Week 12 summary

Summary: Week 12 – Virtual Learning Environments, Blended learning and Mobile learning This has been a week with some great conversations and it felt as though a great many issues fell into place such as when a blog, wiki or VLE is appropriate and what do we mean by mobile learning. Let’s keep up the dialogue because it adds so much to the basic tasks and it’s been a pleasure for me to take part! So remember to answer a colleague instead of starting your own discussion thread wherever possible.

Monthly Insights Issues tackled included • Email notifications: Those who chose this topic did so because of a feeling of being overwhelmed.

The issue here is how to ensure you keep up with what is going on without filling up your inbox.

Solutions included o Prioritizing what one chooses to get notifications about o Setting up an email address solely for notifications (Helen) o Turning off notifications to current blogs, wikis etc because you would visit them regularly anyway (Kieran) o Using RSS instead of email notifications (Helen) • Whether blog/wiki comments equal dialogue • Would you consider teaching paperless? o Yes; that would mean 100%online and distance (Joanne) o Facilitates effective planning (James) o Greener (James) o Not appropriate for young learners who must learn how to write (Bindyuu) • Balance between online and face to face o Use of ICT has been motivating going by attendance figures (Joanne) o Importance of institutional support – see table below (Joanne) FACULTY

POLITICAL SCIENCE

COMMUNICATION SCIENCES

AVAILABILITY OF PC ROOM

MONDAYS ONLY (MY CLASSES ARE ON MON, WED, AND THURS).

OCCASIONALLY ON FRIDAYS (I TEACH ON WED AND FRI).

WHERE IS PC LAB?

SAME BUILDING.

DIFFERENT BUILDING.

HEADSETS

NONE (I TAKE MY OWN)

NONE (I TAKE MY OWN)

SPEAKERS

NONE (I TAKE MY OWN)

NONE (I TAKE MY OWN)

PROJECTOR (TO PROJECT MY DESKTOP FOR THE CLASS TO SEE)

YES IN PC LAB;

NONE IN THE PC LAB SO I CAN'T SHOW VIDEOS AND SS CAN'T LISTN IF THEY'RE WATCHING A VIDEO ON THEIR PC;

PORTABLE ONE AVAILABLE FOR USE IN TRADITIONAL CLASSROOM BUT I HAVE TO GO AND GET IT AT THE SECRETARY'S OFFICE

YES IN TRADITIONAL CLASSROOM IF I USE THE PORTABLE ONE AVAILABLE AT THE RECEPTION

PCs

IN ROWS

IN ROWS

TEACHER'S PC AND SS' PC

CONNECTED AND SS CAN VIEW WHAT I'M DOING ON MY PC (I WRITE ON A WORD DOC AS IF I WERE WRITING ON BOARD AND THEY CAN SEE FOR EX.)

NOT CONNECTED WITH CABLES, IE SS CAN'T SEE WHAT I'M DOING ON MY PC (I GIVE ORAL INSTRUCTIONS ON WHAT TO DO WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO SHOW THEM)

OFFICE FOR TEACHER

YES

NO

COMPUTER TECH

YES BUT HARD TO REACH

NONE

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How much control to give to students on blogs/wikis

•

•

o Motivating to give students responsibility (Iwona) o Possibility of error copying & bad language exposure (Iwona) o Gives more time for reflection (Iwona) o Improves writing skills (Iwona) o Gives shy students a communication channel (Iwona) Private versus open o Private to begin with and then open when confidence gained (Barney) o Open extends the learner community beyond classroom walls but to be used with comment moderation and certain degree of poster anonymity (Barney) Blogs or wikis? o Teacher blog as class hub for individual blogs (Helen) o Blogs as personal journals versus wikis as collaborative project spaces (Helen) o Teacher blog as classroom noticeboard (Kieran) o Private blogs and public wikis (Helen) o Making a wiki or blog public should promote language accuracy (Helen) o Wikis are indestructible (Helen) o Blogs to encourage peer review through comments (Barney) o Wiki as a simple VLE (Barney) o Blog as portfolio or learner diary (Barney)

I see blogs as more of diary entries whereas wiki would lead to the road to real shared learning. (Bindyuu)

3 wishes 1. I like • The ability to see all previous tasks as well as the current ones (Kieran) • Unread posts highlighted (Reny, Helen) • Tasks in chronological order (James) • Automatic notifications of new assignments (Bindyuu) • Integrated mail – Quickmail (Joanne) • Can include many different courses (Iwona) 2. Many of your Moodle wishes turned out to be already possible such as • Search (Helen) --- already on the page • No or longer edit time limit (Bindyuu) --- we have set the time limit • Recent activity (Reny) --- now added • Integrated quizzes (Iwona) --- sample added • Set a link to open on the same page instead of a new one (James) --- house style is open in new window • Larger files to be uploaded (Barney) --- limit can be set up to 200Mb but server space is limited!

