Needless to say, just because you can easily find images online doesn’t mean they are free to use. As teachers, we have a duty to teach students about PLAGIARISM and to respect COPYRIGHT.
In my blog for students, I talked about using images for projects without infringing copyright.
FREE RANGE STOCK – https://freerangestock.com Images licensed under Equalicense: you can use them for both commercial and non-commercial purposs in any setting. Obviously, you can’t sell them !!!!
RIJKS MUSEUM – an absolutely fantastic website letting you not only explore the museum collections, but also create your own collection (good for art projects) HERE.
“Start your Project Based lessons with a good driving question” – this is what you will find in every resource on PBL. Hard as it might be to create, the driving question is paramount for project based learning as it provides its purpose and sets its context. So, ask yourself, what you will be focusing on with your students. Is it trying to find the best solution to the problem? If yes, is it abstract and academic or practical and concrete? Is it provocative and leading to discourse? Is it expected to inspire discussion or present and/or establish claim? Will it be one question for the whole class/team or a number of individual questions related to individual projects?
Researching materials on PBL and the Driving Question might prove a really daunting task. So, for a start, why don’t you check out the the ones I found particularly useful, not too lengthy and really inspiring.
AN ONLINE COURSE: A couple of years go I completed a PBL course with School Education Gateway. Although the course concluded, you can still use the resources HERE.
A WEBSITE: An absolutely fantastic website You for Youth with tonnes of information about PBL, rubrics, worksheets and tools of different kind.
AN ARTICLE:An article “In search of the driving question” by Andrew Miller on Edutopia investigating a number of types of driving question and what we should remember about while creating it.
A CHECKLIST(an many more) which you can find on Tony Vincent’s fantastic blog.
Have a look at the visual which, hopefully, will help you remember what a good driving question should be like.
“Choose from dozens of free collaborative courses, taught by educators for educators, to learn how to integrate creativity into your curriculum and take your skills to the next level.” 1
The only thing you have to do is to create a free Adobe ID (Adobe Account). You can do it HERE
Some of these courses might seem more useful than the others. Below the table, you can find how I am planning to utilise the skills I will, hopefully, develop on my English classes.
Learn the basics of publishing; create and teach students to create business card, students ID cards, e-documents; photo books, e-books and many, many more.
Together with my students I decided that the product of a series of lessons on DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP (see this post) will be a visual (poster, leaflet, flyer) with DOs and DON’Ts. Although there is a number of very good tools, we decided on a choice of four.
Below a wee overview and a selection of students’ work.
have a look how Jen Jonson created a beautiful infographics in google drawing
easy, fast, efficient, user super-friendly, FREE option is more than enough for your classwork
VIDEOS: your students can upload videos, add text , icons, music or voice without any sophisticated skills 🙂
in-house G-drive app; you can create: diagrams, posters, drawings; mindmaps, or concept maps;
good for individual work as well as collaborative project
FOR TEACHERS: just ditch a coursebook (joking) and prepare your own dynamic interactive lessons including videos for
example.
CANVA
LUCIDPRESS
a tutorial on how to use Canva – one of the best tools for any visuals
A drag-and-drop tool enabling you to produce wonderful visuals. Available as a stand-alone desktop tool or an in-built app (in G-Drive).
absolutely fantastic program using a drag-and-drop format, full of free icons, banners, templates, pictures, you name it. FREE version is enough;
a piece of advice: apparently, not good if you want to create a trademark and use it. Copyright issues. But for school use it is absolutely fine. If you want to find out more about legal issues, read an article by N. Styles here.
You can produce brochures, leaflets, banners as well as documents such as CVs, magazines or certificates. FREE option full of templates, icons or images.
VERDICT:
SPARKS – gold medal for the VIDEO creation tools and for the fact that is is really FREE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
CANVA – gold medal for fantastic tools for static iamges/visuals
GOOGLE DRAWINGS – gold medal just because it’s google (joking,joking) – for simplicity and collaboration option
LUCIDPRESS – gold medal for simplicity and wide range of free tools
Below, simple visuals created by my students on DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP
In the process of planning a class project on DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP: DOs & DON’Ts which involved designing visuals (infographics, flyers, posters etc.), I decided that some of my students might benefit from more assistance/advice on which tools/programs to use and how to use them.
As time was (and always is) of the essence (15 minutes between my classes), I prepared very short video clips demonstrating quickly and without elaborate explanation, how to navigate inside these programs, using SCREENCASTIFY.
