Adina Alexandru, Ed. D.Southington Public SchoolsAATF, Chicago, July 2012

Did you know?

• 88% of educators considered technology essential to teaching and learning AND 95% believe that technology improves student learning.• Yet only 32% of educators use technology to instruct students.• Teachers use computers several times a week for lesson preparation, but only once or twice a year for instruction!

Why?• Technologies may not align with the current curriculum.• The teachers’ own lack of computer expertise and time constraints• The wrong approach (focus on technology first not learner goals)

Individual Brainstorming Activity

• What types of technology do you use in your classes? Is it paid/free?

• When you use technology, why do you use it? (give example).

• When you do not use technology why do you make that choice? (give example)

• What are some of the biggest challenges you face when using technology?

Integrating Technology May…• Change the way you teach

• Change the way you interact with your students

• Change the expectations you have for your students

• Give you more options to present the materials

• Free you to really do what you do best: TEACH!

Planning the “When”

• Be fair• Be realistic• Be consistent • Have the computer in

use all the time

• Use a defined task to determine how long each student or group can be at the computer

Planning the “How”

• Develop a system for using the computers (lang. lab, etc.)

• Think small (one project at a time)

• Create a homepage with agendas and links

• Assign learning groups (you will achieve better results when students can bounce ideas)

Planning the “How” – cont’d• Enforce expectations

(write them out and share them with the students)

• Use students as computer helpers

• Use scaffolds– Checklists

– Templates

.

Boom’s Taxonomy revised to incorporate the 21st century skills

Original Terms New Terms

Evaluation

Synthesis

Analysis

Application

Comprehension

Knowledge

•Creating

•Evaluating

•Analyzing

•Applying

•Understanding

•Remembering

(Based on Pohl, 2000, Learning to Think, Thinking to Learn, p. 8)

Two old time favoritesVoki

• Create your own customized avatar.

• Change the appearance of the avatar, pick a background, and best of all, make it talk!

• You can add your voice by phone, microphone, or use text-to-speech to make it use a computerized voice.

• My message

• Student HW

Google applications

• documents, presentations, spreadsheets, drawings, forms.

• Create surveys– Participant view

– Results view view

Submitting homework assignments with Google Docs

• A quick, easy way for students to complete and submit a homework assignment is with Google Docs.

• Teachers can share the link for the assignment so that students have a blank worksheet.

• Student HW

• They can complete it in G Docs, and then either save and share their own link with the teacher or email it back to their teacher. Of course that this means that students need to have

Gmail accounts.

wordleWordle.net

• Pre-reading activity AP French

• Select an AP level article

• Write 10-12 key words from the new text

• Place the students in small groups

• Ask them to elaborate on what the story might be about based on the “wordle”

• Ask them to anticipate the characters, the plot, the storyline or to make predictions

Great pre-reading activity

Après lecture - Texte AP

Fellag Choix multiple • Quelle structure ou organisation est mise en place dans les villes concernant les

maquisards– ils agissaient à leur propre volonté– ils travaillaient seulement pendant la nuit sous la toile– ils racolaient les sympathisants du Comité du Salut– ils ne travaillaient pas d’une façon organise dans les villes mais

seulement dans les campagnes• Pourquoi le narrateur et ses amis boivent-ils?

– parce que l'air est très sec– pour mieux comprendre la situation– pour oublier leurs problèmes– pour s'encourager

•  • Que veut dire que le pays est mené "à vau-l'eau"?

– de pire en pire– en danger– à une résolution– en confusion

• Dans le texte (ligne….) qui sont les « maquisards » par rapport au Front Islamique du Salut ? Quel rôle jouent-ils? Quel est leur but ?

– Ils sont de très bons copains avec les membres du Front– Ce sont les protecteurs des valeurs traditionnelles datant du moyen âge– ils s’opposent au Front– Ce sont les membres de la Résistance dans le régime Vichy

Other favorite applicationsVialogues

• Exemple du vidéo avec des questions: « le racisme »

– Vialogues supports meaningful discussions around video.

– Vialogues gives you the opportunity to participate in a focused environment, absorb the content of a video while commenting on it.

– Keep your students current with news casts, press conferences, and raw news footage.

– YouTube has millions of movie clips. Bring these movies or clips to life for your class!

– Record and upload your classroom lectures so students can annotate the lesson with their questions and comments.

– projects (skits, debates, presentations, displays)

Prezi

• Un projet pour commencer l’année

– Student HW « mes vacances d’été »

SocrativeQuick Overview

•Teachers and students can use Socrative on any device with a web browser (tablets, smartphones, laptops, iPod Touches, etc.).

•Teachers login at t.socrative.com by entering their email and password.

•Students login at m.socrative.com by entering the "virtual room number" provided by the teacher. Students will then see "Waiting for teacher to start an activity...".

•Teachers initiate an activity by selecting it on their main screen (e.g. Multiple Choice, T/F, Quick Quiz).

•Students respond on their devices.

•Students' results are visible on the Teacher's screen or sent in an email.

•Example: SOC-278185 = room # 90614

•**** A similar but more simplistic app. is MOARS (Mobile Audience Response System). MOARS is a free, open-source system for students to use with iPod Touch or iPhones only.

Instant audience response

• A similar but more simplistic app. is MOARS (Mobile Audience Response System). MOARS is a free, open-source system for students to use with iPod Touch or iPhones.

