70+ ways to start using ICT and multimedia in the classroom Using ICT to support classroom practice and professional learning of MFL teachers Download Edutalk Joe Dale ICT MFL mp3 Being asked to appear on the last live Edutalk show of 2012 and give my take on how language teachers are currently using technology in and out the classroom was an absolute pleasure. Unsurprisingly, I championed the impact of the MFL Twitterati on classroom practice and shared my top tips for nuturing a successful subject specific community. Below is a summary of our discussion. Feel free to leave a comment here or get in touch via Twitter if you'd like to know more. Thanks of course to David and John for inviting me on!
What To Expect From Education In 2013 Guessing what the future of education holds is equal parts logic and guesswork. The logical part is simpler–take current trends and trace their arc further, doing your best to account for minor aberrations. If the majority of public education in the United States is waist-deep in adopting new academic standards, it doesn’t take Nostradamus to predict they are going to have a strong gravity about them in the education at large. What’s Certain In 2013, a theme that is absolutely certain is disruption. Some of that disruption will be through technology, some of it decay of existing power-sets. In 2013, those trends will continue, along with some new ideas as we begin to demand more than feel-good potential out of learning experiences for students. What To Expect From Education In 2013 1. As technology improves, increased access and diversity are two changes you can be certain of. 2. 3. 4. 5. OCW and MOOCs, in one way or another, are changing the way we think about learning. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
11 Essential Tools For Better Project-Based Learning by Katre Laan from myhistro.com The rise of technology used in classrooms has made learning much more interactive. The emergence of iPads to browser-based tools in project-based learning, take teaching to a new level in the 21st century. Even the current trends in education include the use of new technology, from collaborative projects to blending traditional textbook teaching with innovative tools. For students, the core aim of project-based learning is to put theory into practice and gain new skills throughout the process. A major advantage of digital tools used is better engagement in the classroom. Browser-based tools and several apps used in education are especially useful for researching, storytelling and collaborative video making. Handy mobile devices allow students to be inspired when outside classroom by creating and sharing ideas and creations instantly. Here is a mini guide to some of the project based learning tools. 1) Mindmeister 2) Glogster 3) Myhistro 4) Pixton 5) Animoto
6 Types of Blended Learning Blended Learning is not so much an innovation as it is a natural by-product of the digital domain creeping into physical boundaries. As digital and social media become more and more prevalent in the life of learners, it was only a matter of time before learning became “blended” by necessity. That said, there’s a bit more to Blended and “Hybrid” Learning than throwing in a little digital learning. 6 Types of Blended Learning Face-to-face DriverRotationFlexOnline LabSelf-BlendOnline Driver The following infographic takes a different approach to the concept, labeling it “Disruptive,” and even offering an interesting matrix. Paddling the Learning Pool – 8 Tools That Changed My Teaching There’s a lot going on. Educators seem overloaded with initiatives and expectations. Students appear weighed down by assessment and intervention. The profession is under attack by a swathe of politicians and their ‘bright’ ideas. Bad press outweighs good. It can feel like there is too much to do and not enough time to do it in, so I asked myself: how can I improve? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is indeed ‘madness’ but rarely, in education, is there an opportunity to make sweeping changes. Now, before you think this is just an advert for an iPad, I must add that I am merely writing about my experience to illustrate how I have been able to change the way I do things. Assessment Three tools have made a huge difference to the feedback my students receive. Socrative - A free e-clicker that is regularly used to assess student progress. Dropbox - The cloud based memory store, enables students to hand-in work through a shared folder option. Resources
RobuPrice: Padlet: Online Wall for Collaboration What it is: is a website that allows users to build a wall that can be written on with “sticky notes.” Users can post to the wall, adding words, links, pictures, or documents. Each wall has a unique URL that can be customized to be easier to find or to remember. Some questions and options to consider when building your wall: Backgrounds: Which fun background will you choose?Positioning of posts: Do you want them random or ordered? What I like: Padlet is great for brainstorming or collaboration in real-timeUsers can create walls without accounts (but it is easier to track walls with an account)Walls can be password protected and moderated What I dislike: Documents added to the wall are turned into pictures, so Padlet is not for document storageAs each wall is only one page, they are best used for just one assignmentIn the past, I found that walls or “Wallwisher” would occasionally be unavailable, though I have not found that to be the case since this site became “Padlet”
Edmodo + Evernote = my ideal iPad-classroom workflow! I have been teaching in iPad classrooms for nearly 18 months now. During the first few months, the biggest obstacle I faced was creating an efficient workflow between myself and the students. By ‘workflow‘ I am referring to a system that enables the teacher to easily distribute tasks to the students, collect that work back from students, and efficiently give them feedback on their learning. Initially, I would e-mail the students the task sheet, then they would download it and open it in another ‘app’ that allows them to work on it. Towards the end of 2012, Edmodo introduced a wonderful new feature to their iPad app: the ability to import a document from any iPad app into Edmodo, and hence upload it to your Edmodo Library. However, I quickly realized that I also wanted my students to collect all that work they’re doing into one easily accessible ‘portfolio’, as opposed to it just being on the other apps, and then submitted on Edmodo. Like this: Like Loading...
Ways to Use Google Doc's in the Classroom 5 hidden iPad features for language learning. EmailShare 62EmailShare This year I am working at a new school where all the kids are new Dutch immigrants. That means that they have just arrived in The Netherlands and our biggest job is to teach them Dutch as quickly as possible. We are a 1:1 iPad school and we have seen students benefit greatly from all of the rich-media language learning apps. This blog post however does not focus on the apps, but the features that are built within the iPad. 1. As your students will be using the iPad throughout the day they will be forced to read the same sentences over and over again. 2. If a student comes across a new word and doesn’t know how to pronounce it they can turn on Speak Screen and then the voiceover voice will speak whichever chunk of text they have selected. To turn on Speak Screen go to: Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Speak Selection on. 3. Turning this feature on will automatically turn on subtitles for all videos that have that feature enabled. 4. 5. Bonus. Related posts: