The Front Lawn
Saving the World through Educational TechnologyArchive for laptop institute
Tablet as Language Lab by Elizabeth Helfant
Over the summer I attended a presentation at the Lausanne Laptop Institute where Elizabeth Helfant discussed how a tablet PC can replace a language lab, with the exception of the final AP test she claims. Elizabeth bases her ideas on the TPCK model which considers technological pedagogical content knowledge in the basic Venn diagram of teaching tools which also includes content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge.
She discusses existing and new literacies including basic literacy, information literacy, visual media, intercultural network literacy, and digital citizenship.
For teachers where vocabulary is an essential component of the curriculum, you might find yourself using Quizlet, which involves a “deck of flash cards” created by the teacher. Other examples are tablet flash by jumping minds which allows allows you to write and record the pronunciation of words in a flashcard. Another example is Knowtes which allows video to be incorporated in flash cards, but its a bit cumbersome at the moment. A lot of this can also be done with Powerpoint of course, and can be loaded onto an iPod. Elizabeth claims students love to make these themselves and when loaded onto a portable device presents a fun way to study for vocabulary tests. This of course is a useful thing for schools that still teach vocabulary. This can be done collaboratively using Google Docs of course, and can the presentation can be downloaded as a Powerpoint.
Art Rage is a useful tool for making the images, but Flickr can be incorporated in this too. A picture can be taken on an iPhone or other smartphone and sent immediately to Flickr. With a group set up in Flickr. Flickr storm or Compfight can also be used to search for images to use for flashcards that have public or “creative commons” licensing.
Quia creates games and quizzes, but it is a bit expensive, Lausanne was very close to using this tool as their language exam but backed off due to security questions at the last minute. Langolab is another service that allows you to create a profile of your language learning using a language of your choice. It is geared for teachers, rather than students, and has a YouTube-ish interface. Other tools she demonstrated are My Language Exchange, Jing (for recorded demos & lectures) and Live Mocha.
If podcasts are your interest for language teaching, along with the audacity standard, Mixcraft is like garage band for the PC. To share the audio files, drop.io is a free site that allows students to create a media drop box and put up to 100 MB free and share the files with other. Gabcast is a podcasting tool that requires a fee, but allows uploads from a mobile phone or Skype. FirstClass email also allows this type of interaction.
Voicethread is another great tool for interacting in language learning and the example provided by Elizabeth describes an uploaded image that students would describe. Another good idea is to have students complete pieces of a story based on what has been included previously.
Annotated video is a new technology that is gaining ground and is perfect for language learning. Viddler is a good example of this and allows you to create questions and other annotations while the video is playing. YouTube also has video annotations. Subtitles can be added to videos using Overstream.
I was also impressed with the Clear Audio Dropboxes which allows widget interfaces that can be placed on a wiki for example for other students to hear. Also check out Anvill, Voxopop, Learnosity, Comiclife + Artrage (these comic books can be published to Scribd or Issuu. Glogster accounts are good for uploading photos, videos, text and audio to create online interactive posters.
Thanks Elizabeth for a super informative workshop as usual and I’m looking forward to what you have for us next year. Do any of you have suggestions for tools in addition to all of these?
Making Global Projects Work by Jeff Whipple
Jeff Whipple is a major proponent of Global Collaborative Projects (GCPs). He talks about tools, what they look like, and why we should engage in them.
Jeff believes that students need to reach out to get to know students from other parts of the world, and see how students with different backgrounds can share the same story. Do we really want the rest of the world’s kids to think that Bart Simpson is the voice of America’s youth? Similarly, do we want our kids to believe that all students in Pakistan are right wing extremists in the making? Probably not.
An example of a GCP was an exchange betten Nashwaaksis Midle School and the American School of Bombay. Heather, a middle school teacher at Nashwaaksis, took on a project from the previous year and began the project with a gift exchange sent through the mail. The project is housed in a Wiki and the two schools began by describing their schools and putting in all their names and profiles. The goal of the project was to practice their French as this was a language course. They made a movie about themselves in French introducing something special about each of them. Students from both schools would then comment in French on the videos posted.
After this, several topics would be edited collaboratively by a few students describing something about the culture, the weather, or the community for example. Heather claims students were working on the Wiki outside of class on weekends, over Christmas break and at all hours of the day and night. Students in Heather’s class got into the project at the same time as the attacks in Mumbai, which gave a special context to the project.
Several stipulations were made to ensure the success of the project which included using 75% or more authentic, student-generated content. Other precaustions were to keep to start small, one small class to begin with is a good idea. Kids were also in agreement that they could not contact the students outside of class and students pictures were not going to be used online. Another key to success are to get involved with existing projects and suggests you visit http://whipple-web20.wikispaces.com under global collaborative projects.
Jeff goes on to explain that GCPs help with several 21st century learning goals including digital citizenship, information literacy, copyright considerations, and your digital footprint.
Teaching Financial Literacy by Scott Klososky
Scott is a technology visionary who consults businesses and schools about technology innovations and the impact they might have on the industry. In this presentation, he describes the dire state of online banking when you have a highly literate generation coming up that will demand much more than what is available to them. When taken in the context of current financial issues that individuals and organizations are suffering, Scott paints with a broad brush to establish a need for teaching financial literacy.
To do this, Scott presents a tool called iThryv he helped develop that brings online banking to a new height. This tool includes a variety of flavors to suit all different needs. Widgets are included that, when combined, seem to function much like an expert system to help them with financial planning depending on your situation in life. Users can be scored on savings and credit behaviors, and facts and video can be fed to the user dynamically into the content window based on behavior determined by the system. There are a variety of content providers that feed the system and Tech Crunch as listed the company in the top 50 startups this year. A real world investment simulator is available to help teach students about the stock market and about other financial instruments.
We prosper is a community that uses iThryv for students and teachers to help build financial literacy. Scott describes weProsper as a national movement in which he sees a bank adopting a community. Part of this is based on the fact that most banks have no idea how many minor accounts are retained when a minor becomes 18.
OneNote Portfolios at Laptop Institute
Thanks to everyone who attended my presentation at the LI. The conference has been great so far and I’m honored to have been a part of it. I’ve attached my presentation here and hope that you find it useful.
OneNote Presenation at LI
