Blended learning: up to what point?

First of all, for those of you who may not know about blended learning, in general terms it's learning in the traditional way in schools AND through technology, at home. For more info, you can watch this short video:

In my experience, I haven't worked with online platforms at school until I got to the Teacher Training Course, where that way of working is very common. Sincerely, I feel a degree of regret for not having tried that, since from my point of view it is very helpful for both sides: the teacher, and the student. This provides teachers with many advantages, like having the possibility of having a very organised record of each student's progress. On the other side, students can work at any time they desire/can.

However, in my opinion it is better to be present when students are working, to see how they are doing and be in hand if they need any help; at the same time some autonomy from their part is also great. So in a certain manner and degree of implementation I can see a lot of advantages, of course always depending on the group characteristics.

Tools for the designer: Voki and wordclouds

One dynamic way of taking profit from what this though notsonew Web 2.0 offers is making students work out words through their meanings expressed in a particular display: using wordclouds. Then, via Voki they can figure out if they have solved the word puzzle correctly, just by playing a sympathetic being who is going to say the answer. In the end, they will see the word by going to a specific link where there's an image with it (this can vary).

Fortunately, there are many possibilities when selecting a word cloud generator, each varying in their functions, displays, fonts, etc. I've tried out with Tagul when I wanted to work with a key element of Web 2.0, "community", and this was my production:

The students will have to go to a link (click on the picture) to get to the wordcloud. Then, this is what I've done with Voki and where they could find out whether they've come out with the right definition. It looked like:

...and there are many ways in which you can custom your little character, and what's more there's even the option of choosing the voice!

Finally, just a link to a picture to confirm that they have discovered the word in question.

Technology in the classroom: reflection on Kuklinski's talk

  On wed 28 we were invited to a talk in which an author, Hugo Kuklinski, was presenting his book about teachers “intraemprendedores”, related to being innovative with technology.

  All started ok, when he expatiated and said that to innovate wasn’t equivalent to incorporating technology in the classroom, but to change working logics by being “intraemprendedores” (innovator, fast and agile). However, sometimes I perceived that many of the terms he made use of were form an economic/financial/business conceptual domain, and although education can be thought through it, for example in management issues, a complete talk coloured by such terms chiefly made evident Hugo’s inclinations or way of thinking towards education.

  Then, he talked about being “children-sensitive” when he mentioned an experience he had with a school in Medellín, and it was not until the end of the talk that we knew it was a failure because they and their ideas were rejected by all the community. Personally, I believe that the problem was the “bubble” where he lives in, precisely in Barcelona, which make it impossible for him to actually see of the context and thus the real needs of those students. He has a nice dream and good aspirations towards education, but they are sometimes egocentric and so pure that they need to be tarnished, or as he said, “smeared”, with more and more school experiences of all kinds (not just university or Barcelona primary/secondary schools).

  In order not to be so pessimistic, I would say that many of his ideas were good and can (and need to) be adapted to our reality. Nevertheless, I would suggest Hugo to also work with people who studied education in a pedagogic-deeper extent and who is more aware of some cultural aspects. They would do a wonderful work together, no doubt about it.

Integrating technology in the classrom

  The implementation of technologies in the classroom should be as much productive as the technological device possibilities offer you. For instance, if you're working with a Prezi presentation, you can  benefit from the vast array of options at the time of designing your general view and the following transitions, and you can propose activities to your students to be done in the presentation itself.

  As you can imagine, there are various ways in which technology can be integrated, and depending on the possibilities that your implementation provides, it can be categorised under 4 levels according to the SAMR model: Within ENHANCEMENT, first Substitution and then Augmentation; within TRANSFORMATION, from Modification to Redefinition. BTW, below there's a brief video explaining more about that.



  Here I share a presentation I've made with my partners, introducing the family and the comparatatives to 1° year students. It would be categorised as Augmentation, since there's a video included. What we could do to go up in the ladder and reach Modification, is sharing the presentation on a platform and allowing students to add slides to the original one to complete the task.

Digital literacies in the classroom

  What are digital literacies, one may be wondering. They refer to “our ability to effectively make use of the technologies at our disposal”, technically and even socially. That means that a digitally literate is able to, for example, tweet something to someone appropriately – which means that the text is not going to be long (actually it can’t be!), maybe with some abbreviations, sticking to the point and with the people correctly tagged. In short, being a digitally literate implies knowing how to use technology, whom to address and in which way, as well as how to recognise real information from fake.

