MM7: Minecraft as a model for gamification in teacher training with Vance Stevens

MM7: Minecraft as a model for gamification in teacher training with Vance Stevens

Sunday 29  November  2015

 

 

This afternoon  I was able to follow some webinars presented in the MM7 which started on 1st November.Most of them were recorded. My internet connection did not work in the afternoon -yesterday -so I had to look for help. Now I have a new wifi connection - mobile - and I can work online. I have started working online again.

Today I was able to watch the presentation by  VANCE  STEVEN who is a great " master" in today's education and online education.

His presentation focussed on MINECRAFT  https://minecraft.net/ and  he made a nice  slice describing  his ideas about the way we can teach and learn, and this post  is  about  what he told us.

First he spoke about the communities of practice and the approaches to knowledge transferal and generation. I must confess that what he talked about was new to me, I have worked online for over 10 years but I discovered the Moocs only three years ago.

 

He then presented the C-Moocs in EVO and what was interesting for me was the final point of his presentation: he talked about C-Mooc  approach in gamification and he invited us to join the EVOMC16 .        As a Language  teacher I know that  teaching can happen in many different ways and gamification is getting more and more important.

 

  This is the slide he shared with us and which I shared on Twitter as I feel that more teachers should know about his ideas. 

 

 



Learning2gether meets Moodle MOOC 7, EVO, and gamification in TPD from Vance Stevens

Important  ideas


Some  key ideas he shared were related to  MINECRAFT and I must confess that it is difficult for me to think about using games but the presenter made me think that I should take gaming into consideration and check information about Minecraft.

Language teaching could really benefit from using  games and perhaps also teachers who work online  might have a new approach when teaching online and in face-to-face interactions.

I searched the web and checked Vance Stevens and his website: I found this link which is worth  seeing

http://learning2gether.net/2015/11/15/minecraft-mooc-rocks-slanguages-2015/

I am going to watch the webinar where  Vance  presented  MINECRAFT and how it can help teachers who are interested in  their professional development.

My plans and intentions
I am not sure if I can work online and take part in the EVOMC16 but I might  try: I only need more  free afternoons  and evenings when  I can work well . This autumn has been so busy that I had to work also at night to finish my activities. But I will check and see more. 

Tech or no Tech : the impact on teacher development

MM7: Tech or no Tech: the impact on teacher development with Louise Emma Potter
The event took place on Tuesday 24 November 2015. The presenter was  Louise Emma Potter. I could not attend the webinar and  watched the recording.

What the  presenter  focussed on 

Technology is now part of our  daily life and we work, live, traveland study thanks to the use of  modern  technology.  Technology is  now  used for  socializing  too. The issue  discussed by the presenter was that today we still teach in the old way but in real life we use technology. This happens in spite of the fact  that our world has  changed in the last 20 years and  our students use technology more than we do. Teachers have to change their way of thinking!

Today we have  different students: they are  twenty-first century students. They  have to  use presentation  skills, to have critical skills.  Also education needs changing.       

Some key ideas  expressed by the presenter: there is a difference between  USING TECHNOLOGY and  INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY, which takes into consideration the active learners and what they do at school. This is an interesting comparison presented by Louise  Emma Potter: the students are " active learners" when we integrate technology  into our  teaching.

What is really important is having students who are inquisitive, open-minded and flexible. They know how to work and how to think. Creativity is also important in schools, often we face students who are scared.  Communication is  really important. Collaboration and  how we work are more and more  important.

She has  shared her ideas about   Project Based Learning  which can offer very engaging activities.

Personally I would like to work on PBL but  I am also aware of the great changes we should work on. teachers, students and also the learning  environment.

What she says  is interesting and I agree  teachers need to collaborate, work on self-development and be less teacher-centred.

Like other teachers and presenters in webinars she thinks that teachers need to be connected and share more and more what they are learning and experiencing. A lot of EFL teachers are still working and are aware of this.In one  webinar the name of  Shelly Sanchez Terrell was mentioned as a great innovator. There are a lot of innovators today. 

The webinar has presented most of the ideas which have been shared by other presenters and I agree that when teaching we must go beyond  " grammar and lexis" and  think more  about  the importance of  cultural issues, digital skills and 21st-century skills. 

To the next webinar.....................................................................................

                                                                                                                             

Even Taking Risks Benefit Students The Pros and Cons of Being an Innovative Educator

MM7 "  Even taking  Risks benefit Students "
Friday 27  November 2015

The webinar took place this evening- 27 November 2015-and I could follow it online. The presenter was Fabiana Laura Casella : she is a passionate EFL teacher from Argentina.

