Michael

Introduction

- what is SMiLE

• (online) Social Media in Language Education
• started Feb 08 with demonstration session for FL teaching team
• practical workshops for Spanish team
• UoB Learning and Teaching Fellowship 2009

 

- what Sparked it

• Jan 2007: Subject Centre eLearning Symposium
• Apr 2007: UoB eLearning Away-Day
• May 2007: Webheads Convergence
• Jan 2008: Electronic Village On-line

 

- why we are doing it

feeling that emerging Web 2.0 platforms

• have great potential for language learning and teaching
• could enable tutors and students to do things 

that

• they hadn't been able to do before
• couldn't be done using other techniques

and as a bonus

• they hadn't even thought of before

 

- why not just use Studentcentral?

• SC can't do some of these things
• SC has a lousy interface
• SC has lousy layout
• some students can't access SC

 

- what are we trying to promote?

• receptive skills
• productive skills
• interactive skills
• cultural awareness

 

- what we are doing

• exploring and evaluating online social media platforms
• developing materials and activities using blogs, wikis, media sharing sites
• exploring ways of combining and adapting techniques to achieve desired outcomes

 

- what criteria are we using?

techniques must be

• useful for language learning
• fit into our schemes of work

and should be reasonably (?)

• easy to learn
• easy to use
• easy to integrate into existing platforms (SC)

 

- how we are doing it

• holding regular team meetings: discussions, demonstrations, practical workshops
• developing materials and activities for own classes
• responding to need - own, colleagues, students (I'd like to do X - can it be done? how? are there other ways? is it worth doing?)
• reporting back, sharing experiences
• offering demonstrations, workshops, presentations
• developing the SMiLE Wiki site 

 

- how are we using Social Media to develop materials and activities?

last year

• creating Groups in Community@Brighton > group blog

this year

• creating blogs and wikis within modules in Studentcentral
• using blogs and wikis as platforms for presenting materials both within SC and externally
• using SC blogs as a platform for students' own language production
• defining activities in SC wiki
• locating media - photos, videos, presentations, audio, maps - in external storage/sharing sites (free)
• embedding media in external blog site (greater control over presentation)
• using tags in external blog to organise material
• linking to media so that it appears to be located within SC

 

- what platforms are we using and what are we doing with them?

• studentcentral
• Community@Brighton
• blog: Blogger - San Miguel Bajo
• wiki: PbWorks - SMiLE - San Miguel Bajo
• photo storage and sharing: Flickr - En la ciudad
• photo display: Flickr - El mercado (slideshow) SP111 > Learning Material > Centro de Estudios > Unit 3: La Rutina > El mercado - click on a photo
• video storage: YouTube - Obama en español
• video display: YouTube - El espíritu de la colmena or via SC: SP201 > Learning Material > Michael Shade > SP202: Temas > El cine > El espíritu > Extracto
• presentation storage: Slideboom - Canción popular (slide 7)
• document storage: Box.net - files - L'estaca (music)
• document display: Scribd - L'estaca (lyrics)
• maps + video: Google Maps - Semana Santa or via SC: SP132 > Learning Material > Materiales para SP132 > 4) Fiestas > Semana Santa > Salobreña 2009 - select a placemark > link to video;  including Satellite View
• maps + audio: Google Street View - Valencia

 

 

Maria

1 Introduction:  using blogs in a variety of ways for teaching and learning

1  Students place their work in a blog:

·        Presentations

·         Descriptions of places

·         Themselves

·         Their homes

·         Families

·         Researched topics

·         Compositions

·         Anecdotes and fables

·        Role plays

·        Dialogues

·        Drama etc,

·        Schools students went to when young (1)

Schools students went to

 Students place own pictures, images, recordings of their own performances

 

 

2 Teacher writes a task (2)

 

 

e.g. Photograph of Federico Garcia Lorca with the question ?Quien es? Or ?quien era?

·        Students respond documenting their findings in the blog alongside photographs. (3)

·        Students comment or write questions about others work (4)

·        Response from students leads to related topic areas and activities

·        Bodas de sangre

·        Students write script for the scenes (5) (6)

·        Students performance is documented in a blog including the recording, the written script and photographs of themselves performing.

3. Some follow up work is done with some groups e.g. drawing some comparisons of  their own creation with that of FGL. Acting out one of his scenes.

Benefits

·        Increased student participation

·        Development of cultural awarenes

·        Students work documented

·        Students CREATE and BUILD resources for their own course

·        They can learn from each other

·        Encouraged by others work: ITS CONTAGIOUS!

·        They can take material away from them

·        It inspires and sparks new activity

VALUES REFLECTED IN POSITIVE FEEDBACK FROM STUDENTS

  

Carmen

 

The Pedagogical Benefits of Power Point

Introduction

Why use power point?

Types of power point:

1.     Created specifically to teach a linguistic point

2.     Adapted from a community network

A diversity of uses

¿Cómo es y qué lleva?

1.     In the classroom

·        To teach descriptions of physical appearance and clothes in the classroom.

·        For role plays

2.     Homework

·        To learn vocabulary and linguistic structures

·        To generate the use of blogs describing themselves or someone famous (SP111 > Learning Material > Carmen Broadbridge > Blogs > ¿Cómo es y qué lleva?)

¿Cuántos años tienes abuela?

1.     Homework

[slide 1, 2, 3, 9, 10 - +sound files]

·        As  reading comprehension

·        Write a similar story “what life used to be like when I was a child”

2.     In the classroom

·        “Undoubtedly technology has immensely progressed in the last 50 years, but has humanity progressed at all?” Discuss

 

Benefits

·        Images help retention of points taught

·        Generates more interests on the subject

·        Positive feedback and students would like more of use of the black board in class next year

·        Easy to revise at home

·        Enables students to catch up at home

Future Improvements

·        This year I produced mp3 files of main linguistic points taught in the classroom but have no images. But next academic year images will be integrated  with voice  to help retention of points even more and to add benefits for those who missed lessons.

 

Pilar

Questions

comments

suggestions

 

Michael

Round-up

professional development

rethink course content