The previous post on this blog features a series of screencasts I prepared for a presentation/workshop I hosted for an institute-wide PD Day last Friday.
Given that I was so flu-ridden on the day I was wondering if I was going to actually be able to stay up on my feet for the whole session, the screencasts could have come in very handy in the event of a presenter collapse... From a prone position on the floor, I might have been able to just click on play and let the attendees watch the presentation up on the screen while I crawled feebly for the exit.
However, what really struck me with this experiment was just how beneficial it can be to "perform" your presentation or workshop in advance via video or screencast.
For one, it's an excellent way to rehearse your material. Sure, you could do this in front of a mirror, but actually recording it gives you that very real feeling of a live performance, on the spot, and you can go back and listen/watch your performance, get a feel for the timing, delivery, etc. It's a confidence builder as well as (to some extent) a bit of an early warning system!
Once you've screencasted your whole presentation, it then makes for great review material to follow up a live, in-the-room workshop. This review mechanism is facilitated in multiple ways:
- Attendees can relax, go with the flow of the actual presentation on the day and not worry about extensive note-taking or handouts (they can review the material later at their own leisure);
- Your pre-recording means that if something goes horribly wrong on the day (for example: you're allocated a room without a beam projector despite your specific request for one), you can still refer workshop attendees to the screencast version;
- It's really interesting, for yourself as the presenter (and possibly for your attendees as well) to compare the live in-the-room performance with the recorded version, especially in terms of how well the presentation ended up wrapping around the actual needs and influence of the audience on the day;
- If you pre-record your presentation in specific parts or segments, you might look at playing one or two of them during the actual workshop so you can give yourself a short break, move the eyes off you for a little and give you a chance to wander around and see what people are doing;
- As per the parts/segments idea above, if the parts all have targeted ideas or examples, you might be able to cherry pick from an overall bank of screencasts to put together future presentations.
Beyond all that, I guess, screencasted versions of your presentations or workshops allow you to share your work or ideas far more widely. If your material is worthy enough of an audience of 40 on a given day, why not make it available to 4000 other people on any day of the year?
If workshops and presentations are things you do regularly (or want to do more) I really recommend considering some screencasting for a bit more of an edge when it comes to rehearsing and reviewing your ideas.
This is an online workshop resource I have put together, both as support/review material for attendees at a recent PD session I did at Gordon TAFE but also for people completely fresh to the notion of DIPA(CT) who might like to utilize the tutorials below for some personal professional development or just exploration of ideas.
DIPA(CT) is a personal and rather simple approach to teaching and learning, and while the examples provided here are meant for a vocational education context I daresay that the basic principles are at least reasonably relevant to almost all subjects and teaching/learning contexts.
For the sake of convenience, I have broken the workshop into separate parts, in order (though of course you may like to pay more attention to some over others).
PART 1: Introduction and Warm Up
PART 2: DIPA(CT) Defined and Explained
PART 3: DIPA(CT) in Action - Manufacturing Technology
PART 4: DIPA(CT) in Action - Applied Literacy
PART 5: DIPA(CT) in Action - Carpentry
PART 6: Wrap Up and Final Reflections
The two references at the end there are to this actual blog post and the extensive step-by-step tutorial I made some time back for screencasting - available here.
Hope DIPA(CT) gave you a few things to think about... thanks for watching (and thinking), if you did! And don't be shy in dropping any feedback or impressions in the comments section below.
In a previous post I demonstrated how to set up basic groups within Moodle courses, and mentioned that one of the advantages of this set up was that it becomes easier to check or track grades and activity according to specific groups (for example, individual classes of learners) rather than having to wade through the results of an entire cohort.
When you go to check grades or progress, two of the most common routes are via the grader report or user report. Here's how you can check results for designated groups for both of those report settings:
Just note that if you're having trouble seeing those group options in the reports (drop down menus), you may need to go back and do a tiny bit of tinkering with your overall course settings:
Settings > Edit Settings > Groups > Group Mode > Visible Groups
Trust me, when you're doing a lot of checking and tracking across a number of different classes, having them set up in groups and accessing the grader or user reports in this way can save you a lot of time.
Hope you found this useful, and if you're after more Moodle tutorials the entire bank is here.
Adam Hills makes a very good point? About the way Australians inflect up at the end of many sentences? To make it sound like a question? 'Coz we're kinda insecure? And we need your approval? Or we just like to ask questions that don't actually need answers?
I think this is a brilliant resource for ESL learners (though Dutch students may not like the stereotype joke at their expense). Aside from the pronunciation/intonation points, there are nice opportunities to draw on the content for chats about Australian history, particularly the discovery of the continent by Europeans, and to have a bit of a larf along the way...
Activity resource sheets for learners and teachers:
This is a beautifully simple and accessible telling of the Rainbow Serpent story which is so central to so much of Australia's indigenous dreamtime culture.
Here are some activity sheets to go with the oral text:
Certificate III ESL (Access) components targeted and tracked through the activities:
Unit C22 (VPAU503): Give and respond to a range of straightforward instructions and informational texts.
Element 1: Interpret an informational oral text
Performance Criteria 1.1: Identify the context, topic and purpose of an informational oral text
Performance Criteria 1.2: Outline main ideas, opinions and attitudes expressed
Performance Criteria 1.3: Locate supporting information or details
Performance Criteria 1.4: Identify the tone and register of the text, and any inferred meaning
Performance Criteria 1.5: Express an opinion about the ideas or issues raised
Just note that there is also a nice written text accompanying the video which gives some interesting background information about the dreamtime notion. It could make for a reading outcome as a natural extension or follow up from the oral text.
This was an interesting resource to research and develop. It presents two different versions of the same core song - Beds are Burning; the recent version produced as part of the Tck Tck Tck Campaign to promote awareness of climate change in the lead up to the Copenhagen Summit, and the original version from the band Midnight Oil, which was inspired by the Pintupi tribe and their move in from and then back out to the isolation of Australia's Western Desert.
Two very different 'causes', and it is interesting to look at how the lyrics are different for each version according to their purpose.
To best showcase this, I've built a webpage featuring both music videos and the lyrics for each in a scroll box beneath, side by side for easy comparison. In addition, for each version I've added a series of key words and links to graded (or gradable) texts on Google Search that explore a variety of issues or topics relevant to each rendition of the Beds are Burning song.
For ESL application, just listening to and comparing the lyrics can be a really interesting exercise. The main ideas and 'roots' in each set of lyrics make for clear comparisons, but at phrase level there are also some great opportunities to explore language (for example to take a stand versus to say fair's fair, or turning back versus give it back).
These texts are also well set up for Certificate III in ESL (Access) and the following element/performance criteria:
Unit C24 (VPAU505): Read and write a range of straightforward informational, instructional and other texts.
Element 1: Analyse a range of informational texts
Performance Criteria 1.1: Scan informational text and identify the context and topic
Performance Criteria 1.2: Identify the main ideas or issues
Performance Criteria 1.3: Locate supporting information or examples
Performance Criteria 1.4: Identify conventions of informational texts
Performance Criteria 1.5: Analyse the structure and discourse features of the texts
Performance Criteria 1.6:Respond to the text, outlining any opinions expressed, and state own opinion about the topic
Learners could be encouraged to tackle both texts as part of this outcome, or the one that interests them most. Alternatively, they could follow the links featured alongside each set of lyrics and source their own reading text on a more specific topic (anything from climate change to The Pintupi Nine). This is a great way to marry extensive reading with some basic tech skills oriented around particular themes.
Besides reading, there are plenty of opportunities to have classroom discussions or negotiate writing topics feeding out of the content available on the web page.
One or more of the texts available through this resource could also build towards any of a number of ESL Framework Elective Units (for example, Current Issues, Indigenous Australia, Environment of Australia, Australian History, etc.)
See more of this these sorts of resources over at the English Oz section of this blog.
This is another theme or content area that Mrs. Raven has pointed me to, claiming that many female students like to engage with this sort of material. I must confess, even as a 'bloke' I found it rather interesting, in a "oh, so that's how they do it, is it?" sort of way...
In any case, this material is spot on for Element 3: Follow a set of verbal instructions for a familiar process or procedure in the Certificate III in ESL (Access) unit Give and respond to a range of straightforward instructions and informational texts.
Here's the video input (also referenced in the learning activity resource below):
Here are the worksheets for learners and teachers:
You've entered your Moodle page for the first time, and managed to put a basic header image at the top of the course...
Now, what to do with all those blank unit/topic blocks?
There are plenty of ways you might go about utilising these topic blocks to organise, sequence and present your course content and activities. It depends a lot on the nature of the course and what is involved, but here are a couple of examples and options that might help you at the initial stage:
These examples are fairly basic for now, so don't be afraid to experiment and play around with how you utilise the unit/topic blocks.
Check out my Moodle Tutorials page for other demonstrations on what you can do with unit/topic blocks, like adding content and 'decorating' them to look more appealing on the course page.
I think one of the important things to come to grips with when it comes to Moodle is that it is an LMS -- a Learning Management System, and not (by default) limited to being only a system for online tasks and grades for those tasks.
As we all know, not all learning happens (or needs to happen) in front of a computer. But that doesn't mean Moodle can't be your central gathering place for all task work and assessments, irrespective of the context or objectives they involve.
You can, for example, use the Moodle LMS as a place to feature introductions and instructions for offline, more hands-on or F2F interactive tasks, as well as incorporate assessment for those tasks in the one central Moodle gradebook.
One way to do that simply and conveniently is to set up a section in your gradebook for 'offline' tasks (named however it suits your course -- for example: fitness tasks, class discussions, onsite work tasks, etc.) and utilise the 'offline assignment' tool:
See a larger, higher definition version of this video here.
That's all fine and dandy, but you might like to go a bit further than that...
