Tips on Using TED talks in your ELL- Moodle Mooc 7

MM7: Tips on Using TED talks in your ELL lessons with Judy Wong

Sunday 8th November  2015
My reflections on the  webminar.
This is going to be my first reflection on the MOODLE MOOC webinars  that I am doing. The choice for this webinar, which I did by watching a recorded video, as I was busy at school, is  mainly due to the fact that as a teacher of English I have always searched for interesting videos and clips to use with my students of English. Ted talks are my favourite ones. 
The webinar took place on 8th November and it was presented by Judy Wong.
I regularly receive updating from the  section of TED lessons  http://ed.ted.com/lessons  and think  that  TED is  really great and teachers are working on talks to bring them into the lessons to make the learning  environment  engaging and  more interesting.
The webinar started with the presentation of Judy Wong who is not only a teacher but also a performing artist and a writer.
I liked the slide presenting her with these words:

"We are teachers as well as students and our students are our teachers"


Links to  TED and  web pages related to TED
https://www.ted.com
http://www.ted.com/talks
http://ed.ted.com/lessons


Ideas from the  presenter when  using  TED talks.
These are mainly based on the presenter who seems to be a caring teacher and someone who teaches by loving what she does:

• think about your students ( adults/children? what are their interests?)
• think about the theme of the lesson
• think about the objective of the lesson ( grammar? speaking?)

For language learners there are  plenty of lessons with also Grammar videos where students can also have fun too.

TED talks are good  for Listening:

- main  ideas

- supporting  details

-  inferences

-   grammar

TED  talks  and   READING  SKILLS:

Transcripts can also be used to focus on the language/words. Videos have transcripts which can help the students while they are watching the videos.

When reading the transcripts we can work on many levels:

 -  key ideas

 -  details

 -  find  interferences

 -  key  grammar points

 -  compare  spoken language and written language 

Ted talks can be  used in writing for many interesting activities, these are the ideas presented in the webinar: 

• talking as   prompt
• talking to research further
• setting up argumentative essays  or debates 

If you do not have access to internet, you can use  transcripts for activities like reading, speaking skills and identifying grammar points.

I agree with what the speaker has said who uses the videos by thinking deeply about what she wants to do in class. I would also add that TED offers great videos and interesting topics that can help us develop better lessons.

This is Judy's  Blog:

http://judysworld.edublogs.org/

The presentation she made can be retrieved from :

http://judysworld.edublogs.org/webinars/

You can learn more from her if you are on Linkedin:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/judywongrteddi

I also checked  with Google and found these interesting suggestions shared by teachers:

 

Some people who wrote about  TED Talks and English language learning

http://www.englishtown.com/blog/best-ted-talks-english-language-learners/

http://ieltsadvantage.com/2015/04/26/ted-talks-english-students/

and now the next reflection on ..........................

MOODLE MOOC 7 November 2015

November 2015                    Moodle Mooc   7

Reflecting on   Moodle Mooc   7

Thanks to Nellie Deutsch I was able to start a MOOC course about  MOODLE in November. I was late as I had worked on more  Moocs and I was busy with my new classes this year. But I could not resist and just started late , it was the second week but I could catch up. And now I have done most of the activities.
This is the link to the program   https://docs.google.com/document/d/19YfwWbwgP7jwJaMfJ8H2YPVuRL8awTvyDst9DCyOqPA/edit

 I had done some  lessons online in August and I had already used  Moodle  https://moodle.org/ as a beginner. I had also  used Moodle as a learner as I had  done two online courses thanks to ZANICHELLI in Italy. But I wanted to try to work on it again.

WHO RAN THE MOOC online:

Dr. Nellie Deutsch is founder of Integrating Technology and Moodle for Teachers (M4T) social learning networks. She organizes MOOCs, Moodle training, online conferences, webinars and teaching with technology as a way to learn. She is a blended and e-learning expert and is the author of Instructor Experiences with Implementing Technology in Blended Learning Courses.
She has set up her youtube channel  https://www.youtube.com/user/nelliemuller/featured

The course is well-planned and it helps Teachers work on Moodle while following  webminars and sharing ideas too.

You can find  a  presentation of the Mooc  on the webpage  www.moodle4teachers.org  or by seeing the  video on the Youtube:

In the next days I will write about what I have seen and learnt by watching the webminars mainly in the recorded sessions as I was not at home to watch them while they were  presented online.  Some interesting sessions and what I saw was really worth seeing.


Tiziana Angiolini    21 November  2015

Blended Learning - Week 1 and 2 a Mooc run by FutureLearn November 2015

Week 1 and Week 2  My personal reflections on  Blended Learning
                                           Week 1
What is   Blended Learning?

