HAPPY NEW YEAR !!

Hoping that the coming year  2018 may


be smart and bring  peace 

 everywhere!!

Bonne année à tous - Chaque année est une fenêtre qui s´ouvre #MATISSE pic.twitter.com/XY6igP8iqh

— ghislaine bellocq (@GhislaineBelloc) 31 dicembre 2017

Digital Summit December 2017 (2)

Day 5  19th  December 2017

Sarah  Thomas - How to learn from  a world of  educators

Sarah Thomas explained how  social networks like Twitter made her learn about  ideas and technology and she started to work together with  other  educators to enhance  learning and teaching by using  modern  technology.
In order to know more about the network and her PLN  you should check these  links :

http://www.edumatch.org/awesome-table-of-edumatch

 http://www.edumatch.org/books     you can  download free ebooks from the web site : they provide  examples of  what educators are sharing.  

http://www.theedsquad.org/

What hashtags to follows :

#Ditchbook
 #Futureready
 #CUE
 #ISTE18
 #EDUMATCH

Here are the replies of some educators to her  engaging conference: check the flipgrid 

https://flipgrid.com/14734d
 

More events were held online , I am going to write more in the next days.

Day 6  20th  December 2017

Plan Smarter , not  Harder with Edu-protocols  by   John Corippo

Day 7  21st  December 2017

How to make   Learning  a  Game


Day 8  22nd   December  2017
Chrome Book: Crash course : what you need

Day 9  23rd  December   2017
What schools can learn from Start-up  culture

Digital Summit December 2017 (1)

December 2017- free events on line

The Digital Summit took place this  December. It was an international and free online event for educators.  Nine  events which will disappear  by the end of this month.

Wow! Great ideas for using G-Suite @ericcurts. I’m not even sure which one to start with. I want to do them all. #DitchSummit #sketchnotes pic.twitter.com/cwp0tNc2rP

— julie newton (@jnewton526) 20 dicembre 2017

Day 1    15th  December

Where  Pedagogy and Technology collide-  Tanya and Holly

"Kids learn  better from each other  "

Key ideas expressed in the video conference

- Use Hyperdocs
- Incorporate technology in existing  projects
- Use Seesaw as a digital portfolio tool

https://flipgrid.com/a04fd0

from the two presenters the book they published this year  " The Google -Infused- Classroom"
Google Infused Classroom link to the book online

Day 2   16th  December  2017

The Science of  Happiness  - A  conference with  Kim Strobel  

Key ideas  expressed in the conference

1. Teachers need to take control of their own well-being   
2. Happiness can  bring more productivity 
3. Play and Laughter need to be incorporated into the classroom and workplace 

How we can love  life : this will help us  as educators and  people who live  their  lives  in a positive way.
Follow these  tips

• take time to play
• find things to be grateful

Link to her website and blog :https://www.kimstrobel.com/



https://flipgrid.com/6dae97

Day 3  17th  December 2017

BRAIN FRIENLY  LEARNING THAT WORKS
Presentation by  Pooja Agarwal

“Retrieval practice” is a learning strategy where we focus on getting information out. Through the act of retrieval, or calling information to mind, our memory for that information is strengthened and forgetting is less likely to occur. Retrieval practice is a powerful tool for improving learning without more technology, money, or class time.

An interesting approach that can help  teachers and learners: I will  have to search online and  check how it works.

links online :
https://www.retrievalpractice.org/download

http://www.youtube.com/retrievalpracticeorg

https://flipgrid.com/817c94


Day 4  18th December 2018

 

How in the Google Did You Do That?!?

Presentation  by  Eric Curts

https://flipgrid.com/245b1a

Google Slides, Google Sheets and Google Drawings can be used by educators to engage  students while they are collaborating and communicating.

Eric Courts shares his presentations and ideas in an interesting website :
http://www.controlaltachieve.com/


My suggestion is  just follow one of his webinars and you will learn more about Google and its apps.