Even though a task happens offline, there are ways we can facilitate reflection and deeper awareness of those tasks here in the Moodle interface (encouraging more integration of LLN, for example), AND provide crucial evidence of those offline, F2F, practical, action-based tasks.
To do that, the 'offline assignment' activity tool probably isn't our best option, because (based on the format of that tool) the learners can't contribute any sort of follow up work to the task and we can't attach any files of our own.
Using the 'upload a file' assignment activity, we can document and work around offline tasks to include valuable follow up and consolidation for the learners and provide specific evidence of task performance or completion via photographs, audio or video.
Here's one way this can be done in Moodle:
See a larger, higher definition version of this video here.
Basically, using Moodle task and assessment tools, you can still create a sort of 'one stop shop' for all the important documentation and assessment information, but do so in ways that allow you to document and track a huge range of both online and offline tasks.
Great for centralised tracking... whether you're a learner, a teacher, a program manager, or an auditor.
I really like my Galaxy S phone and Galaxy Tab 10.1. The operating system Samsung has meshed over Android works wonderfully if you asked me, and watching the ten colleagues at work with their iPad 2s hasn't sparked a remotely jealous bone in my body. And I must admit, it's rather nice to be using a device from a company not associated with slave labour in China and a disturbingly cult-like marketing system.
Will be interesting to check out the Windows 8 in the very near future, though...
Last week I ran some sessions with my Year 12 Applied Literacy students based around helping them design their own curriculum. It consisted of a sort of open worksheet/grid, with the broad literacy outcomes listed in one column and three open/blank columns with the headings 'My Trade', 'GTEC projects' (meaning the projects they are involved in at or as part of school), and 'Personal Interest'. From there it was just a lot of chatting as the groups negotiated with me about what sorts of material would best fit where, some note-taking on the grid, then reviewing and typing out the self-directed learning plan and uploading it on their Moodle course page.
Here is a sample self-designed literacy curriculum made by a carpentry student:
And here is one designed by a heavy (diesel) automotive student:
They only need to meet each outcome through two separate tasks, so having three is a bit of a safety measure, bearing in mind that topics we think of today may not be topics we want to do in 3-4 months' time. They can change any part of the grid they want at any time (including the column headers), except for the Literacy Outcomes one -- which we are obliged by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority to address if we plan to hand out Certificates in Applied Learning at the end of the year...
Basically, now they work to their own plan at their own pace in the order they feel most comfortable with from one lesson to the next. They find their own texts using the Internet, or texts they already have access to (magazines, Trade School books, etc.), access a range of writing and reading report templates I've created for them, and from there my job is to just facilitate (especially with regards to the generic program outcomes) and then assess.
In other words, we have 47 separate syllabuses running for Year 12 Literacy at GTEC this year, and there is nothing frightening about that at all.
Funnily enough, towards the end of the week I returned to my desk after a class and found a publisher's brochure sitting there waiting for me. I glanced through and found a Literacy Skills textbook on offer. I scanned through the archaic looking list of unit and topic items there, thought about the 47 syllabuses we'd generated that week, and couldn't help but notice that this coursebook someone was trying to sell to me and my students only had something that looked like a single silly bus.
I couldn't for the life of me see that book, or any other single book, ever making the cut for the classrooms I work with now.
Using Moodle to complete coursework isn't always a walk in the park for a lot of learners, depending on the course content, design and relative online learning experience of your students.
One way to facilitate understanding of where to go, what to do (and how) for your learners is to create a unit walk through resource for each Moodle unit/topic block. You could do this with text and images, but I've found that an audio-visual resource like a screencast gets things across in the most dynamic and effective way.
Here is an example unit walk through video I've just finished as part of a new Moodle course:
That's fine, and perhaps that's all the learners will need. We could create a link to this video at the start of the unit it applies to, perhaps supported via a direct email with the same link.
However, I've generally found it's better to go a bit further than just showing an instructional video. I feature my unit walk through as an introductory 'assignment' that learners need to complete before engaging with the main unit materials. They need to take notes about the video to help them pay more specific attention to it, and to show me just what each learner has understood about what they need to do in the unit.
This process can help answer a lot of questions or misunderstandings before learners get into their coursework, and it helps me target the students who need more specific or hands on assistance.
Here's how I do that in Moodle using the Lesson -> Essay Question function (basically, access to the unit walk through an embedded video and some prompts in 'essay mode' for the learners to take notes or ask questions in response to:
If you're curious about the screencast angle here, I've got an extensive tutorial on how to make screencastselsewhere on this blog.
Good luck with it!
;-)
All of my Moodle tutorials are available in an ongoing bank of resources featured here.
Our Year 11 Applied Learning students have completed their intensive foundation literacy course in Term 1 (mainly geared around some literacy basics and integrated with tool and workplace safety considerations) and next week many of them will commence the next (Intermediate VCAL) level.
Based on a revision of what we did with students last year, and bearing in mind we teach 16-17 year old learners preparing for trades, here's what we have in store for them...
The learners read a complex text written by a teacher, talking about a particular skill or attribute he has. The text explores where the skill might have developed from (in childhood experience), how it helps in professional life now, and how it might be developed further for different future applications.
Following a range of comprehension tasks targeting purpose, main ideas, supporting ideas and effectiveness of the text, students then compare this text with one they did themselves last term listing their own skills and attributes (with the comparison being more about how the texts are organised and presented).
Students then write their own 'in the know' texts, talking about a particular skill or attribute of their own.
The learners work their way through an assignment that helps them identify all sorts of important information about their given trade and regulations governing apprenticeships. It features everything from trade-specific union details to government regulations and minimum wages for different years of an apprenticeship.
Based on what they find and read, the learners compile a detailed report to present the important information.
The learners read an advisory/instructional text from one of the country's most popular recruitment websites explaining what should go into resumes for school leavers. After demonstrating a comprehension of the text, they compare it to an actual resume made for an apprentice electrician and see how and where the resume applies the specific advice from the article.
Of course, from there the learners go ahead and create their own work resume.
The learners read two very different texts that both present information about they key (pun intended) tools for locksmithing. They complete comprehension questions and a detailed comparison of the two texts (particularly in terms of which would be more useful for a beginner level locksmith apprentice).
Following that the learners create their own 'tools of the trade' texts, targeting 4-6 of the most important tools they think new apprentices need to know about for their own trades and emulating the more informative of the two texts they read about locksmithing tools.
The learners read two different texts explaining how to do or build something. They demonstrate comprehension of both texts and compare them in detail, commenting on their effectiveness.
Based on the text they found to be clearest or most useful, the students then create their own how to texts, based on a process or outcome common to their personal interest or work experience to date.
The learners compose work journals based on a period of work placement, integrated with material they already put together for their Work Related Skills modules.
Following this they then look at two fellow students' work journals and complete some comprehension and comparison/effectiveness notes. This, in addition to comprising reading comprehension outcomes, becomes a feedback process for students to adapt and improve their own initial work journal drafts.
The learners read an extensive comment made on a forum about the topic of bullying apprentices at work (in this case an older experienced tradesperson reflecting on his own experiences and lambasting some of the comments from younger people on the forum claiming that bullying is just fun and games). They then compare this with a recent report on a news website explaining new laws and punishments for workplace bullying in the wake of the suicide of a young person who was bullied mercilessly at work.
Based on what they have read and explored, the learners are asked to respond to the question: Should workplace bullies be sent to jail? They have the option of completing an argumentative or discursive piece on the topic.
Students read a text from a newspaper about the issue of Lewis Hamilton being fined for 'hooning' and having his car impounded while in Melbourne for the Grand Prix a couple of years ago. In the same article, Mark Webber is quoted as saying that his own state (Victoria) has become a 'nanny state'.
This text is explored and compared to two other texts: one about a journalist who lost his own brother at a young age from a road accident (in response to Mark Webber's comment and quoting all sorts of statistics based on Victoria's TAC campaigns), and an obituary article written by our school's own principal following the horrific road accident death of one of our own students (weeks after he obtained his license) a couple of years ago.
Based on these readings, learners are then invited to respond to the question: Do we in fact live in a 'nanny state' in Victoria, when it comes to road rules?
All of this material is facilitated through our Moodle LMS, with both in-class and distance mode options available. And of course, in support of the 'emergent' curriculum, learners are free to replace any or all of these units with ones of their own design -- so long as they can show that they are meeting the VCAL Literacy outcomes at Intermediate level.
Later I'll present Part 2 of this applied literacy curriculum business and try to demonstrate how we do things at Year 12 level. Very different!
This is a bit of a Moodle tutorial 'by request'... As part of a kind comment on the post and tutorial I featured about making navigation menus to avoid the so-called 'scroll of death' in Moodle (available here), Julie asked me how I managed to format background colours for individual table cells as opposed to having the whole table change to one background colour.
The solution/process is demonstrated below, Julie!
I made this tutorial some time ago and for some reason neglected to upload it here on the blog. It covers some of the important basics for someone new to Moodle in terms of just working with topic/unit blocks to start featuring and organising content and assignments within a given course unit or focus. In many ways this draws together a number of other targeted tutorials I've already made (you'll see the relevant links below), but in this case the whole process of creating a unit is built and presented in one sequence.
What you will see here includes:
Making a simple name or title for a unit/topic block
Adding different learning resources to that particular unit (in this case a video file and a worksheet in MS Word format) -> Also demonstrated here
Including an assignment upload requirement -> Also shown here
Demonstration of how students can go about uploading their assignments
Finding the uploaded assignments students have submitted -> Shown in detail here
'Dressing up' the unit/topic block with a picture/icon and some introductory information (this is also featured in a targeted tutorial located here)
All of my Moodle tutorials are now gathered in one place here, so hope you find something useful there!
