Presenters of Moodle MOOC 7

Moodle MOOC 7 (MM7) is scheduled to take place from November 1 - 30,  2015 on Moodle for Teachers.

Organized by Dr. Nellie Deutsch

Dr. Nellie Deutsch (Ed.D) is an education technology advisor, English faculty member  in blended learning and fully online programs at a university and faculty on leadership fully online in the transpersonal graduate program at Atlantic University. She’s on the IATEFL YLTSIG, EDMedia executive, WAOE, TESOL CALL-IS, HEIS and SSIS committees. Nellie has been teaching English in high school and at the college level for over 35 years and integrating technology since 1992. She organizes free online programs for educators on how to manage and teach with Moodle and integrate technology into face-to-face, blended, and fully online courses online MOOCs, online conferences (Connecting Online and Moodle MOOTs), and other online events such as Fall and Spring Blog Festivals. She is passionate about using technologies such as Moodle, WizIQ, Movenote, PresentMe, Slidespeech, Screencast-o-matic, and google drive to promote active learning and teaching as a way to learn.

The purpose of the MOOC is to connect for instruction and learning, reflective practice, social and collaborative learning, cultural exchange and peace, personal and professional development, community building, best practices and challenges involved in teaching with technology, student engagement with the content, peers, and the facilitator, and learning to teach online with Moodle course and learning management system.

MM7 includes webinars and Moodle training. The presenters of the webinars will focus on connecting online for collaborative learning and teaching with technology, education technology, professional development, and topics that pertain to teaching and learning online and/or on mobile devices/smartphones.

The Moodle training will take place on Moodle for Teachers (M4T) Moodle website and will focus on active learning, reflection, sharing, and collaboration. The aim of the course is for the participants to learn through meaningful connections and social interactions. Participants, who wish to receive a certificate of participation, will be required to document their learning experiences by keeping a blog, wiki, website, or any other artifact that will include a description and reflection of the live sessions and/or recordings.

The Moodle training will include Moodle, Google Drive Docs, blogs, Google Apps, Mobile Devices, Virtual Classes, and other online learning environments for face-to-face, blended, and fully online learning. In addition, participants will learn to use Movenote, Screencast-o-matic, PresentMe, SlideSpeech, Plotagon, Smore, Quizlet, Slideshare, Evernote, Movenote, WizIQ, and other technologies for effective and engaging student-based activities. The live presentations will include the speakers’ reflective process on teaching and learning in fully online and blended learning formats.

Course Highlights

• Moodle 2.9 Theories and Practice Training
• Active Learning: Teaching as a Way to Learn
• Learning & Teaching Online: Creating Engaging Activities
• Collaborative Learning
• Learning and Teaching in a Live Online Class
• Blended Learning
• Flipped Learning
• Fully online learning
• Mobile Learning
• APPs for Learning

Moodle for Teachers

Moodle MOOC 7 Moodle for Teachers training course on how to use Moodle 2.9 for instruction is an asynchronous component of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Moodle for teachers and anyone interested in teaching online using Moodle, WizIQ, and other web technologies. The course will take place in the month of November 2015. The MOOC is in the spirit of open education and is completely free.

Future of Education the Second Part

 The Future of Education
My Hopes for the Future Education
"Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another." - G.K. Chesterton
My hope is that teachers will make learning personalized rather than standardized for everyone.
My hope allows to improve students’ creativity and teachers increase that natural curiosity with learners. Curiosity is the basis of innovation. Curiosity will power our world to progress.
My hope is that you charge the power of technology in thoughtful and incredible ways. Applied science can connect everyone, everywhere, at whatever time. We should use it to our advantage.
I hope for everyone to be able to discover the things you are passionate about.
I also hope that you have remarkable, encouraging educators and mentors who try groundbreaking and wild teaching techniques to help you grow as a learner.
My hope is you are ready for the challenges as well as the failure.
Making mistakes is a way to learn. It’s not about the disaster; it’s how you respond to the failure.
And finally my hope is that your school is different from most of the current transactional learning models, where the students are consumers of education.
Lastly, I hope for people to be just educational learners fitted in transformational learning approach with opportunity for active, creative and profound personal development. Education can take place anywhere and at anytime. It is not only about reading, writing, and learning mathematical practices.
Knowledge is wide-ranging. It’s breathing. Learning is the future.
“I am not a teacher, but an awakener.”
― Robert Frost
https://youtu.be/vCXqpc67-WM

 Read the article by Ludmila Smirnova

Teaching For the Future: Training Teacher for edTPA, a New Certification fo...: A new system of certification for teachers edTPA caused a lot of controversy and debates. The debate is never ending but the training of te...

webspelunker - My Travels Across Second Life: Life and Death in Second Life

 What do you think about Second Life?




webspelunker - My Travels Across Second Life: Life and Death in Second Life:  
Life is but a dream for the dead. Gerard Way           
 Recently, I came across an interesting and thought provoking article b...

