Day 22

Hi,
today I want to talk about some programmes we haven't discussed before

Google Docs

This service works as a document editor that allows learners to work individually or collaboratively. One of its valuable characteristics is that both the teacher and the students keep track of the changes introduced in a text. (Torres, 2012), a feature that was well in keeping with our interest in assessment for learning. As most of the students in our course already had a gmail account and the editor is quite simple to use, we thought this could be an appropriate instrument to introduce collaborative work.

The learners worked with this tool both individually, sharing the document only with the teacher, and in pairs to write texts containing personal information (introductions, hobbies, the family, job, etc.), letters and short narratives.

We agree on the fact that feedback to the learner is an essential aspect of formative assessment (Black et al. 2005). Therefore, the works written by the students were not marked immediately; instead, mistakes were highlighted and comments were made to help students identify the kind of error; for example, tense, punctuation, verb, etc. If the solution to the mistake made was beyond the proficiency level of the learners, a complete version of how to express the intended idea was provided by the teacher and, if necessary, explained orally in class. Comments also aimed at guiding students on how to improve their weaknesses (for example, ‘revise form of simple present’) and they also included positive feedback such as ‘good organization of ideas’ or ‘well done, you have correctly identified and solved punctuation mistakes!’. A final mark was awarded only once the written work was passed, which meant that students sometimes had to write two, three or more drafts of the different activities.

E-portfolio

A formative portfolio (Torres, 2012) was used with all the written texts produced by the students, even those that were not going to be included in the blog.

The idea of creating printed-mode portfolios dates back to the mid-1980s especially in areas like art and communication. Then, they gained importance in higher education during the 1990s. It was then when the electronic and digital portfolios appeared. According to Barrett (2001), an electronic portfolio is defined as the compilation of portfolio items stored in electronic formats such as audio-visual, graphical, or text (Barrett, 2001). Pearl and Leon Paulson (1991) created a metaphor for portfolios as a tool to construct meaning and they stated that the portfolio is a laboratory where students can construct meaning from their accumulated experience.  They also pointed out that: “A portfolio tells a story. It is the story of knowing. Knowing about things... Knowing oneself... Knowing an audience... Portfolios are students' own stories of what they know, why they believe they know it, and why others should be of the same opinion. A portfolio is opinion backed by fact. Students prove what they know with samples of their work.” (Paulson & Paulson, 1991, p.5).

The material comprising the e-portfolios included the texts that the students had been writing in google docs. 

 Glogster, Fodey, Letterpop

Before the end of the course, the learners were requested to revise their portfolios, select the items they liked best from all the activities that they had uploaded and chose one to post in the blog.

In google docs, the students had only used plain text. Hence, in order to make their postings more attractive, the following tools were shown so that they could ornament their texts: Glogster (http://www.glogster.com/), which allows to create posters; Fodey (http://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.asp), which is used to generate newspaper clips; Letterpop (http://letterpop.com/), which provides templates to publish newsletters.

Finally, the students generated a final version of their written texts using these tools and chose a catchy title for their productions. These final pieces of work were not marked, as we were not evaluating how proficient students were in the use of these new instruments: instead, they received feedback through comments made face-to face, which contributed to increase the learners’ motivation.

Windows Movie Maker

As the course progressed, students felt more confident with the use of ICTs. They became even more excited and came up with new ideas: produce two videos as a means of showing their oral production.

The learners worked collaboratively planning how to introduce themselves in a mock class and writing a sort of script for a mock advertisement. In the class, the students provided personal information as they knew there would be a real audience for the blog outside the classroom. The ad, in turn, was a really creative text. That is, the students prepared the script using the language they had learned or asked for help when they lacked the vocabulary/structures to deal with a topic we had never worked with in class.

In both cases, the recording was carried out by one of the students and the videos were edited by two of them using Windows Movie Maker and uploaded in YouTube before posting them in the blog. Even though in this final stage of the video production the work was limited to only two students, we believe the experience was highly rewarding for the whole group.

Blog

As mentioned, one of the course goals was to create a blog[1]. This tool allows to promote interaction and communication between the author and the audience (Torres, 2012). Blogs can be an undeniable source of expression in which teachers and students can share and exchange data and content in a whole environment of participation and collaboration. Ferdig & Trammel (2004) contend that blogs are more successful in promoting interactivity that is conversational; a mode of interaction more conductive to improve student and teacher relationships, active learning, higher order thinking, and greater flexibility in teaching and learning processes. Other activities can be combined with the use of a blogging software to strengthen real interaction.

Thus, we expected the implementation of an educational blog would provide an authentic audience for the students’ works as well as fulfil the following aims:

·        to promote the students´ acquisition of digital literacy skills.

·        to enhance participation among learners in an online environment.

·        to encourage reciprocity and active learning.

Blogs allow for authentic asynchronous communication, a feature particularly beneficial for introvert students. In this respect, Chickering and Ehrmann (1996) see online communication technology such as blogs as particularly important for shy students who are more reluctant to ask questions or challenge the teacher directly and blogs provide opportunities for interaction not possible in class. Moreover, learners know that their postings are likely to be read -and commented- not only by their teacher and partners but also by their families, friends and the whole community, depending on the blog access restrictions. Hence, even though they may be shy, they feel more motivated and tend to make their best effort to achieve a better communication (Santamaría González, 2005). We were satisfied to observe how well some shy students did on being able to communicate with an audience asynchronously.

Short before the end of the course, the blog was created with the material selected by the learners. Because of time restrictions to teach students the different aspects involved in the creation of the blog, the posts were uploaded by the teacher although the blog name and organization was the result of a class discussion on how to arrange it.

Finally, the learners were so happy with the result that they suggested making a kind of ’official presentation’ of their blog and organized a party to such end. They invited the school authorities, other English teachers working in the institution and some of their workmates. The blog was shown and they even offered a ‘live show’ singing a song for the audience.

This blog is available at http://www.thecobblestonesfcaglp.blogspot.com.ar/