Random Thoughts

For years and years I was amazed that my kids never picked up the instruction manual for any piece of technology; they would just play with it until they figured it out. I could never imagine doing that. But today as I was working with Blackboard and Wimba, I realized that I don’t read the book anymore, either. I am not sure when this happened, bt it has definitely happened.

I looked at many of the others in the course with me — all people about my age or younger. They are where I was a few years ago. I understand now why my kids used to get frustrated with me sometimes!

Anyway, this was something that struck me today. I need to pay attention and see how true it is.

Derek had a link to the Next Generation User Skills Report.  While I have not read all of it yet, I find I am fascinated by the charts that are included in the report, starting on page 14.  It starts with a list of Activities:

1.  Acquire – download data, media, software
2.  Buy – goods, services
3.  Calculate – cost, business plan
4.  Capture – sound, image
5.  Collaborate – with a group for work or leisure
6.  Communicate – with one or more people (asynchronous), report something
7. Compose – text (e.g. a message, a document)
8. Create – edit, combine digital media (e.g. a film, a podcast)
9. Disclose – my identity, personal details
10. Explore – a simulation, scenario, projection or role
11. File – store information, records
12. Illustrate – a document with an illustration or layout
13. Learn – school, CPD, personal interest
14. Meet – conference or other synchronous activity
15. Navigate – find and travel to places (i.e. using maps, GPS)
16. Organise – an appointment, meeting, project
17. Present – information
18. Publish – a digital artefact, a website, a podcast
19. Reference – something for the future (e.g. bookmark)
20. Register – for a public, commercial or open service
21. Search – for information
22. Sell – goods or services
23. Share – information, recommendations, media, other social networking
24. Survey – gather information, elicit votes

Then there is a list of competencies:

A. Enquiry
A1. Formulate questions as online enquiries
A2. Find, gather and collate information
A3. Research & evaluate on-line content & services
A4. Manage references (e.g. bookmarks) in context
A5. Explore a virtual scenario or simulation
A6. Use information to support decision making
B. Digital Literacy
B1. Understand on-line safety, security & privacy
B2. Recognise social responsibility (ethics)
B3. Understand and respect digital property rights
B4. Compose communications to suit target recipients
B5. Learn critically from reviews of published work
B6. Organise, format and enter data
C. Participation
C1. Communicate & share information
C2. Create & maintain an online identity
C3. Submit ratings, reviews & recommendations
C4. Contribute appropriately to networked community activities
C5. Use shared applications
C6. Work collaboratively online towards a goal
C7. Moderate and manage the activities of an online group
D. Production
D1. Create digital artefacts (diagrams, designs)
D2. Capture digital media (visual, audio)
D3. Edit digital media (visual, audio)
D4. Integrate (mash-up) applications and content
D5. Publish digital content (web, PDF, e-book)
D6. Enable content to be discovered online
D7. Control versions of digital assets
E. Digital Independence
E1. Understand technology operations & concepts
E2. Install, link and network hardware
E3. Install and update software
E4. Manage personal infrastructure and data
E5. Use a range of digital and interactive devices
E6. Make appropriate ICT tool selection
E7. Explore and self-learn digital technologies
E8. Synchronise devices and data

There is also a list of tools and then a chart that maps the activities and the tools. These charts seem to me to provide a gret framwork for thinking about what we teach students and how.

While this may seem most appropriate for a computer literacy class of some sort, I think it is equally useful for all teachers.  We can begin to think about what we do in out classes in a new way.  FOr instance.  when I look at my plans for one of my classes for the spring, I see that I will have them do a large number of the actiiivities mentioned in the report:

1.  Acquire – download data, media, software
4.  Capture – sound, image
5.  Collaborate – with a group for work or leisure
6.  Communicate – with one or more people (asynchronous), report something
7. Compose – text (e.g. a message, a document)
8. Create – edit, combine digital media (e.g. a film, a podcast)
9. Disclose – my identity, personal details
11. File – store information, records
12. Illustrate – a document with an illustration or layout
13. Learn – school, CPD, personal interest
17. Present – information
18. Publish – a digital artefact, a website, a podcast
19. Reference – something for the future (e.g. bookmark)
20. Register – for a public, commercial or open service
21. Search – for information
23. Share – information, recommendations, media, other social networking

And of the competencies, we will address a similar number of them:

A. Enquiry
A2. Find, gather and collate information
A3. Research & evaluate on-line content & services
A4. Manage references (e.g. bookmarks) in context
A6. Use information to support decision making
B. Digital Literacy
B3. Understand and respect digital property rights
B6. Organise, format and enter data
C. Participation
C1. Communicate & share information
C2. Create & maintain an online identity
C5. Use shared applications
C6. Work collaboratively online towards a goal
D. Production
D2. Capture digital media (visual, audio)
D3. Edit digital media (visual, audio)
E. Digital Independence
E6. Make appropriate ICT tool selection
E7. Explore and self-learn digital technologies

I had not thought about the class in that way before.  But I think this is an element of the class that I should call attention to.  I can build these into the course as part of the objectives to be met.  That is something I have never done before.  I am not sure why.  But this report has me thinking about it.

