Images in the Classroom - Now and Then

I've always had this natural inclination to add images to whatever lesson I was teaching, and now even more so when I see the neuroscientific reason for doing it. James Zull, in his book "the Art of Changing the Brain", mentions that

"Our concrete experience contains much of the information we need for understanding, because it produces images for our brains to analyze, rearrange, manipulate, and turn into action. We have maps of our experience in our brains, and we can run through these maps like the frames of a moving picture."

He goes on to say that the images in our brains come from the experience itself and that's why

"teachers could make extensive use of images to help people learn. If we can convert an idea into an image, we should do so. And whenever possible, we should require our students to show us their images. It should go both ways"

Having the power of images in mind, our classroom should be visual-rich and empowering. It should help our learners enhance their language skills through their sensory brains. In this sense, today I just came across a Facebook post by Ben Goldstein where he mentioned a blog called Dear Photograph  in which the audience shares images of a past original setting and taking a photo holding a film photo of people in the same place.

http://dearphotograph.com/image/52871635425 

Now, imagine having the same kind of project with your group of students after they've explored some of the images in the Dear Photograph blog. You can ask them to talk to their parents and relatives, to find nice photos of places that they could go and take the same kind of picture, holding the film-developed photo. Plus, you can explore the use of the past in the images contrasted with the present. The teacher would have the perfect timing to talk about "USED TO", for example, and then use students' own images to explore language in a totally contextualized way.

Then, in the same Facebook thread, Paul Driver suggested the use of the Zefrank's blog project Young Me/Now Me for the same kind of activity in which students take their own photos, explore the blog's photos and use language to compare and talk about the differences between now and then.

http://www.zefrank.com/youngmenowme/permalink.html?469

Thanks to Ben Goldstein and Paul Driver in my FB network for the visual inspiration!

Picturetelling in the Park with Jamie Keddie

I met Jamie Keddie, from the very resourceful site, lessonstream, in Brighton, on my very first day at IATEFL 2011. He was part of my Twitter network and, at the pub we were at, he just said, "I'm that guy with the dog as a thumbnail". Yes. Everything about Jamie has a visual cue!

However, his very recent video goes much beyond imagery. It helps us picture a scene through words in the very best Jamie style of storytelling with a strong visual reference. This video is a very powerful resource for the classroom as there are just so many things that can come out it:
 - A discussion about the wall he talks about and the kinds of imaginary walls and real ones we have around us.
 - Students drawing the scene and trying to identify where, who, what he is looking at if they haven't heard of or seen the photo.
 - A discussion about cultural issues that have caused or might cause a rebellion.
- Or how about the students recording their own picturetelling videos, inviting others to draw what they narrate?

Well, I'll leave you with Jamie, his video and a great lesson plan to go with it!
http://lessonstream.org/2013/06/11/gezi-park/ 

 

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/

Cool Tool of the Week - DeepZoomPix

http://bit.ly/BBd8Y

Microsoft is testing an online tool called DeepZoomPix, which gives us an interesting overview to our photo albums. I chose to connect it to my Flickr account and grabbed some of my food photos. Here's the result. Pretty neat way of visualizing images.

Which of your pictures would you choose to test DeepZoomPix? Would love to see them, and I invite my friends Luiz Claudio, Rick Monteiro, Dani Lyra, Ronaldo Júnior, and André Netto to test it.

Cool Tool of the Week - Toon Doo

by carlaarena | Create your own Cartoon at www.toondoo.com

I've been a fan of Toon Doo creations, but just as a mere spectator of its creative uses mainly for pedagogical purposes.

Above is my little share for a new course I'm designing.

In fact, one very very cool use of Toon Doo was shared with me as part of my friends' final course project in the WebTools4Educators session I was moderating. Students are to create comics to make idioms and phrasal verbs visual!

englishworldround / FrontPage via kwout

Lots of ideas are popping up in my mind to use Toon Doo with my teens?

How about you? Have you tested it? Do you have any examples to share? How would you use it?

Cool Tool of the Week - A visual dictionary

Shahi - A visual dictionary | Blachan Lab
Originally uploaded by carlaarena

Shahi is a fantastic tool for educational use. Just type a word, you'll see Flickr photos related to it on the left, plus explanations with examples of how the word is used.

I can already picture many ways to use them with students. How about you? Any creative ideas?

Cool Tool of the Week - MoodBox

Because of a Mashable post, I decided to have some fun with the alpha service MoodBox. You draw, doodle, add photos and avatars in different backgrounds to announce to friends how you're feeling.

