"Another great week of learning!" is how I can characterize Week 6 of the WebSkills course. In my opinion the two primary topics of discussion, Large Classes and PowerPoint, complimented each other exceptionally well. As class sizes get larger, I think the tendency can sometimes be for teachers to move toward a teacher-directed approach where information is "delivered" to the students. In such a setting, PowerPoint can end up being used as a tool for presenting information and concepts to students, but not actually engaging them in the information and concepts. This is problematic, as it diminishes the quality of educational experiences being produced. Thus, the quality of an educational environment does not necessarily degrade when the number of students is going up, but it does degrade if a teacher decides to stop creating an environment of interaction.
Undoubtedly larger class sizes present challenges for interaction, but they also produce opportunities! As was discussed in my previous blog about Project-Based Learning (PBL), the key to successful language classrooms is engagement and interaction. It is essential (especially in a large class where the tendency is for the teacher to dominate the discussion) that the principles of PBL prevail. This means that the development and delivery of PowerPoint presentations needs to be informed by the notion of "student engagement through interaction." After reading this week's material and developing an interactive PowerPoint myself, I have become convinced that it is possible for all teachers to design and implement PowerPoint presentations that facilitate student engagement in learning. Using the power of interactivity, we can structure digital presentations such that they involve students in PBL environments and provide guidance toward higher levels cognitive thinking. ConcepTests, QuickWrite activities, hyperlinks/jumps, student responses, blank slides, trivia games, and interactive stories are just some of the many practical ideas that can help us achieve the goal of interactivity.
The aforementioned ideas, along with ideas and concepts gleaned from previous weeks, continue to assist me as I refine my final project plans. My Delicious.com page has started to become a repository of ideas - an accumulation of links to great digital resources that will help make my technology-inspired change a reality! I am most excited about planning and implementing a digital avatar presentation project. This week I have been locating and reading literature that supports the notion that digital avatars might be helpful for language learning. I want to have a good understanding of this emerging area of research. Furthermore, I have been busy locating and evaluating online tools that will allow students to build avatars in a safe and user friendly environment. A central component of my planning has been designing an initial rubric that will clearly reflect the desired outcomes and expectations of the activity. This rubric will be open to revision once it is introduced to the students, but I want to make sure that I have a basic framework to work from. By developing a basic framework I can ensure that that my technology-inspired change works towards specific curriculum objectives and ESL benchmark objectives established by my school district. There are many factors to consider as I work through the planning stages! I realize that my technology-inspired change is not just about implementing one activity, it is about a change in teaching style and approach. That being said, I'm already thinking about follow-up activities for my avatar project. During and after the avatar presentations there will be many questions and answers, which means there will be dialog, communication and interaction! This excites me, so I'm thinking of ways to capitalize on these rich learning opportunities to further the objective of language development.
Stephen
Dear Stephen ,
ReplyDeleteI want to thank you for giving a clue about your project plan because I intend to have your help in peer assessment.
I have no idea about avatars and this way your project seems helpful and challenging for me. I am also glad about the fact that you are concerned about children’s security on the Internet .I am a promoter of Internet Safety and I think all foreign languages teachers should be.
As soon as I can concentrate a little bit more about my plan I will post on my blog !
Yours,
Camelia