The Flipped Classroom Model

Watch this video and be prepared to discuss it at the beginning of class on Tuesday March 7

Creating WebQuests to Guide Students' Language Learning

WebQuests are an eResource teaching approach that helps teachers balance the need to:

1. guide students' language learning;  2. apply what they've learned to practical, integrated tasks and activities: and 3. give adequate opportunity for independent learning.

Using Webquests is an eLearning approach that is compatible with a variety of a variety of other eLearning pedagogies, including the Flipped Classroom, a Task-based Approach, SALL and Project Learning.

Here is a presentation to help you create your own WebQuest. There are links to many useful WebQuest websites on the last slide. Click on the link: Introduction to WebQuests 

Create a WebQuest with your group to share with your classmates during a brief Prezi presentation on 7th March 2017. It is recommended that you use either PowerPoint or Google Sites to format your WebQuest. Follow the presentation guidelines in Lixun's Webquest:

Webquest: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

Sample Prezi: Cool Cats Gone Wild 

Adapt the topic, tasks, objectives and language level of the WebQuest to the grade level(s) you are likely to teach. Be sure to integrate all the components of a WebQuest:

1. Introduction to the task

2. Interesting and manageable tasks that requires students to find, use and transform information

3. Clear instructions on what kind of information to find

4. Set of information resources (links) – these are embedded in the WebQuest

5. Evaluation of the products, tasks or learning outcomes, including a self-assessment for students and assessment for teachers

6. Conclusion reminding students what they have learned

Here are some model WebQuests:

1. Anti-Smoking (Secondary 3)

2. Transportation (Primary 5)

Introduction to Prezi

Prezi Presentations

Freshen Up Your Presentation Skills

The era of eResources involves developing a vast assortment of digital literacies. Digital literacies, for language teachers, are integral to both how they teach and what they teach. Teachers have been making oral presentations for millennia, blackboard presentations for centuries, and PPT presentations for decades. Try to freshen up your presentation approach by developing some new ways to share information with your students. Prezi presentation is a good way to get started.

My First Prezi 

Give Prezi a try and share at least three things that you gained from your discussion group. 

Paste the link to your Prezi in the comment section of this post and give it a title.

What is Digital Citizenship?

source: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/47/85/48/4785483623880b067b6991975dfc14c3.jpg 

As teachers, we are often viewed as models of behaviour for our students. In what way might this apply to the use of technology. What behaviours might we be expected to demonstrate for our students and why? On the other hand, what would happen if we didn't?

In giving students access to the world, and the sum of human knowledge, we forget that we also provide the world and the sum of future human knowledge access to our students.

This post has been divided into three sections, two videos and one question. The first video demonstrates the consequences of having a digital life and what is really happening with our data. The second looks at how we use and share information and what proper consumption and creation are with digital assets. The question that I pose to each of you is: What happens if the consequences for how we use and share information last long after we are aware of their impact?

1) Consequences:



2) Consumption of media and behaviour:



3) Question:
What simple things can you do to be a model to your students what safe and ethical behaviour is when using technology? Write your answer in the comment section of this post.


* Extension: Here is a longer video about personal privacy on the internet: https://youtu.be/KGX-c5BJNFk

The Surprising Truth About Learning in Schools | Will Richardson

Based on many group's responses we might look to this video to see that we're not alone in seeing the future of education as being different to now.

Sugata Mitra - School in the Cloud

What might learning look like in the future? What do we need to do as teachers to help prepare our students for a future no one can predict?
What can we do to initiate this change for our students?