going to be.

3. Students assign groups to sections.

4. Students start to work on organizing the sections they will work on and they start to write their text for the radio section.


Students let me know that they are really interested in this project because they can make their own decisions. They also let me know that all projects should be done this way.
What do you think about this?

INTERACTIVE POWERPOINT PRESENTATION

As promised, here are my findings about using an Interactive PPP:

1. Students were all eyes, it was a new thing for them and they really wanted to know what was going to happen.

2. They paid a lot of attention because they wanted to answer the questions correctly.

3. They said that the PPP was funny and interesting.

4. They really liked the inclusion of the video in the PPP that showed in detail what they had learnt with the PPP.

5. Conclusion - something to repeat, a must!!!


After showing the PPP I asked my students to do some interactive PPP. I am really satisfied with their work, they have done a very good job!!! They have been really creative!!!


The same happened with the presentations that my teacher-students showed to my 13-year-old students. You could see that they were having a really great time because they were paying attention in order to give the right answers to the questions included in the PPP which had to do with means of transport.

PPT is here to stay!!!

I have a confession to make:  I had sent PowerPoint into exile,  I had banished it from my mind and from my world. But, I brought it back to my life this week, thanks to Webskills.

"Interactive PowerPoint Presentation", it is like music to me. And, it really is. Making a PPP interactive has opened up my mind to new possibilities, to new ways of making my students take part in their learning, and above all, to make them speak, give their opinions, show their ideas, feelings, etc. I believe in PowerPoint again!!!

I made a proposal on one of the NiceNet threads this week. I have two students who are job-shadowing me a part of their instruction requirements to become teachers (it is a Spanish legislation requirement). I said that it would be a good idea to make my students create an interactive PPP and present it in front of my class so that I can take notes and see the whole experience from  the outside. Some of you gave me the "go ahead" and I will let you know about it on another post this week!!!

I prepared an interactive PPP for my students and I will present it tomorrow! I am really excited because I think they will like it and I want to get feedback as soon as possible!!! I will post on it too.

As for the implementation of a new technology to make my students interested in learning, that is, to engage them and motivate them to work on different subjects using English, I commented to them that we are going to prepare a radio program and that they have to decide the different sections it is going to have. We are going to produce podcasts using SPREAKER and I will record them on video using my Ipad. I am waiting for their proposals because one of the key points of my projects is that they have to decide what they want to do and that it is what they really like what is going to be crucial for the project!!! I AM SO EXCITED AND I JUST CAN'T HIDE IT!!!

Oh, what a world!!!

This week we have dealt with different topics and we have read quite interesting articles.

We have learnt about PBL - Project Based Learning - something that is widely used in my school, above all by all the teachers who are part of the bilingual programme. We normally establish at least one project a term based on the same topic for all the subjects - for example - WWI has been the last topic on which our students have to research - in English they have to research on the way it has been shown or it has appeared on movies.

I found the article "Less Teaching and More Learning" by Susan Gaer really inspiring and I must say that it opened up my eyes and let me find the way to get the possible solution to the "issue" that I want to solve using technology. My students have to decide what their project will deal with. That is the key question that I found out when reading this article. I think I found the "quid" to lead my class to a good improvement.


We have also learnt about rubrics - in my school rubrics are also widely used. We normally set them up by using Rubistar (http://rubistar.4teachers.org/) which is exactly the same web-page that we have been recommended by the course. Using rubrics is extremely useful to carry out a good assessment of different aspects of our students' learning process. And what is most important, our students are aware of what our expectations are about their learning and what we want them to learn and the objectives which  we want them to accomplish. I find this tool incredibly useful, something which is shared by the administrators in my school.


Webquests was another aspect of the course this week. This has been totally new to me. I am looking into it and even though there was an extra credit assignment, I guess I need some more time to try it. Webquests are useful because we can guide our students through a learning journey through which they can discover new things on the web. I definitely must put it into practice, and I will!!!
I found some information on a Spanish web page - www.isabelperez.com (this teacher has even made a doctoral thesis on webquests).


This week Michael Jackson's new posthumous CD is being released, I'm so excited.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/may/09/michael-jackson-xscape-review-tim-jonze