My SSW2 story
1. Introduce self and context and how technologies are being used
Hi everyone,My name is Rosa Ochoa and I've been asked to tell my SSW2 story. OK... for those not in the know , I have to tell you how I got interested and started using Social Software/Web 2.0 Technologies.I teach ESOL (English as a Second Language ) at St George college , Sydney Institute of TAFE. Currently I have a level 4 class, where the students work towards getting ISLPR2 on exiting the course. We have 3 hours a week in a computer room and they work on their blogs, forum, ESL online exercises in that time. Often that slot is not enough to finish the work, but many students go home and continue working on their tasks.
To learn how I use blogs and podcasts, you can read this post by Robin Jay in Connections and Conversations, which is an email I wrote to Michael Abulencia in reponse to a question for concrete examples of teacher's use of social software.2. What was it that inspired you to try using social software for teaching and learning?
3. What have you accomplished that you are most proud of by using social software with your learners? What enabled you to achieve this?
4. What do you and your clients value most about using social software in teaching and learning?
5. How has the use of social software contributed to good teaching and learning practice in your experience?
It has become an extra dimension, a fifth skill (listening, talking, reading, writing & blogging/podcasting) and an extra medium. I haven't changed the way I teach much. I always tried to integrate topics/genre/linguistic charateristics in my teaching. Blogging/podcasting are integrated in the in the teaching & learning process .
And
6. As the ‘teacher’ when you use social software what sort of role/s do you need to perform? And, perhaps you could say something about how similar or different this / these role/s are (to what you were doing before social software).
Listen to my thoughts to these two questions on this podcast:
Download the MP3 file (5.30 KB, o:02:15) music by my brothers' group Tresena7
. Thinking back, what were the pivotal moments in the process that got you to this point?
The pivotal moments are the ones that gave me inspiration (answer 2) to start blogging. I must add that I had previously started a draft website in geocities for the Adult Study Centre and I also got a bit of funding form Learnscope to do a Janison Toolbox (CESOL II) with a newly design module, Approaches to Learning. So I was obviously thinking of e-learning in some form or other, but once I started teaching my students blogging, photostories and podcasting.... these social software web tools took over!8. What needs to change for your teaching and learning experience using social software to be even better?
9. From your experiences so far, and thinking into the future (say 5 years or more?) what is your vision of the role of social software in teaching and learning, and what 3 things would need to happen in the next 6 – 8 months to make this happen?
10. What else would you like to share? Any other insights, or things that surprised you?
Labels: digital stories, ESL podcasts, ESOL, p2p, social software, web 2.0
Assessment
At the moment I use student blogs as a portfolio for their work. Some of the entries are assessed according to the type of genre with a relevant assessment grid that incorporates genre specific linguistic and structural charasteristics.
Some people have already starting work on use of blogs and wikis in the classroom:
Web2debateLabels: digital stories, ESL podcasts, ESOL, p2p, social software, web 2.0
Surprises
I'm always surprised by what my students come up with. How Robert, Anna and Silvana went home and decided to create a photostory after a very brief demonstration in class.
I'm surprised at the amount of interest in social software by teachers, but I'm not surprised when only a very small number of them take it up and use it as part of their lesson plans (
Marion is one of them). They know it takes a lot of extra work.
I'm pleasantly surprised at the great sharing atmosphere created by people interested in social software. Very generous with their time, organising synchronous sessions, sharing knowledge... that's the best learning environment and I try to emulate it in my very little corner.
Thank you all!
Labels: digital stories, ESL podcasts, ESOL, p2p, social software, web 2.0
Future
There are lots of more knowledgeable people thinking about the future of social software,
How to Save the World is written by one of them. In general I think that anything technical is going to become more user friendly, more video based and more interactive, which will benefit students and learners, especially disadvantaged learners (economically, educationally or culturally outside mainstream groups).
Three things that would need to happen:
- keep training trainers (provide time, technical support and mentoring systems)
- physically adapt the learning environment to new ways of delivering training (eg more computer areas, designed in a more group-work oriented fashion)
- keep syllabus guidelines flexible enough to allow for all the stakeholders' imagination to continue creating new and exciting ways of learning.
Labels: digital stories, ESL podcasts, ESOL, p2p, social software, web 2.0
Needed Changes
Personal improvements
I want to set up a good rubric to assess students' work. I may work on this with ESL colleagues that have contacted me through my blog.
I want to encourage students to use the blogs to write more freely, in a less guided way. Some colleagues criticise the use of blogs as a homework space, but I think ESL students demand more guidelines than native English speakers, especially those still at a less fluent stage.
I'd like to explore video making & wikis. Leigh Blackall has just sent me a link to a very interesting project by a German teacher in New Zealand using youtube and wikis.
Time provisions
Managers need to be aware of the amount of time needed to design, prepare, correct, edit, record, publish, give feedback, mentor colleagues and assess online delivered materials. There is a thread discussing this in edna Networks-Come and see what I'm doing! (Recent online discussion regarding workload issues).
On the one hand, being an early adapter/adopter is seen as terrific. (I was introducing a colleague into blogging, podcasting and digital stories because she has missed out on a job, and one of the reasons given was that the person chosen for the job had introduced podcasting in her lesson plan... my colleague only used text messaging!) On the other hand, you are not given any extra time to do any of this at work. The bulk of my blogging, podcasting, uploading, etc is done at home. It makes me feel as if online teaching/learning was invisible.
