Dear Anna Franca,
I'm sorry but I 'm afraid I won't be able to participate and contribute to this com any longer...
At the moment I'm rather engaged in a number of different...activities? projects? However you'd like to define them - concerning both the school I'm trying to teach in and the village I live in...
My students, my sons, my friends, my friends' sons and daughters....
I still believe blogs and wikis could and should become useful teaching and learning tools - and I'm somewhat thinking about it - yet, I'm convinced the first 'learning' step should be taken by teachers; you can't use a blog with your students if you have never tried to use it by yourself.
As far as the questionnaire issue is concerned...I'd create one for teachers (followed by a specific course?) before imaginig of proposing anything to students.
Just my personal point of view, you see.
I have no clear -cut idea about how to use a blog with one of my groups of student - in spite of the fact that Iìve my own blog and often contrivute to others'.
This blog - TESOL' S C om of pratice can account for very few people actually trying to actively parcipate : just a couple of us...?
Anyway I really enjoyed being here- and I'd love to repeat it....
Luv,
Dani
Saturday 12 April 2008
Sunday 30 March 2008
Dear everyone,
I have been reading a recent publication, which I have found very interesting and would therefore like to share with you:
Paolo Ferri, 2008, La scuola digitale, Milano: Bruno Mondatori Ed.
The first part of the book deals with Web.2 tools, and it is in my opinion very clear and well-structured. The second reports data and reflections about the way in which the digital generation (‘digital natives’ opposed to the ‘Gutemberg natives’), and relates to the web and to new technologies with specific reference to the possible impact and changes it can have on schools and education.
Last week I bought a new mobile phone and… I have to confess that the feeling is that of being a ‘Gutenberg native’ without any hope, if not that of being an” immigrant” in the best of cases, into a new world - the new millennium world of digital generations: the ones who were born with a remote control in their hands.
I am trying. I have been trying both within this community of practice and in other on line courses, not merely to “keep up to date” with the resources offered by new technologies, but out of a real sense of curiosity and need to learn and understand. I am grateful to this community of practice to have given me the opportunity to arouse curiosity even further. I do believe, and more and more so as I go on reading about the topic, that they (and Web.2 in particular) can offer great potentialities to transform learning. To connect classrooms with real life. To speak the language of our students. To put collaborative and cooperative learning in practice. To move from a teacher-centred to a student-centred way of operating and thinking in designing and realising didactic activities.
Nevertheless, the feeling is that of an immigrant in a world I did nor grow up in and with. Of all the wonderful things my new mobile phone can do, including podcasting, creating/sharing/using and what else God knows with multimedia files, I find it difficult to find my way and use them all. While I am sure my 15-year-old son, or even his younger mates, would just plunge into it and do it. It is not only that I do not have a try-and-error approach – it’s just that my mind very likely works in a gutembergian linear way, and “advanced” hypertextual ones feel at times more like a labyrinth than an opportunity. With a consequent feeling of frustration – because I want to learn and to do/use all those wonderful things. Probably the same feeling of frustration some of our students go through using “our” linear books and ways of dealing with knowledge. Once more, it’s probably good to be “on the other side of the desk” from time to time, but… but: so many question marks. And once you seem to be able to cope with one tool, it’s out of date already, and there are so many new other ones to learn about…
Will I ever be able to manage in a sufficiently self-confident way these tools in order to use them with my students? And together with me how many educators? Is this feeling of frustration and insecurity what keeps technology out of real school projects and practices (data in Ferri seem quite dramatic in this respect).
Help from a Gutenberg native! ;-(
Paola
I have been reading a recent publication, which I have found very interesting and would therefore like to share with you:
Paolo Ferri, 2008, La scuola digitale, Milano: Bruno Mondatori Ed.
The first part of the book deals with Web.2 tools, and it is in my opinion very clear and well-structured. The second reports data and reflections about the way in which the digital generation (‘digital natives’ opposed to the ‘Gutemberg natives’), and relates to the web and to new technologies with specific reference to the possible impact and changes it can have on schools and education.