Eric has a Twitter account and he shares his interesting ideas  online :

Making Posters with Google Drawings https://t.co/b9uZk7zehR #edtech pic.twitter.com/kkhHSF7o1a

— Eric Curts (@ericcurts) 21 dicembre 2017

Teaching History and the Holocaust

While surfing online  last year I came across this interesting  website   Facing History: I learnt about  the best ways to teach about Tolerance and also the Holocaust.

Educators can find  interesting materials online, documents and also webinars  which can help them develop lessons about these topics.





Starting from January 2018  educators can find interesting webinars online- they are free and teachers can have access to the slides and  documents :

 https://www.facinghistory.org/professional-development/upcoming-webinars


The first  webinar will be about the Holocaust  Memorial Day:

If you need resources for Holocaust Memorial Day, join our webinar on Irena Sendler and the rescue of Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto: https://t.co/2aWQF92Xcg.

— Facing History UK (@FacingHistoryUK) 20 dicembre 2017

I am looking forward to these interesting webinars which will help me develop materials about  these events and people who  survived the Holocaust and have something to tell us about it.

 A lesson for Life. We should never forget what happened in the past and we should think about what is happening also today.

Flipped Learning and Wikis

Vance Stevens is  teacher of English and great supporter of  teachers who work with new technologies. He shares his  slides online and  runs interesting  events for  CPD. He is one of the teachers  who is also involved in EVO sessions in January and February every year.

He has been working for years  and works online by choosing  wikis and also sharing  his  interesting  virtual meetings  in wikis and in his groups on social media. 

He presented this  conference in November 2017 and provided some examples of what  he means by using  wikis  while choosing  Flipped Learning.  

Here is the link to his  wiki:

http://vancesclass.pbworks.com/w/page/92112765/FrontPage

Vance uses wikis  with his classes  and also for  professional development.

All the documents and slides he   shares  are excellent documents worth reading and learning about.

This is the recording  about his speech in the conference :

You can find this interesting document online which we shared with us regarding  online professional development:

Abundance in teacher professional development: More than meets the eye from Vance Stevens

Seasonal Greetings

Wishing you all the best for the coming New Year and a Merry 

Christmas

Walking in a #Winterwatch wonderland... pic.twitter.com/BXshEdoOtZ

— BBC Springwatch (@BBCSpringwatch) 22 dicembre 2017

The cold days have arrived and we are  getting ready to celebrate this  season .   Winter has  arrived with its cold and freezing  days........

A new year is  coming and  we are going to leave  the old one behind.  Let's hope this Christmas is
full of  great  and peaceful  events.

This Christmas why not explore Dublin's history through our digital repository with its vast collection of old photos, maps and ephemera https://t.co/ysib2VWcDM pic.twitter.com/C3t5LRf90W

— DublinCityLibraries (@dubcilib) 22 dicembre 2017

I wish you all the best  for these  holidays!!

Technology and good teachers

Teaching  well  is important for achieving good  results. Students   can learn in different  ways- sometimes also the best teachers can have some difficulties . What  really matters is  a good  teacher who knows how to use  technology and can cope with different  learning  situations and find good ideas and materials for learners.  Technlogy is  a tool which can help us: we  do need to be able to analyze and focus on what we want to achieve.



I agree with what has been  said in this post found on Twitter

A7: Technology is merely the tool. It is the teacher who makes the tech integration innovative. Using tech for the sake of using tech is not innovation! @ericcurts #DitchSummit #DitchBook @gcouros pic.twitter.com/TMcE3FpMZf

— Heidi Trude (@htrude07) 22 dicembre 2017

The last years  have been spent on helping Italian teachers to better their skills but innovation is not the use of  nice  smart whiteboards with  internet  access, innovation implies re-thinking our way of working and also integrating  technology in our  learning paths.