She is an active and engaged teacher who loves sharing ideas,

trying new  learning experiences  and  has in interest in her students. 

In the  webinar she  described her life experience as an educator who is engaged in " self-development", " sharing experiences" and is  trying  to find " new ways  in teaching".

She has experienced working as a teacher abroad also and she is  a connected educator. 

Like me she loves learning and I could appreciate what she has done: she mentioned  Shelly  Sanchez Terrell as the teacher who inspired her:

What  Shelly and Fabiana have in common is the idea that teaching is in progress and under  construction: we never stop learning and devising new activities. We are now connected and we can take part in international events and learn more and more.

 

She has presented what she has been doing and she has focussed on blogging as  an activity for teachers and also for learners.

When you start a new approach you need to think about it and start writing a blog is good way for  being reflective and being an innovator. And students will benefit from these activities as well. 

Students can learn from new learning activities: you just try and then you continue working and you develop a competence that is really important for life. The real world should part of our  teaching. 

She mentioned  Twitter, skype, social networks for creating new experiences. I agree with her that we need to devise new teaching ideas so that our  students of English can learn more.

I have seen that Fabiana is a " great researcher" who has  links with today's world.

For this reason she suggested working with SKYPE, teaching by using social networks.

Taking a risk, this is what she suggested and  I  think that although I teach in a learning environment that does not offer many tools for teachers and students,we  should all try to create  more communicative and engaging activities.

I will be following FABIANA on Twitter: I have been a connected educator and I  love  learning from the others.

See also: https://www.edutopia.org/users/fabiana-casella

Blended Learning week 3 FutureLearn autumn 2015

Blended Learning -  Week  3                                             November 2015
                                          OPEN TOOLS

I am writing now about this week- it is the third one- with some delay  as I was busy working online  for other activities.
These are the main  issues presented in the  MOOC: 

- we  have been given information about   many tools, most of which  I am familiar with:

WordPress, Prezi, Audacity, Google tools, Padlet and Thinglink .

I think that they are really useful and I have appreciated their use in my lessons and also in embedding them or  providing the links to my students.
I have not used Wordpress  for blogging and writing online but I know that most of the  teachers have now used it. For recording audios I use  another tool, but I know that  Audacity is one of the best.
I know about the importance of a suite like  Google as I have done some webinars online and  I am providing this presentation online to show how  Google Sheets  can work:


https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1zlLWfWDSGTt9nLbSAxAHBiqiaSrNPLNRlDnlhxI697o/edit#slide=id.gde456e6ca_0_5

Google has also a translator tool:  https://translate.google.com/

You can also find  Google stuff online, just check  here:

  http://tammyworcester.com/googlestuff/

More information about other  tools can be  found on this  useful site :

http://asksimplek12.com/

Google Hangout on Air

I missed the  Q&A  session but I could watch the video on line thanks  to the modern technology:
 this is the  link   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F76xtKtUhfE, I have embedded the video: 

The following padlet is a good presentation of what we have shared online:

Created with Padlet

This is part of my summary about this week , based on what I saw and think it is very important

View Week 3 Blended learning Future LearnAutumn 2015 Important issues presented in the MOOC course full version on Tackk
Create your own customized Tackk page

Business English Writing- Reflections on the webinar

MOOC7: WEBINAR  " Business English Writing: How to help our  clients.Write with Impact"
Wednesday -25 November 2015

The Webinar was on line today: the presenter of the webminar was

Shanthi Cumaraswamy Streat .

She is a teacher who is involved in teaching one-to-one and Business English and she has a blog and a website: these are the links which she gave us in the  final slide of her presentation.

http://englishwithatwist.com/

http://englishwithatwist.com/blog/

The webinar  focussed on the process of writing and it was centred on the importance of  focussing on the needs of the students and what they should be able to write in English, and in particular in Business English Writing.

We were asked to think about the best ways we would approach teaching Business English Writing and she suggested the following ideas:

• establish the objectives
• brainstorm the content
• select and reject
• prepare and outlines with points
• expand on the details
• keep to the plan

I feel that it is really important to teach how to write as quite often our students are not used to thinking before writing in English.Yet it is important to know what we want to write.

The second part of the webinar was on the organization of the text and she reminded us about the importance of a structure  and how we  connect  sentences. 

The focus was on sentence connectors and linking words.

Paragraph writing is important and  she underlined also the importance of style in writing.

In particular, she suggested  teaching  how to use  " positive words".

I have taught Business English writing and  I am aware of  the importance of good planning and good writing. I liked the slide in which she summarized the whole process of writing for our  students:

Grammar mistakes are quite common and we do need to check how the students can manage and how to make them aware of the language differences 

Finally,she underlined the importance of checking  spelling and the use of punctuation.