You have to download a desktop app, but it's pretty straightforward and fast. At this point, you need an invitation to join. I submitted my request to get an invite and when I checked my mailbox, the invitation key was already there.

I had fun with the TV-like screen MoodBox and very quickly designed my mood.



Besides sending your visually-enhanced mood, you can also publish it. Then, it's just a matter of sharing it with the world.

Fun! And I can see great potential of this cool simple tool in the classroom, where kids could represent how they feel and how they are during the day. Besides, this could be an interesting assessment on kids' reaction as an activity follow up. Let's say there's a project they're involved in. Once it's over, the teacher could ask them to visually represent how they felt about the project.

The drawback? Right now Moodbox is only available for PCs.

When Will the Visual Revolution Get to Our Classrooms?

More and more we see the power of graphics, visualization, images, videos to convey a message, to touch our souls, to sell. Visual representations have been part of society much before we started using written code to communicate. In fact, images were used to record historical facts and communicate ideas in a group of people long before words in written form became common place.




However, visual power has much been a passive one for the last centuries for the majority of people who were not into any visually-enhanced profession, or were not talented artists. Things are changing now. The way we communicate through digital media is giving another dimension to the interactivity and manipulation of visuals by amateurs, you and me. The power of communicating visually is in our hands, at our fingertips, one click away. No need for technicalities. Just a wish and you can communicate and interact with others in online photosharing spaces (just check the tons of possibilities at Mashable's 90+ photography resources and tools) and you're there, visually engaged and engaging others. How about the possibilities for videos? Exactly. This is a promising area. No need to be simply a mere spectator of great Hollywood productions. We have the power, you and me, to mix, remix, reshape ideas and share with the world, interact, and learn in the process in totally appalling ways with very little technical knowledge.

The visual revolution is here. But when will it reach not just some lucky schools with inspired educators? When will the educational system empower learners to work together with teachers to create a new and potent form of expression that might lead to creative, innovative ways to find solution to problems, to encourage critical thinking, to give a boost to learners self-esteem and motivation, to enhance meaningful interactions and cultural awareness?

How long will schools wait to be part of the vernacular video revolution (via Judy O'Connell)? How long will educators wait?





Related post:
Flickr Educational Power

Nik Peachey has compiled some interesting blog posts on the topic of videos.

Flickr Educational Power

As a group of wonderful, inspired educators - Alice Barr, Ana Maria Menezes, Bob Sprankle, Cheryl Oakes, Daniela Munca, Jane Petring, João Alves, Mary Hillis, Nina Liyulkun, Ronaldo Júnior, and Susan Burg - get ready to co-moderate a free six-week online session, Images4Education, through the Electronic Village Online, I've been totally immersed in Flickrverse. My main focus has been the potential of Flickr in the Classroom.

It's been a journey of discoveries. True pearls. Starting with Mike Coghlan's tweet and enjoying his very straightforward wiki which he's been using to train educators.



I'm lucky to be in Twitter and connect so easily to others...

Back to Flickr, would you like to see even more? The wiki http://educationalsoftware.wikispaces.com/Flickr is a very comprehensive resource if you plan to work with Flickr4Education.

By the way, a Diigo group called Flickr in Education was also a place that I looked for good references. Though it is still a small library of bookmarks, it has provided me with great tools and blog posts. Our own Diigo space to share bookmarks during the Images4Education session is starting to take shape and soon will be a resources-rich hub for educators when the group starts to add their contribution.

Talking about Flickr posts that are worth exploring and considering in an educational setting, here are some true gems worth spending time with, even if they are not all directly connected to education, they can give you wonderful ideas:

My Own Interesting Snippets
Why Flickr and Alan Levine Rock
Telling Tales with Flickr
Classroom Uses of Flickr
The Davey's: Best of Flickr
Embed Flickr Notes in Other Websites
Motivating Language Learners with Flickr

These are just some of the finest pearls I've bumped into recently, or have bookmarked them some time ago.

By the way, an idea that comes to my mind. What if we all bookmarked in Diigo Flickr resources we found in cyberspace related to education, Flickr4Education? Not only that, what if we tagged Flickr4Education our Flickr photos that might be of interest to the educators community? What if we started the #flickr4education in Twitter? I'm sure Flickr would be even more powerful for our community with a collective action to bring together loose pearls out there in cyberworld into consistent tagging.

Let's start right now the flickr4education movement and show the educational power of Flickr.

Tag it: flickr4education