6 Benefits of BYOD In the classroom A few years ago, I decided to incorporate mobile devices into my lesson plans. While the content still remains the focus of my teaching, I think technology can enhance learning at every point in a lesson. As an early BYOD ("Bring Your Own Device") adopter in my school, I have seen increased learning outcomes and test scores, not to mention that my students are now more engaged in learning activities. The current generation of students has grown up with technology and want to use it in every aspect of their daily lives — including school. They keep their beloved mobile devices on them at all times, and are not just using them to communicate with friends or download music. A couple of years ago I spoke to my principal and we both recognized an opportunity to make the most of the technology already in students’ hands, allowing them to use the technology with which they feel most comfortable — their own laptops, smartphones and tablets — in class. Student participation increases.
Blog de Cristina | A NEW LANGUAGE MEANS ANOTHER VISION OF LIFE BLOGGISH | Learning English by blogging Digital Storytelling: an Efficient and Engaging Learning Activity As an ESP teacher in a technical school for the last seven years, I have often used digital storytelling as a learning activity. Allowing students to create their own digital stories has proven to be a highly effective means of ensuring that students remember what they learn. Digital storytelling empowers students to be confident communicators and creators of media as they gain essential 21st-century literacy skills and reach deeper understanding in all areas of the curriculum. This technique is a combination of the old storytelling tradition and new technology. With increasing availability of computerized devices in schools, various forms of digital media production have become quite common as approaches to learning. A digital story is essentially any combination of a spoken narrative and a number of visuals, perhaps with a soundtrack - along with new technologies to edit and share the story. 8 Digital Storytelling Benefits For Students
The machine goes on Foreign Language Teaching Methods About the Site Foreign Language Teaching Methods focuses on 12 different aspects of language teaching, each taught by a different expert instructor. The site contains video footage from an actual methods course held at the University of Texas at Austin. This flexible resource is designed to be used by foreign language teachers as a component of a classroom methods course or as a stand-alone course for independent learners. “While I was taking this course, I was already changing what I was doing and I can already see the difference. ” - Verónica, beginning language teacher (Spanish) “I loved having a different teacher [for each module]. - Sarah, beginning language teacher (ESL) “People have so many different creative ideas you can draw from and use for your own class.” - Judith beginning language teacher (German) “The more different languages and different types of approaches we saw, the better understanding of teaching languages I got.” - Elena, beginning language teacher (Russian)
How I have implemented the Flipped Mastery Model, by Tiziana Saponaro As an early adopter of the Flipped Classroom model, I realized there was a next step in this methodology evolution. I created multimedia, interactive modules for each learning objective, posted them on my website and assigned them as homework.This freed up precious classtime to work directly with students on projects or other engaging learning activities. As Bergmann and Sams said "Technology has freed up the teachers to individualize the learning for each student". Now I want to make the best use of my face-to-face class time and I'm ready to venture further, by adopting the Flipped Mastery Model. In this article I'm going to discuss the following topics: - What is mastery learning and what is the Flipped Mastery Model - Why I decided to implement a Flipped Mastery Model - How I'm implementing the Flipped Mastery Model What is Mastery Learning? The basic idea of mastery learning is for students to learn a series of objectives at their own pace. The advantages of this methodology are:
Anna Laghigna's Learning Diary Teaching English as a foreign language, I have used technology so far especially to improve speaking skills (pronunciation, fluency and oracy) through Digital Storytelling, Flipped Classroom or Webquests. Unfortunately, I have not been able to carry out any PBL in full so far, firstly because we have little technology at school; secondly because there are few teachers in my school who would be willing to consider a multidisciplinary approach; thirdly, because you will need a lot of permissions in Italian schools to do so, including the approval by your principal. So, let's hope for the future. If the main objectives of our learning stories should focus on the creation rather than the mere consumption of knowledge, the range of possible activities is huge: from videos, storyboards, comic strips, animations to presentations, e-books, timelines, infographics, blogs, wikis, etc. For example, they created imaginary interviews with their favourite celebrities. Was it realistic?
Ferrini Advantages of multimedia in the curriculum I have elected to incorporate multimedia into the curriculum by using which is tailored on my students needs. The primary benefits of this methodology are to: - Develop a community of learners through online activities, like videolessons and interactive tests and quizzes ( - Provide authentic assignments, like reading a CNN article on "virtual reality", followed by a video and a discussion in class - Enhance accessibility, ie. absent students can keep up to date on what we have done in class - Help students document and present their learning through authentic assessments Using multimedia has proved to have many advantages: - Multimedia in class boosts motivation and self esteem. - Students enjoy the instant feedback of multimedia and the relevance to their everyday lives - Using multimedia gives students active, participatory roles in the classroom. - Multimedia encourages students to collaborate, hence develop teamwork and learning skills from their peers 1. 2.