What Are My Needs As An English Language Teacher?

Students guided through learning module that asks and collects questions.
Instructor prepares lecture.	Instructor prepares learning opportunities.
Beginning of Class	Students have limited information about what to expect.	Students have specific questions in mind to guide their learning.
	Instructor makes general assumption about what is helpful.	Instructor can anticipate where students need the most help.
During Class	Students try to follow along.	Students practice performing the skills they are expected to learn.
	Instructor tries to get through all the material.	Instructor guides the process with feedback and mini-lectures.
After Class	Students attempt the homework, usually with delayed feedback.	Students continue applying their knowledge skills after clarificationa and feedback.
	Instructor grades past work.	Instructor posts any additional explanations and resources as necessary and grades higher quality work.
Office Hours	Students want confirmation about what to study.	Students are equipped to seek help where they know they need it.
	Instructor often repeats what was in lecture.	Instructor continues guiding students toward deeper understanding.

http://ctl.utexas.edu/teaching/flipping-a-class/different

Competence in Communication

The presentation is about how to communicate efficiently and the ways of improving communication skills.

My online activity inspired me to get reverting to my earlier research about effective communication.

From my view, connecting with the use of the Internet seems to be creating new questions about the way people communicate.

I am working to present a theoretical backdrop to the principles of the process of communication, as well as communications skills models.

My approach is based on the well-known model of the functions of language introduced by  Roman Jakobson. Although it is recognizable that Jakobson’s theory can be challenged on numerous grounds from a theoretical perspective, I have always been linked with his theoretical explanation of the purposes of linguistic communication.

“Jakobson and Halle’s initial statement of the principles of linguistic organization should be made available to all future generations of linguists. It builds a solid foundation for Saussurean thinking about linguisic oppositions and establishes distinctive feature theory as the basis of their formal treatment.”

Prof. Dr. William Labov, University of Pennsylvania, Department of Linguistics

Along with Roman Jakobson’s  functions of the language model, we can formulate some basic queries.

·       What is Communication?

·       The Categories of Communication.

·       The Communication Process.

·       Communication Channels.

·       Principles of Communication.

·       Interpersonal Communication Skills.

·       What is an online communication?

·       The Benefits of Blogging.

https://www.academia.edu/11562219/Competence_in_Communication_And_Interpersonal_Skills
https://www.academia.edu/11562219/Competence_in_Communication_And_Interpersonal_Skills

https://www.wiziq.com/tutorial/928605-sbf15-halina-on-competence-in-communication-and-interpersonal-skillshttps://www.wiziq.com/tutorial/928605-sbf15-halina-on-competence-in-communication-and-interpersonal-skills

Spring Blog Festival 2015 Presenters

http://youtu.be/4rpRai_3dBY

Planning for Action Research

•Initial planning for action research includes:

•Identifying and limiting a topic

•Gathering information related to the topic

•Reviewing related literature

•Early stages are crucial in any research project

•Lays the “groundwork” for all that follows

•Nothing shapes the remainder of a study as much as specifying the topic or problem

•Problems with being too broad or vague, or being too narrow

•Possible topic areas:

•A teaching method or instructional materials

•Classroom management

•Identifying a problem

•Examining an area of interest

•Once a topic has been identified, it should be evaluated against several practical considerations:

•Personal interest in the topic

•Importance of the topic

•Time requirements for conducting the study

•Anticipated difficulty of the study

•Potential monetary costs

•Issues related to ethics in conducting research

http://www.uk.sagepub.com/mertler4e/study/default.htm

Teaching with Technology

Course Description

The course offers new, veteran, and future teachers theoretical and practical knowledge on how to teach and learn using technology. The course will include weekly synchronous live online classes, course material, and video tutorials.
Participants will learn about and apply:

• E-portfolios (blogs, websites, wikis)
• Learning theories
• Transformational learning
• Transformational teaching
• Teaching as a way to learn
• Project-based learning
• Collaborative learning
• Instructional design theories
• Assessment theories
• Reflective practice
• Blended learning
• Blended online learning
• Teaching in a live online class
• Course design
• Syllabus development
• Lesson plans
• Course and Learning Management System
• Micro teaching

Created by Dr. Nellie 

Dr. Nellie Deutsch

Teaching with Technology

 I am talking about my research.

