Webinar!

 

 Today I listened to a Webinar that was previously given on August 11th 2011 and had for topic ''Distinguished lecture series (An Australian university uses collaboration to teach students across the Globe)''. I found this webinar pretty interesting by the fact that it involved Chinese and Australian university students interacting within the same platform (Elluminate) in order to improve the English language of Chinese students. I will use this post to explain the project itself in its various areas.

 It firstly came from Victoria University in Melbourne, Au. that decided to hire students in order to manage a  4 one-hour Global English Corner with 4 different students from Chinese universities(Sishuan, Liaoning and Henan Universities) that lasted for 9 weeks. The idea was to show that ESL learning can be something motivating, that you can use it to discover new cultures and make new friends. In order to do so, they used a platform called Elluminate which gave them many advantages to make this project work. By having the possibility to interact either in a formal or in an informal way, they could also rely on many of their senses. For the Chinese student, it was very interesting because while having a discussion with an Australian peer, he could see the image of a word at the same time as he heard it with special features that are included in Elluminate. Having learners using all their senses or at least a majority of them you have their brain works harder creating new links that totally helps the learners of the language.

Each week a different topic was brought to the table in order to give to the students interesting subjects that would help them investing themselves in the project. In the webinar, it says that food was definitely the most popular subject of all. Intercultural sharing triggers the links that are created between students from different countries. The Australians even sent products to the Chinese students for them to try.

The project even incorporated a blog with which students could write their thoughts as well as summarizing their meetings and write questions. Asian pupils said that it greatly increased the level of experience as they could keep on practising their English even outside of the meeting shcedule. This type of media, in my opinion, if the perfect balance between intensive and self-regulated learning. It is important to reach every students when creating this type of projects and some of them may be more shy that others and allowing them to comment in a blog was definitely a good way to interact with them. 

The project offered many benefits as stated in the webinar such as  Administrative support, Learning Support, Global Collaboration, Professional development, Improving students outcomes and Attracting & retaining New students. Some of the Chinese students were inclined to study in Australia and this project gave confident to a majority of them in regards to their level of English but also to the way they can interact with others in a real life context.

However, this project showed some limitations because of technology. Some of the Asian students had slow connections and Java was difficult to download. The audio connection was sometimes difficult and students didn't always used headphones which was echoing the audio. There is also a big time gap between students and the study schedule makes it hard for the pupils to meet. It was mentioned that some of the Chinese students would have liked to have a bigger range of person with whom to interact. All of these were constructive feedback and will help the project manager to ameliorate his way of doing things.

To conclude, I learned  that those kinds of project are feasible even with students from other countries. I realized that when you work with a certain platform that is reliable for everybody, you can use this tool to create many projects linked with ESL. I really appreciated this webinar and it encouraged me do be creative in my future career.

My opinion on : New Media and Implications for Learning and Teaching

Today in my Technology Course, we had to look at a video about the incorporation of technologies and open source media in Learning and Teaching. It broadly explains what are the issues that communities are dealing with are, when it is time to use technologies in a learning environment. The main point of this video is the fact that nowadays, technologies are used in so many ways that we forget that we should integrate it in teaching contexts. It often happens that teachers are afraid of using technologies as they are not skilled in this domain and so that he might loses the control of his group. Mr. Jenkins also addresses many reasons why we are actually in this situation and how we can change it. This is on what I am going to reflect in this post.

The first thing is the fact that schools are limiting access to digital tools. They are doing so by having a research tool that limits the results with security settings when looking for authors name or movies that contains the word ''Dick'' for example. I understand the reasons why they set it like that but in another way, it seems like they just don't think of what they are doing, of the consequences. Schools and communities are also limiting access to technologies by the way that it discriminates rich kids from poor kids when looking at the possibilities of using technologies. If you are poor or living in a poor community, you will simply have less access to these Medias and I find it deplorable.

Henry Jenkings, interviewed in this video, also brings to the table ways to create shared learning opportunities across generations that will appeal to exchange knowledge within members of a group. By having the opportunity to share passions in a proper environment, we create a space when we can learn from generations. Moreover, ensuring and verifying the information you share with others in the learning community give rise to a self-corrective environment when everybody interacts with each other.

Finally, I agree with Mr. Jenkins when he says that schools are maybe not totally ready to move into a new era. What is important is to let people know what you are doing and open your mind on the many ways you can access and work with technologies. If have to stop being scared of it and use technologies to our advantage. You have to work with it not FOR it. Creating a parallel shift within the school society, asking experts, creating new projects for your students are numerous possibilities that will expand the knowledge of the community of learning.

New community of teachers

This evening, I watched an amazing video during my course at Uni. It was talking about the creation of a wiki for the teachers of a district in United States to share their ideas. The most interesting thing, in my point of view, is that a lot of other schools, outside the district, are joining their project. The name of this wiki is ''Beyond text book''. By having always new members, this particular tool is helping creating a new community of teachers that we never experienced before. As teachers can share ideas, lesson plans, webquests and so on, it creates a sense of connectiveness among the teachers using the materials but also among the students themselves. They are connected all together by the way that they will probably do the same exercise than other students in the U.S. Having the possibility to work or adapt a LES that another teacher did and then posting it back, for it to be used by others is like to refine a rock and at each step it gets purer to finally become a diamond. I am doing this link because teaching is a bit the same. At first, you work on something that will rarely be version you will present and by doing collaborative work you get your plan or activities way better when it has been worked by other teachers. I think that having this type of wiki should be done by every school boards because at the end that will be the students that will beneficiate from it.