Beyond school walls – Teaching blogging to empower learners

Between 2006 and 2008, while teaching “Ethics for Teachers” to EFL teacher trainees at “Profesorado del Liceo Cultural Británico” (Buenos Aires – Argentina), and certainly encouraged by the inspiring discussions that were taking place at TESOL EVO workshops, I had the chance to explore the integration of student blogs into the course. Class members were invited to start their own blogs (which I then linked and followed by means of a Feevy students in turn chose to embed into their blog templates) and weekly post their reflections on assigned readings. Since the topics discussed took in sharing values and personal experiences, this seemed a perfect occasion for fostering individual expression. Serving other  aims of the course – the development of interculturalism and appreciation of diversity – the weekly assignment also involved posting a comment on at least an entry made by  a partner.

Interestingly, the first time this practice was suggested (the main argument for making this an option was that no computers were available at our school, and not all our students had access to a computer at home), only about a quarter of the group (2 in opted for posting at a blog instead of  handing out assignments traditionally in print (or should we say, “in ink?”). The second year, half the class tried online publishing. The third year (my last time teaching the course), all students but one (who had no access to a computer at all) chose to try blogging.

Little by little, learner-writers learned to see their blogs as opportunities for true communication instead of  written pieces for their teacher to mark. One trainee added a visitors map to her template, and comments about the number and diverse origins of the silent visitors she kept getting were frequent among class members.  Another teacher-to-be was, during a job interview, asked to submit some work she’d done, and she told us she’d proudly considered her Ethics blog as clear her evidence of who she was, both as a human being and at a professional level.  Though the only visible audiences were usually just me and one or two partners, we had the occasional friend or relative leaving an encouraging message. It wasn’t much yet, but we (I?) always knew that, “when you write on the Web, the world might be watching”!

Today, one of those learner-writers, Alejandra de Antoni, has achieved a further goal: her words have definitely made it beyond school walls. Two of her entries at her Ethics blog (on Savater’s Ethics for Amador) were selected by the editor of a bilingual e-zine (”Yareah“), and you can already see her work published at:
http://sn.im/tklh8. Needless to say, Alejandra has been quite surprised by this unexpected recognition of the value of her words. As her ex-teacher, I’m absolutely proud of her achievement, and see this as the first evidence that these soon-to-graduate teachers will make great contributions to a better education for all our school children and teens.

The site where Alejandra’s work has been published accepts comments from all visitors. If you can afford a few minutes online, do let Ale (and the world) know you’re also “hearing them”, though you might be on the other side of the world, and will perhaps never meet f2f! After all, if you’re reading this, you must be a passionate believer in the potential of online communications.

Special kudos to Ale, and in her to all those professionals who strive to make their work visible! To those colleagues of mine who are wondering if all the work we do to get students into new forms of communication is worth it, just as I am on most days, I want to say: thanks for all the support you’ve always given me, and don’t forget this success of one of my trainees is as much yours as hers and mine!

One final word: Sharon, if you happen to come across these words, you know how much you have to do with this (and many other achievements!).  Always indebted to you!

Fondly,
Gladys (who’s decided celebrating success -no matter how little – is much more rewarding than grunting over obstacles in the way)

1 minute recording… lots of learning and fun!

Hello friends!

I’ve recently tried at home with Andrea (my elder daughter/guinea pig)  , and thought it worth sharing here, as I believe it might work for all ages and levels.

“Lend us your ears!” via kwout

Basically, it goes like this:

SETTING: a radio programme in which  a guest must answer 10 questions in a minute.

RESOURCES: in the classroom: an audio/video recorder (students may be asked to share their MP3s, MP5s or mobile phones). For publication: access to the Internet (1 computer – less than half an hour). For the extension: pendrives or CDs + audio player in the classroom.

Software required: Web browser. Depending on the format you record files in, you may need an audio converter (recommended: convert to MP3 before uploading to podcast). An HTML Online Editor is advisable if you plan to beautify your entry. To check your final product is OK, the computer you’re using should be able to reproduce audio (i.e. you’ll need speakers or headphones too!)

1. Preparation: In pairs, students plan 10 questions (personal, or on a given topic) that can be answered briefly. Alternatively, you may draft the questions yourselves (suggestion: allow for, at least, some personalization). Then they rehearse as if one was the radio speaker and the other the special guest.

TIMING: in class, or at home, between 5 and 20 minutes (depending on how much thought is given to the questions, and how much they need to decide).

2. Recording: using MP3s, MP5s or even their mobile phones students record their dialogues. Alternatively, they may want to video themselves!

TIMING: 2 minutes at the most (not taking into account time at the beauty parlour if they go for video, that is! !!!).

3. Publishing: get the recordings uploaded to a school/class podcast or blog. Tag the entry in ways that can attract potential listeners. Post a poster in the classroom (or just give them the link on a slip of paper), and share the news via institutional sites you may have available. Use your networks (Facebook, Twitter, CoPs you belong to, email) to promote it. Encourage everybody to comment!