Blogging : a course for Teachers

Great  news:  Learning about   BLOGGING - A New  Course starting in January




I did some webinars about blogging  some years  ago.  I started using  Blogger and also Edublogs for my  online  activities as I felt I should  try to work in a different  way.

I am looking forward to learning more  in the next weeks.  I would like to share this great  opportunity for  learning about   blogging with students.  I have just  started a blog where I post some activities but  I have not  used  it as a class blog.
I hope I will be able to learn about better ways for blogging.  

Meanwhile I will check some  more tips and ideas for blogging in ELT.  I have read and learnt  a lot about new ways of teaching and working online :

For more information about the course  starting on 15th January  check the blog online

https://www.theedublogger.com/2017/12/14/better-blogging-with-students-2018-new-supported-course/

Resources for ELT

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/blogging-elt

http://esol.britishcouncil.org/content/teachers/staff-room/teaching-articles/blogging-elt

http://eltlearningjourneys.com/

Christmas trees and activities for my learners

Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Arbol_Navidad_03.gif
Public Domain

The origins of Christmas  trees can be found in the past and also in Europe we have a lot of traditions.

The  main traditions  come from Germany but it was with  Queen Victoria  that  the Christmas tree  became a tradition in most British families.
I found this useful page about the history describing  this   tradition :

http://www.history.com/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas-trees

For my  blog created  this year for my  English  language  learners I am going to use  this short video  which will be  given as  listening  activity and  homework to my students:

Since I am teaching in a school of  Art I would like my students  to search  paintings and pictures  about  this  tradition  online.
They could use  the images they have found to describe them and speak about  them.

Here are some nice  paintings which could be described by my  first  year  students:




Eastman Johnson [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons




By William James Glackens [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons




Carl Larsson [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The language structures  will be related to descriptions of places and  people. I expect them to tell me  what's happening in the pictures and paintings and I would like  my students to focus on adjectives that might describe what  people might think and how they are feeling. 

It might be interesting to check which images they like and why and how   they chose them.

Twitter : a source of images for speaking activities

         More and more I use  Twitter to find resources and images for my lessons.
         It is great for pictures and for descriptions.  I must confess that I am learning  a  lot online
         thanks to people.
         We can learn more about  other countries and  get back into the past.

As winter draws in, leave out apples in your garden for ground feeders like blackbirds and fieldfares. Extra portions will be a really help on the chilly mornings! pic.twitter.com/cq3RFZGAXs

— BBC Springwatch (@BBCSpringwatch) 1 dicembre 2017

Turkeys and Christmas Trees shopping at #Christmas time around the Fruit and Vegetable markets 1970s #DublinAtChristmas #LoveDublin@DublinTown @dublinmuseum @dubcilib @DCLAReadingRoom @LuxuryIreland @christmasfm @Carrollsgifts @CobblestoneDub pic.twitter.com/XH9E3gRTTt

— Old DublinTown. com (@OldDublinTown) 2 dicembre 2017

At 104 Grace Brett, member of a band of UK guerilla knitters, was thought to be the oldest street artist/yarn-bomber in the world #womensart pic.twitter.com/6kgpQ9vSQh

— #WOMENSART (@womensart1) 2 dicembre 2017

White Boards online

Today we can have many free whiteboards online to work in a collaborative way.
Teachers and learners can work together and  share ideas, materials and more.

Here are some tools which I might start using.

Stoodle : see this interesting post online   https://blogs.umass.edu/onlinetools/community-centered-tools/stoodle/

https://awwapp.com/

This is  a web White board which is  free. Check this post online 

http://tammyworcester.com/aww-a-web-whiteboard/



Link to free interactive online resources http://www.teachhub.com/free-interactive-whiteboard-resources

Professional Development online December 2017

Just two weeks before this  free event starts. I was online last year and loved learning from famous educators.

A FREE online conference for teachers: #DitchSummit! https://t.co/4tt1aHVxQn via @jmattmiller

— Tiziana Angiolini (@Virginiawoolf64) 30 novembre 2017

Looking forward to this  free event! Thanks a lot!