Here are a couple of new Moodle tutorials I've just finished putting together for colleagues. They cover some of the basics of setting up and organising gradebook items -- including some of the confusion and mistakes you may need to deal with -- for a Moodle course (Part 1), and then how to upload assignments that can align with your gradebook categories, or create independent grade items not linked to specific uploads or tasks on the course page (Part 2).
Part 1:
Part 2:
For more of my Moodle tutorials, check out the posts here.
LM is one of my brighter and more dedicated Year 12 VCAL Literacy students. He made tremendous strides throughout last year at Intermediate level and is now a very capable and confident VCAL Senior level reader and writer. From his particular trade group (Carpentry) he is probably one of the best performing students.
His Mahara e-Portfolio is looking great so far. He has finished the Writing for Self Expression outcome with flying colours, with two pieces of writing that really express him and the trade he is involved in. His first piece is a thoughtful presentation of how he believes his trade will change over the next 5, 50 and 500 years. Following up from that is an introspective piece about himself as a carpenter, where he has come from and where he plans to go in work and life. He wrote the second one using the second person point of view, which subtly changes the way certain things are expressed and come across to the reader: it's rather like seeing an articulate young carpenter writing on a mirror.
Now this is all great, but as I perused his online portfolio late last week I wandered over to the left hand column to check out the music clips he'd embedded there. What I saw and heard there had me scratching my head because it represents a bit of a dilemma.
Embedding favourite music clips from YouTube is something I've encouraged all the learners to do, to make their portfolios their own and to create a space that expresses them as young people. The idea is to make the portfolio a place they want to visit and spend time in and, as we explore notions of audience, a place for friends and peers to visit as well.
The idea of audiences for writing has changed dramatically for our learners this year. No longer is writing about handing in something to 'please' a literacy teacher, cater to an audience of '1.8' and simply 'get through' a VCAL-imposed outcome. Many of these young people, via their linked up e-Portfolios, are attempting to write for and entertain their peers.
I'm proud of and intrigued by this development. However, when I browse over LM's excellent portfolio and think about how it could be something brilliant to show his parents and potential employers, I get to the music clips and pause.
The Sydney-based hip hop group doing their moves there in the left hand column are actually pretty cool. The music gives the e-Portfolio a nice background sound which adds to the picture we get of LM as a young person (and young carpenter) in the world.
It's when the repetitive lines about girlies 'shaking their titties' and various acts of oral sex and more specific features of female anatomy start booming through your speakers that I, as a teacher, a parent and citizen, can't help physically flinching.
To be perfectly fair to LM, almost every single one of his carpentry peers has featured very similar 'bad boy gangster hip hop' music on his e-Portfolio page. This is what they listen to on their iPods and on YouTube at home or at parties, on the way to school and during breaks at work. And when you actually listen a little more closely, you realise the lyrics aren't quite as insensitive and throw away as they first seem. These artists are making a variety of points that reflect contemporary ways of self expression and it's not always as inherently shallow and offensive as us 'crusty oldies' tend to reflexively assume.
Let's face it, there was a time when the Beatles and the Doors had parents in uproar over their 'sexually explicit' lyrics. The stuff I was listening to as a 17-year-old had my parents frowning, too. I guess what tends to be hard is that over the generations music artists' lyrics have become progressively (some would say regressively or aggressively) less subtle and more direct.
This goes well beyond what I'm seeing in writing portfolios. I recently heard my (then) 9-year-old niece listening to the Katy Perry album she'd bought herself with birthday money and almost fell out the window in shock when certain lyrics came blaring out.
So, as you can see, I have a bit of a dilemma on my hands.
If these portfolios truly are 'theirs', and they want to feature music that reflects their tastes, what right do I have to say what is or isn't appropriate?
Okay, well these portfolios are being made at school as part of the school's pay-for e-Learning tools. I'm hunting around now for the school's official social media policies and requirements, and I'm pretty sure that (1) potentially offensive lyrics won't be part of the school's social media vision, and (2) the decision to keep these e-Porfolios in private group mode to start with was a very wise one!
And then there was the idea, mainly suggested by me, that these portfolios could be used to supplement work applications. I'm not sure, but I doubt any self-respecting carpenter in his 50s or 60s would be impressed by the lyrics coming out of these pages, no matter how interesting, articulate or trade-specific the actual writing is.
However, we've established that the portfolios can be just their own space, about them, for themselves and their peers...
And the school has an established 'youth engagement' policy...
And these songs and lyrics and artists give me so many insights into my learners, as well as valid talking points to facilitate debate and discussion...
And I seriously doubt many carpenters in their 50s or 60s (or even 30s or 40s) would bother to look at/for an online e-Portfolio when considering applicants for apprenticeships...
And yet, in the end they'll probably need to go, these YouTube clips.
I have a very good relationship with my students and I know they will understand. But there is a significant part of me that feels that I will be betraying them in a way, shutting down a very real part of them as well as the sorts of windows that shed useful light on how to engage a traditionally hard-to-engage cohort.
Can you see the dilemma?
How would you handle it? What would you say to LM, the articulate and motivated young carpenter who has shown you a very real side of himself as well as music his peers would all appreciate (as well as be willing to discuss and debate with some degree of genuine interest)?
To guide a single student through the multiple and occasionally complex procedures involved in setting up a Mahara e-Portfolio (according to the requirements I have created for our overall senior literacy course) takes something like 20-30 minutes.
I have approximately 50 students in the senior literacy cohort. To give them all the 1-1 attention to set up e-Portfolios would take around 20 hours.
Okay, admittedly there are more efficient ways of guiding groups of students through processes like this one.
I could, for example, work through the set up procedures on the wall screen while students watch and follow along and apply the same procedures on their own computers. Generally speaking, given the different pace of each student (for various reasons), the pausing and checking and fixing involved would probably mean something close to 1 hour to get a whole class up and running on Mahara the way I've planned for them to.
One hour is a lot less than 20. But given we have at least five Year 12 groups attending separate classes at separate times, the process is still going to take at least 5 hours. If all goes well and nobody is away...
So, depending on circumstances, let's conservatively estimate that getting 50 Year 12 students thoroughly set up on Mahara and submitting their literacy tasks there is going to involve somewhere between 5 and 20 hours of (my) overall classroom time.
Considering that I planned, rehearsed, recorded and uploaded a series of four screencasts demonstrating how to do this for students in a period of about 2 hours, and that every student has managed to follow and apply them (not always on the first try, but certainly by the second or third) almost fully indepedently, I have saved myself -- depending on how you calculate the alternative measures -- somewhere between 3 and 18 hours of overall classroom time.
If that isn't enough bottled time to impress you, consider the fact that I also use screencasts for a whole range of things from outcome overviews to practical applications and skills demonstrations, supported with a range of automated quizzes to check students' understanding... I'll do the math at some point (and perhaps, recognising my limitations as a mere English teacher, enlist the help of my Numeracy teacher colleague) but I figure that I'm firmly on track to make time something I have more of for the things that really count.
That's time I have been able to put back into the sorts of teaching/learning activities (getting to know learners as people, discussing and negotiating tasks, giving feedback on writing efforts, etc.) that make teachers indispensable in classroom contexts.
Just as importantly, I think that 20-30 minutes each learner has gone through setting themselves up with an e-Portfolio is a crucial confirmation that they can do complex multi-layered tasks on their own at a pace they personally find manageable.
My Year 12 students are moving along to this outcome now in their VCAL Senior Literacy coursework, and I thought I would share the outcome overview video I have prepared for them as part of their Moodle course.
Based on the video, my students need to prepare a detailed report explaining, in a logical and concise way, what writing for practical purposes involves.
Sort of like writing about writing for practical purposes, for practical purposes...
One of the great things about being a literacy teacher in a vocational/applied learning program is the regular opportunity to integrate literacy tasks with real world applications, but also to use literacy to reinforce knowledge or awareness about important considerations students really need take on board.
The example above shows how we have taken our students' Practical Placement Invoice Book -- a really crucial piece of documentation for our students' workplace experience blocks -- and reinforced students' awareness of it via an applied literacy task.
Leesa, our eminently talented ILO (Industry Liaison Officer), made good use of our GTEC team PD sessions last December (on how to make screencasts) to produce this very clear and professional screencast demonstrating how to complete the practical placement invoices and why various sections were really important:
[Note: Personal details in the screencast version of the form are purely fictional examples!]
This follows up from in-class demonstrations and instructions and one-on-one checking and follow up, but the aural as well as visual approach is really important in making crucial information accessible to the students in our particular cohort. And yet, there are still many individuals who forget things or don't pay attention when they really should...
... which is why a literacy task applying the video and asking students to write an email to a classmate explaining all the ins and outs of the invoice book can be just the ticket to check and make sure every student has really been paying attention.
Literacy gets a VCAL Foundation Writing for Practical Purposes outcome task out of it, learners get a real world application, and Leesa gets some reassurance that students are actually watching the video and paying attention to it.
You've set your assignment on the course page as an upload option (for tips and demonstrations on how to do this, click here), students have completed and uploaded them... so what do you do now?
This tutorial shows two different ways to get to the submitted assignments and a couple of options for grading and responding to them.
(To get a larger and higher resolution version of this screencast, click on the YouTube link at the bottom of the video and select one of the larger viewing modes).
Of all the great things we experience as teachers, I think trying out new things and stumbling upon new revelations about what works and what doesn't would have to be right up there. In my field (literacy) with my learners ('disengaged' students aged 16-18 preparing for work in the 'hard trades' area), the challenges can be steep and the rewards quite remarkable.
Three weeks into a new term in a new year, I've really been enjoying VCAL Senior Literacy. The curriculum I inherited part way through the second term last year (when I commenced) ticked all of the boxes when it comes to overall VCAL cross-curricular integration, but it had been built from a teaching and teaching team perspective with very little input from (or scope for negotiation with) the actual students. The result was a constant struggle for traction on a track the learners found themselves slipping and sliding all over (if not off completely, with the muffled sound of crashing amongst trees in the wilderness), in the end made to happen/work through the painstaking building of rapport and trust with the teacher.