From Visually.

The platform   Futurelearn  started an interesting MOOC about  Blended Learning on 2nd November. The course has been planned with five modules, one for each week and it is being followed by a growing number of people. The course will be followed by a second Mooc Blended Learning Essentials: Embedding Practice which begins on 1st February 2016.
 
I had already done some Moocs about  Blended Learning in the past but I wanted to see what is going on. I could not start the course on the first days but I tried to catch up because I am a teacher who wants to continue learning and I love the opportuninity of studying online and learning from the others.
These are my reflections and  I am also providing interesting weblinks which I think are worth checking. 
I have done most of the activities in the first two weeks and  I have found interesting ideas, links about the best ways for working with Blended Learning.
We have been provided with interesting videos, weblinks and we are now sharing ideas about the best ways we can work by using  digital tools.

An interesting part of the course is this Glossar http://ble-leeds.wikidot.com/wiki:index, we can add new words in relationship to the topic but I think that the first term is the  definition of  Blended Learning:


 Blended learning is an approach to facilitating a course in which parts of the course are facilitated ‘face to face’ in a brick and mortar environment and other parts are facilitated online with learners controlling time / place and pace they will study these parts of the course.


I have always associated the term to Flipped Lessons: it is also flipping lessons but I have seen how it can be used in many vocational courses and I think  it is a great way for proving courses to people who need to work online and study while they are working. 

From the same index I just checked what students had added, the definition for flipping lessons or learning is very simple:

teaching method where materials and themes are watched, read or researched before contact time and students come prepared with questions and discussion points.


In some ways I have already done some flipping lessons: I have asked my students of English to watch some videos or some presentations online at home and what we did in the next days was a discussion or a reflection about the themes/issues and topics presented online.  I must admit that I had chosen to ask them to work at home because at school we did not have a good internet access and also for discussions I had to ask them to watch again the videos and sometimes we did it while they were watching their smartphones because we had no internet in the classroom.
But I also liked the idea of " flipping" the students' learning because I wanted them to work on  their own and think more about what they had just seen.

Why is it important to use new tools and  learn in a digitalized 
environment?  If you check the  article 
  https://www.jisc.ac.uk/blog/five-reasons-why-you-should-do-digital-01-may-2015
 about the many reasons for choosing this way you will find the following points:
- digital teaching helps you to reach new learners
- the learning experience online  can be more engaging
- digital capabilities are important for our students who need to look for a job but also for teachers who can continue learning
- digital technology is essential for supporting professional development
- "digital technologies can actually support your organisation in becoming more sustainable and prosperous. Digital delivery of the curriculum can be used to counteract low class numbers and attract more learners, such as supporting distance learning, particularly in rural areas."
The following links provide you  with videos about  some examples of  Blended  Learning :

https://mymedia.leeds.ac.uk/Mediasite/Play/1f057e9e75974c198601d07d21316c6e1d

https://mymedia.leeds.ac.uk/Mediasite/Play/ffd297564f544dbf9dd06e2cbc3d77041d
https://mymedia.leeds.ac.uk/Mediasite/Play/ce05d719f3334ecbb171830e7d233ee31d
https://mymedia.leeds.ac.uk/Mediasite/Play/05a1ed14d2324ee6ae671d7a534818f61d

Why should have blended learning?   These are some ideas presented in Week1 :

• To enrich the classroom experience to bring in more kinds of active learning
• To make use of existing digital resources to enhance the learning activity
• To use online learning for learners to prepare themselves for work in class or on site so they can use that time more productively
• To use online learning to support them in following up on what they did in practice
• To make it easier for learners to study flexibly alongside work, enabling them to be much more time efficient

I would add that in the post-industrialized society, in a world where technology is changing our way of working, learning and living   Blended Learning is now a  " must" : in most activities we rely now on technological devices  and technology and internet are shaping our way of living.  The educators and teachers must be aware of it.


ELT AND FLIPPING LESSONS

After doing week 1 I just checked online and found this interesting article for teachers of English 

http://eflmagazine.com/is-the-flipped-classroom-relevant-to-elt/

They suggested these tools for  TELF/ESL teaching:

Tools

Ed Ted Allows you to add quizzes and questions to YouTube videos
http://ed.ted.com/

This is a great tool and I have already used some lessons online.

MyBrainShark. A video that shows you how to use and access MyBrainShark
http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/audio-podcasting/mybrainshark-quick-version.html

This is a LMS  and  it is in the cloud but it is expensive see :

http://www.brainshark.com/solutions/learning-cloud

Present.Me A video that shows you how to use and find Present.Me. You can make videos to be shared and embedded too.
Available at
http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/video-youtube/present-me.html

http://presentme-edu.com/          It is not a  free subscription but you can pay also for one month.