TIMING at the computer: 15 minutes to post the episode to the podcast (make sure your recording is in the right format before you get started, and if you want to beautify your entry with some glitter text, images or bold/italic fonts, prepare your HTML in advance, to avoid frustration). Remember you can ask volunteer students or parents to do it for you (just make sure they all have posting privileges at the podcast or blog in advance.)

4. Extension: download a couple of recordings onto your pendrive(if you have a recorder with a USB port in class, or the cables to connect them to the TV or player in your room) and play them in your class or to other classes. (NB: you can also ask your techie sts to do this for the class). Recordings may also be downloaded onto a CD. You can give the class a listening task (e.g. anticipate the answers / complete the qs / T or F) or just do it for fun! (and ask them to rate the programme, or whether they’d like to be the next guests!)

This frame can be used to practise:

• SYNTAX: asking questions; auxiliaries; question words; answering yes-no questions; any given tense; indirect questions;
• LEXIS: any given lexical area;
• PHONOLOGY: intonation of short and wh-questions (BTW, I was quite concerned about mine when I listened to this recording!:-(!); weak and strong forms (auxiliaries and pronouns);
• SKILLS: listening and speaking

Just make sure the questions follow some thread, and the whole thing sounds more like a radio programme than a test on questions!

If you have already tried something like this, why not post a link to your final product under the “Comments” below? If you try it after reading this, please come back and share how it went with your class!

Peace,

Gladys

PS: an enhanced description of this activity (including possible variations) has been included in APIBA E-Newsletter – Issue # 8 (August 2009).

EN ESPAÑOL: puede leerse una descripción de esta propuesta en castellano en DocentesInnovadores.Net.

Social networking: sorting the wheat…

I’ve read many colleagues’s concerns about who’s following whom on Twitter, and how seriously all this networking can be taken at the end of the day. In other words, does “n followers” necessarily mean better if higher? I’ve just learned about Twittersheep, and how by just entering my Twitter username I can find out what kind of followers I have:

TwitterSheep via kwout

Just took me a second, and has definitely helped me see what kind of “tweet”my followers would be interested in! And there’s no doubt of this: the better you know your audience, the more motivated you’ll feel to write for them, and the more effective your writing will become!

Here’s the article that taught me about this tool:

What Kind of People are Following You on Twitter

- written by Amit Agarwal on Feb 1, 2009

If you try Twittersheep too, let me know what you think of it!

And now that we’re at this, see what you can get by entering your twitter name at Twitter mosaic (also reviewed by Amit Agwaral, this time on Jan 29, 2009 – here):

Get your twitter mosaic here.

Unbelievable to me!

Gladys

Pageflakes for Educators

Last Jan 23rd, thanks to a kind invitation by Vance Stevens and Nelba Quintana, I had the chance to share an informal discussion on the potential of Pageflakes for Educators with colleagues who were attending the “Multiliteracies for Social Networking and Collaborative Learning Environments” workshop during TESOL EVO 2009. This was my first online presentation, and I felt naturally nervous, but my hosts’ incredible support, and the warmth of those who made a special effort to join us certainly contributed to making it a memorable experience for me! Basically, the discussion turned around 3 main ideas, namely, how educators can use Pageflakes (and similar tools, such as Netvibes or Protopage) for three different purposes: as a startpage, for lifestreaming or as an incredibly easy tool to create personalised sites for different classes.

You can now re-live the session (slides, audio and text chat, all synchronized) here:

http://tinyurl.com/090122baya

(thanks, Vance, for sharing this recorded version!)

Or simply watch the slideshow below:

Pageflakes4 Educators

A few afterthoughts:

• Pageflakes seems to outdo other options in terms of customisation options (themes and layout) and widgets available. It also allows us to create as many private pages as we need, whereas other tools apparently limit this to just one.
• On the dark side: Pageflakes team have been very quiet lately… Apparently, they started twittering on Jan 11th,  2008, but they never updated their status after that. I sent them a direct message just before the presentation, but got no reply. Perhaps it’s just someone using their name? Besides, their Twitter flake has not been allowing signing-in for weeks… just a sad coincidence???
• More worrying: while I was AFK, on a citybreak, Pageflakes was reported to be down for over 3 days. A member of WebheadsInAction mentioned twitters they were moving servers, but rumours went around they might be closing down soon. I hope it’s not true!!!

Once again, thanks everyone for sharing our learning!And a biiiiig hug to the inspiring teachers (esp. Nina Lyulkun and Mary Hillis) who encouraged me to look further into this tool by leading an enriching discussion at Learning with Computers during 2008!

Gladys

Ah! Of course, you’re all invited to visit my Pageflake: http://www.pageflakes.com/gladysbaya.