Let me just point out that these sorts of programs are not inherently poor. A lot of painstaking work and sincere effort goes into them. They occasionally feature real gems and meet audit requirements admirably. They just don't always work all that well, and sometimes--based on over reliance on and misplaced faith in design and documentation features--it is the learners who get the automatic blame if they don't perform all that well within certain parameters.
This year has been very different.
The first formal outcome listed for Senior VCAL Literacy is Writing for Self Expression. This can be a hard one to pitch to lads who are disengaged from the broader high school landscape and want to qualify themselves to become tradesmen. Builders don't generally want to 'write about me' and young plumbers and mechanics generally don't want to engage in any sort of storytelling that isn't strictly audio-visual and available on YouTube.
Despite those challenges, writing for self expression is actually working this year, and here's how it has gone so far...
1. Starting with and focussing on the outcome
In a move that some teachers might find themselves instinctively disagreeing with, this year I have avoided an attempt at subtle 'embedding' or 'naturalisation' of the outcome. I've approached the learners from the same perspective I find myself approaching courses I've recently done or am currently doing -- qualification stuff that doesn't always passionately interest me but has to be done if I am going to get through and advance my prospects.
Basically, that means explaining the outcome in formal and logical terms somewhat similar to the way it is presented and documented in the official VCAL curriculum guide. To successfully pass this outcome, you need to do a, b and c (etc.).
So we start with a short screencast explaining the outcome...
... which is followed up by an interactive quiz in their Moodle coursework page to check what they've understood and how they think the outcome might be applied.
So far so good. My learners always respond well to screencast tutorials, and they seem to appreciate having the learning requirements spelled out for them. I'm not hearing (as many) complaints about having to do tasks as part of this outcome, and this is very different from the cacophony of objections I heard last year about having to write a work journal entry or respond to an 'expressive' newspaper article nailed down and pre-embedded in the curriculum.
Which brings me to the next consideration...
2. Learner-selected topics for self expression
As nice as it can be to have a limited number of ready-to-use writing topics and tasks that address the outcome and help to tick off outcomes in other parts of the overall VCAL curriculum (and as convenient as it can be to look at and grade learners according to consistent topics across the whole cohort), I've done away with this completely and let the learners choose and negotiate their own topics.
Of course, this can result in the blank stare and despair of not having a clue what to write about, so what I have done is create an extensive list of thematically grouped writing topics which they can pick and choose from and adapt and negotiate with me.
As you can see, this goes beyond a simple list of writing topic suggestions. It includes a range of suggestions covering things like titles, audience(s), purpose(s) and text types.
It also includes links to my own writing in response to some of these topics. Learners who really need samples to work through and emulate in terms of style and topical focus appreciate this, and I think most all of the learners appreciate the fact that the teacher is willing to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.
So far, no complaints about not having a topic to write about (or not knowing what to write about in response to a topic), and that's a welcome change.
3. An emphasis on literary devices
Before the learners choose and write in response to topics, their Moodle course page includes an interactive tutorial about a small range of literary devices that can help make creative/expressive writing more interesting and effective. These cover, as a base, things like point of view, similes, effective use of adjectives and what I like to call 'expressive action words' (for example, saying a nailgun spat a nail into some wood, or a song roared out of the living room).
Extensive examples are given for each literary device, including ones from my own writing attempts (mentioned above) to help showcase them in the context of full length texts. The learners then need to create their own sentences applying each literary device via controlled practice and then an overall review incorporating them all.
Some of them have grumbled a bit about this, but most have had fun with it. The building and construction student who turned 'the hammer is old' into the hammer is as old as my grandpa's balls showed how creativity and vivid imagery aren't lost in/on trade students, but also sparked a useful conversation about the notions of audience, purpose and appropriacy...
Following first drafts I now ask students to point out the literary devices they've used. Some have had go back to the tutorial again to re-examine the devices and then make them the focus of an improved second draft. Most, however, are already using them quite readily in the first draft and can point them out to me on the page without hesitation.
Generally speaking, this emphasis on literary devices has resulted in far more creative and expressive writing right from the start (compared to what I saw last year).
4. Multiple text types and points of view
Given the outcome requires two or more complete writing pieces, I've asked the learners to ensure that each one applies a different text type and point of view (as in, writing 'voice' from the first, second or third person).
In essence, what the learners see and are expected to choose and plan their different pieces according to is:
So to meet the outcome, we need at least one of each text type, and one of each point of view.
To some degree the identification of text types in topic suggestions (see point 2 above) has helped the learners here, as has the emphasis and controlled practice with points of view (see point 3 above), but this has been a real revelation in terms of getting the learners to widen their writing experience and express themselves in different ways from different angles.
As an example, the plumbing student I have who always claims to 'HATE writing stories' found it was a bit of a different prospect to write one from the second person point of view. The challenge of writing the story 'to' a reader ended up capturing his interest and moving him away from his automatic dislike for story writing.
Another student discovered how much more freedom there was in writing an 'expressive' piece from a third person point of view (rather than the first), as well as protection (he could make it not look or feel like a 'this is me' piece). A couple of other students have written some quite fascinating stories based on (or 'inside') songs and video clips, with different points of view resulting in very different effects.
Some are struggling slightly with the two angles to consider, but the result has been a lot of questions and requests for confirmation in response to attempts to angle a piece of writing this way or that way -- not automatic or outright negativity.
I see more width and depth developing in these kids' writing (as well as overall critical thinking and empathy) based on different text types and points of view, and it makes my spirit soar.
5. Published pieces of writing in an e-Portfolio
Last year completed writing work was printed and stuffed away into a folder. This year it gets published on the Internet in an e-Portfolio platform provided by Mahara, which allows them to integrate their writing with images and video clips.
First person narrative fiction...
Third person expressive/narrative based on music clip (featured alongside)
I've written about these e-Portfolio developments elsewhere and it's a bit of an ongoing project I have going this year. Let's just say these notions of using technology and the cloud, applying multiple forms of media and actually 'publishing' finished writing are having a majorly positive impact on most of my students.
So all up, VCAL Senior Literacy and Writing for Self Expression have progressed wonderfully for us so far this year.
More to live and learn in this process, of course, but I suspect a lot more to enjoy as well.
If you're building course work through the Moodle LMS, one method of gathering content you might like to explore is the book module.
I've found this a very useful way of presenting a sequence of content in Moodle, with easy navigation via a sidebar menu (removing a lot of the potential clutter that can appear in regular course pages) and the possibility of linking to specific pages in the book from various quizzes or assignments.
The book module is not a place for interactive elements (like quizzes or essay submissions, for example), but is a great way to gather together the content-rich elements of your course unit or units and keep it from cluttering up your topic blocks or becoming scattered via various individual files or pages.
Having built book modules into a couple of my courses, I created a series of three screencasts for a colleague looking to find a better way to gather together the video tutorial content he has been making for his own course.
1. How (and why) to set up the 'book module' in Moodle
2. Adding content/chapters to a book module
3. Linking to specific parts of the book module from other areas/resources
Hope those put the book module into some sort of perspective and provide some solid tips on how to implement it.
I'm helping the team of teachers I work with to build their own courses in Moodle and gathering screencast tutorials as I go...
Here are some tutorials for teachers at the 'starter' end of things, covering some basics concerning the building of downloadable work files (in a variety of different formats) and creating an assignment upload option.
In essence, this allows you to feature content or work files (for reading, viewing or writing) which the learners download and complete. They can then upload it for the teacher to view and grade via the upload option.
I've generally found that this is a good starting layer for teachers who want to allocate and collect task work on Moodle. There are other (more advanced) options, of course, but these skills are pretty easy to master and facilitate teachers getting a course happening without too much of a steep learning curve or big investment of their time (and hair pulling).
Another (major) advantage with the file download/assignment upload approach is that learners can save work files to their computer and not necessarily need an Internet connection or continuous access to Moodle in order to do their work.
Trust me... after a week that included major Internet access and operating system problems, I can assure you that this can be REALLY handy!
In a recent post (E-Portfolios Away!) I demonstrated the initial building process for our VCAL Literacy e-Portfolios using Mahara.
I was very excited today to see several students go beyond those templates to start submitting full writing pieces, complete with images, using the writing work file in the margin to document their draft work. It was also a joy to see them start personalising their general interface, including favourite YouTube music tracks and images that have particular meaning or appeal to them as individuals.
Here's a small showcase...
Of course, the best thing in all of this was the buzz... the lads were seriously into it. Students still engaged in their draft work were glancing over at the Mahara portfolio pages appearing and getting into their work with renewed vigour in order to get them up to this 'publishing' stage.
This is SOOOO different from literacy work that appears as printed out pages of text to be filed away in plastic folders...
Just made these screencast tutorials for the team I'm working with as eLearning coordinator and thought I would pass them along here on the blog for those in my PLN who are starting out with Moodle and want some tips and tricks...
The idea here is to create a simple menu at the top of your Moodle course page that allows your learners to click and have only the relevant unit or cluster appear on the page. Essentially, this removes the 'scroll of death' issue if you find your learners are having to wade down through dozens of units to find something.
If you've found a better way to do/present this, please, by all means let me know (and even better: screencast how/why to do it!).
Having fun doing the same VCAL portfolio work I'm asking students to do...
One week into the new term at GTEC at The Gordon and I must admit that I am delighted at how well the e-Portfolio project I've initiated with our Year 12 cohort is turning out.
We're using Mahara e-Portfolios, attached to our Moodle coursework pages. I've written previously about the blogging with students initiative as part of VCAL Senior Literacy (part 1 and part 2), as well as the decision to broaden out the whole blogging idea into an e-Portfolio with Mahara.
