Curating Online Conversations: Your Students' Works of Art

Many already know the educational benefits that podcasting offers within the classroom as well as how they can be used to aid professional development. There are so many podcast sites out there that offer videos as often as every week on specific themes and topics.  One such podcast that I found that I feel will be be beneficial for my future ESL teaching is How to Curate and Foster Online Conversations.  This podcast talks about the importance of finding a way to not only engage learners in online conversations for learning purposes within the classroom, but also how teachers can archive and save these conversations to return to at a later date and to just re-visit for learning purposes.  This podcast is beneficial for me as a future teacher because I never really thought of the dilemma of starting/initiating an online conversation with my students on a particular topic, but not having enough time to complete the topic/conversation.  Also, how do I make that conversation readily available to my students to finish at a later date as well as for students who would like to revisit it for personal learning purposes?  Though this podcast does not come up with a definite solution on how this can be done, it does pose many options as well as offers a colorful conversation on the importance of fostering online conversations so students can get all there is to offer out of such a learning tool.  One important point that is brought up during this podcast is that online conversations with students on certain topics may continue for a long time, and is it fair/appropriate to cut the conversation off for time purposes and leave it at that, or how can the teacher save or "curate" that conversation so the students can continue it at a later date?  I thought this to be a beneficial video that really made me think about the online learning component of teaching and how I can make it a better learning experience for my students.

From Pen Pals To Epals!

Project based learning, specifically the Project Approach is one of the prime teaching strategies of the 21st century.  Learning through projects creates a collaborative classroom community that allows students to engage in active learning as well as participate in creating something unique and meaningful with their peers. There are many educational organizations that give classrooms the opportunity to collaborate with other classrooms and students around the world.  One particular site that I have explored is epals, a global classroom that give teachers access to educational tools and the opportunity to connect with classrooms all over the world to engage in collaborative project based learning.  One tool that this site offers teachers is a wiki.  "A wiki is an [online] place where students work collaboratively with other students, adding and editing subject related content."  An example of a project approved by epals that uses a wiki is Collaborative Detective Story--A Community Inspired Project.  This project was initiated by a class in Pakistan who wanted to collaborate with another class from any where in the world to write a detective story.  This is a year long project and it begins with the students from their respective classrooms getting to know each other through a questionnaire and emails posted on a specific wiki.  Once the students get to know each other then one of the classrooms, preferably the one who is learning the language of the other students ( for example English) will write an opening paragraph for the story.  The other class will then proof read and edit the paragraph and then brain storm ideas for the next paragraph.  The process will continue until the story ends.  A wiki is a great tool to use for any classroom because it allows students to communicate on group projects outside of class.  Another project featured on this site is a Level 2 French class in Missouri looking to collaborate with a
classroom in France in order to complete a comparison of a high school in America with one in France.  The completion of the project will involve the students in America creating a video showing the different parts of their high school.  This site also offers a media gallery which gives teachers a place to upload digital files such as word processing files, pictures, power points etc.  This is a great tool to use as an archive of students' work that was completed throughout the year.  This site is amazing and allows for so many learning and teaching opportunities, specifically the opportunity to learn with and from other classrooms all over the world!

Just a Tweet? Or, So Much More?

As I mentioned in my previous blog, I never realized the potential of Tweeting in regards to professional development.  I have learned so many ways that Twitter can benefit me as an educator just by being part of the Twitter community for only a few days.  I have also explored some very interesting and informative articles that enhanced my knowledge of twitter as a professional learning network.   Ways Teachers Can Use Twitter for Professional Development and The Teacher's Guide to Twitter are two very in depth articles that walk educators through the various uses of Twitter for educational purposes as well as how to use the different Twitter tools correctly.  I feel that Twitter will provide me with many opportunities to connect with current and experienced educators in my field of ESL as well as allow me to share my own ideas about teaching.  One thing that both of these articles touched on was the idea that Twitter is a "two way street," it is giving and taking of ideas and resources.  This means that it is a learning community where people with shared interests can learn from each other and their experiences.

This is especially important for new and future educators; I know that I feel very fortunate to have a social learning network such as Twitter where I can connect with experts in the field of teaching ESL and ask for advice for my future classroom.  I also enjoy and find beneficial just following educators' tweets and connecting to their resource links such as teaching sites and articles.  I am still very new to Twitter and need to learn more about how to use it and get the most out of it for professional purposes, but so far I am enjoying what it has to offer me as a future educator.

#tweetsareeducational!!

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How in the world could Twitter be beneficial for me as an educator? That is a question many might ask  when told that Twitter is a good tool to use for professional development, and that is the exact question I asked myself when I signed up for the account as part of my educational technologies course.  Up until now I was completely against Twitter; that could be because I only knew it as a means for common everyday people to implicitly stalk their favorite celebrities, and well, as a means for celebrities to get instant attention.  But this view changed when I began to explore the varied uses of Twitter and I attended my first Twitterchat, #edtechchat.  This chat was very informative for me as an educator as it consisted of teachers, students, and other educators posting informative sites and tips on using technology in education as well as information on how to improve the general educational system of today. There was some conversational dialogue happening during this chat as others would comment on and reply to others' tweets, but the majority of the chat was people posting about different educational topics and linking useful sites to their tweets, which I found to be very useful.  I visited one site in particular connectlearningtoday.com, and read an awesome article on using the virtual learning tool augmented reality in the classroom.  Overall, I felt my first Twitterchat for educational purposes provided me with a wealth of information that will help with my future teaching. This experience also showed me that Twitter is indeed a good tool to use for professional development as it helps me to connect with other educators and share ideas and resources.

Flipped Learning Through Social Networking

One thing I have learned from my LAI technologies class is the importance and usefulness of social networking, especially for learning from and through others and their experiences.  There are numerous social networking sites out there that provide people with information and tools to help them advance and be successful in their careers, in particular their teaching career.  One social networking site that I have just explored and joined is the Flipped Learning Network.  I was attracted to this site in particular because I am very interested in learning how to incorporate individualized teaching into my future L2 English classroom.  This teaching method is also very similar to learning how to incorporate individual learning styles and interests into the curriculum, which is a very important and useful teaching method to help facilitate learning in the ESL classroom.
 The Flipped Learning Site is useful for current and future teachers of all areas because it gives educators a forum to share their best flipped teaching practices and also share things that did not seem to work in the classroom; therefore providing current and future teachers with tools that will benefit students as well as with practices that are not useful for students.  I feel that joining this site now during my studies, will allow me time to read up and research some more on how to best implement successfully and efficiently this teaching strategy into my future classroom.  I look forward to all I will learn from educators through this site.