• Poll everywhere - standard web technology. It is an easy way to gather live responses in any venue: conferences, presentations, classrooms, radio, tv, print. Example: favorite conference

Historypin

.

• http://connectingwithhistorypin.wikispaces.com/

• Connects with ACTFL Standard

• Connects with 21st Century World Language Skills

The networked teacherby Alec Courosa

Digital stoytelling

http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/storyboarding.html

While the above examples demonstrate how digital storytelling is used to teach ESL, the same ideas can be applied to teach any vocabulary in a foreign language.

Cool websites

• Wiki• Glogster• Prezi• Cloze builder: Cloze Passage Builders

ExampleGraphic organizers (popplet, bubbl.us, Cayra,

Text2MindMap

Twitter

What is Twitter?Twitter is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest information about what you find interesting. Simply find the public streams you find most compelling and follow the conversations.

“Twitter has simply become one of the best places for teachers to collaborate, share solutions to common classroom problems, and discuss education policy. In fact, it might just be the best forum teachers have ever had.” – Liz Dwyer

Applications in the classroom1. Tweet about upcoming due dates or assignments.Set up a feed dedicated exclusively to due dates, tests or quizzes.2. Coordinate assignments.Use Twitter to collaborate on different projects and keep a quick reference on any changes.3. Set up a foreign language news stream.Keep foreign language students informed of current events from relevant nations while challenging them to use their translation skills by keeping a specific news feed.4. Connect classrooms.Teachers and students from around the world can collaborate on projects using Twitter as a communication tool that educates students in different classroom and cultural protocols. 5. Post sample questions.Use Twitter to post up sample questions for upcoming exams for students to research and consider 6. Post supplementary materials.Re-tweet articles, news stories, opinions and other interesting tidbits relevant to a specific class as an excellent, convenient supplement to classroom lectures.7. Facilitate discussions.Require students to post their own succinct responses to the main theses and open up discussions with one another.

Tweeter feeds

To get started, you may choose to follow these people:@web20classroom@tmsaue1@ct_aatf

Dragon Dictationfrom itunes

•Dragon Dictation 2.0 is an easy-to-use voice recognition application powered by Dragon NaturallySpeaking that allows you to easily speak and instantly see your text in a TARGET LANGUAGE content for everything from email messages to blog posts on your iPad™, iPhone™ or iPod touch™.

•With Dragon Dictation 2.0, you can dictate status updates directly to your Social Networking applications (Facebook and Twitter), send text or email your friends, send notes and reminders to yourself … all using your voice. The new Dragon Dictation 2.0 also features multilingual capabilities, giving you the option to switch between a variety of languages.

Speech to Text in Google Chrome

• Speech to text technology can be also very pricey. Adding a speech recognition option to your computer doesn't have to be expensive if you use Google's

Chrome web browser one of the apps you can add is the Speech Recognizer.

•

• The Speech Recognizer is available as a free and easy to use application.  After installing it, you launch it and click the microphone. You can now start

recording your voice. The Speech Recognizer will type out your text when you finish recording. You can then copy and paste your text to a document you

have opened in Google Docs.

•

• The Speech Recognizer could be a good resource for students who need assistance generating text documents on a computer.

Zamzar

• Free

• Conversion software for documents, music, and videos.

• www.zamzar.com

TubeChop

• Free

• Allows you to edit YouTube videos to only the selection you are interested in showing.

1. . Find the video you want to chop.2. Select & cut interesting part of the video.3. Share it with friends.

• www.tubechop.com

Moodle• Moodle is a management system that enables educators to: create

dynamic online sites, supplement F2F instruction, create wikis, databases and forums to foster collaborative learning communities.

• Here are some example for using Moodle:

http://courses.moodleshare.com/

• Moodle is also available as a Microsoft Office Add-in. You can use it to open and save office documents housed in Moodle to create parents accounts, students accounts, annotate assignments, create quizzes, submit quizzes and grade quizzes

http://help.edmodo.com/edmodo-in-action/

Moodle Meets

• Moodle Meets are free, 5 day online professional development courses led by experienced educators. Moodle Meet topics focus on the resources and skills needed to use technology in the classroom as well as on the skills needed to teach and learn in a virtual environment. They are Professional learning Potlucks. A concentrated week of discussion, collaboration and resource sharing.

http://www.classroom20.com

http://www.classroom20.com/group/pd/forum/topic/show?id=649749:Topic:762298&xg_source=msg

Edmodo• Social learning network similar to Facebook designed specifically for foreign

language students and teachers: teachers post assignments and reminders of upcoming quizzes and tests, students can also post their own topics. This site

gives the possibility for communicative language practice (as opposed to practicing vocabulary or verb conjugations in isolation). This is a way for

students to do the majority of preparation at home and practice actively with us in class!. This allows students to hand in homework via the Edmodo interface

and eliminate paper altogether!

•

• In preparation for this application at the beginning of the year survey students regarding their access to technology at home. If you have student with no

access at home you can always encourage them to use the school computers in the library during study halls or after school. This way all students can post and

comment every day.

Great resources for iPods/iPads

• http://its.leesummit.k12.mo.us/mobile_learning.htm

• http://teachwithyouripad.wikispaces.com/iPad+Apps

Thank you!

Questions? Feel free to contact me at:

Adina Alexandru aalexandru@southingtonschools.org