It's been interesting to experiment and see what might best facilitate quick uptake of the e-Portfolios in terms of interest level, independent set up and then actual use. So far, the strategy of building a portfolio myself (applying the same literacy outcomes I am asking students to tackle--as demonstrated in the picture above) and screencasting each stage as a demonstrative tutorial seems to have paid off quite nicely.
Mahara set up and application screencast tutorials featured on students' Moodle course page...
In what I consider to be a masterstroke of practical forward-thinking, the education development team at The Gordon has created a seamless link between Moodle and Mahara applications. What that means is that students who have already been registered in Moodle as course participants get their Mahara account activated using the same user IDs and passwords. So essentially, we can link straight out of the Moodle coursework to their e-Portfolio accounts and they're instantly accessible at the click of a link.
Using the screencast tutorials for students to set up and format their e-Portfolios has also worked out well. Out of about 50 students, approximately half or so have managed to get the whole set up organised fully independently (including many who did so over at The Gordon library or at home). Of the remainder, about half managed to get most of it right but needed some assistance to tweak certain things into shape. The rest needed some active guidance from (either from teacher or fellow student), but even then the screencasts formed a background awareness that allowed the helper to just give oral instructions or gesture to parts of the screen; students were still building the e-Portfolio with their own fingers at the keyboard.
It's so important that, with about a dozen students needing active assistance, it was possible to have the remainder of the students going ahead and doing things independently while the students who needed the help got it, and promptly. Nobody has been left behind in the overall process.
Based on my sample e-Portfolio and the screencasts showing how I built it, all the students quickly developed their Mahara 'Views' into a basic template that looks like this:
Our basic layout template, with scope for individual 'decoration' in the left hand column...
The basic idea is to have profile and personal features (like pics and videos) in the left hand column, a 'blog' occupying the broader central column where literacy task final drafts are uploaded (with planning and drafts attached), and a list of blog posts and writing/reading work folders in the right hand column. The work folders have been set up in a way that means the attached planning and drafting files appear here in list format automatically, with coded abbreviations referencing specific VCAL Literacy outcomes.
An uploaded student blog post, with planning and drafting files attached and listed
I'm also very happy with the individualisation going on with the writing. Some pretty exhaustive preparation of potential writing topics has been done, with grouped themes and information about potential audience and purpose as well as writing prompts organised by text types. There has been no room whatsoever for the oh so common 'but I have no idea what to write about' complaint, and students are still free to adapt or work completely outside the suggestions given.
One of several thematic groupings of writing topics for 'Writing for Self Expression' provided to students
What we have going here now is a very effective tool for gathering and presenting literacy work, with lots of scope for individualisation and personal preferences via multimedia applications. In many ways it brings teenage literacy more into the real (contemporary) world.
It is also set up in a way that admirably covers our auditing and QA needs. Grades and feedback are delivered privately in Moodle, with direct URL links to both finished products and the files showing the process that built them on Mahara.
And 'literacy' is just the start... Once they've learned how to build all this for one subject, the other teachers will be encouraging and facilitating them to build additional 'views' (or other folios all linked together within the one overall e-Portfolio) showcasing things like manufacturing technology skills (CAD), tool skills, work experience, community projects, fit for work development, etc.
However, and this is where it gets intriguing, we are also now in a zone where intellectual property (one quick example is the covering of creative commons options for images and appropriate methods of attribution or ownership) and responsible use of social media can be tackled.
At the moment, all of the e-Portfolios are in private mode linked only via the 'friends' option. Part of this course will be about how to analyse and differentiate between something like Facebook and a school/professional platform, and what is involved when it comes to certain (what I call) 'social media graces.'
Already we have a couple of Mahara pages that sort of resemble the grunt and grime of your average teenage boy's Facebook page. But it's there for us to see (within our private school circle), address, discuss and tackle from a social education perspective. And these are very much a tiny minority; already the vast majority of students (despite their so-called disengaged 'youth gone wild' reputations) are using these pages seriously and responsibly.
Eventually, when I and the school are satisfied an e-Portfolio is being used and presented appropriately, there will be the option to switch it over to public viewing and (we hope) as an online extension of the resume sent out to potential employers. Hopefully, we can lead the students towards these realisations and expectations through a process that involves individual development and judgment.
The most encouraging sign in all of this has been the students' reactions. Not a single complaint or whine about 'having' to build an e-Portfolio. For most, they've taken it so naturally in their stride that it's been rather like handing an apple seed to an orchard owner.
One learner even suggested, enthusiastically and somewhat more than half-seriously, that it was about time we renamed this course subject 'Literacy ICT.' It got me thinking, because I honestly see them as (increasingly) seamlessly merged anyway...
Anyway, initial successes with the VCAL Literacy e-Portfolios at GTEC. Let's see where it heads from here.
After one of the most pleasant breaks I can recall, and then a deliciously frantic couple of weeks mastering a new online delivery system alongside all the content I needed to gather together, tomorrow morning I finally get to meet a new cohort of 60-70 applied learning Year 11 students... and welcome back a similar number of Year 12 students from last year.
The eve of a new school term always intrigues me. Non-instuction periods can often feel great in terms of having the time to really think your way through and around your course offerings, but it never really feels quite right. Over the years I've come to realise that, without the learners in the building and in contact with you from day to day, it's never quite possible to capture the pulse of what is likely to work well and why.
I mean, we can do our very best to be professional and prepared. Like this (the introduction to one of my courses, followed up with a quiz to see how much of it has been absorbed and then a needs analysis activity):
However, in my final checklist of what I needed to have ready and waiting for the first day back at school tomorrow (today, actually, as I write this post), I ended up visualising the seat of a pair of pants.
"Those'll need some wings," I thought to myself.
Then, finally, I felt prepared.
Ready.
Excited about all the things Idon't know about the term ahead... Yet.
In a couple of previous posts (Part 1 here and Part 2 here) I looked at the rationales for blogging with students and what sorts of platforms I was considering.
In the end what I've decided to go with is Mahara, which includes a basic blogging platform but incorporates it into a range of features to build a full, highly logical and engaging e-Portfolio tool.
I think Mahara has enormous potential and given we have automatic access to it at our institute via our Moodle set up, I'm ready to give it a red hot go with our Year 12 cohort. As part of my preparations for the new school year I've gone into Mahara and made my own portfolio to really test it out, see what's possible and what could be potentially complicated or easy for my students.
The following screencasts have been put together to help get my students started with this e-Portfolio tool. Although they are obviously course and context-specific, if you're wondering what Mahara is and how it can be set up then these peeks might help to give you a better idea...
GTEC Mahara Set Up Tutorial 1
How to access the tool, set up a basic profile and get some file folders in order...
GTEC Mahara Set Up Tutorial 2
How to get a specific portfolio (or 'View' using the Mahara vernacular) set up...
GTEC Mahara Set Up Tutorial 3
How to select, store and apply images for some basic decoration...
GTEC Mahara Set Up Tutorial 4
How to 'show' the e-Portfolio by connecting with other users (teachers and classmates, etc.)...
GTEC Mahara Application 1
How to upload written work into a Mahara e-Portfolio in a way that captures final drafts as blog posts but also attaches a full file of all drafting work...
This is all for one subject (VCAL Senior Literacy) and Mahara allows for different Views/Portfolios for things like multiple subjects. It will be intriguing to see whether students and teachers go for it and add other portfolios for other subjects, and from there I will be interested to see how an e-Portfolio of this nature could be useful for things like job applications.
Entry/menu page for VCAL Foundation Literacy Course ready to go...
A little over a week from now, I'll be back in the classroom and doing my best to keep on my feet on a pitching deck full of new Year 11 VCAL students.
In addition to my Literacy teaching role, in 2012 I've taken on our Skills Centre eLearning Coordinator role at about the same time the organisation I work for (The Gordon Institute of TAFE) begins a pretty massive transition from Blackboard to Moodle for its LMS.
Hence from mid-December last year, on top of preparing for my own courses, I've needed to come to grips with this Moodle thing in a pretty big way, and fast, so that I can help facilitate eLearning for approximately 10 other teachers as well.
It's certainly been a rapid and steep learning curve, but a very satisfying one as well. What I thought might take myself and the teaching team anywhere from 6-12 months to come to grips with has actually become something we're well on top of before the first term even begins.
And that led me to thinking a little more... about what facilitates effective adoption of learning technologies. Here are some reflections at this point in time.
1. 'Faffing about' with edtech is SO important
Moodle, like a lot of other platforms and tools out there, doesn't exactly come easily -- particularly when you are looking to put together something that works well administratively from the 'back/teacher end' but is also practical and attractive from the 'front/student end.' It takes a lot of time to figure things out.
At a rough estimate I would say since the start of December last year I've put in about 100-200 hours of solid, occasionally hair-pulling work wrestling the Moodle Beast to the ground and subduing it to the point that it does what I want it to do. Getting the gradebook to work with our particular outcomes, using a specialised scale I built and embedded, took up an entire weekend alone. I'm also big on professional design and layout at the other end of the beast, so the hours have certainly slipped away on that front as well as I try and re-try all sorts of different applications and combinations.
This is the all-important 'faffing about' that you just can't avoid if you really want to understand a tech system and what it can do (and how it may misbehave). There's no gratuitous flick of a switch, nothing served up on a platter. You've got to be willing to put in the hard yards at the beginning, do a lot of playing about and experimenting, and even deliberately see how much you can 'break' stuff.
But to effectively faff about with edtech, you need a couple of other facilitative factors as well, and the most obvious of those is time.
2. Edtech development requires sufficient time
Prior to this position with this organisation, all of the other edtech tools and courses I've developed happened in contexts where time was either (1) just not available (think 50 week work years in places like North East Asia), and/or (2) not paid for (the organisation I worked for prior to this one in Australia wanted to pay me $21 per teaching hour, with a couple of hours for prep each week thrown in and no paid annual leave). Basically, I developed online courses and tools for institutes in my own time and out of my own pocket.