Please, have a look at the three short video clips done in no more than 15 minutes. No special equipment, no need for installing desktop tools. Just a chrome extension. FREE VERSION of the program.
And finally, a screencast (at the bottom) of you actually can do inside screencastify.
You can:
share (see the image) on Youtube or G-Drive
download your clip
get a shareable link
embed to any blog/website etc.
edit
let others post comments
A short overview from https://www.screencastify.com
Visit the the DQ Institute website here for more information and resources.
An absolutely fantastic website The Digital Teacher Cambridge features an interactive diagram of six areas: DIGITAL WORLD, DIGITAL CLASSROOM, DIGITAL TEACHER, DESIGNING LEARNING, DELIVERING LEARNING and EVALUATING LEARNING. Find out more about The Cambridge English Digital Framework for Language TeachersHERE.
DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP AGREEMENT – three, FREE TO DOWNLOAD, documents published by Global Digital Citizenship FoundationHERE.
PRIMARY SCHOOL https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/digital-citizenship-school-program
MIDDLE SCHOOL https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/digital-citizenship-school-program
SECONDARY SCHOOL https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/digital-citizenship-school-program
And my favourite Be Internet Awesome Pledge by google. [embeddoc url=”https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-interland.appspot.com/en-us/hub/pdfs/Google_BeInternetAwesome_Pledge.pdf” download=”all” viewer=”google” ]
OTHER USEFUL RESOURCES:
POSTERS on the wall with tips (available free for downloading and printing HERE)
Techniques for Teaching Adjectives and Adjective Clauses (Coursera) University of California. STARTS on 18 February2019
This is the second course in the Teach English: Intermediate Grammar specialization. In this course, you will learn how to effectively teach adjectives, adjective phrases, and adjective clauses to your students. MORE HERE
Teach English Now! Technology Enriched Teaching (Coursera) Arizona State University STARTS on 18 February2019
This course focuses on the key concepts you need in order to effectively integrate technology into your teaching, without letting it overshadow language learning. MORE HERE.
Teaching Tips for Tricky English Grammar (Coursera) University of California. STARTS on 18 February2019
You will learn about some specific problems students have learning intermediate grammar. You will learn why students have trouble with this tricky grammar and find out new ways to help students conquer it. MORE HERE.
Instructional Learning and Technology (OpenLearning) University of Technology, Malaysia STARTS on 01 March 2019
This course presents the principles and the concept of Educational Technology, Instructional and Learning Technology as well as the teaching and learning process. It also deals with the utilization of Instructional Media from the conventional to the most up-to-date digital media. MORE HERE.
Blended Learning Essentials: Getting Started (FutureLearn) University of Leeds STARTS on 18 February2019
If you are working in further education, skills training, vocational education, workplace learning, lifelong learning or adult education, this free online course is designed to help you understand the benefits of blended learning and how to make more effective use of technology to support your learners. MORE HERE.
As Bill Gates said “technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important”. And, it is up to the teacher to decide what technology and which tools will enhance the process of learning and teaching.
The padlet below features the examples of technology and a collection of tools I find particularly useful in the areas such as: CLASS MANAGEMENT, COLLABORATION, PROJECT & INQUIRY BASED APPROACH and others. As the work on this padlet is ongoing, it will be updated on a regular basis.
INFOGRAPHIC is a visual representation/interpretation of factual data, knowledge or informative text. The benefits of infographics in classroom are obvious. They are visually attractive and engaging and make sometimes dry content more “digestible”. They encourage students’ critical thinking and help develop their digital competencies. They can be used by students and teachers in a range of ways – for creating timelines or personal profiles, for promoting, advertising and raising awareness or for demonstrating and interpreting factual information, just to name a The pdf document below was created in three different programs – canva, pikchart and, my favourite – easel.ly. The three last pages show work done by students in easel.ly.
Before we go on a fully deserved summer break, please, let me share with you a couple ideas that you might find useful if you are thinking about enhancing your classes with the use of technology without spending too much time on it. On the contrary, you will save time doing that. And this is only a taster without going into detail how to use these programs.
HYBRID (or BLENDED) TEACHING/LEARNING is the answer.
Ask yourself a question –
What type of classes do I teach?
Class sessions take
place 100% in a traditional classroom. Technology is hardly ever used.
face 2face model
Class sessions take place in a traditional classroom,
but technology is used to facilitate activities, deliver content,
and/or assess students.