ELT: learning and teaching with Technology

Shelly Terrell has been helping educators and ELT Teachers from all over the world for many years now.
I am a regular follower of her webinars which you can follow online- free webinars -she regularly presents on Friday.
At the beginning of this year, it must have been  February, she discussed the issue of  Technology and ELT and we were guided into the world she is familiar with and which she is sharing with us.
She shared interesting  links which I have bookmarked too. I have learnt so much and I must say that now I trying to learn about new apps which can help me teach in a better way.

Here are some websites:

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/

http://ilearntechnology.com/wordpress/?p=4817


http://www.eslplace.com/ 

She shared this interesting slide about the best ways to work with  technology.  It was a great source of information.

Survival Tips for Teaching English with Technology from Shelly Sanchez Terrell



In her website you can find this interesting presentation about  learning and teaching : it is shared online and I would like to share it with other educators.
They present interesting  ideas and tips for  getting learners more engaged. I will present some posts about  some apps which she shared in the webinars and which can be used by many language  teachers in my next posts.
 

On the whole we can say that technology can help us change the approach by supporting the learners to become active learners and by helping them produce language input in different ways.

Internet and our life

Internet .....................................................................

Internet is over 25 years old now and  it is changing our life. What happens online  in a minute ?

Something interesting but  also unexpected- It is our world, the virtual world. We do need to reflect on it.

What happens in an internet minute in 2017? https://t.co/jtPxBKKmgn #technology pic.twitter.com/3OAwaCf94f

— World Economic Forum (@wef) 11 novembre 2017

The Wayback Machine:  how to use it. How about learning about the  past ? Here is this interesting tutorial for educators.

Using images in education

It is an important issue. We do need to teach our  students how  to work with images. As educators we do need to help them work online while making and sharing their presentations. You cannot " steal images", you need to know  how to use images.

Here is an interesting  post shared online :
Teaching Students to Legally Use Images Online https://t.co/566AbZbXwx

— André J. Spang (@Tastenspieler) 15 novembre 2017

You can check the link online of the Tweet  : this is an interestin post and the website is a source of interesting information for educators.

https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/online-images/

Useful links for further research

https://wearegrow.com/open-source-images-for-your-blog/

Click here to open this binder in a new window.

Digital Learning

I could not but check this  great tweet about   Digital Learning which was online tonight.

There is a link to a post about   Bloom's  Taxonomy and which verbs we can use when planning  activities for  Digital Learning.

126 Bloom's Taxonomy Verbs For Digital Learning https://t.co/BqH4xvkWUo pic.twitter.com/IUW5nVXcJ4

— TeachThought (@TeachThought) 17 ottobre 2017

How many of  us have  thought or  think about  these  verbs?   How can we implement our way of working?

Food for thought for many of us . It  may be true that we still work in old schools but  we need to train learners to become better learners who can  deal with digital skills and are able to work in a complex world.

Flipgrid in education

When working on line and while I  was  on Twitter I found some interesting examples of the use of this new  Tool: FLIPGRID

https://info.flipgrid.com/


Here is the tutorial which I found online and was shared to present  it.




How can we use it ?
For discussions, for assessment and also in Literature  Circles . I think it will be helpful for my ELT lessons too.

 

 

I just need to find a task I would  like to work on with my students.  I will see what  basic account offers and if it is worth paying for upgrading. I am now collecting some examples online to see what I could do in my lessons if I had it. 

 

Useful tips and ideas online

https://quickshout.blogspot.it/2017/08/create-blended-learning-with-video.html

Blogging with Edublog

For my school activities this  year  I started a blog by using the  educational blog

https://edublogs.org/

Here is  a tutorial about it: it is  easy to start and  it has a nice layout. I have only a basic  account but I could also upgrade it.