  Undeniably, we’re surrounded by technology, and education can’t look aside ignoring it. It’s part of both our students’ everyday life, and ours. Especially, in my opinion the focus of digital literacies in the school should be on information: how many times a student who was asked to gather information about a certain topic, appeared with anything but what he was supposed to look for? This happens because he didn't know where to search, or how could he rely on a certain web page.

  In my case, following criteria from lesley.edu, I’ve analysed a couple of web pages with some partners, to determine whether they were reliable and also profitable. Here you can read the website reviews, where we designed a couple of activities for students, as the one in the figure below (ignore the fact that it's a bit too long, first time) using the puzzle maker from Discovery Education. In this activity, students will have to find out the secret message, that is the "real" Sherlock Holmes' saying, by first looking for the words written below, and then the message is revealed.

Source: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/digital-literacies-what-are-they-why-should-we-care

Grumbling again Gladys? Digital issues

  It was in 2001 that a document by Marc Prensky introduced the terms “Digital Natives” and “Digital Immigrants”, which he coined in an attempt to show the difference between people who were born with digital technologies and those who preceded them. The focus of his –if I can call them– concerns were on education, and fifteen years later most of them still seem to be existing. Since I don’t want to bore you with any kind of summary, here it can be read (it’s 6 pages long). Nevertheless, I’ve been pondering about two striking ideas that caught my attention.

  One of them was “Digital Immigrants think learning can’t (or shouldn’t) be fun. Why should they – they didn’t spend their formative years learning with Sesame Street.” (2001:3) This sounds (seems?) like the author hasn’t had any “funny” teacher, one who transformed the teaching of a dull, prosy text from a book into a catching lesson with tons of amazement and amusement. I’m sure that he didn’t actually mean what he said.

  The other, which I completely agreed with, was the conclusion: “So if Digital Immigrant educators really want to reach Digital Natives – i.e. all their students – they will have to change. It’s high time for them to stop their grousing, and as the Nike motto of the Digital Native generation says, “Just do it!” They will succeed in the long run – and their successes will come that much sooner if their administrators support them.” (2001:6) Apart from the grousing part which was hilarious because it was/is reasonably representative (and it immediately made me recall one text we've dealt with in phonetics and phonology in the first year), the last words are like floating in a sea of uncertainty. What if those administrators are also like the grumbling crew of Digital Immigrants? It seems that there’s no possible twist! Or is it some way, from the part of the students or a younger generation of leaders? What is your comment? 

Source: Prensky, M. (n.d.). "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants." From On the Horizon (NCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001)

The role of the teacher as a material designer

  English teachers since the beginning of the twenty first century were widely known for using those famous CD players or “tortuguitas” (little turtles) as we call them in Argentina, showing in a way that they didn’t suffer from vertigo when rolling down in the increasingly fast whirlwind of advancements in technology. They demonstrated that they were up to the challenge and even grateful for having the chance of changing the old and heavy cassette recorder for something more practical. Nevertheless, in a way that was the only approach to technology teachers had, because computers were far more difficult to use than they are now, let alone smart phones, which were inexistent. 

  Today, we are in 2016 and undeniably surrounded by technology. Computers are much friendlier to the user and they also offer innumerable possibilities at the time of creating with them, also with the help of internet which is an inexhaustible source of information and materials.

  Having said so, and judging by the title, the reader may have started to think what this is about. The idea is to enter this full-of-possibilities new world of designing materials for our students, and to initiate ourselves in the role of the teacher as a material designer or even polish our existing designing skills, because some may already be walking in the land of creation.

  In that case, why do we start doing so? Several factors contribute to our getting down to work in this kind of commitment: the book we are working with is not that good in terms of the imagery provided by the authors, the activities are not contextualised enough, there is a lack of the type of reinforcement our students need, the stories are not catching, etc.

  Not only is the teacher a material designer and producer, but there are also many other roles which we fulfil when teaching such as assessor, facilitator, prompter, planner, role-model, and so on. Here my focus is on the former, since addressing all the following could be slightly chaotic. Nevertheless, there will be a bit of everyone present in each post, given that they are intrinsically related in the art of teaching.

  So, by this way I’d like to welcome you, the reader, and to make a request: feel free to share your ideas and contributions, and to take anything that is helpful for your lessons. I won’t charge for copyright ;) I believe that all teachers should help each other, especially with ideas and information about where we can improve a certain aspect of our teaching.