Language Skills and Technology

I will be using Whatsapp voicechat to help students with their practice for the Oral bagrut. They can record short answers and we can build a conversation on the chat. They can take turns being the interviewer and the responder. I would also like to use the VoiceThread program that we saw. I am working with students who are taking the Oral Bagrut iTest format, which replaces a person interviewing them, with a computer. In order for them to take the test, they have to respond to questions by recording their spoken responses. I mentioned last time using Whatsapp to help them practice and review, but the VoiceThread program is perhaps even better.  The one drawback compared with Whatsapp is that Whatsapp is already in their hand, and Voicethread requires them to go to a different website. Another program that I liked was the iDebate . This is a great way for our students to engage with other students all over the world in debates around issues in which they are interested. I lo...

This week in the various blogs, I did not find much that was current.  One post that I did see was worth perhaps the three that I should have had. This post covers the importance of varied types of learning, wisely pointing out that once they are adults, students will have to be a bit flexible when it comes to learning from different inputs.  One area that was included in the article, which I would love to try, is the Flipped Classroom.  This idea takes the content and gives it to the student through media, then follows up in class with additional materials and content.  The bulk of the formerly-frontal learning comes from a video presentation.  Several years ago my daughter's class was run this way periodically. I will let you know if I try this, and of course, how it goes.

This week I liked the post here (again from TeachThought) about the Elements of a Digital Classroom. What does it look like?  What is the 'product?' What is the evaluation/feedback?  Quite thought provoking. Lisa Nielsen is prompting us to consider Civil discourse in online spaces (no, really). This is a question that I have thought about previously, especially with the anonymity of the web... you can comment as anyone, or no one at all, and often people use this this anonymity as a mask to write things they would never say face to face, to represent others maliciously, to generally spread hate and vitriol. I often think that the answer is to disengage, but perhaps there is an alternative. Surely youth can be better at this than the purported 'adults' are... Finally, another post from TeachThought (I really like this blog) about the reasons to use digital portfolios. Portfolios were mentioned in today's class with Eran, and this post shows us not so much how (...

One of the things I want to share with you this week is on Google Docs. I am sure many of you already know this, but I did not. We have a project at school called the Creative Dialogue.  This project is groups of students who develop a project together and progress through the project creation over several weeks.  As you know, when you have group projects it is often difficult to know who did what- how did each student participate?  Did they all participate somehow?  Though it is not fool-proof, when you create folders and share them with your students as a place to keep their documents, you can also keep track of who wrote what on the document.  As I mentioned, I am sure it is not fool-proof, but it does reflect the login for each student.  Also helpful is the ability to keep track of the drafts they do. It saves everything based on drafts and you can look at the previous drafts by date to see how they have progressed. So, not only does it save paper as th...

I have read quite a bit about ideas for dynamic versus static learning.  Static learning is the old-school (pun intended) way of teaching and learning and dynamic is well, not that. Theory is great but when it comes down to brass tacks, concrete examples of what it means to do dynamic learning in the classroom are sometimes harder to come by.  This post actually shows some real examples of assignments that capture the differences between these models.  I have to admit, the projects in the dynamic learning sound really compelling.  What do you think?

Great title, huh? It's a recent blog post by Scott McLoed at Dangerously Irrelevant . This post highlights his new book which is full of multiple 'relevancy gaps' in education.  It made me think about my own notions of technology in the classrooms, especially the issue of feeling out of control as a teacher... what are they really looking at behind those screens? There are other interesting and challenging ideas, too like equity in the classroom, providing engaging environments for all children and interpersonal skills (which I confess does not come to mind when I think of technology.  What am I missing?). Overall, food for thought from an interesting blog that is sometimes rant-filled but always thought-provoking.

This recent post that I saw made me think quite a bit about what questions we ask when we try to measure success. Of course teachers want to understand that the students heard or read the material, but then what do they do with the information?  Anything at all?  This post takes that idea to the life-level: what will the students DO with the information? Now they know about technology but outside of themselves how will it benefit others?  Of course, this is what we want students in a civil society to do- take their knowledge to assist in the betterment of themselves and others. Take a look and let me know what you think.

I am Mira Gefen and this is my blog for the Language Skills through ICT class.  I have created several blogs for education purposes using Blogger and EduBlogs, but it has been a few years. I am looking forward to this course because I want to be able to engage my learners in ways that are exciting and relevant for them. I am privileged to teach in a wonderful school with terrific young people in my classroom. I hope that this class will help me understand how to better connect them with our subject and the world around them.