Here (at GTEC at The Gordon) things are very different. I've had close to 6 weeks of paid non-instruction time to get my head around and grapple with learning materials and Moodle. Splitting that period in half was close to three weeks of paid annual leave where I actually did go on holidays and not think about work. My colleagues are on the same basic wicket.
Time to recharge the batteries and time to really faff about with the edtech, without having to forfeit regular income. What a peculiar notion that feels like, after what I've experienced in the 10-12 years prior to that (but hey: I'm certainly not complaining!).
But consider also the results. In less than two months we have full courses ready to go on Moodle. Everyone on the teaching team has learned how to create screencasts, and a couple are now already starting to take ownership of the Moodle pages I set up for them.
GTEC's Manufacturing Technology course homepage on Moodle, already handed over to teacher Frank Priveti, who has commenced an absolutely brilliant series of screencasts on how to access and use the Autodesk Inventor (CAD) tool...
Our eLearning output and capacity has increased exponentially from one year to the next.
Why? Because the organisation and Skills Centre concerned were willing to invest one of the most absolutely crucial ingredients. Time. And time at the right time (if you get my drift).
But that idea of one person building and teaching and handing over to other teachers reminds me of the third essential thing that has struck me on this front...
3. Edtech development requires a person on the scene as part of the team
In a team of 10 teachers, we now have one teacher who is also the eLearning Coordinator, with one full day per week to develop and build up our edtech (a bit of a combination of building stuff for teachers and helping them to then go ahead and build it on their own). That person is also a member of the teaching team, doing for four days a week what everyone else has to regularly do: cope with the pressures and demands of a challenging teaching role.
This is far different from having, say, one teacher walk across to the other side of the campus once a week or fortnight for an hour or two to get specialised assistance with edtech development. And it is worlds away from going to the occasional half or full day 'edtech professional development' day, followed up by frustrated messages left on voicemail pleading for help on how to just open a new lesson activity (for those teachers who actually get motivated or brave enough to try on some edtech clothes as a result of the once-off seminar).
Teaching teams braving the complicated waters of edtech uptake need someone in the same office or just down the corridor, someone they know and who knows what they do and how and why. In some ways, I might even go so far as to say that until the edtech initiative gets a regular and accessible (known, trusted, empathetic) human face, it's always going to suffer from a relative tyranny of distance.
However, this is not to say that the expert in the distant office doesn't have a crucial role to play...
4. Edtech requires effective leadership and administration
To put it simply, one of the reasons we are forging ahead so quickly and well with our edtech development is that we have good support from 'higher up the food chain' (in a manner of speaking). Even as I work to help the teachers on my team, there are copiously competent people in various layers above me in the organisation that I have ready access to if and when I need it. They get back to me the same morning or the same day. They respond well to problems. They get things fixed or improved. They seem to have the attitude that they have as much to learn from us as we do from them. They remind us that what we are doing is valuable and great.
The larger the teaching/learning organisation, the more crucial this sort of support and access becomes (mainly because organisations necessarily apply rules that can sometimes result in boxes it becomes hard to do your particular dance routine inside). Luckily for me and my team, we have that support in spades.
So yes, I guess thanks to the faffing about factor, sufficient time to faff about, the team-embedded (or team-emergent?) eLearning person and effective assistance and leadership from higher up (or further across?), we are indeed Moodling along quite nicely indeed.
And 2012, from an eLearning perspective, is looking like turning out (to use local parlance) to be an absolute crackerjack.
Thanks to the very useful tutorial here, I learned how to embed YouTube videos directly into Microsoft Word documents. Gosh, what a great tool to have at your disposal.
In the example above (an application for a rather prestigious award one of my VCAL students asked me to help him out with), I was able to start his application with two videos covering a major project he accomplished. The first video shows him discussing his CAD drawings and rationalising his design alongside the first couple of planks of wood he'd prepared. The second video, from about six months later, shows his completed project in full action.
Given that his application is due to be submitted in Word format electronically, the first thing the judges are going to see is the applicant presenting himself in the flesh and a completed project from initial design to finished (and very functional) product.
I'm going to take this a few steps further next year. As we help our VCAL students prepare resume documents for apprenticeship and job applications, we'll be inserting two videos along the same lines as above. I think it's important in a CV (for a young person in particular) to show a bit of a quick journey and demonstrate their capacity to grow, learn and achieve.
This adds so much more texture and context to the rather bland document that a CV usually represents. It creates a real 'point of difference'; I mean, out of a stack of 50 electronically submitted resumes, tell me you're not going to remember the one that included quick videos of the applicant actually doing stuff and presenting themselves in person?
We can do this with PDF documents as well, but in that case the video file needs to be embedded lock step and barrel and it inevitably adds a huge amount of weight to the original PDF file size. The beauty with the YouTube-in-Word format is that it's basically just an in-built i-frame linking to the hosted video on YouTube.
Given I have a lot of teachers reading this blog, I think it's also something to think about adding to your Teaching CV as well. How about a quick self introduction, and/or a screencast of some of your materials and/or a video of you in action in a real classroom setting?
Create a point of difference. Be different by showing more of yourself in more of the real world.
In any case, I'm looking forward to applying this as a curricular tool with my students next year. I'll update you here later when I get some idea on how well it works in attracting prospective employers!
One of my more ambitious and exciting projects for the 2012 school year will be to get my VCAL (Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning) teenage students blogging.
I would have started it this year, but I commenced my teaching role roughly mid-way through the year and it would have made integration of blogs into the curriculum somewhat messy. More importantly, I needed to develop appropriate relationships of respect and trust with the students before floating the idea of blogging with them. The response was very positive and I think I have the all-important green light from them along with the break between academic years to get it organised and set up properly.
At this very early stage, it feels important to establish a solid rationale for making blogging part of the Literacy curriculum. "Everyone blogs" just doesn't cut it (and it's obviously not true anyway: out of 100 VCAL students I informally surveyed this year, only one of them had and maintained a blog). The blogging rationale is crucial, I think, in selling the idea to all the different stakeholders in our VCAL endeavour: school, teachers, students, parents and prospective employers.
So here, in no particular order of priority, is why I'm really hopeful I can get my VCAL students blogging next year.
1. Blogging facilitates many aspects of the VCAL curriculum
There are eight specific outcomes involved in the Literacy part of VCAL alone, and of them things like Writing for Self Expression and Writing for Public Debate are almost taylor-made for delivery via personal blogs. Quality posts can also facilitate the mirror outcomes of Reading for Self Expression and Reading for Public Debate.
But it could, depending on the commitment and interest of the student, reach much further across the outcomes than that. Reading/Writing for Practical Purposes and Reading/Writing for Knowledge can also be catered to via appropriately planned and delivered blog posts.
Also, it needn't be limited to just Literacy. I see a lot of potential for blog posts to cater to VCAL's WRS (Work-Related Skills) and PDS (Personal Development Skills) units. Via audio and video postings (or just through discussion and response in class to various blog posts), we can also incorporate Oral Communication unit outcomes.
Unsurprisingly (remembering that blogging is about a platform and a mode), the composition and maintenance of a blog is potentially nothing short of a curricular winner, and I think it has the power to cater to pretty much any curriculum model out there.
2. Blogging encapsulates the notions of purpose, audience and public expression
My students are very capable consumers of Internet and Social Media, but not necessarily all that savvy in the way they use and contribute to these media. I see what they post on things like Facebook and how they respond to each other and, while respecting this mode of communication amongst their peers, I quite frankly blanch at times and realise that they are missing out on -- at a relatively crucial age -- some very important social skills which could very well become important in their adult lives.
Having them think about, plan, draft and produce for a potentially public audience represents a very important opportunity to rethink the way they communicate and express themselves.
Beyond that, I think blogging is a unique opportunity to escape the audience of 1.8 (the writer him/herself and the teacher checking and responding to the writing). Not all of my students write well, but almost all of them have incredibly interesting things to say. It feels like such a waste for such textured and unique expression to live on paper that is very briefly read by an instructor and then filed away into oblivion. There is a potentially massive audience of peers who can benefit from and add to the issues and experiences my students are capable of expressing, but they are shut out if I continue to facilitate yesteryear's closed-shop approach to Literacy.
I think blogging can change that.
3. Blogging represents a chance to create a positive digital footprint
This is somewhat related to (2) above, but in this case I don't so much see blogging as a tool to rectify poor judgment on Facebook as a chance to (a) connect with other people based on mutual interests and (b) create a really positive stream of evidence that could become useful for future work opportunities. When you consider the weight given to blog posts in search engine listings, this digital footprint can become very rich in potential.
Looking at (a) first, if my students use their blogs to explore their personal interests (and these vary hugely) I think it becomes a great way to find others beyond their immediate location who like similar things. Relationships and recognition beyond the 'home town' can mean a lot to young people, especially if the situation in the home town isn't always all that rosy.
And as for (b), well I'm assuming that many of my students will be open to the idea of blogging about their trade education and work experience. If they can learn to be expressive but savvy about the way they portray and discuss this, the blog could make for a useful inclusion on a resume (or a useful thing to pop up when a prospective employer does an online search about them).
There are some risks here, as well, but I think learning about and managing risk is an essential part of progressing through teenagedom. My learners will have a mentor and a guide (me!) with their first forays into blogging, and I think that counts for a lot.
4. Blogging can showcase talents that lead to alternative opportunities
One of the biggest disadvantages of almost all education systems is that, to a greater or lesser extent, many young people become pigeonholed at a relatively early stage based on apparent skills and proficiencies (and bits of paper to prove them).