SnagIt.   It is an image and video screen capture.  It is not free.
A video that  shows you how to use and access SnagIt
http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/screen-casting/introduction-to-snagit.html


This is the padlet where teachers shared their ideas about  Blended learning:

Created with Padlet

                            Interesting Webtools 
We were able to learn about new webtools too, some teachers shared ideas about devices and provided links:

https://getkahoot.com.
http://www.refme.com/  for  generating references
http://accesstechnology.org.uk/images/

http://accessyoutube.org.uk/

A teacher shared her presentation about   Edmodo - a safe learning environment which I also know:

https://mrosarialup.wordpress.com/edmodo/

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8EjX-OzeLTabGlSVzQ4VjNoZXc/view  ( learning wheel)

Useful website for searching  Web tools:

http://james-thinks-its-worth-a-look.blogspot.co.uk/ 
This is the most interesting weblinks which provides real help to people who do not know much about  webtools.

http://procatdigital.co.uk/learning-wheels/

This is a great weblink for my personal learning growth.

                                               Week 2

We have  seen some good examples based on different  approaches constructivism, social constructivism and problem-based learning:  the following  links will provide you with the videos we  saw.

https://mymedia.leeds.ac.uk/Mediasite/Play/70addeca967c41edb3b9f872c38c0aff1d

https://mymedia.leeds.ac.uk/Mediasite/Play/c1aec7e63b7745edbb1f49493d0822bc1d

https://mymedia.leeds.ac.uk/Mediasite/Play/4724c3e42ef34890b3ae8511239c5b8c1d

What I liked was the level of engagement of the learners : they were working, doing something and it was meaningful.

The tools used were  

1.  Nearpod    https://www.nearpod.com/
2. Google Classroom

   3.an e-learning platform 

We  were presented with ideas and information  about   digital literacy  skills .

The concept of  digital skills is not new to me  because  I have done a MOOC  about this  topic  recently  and I must confess that  these skills are really the ones we should all have , our students must be able to work by using the new technology and also know about the main issues and problems online.

The importance of Digital Literacy Skills

What I am going to do is to analyze these important weblinks which are all new to me :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/0/

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/digitalliteracy/overview.aspx

http://jiscdesignstudio.pbworks.com/w/page/60226781/Developing%20your%20digital%20literacies

http://www.open.ac.uk/libraryservices/beingdigital/pathways/13/14

http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/infokit/video-planning/video-planning-home

http://www.connectsafely.org/wp-content/uploads/eduguide.pdf

Educators need to know more and when teaching we have to be aware of the problems of  safety and privacy, but our  students have been online for years now and maybe they still need to learn about such issues.

Embedding Blended  Learning may  require a lot of time and the experiences shown make me reflect : a good school need to work on the skills of the teachers, on the learning environment and planning such new approach must be shared.  This would not always be possible in some schools.  As regards me  I have tried to embed Blended Learning by choosing to use modern tools and by using blogs and websites where I embed some activities for my students. 

Here are the links for the experiences presented in the course:

https://view.vzaar.com/5523708/video

http://www.boltlanding.whitecreativecompany.co.uk/more-guidance-e-learning/case-studies/

They must have worked hard and working on case-studies is the best way we could work at school and in further education.

I think that it will take time but we can make progress: blended learning can help us offer better learning that takes into consideratin the flexibility of learning and also the differences among our students.

Finally, I would like to thank all the teachers in the course who are sharing ideas, experiences and more. That's the best way for learning and improving our teaching methodologies and learning about  new digital skills and  digital tools.

Free Tools in education

Free Tools for  educators

Last Saturday was a great one. Thanks to SimpleK12   http://www.simplek12.com/ I had the chance to see some webminars dealing with Free Tools on line, it was a  day for educators and all the webminars were free.  I must confess that the experience online made me think about the best ways for working in a digitalized classroom and this was great.
SimpleK12 offers  free webminars online and also webminars for  people who belong to SimpleK12, in some cases you have to pay to have access to some materials online(registered users).

If you want to learn more about what is offered  just follow this link  http://www.simplek12.com/upcoming-webinars/

This is my collection with  some information about  some great  tools which I think we should all be able to use : I have already used some of them but  for many I must admit I have been thinking about but I have been working in a learning   environment where most of the students do not have a  good internet access point . My great hope is to be able to work online from home and also in collaborative projects from home and at school.  The padlet will be updated anytime I find interesting tools which seem to be interesting.