Last week I bought a new mobile phone and… I have to confess that the feeling is that of being a ‘Gutenberg native’ without any hope, if not that of being an” immigrant” in the best of cases, into a new world - the new millennium world of digital generations: the ones who were born with a remote control in their hands.
I am trying. I have been trying both within this community of practice and in other on line courses, not merely to “keep up to date” with the resources offered by new technologies, but out of a real sense of curiosity and need to learn and understand. I am grateful to this community of practice to have given me the opportunity to arouse curiosity even further. I do believe, and more and more so as I go on reading about the topic, that they (and Web.2 in particular) can offer great potentialities to transform learning. To connect classrooms with real life. To speak the language of our students. To put collaborative and cooperative learning in practice. To move from a teacher-centred to a student-centred way of operating and thinking in designing and realising didactic activities.
Nevertheless, the feeling is that of an immigrant in a world I did nor grow up in and with. Of all the wonderful things my new mobile phone can do, including podcasting, creating/sharing/using and what else God knows with multimedia files, I find it difficult to find my way and use them all. While I am sure my 15-year-old son, or even his younger mates, would just plunge into it and do it. It is not only that I do not have a try-and-error approach – it’s just that my mind very likely works in a gutembergian linear way, and “advanced” hypertextual ones feel at times more like a labyrinth than an opportunity. With a consequent feeling of frustration – because I want to learn and to do/use all those wonderful things. Probably the same feeling of frustration some of our students go through using “our” linear books and ways of dealing with knowledge. Once more, it’s probably good to be “on the other side of the desk” from time to time, but… but: so many question marks. And once you seem to be able to cope with one tool, it’s out of date already, and there are so many new other ones to learn about…
Will I ever be able to manage in a sufficiently self-confident way these tools in order to use them with my students? And together with me how many educators? Is this feeling of frustration and insecurity what keeps technology out of real school projects and practices (data in Ferri seem quite dramatic in this respect).
Help from a Gutenberg native! ;-(
Paola
Saturday 22 March 2008
Friday 21 March 2008
Thursday 20 March 2008
Let's design the questionnaire
Ok Dani!
Let's go back to the issue of designing a questionnaire.
Let's first ask ourselves some questions:
1. what is the aim of the questionnaire?
2. what are we going to ask SS?
3. what format (open/closed), length and arrangement should the questionnaire have?
4. what format should responses have?
5. how should it be administered and evaluated?
Some helpful ideas are available at:
http://student.bmj.com/back_issues/0601/education/187.html
Let's go back to the issue of designing a questionnaire.
Let's first ask ourselves some questions:
1. what is the aim of the questionnaire?
2. what are we going to ask SS?
3. what format (open/closed), length and arrangement should the questionnaire have?
4. what format should responses have?
5. how should it be administered and evaluated?
Some helpful ideas are available at:
http://student.bmj.com/back_issues/0601/education/187.html
Tuesday 18 March 2008
Be careful ! It's addictive....
Dear Anna Franca,
I tried... 'n' did it...
Now I have this 'button' in my blog - something like 'share'(very coloured and appealing...)
If you click on it, you open a window...: and there you find de.li.cious, technorati, read me and a number of other...I don't understand exactly WHAT...
I haven't actually understood what a feed is yet - except at a very superficila level.
Yet, I realised that the bookmarks I have on my pc are all there - which means I can get and use them even when I'm using a different pc - any pc worldwide -(just need a internet connection), and this is ...useful. Indeed.
I signed in for Technorati, too - and it seemed to me it's a way to open your blog, and your favourite other blogs to a larger 'audience', which might decide to contact you on the basis of the tags you chose, or the content of your posts - or while they're just looking for something through some kw which have some kind of link to your tags or what you wrote in the posts...
Very...fascinating.
Yet, A bit ...overwhelming, too.
For me, at least.
I like working on my blog, participating to other blogs -chatting on skype or msn - thinking about using a blog and other e-tools either for educational aims or just to improve communication...
I'm also really enjoying Paola's wiki experiment: the idea of co-writing a story is great!