I have students who have really unique talents that would never make it anywhere near (or beyond) the qualification papers they currently have access to. This year I had a plumbing student who also turns out to be quite a brilliant amateur photographer with a targeted interest in cars. I had an automotive student who is an absolute gun online gamer, and a carpentry student who -- beneath all the gruff and bluff associated with his trade -- is one of the most eloquent writers I've ever come across in my teaching adventures around the world.
I think blogging can become an excellent way to encourage these extra talents to float up closer to the surface of things. They might even facilitate extra avenues to income, whether it is via being 'noticed' or just through advertising and promotions connected to future blogging activity itself.
5. Blogging can turn my students into trailblazers
Most of my students are involved in the 'hard' trades. They're school-based apprentices, or looking to get an apprenticeship.
I did some extensive searching this year, looking for blog posts written by and/or for teenage apprentices and it turned out to be rather futile. Searching even for just general teenager blogs can result in a very mixed and limited bag.
So perhaps my students can become relative pioneers in this space. If they blog about their trade education and experiences, the skills they are picking up, the transition from school to work life, etc., then perhaps they can start creating the content that future applied learning students will be able to access and benefit from.
And perhaps, just perhaps, this will motivate my students with another sense of purpose and worth.
Those are five of the areas that appeal to me most at the moment as I contemplate the hows and whys of blogging with teenage students. In your opinion and experience, have I missed anything? What else can blogging potentially bring to my students? In my enthusiasm and drive, am I overlooking any major caveats or risks?
Following a session of teacher training I recently facilitated in my local context, I couldn't help but ponder (for what feels like the upteenth time) the differences and interactions between the notions of teacher training and teacher development.
In the end, what I did discover is the value of blogging when it comes to thinking about what we do and why. This post from a little over two years ago, when I was still entrenched in a TEFL mode of thinking, still pretty much sums up my feelings about teacher training and development and applies just as well in my new teaching context (vocational and further education) as any previous ones.
What now has my reflective teaching gears grinding away is where educational technology issues fit in. Given it is as much a mode as a (facilitator of) method, contemplating teacher training, program development and teacher development does indeed appear to raise a rather unique set of challenges.
Screencasting can be a bit of a messy and frustrating business if you are using one of the free tools with time limits and are not sure how to manage your time and content well. Even if you don't have to work with time limits with the tool itself, you do of course still need to think about the timing and organisation of your content presentation or demonstration from the learners' perspective.
One way to develop your screencasting proficiency is to prepare storyboards in advance, as I explain and demonstrate below:
Here are the templates and examples I mention in the tutorial above:
As a person who has conducted and attended hundreds of teacher training workshops, it's been interesting for me personally to see not only how teacher training is becoming increasingly about educational technology but also how limited (or limiting) some of this training can be.
I am in the middle of preparing a series of edtech training sessions for the institute where I currently work and two priorities in particular struck me as being particularly important compared to previous workshops I have arranged more around the issues of teaching methodology and classroom management. Actually, these two considerations can certainly enhance those sorts of workshops as well, but for edtech in particular I think they become vital.
I call these two priorities FO-FU, which stands for 'Finding Out' and 'Follow Up'.
Starting with the FO, it worries me somewhat that so much edtech training appears to involve an expert (usually a visiting expert) demonstrating one or a small range of edtech tools that have been preselected in advance. I don't see anything inherently negative in that, but with the wealth of edtech tools and possibilities now available I think teachers need more than that. They're often given fish, but not taught how to go fishing.
Hence FO involves identifying a teaching/learning need and then actively looking around to find out what tools are available to meet that need or possibility. Teachers need to learn how to find and evaluate these tools across a range of criteria including things like cost, platform, accessibility, viability and reliability. And they need to work themselves into this finding out process in a way that allows them to increasingly do more of it on their own with other teaching/learning needs and facilitative edtech tools.
FU is, in my opinion, an even more important concern. Given that teachers are often being exposed to a tool for the first time, often using technology that mightn't exactly be within many teachers' immediate respective edtech comfort zone, without some sort of follow up it can be a little bit like grasping at ladders made of ice; they melt into liquid before teachers can learn to climb anywhere (if at all).
The solution? Edtech training sessions need to come (as a minimum) in pairs. The first session covers orientation, finding out, selecting and learning how to use one or more edtech tools. The follow up session comes later (anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks, but certainly in my opinion no later than that) and teachers are encouraged to bring along some of the work or experience they've managed to complete using the new tool and/or a list of specific problems or successes they encountered along the way since that first lot of training.
Again, this represents a problem for the fly-by-night visiting expert who is here today and gone not only tomorrow, but possibly forever. This is not to say that the visiting expert isn't worth your investment for edtech training; but it is to say that both you (if you are organising the training) and your visiting expert need to have a longer term plan that includes some sort of follow up to explore what has been taken up and achieved (or not taken up and not achieved) since the initial training.
In fact, I think it is quite essential for edtech trainers visiting contexts for once-only shows to have, as part of their offering, some sort of online meetup or gathering space where the trainees can come together again and share the fruits (or fruitlessness) of the training. Most edtech experts I have met are open to this idea, but it often turns out to be a rather vague offering. The follow up needs to be intrinsic to the F2F training session from the start and clearly and pragmatically facilitated.
FU doesn't just ensure you are getting appropriate bang for your buck with the expert, however. It also becomes a very important fire under the bottoms of teachers to get out there and try and use the tools they've been trained to find and use.
Let's imagine a trainer has taught teachers how to find and use a one or more social media platforms to engage in education resource finding and sharing, for example.
Knowing that the trainer will be back in a week's time (or available online) to facilitate a session sharing what has been used and gleaned can be just the catalyst some teachers need to get out there and try it and not just put it into the vague mumbly 'might try that thingy sometime' basket.
Less confident teachers may be more willing to have a crack if they know they can have questions and problems addressed afterwards. Teachers need to realise successes and progress, no matter how small, if the edtech spark is to get the oxygen it needs to burn into something brighter.
It also means that there is more potential for teachers (whether from the same team or from different departments) in a given session forging and maintaining connections with each other. They have something they need to try and achieve and they will be meeting up again later to share it, so why not team up after that first session and try stuff out together?
All in all, I haven't seen a whole lot of FO-FU in the edtech training I've experienced as a teacher. I think both Finding Out and Follow Up are becoming increasingly vital for edtech, and I am in the process of making them cornerstones of the edtech training I am starting to put together for others.
You might like to think about FO-FU yourself, whether it be in evaluating the edtech training you are receiving or the training you are thinking of facilitating.
I've decided that I'm not comfortable charging for access to these resources (and there are a good many of them, built up over several years). It can be depressing making all of your online teaching income based around a loathsome English test, and it has always irked me that the people needing that test result are often some of the most disadvantaged people in the world.
GTEC Catapult Day, October 2011. Aden prepares his unique trebuchet for action...
I work in a teaching and learning environment which is special in all sorts of ways, but probably the most special thing of all about it is what our 17 and 18-year-old (so-called 'disengaged learners') manage to achieve.
Let me tell and show a little story about a student named Aden Nadoh, one of our GTEC Year 12 VCAL (Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning) Building and Construction students...
Let's start with a quick interview I did with Aden in June, as part of the Oral Communication section of his curriculum (Outcome: Oracy for Practical Purposes), when he was just getting into the workshop to actually start building the catapult he'd finished designing through meticulous work with CAD (Computer Assisted Design):
There were all sorts of other tasks integrated into this project across several subjects. In the Literacy strand (for example), the students needed to complete design briefs, essays about the history of various catapult designs, assembly instructions, safe operating procedures and evaluations, etc.
Anyway, back to the story...
Five months later, I watched Aden testing out his finished catapult in the school courtyard (with adequate safety precautions in place, of course) and made the prediction he would get a distance of 100-150 metres in the official Catapult Day competition our design and tech teachers had so painstakingly organised.
Brett Smith (one of our carpentry teachers) scoffed in the staff meeting when I announced this prediction, and enjoyed a series of jokes about how the literacy teacher had no skills in numeracy or estimation (hey: this is an Aussie staff room after all!).
Rightio Smithy... Watch and see what happened on Catapult Day:
125 metres on the full. Well and truly beyond 150 metres once the projectile had stopped rolling!
Not bad estimation skills for a mere literacy teacher, eh?
And I think this pic shows (in addition to the secret mechanism that makes Aden's catapult so effective) just how well our wood and metal teachers pass on skills to our students:
Anyway, congrats to Aden on a brilliant piece of work from start to finish, and congrats to the design/tech/wood/metal teachers who helped him achieve it.
Waaaay back on October 2nd, I launched a Halloween lesson materials design challenge here on the blog. I offered up some initial materials and sound files in open source format (for those who wanted a starting point) and challenged teachers to finish, adapt or replace it according to their preferences.
There are some excellent contributions there from teachers, and if you're looking for some great materials for Halloween I suggest you check them out in the comments thread for that post.
Just to follow up from that challenge, I did of course complete the templates myself and create a full Halloween lesson resource, and here are the open source files for it if you are interested in checking it out:
Note that the PDF version has the sound files embedded in the actual document; if you want to use the sound files for either the MS Word or open/compatible versions, they are available for download back on the original Halloween materials challenge post here.
Blog visitors may be satisfied with just that if they are simply looking for free, ready-to-use stuff to download and use for Halloween...
For those of you interested in the actual design process and the underlying teaching methodology principles, however, you're in for a bit of a treat (and tricks--hopefully of the more helpful sort!).
I'm bringing forward three of my teaching materials design video tutorials (I'm up to tutorial number 5 in the weekly release schedule here on the blog, but what you see below constitutes tutorials 9, 10 and 11 in the series) to show you not only how I made these Halloween materials, but why I've made them the way they are. So basically there is a blend of practical design techniques and teaching methodology principles.