Edublogs tutorial from Elizabeth Rosen

The idea of  blogging with my classes was influenced by some blogs which I saw online and which made me think that  my students should use more  English and  follow some activities  and tasks from home.
When we finish  school we  do not have much interaction  with students and this is  a pity.  By using a blog we can choose a topic,  create a presentation and  discuss together after researching, deciding the  research and working on it while  using the  language.
Blogs can be used in different ways, they can be  created by students too but in EFL  teachers can enhance  learning  by providing a platform where students  can share their ideas:
        
i.  reflecting on what they  have  read about  or use the blog as a  classroom discussion
ii. investigating and reporting online about what they have learnt about
iii. using the platform to record activities  and  projects
iv. talking about  shared activities

My blog : http://tizianaangiolini.edublogs.org/

When we  learn online we can  also use images and  for this  reason I am going to use the blog to get my  students more engaged by  using pictures and images they can  discuss and make comments  on:

http://tizianaangiolini.edublogs.org/2017/09/04/autumn/

I teach in  a liceo  artistico in Italy and  my students are working on art, paintings  : we are required to search for images online which we  can use for descriptions.
   
Posts can be grouped under different  categories  : here is mine about   Ireland. More posts will be added during the  school year and will be  grouped  depending on the Language  levels of my learners.

http://tizianaangiolini.edublogs.org/category/ireland/

Posts can be shared online on different social  platforms.

You can embed  pictures, videos and if you  upgrade more  gadgets.

My blog is going to become a document with lots of links and activities which will be shared with my classes.

If it works well, I might decide to help my students blog and present their activities online.

The adventure has just begun.
 

TES a useful tool for creating lessons online

TES : how to create lessons online in just a few minutes

 

It is one of the  fastest tools for creating lessons and you can choose  how to create lessons for your  students by using images, videos and adding your  texts.

 

I just tried it last week and after having checked my account was working I could work on the lesson by using the tool online which helps you look for  resources which you can use in your  lesson plan.

It took me less than ten minutes.  Good quality and good materials online.

Once  you are ready you can share it with your  students or embed it on your website.

 



 

 

Why  should everybody try it?

 

 

It's fast and it is free. You can also find a lot of materials which are  shared by other  educators. Sharing is caring and so you can  find  a lot of materials which you can use or also pay for. What I liked was the idea of integrating the lessons with  Google Drive too. 

Digital Tools and Personal Learning Networks

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AWorldMap-A_non-Frame-498x498-animated36steps.gif
Attribution:By derivative work: Alexander.stohr (talk) 00:04, 8 January 2009 (UTC)WorldMap-A_non-Frame.png: Alexander Stohr (WorldMap-A_non-Frame.png) [GFDL
(http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons


On 17 July I was online and could see an interesting webinar about the importance of digital tools in the life of the  teachers who develop their own PLN.
The webinar was run by Cambridge English Language Assessment and provided some ideas about how teachers can develop.

The two presenters , Sally Matson and Anna Lloyd interacted with the teachers and  educators who were online and provided some tips about how we can learn together other educators and how to develop and share ideas, materials and  interact with other teachers.

I am focussing on  some key ideas which I feel everybody involved in teaching should be aware of.
Teaching today requires  a lot of efforts in terms of self-development  and thanks to the internet we can easily learn about new ideas and share tips and learn about what the others are doing.

PLN
The term  refers to  PERSONAL LEARNING NETWORK  and defines an informal network consisting of people a learner interacts with and derives knowledge from. The term is used to define what you create, develop and maintain.
I think that like many teachers  I have felt  alone for years as it is not easy to work with the others in some schools . I wanted to share ideas and tips but often I had to cope with their opposition, it seemed to me that some never  wanted to work together or discuss about their work and methodologies.
Ever since I started working online and  met  likeminded  teachers  things have changed. I also enjoyed working with other teachers when I was in Dublin some years ago: it was a European project for teachers and I realized that more and more teachers want to work together in projects.

Today we have global communities of teachers and we can easily  work together also online, thanks to modern technologies we learn about them and we can share ideas.

