Technology Giving Wide Wings to Creativity

As long as I keep seeing transformative and exciting examples of how technology can help the next generation of professionals acquire new skills in different areas, I'll advocate its use.

That's exactly what happened with me some days ago. I was at the Apple Store with my kids, looking for the present my husband had asked for his 40th birthday, his first Mac. In fact, his first computer! Up to that point he'd just use all the gadgets I would put aside or my kids' computers or mine. Anyway, I was there talking to the salesman while my kids had fun with an iPad Mini. They were giggling, whispering, having real fun. So much fun indeed that I thought that they were certainly playing a cool game.

To my surprise, when I closed the deal and invited them to eat something. They asked me to come closer, for they had something to show me. I had a blast! In just some minutes, all by themselves, they figured out how to use the app iMovie and were, in fact, enjoying themselves as movie producers. The result? Check for yourself how far kids' creativity can travel if they have the means and freedom to go beyond the regular, the ordinary:




I guess that this video is what I've been always trying to show teachers. Technology empowers, decentralizes learning in ways that we should really reconsider our roles as educators not because everyone else is telling us so, but because our kids, our students need guidance, expertise and wisdom to move forward and succeed now and beyond when they become professionals.

One thing they were having trouble doing? Transferring the video to youtube. I also showed them how important it was to delete the video from the public iPad Mini and from the app due to digital safety issues.

Learners' creativity harnessed by technology and guided by an educator's wisdom is certainly an explosive combination. That's why I'll make sure that I help more and more educators get there in their digital literacies. I'll make sure that I give them support to let their learners express themselves and fly even higher.

What have you been doing to encourage your students' creative juices to emerge?

On the Ed Tech Radar - A Collection of Digital Posters Platforms for Educators

I have been part of an exciting teacher training program in the state of Rio and this week I´m exploring with teachers the possibilities of Digital Posters in the classroom. I´ve created this Padlet with some digital posters platforms that let teachers and students create wonderful digital artifacts. I thought educators might profit from it:

To view this Wall in full http://padlet.com/wall/digitalposters

How do you envision using those posters in your classroom?

Taking Learning Into a Visual Experience Through Infographics

Evolving, progressing, developing. Not always an easy task, mainly for very busy English teachers who have heavy schedules, different groups with varied age range and levels of proficiency. But still, they are up to the challenge of after a long day of work to come to a Teacher Development Course to keep improving to become for full-fledged professionals.

That's the context I have with my also challenging job of working with these teachers to raise their level of understanding of Ed Tech issues and help them learn about practical Ed Tech ideas for their classrooms. Challenging not because of the educators I have in class. They are a fantastic, enthusiastic bunch. Daring because of the responsibility of having a full month for Educational Technology in the Methodology part of the TDC program. Until last semester we'd have only a 2-hour encounter with TDC students. So, two hours turned into a fascinating monthly opportunity to inspire, go above and beyond with those teachers.

Of course, it is no easy task for them. Besides the heavy duty of going through many different concepts, ideas and practicalities of integrating Ed Tech in the classroom, they still have to deal with the hybrid format of this part of the course (1 face-to-face class + 1 online class per week) and my pushing them to do more than just average. A bit of pressure, I know, but I'm totally in awe of what I've seen so far, particularly what I had the chance to contemplate, discuss and learn about last class.

I had assigned Mark Warschauer's text "Technological Change and the Future of CALL", part of an ESL & Applied Linguistics Professional Series, "New Perspectives on CALL for Second Language Classrooms", edited by Sandra Fotos and Charles Browne. Besides classroom discussion, I wanted to profit from the elearning environment and the new trends in Ed Tech to explore the possibilities of the use of infographics in the classroom. There was a bit of whining and moaning because of the complexity of the infographics platforms and technical issues that students faced, but the outcomes were simply way more than one could ever expect...
The student-teachers found their own ways to overcome the technical challenges, and the result was a class full of sharing, discussions and considerations about CALL history, its present state and what the future holds. The infographics were the springboard that inspired us all to learn and share. One of the students, a designer by heart and profession, was even applauded by the class when he entered the room with his infographics created in Illustrator that not only visually represented the text but also enticed the readers to consider our pedagogy in the 21st century in his humorous bottom part of the infographic:

by Gustavo Dias

And here's the collective effort of the group that makes me certain that, yes, even with some pain, there was an amazing learning gain that I am super proud of. I hope that these teachers understand the power of such an activity to take their own students to another learning level. Not that they will ask students to create an infographic, but what are some of the creative practices we can adopt to enhance learning in an EFL/ESL classroom and really give choice, purpose and audience to our students' production?