Teaching with Technology Part 2

This is how I see it.

About Active Learning

What is active learning?

• Active learning is "anything that involves students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing" (Bonwell & Eison, 1991, p. 2).
• Felder & Brent (2009) define active learning as "anything course-related that all students in a class session are called upon to do other than simply watching, listening and taking notes" (p. 2).
• Active learning strategies can be as short as a few minutes long.
• Active learning techniques can be integrated into a lecture or any other classroom setting relatively easily. Even large classrooms can involve learning activities beyond the traditional lecture format.

The Secret to Learning a Language in 10 Days- Revealed!

Traditional Tips for Beginners

1. You are like a new baby
   Babies learn their language slowly.
   First they learn to listen.
   Then they learn to speak.
   Finally, they can read and write.
2. Listen to English every day
   Listen to English radio.
   Watch English TV.
   Go to English movies.
   Use online lessons.
3. Make an English/ESL friend
   Make up conversations.
   Practise dialogues.
   Use beginner textbooks.
4. Read English stories
   Start with children's storybooks.
   Try ESL readers.
   Read advertisements, signs and labels.
   Try EnglishClub.com for Young Learners.
5. Write down new words
   Start a vocabulary (new word) notebook.
   Write words in alphabetical order (A...B...C...).
   Make example sentences.
   Always use an English-English dictionary first.
6. Keep an English diary
   Start with one sentence.
   How do you feel?
   How is the weather?
   What did you do today?
   Write another sentence tomorrow.
7. Visit an English speaking country
   Learn English more quickly.
   Stay with an English family.
   Hear native speakers talk.
   Have a fun experience.

Science of Learning

 

 

This is an excellent presentation        

 

 

by Nellie Deutsch Science of Learning

 

 

The mission of the newly formed Science of Learning Institute is to understand the most essential part of our human capital: the ability to learn. The Institute supports research and application that seeks to understand learning at all levels of scientific inquiry—including how the brain changes through learning, how development and aging affects our ability to learn, how neurological and psychiatric diseases disrupt or change learning, and why there are such vast individual differences that naturally occur among learners. A central part of the mission is to understand how new technologies such as machine learning and new educational programs can optimize learning—whether it occurs in the informal setting of the playground, the more formal setting of a school, a rehabilitation program, or on-the-job training.

 

Teaching with Technology: Week 1

 

 

This is Nellie's introduction to the Teaching with Technology online course.

And this is Dr. Nellie's article describing not only this particular course , but also some basic information about education online.

 http://www.wiziq.com/teachblog/teaching-with-technology/

I followed the instructions and set my course; https://www.wiziq.com/course/95228-halina-s-conversational-english

I also conducted the first live class;

http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/2438529-introduction-to-halina-s-conversational-english-course

The meeting was very nice. It was a great pleasure to have a wonderful conversation with my online friends such as ;

 

Iwona Filip, Poland

Brian Boneham, United Kingdom

Nives Torresi, Italy

Jakub Kalinowski, Poland

Guadalupe Ortega, Mexico

María Jesús García San Martín, Spain

Prem Kumar Behera, Indie

Generally speaking, it was supposed to be an introduction to the values of being fluent in English as well as how not to learn foreign languages to escape from widespread learning mistakes.

I was presenting my teaching and learning experience and we were talking about our tutoring methods and discussing a value of English for communication approach.

 

Opening Meeting Class on WizIQ

http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/2438529-introduction-to-halina-s-conversational-english-course

 

The first class on the 17th of January 2015 is about meeting and getting to know each other.

The main topic is covering a short introduction to the values of being fluent in English as well as how not to learn foreign languages to escape from widespread learning mistakes.

Dave Dodgson: A year in review. Three Quick Ideas to Start your 2015 Classes | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC

Dave Dodgson: A year in review. Three Quick Ideas to Start your 2015 Classes | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC

 

Idea 1 - R&R: Reflections and Resolutions

An obvious angle to go for at the start of the New Year is Resolutions. However, this lesson can often have the same problems as resolutions themselves – generic, hollow, and something that is quickly abandoned or forgotten.

However, a couple of years ago while focusing on reflective practice during my MA course, I decided to apply some of the principles of teacher reflection to a New Year’s lesson for my students and the results were much better and it has now become a recurring feature of my late December/early January teaching.