 What the two speakers underlined in the  webinar was the importance of developing a reputation online.It is possible to meet virtual friends and educators who love discussing online and work with others as they feel that education is not a national issue but it involves educators, families and teachers.

 

 



While in the past most of the ideas were discussed in conferences and meetings  , now we can have a global audience thanks to social media.
Youtube, Linkedin,FB and Twitter can enable learners to find , share and create online resources.  This implies that  learner can control and manage their learning.

An important aspect of the connected educators is  the relationship with their  writing and blogging is becoming more and more important:

 

Blogging

 

The main focus was only on the main platforms but I must say that we have great  bloggers that can help us learn about ideas, approaches and also new web tools.

Blogging is also useful for teachers when interacting with their learners.

 

The Digital Teacher

 

Teachers have a variety of resources they can rely on for learning:  Moocs but also dedicated platforms which have just been created. The Digital Teacher can be one of the first website to check if you are  beginning to work with  modern tools.  

 

 

 

 

     

 It is important to get organized and to start following important people in education and also events. Twitter or FB can help the learners and the teachers to become more involved in learning about the new events and   modern tools can help them to become organized in saving what they need to  read about and reflect on:

The webinar ended with encouraging words :  Join In!

The event was  a good introduction to what we mean by  connected educators today and how teachers can develop online.

You can watch the recording online dealing with this event .

MMVC17 My reflections online

MMVC17  My posts and my reflections online

by  Tiziana Angiolini

After being part of the online community of educators who saw the webinars which ran from 4th to 6th August I had to write some posts and to prepare my reflections in a video. I posted a video for 10 webinars and a video as an introduction to this experience online.

Here you  can find my videos online and the links to the all the  posts I have written so far: this is my homework for getting the Certificate of Attendance as Dr. Nellie Deutsch requires us to  write posts and to make some videos for reflecting about the events.

My Presentation online  about  MMVC17 with links to posts and also links to the videos







The Beginning of the Conference :My Post
Day1 Presenting the Conference

A video summarizing all the main events which I saw  on line

https://youtu.be/quRnQmAwc58

My post :  Technoclil in the  21st Century 
https://gettingdigitalizedinlifeandwork.blogspot.it/2017/08/mmvc17-beginning-of-conference.html

https://youtu.be/DORVC_tl_xc

My post : Spice  Up your Lessons with Interactive Tools

 https://gettingdigitalizedinlifeandwork.blogspot.it/2017/08/mmvc17-spice-up-your-lessons-with.html

https://youtu.be/r_MayzhJHRo

My Post: Dealing with Digital Distractions

https://gettingdigitalizedinlifeandwork.blogspot.it/2017/08/mmvc17-dealing-with-digital-distractions.html

https://youtu.be/JApe192hEI4

My Post : Motivating 

https://gettingdigitalizedinlifeandwork.blogspot.it/2017/08/mmvc-17-motivating-teens-youngster-to.html

https://youtu.be/ifWvR8-_-8U

My Post: Improve Classroom Culture with Mindfullness

https://gettingdigitalizedinlifeandwork.blogspot.it/2017/08/mmvc-improve-classroom-culture-with.html

https://youtu.be/10lb-f39Tk8

 

 

My Post: What to expect in online Education in coming years

 

https://gettingdigitalizedinlifeandwork.blogspot.it/2017/08/mmvc17-what-to-expect-in-online.html

 

 

https://youtu.be/Y7SPv4xgiMo



 

My Post: Rethinking Stress

https://gettingdigitalizedinlifeandwork.blogspot.it/2017/08/mmvc17-rethinking-stress-triggers.html

https://youtu.be/W-afjOEegr0

My Post : Understanding Programming Foundamentals

https://gettingdigitalizedinlifeandwork.blogspot.it/2017/08/mmvc17-understanding-programming.html


https://youtu.be/0iO6sz7jaMU

My Post about  Native and Non-native  English Teachers

https://gettingdigitalizedinlifeandwork.blogspot.it/2017/08/mmvc17-what-about-non-native-online.html