• Allow access to other learners to widen discussion (Barney) --- courses can be made more open • Listing of what each participant has posted (Helen) --- available to facilitators So there is lots of choice within Moodle and you have identified some of the decisions which the Consultants-e have taken in building the framework of their courses rather than limitations inherent in Moodle itself.

3. A feature I’d change • Stop Moodle crashing when I open a dialogue box (Kieran) • Links to previous weeks at the top (Joanne) • Better blog & wiki (Iwona) • More mouseover information (James) • Better integration of Hot Potatoes (Iwona) • Add a spellchecker (Kieran) • Choose whether a link opens in a new page or tab (Reny) • Alert on errors and late submissions (Bindyuu)

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Access to the Moodle after the course (Bindyuu)

Since many of your requested features already exist in Moodle I did add one or two just to show you. I added an RSS feed from two sources plus the activity since your last log-in block. I also made a quick little Hot Potatoes exercise which is now at the bottom of the resources section for this week. Finally I added the ratings feature to this forum but this is invisible to you as course participants. I gave you all a 90% rating for your posts to this discussion but you can only see your own rating, not those of other participants so ratings are between the facilitator and participant only.

My Perfect VLE It is probably a reflection of your very different contexts and personalities that there was not much overlap in what makes for your perfect VLE. It makes me glad that I am not in the VLE business because I couldn’t imagine trying to satisfy such a diverse set of requests!

Private journals (Reny, Helen) Search function (Helen) Orientation for rolling admissions (Helen) Offline version (Kieran, Reny) File exchange (Kieran, Barney) Portfolio (Kieran, Bindyuu, Barney) Wiki (Iwona) Forum (Iwona, Joanne) Hot Potatoes and similar (Iwona) Scorm compliant games (Reny) Registration integration (Joanne) Potential for collaborative activities, eg glossary (Joanne) Gradebook (Bindyuu) Student tracking (Bindyuu, Barney) Accessibility for disabled (Bindyuu) To VLE or not to VLE (including poll) As a teacher it is difficult to envisage bringing in a VLE as an individual but the administrative functions of a VLE were recognized by many.

For a VLE Good for 100% online courses (Reny) Wide range of options including file upload (Iwona) User friendly (Kieran) Integrated tracking (Kieran) Against a VLE Too complicated for face to face or blended learning classes (Reny) Can build a virtual wall (Helen) Not as flexible as some of the Web 2.0 tools which now exist (Helen) Not as learner-centred as a wiki or blog (Barney, James, Bindyuu) Too feature-rich for most purposes (Joanne) And the winner is…

The winner is Web 2.0 tools in general and wikis in particular. The results were as follows: VLE 2 Blog 2 Wiki 4

Let’s Blend There were some difficulties in uploading the resultant sound file because of upload limits but we solved that by sending the file to me to upload. However there were also some difficulties for some of you in meeting up so I have decided to hold off reviewing this part of the week until later when all the contributions are in.

Mobile Learning It was difficult to avoid thinking exclusively in terms of using the Internet on a mobile phone which can be expensive and only available on the newest phones. But I hope that in forcing you to take a good look at your own mobile phone you managed to get over this Internet barrier. I have reproduced the wiki page as an appendix to this summary but for now want to highlight two of the pictures you uploaded. How did you do with these two exercises which were basically both coded messages?

Special congratulations to Helen and Kieran who had one of the most basic phones you can think of and who still managed to come up with some great ideas for using text messaging. I also hope that you were able to see Bindyuu’s video which showed a way of getting news feeds to your mobile phone by sms.

There is still the challenge that mobile phones are banned in many institutions but I hope that this exercise has shown that there is potential in these small handheld devices and that the pressure to make use of them as pedagogical tools is likely to grow rather than diminish in the near future.

It’s been really interesting following your thoughts on these diverse issues so I’m looking forward to more and better in the current week!

Please let me know of any errors or omissions.

Anne Fox April 2009

certictanne: Mobile exercise Explore your mobile phone and think of as many exercises for one of your current classes as you can using its different functionalities (eg. camera, recorder, calculator etc). Possible examples include: • •

Use the calculator to work out and report the total cost of a restaurant meal which a partner is describing.

Use the camera to take a photo of a scene from the journey to school and have a partner describe what they see.