And I appreciate all your suggestions and hints leading to a further immersion into the incredible potential of the web - yet, I'd rather...slow down?
Scrolling through the posts and comments I realise we didn't fully developed some good ideas - eg, the questionnaire/survey to present and promote the use of a blog with our EFL students - or/and the designing of a 'blog-project', with some specific detailed EFL aim...
You see, I definitely Love challenges - the new, the unknown - I feel 'alive', when I don't understand, when I have to make a genuine effort to understand -and I'm sure this can only bring along positive attitudes and new opportunities as regards our learners.
Yet, this is not my blog...
I somehow feel we might have 'scared' a number of possible participants 'coze we were going on too fast...Only a couple of us actually tried and created a blog - or already had one.
Don't know exactly what I mean....Just a 'feeling'.
Thx for anything and everything: I learnt a lot...
:-))))
Dani
I tried... 'n' did it...
Now I have this 'button' in my blog - something like 'share'(very coloured and appealing...)
If you click on it, you open a window...: and there you find de.li.cious, technorati, read me and a number of other...I don't understand exactly WHAT...
I haven't actually understood what a feed is yet - except at a very superficila level.
Yet, I realised that the bookmarks I have on my pc are all there - which means I can get and use them even when I'm using a different pc - any pc worldwide -(just need a internet connection), and this is ...useful. Indeed.
I signed in for Technorati, too - and it seemed to me it's a way to open your blog, and your favourite other blogs to a larger 'audience', which might decide to contact you on the basis of the tags you chose, or the content of your posts - or while they're just looking for something through some kw which have some kind of link to your tags or what you wrote in the posts...
Very...fascinating.
Yet, A bit ...overwhelming, too.
For me, at least.
I like working on my blog, participating to other blogs -chatting on skype or msn - thinking about using a blog and other e-tools either for educational aims or just to improve communication...
I'm also really enjoying Paola's wiki experiment: the idea of co-writing a story is great!
And I appreciate all your suggestions and hints leading to a further immersion into the incredible potential of the web - yet, I'd rather...slow down?
Scrolling through the posts and comments I realise we didn't fully developed some good ideas - eg, the questionnaire/survey to present and promote the use of a blog with our EFL students - or/and the designing of a 'blog-project', with some specific detailed EFL aim...
You see, I definitely Love challenges - the new, the unknown - I feel 'alive', when I don't understand, when I have to make a genuine effort to understand -and I'm sure this can only bring along positive attitudes and new opportunities as regards our learners.
Yet, this is not my blog...
I somehow feel we might have 'scared' a number of possible participants 'coze we were going on too fast...Only a couple of us actually tried and created a blog - or already had one.
Don't know exactly what I mean....Just a 'feeling'.
Thx for anything and everything: I learnt a lot...
:-))))
Dani
Monday 17 March 2008
RSS feeds
Watch the video RSS in Plain English, by Common Craft.
1. Register at My Yahoo or Google Reader
2. Subscribe to the RSS feed of our blog, and then add it to your RSS feeds reader
3. Go to http://www.addthis.com/
4. Click on the "AddThis Button"
5. Get your free "Feed Widget" (Remember you must have created your own blog first) and subscribe to the RRS feed of your own blog.
When you are finished with the above tasks, please go to our blog to post an entry about what you learned.
Excellent 6 step on how to subscribe to RSS feeds using Google Reader
http://www.infotoday.com/MMSchools/jan04/richardson.shtml#
1. Register at My Yahoo or Google Reader
2. Subscribe to the RSS feed of our blog, and then add it to your RSS feeds reader
3. Go to http://www.addthis.com/
4. Click on the "AddThis Button"
5. Get your free "Feed Widget" (Remember you must have created your own blog first) and subscribe to the RRS feed of your own blog.
When you are finished with the above tasks, please go to our blog to post an entry about what you learned.
Excellent 6 step on how to subscribe to RSS feeds using Google Reader
http://www.infotoday.com/MMSchools/jan04/richardson.shtml#
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