Blended Learning
Day 1
Wow! Here I am, in this lovely city, Norwich, to start the teacher training course on Blended Learning at NILE, with Russell Stannard,
one of the best- known expert in the field of ICT integrated into the educational process.
I am sure that, apart from my personal experience of a training course with him, you will find his website very helpful and clear whatever new technology you wish to integrate in your teaching.
A part from being professionally very good, Russell is highly involving, super-dynamic and definitely passionate about what he is doing.
He is also trying to make me and my 3 classmates, Alla from Ukraine, Aga from Poland and Hüsnü from Turkey, self -confident and positive about the results we are going to reach. He event told us that we are not miles behind (as I think I am) in using technology in class!
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| from left to right: me, Husnu, Aga and Alla |
What things have you covered in today's session?
The day began with a simple get-to-know-each activity using drawings. We drew objects or scenes meaningful to us ( airplane, mountains, books...) to show our hobbies, country, family... and then we shared the info with the different partners. Russell set the example first.
What technologies have you been exposed to?
Russell started the lesson introducing Today's Meet, a very interesting tool to be used in collaborative learning. It gives the possibility to create a room, for a limited period of time, where teacher and students can share ideas or ask each other questions. We started by asking questions to get to know Russell a bit better and then we did it a second time writing down the names of different fruit and then talked about how to classify them . (For example,where they are from, what color they are, are they summer or winter fruit? )
In fact, RULE N. 1: always use the assets (meaning create activities that have a final goal).
Here ' s Russell's short video about it:
Next we went on working on Google Slides; In groups we discussed two questions:
What are the advantages of using technology in class?
What is stopping teachers from using technology in class?
It was brain storming and discussing very interesting topics and write down short sentences in slides that can be shared and integrated by the other groups. This is a short video by Russell about how to and why to use Google slides :
Finally Russell taught us how to create a blog so ...this is what I'm doing now!!
I think this video by Russell Stannard
will be very helpful.
Now I'm going to do my homework and answer the questions . But not before writing down the 3 Golden Rules which always have to be respected when introducing technology in our lessons:
1. think of the added value of using technoly in class.
2. always use assets
3. more about outside class
How might you use the technologies/techniques in your own teaching and learning?
I think these new techniques/technologies will be very useful once I get more familiar with them and they can be used in a variety of situations while teaching both English and Literature.
Italy is slowly moving towards cooperative learning and project-based learning and both Today's Meet and Google Slides can be very helpful in letting the students cooperate without moving around from town to town.
The teacher can have complete control over the students' activities and at the same time be available to help .
Today’sMeet can be used in a great variety of situations: students might be asked to jot down plenty of questions to one of them about the past holidays (revision of the Past Simple), about plans for the next holidays revision of the Future Tense), or about hobbies…. The answers given will create an opportunity for comments, discussions, surveys…..
In addition, I can ask the students, in group, to select one of the holiday destinations mentioned in the discussion and create 3 slides each : one showing a meaningful picture, the second including a video and the third one giving five fact about the place ( limiting the number of words in order to prevent students from copy-pasting from the net).
With higher classes,I might ask the students to read a poem or an article and write down their impressions, comments, doubts on Today’sMeet..; the next step will be a discussion about it and finally I might ask the students, divided into groups , to create slides about the writer or the poem or the context.
What value would these techniques/technologies add to your teaching and learning?
Apart from being highly motivating for the students, I think the great advantage in using ICT is the fact the learning time is extended outside the classroom in a pleasant way. Moreover, ICT offers a great variety of resources and tools that highly facilitate the learning process.
What challenges do you foresee?
The main challenge is a personal one. I think I need to get familiar with all these new Techniques and technology , which implies a lot of (enjoyable!!) work at home before starting to use them in class.
Final reflection
What I really enjoyed about the lesson is the fact the theory was totally integrated with the practice so we actually did some exercises that we can easily use in class, of course focusing on different topics and/or skills to develop.
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