Add at least one of your ideas to this page and illustrate some of your idea(s) with samples (photos, sound files etc). No duplication allowed! So the quicker you come with ideas, the easier it will be be to come up with something, and the less likely you are to duplicate what has already been posted! Remember to add your name in brackets after your idea.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Barney's ideas:

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My first idea is a variation on the second one above. Learners send each other photos and on the basis of that photo the learners send back an sms saying where they think the person is, for example to practise modals of deduction.

Here is an example: I send the picture below to a fellow student and they send back an sms saying 'you must be in the pub'.

•

My second idea is to use the games which you can find on most mobiles, for instance Snake. The learners are in pairs in class. One student is in charge of the controls but has their eyes closed. The second student then gives them directions to play the game. The pair that gets the highest score wins.

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Reny’s ideas :

1. Mobile phones for speaking practice

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Speaking practice 1 : to practice questions/answers, past tense, likes and dislikes.

Students talk about (e.g. where/ when/ why they bought it, Who bought it – themselves/ with parents/ someone gave it to them, etc; some features they like, etc).

Students who don’t have mobile phones can ask questions.

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Speaking practice 2 : comparisons – students compare their mobile phones ( bigger/smaller, has more/less features, older/newer, etc). It might be culturally inappropriate so teachers should remind students that the purpose is only for speaking practice, not to find out who has a more expensive mobile phone.

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Speaking practice 3 : talk about ring tones (why they chose it, a favourite ring tone, etc). For example : This is the song I‘m using as my mobile ring tone now. It’s a song called I’m Yours by Jazon Mraz’s. I like this song because it reminds me of my self lying on the beach, drinking young coconut milk during my last holiday in … then students can also show some photos they took during the holiday.

i'myours.wma 2. Mobile phones to record short interview Students work in pairs and record an interview.

Modest Mobile Beginning (Bindyuu)

I was not able to plan anything impressive for my learners using a mobile, due to some limitations. So I considered something which was very simple and is shown in the video. I have subscribed for a few services from Google to my mobile. I had to follow a simple process starting from Google homepage. I’m sure Google will be offering such services worldwide. I shared this process with my learners too, so that their parents can avail similar services on their mobiles.

mobile learning.FLV

Medical paging system (Iwona) •

One of the ways in which I could use mobiles with my students would be to practice what some doctors have to do in their professional life - sending short text messages about their patients, emergencies, etc.

The photo below is an example of the text message which could be sent by the paramedic arriving at the scene of road accident to the doctor in hospital about health status of the casulties involved.

I could ask my students to text each other about some emergencies and check if they really understand the message properly. This way they could practise medical abbreviations which is alwyas a major challenge for them.

•

Another idea is to use the mobiles video recording function to make short videos when student role-play patient-doctor encounters for example while taking history and watch them later and analyse different aspects of their communication skills, both verbal (mainly linguistic) and nonverbal (body-language, eye-contact, gestures, etc)

•

I could also ask students to use their mobiles to send each other some results of medical investigations (blood test, X-rays, ECG, etc) and interpret the results and send back the text message with the conclusions from analysing the investigations.

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Or they could practise giving emergency medical advice to patients who cannot contact medical services otherwise, for example in the mountains. They could work in pairs and one of them would text the SOS signal from the patient and the other would reply by texting the instructions about emergency procedures.

I love all the ideas above and was a bit worried when I realised I was going to be the last to contribute to this topic. I won't make that mistake again!!!

I have a very basic phone too and it doesn't even have a camera. But what it, and all mobiles has, is the text message function. Iwona mentioned using texts to practice using medical abbreviations and simulating real life situations but they can be used in a more general context too. In fact simply text messaging each other in English gives the students very worthwhile language practice, particularly if they use the dictionary predictive option. It is quite difficult to use this when you start, even if you are a native speaker. If English isn't your first language then text messaging in this way would be even more of a challenge and require a great deal of concentration. If they get the spelling wrong, for example, then the dictionary just won't come up with the correct word and the texter would have to try again. (Actually I've just been informed by my kids that this is only a Nokia feature - I presumed it was standard on all phones) Oh well..Another idea (without using the predictor option) would be to make up puzzles such as scrambled words, words with the vowels missing etc or create a coded message for the students. When they've worked out mine they could make some up themselves for their classmates to do.

e.g. What is this message? (Helen)

)

Two ideas from Kieran: 1) Treasure Hunt Directions: Students create treasure hunts for each other using step by step texts. Using the information texted to them students navigate around the school to find the final location. This could be a way to make directions language a bit more interesting.

2) Sound Effects Speculation: Students record different sounds on their phones while out and about. In class they replay the sound. Other students guess what the sounds are using modals of speculation. (There used to be a game like this on radio BBC 1 when I was younger)