1. First of all, I ask students to think about everything they did, were a part of, or witnessed in the year just gone. Their first task is to identify and list the three best things from the year. This is done as a silent individual activity with plenty of thinking time – it’s often harder for people to remember the good things than the bad!
    
2. Next, the students pair up to compare their personal ‘best of’ lists with plenty of questions encouraged.
    
3. To complete the T-P-S (Think-Pair-Share) cycle, each student shares what their partner told them with the rest of the class.
    
4. Now time to focus on the things that could have gone better. Again, students get thinking time to consider what didn’t work out so well (whether through their own involvement or something beyond their control) but they must also identify why these events could have been better. I generally tell them to stick to one or two things so the overall tone of the lesson remains positive.
    
5. Steps 2 and 3 are repeated as the students compare and discuss with a partner before sharing with the class.
    
6. And now for the resolution part. Focusing on those things that could have been better, the students must decide what they can personally do in the New Year to address these shortcomings, solve these problems, or make these improvements. Their goal in this stage is to write out two specific and focused resolutions (with help from the teacher to modify and reformulate when necessary).
    
7. These can then be shared either orally or through Post-Its on the wall or a class blog if you are into that kind of thing. Don’t forget that students will appreciate their teacher taking part in this process too!

Idea 2 - The best (and worst) of 2014

This is a more recent idea that I have used in the last couple of years as part of my game-based learning classes but it could just as easily be done with films, TV shows, music, or books if your students are not gamers.

Depending on what your class are interested in, before the lesson you should pick out one of the many ‘best of’ lists that circulate on websites and in the wider media at this time of year*. Try to keep it short – a top 5 is enough and it shouldn’t be more than a top 10. For low level classes, a simple list will do. Higher levels might be willing to get to grips with the write-ups that accompany the picks as well.

*There is an alternative to this, which is presented below.

The rest of this brief write-up will use games as an example but the principles are the same whatever media you choose.

1. Start with a discussion question: What new games did you buy/play this year? Again, give some thinking time before asking the students to compare their ideas in pairs and groups. In the whole class discussion, direct the class to identify which games they enjoyed and which ones were disappointing (it might be a good idea to get some of the titles up on the board).
    
2. Present each pair/group with the list you picked out before the lesson. Tell them which website/media source it is from and stress that it is just an opinion. Ask them to read through the choices and discuss whether or not they agree.
    
3. Task each group with drawing up their own ‘best of’ list for the previous year. How they do so is up to them – they might try to reach a group consensus, they could each choose one or two titles to go on a list, or they could vote. They must be ready to explain their choices to the rest of the class afterwards.
    
4. Higher level students could be asked to prepare an article introducing each game and explaining why it was chosen.
    
5. At the end of the lesson, students can refer back to the games from the past year they didn’t like and make an alternative list of ‘the worst games of 2014’. If you have time, you could present them with another article to kick-start the activity (plenty of the same websites that present ‘best of’ lists also have ‘worst of’ round-ups).

*As an alternative, you could not pick out a list for students to look at before the lesson and instead ask each group to search online for a list of the ‘best games of 2014’ and present it to the class This is a nice way to hand control over to the students.
 

Idea 3 – Word of the Year

This is a new one I tried out just before Christmas when I read a news story that the ‘word of the year’ for 2014 (as chosen by the Oxford Dictionary of English) was ‘vape’ (as in the action of using e-cigarettes). This is a rough outline of how I did the lesson:

1. Write the word ‘vape’ on the board and ask if anyone knows what it means. If they don’t (my students didn’t), ask them to first guess and then look it up (they will need to look it up online to find the meaning). If they do, great! Ask the person who knows to explain what it means and go to the next step.
    
2. Ask the students if they can work out why you presented them with this word (if they had to look it up online in step 1, they may have found the answer while searching; if they already knew, they may have to get searching now). Invite discussion as to why this was chosen as the word of the year.
    
3. Discuss with students how new words enter languages, especially their own native languages. Is it through common use? Featuring in a dictionary? Through an official establishment? (As many of my students are French speakers, we had an interesting discussion about the Académie Française and I also told them about the Turkish equivalent, the Türk Dil Kurumu).
    
4. Get the students to research previous ‘words of the year’ (they may also find an American version, which makes for interesting comparison). Did they know any of these words already? Which ones did they find the most interesting/bizarre? Why do they think these words were chosen? (One interesting trend my students spotted were the number of words relating to economic problems like squeezed middle and credit crunch, as well as the environmentally themed words like carbon footprint and social media related phrases like selfie, which they felt reflected our times).
    
