Response: Powerpoint

This article was very important for me, because I have been reflecting on my use of Powerpoint and other information delivery devices during my practicum.  The author points out that powerpointlessness may stem from the delivery of the presentation or the Powerpoint presentation itself.  In some cases, maybe both.  Powerpoint seems to be the fastest way to get information to students and along with many other educators I did not have enough time for students to obtain the information in class, themselves, in other ways.  I used Prezi quite heavily, and I found that I overused the zoom function and became a bit zoom-happy to the chagrin of my students.  However since I used Prezi to showcase one word or more at a time, it really helped students remember certain points.  On the other hand, I wonder if I have become dependent on these information delivery devices.  As my school advisor said, a teacher worth their weight in gold needs only a piece of chalk and a chalkboard.  In that vein, I need to be aware of this so that I don't lean on technology in ways that make me become complacent.

Embed - Aug. 7 - Google collaboration

I've embedded a Google doc, a Google Powerpoint slide presentation, and a Google form.  I think these are great tools for students collaborate for group work.  Google collaboration capabilities also make collaboration between teachers easier.  For example, if I was co-teaching with someone, working together to come up with lesson plans, and other documents would be easy.  I also really like the chat feature on Google docs.  If teachers could share and collaborate on Google Powerpoint they could share their slides and collaborate that way.  Finally, I really like the idea of using a Google form to poll students.  Instead of me looking at the data myself, Google form organizes it for me.  Now this makes me feel like daily assessment of where students are at is possible!

Response: Collaborative Projects

I am really glad that this topic was addressed.  I have been part of many attempts at creating online learning communities and student-motivated sharing.  In all instances, the attempts fell flat.  One of the reasons for these failures was clunkyness of the technological platform.  I am sure that there are more user-friendly community learning platforms out there for teachers to find and I am excited to discover and use them!  I am particularly interested in the author's discussion of genuine interdependence.  I wonder if there are tools available that can identify how much students participated to an online product, like a blog entry or comment has a student's name on it.  This could keep students accountable.  On the other hand, I wonder if the term "genuine interdependence" is referring more to students relying on each other instead of eliminating students contributing less than their group members.

Embed - August 2: Scoopit!

I found Scoopit! very attractive and easy to use.  It seems like when you start to scoop, it's hard to stop.  As I reflected back on my practicum and how I shared resources with my students, I glossed over them very quickly.  Perhaps content curation and resource sharing needs to be addressed explicitly in the classroom.  As many of us were surprised to discover, many students have poorer internet searching skills that we expected and may not be able to find quality tools on their own time.  With entire classes sharing resources in class, students may be motivated to use these resources at home.  Therefore, not only do students need to be introduced to tools such as these, explicit sharing and featuring of certain scoops may be necessary.  Content curation on Scoopit! also led to thoughts on creating authentic learning communities.  It seems like for this to occur online, collaboration and sharing needs to be fast, fun, and easy.  I will definitely try to use Scoopit! and other tools to strive for that.

Embed - Aug. 1: Audacity

listen to ‘French Radio Show’ on Audioboo

I've embedded a sample "radio show" podcast created using Audacity.  It has 20 seconds of my voice and part of a French rap song in it.  I think podcasts are a useful tool and can motivate students.  However, after I recorded a podcast myself, I started to wonder if it exacerbates or makes obvious differences in student oral proficiency levels.  I think that in subject where most students are using English, it might be easier.  In FSL, students might have pronounciation issues.  On the other hand, podcasts could motivate them to improve their pronounciation.  Scaffolding with Audioboo may be a good idea to ease students into podcasting.  I can use podcasting in many ways in the classroom.  I can create a radio show as I did in this podcast.  To lighten workload, I could also collaborate with the other teachers in the school and have teachers of different subject areas each week talking about an idea that students had difficulty with or tough questions students asked them.  (e.g. How to pronounce "r" in French, Why do we need to learn math anyway?, What would have happened if Severus Snape went back in time and assassinated Hitler?)

Response: Content curation

I found the article well organized and reflective.  However, at the end of it, I still was not sure what content curation actually was.  This is the first time I've heard of this term.  I knew that curators at museums interpreted a museum's collections and would be involved in putting displays together for the public.  In that vein I guessed that content curation in education involved teachers interpreting content for students.  I looked some examples online of content curation on Pinterest and others and it seemed more like content sharing. I think I have an idea of what content curation for a History 12 course might look like, but I'm not too sure what it would look like for a FSL classroom.  My last thought was that if content curation is interpreting information and displaying it for students, it sounds exactly like when teachers deliver content in their classrooms using Powerpoint, notes, the textbook, and other lesson delivery devices.  In other words, for all of teachable subjects, a 75 min. lesson block is made up mostly of this content sharing.  I'm wondering if this will replace that.

Response: Podcasts

A fellow teacher candidate did talk about podcasting before as a teaching resource, but I find the idea of student-produced podcasts very exciting.  Now that I think about it, having students record their voices keeps them accountable and they are very conscious of the quality of their work.  I felt the same thing when I recorded myself teaching or when I screencasted in this class.  There is something powerful in hearing your own voice being played back to you.  I thought of a similar medium in terms of this kind of accountability, which would be video where students would see themselves as well as hear themselves. Video requires more planned elements such as blocking, camera angles, and other techniques and it is also more time-consuming.  Podcasting can be a better alternative to videos.