What Should I Be Doing with Technology?

So you're a teacher who wants to do integrate technology in your teaching. But every time you learn something new or develop a new lesson, the technology changes and your new lesson is out of date. What's a teacher to do?

I don't have all the answers, but I think I can help with with this. It's not about software any more. It's about connections. The more you can connect with your students and allow them to connect with one another and with others outside the classroom, the better their learning experience will be. That's my humble opinion.

All you have to do to get your head around this is to observe your students. How do they spend their time outside of class? Connected. They spend countless hours texting, facebooking, tweeting and otherwise communicating with others. They are constantly connected. Now what happens when they walk into the typical classroom? They sit down in rows facing the board and the source of all knowledge, the teacher, for, usually, a one-way flow of information that lasts 50 minutes. Talk about a disconnect!

I'm not saying that we should facebook with our students or tweet to them or anything of the sort. What I am saying is that we can learn from that model to make learning meaningful for our students. We need to start creating lessons that encourage collaboration and independent learning.

Some Examples:

• Video yourself explaining a concept with your phone, tablet or webcam. Post to your class blog. This is a very simplistic version of flipping your class. It's a way to connect with your students outside of class. Sounds simple and it is, but you'll start to see the power of it once you've done it.
• Make a screencast explaining a concept. Post this to your class blog. A screencast is a video recording of your clicks and drawings on the computer or tablet screen. You can do this with a number of apps, listed below.
• Have your students create screencasts explaining a concept to their classmates. Everyone knows that the best way to master a concept is to teach it to someone else. Screencasts give the students an excellent tool for doing this.
• Use collaborative software to create assignments. Give your students the tools they need to collaborate outside the classroom. These assignments encourage not only collaboration, but problem-solving and other critical thinking skills. Ask students to create an outline, mindmap or collaborative document or presentation using one of the collaborative apps listed below.
• When possible, allow students to choose what they learn. This could be a broad topic in which they choose which subtopic to explore further. Or it might be as simple as a supplementary vocabulary list of which they choose which 40% they want to show mastery. The ideas is to give them more control over their learning, which leads to ownership.

This is just a brief sampling, of course, but it's meant to spark ideas you can use in your content area. I'd love to hear from you what collaborative and independent learning lessons you are creating.

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Some Screencasting Apps for the iPad:

• ShowMe - Free. Very easy to use. Write with pen tool and add images. Onlien repository of screencasts that you can access. Creates a link to your screencast that you share with students.
• ScreenChomp - Free. Very easy to use. Write with pen tool and add background images. Creates a link to your screencast that you share with students.
• Explain Everything - $2.99. Many more features; steeper learning curve. Can import PowerPoint, pdfs, Word Docs. Includes text tools. Ability too add and sort slides. Syncs with Evernote and Dropbox. Upload directly to YouTube.

Some Screencasting Apps for Desktop Computer:

• Jing - http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html - Free. Very easy to use. Requires a download. Record your voice and all clicks on the screen. Creates a link to the video on screencast.com. Limit 5 minutes.
• ScreenR - www.screenr.com - Free. Very easy to use. Now download required but must create screenr account. Record your voice and all clicks on the screen. Creates a link to the video on screenr.com. Limit 5 minutes.
• SmartRecorder - Record your lessons on your SmartBoard. Creates video files you can post on YouTube or Vimeo.

Some Collaborative Apps:

• GoogleDrive - Use online or download software for computer or tablet. Includes word processor, presentations and spreaksheet. Share with students and they can work collaboratively in or out of class. http://drive.google.com
• MindMeister - www.mindmeister.com - Collaborative graphic organizer tool. Share with students. Assign tasks to students. They create collaborative concept map which can be exported to Word as an outline.
• Diigo - www.diigo.com - Share bookmarks with your students or have them create a collection of bookmarks. You and students can annotate web sites with highlights and sticky notes.

Blended Learning in the World Languages Classroom - The Nuts and Bolts

As a follow-up to my previous post, I thought it might be helpful to give some specifics and logistics for those who are thinking of converting their class to a blended one.

First you need to understand what it means to teach online. I went through an intensive training program through Virtual High School to become an online teacher. But there are many other workshops and conferences you can attend. Another excellent resource is the Blended Learning Toolkit which is made available for free through the University of Central Florida. Take some time to really understand what you're doing and why you're doing it.

Next you need an online environment for students to work in - a LMS (Learning Management System.) I chose Schoology, but there are others out there, such as Edmodo, Haiku and Moodle, all of which are free. I chose Schoology based on this excellent blog post by Jennie Magiera which points out its well thought-out integration with iPads. Your school's web site might also have enough features in Class Pages to manage a blended class. You want it to have the following:

• a document dropbox for student to submit assignments
• a threaded discussion feature
• a place to post links and documents for students

Also helpful would be a calendar, a blog feature, and an online quiz feature.

My class, as I mentioned in my previous post is not technically a blended course. Blended courses are those in which 30% to 70% (these percentages vary depending on the source) of the instruction is delivered online. I decided to meet face to face 4 days a week and online 1 day a week, so it's only 20% online. But it's a good start.

The next thing I did was think of the types of activities that best lend themselves to online learning and work them into my lesson plans each week. I want to have at least one group/collaborative assignment each week.

When all that was ready, I composed a letter to the parents explaining what blended learning is and what it would mean for their children. I was pleasantly surprised that none of the parents had questions or concerns. This week we had our first online session and it went well. The next day in class, we debriefed about ways we could do better, and so it goes.

One more thing you should know - expect to spend about twice as much time on your online classes as you do for your face to face ones. That has been true for my fully online class and I am finding it to be true as well for the blended one. But it is time well spent and you will be amazed at how much you learn. I wouldn't trade this experience for anything.

I hope you try it.