If you are just curious about the infographics platforms that I suggested, here they go:

 

   

    

Just remember that if you want to try them out, do like my students: persist!

For some cool infographics >>> http://pinterest.com/ctjonline/infographics/

mLearning Resources

It is a great pleasure to present for the IATEFL Learning Technologies SIG about mlearning and ways to transform our classrooms.

mLearning Resources from Carla Arena

Here are some spaces that you might want to check if you are interested in mlearning and its latest developments:

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2012/08/29-ipad-resources-tutorials-and-guides.html

32 Interesting Ways to Use an Ipod Touch in the Classroom

http://www.scoop.it/t/elearning-mlearning 

https://www.diigo.com/user/carlaarena/mlearning

http://pinterest.com/carlaarena/mlearning/ 

http://pinterest.com/carlaarena/byod-classroom-ideas/ 

http://mthatlearning.blogspot.com.br 

Ed Tech News Aggregator

There are many ways to keep yourself updated to impact your classroom using technology.
However, I've just come across this Ed Tech News aggregator worth checking, Spigot , produced by the Digital Media & Learning Research Hub . There are many interesting articles and research information to keep you on the loop of ed tech and to inspire you to keep moving forward.

Another way to keep yourself on top of the Ed Tech News is to check:

http://www.scoop.it/t/ed-tech-news

Random Thoughts on Ed Tech Mass Debate

In reply to what Gavin Dudeney posted and the feedback he got, I'll register here what I've written as a reminder of my own thoughts on the topic:

Gavin, you mentioned in one of your replies "You’d like to think – wouldn’t you – that teachers ask themselves these questions on a daily basis – not just about technology, but also about anything else they bring to the classroom, or do in the classroom?" I think that's exactly the point we should make. It is not about ed tech, but simply about the kind of our pedagogical approaches to what we do nowadays. Good teaching hasn't changed at all, the tools we have at our disposal now just make it easier to let students' output be more personal, reflective, engaging. And this will certainly depend directly on how the lesson was conducted. It is not about ed tech, the debate is really about teaching/learning. For me unplugged doesn't mean being disconnected from the tech we have to promote critical thinking, engagement, willingness to go beyond the few classroom hours we have. I'm a teacher in Brazil, a developing country. However, my students are totally wired, though they don't know how to use what they have at the tip of their fingers for learning. Our main challenge as educators, then, is to help them find their way to optimize the learning opportunities they have.

Just yesterday, a friend of mine was reporting how interactive, reflective class she had with the lesson plan I posted on my blog about "beauty". The tech there was just a springboard for students' own production. I've been trying out the different uses of technology not for the bells and whistles it provides, but for the meaningfulness it can bring with it depending on what and how we do with our students. I've been intensely grateful for what technology is doing to my students and they've reported how they've been learning for the past months because of it. The results? Productions like this: http://primelearner.pbworks.com/w/page/37678475/Ivan And I have to point out that these adult students are not graded for the written production. But the interactions, the input I've been able to provide have been explored in such a way that the students feel the urge to express themselves, to share, to keep learning...

In my view, there shouldn't be such a debate on ed tech or not, but how teachers could make the best use of what's out there. Pencil, notebooks, the black board were once technology, and we simply take them for granted now and we don't question if we should use them or not. I agree with Sue Lyon-Jones that one of the main issues is how teacher training is being done by institutions and if, at least, some of the teachers are looking for their own professional development beyond the institutionalized versions of it, for it makes a difference in the final result in terms of tech use (going beyond the obvious, using it for critical thinking, student production, etc, or not).

Another thing that has got me thinking after IATEFL and while I get prepared to attend other conferences is that fact that there's a tendency for us to stick to the same old views of presenters as there's a whole deal with publishers. I see the same old list of presenters in all the mainstream TEFL conferences. Hardly ever do we see new names with fresh perspective. I wonder if this model shouldn't be rethought. Well, for me it is not a big problem, in fact, for because of technology I can make my own informed decisions on who I want to listen to in online conferences, debates, network, right?

Great debate, Gavin. Thanks!