Tutorial 9 (below) shows how I set up the basic template (using a design made earlier) and developed the first page of the handout, focussing on the Halloween notice and follow up prompts. The last third of the tutorial explains in detail why I've left so many gaps on the page...
Tutorial 10 demonstrates how I developed the second page of the handout, featuring a listening text to complement the Halloween invitation notice on the first page. Again, the design stuff is followed up with my teaching methodology rationale(s), for those who find such detail of interest...
Tutorial 11 is shorter and more targeted, demonstrating basically how I've managed to embed sound files into the PDF version of the Halloween materials using Adobe Acrobat. Having embedded sound files can be great when you want to send materials to students electronically and/or don't have an actual Internet connection working at the time of access.
There is more than an hour of materials design demonstrations and tips just on this individual post; and given that (apparently) blog readers aren't interested in anything that can't be absorbed in less than 3 minutes, I'm not sure how much of an audience it will have! If you do watch these tutorials and get something from them, then thank you and I hope they prove useful in improving your materials design skill set.
P.S. If you are/were wondering what the heck 'Wrap your pumpkin's laughing gear around this' implies... The pumpkin simply refers to the theme of Halloween, but the rest of the line comes from Australian 'ocker' slang meaning 'try (eating) this: it's good!'
('Laughing gear' = mouth)
('Wrap your laughing gear around ___' = try/eat ___)
If you've been following the materials design masterclass videos patiently and learning new things, then I thank you and congratulate you... and now you've got a little reward: a tutorial that works with actual learning content!
Tutorial 5 here follows on from all the skills built up over tutorials 1-4 and shows you how to plan some content oriented around a short dialogue ('The Cappuccino Chat') and apply it in a professional format using the '1:3 design principle.'
Tutorial 6 will be along soon enough, but for now remember that all of these tutorials are available over in the English Raven Materials Design section of my main site for your viewing pleasure/torture.
Given that World Adventure Kids 2-1 is so rich in illustrations (one of a few reasons I am unlikely to ever make any profit from it--not for a very long time, anyway!), I thought I'd have some fun and make a bit of a movie trailer for it.
It turned out pretty well, considering my amateurish skills in this area...
But this also got me to thinking... In this day and age, I think children's books could really benefit from this sort of initial marketing. It's also a fantastic pre-reading resource that can help the children get an overview and start to make some predictions about what they are going to experience in text.
I did my best not to give too many plot secrets away, but I wonder how children will react to this. Only one way to find out!
It's Wednesday, and that means teaching materials design tutorial here on English Raven... Here is the third lesson in my series, showcasing how you can make those pretty buttons ('activity sequence markers' -- think A, B, C, or 1, 2, 3, etc.) for the different parts of your material.
Tutorial 4 will appear this time next week, and it looks at my basic '1:3 design' principle (basically, the idea of (1) content/input plus (3) applications or extensions of that content/input).
Remember that all of the tutorials are available over on the English Raven site in the special materials design/development section, so if you want to see previous or upcoming tutorials that's the place to head!
October has arrived, and that means Halloween is very close. Experimenting with some of my own Halloween materials, a sudden thought came to me: How great would it be to see how different members of my PLN in different parts of the world use the same basic core input/ content but adapt, extend, abolish in whatever way suits their own teaching beliefs/and or the educational culture in which they are working?
The idea of the English Raven Halloween Lesson Material Design Challenge (as you can see, it took a while to get the idea out of my mouth!) was thus born... Find out more by watching the video I prepared for the challenge:
So, are you up for it? I hope so!
Remember that you can change any of the existing content and add and extend with your own activities in whatever ways work best for you and your learners.
Post your customised Halloween lesson material on your blog or site, then leave a link here on this page to the location of your efforts (so that we can all find it and give it a squiz).
I'm genuinely excited at the prospect of so many different versions of the basic template and core content...
Templates with content/input for you to download and work with...
Oh... and if you're interested in having some audio files to go along with the input/content already in the templates, here they are (right click and select "save as" if you want to save the files to your own computer):
Look forward to seeing some of your work and hearing from you!
;-D
[LATE ADD]: Just an idea, but you might like to try screencasting your lesson material! Try a tool like Screenr (free, allows you to sign in with your Twitter account), where you can present your material on the screen and explain it with accompanying audio. You could then post a direct link to the screencast here on the blog, or embed it as a video on your own blog. Give it a try, you'll love the results!
I happened across this site (Geelong's Active in Parks initiative) while perusing my tweetstream yesterday and it immediately appealed to me as a learning resource for literacy and language learning.
My quick ideas (some or all or none may appeal to you!):
1. Discuss the notion of parks and community parks, what they're for, how many and what kinds of parks the learners have access to locally, etc.
2. Launch the website on a screen for the whole class to see and let the pictures run on auto speed. Get the students into teams and have them try to get a caption for each picture/section (great for reading and note-taking fluency, as the pictures skim through relatively quickly, but also very well supported visually). After a set time, run through the pictures/captions again but leave the mouse hovering over the main picture each time (this will 'freeze' it) so that it can be adequately checked out, compared to the learners' initial notes, and discussed further.
3. In class (if your learners have access to computers) or at home, ask the learners to try and find the site using Google Search. Discuss which keywords would be best to track down the site.
4. In teams (in class) or individually (at home), have students choose and check out one particular park type they would be interested in visiting or exploring. They should research it, make a summary of the information, then present this to the class along with a quick rationale as to why they chose that particular park type. (Part of the research could involve finding and following @ActiveInParks on Twitter, looking at the tweets there and even asking the organisation some questions!)
5. Compare the Active in Parks Geelong initiative to parks and park activities available locally in the learners' own context.
6. Have the students write up a proposal for their local city council on ways they could improve park offerings, and/or improve the way local people could find out more and access their parks more effectively.
Got any other teaching/learning ideas for this sort of resource? Let's hear it!
English Raven and English Raven Jnr discuss their next digital learning project (apparently the Little Readers and some new, more interactive Halloween materials are in order). Little Miss Raven Jnr offers some feedback, but as always, appears to echo English Raven Jnr's sentiments...
Yesterday, I released a special online version of my GrammarGolf card game application. This is something I trialled and used extensively with younger learners as a classroom teacher, and based on the exciting levels of engagement and awareness it generated, I was looking forward to making a multi-media version for the English Raven site.
However, even as I am aware of the activity's strengths based on my own experiences, I also knew this was something of a risk; dare I feel happy about a teaching application that I know probably won't get that much uptake?
See, here's the thing... I got Mrs. Raven to try it out. Being an advanced learner herself (Certificate IV level in the local parlance), I wanted her impressions and feedback.
Surprise surprise: she didn't like it very much. And not really because, despite her advanced level, she got more than a few of the sentence options wrong!
"Why have more than one possible answer?"
"Why aren't the mistake options explained?"
"How am I supposed to understand why I got it wrong?"
Mrs. R has, in my opinion, voiced criticisms of GrammarGolf that I think will be shared by a very large number of learners.
I don't want to give too much away here, but this is NOT the way younger students generally react to the GrammarGolf application. And... that is precisely one of the reasons why I think it can be such an important learning tool.
Now, from a teaching perspective, I think there will be another serious objection. The sentences are not contextualised at all! Oh my goodness... there goes the neighbourhood. And absurdly enough, I am absolutely fine with this as well.
So here is my question to you:
Do you think GrammarGolf is a grammar teaching gaffe? Why or why not?
If not, why do you think I purposely avoid giving detailed explanations and emphasize the idea of 'have a swing, and if you miss, swing again!'? Why on earth would I think that sentences without communicative context could possibly be useful?
Is this Raven a teaching emperor with no clothes, or just a straight up moron???
As you can see, English Raven has been (self!) sentenced to some community work... The little offering above is another example of my ongoing quest to digitize more of my (originally print-based) flashcard materials and put them into a format that teachers might like to use on a screen in front of the class or even refer students to for some self study.
The entire set of community places cards consists of 48 images, including some of the following:
On the web page here, you can also find a set of activity suggestions utilising these cards and vocabulary for Cambridge ESOL YLE Starters, Movers and Flyers levels.
But here's a quick tip for those of you seeing this post, liking the look of the cards but not particularly wanting to pay for them:
Go up to that little search box at the top of the right-hand column of the blog and punch in some keywords along the lines of 'community places'... see what turns up!
Whether for classroom use to inspire thoughts and reactions from your students or just for your own reflective purposes, I can really recommend this photostream as a place to go for particularly interesting and captivating images.
Almost all of the stuff I've seen in that photostream is available for use under a Creative Commons licence, too.
And while you're over at Flickr, don't forget the awesomely amazing ELT Pics collection. The images there are contributed by actual English teachers under a Creative Commons licence and there are now more than 5,000 pics there!
I'm positively delighted with this latest addition to the ongoing nest of experiments on the English Raven website.
The video above shows English Raven Jnr trying out my online Little Readers application, which basically allows kids to flip through a simple little storybook with text accompanied by pictures, audio and an embedded recording device.
ER Jnr's efforts, done on his own (as he often likes for me to leave the room while he tries out this stuff), showcase a couple of the ways this helps to build reading and pronunciation skills:
1. He can flip through and take on the story at his own pace.
2. He reads what he can out loud, but uses the audio provided in one part when he's not sure how to say the sentence precisely.
3. He records his own voice using the provided audio recorder and really looks forward to playing back his reading aloud performance while he flips again through the story and looks over the text.
4. He skips the review stuff at the end. He's had enough by that stage and just wants to hear himself perform the story. That's fine. He can use this the way he wants to use it, and for just the parts or ways that most interest him.
There are another four of these Little Readers stories already in printed format, but ER Jnr wants them loaded up on a screen the way this one is. I flinch at the prospect of another late night catering to his enthusiasm for this, but mostly I'm pretty darned pleased with myself...
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