MMVC18 Dr Ebba

Day one
3rd August 2018
Ebba Onnilson     Increasing Access, Social Inclusion and Quality through Mobile Learning

You can access the presentation online as the educator always shares her slides in online conferences: 

Mmvc18 ossiannilsson from Ebba Ossiannilsson

My  reflections

I was online on the first day of the Conference and I could  watch Dr Ebba presenting the webinar about
mobile learning: the title was really "catching "Increasing Access, Social Inclusion and
Quality through Mobile Learning.

Ebba is a great  scholar and a person who  is studying the way education is changing and  since most
of the young and also people living in poorer countries have access to the internet thanks to their
mobile devices , she  underlined the importance of mobile learning to increase access, inclusion and
also a positive approach in most schools.

The questions that came through my mind  were related to what is happening in France now and
also in my country as  it seems that many educators are afraid of using this device, the mobile phone
in class.

I think that we should  be aware of what might not work but at the same time  I agree with the
presenter that the issue of safety online is  a serious matter in education.

The report presented by UNESCO in 2013  underlined the importance of mobile learning to connect
and  improve communication and as a result we should learn that by using this device which is now
 part of our daily life we can also provide better feedback and facilitate learning.

I really liked watching the event and I thought that more educators should think of the mobile phone as
a tool which can enhance  learning not only in school but also outside school as it can reach learners
working in different parts of the world and thanks to some apps we can really get learners more engaged and also provide  help and support learners who are facing some difficulties.

My idea is now to work  in class by introducing some  apps which I know can be used easily by my students and without having to ask them to  pay for them. Whatsapp is for example used widely by my students and we might use it for  doing more activities and maybe to collaborate in English with other students.

The future for mobile learning is  starting: I agree with Dr Ebba when she says that also the university
system in many countries needs to  uptake mobile learning.

It is something that will happen and which will “ change “ the way we work and study.

We cannot but  help our learners take  advantage of mobile learning.   

My questions for the speaker : what apps do you think we should use in class with young students ? I need to know this because I usually do not want them to watch videos I have not seen before but I would like to work with them in class and maybe get them more involved while doing English !

Here is my first reflection which you can find on Youtube

Piktochart : a useful webtools with lots of tools

I have just started using Piktochart. I am doing a short course online on the use of some tools and I am exploring it.

Piktochart is an “Easy-to-Use Infographic Maker” that lets you “take your visual communication to the next level, without hiring a professional designer”. The tutor has presented it  " as an easy way to create beautiful, detailed infographics that capture the imagination.   This tool gives students the opportunity to show what they know in a creative, visual way. "

I have tried it, I have a basic account and I have used it for creating a sort of presentation of a module about  Modernism.

https://create.piktochart.com/output/31334781-modernism-in-english-literature




When you start using it it doesn't seem easy and you need to do some exercise but then you will like it.

Here is the link to a tutorial for students in English:

 https://piktochart.com/blog/student-guide-getting-started-piktochart/


Here is the video tutorial creating an event  flyer in five minutes:

I will have to try using this  tool in the next months. It is really cool!

MMVC18

I have been online many times to follow the great  presentations by  Nellie  Deutsch who has been involved in many  virtual conferences online.


The new virtual conference starts on 3rd August and  I am sure it will be enriching and full of ideas.

What I am going to do is to  write about some events which really interested me. Reflecting and sharing ideas about what really matters in education.


Meanwhile you can see the presentation of this year's conference online:

   I am looking forward to seeing the many speakers who are involved in this great  online event!

PLN and Educators

I am a connected educator and thanks to many teachers who are  engaged online I have been developing as a life-long learner.

Sarah Thomas, Shelly Terrell and many other educators have helped me learn and share ideas about education, the use of  webtools in education and the problems we face in our  daily activities.

Last year  Sarah made a great  presentation about  PLN: watch it and you will be inspired. I would have never learnt much without her encouragement and learning from her while following her on Twitter and when she made her presentations  in SimpleK12 webinars!!

Online you will find a lot of interesting links and  lists with the names of communities and educators that are engaged in learning together.

Here are Shelly Terrell's blogs and posts  with a list of  resources :

 http://www.shellyterrell.com/pln.html#

http://teacherrebootcamp.com/resources/survivaltips/pln/

The slideshare she has posted is an example of what  PLN means:

What's a PLN? Why Would I Want One? from Shelly Sanchez Terrell


If interested you should try also checking this website which has plenty of resources with links for educators:

 https://cybraryman.com/pln.html


I hope you will find someone who can share the same interests as you and will become " connected" with your PLN.

ISTE 2018

I am part of a community of educators who love learning about technology. I am not an expert but I am learning online thanks to great teachers who have deepened their knowledge in technology and  teach online  sharing their  tricks for using some apps and web tools.

ISTE is an international event which is visited by many teachers and educators. Last year I could not follow any post or hashtags. This year I could and I really enjoyed being part of the group  of  people who were not at the conference in Chicago. The community has a name" #NOTATISTE and  educators have shared ideas, posts and interesting news about the event which is not online but thanks to modern technology we can learn about.

First of all I would like to say that thanks to Peggy George I could see more resources  which were presented in the conference. The Live Binder she has presented in one webinar  before the event made me think that this year I should be online. I followed the  Google Plus community online and it was great!

Click here to open this binder in a new window.