I wonder if my students would think it appropriate to have technology goals and objectives for our classes?

My students have been reading about Web 2.0 tools in education, and I finally got it together and created a podcast of their work.

We have been doing oral presentations all semester and they have been recording and uploading them to WebCT, but that was as far as it went.  With this assignment, I decided to make a podcast so they could actually hear each others’ presentations.

We read a VOA News report on transportation.  It was a 5-part series.  Each student took a part and reported on it. They each wrote a summary and then worked on improving the grammar.  They practiced their parts a time or two and then recorded them individually and uploaded them to WebCT.  I then put them together.

That was an interesting experience.  I have used audacity over the years, but I had never tried to create an audio file joining 5 different files, some of which were recorded with different settings, and interspersed with introductions of each speaker.  I learned a lot!  (Whether I will remember it next time I want to do this remains to be seen!)

I am not sure what took me so long to do this.  It seems obvious now.

The podcast can be accessed here.

I was all excited this morning reading Jane’s post about CoFFEE.  It sounded like a great tool.  According to the CoFFEE website,

CoFFEE – the new groupware application for digital discussions in a live classroom situation.

CoFFEE offers customisable tools, such as a threaded discussion forum, graphical concept mapping, voting and more.

CoFFEE is open-source and free!

Available in: English, French, Italian and Dutch

Ewan had a link to Ultraspoon, a site where you can choose a city and get information about restaurants there.

What makes this a good site for people who like to eat is obvious.  It is always nice to see what others think about a restaurant before you go there and spend good money.

What makes it good for ESL teachers is that many of the restaurants have their actual menus on the site.  For example, Picante in Berkeley has their entire menu available for download.  So you no longer have to use fake menus found in old textbooks to allow students to role play the dining experience.  I had to hunt a little for restaurants that actually had their menu there, but I found enough to make a role play like that interesting.  If you want to use the site for this, you would probably be better off selecting the big cities that are listed in bold type.  I checked Albuquerque and didn’t find menus.  I looked at the San Francisco area and found tons of them.

So whether you teach English or just like to eat, check out Ultraspoon.

Today was my first chance to meet some of the students I will have this fall.  We had to test them, have oral interviews and then pace them in classes.

I had been really nervous about today because I wasn’t very familiar with the language lab or the testing or anything else involved in this process.  But after my colleague took five hours of his vacation time to explain the lab to me yesterday and then came in to help me run the test, I was feeling a lot more confident.  And things were actually going very well.  And then, as you would expect, it all fell apart!  Well, not really, but the university lost Internet about 5 minutes into the actual test.  And, of course, it was an internet-based test.  So we had to rapidly get the students entered into a different program where they could take a different placement test.  It all went well once we actually got the test started.

And then, of course, we have trouble getting the reports to print.  I had to take the reports to the interviews with the students and their advisers from their majors, which were scheduled to start about 40 minutes after we ended testing.  Finally, though, it all came together.  The interviews came off without a hitch. and we were all able to go home happy.

Tomorrow we repeat the process with another group of students.  Hopefully it won’t really be a repeat of today!

But back to my students… They seem like a great group, and I am looking forward to working with them this year.  So far I think that I wil be able to carry out all the plans that I have for the semester.  Since I had no idea of their language ability until today, I was a little worried that what I had planned would be too difficult for them.  But it doesn’t look like that will be an issue.

I am really trying to put writing at the center of my classes this semester.  This semester we won’t be using social media because I haven’t had a chance to investigate university policy on it, and I think that I am more worried about other things this first time around.  We will be making extensive use of online resources, and in my mind at least, that is a good start.  We’ll see how it goes and how I decide to incorporate other tools next semester.

A post on Lists has a list of devices running Linux that you might not expect. There are a number of devices I am sure you have heard of, including the Garmin Nuvi 880.

Darren had a link to a site I had never seen before, Teacher Training Videos.  And that is what you will find there: vidoes to teach you how to do everything from working with PowerPoint to using Blackboard to getting started in Second Life and usng it with your students.  The videos are done by Russell Stannard, a lecturer at the University of Westminster.  There are also videos that explore ESL/EFL sites.  These videos are definitely worth knowing about!