My Post about  Innovation for quality Leadership

https://gettingdigitalizedinlifeandwork.blogspot.it/2017/08/mmvc17-innovation-for-quality-leadership.html

MMVC17- Innovation for quality Leadership

6th August 2017

Webinar by  Ebba Ossiannilsson

Innovation for quality  Leadership

I was online on 6th August and I could see the great webinar where  the speaker presented her ideas about  Leadership Management.
Quality and Innovation: she speaker  focused around leadership and transformation towards UNESCO SDG goals 2030 and the 4th industrial revolution.
She focussed on the way technology is playing an important role but what is more important is a strong leadership that can enhance initiatives in education and interdisciplinary work.
The main message was about the need for a systemic  change.

What we should do:   THINK OUTSIDE.
Ask questions. Great leaders need to be creative.
Great words in the final slide:  CARING IS SHARING, SHARING IS CARING.
 
The main focus was on providing key ideas about this concept:

It was a great presentation, well-focussed and interesting but I did not connect as I was following the speaker and her interesting ideas. When I watched the session I realized that we are still looking for leaders who have passions and  can motivate. I liked the world  CREATIVE VISIONARIES. I did not ask any questions but I thought the content is relevant to me. In addition, I would add that we should try to become  visionaries to build and develop  a better leadership.
I felt a bit worried about the world of education now as I believe that a few people are so passionate: I agree that people like  Nellie Deutsch are doing a great job but we should have more people.  The challenges and the steps will have to be shared among other visionaries . I will have to try to rely on the people I know in my country and on the international community.

I will have to continue follow people like  Ebba , Dr. Nellie Deutsch and  people who are aware of the importance of education and how leadership is  crucial to develop a better learning  community.
I have already done a Mooc about the importance of  Mentors and Leaders in Education and I will try to learn more about what innovative steps can reshape  Education. It will be a Group  Work shared among people.


Resources shared in the  webinar : the Presentation

Ossiannilsson mmvc17 6_aug2017 from Ebba Ossiannilsson


The video is now online

 

MMVC17- What to expect in online education in coming years

6th August  2017

Webinar by  Parminder Mitter Chaudhury

What to expect in online education in the coming years. A Teacher's  Perspective.

I was online and I could follow this interesting webinar dealing with the issue of technology and online education in coming years. The main focus was on the learners and how they will learn, the technology, the LMS and also information about  Moocs and types of courses which have been provided so far.
According to the speaker more and more learners have had access to courses online  so far and the number is growing.
Not only universities and public institutions are now involved in  providing courses online, but there are also private companies.  There should be a further development in the next years as tablets, laptops and smart phones are now widely used by  people who want to have access to education.
 
The role of teachers becomes crucial and many educators need to be taught about how to work with online technology and in courses online: learning about  LMS is important as the role of teachers becomes more challenging when designing  tasks and courses.

 Here is the interesting conclusion about our future as educators and also digital instructors which the speaker shared with us:

I connected with the other  attendees and shared my ideas about my experiences as a learner online. Personally ,I have always liked Moocs  but since they began I have found a lot of changes. I did not have  to pay for Certificates of attendance in many  courses while now I do have to pay with Edx.org and Coursera. I also expressed my doubts about some quality of the courses.
The content in this  webinar was really engaging and interesting for me as an educator as more and more teaching is happening in a blended learning form. Also in my country we have now teachers who are starting working  online.  Moocs are also very popular. In schools it is not so easy to start working online as  schools have poor quality technology and not all the educators are provided with the right skills to start working online. Some tech-savy educators are doing well. 