5. Make a prediction – what words have been circulating in the media recently and could be the word of 2015?

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/davedodgson/dave-dodgson-a-year-review-three-quick-ideas-start-your-2015-classes?utm_source=07+January+2015&utm_campaign=ConstantContact+5+November+2014&utm_medium=email

Teaching with Technology: Week 1

What does teaching with technology mean to you?
To me teaching with technology means development of my approaches. 
Making my classes more challenging and more exciting was my reason to search for the different methods.

After over thirty years of teaching, I felt bored with my traditional technics and wanted 

to find some inspiration, as well as improvement.

Happiness is when... You Learn with Technology ?

Teaching with Technology

http://www.wiziq.com/teachblog/whats-ahead-2015/

 

 

Teachers will Learn to Blend and Flip your Classes with Technology. The course is available from January 5 – December 4, 2015.

The course offers new, veteran, and future teachers theoretical and practical knowledge on how to teach and learn using technology. The topics of the course will focus on applying the science of learning, ways to transform teachers, promote a learning partnership with students, will how to set up team and motivate students to become lifelong learners, and finally to teach small chunks in a live online class or micro teaching in pairs. Teachers will develop a philosophy of education statement and learn how to share it with the world.

Link to enrol: https://www.wiziq.com/course/92339-teaching-with-technology

 

By Dr. Nellie Deutsch

Teaching to Learners of all Styles - Official WizIQ Teach Blog

Teaching to Learners of all Styles - Official WizIQ Teach Blog

 

http://www.wiziq.com/teachblog/learning-styles-all-learners/

 

 

Teaching to Learners of all Styles at Traditional Schools

When I think of learning, I do not think of school. I think of reading a book in a library, listening to audible (recordings of books) in the car, or sitting in the garden with a book or an iPad. I do not think of school. My learning styles involve out of the classroom experiences.

School Curriculum and Learning

Schools are complex organizations with a top-down management system that aims to promote learning. Every school has a written curriculum that binds all the stakeholders of the school. However, a school curriculum may have more in it than meets the eye.

Information for ALL

Society is continually changing as a result of the fast moving pace of technology. The Internet is now a major provider of information. Information is now available at the click of a finger. Teachers are no longer the sole providers of knowledge and  information. Learning is no longer limited to space or time. Learning can take place online at any time or from any location. Schools may lose their place unless they advance with the times. They do not need to mirror an outdated social structure. They can now integrate technology and open their doors to new and more challenging curriculums.

School Curriculum

A school curriculum is an organized framework that guides teachers and students in the required learning. It is similar to a contract between society, the state and educational professionals with regard to the educational experiences that learners should undergo during a certain phase of their lives. Both the school and the community have a say in the development of the written and unwritten or hidden school curriculum.

Hidden Curriculum

There are differences between written and hidden curriculums. Teachers teach and students learn implicit concepts and patterns. Some of these are written in the curriculum while others are not. Teachers may not be as aware as their students that they are transmitting unwritten or hidden curriculum ideas. Students may sense it much faster because some of these ideas force the students to behave in ways they do not always like. Students learn quickly that they have to conform to the rules of the school if they want approval.

Hidden Curricula serve a purpose:

• Indoctrination to maintain social status
• Set the stage for formal education
• Rules to complete formal education

Students acquire these and other hidden ideas while attending school. Many schools promote social norms and values that such as being punctual, competitive, waiting one’s turn, learning to accept hierarchy of authority, patience and other goals and functions of  society.

School promoted socializing codes of behavior may adversely affect students. Teachers convey many messages to learners from the outset of school. Some kindergarten teachers go as far as to control the children’s behavior and perception of the world in negative and often inappropriate ways. Apparently, youngsters adjust their emotional responses to conform to those considered appropriate by the teacher and school . Youngsters do not always feel at ease with being quiet and not being able to express their feelings. The hidden curriculum sometimes determines limitations to student behaviour in the classroom that may hinder learning.

On the one hand, the hidden curriculum may limit teachers’ instruction because it forces them to teach students how to behave in ways that may not enhance learning instead of devoting time to content and other skills that could facilitate life long learning. This takes time away from the written curriculum’s plan for learning. In addition, teachers do not always feel comfortable instructing students on socialization. They feel that these are things parents should be doing at home.

http://www.wiziq.com/teachblog/learning-styles-all-learners/