The webinar was interesting and full of useful ideas about the best ways to approach  teaching writing in Business English. We should all think before we write.

It takes time to devise new activities and we do need to plan them so that the students are aware of the differences between  using English  in writing and in speaking.  

Currently,I am not teaching Business English Writing but these tips are useful for starting any activity that has to do with writing and how we can present ideas.

These are some useful references for further study that we have been given:

  

I checked online and found also some blogs and links  about how to teach 

http://www.businesswritingblog.com/business_writing/teaching_business_writing/

http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/images/22099-vocabulary-list.pdf    ( interesting for downloading  vocabulary )

http://www.eslflow.com/Businessvocabulary.html

To the next webinar .......................

How open is open

22nd November 
MM7  Webinar   "How  open is open" by  Doctor EBBA  OSSIANNILSON

Today- 22nd November  2015 - Dr. Ebba Ossiannilsson has  discussed the issue  “How open is open”. The introduction on the presentation  was clear : "What do we really mean with open and opening up education? What about challenges and consequences? What about let the learner take the lead?".
I could see the webinar online, today is Sunday and I had some free time to watch  what I am interested in.
The presenter is  Ebba Ossiannilsson and loves  talking and  presenting the issue of  OPEN EDUCATION. She is a Swedish professor who loves her job and education.
She has presented her ideas and  a lot of information about education, free education and more. This is the screenshot from her presentation where she defines  open education:

On the whole, I liked the ideas she presented about  making " education" open and free to most learners in the world.
What we can do today is a real change in education: " learning can now happen everywhere ". This is one of the reasons why I also like online learning and  most the MOOCs I am doing online. 
It is also important to talk about the quality of courses and online teaching. 

Interesting links or points covered in the presentation by the Swedish presenter:
Why open education? It matters for us as individuals. We need it to work, to live in other places, to collaborate. 
We can choose, base our education on platforms available from everywhere.
Technology can help us.
Today we have the so called open movement that provides us with lots of free resources. They are due to technology and collaboration online and the work of many people who believe in open education.

Why is it important?
Because in education we  can share ideas, things and everything is free.
LINKS: 
http://sparceurope.org/how-open-is-our-research-a-checklist-for-institutions/
http://oeru.org/   this in an interesting website for free courses and open education  and resources

Examples of open education links:
http://openbadges.org/   to recognize  and verify learning

http://www.openeducationeuropa.eu/  This website is from the European Union and provides helps for educators, information and links to weblinks and materials shared by teachers.

What  have I learnt?
There is a new world and a great community of  people working in different fields and they are working thanks to the new technology.
We can learn from the others, so I liked what the presenter left in the final  part of the presentation. CARING IS SHARING! This is also my motto: we have a great " Movement " that is changing our institutions too. The revolution in education  has just begun.

To the next  webinar .......................................

EFL Talks with Rob Howard

MM7: EFL Talks with Rob Howard

The webinar took place on 6th November and the presenter was Rob Howard.
Rob Howard is a teacher, tutor and writer of English and he is the founder of  EFL Talks  http://efltalks.com/.
I checked online and found also his blog
http://onlinelanguagecenterblog.com/tag/rob-howard/

I had never checked the website he presented, but I did it this morning and  I could see that it provides help and sharing experience for teachers, for anyone who has just started teaching or needs to be connected and work on self-development. It must be a great way for being in contact with teachers from all over the world  and meeting people online who like me are eager at learning. It is a great community and it is run by teachers!
The topic of presentation were:
PLN  Personal Learning Network
CPD  Continuing  Professional Development
TD     Teacher Development
I know most of the definitions because I have done a lot of MOOCs and courses for teachers and I belong to those who work on keeping updated. Like Rob I have problems with time but I am engaged in working on my self-development in my free time.
What Rob has devised is a way for making videos/webinars available by making them shorter so that teachers can work on them in a shorter time. Usually, webinars are long and are planned at night or at times when we work and so we miss them. Working and having to commute is really hard for me but now I have found an interesting website that can help me:
See http://www.efltalks.com/Videos.html

There is also a youtube channel which has been set up by him:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJUhh3Bj_lOIcz0CUyjU0_A


The ideas and the things I have  learnt are now part of what I am doing and must say that people like him have made my teaching more interesting because I have learnt that I am not alone but I am working with  other teachers and learning from the others. This is also the message that I have received from other great thinkers in TEFL and modern technology.

Thanks for the nice  webinar and I  am looking  forward to following him  and the nice activities he is sharing with us!