Web-Enhanced/
Blended model
Internet-based activities comprise more than 50%
of the content and instruction
HYBRID MODEL
Nearly all or all instruction, interaction, and activities take place online
The technique that works very well for both – hybrid and blended models, is FLIPPING a class. Instead of teaching them and asking to practise at home, you ask them to learn/get familiar with the content independently and practice will take place in class.
Watch a short video explaining what a FLIPPED CLASS/CLASSROOM is.
There are tons of tools for flipping your lessons. I would like to encourage you to familiarise with the three. This is how I rate them but it is entirely my opinion. Plus, the more you practise with the program, the more you like or dislike it so these stars might look different in the future 🙂
*****Blendspace
****Google Classroom
**Tacck
I prepared the same set of tasks that NC4 students will have to do before our 1st meeting at college in these three programs. Please, ignore the content (dates, names of teachers, the quiz is short just for demonstration).
BLENDSPACE – this is what it looks like and you can access the class HERE. It’s, basically speaking, the work that you want your students to do before a face2face class.
PLUSES:
You can attach document in Word, pdf or directly from G-drive as google docs
You can attach images in various formats
You can attach links to videos, images, documents without worrying about breaching COPYRIGHT
You can make short quizzes
More about BLENDSPACE
Google CLASSROOM – it is a bit similar to Moodle but more intuitive and more visually attractive.
QUESTIONS – students will be able to post their answers and/or comment on other answers
ASSIGNMENTS – it’s basically what you want students to do as preparation for next classes or homework. You will be able to see who did and who didn’t submit the assignment. You will be able to comment on students’ work and give them grades/marks.
ANNOUNCEMENTS – it is basically speaking communication with students, passing messages, reminding of things
PLUSES:
You can attach document in Word, pdf or directly from G-drive as google docs
You can attach images in various formats
You can attach links to videos, images, documents without worrying about breaching COPYRIGHT
You can comment on and grade students’ work
You can schedule your posts (you can prepare them earlier and set the date they will be visible for students)
I’m still discovering new features of Google Classroom so maybe soon it will be a 5-star platform 🙂
There are a lot of google classroom tutorials so, please, watch this short clip to see what it offers.
As you will notice, I couldn’t upload pdf or word documents. Also, when I tried to upload an image, I kept getting messages about no space.
It’s a brilliant tool for creating presentations for example. I’m still finding out about its features.
So, have a look and enjoy. And if this seems overwhelming a bit, why don’t you try creating your own simple flip using TEDEd. Find a video, create a series of questions and flip it!!!!! I haven’t used this program myself but I used mini lessons prepared by others. For example this one about pronouns me, myself and I
PADLET is a fantastic and extremely simple tool that I have been using for several of years with all classes I teach, but especially NC4 YL. It is one of these tools that you can never get bored with. PADLET is excellent for both individual and group tasks. It works like a sheet of paper where you can put anything (images, videos, documents, text) anywhere, from any device (pcs, tablets, phones).
Below, a short overview how to use it in a video by Richard Byrne (technology in teaching guru).
POPPLET
Popplet is a free online tool that allows you to create mind mapping and brainstorming diagrams. A free version is rather limited and it lets you create 5 popplets. But, if you don’t plan storing live popplets, a free option should be more than enough. Plus, you can export them as a jpg or pdf file if you want to save your students’ work. It’s an excellent tool for mindmapping and presentations for individual, class/group or pairwork. The tools allows you to use a range of formats such as video, word, pdf. Unfortunately, you can’t attach any audio file. At least for the time being.
You can make your popplet totally private or totally public. There is a collection of public popplets you can use freely although you need to check whether the content is appropriate. No copyright issues unless you are inserting a physical file.
HOW TO USE POPPLET.
Finally EASEL.LY – a program not maybe as attractive as Glogster but FREE.
You can either build your own infographic by dragging and dropping pre-made design elements on the in-built canvas or you can use a blank canvas or build upon one of Easel.ly’s themes. If Easel.ly doesn’t have enough pre-made elements for you, you can upload your own graphics to include in your infographic. Your completed infographic can be exported and saved as PNG, JPG, PDG, and SVG files.
I’ve come across it quite recently and used it, successfully in my opinion, with my students, for EMPLOYERS’ ENGAGEMENT EVENT in June 2016.
Going paperless – a dream or a real possibility? I am currently using Planbook and Box for communication and storage. I have my Blog which students can use for extended learning. So other steps or what different steps should I take to go paperless? Which platform would be the best option for my students?
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