Created with Padlet

What skills for the future ?

Almost in the same week I saw a webminar online and it was  about the future and what our  students should learn  and what skills they need : the references were based on a report which was presented on line:  DRIVING THE SKILLS AGENDA from the Economist . Our students need to learn how to work in a different way and collaborate, use webtools and have  21st century skills.


http://www.economistinsights.com/analysis/driving-skills-agenda


This is the reason why I feel that we should all change our way of working and our lessons.


To be continued...........................................

DIGITAL STORYTELLING LEARNING ON LINE WITH COURSERA

                 DIGITAL STORYTELLING  
         WITH  COURSERA

After 5 weeks I finished my  MOOC course  about  DIGITAL STORYTELLING( DS) with COURSERA see   COURSERA MOOC COURSE
To begin with  it was an interesting experience and I could learn a lot about DS, the new tools which we can use  to create videos, how to write a script and how to  choose pictures and music. We learned from video tutorials and we  tried to work by following the tips of the professors who were a good guide for us by focussing on how to plan a story, create a story board and how to edit a video.

I was not so successful,but I could enter a new world: DS can be a challenge, but  it can help us develop new activities and  provide  help in  writing stories with our students.

These are some great videos which were shared by the  students in our course, they used different video editors but they were successful and I was pleased to see such good  videos: these are just some which I was able to see


  
Lilac Love from ellen feeley on Vimeo.




I would like to underline that we worked on peer assessment and self-assessment and the choice of the topic and the tools made the difference.  I did not  make a great video and I am going to learn more about  WEVIDEO  because I could not  finish my work.  One problem was the length of the video  and I did not finish editing the video. I used another tool but again it was a problem. I will therefore  try to see why I could not save the final video. I used screencast o'matic but the final output of my video was really low quality.  I got  28/36 marks but they told me that I should improve the quality of the photos and  of  course  use the video makers which they had suggested.

Anna  Laghigna made a great  video: an interesting video which shows how well she can work with modern web 2.0 tools

Finally some  links for further learning and  studying and  develop  great  videos  when teaching:

https://valentinamorgana.wordpress.com/2014/04/12/digital-and-mobile-storytelling-in-elt/        

http://www.shellyterrell.com/digitalstorytelling.html                                                                      

                                                                 

In my website you can find more information about  my experience online    and my research about  DS                                                                                                                                                          

                                  

https://sites.google.com/site/thenewworldoflearning/digital-storytelling


In addition I am sharing this interesting  LIVEBINDER :
Click here to open this binder in a new window.




I am going to work to learn how to make  better videos and I hope that I will finally become good at making  them.

Enjoy working online and editing videos!

Moodle: MOOC Course summer 2015- Looking forward to the next session in January 2016

Moodle  is  an open source LMS (Learning Management System) DEFINITION OF MOODLE .

When I was doing the course about online learning in  a Mooc course run by COURSERA in  the  summer  I had come across it .
 However, it was new to me in some way because  I had used the platform ONLY as a learner  for some online courses in Italy.  I had appreciated how it could work well for students who study on their own and teachers who work online.
Last summer I did the  Mooc course online - an introduction to Moodle - and it was engaging and worth doing. I created my first online course and I am going to do it again next January to learn more about the platform. At present I cannot work online with my students but I could try to use it. My online course has been saved and I might upload it later as there is a platform named " Moodle cloud"   https://moodlecloud.com/en/
This is my learning experience. I will continue  learning next year to be able to create a nice course in the cloud. More information about the next  course  for beginners can be found online:
https://learn.moodle.net/

These  are the  important  videos which presented the new platform   MOODEL 2.9 . I have  also uploaded my video to end my final reflections about the engaging  experience I have made. 
It was great to meet so many learners and to see so many dedicated teachers sharing their courses online. 

Created with Padlet

LEARNING TO TEACHING ON LINE # LTTO COURSERA SUMMER 2015

Coursera:  LTTO - LEARNING TO TEACH ON  LINE  MOOC  Course by the  UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH WALES  https://www.coursera.org/unsw

Reflections of a learner and a teacher:
LTTO  is a must for anyone interested in Online Learning.
August  2015
My  reflections and some suggestions for anyone who might want to learn about  it.
The journey had started six weeks ago. I  had decided to take up the course which seemed to challenge me. I am not tech-savvy and I work online because technology is now part of our  work, and it is  influencing our  life as educators and teachers. I have learnt a lot now thanks to Coursera where I did a lot of courses  in the past. These courses have given me ideas and prompts about the best ways for implementing my teaching. 
This course was " the best one " I have ever done online.
Here are the interviews of the two tutors that can  tell you how they have planned and thought about it:

They were great guides for us and planned everything in the best way to enable us to work well online.
I must confess that  I got engaged in every activity they had planned so that I would suggest  more people take this course when they plan to do it again.
First of all follow this hashtag # LTTO and  Twitter so that you can learn about this  MOOC. These are the name of the great Professors who worked online and  helped us carry out our journey into Online Learning:
Negin Mirriahi

Simon McIntyre


This is the course syllabus: 

Module 1 What is online teaching and why is it important? An overview of online ethnographies and technologies and their place in contemporary education.