Filtering of software
On several occasions we've suffered from drastic blocking of blogger, flickr, blogger photos, blogger editing & publishing tools, photobucket, podomatic recording tool (always disabled), etc. We've been told it's only going to get worse! I hope our institution allows us to continue using Social Software, I can't see TAFE spending loads of money in lots of programs that would do for so many students and teachers the same job as blogger, flickr, youtube, etc.
Section/college support
IT support is great. College support for computer rooms is getting better. The section supports us in getting individual training or even if we want to organise specific workshops (eg Digital Story Telling by Robin Jay, or the workshop given by Paulis on Janison toolboxes). Nevertheless, I feel this is seen as an individual choice: you like doing it, you do it in your own time. It should be seen as what it is: an integral part of our teaching. Everything is embedded, the topics, the genres, the media and the 4 skills.
Labels: digital stories, ESL podcasts, ESOL, p2p, social software, web 2.0
Re: Podcasting: follow up and more with Peter and Michael
| · Re: Podcasting: follow up and more with Peter and Michael by michael chalk - Wednesday, 4 October 2006, 12:25 PM |
| | Isn't it fabulous - so good to see someone using these tools in class with a group of learners.
I'm listening to Anna's interviews about Movies, turned up loud in the office. Deb, one of the ESL teachers leaned over to ask, "What's that you're listening to?", and then agreed it was terrific.
thanks Rosa for creating such a good example, regards michael |
Labels: digital stories, ESL podcasts, ESOL, p2p, social software, web 2.0
What we value most
In general I feel that my students are very happy doing online work. They are more motivated to do writing and listening through the class blog, our podcasts and their blogs. English is the means in which they express themsoves, not the goal. The goals are real, not
realia. Some of them have told me "
you not only teach us English, but also computers". They do not miss computer day and they keep sending me emails with attachments of their work for me to correct it. Today a student's mum, also studying at our college, came to see if I had any homework for her daughter. When I said no, she said "
OK, computer work only"
I feel it may be inappropriate to publish students' or colleagues' emails, links to my blogs, etc in a public forum. I'll post a couple of links of people who have contacted me to ask permission to link to my blogs:
Labels: digital stories, ESL podcasts, ESOL, p2p, social software, web 2.0
Global Contacts
Comments in student blogs:
Comments in the student podcasting venue, Let's Talk:
Labels: digital stories, ESL podcasts, ESOL, p2p, social software, web 2.0
Podcasting
The lack of Australian ESL podcasts made me want to do my own.
I attended 3 workshops by Sean Fitzerald and Stephan Ridgeway, where I learnt how to use Audacity to edit my mp3 files and they gave us hints on how to upload our files onto our media.
I decided to start interviewing people who live in Sydney and are native speakers or very good English speakers. Bit by bit I saw the need to start posting worksheets to help my students with the listening and also to inspire them to write about what they heard. This is all posted in
Sydney's People Podcast.
At the same time I thougt my students could start podcasting as a means of practising their oral skills. I started looking around and came across several examples that inspired me:
Podomatic seemed a good alternative because it offers the opportunity to record comments (not from TAFE, though!).
I started
Let's TalkLabels: digital stories, ESL podcasts, ESOL, p2p, social software, web 2.0
Learners' accomplishments
I am very happy with the combination of tools that my students are using: blogs for writing and communicate with other worldwide bloggers, some photostories, like this one by Robert,
, where they express themselves in a more creative way and
podcasts where they use their oral skills. Listen to this podcast by one of my AMEP students,
Anna's interview: Movies
You can read a post about it posted by
Michael Chalk in edna.
I love the fact that I've facilitated contacts (
global contacts) between my students and ESL teachers and students from all over the world, Barcelona, Brazil, Portugal, New Zealand, Adelaide, Dublin, and Queensland.
I think everything is happening because students must feel it's good to learn and I use
new technology. Maybe I was able to pass onto them (and some of my colleagues) a bit of my enthusiasm about the whole thing. IT support has allowed me to get the tools (Audacity, Lame, photostory, Windows Movie Maker) needed in a couple of computer rooms. The rest is a lot of time (at home!) learning, experimenting, networking (for the overseas
p2p exchanges) and thinking about what to do every week and how to best fit it with the course plan.
Labels: digital stories, ESL podcasts, ESOL, p2p, social software, web 2.0
Inspiration
Our HOS, Audette Benson, knew I was interested in using computers and e-learning in class. She told me to go and listen to Wendy Zammit, who was giving a talk at our college. I only had 5 minutes, as we were busy interviewing new students. That was enough. Wendy said the magic word, blogger, and the rest is history.
I went home, started a blog and learnt how to do links, cheat the template, etc by looking at FAQ and doing searches. I believe in making new ways of learning accessible to our NESB students. They are learning English, but they appreciate being introduced to ways of learning that may help them with further studies or in a job situation. I had been teaching students how to use Microsoft Word, emails and internet, but I thought blogging would give them a new dimension in which to use their English in a more real way. I try to connect what we are doing in class (topics, genre, etc) to our blog work. Everything is interconnected and complements each other.
I decided to only use free to air software, inspired by a talk by Leigh Blackall. I think that many students that come to us haven't got the means to acquire technology or the technical knowledge without support, especially while they are in their initial settlement stages. Concepts of empowerment, social justice, access and equity and long-life learning come to mind.
Labels: digital stories, ESL podcasts, ESOL, p2p, social software, web 2.0