Shelly Terrell  has often talked about this event online and in her posts so I cannot but say that  these important educators have made a change in my  CPD.

 http://teacherrebootcamp.com/2018/06/19/iste18giveaways/

Kathleen Morris has also helped me enter this world, which is  new to me: she wrote a great post

 https://www.theedublogger.com/2018/06/11/notatiste-2018/

Social networks have been spreading news and interesting ideas :

Adobe Spark is one of my favourite  tools :

RT ClassTechTips: RT AdobeEdu: We're LIVE from #ISTE18 with Monica Burns of ClassTechTips. We'll be discussing Adobe Spark Classroom Activities and more! #NotAtISTE18 #NotAtISTE https://t.co/5CCInD59y6

— SimpleK12 (@SimpleK12) 26 giugno 2018

I wish to thank Pam Hubler for her interesting post where I could find most of the resources online I need to check:

https://www.spedtechgeek.com/edtech-blog/how-to-reduce-your-fomo-when-notatiste18


Shared ideas in some blogs which I have found online while I was checking the community today:

http://mustech.net/2018/06/notatiste18-fun-takeaways/


There are many tools which I would like to use and which I think might offer great teaching opportunities for  enhancing my students' learning:

https://wakelet.com/   mainly used for collecting resources

https://flipgrid.com/

I have just registered to Flipgrip which is now free, this was the great piece of news  which I had found online some days ago.

I will also try to learn more about  Google Apps as I do use most of them but  I am not an expert.
I have already appreciated the great use of  the new Google Sites to document student learning:

  https://sites.google.com/gtrainerdemo.prtaylor.ca/learning/home


Finally my video documenting my journey into ISTE 2018: I was not in Chicago but I have learnt a lot also from home:

   

This summer I will have thousands of documents and blogs  to read about as  I have bookmarked so many interesting posts and tweets.

Thanks to the community of the #NotAtIste18: without any help I would have never thought that  I could learn about  ISTE while living in Italy!!

Summer has arrived.....it is time to think about myself and making plans for September

I am a lazy person and  when summer arrives it means that  I can relax for some weeks and be less  stressed .Every year I end the last days of the school year with some regrets.   I wish I could have worked better and provided better learning opportunities for the less able students and the ones who want to learn more.  Sometimes we cannot do much but  I think we should work better for the ones who are struggling  learners  and be able to provide different types of  activities for the different  learners we have.

Now it is time to reflect, tidy up and read.  I read a lot online: blogs, articles and also posts from many educators I can follow online. I recently bought an ebook by Shelly Terrell Sanchez and I will read it online. She is a great teacher and a technology expert.  I regularly follow her in most of the presentations online she makes and her blog posts are really inspiring.

During the first weeks of July  I am going to finish some Moocs which I had  started and did not have the time to finish. It is part of my CPD  and I cannot but learn online since in the last years we have had some problems in my family and I had to decide to spend the summer at home.

In spite of this I am now planning  new activities for next year:  I am working with another  teacher and we  are responsible for  Cambridge  IGCSE  exams. We started in September  2017 and  this  autumn I will be online to learn more about the best strategies to help our learners.  It is something  new which I like doing. This summer  I am going to plan part of the activities and check the materials we might use in the first term.


I will read some literature - I am going to do more about  short stories and the modern literature  for my next year's students. Hopefully, there are plenty of  resources which are free online and which can be used.

I will explore  Europeana , the European platform which  I worked on in one Mooc - https://www.europeana.eu/portal/en.  I will also share what I have learnt online as  I found a lot of interesting activities and tools which we  can use in order to work on projects and lessons dealing with the European heritage.


Some conferences online will take place this summer and I will try to follow  them, althought  I am living in Europe and many are in the USA or  speakers will present their topics online while I am sleeping in Italy.

Summer can be a source of   interesting ideas and help me  recharge the batteries.

Summer is the season of the year in which I am ready to work on myself to get engaged and find tips and suggestions which I will share with my friends online and in my school.

Enjoy the summer!

Immigrant issues, children, Europe and the world

The globalized world has seen  changes in the  conditions of many people- in most cases people have achieved better living conditions.
However, great economic crisis and  wars have made the life of many people worse. This has happened and is still happening everywhere.
For years now our seas have become routes for escaping from violence, wars and  for finding a better place where to live. Italy, Greece and Spain have been reached by many poor people hoping for a better future. In some cases they live separated from the others, waiting for a special visa to continue their journey.

What is really sad is to see  how many families try to come to Europe or  leave from Mexico to reach the USA and their children are often not respected since they have no rights.

Some days ago we had to see the images of  young children crying because they had been separated from their mothers in the USA. They were left alone and who knows what will happen to them.

Time created a special cover to describe the situation, a  young child crying  in front of  President Trump. You can see some  photos taken by the same photographer who  took many  pictures describing what  is happening  on the border  between the Usa and Mexico
 http://time.com/longform/john-moore-getty-photo-separation/?xid=tcoshare

An early look at next week’s cover, "Yearning to Breathe Free," by Barry Blitt: https://t.co/xlzrHEXdNN pic.twitter.com/24SRk1AqlQ

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) 21 giugno 2018

Similarly also in Italy we have had a lot of young  children who had left their country to reach places where they could find a better life. Some had left their  families home and were hoping to go to the northern countries in Europe, but they had not been given permission to leave Italy. Often we have babies and mothers arriving here and they are separated from their husbands and fathers.

What is often forgotten is the fact that children should not be saparated from their families and that they have the right to education.

We do need to remember that  'No Man is an Island'  and these words borrowed from a poem by John Donne -https://web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/island.html-  remind us that we are  part of the same  world and that every child has the right to have a better life  and should be given access  to education.

If you watch the news or listen to the news you will see that the tragedy in our seas is continuing and that more and more we cannot cope with these tragedies. Educators need to help children and students to reflect on these global issues. The  families are here or want to come and live in richer  countries because they are in need. If we reject them we will not cope with the great contradictions of our age.  Italy was a  poor country in the past and many left for Germany,Switzerland , France and the USA. We hoped to find an open door. Most were given access and found  a better life  abroad.
The future of the world is in being open to accept the others.