Module 2 Open and closed technologies: An examination of the pros and cons of the use of open web 2.0 tools vs. institutionally supported systems in educational contexts, and an examination of relevant activities.

Module 3 Planning online learning: Understand how to define your learning outcomes, develop appropriate online activities and assessment strategies, and to choose the right technology to use. These themes are continually revisited throughout the remainder of the course.

Module 4 Online learning activities: Types of online activities and teaching scenarios. An overview and exemplification of a range of fully online, blended and mobile learning scenarios, online resources and activities. Issues concerning accessibility and inclusivity are also explored.

Module 5 Online assessment strategies: An explanation of aligning assessment with learning outcomes and designing assessments for learning. Considerations of using technology to enhance assessments – benefits to the instructor and the students are discussed. Design and purpose of standards-based assessment and rubrics, and issues concerning assessment feedback and practical affordances provided by technologies are also explored.

Module 6 Online resources: What role can online resources play in effectively supporting student learning? Understand how to find and use a range of Open Educational Resources (OER) in your class, and explore options for creating and your own online resources. Issues of Creative Commons and Copyright in online education are also discussed.

Module 7 Engaging and motivating students: How to manage your time online as an instructor. Best practices are discussed and identified for building an online community of learners.

Module 8 Evaluation strategies: What are some evaluation methods for determining whether your course design change has been effective? How can learning analytics from the use of online technologies help you identify that your course design is helping meet your intended aims and outcomes? Suggestions are offered for ways of gaining feedback from students to inform your continued teaching practice and pedagogical decisions.

The module were presented in the best way: videos, self-reflections online and personal development online after watching the videos.
Personal research could be  carried out after we had done some more  activities online and we were sent  a long list of links dealing with the points we might need to develop.  I have bookmarked a lot of links and I will have to continue  learning since there is going to be a great change in education online. There is so much to learn and web tools are now a sort of obsession: which to use? How? Which can work better?
More questions : open LMS or not?  Now I am doing an introduction course to  Moodle to see how it can work and if I can decide to use it.

What made the course interesting were also the great discussions online: we had a lot  of good students who  posted a lot of comments  in the forums and this  made it an enriching experience.

We had two activities to prepare  which were  based on what we had been doing and I wrote a specific blog online as  a teacher blog to get my students more engaged.  The project has just started but this course has given me a lot of interesting ideas and tools that I am going to use when I get  back to school  in September. The blog, padlet and other  web 2.0 tools will help me teach on line.
I am pleased to say that Coursera with this  MOOC  has really  widened my horizon and I have met a great number of  teachers  like me who are carrying out  a  CPD and are interested in learning.
This is the link to my  blog: it is still under construction but  I have devised an online activity about  WW1 to be done with some students in the new school  year.
http://learningtogetherinenglish.blogspot.it/ 

I would also  like to leave this interesting link where they have  collected our  interesting links related to this course:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yujGIqATN953Et6bUaptzx16viJPScdlLfODMKmKnIw/edit#gid=0

Some teachers have also  written their learning diary online: this is a great online diary by an English  teacher. 
Here is the link to  Hannah Ruthryreman's blog:
 My learning diary
She has done a great job! Thanks  Hannah for sharing the great experience that you have now  acquired.  
In particular I liked this section of the blog that she has written and shows us how she is engaged in  CPD : 

https://hannahruthtyreman.wordpress.com/category/classroom-practice/technology-classroom-practice/

We have been given a long list of  tools and blogs for learning more. This is a great   blog which  was  shared on Twitter:

http://nikpeachey.blogspot.gr/p/my-downloads.html


I am also aware that there are  a lot of issues that are important when working  on line.
I came across this  interesting article on line about  CREATIVE  COMMONS: 

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2015/08/copyright-and-creative-commons-explained.html#.VdeM9vntmko


So thanks to the Tutors and people who worked on line for developing this " cool " course and I am looking forward to the next session online!!
Thanks to the Community of learners who worked with us.