Motivation
What motivated you to develop this project?
I was very impressed with the range of Web 2.0 tools on offer and the potential for engaging students in their LOTE learning. I wanted to explore this at the earliest opportunity in the classroom, and together with a colleague, piloted a couple of assessment tasks or classroom activities which made use of these resources.
In addition, I had started teaching a new subject in English: English as a Visual Language and was seeking to find a way to deliver the curriculum for the new course in a very flexible and visual format.
Intended goals / outcomes
What specific learning goals did you think this project would achieve? (these can be goals for your own professional learning or student learning)
Professional Learning
- Moving into what was for me previously uncharted territory
- Increasing my own familiarity with and confidence in using Web 2.0 technologies
- Forcing myself to ‘learn with’ rather than ‘teach to’ students, especially as I was stepping into their world
- Becoming more of a risk taker in developing new curriculum and being prepared to accept the failures as learning opportunities
Student Learning
- Increasing engagement through the use of flexible learning spaces
- Creating a sense of student ownership of a learning space which nonetheless could evolve with staff monitoring
- Use ‘social networking’ devices to positive, educational ends
- Enhancing collaborative learning
Description of the activity
Briefly describe the flow of the activity. What did students do? Where did it take place? What kinds of resources did they use? What types of interactions did they have? etc.
- Joined a class Stixy site
- Added images and text written in their LOTE using vocabulary covered in Semester 1
- Took place in the classroom, with students using photos, avatars and original compositions
- Were able to observe and learn from each other as the task was taking place.
- Established individual Voki accounts
- Completed voice recordings as homework tasks
- Emailed links to their teachers
- Shared recordings within the classroom
- Opened blog accounts
- Logged into the weblog for the course to access materials
- Made comment and added own materials with the learning space
Use of Online / Web 2 resources & tools
Specifically, which Web 2 tools or online environments were used in the project. Provide links to the sites and any tutorial pages you found useful.
Anecdotes from Design / Implementation
Actual quotations or vignettes often capture learning that’s useful when sharing with others. Relay any specific comments or exchanges you remember from either the design of the project or when students were engaged in it.
Final Reflection
Your final reflection attempts to distill out what you feel to be the most important learning you made from piloting this project. We can learn from success and failure, moments of grace and quirky luck. What can you share with others that rings true to you?
It’s a brave new world out there, so we have to be brave in encountering it…