When I watched the webinar I  thought that the future might be smart for educators as  more people will have access to education in the next years.  Good educators are also learning now online thanks to many  courses which do not  cost much.  
I felt that it is important to be hopeful as education is continuously changing but  we should not be afraid of technology.
Implementing the ideas will require a lot of optimism but the young generation of educators can be ready, the next steps to take the challenges require a lot  of team work in schools but I am sure that thanks to  people like Dr. Nellie Deutsch and also to many  Mooc providers educators can learn also while working online.

I have already learnt how to work on Moodle and I have tried to become more aware of the issue of education in the future by doing some online courses. I think that in some years I  might try to work online. What I am doing now is providing some activities by using  the Flipped Lesson Approach but I think that there will be more online educators also in Italy.  

Next step:  I think that if I could meet the speaker in 5 years  I would like to ask her  to enquire about the quality of the online courses.

Education for all means  improving the Quality in Education? 

Here is the recording of this webinar

MMVC17- What about Non-native online English teachers?

😉😉😊
6th August

What about Non-Native Online English Teachers?

The speaker of this webinar was  Halina Ostankowicz - Bazan who  presented an interesting debate about Native English  Teachers  and Non-Native Online English Teachers as she faced discriminations on quite a lot of occasions.  
I was online and could follow this interesting  webinar which took place on 6th August.

The Presenter is a non-native  ESL teacher with  lot of experience in teaching English.

The focus of the webinar started with a question as  Halina said that she has often felt she has been considered discriminated:  NATIVE ENGLISH TEACHER  or NON-NATIVE ENGLISH TEACHER? This is my question.

We had a  poll online and we  found that most of the teachers who were doing  the webinars were  Non-native  English  teachers.  She also added that an important  linguistic like  David  Crystal had never mentioned the issue of  Native and Non-native English speakers. What really mattered were the competences of the teachers.

 
 The discussion  continued online when she spoke about the issue of how  Non-native  English teachers  speak English. 

In her presentation she referred to an organization that is aimed at promoting   TEFL equity.

https://teflequityadvocates.com/

When I was following the webinar I checked the website and I found some interesting  videos :  they are worth  checking : https://teflequityadvocates.com/resources/videos/

Like many people online I connected and  interacted with  the Others about what Halina said and although I did not make any specific questions I realized that I have often felt myself  a sort of  less able teacher because I was not a native speaker. But in my reflections online I wrote that many Non-native speakers can be better teachers. For some pronunciation can be a problem, but  in Europe we have a lot of teachers who  have been abroad and have studied abroad and thus we are competent  language teachers.

The topic discussed is relevant to my present situation of ESL  teacher as  I often work with  Native English speakers in school but I have also found some teachers who are not so good at interacting with students. Families want to have some more tuition  in English but the quality is not always so good although they want to have  English mother tongue teachers in class.

When I discovered the organization    TEFL  EQUITY I  was surprised. I had  never heard  about it
before.

I was felt that Halina was right in asking to be given the opportunity of  working online like some English Native  Teachers are doing now but I  thought also that it will take time before more teachers will be given this opportunity.
Challenges?  I am not teaching online and I work in my country in state schools and also privately : I think that if I had to  set up some online courses I might have to face some problems! Anyway, I would be ready to face them as I am a life-long learner and I have learnt how to work online thanks to many Moocs and courses which I have done and where I was able to work together with other teachers. 

In the future I will probably try to read and learn more about this issue as I feel that lots of teachers like me are qualified.  By the way,  I did my first teacher training  in the UK and  I took a Trinity College TESOL Certificate many  years ago.  I began teaching having the same qualification of the Native speakers and I had been doing English at school and  university, this meant that I had more competences as I had studied the language, the culture and also Literature or the many Literature in English for my State exams . In addition I had done three foreign languages and this meant that I had had to face difficulties in learning them.

What next? This is my question to Halina. Do you think you will be given more opportunities?



 I am optimistic and I can see that languages and projects are important in our schools and in Europe.
I think that I have some more opportunities for developing and for  working online as  an English Language Teacher.


Here is the recording of the webinar