RSCON4, Useful links Day 2

Tech/App Smack down

http://chirp.io/

https://storify.com/

http://screencast.com/t/2zytkxcz

http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html

http://kbzac.pbworks.com/f/1381131299/2013-10-07_1129savefile.png

Interview with Michael Graffin

Nina Jeroncic

http://memegenerator.net/Grammar-Guy

Viral Videos

http://www.lamebook.com/

Elizabeth Anne Teaching English to Scientists, the best of all worlds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfSqWg4RNZo


The Forbidden Education

http://vimeo.com/52299951

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1Y9OqSJKCc

Jackie Gerstein

Educator as a  social networked  learner

http://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2013/10/12/educator-as-a-social-networked-learner-presentation-materials/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

http://socialnetworkedlearning.weebly.com/blogging.html

http://tweetreports.com/twitter-chat-schedule/

http://quizilla.teennick.com/quizzes/result/24294323/8715553/

https://groups.diigo.com/group/social-networked-learning

http://www.allthingsplc.info/pdf/articles/DuFourWhatIsAProfessionalLearningCommunity.pdf

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CkUrFNr3ZThZXLh4kwk9rk-wQlwfcg8YL9zVx1R_C2s/edit#

http://live.classroom20.com/

http://tweetreports.com/twitter-chat-schedule/

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1l4jBOppFNo-OuVG6OfSNdkGfFATFfUw42OkfOI4h4rI/edit#slide=id.g10b224e50_325

http://www.slideshare.net/macfam6/my-digital-footprint-and-pln

http://www.goodreads.com/

http://www.scoop.it/t/screencasting-for-online-learning

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEls3tq5wIY

http://www.edutopia.org/how-to-create-social-media-guidelines-school

http://digifoot12.wikispaces.com/home

Leo Selivan
http://leoxicon.blogspot.com.br/

http://quizlet.com/26573869/phrases-flash-cards/

http://www.phrasemix.com/

Paula Naugle, Mystery Location Calls via Skype or Google Hangouts
https://sites.google.com/site/mysterylocationcalls/

http://eduhangout.org/

http://pnaugle.blogspot.com.ar/2011/10/skype-call-with-ramona-and-beezus-star.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sokhOOk2bg&feature=relmfu

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1vJgwZx0mPHxdAjVebiAh9_-F70abK8csniHf-UMJFr4/edit#slide=id.g10dc00f37_05

Useful links from RSCON4 Day 1

Sugata Mitra at TED

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqh1MRWZjms&feature=youtu.be

http://hbr.org/2006/12/the-curse-of-knowledge/ar/1

Roseli Serra´s Session

http://www.pimpampum.net/bookr/

http://worditout.com/

Panel: Transforming Education with Technology

JACKIE GERSTEIN´s blog post Education 3.0

http://socialnetworkedlearning.weebly.com/

http://blog.web20classroom.org/2011/09/twitter-series-my-super-top-secret-tips.html

http://ilearntechnology.com/?p=5134

http://barnesmclass.editme.com/Best-Tweeple

Camelot and the mists of Avalon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqGIX9a211g&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPbMLKciZH0&feature=youtu.be

http://www.avalonlearning.eu/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yige6CiOKbw&feature=youtu.be

http://machinevo.pbworks.com/w/page/47494320/MachinEVO2013%20-%20Startpage

http://www.slideshare.net/letstalkonline/camelot-and-the-mists-of-avalon

http://pen.io/

Six Degrees of Separation, Jennifer Smithers Marten

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMpV51rk0dI

http://skypeanauthor.wikifoundry.com/

https://education.skype.com/

http://www.epals.com/

Survery google form to ask for volunteers to speak at classrooms

Etiquette

Urban Legends through digital story telling
Presentation of a session I wanted to attend but happened to be at the same time of the one above!

Urban Legends

On Connected Educator´s Month and the RSCON4

Video on the Importance of Being Connected





Visit The Future of Education

Conference Season is here!
I can´t wait to attend the so many opportunities that these coming months will bring us, educators from around the world!  Let´s all meet there!

On attending and presenting a workshop at FAAPI, 2013, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Things learned at FAAPI13

My friend María Bossa (@mariabossa) is presenting at RSCon13, on the 12th October, 11am Argentina Time!
Gabriel Díaz Maggioli taught us a a ToT is a Teacher of Teachers.  In the course of our lives as educators we all end up doing some "totting".  Those teachers are no longer the experts, but teachers who have been in the profession for a longer period of time and they all posess the Theory of Experience and they apply it by using common sense.  I liked the idea of learning together as a community, a subject also brought about by Fernanda Coelo Liberali in her experience with pre service teachers.  Collective practive finds validity in the community who has agreed to construct knowledge together by negociating, reflecting, changing based on informed decisions. Never alone or in isolation.  Learning as participation.  Learning is messy, you don´t have to tell me! I know that!  I also liked the term: Technology Mediated Teaching and Learning, which also needs a special pedagogy so that it REALLY stands as something innovating and not more of the same old stuff with most appealing design.  Laurillard´s plead to educators to know what is out there, to assess their potential for educational use, not just use just for the sake of using it.
As Leonardo, teachers have all the tools to foster curiosity, to try, to reflect, to share, and by doing this in a supportive way we pave the way for the ones to come, who will in turn take their own ways.  Gabriel urged us to generate local research, valid to our own scenarios.  We owe it to our students.  Change one thing, and see what happens, he said.  Wise words.  In a world driven by change our brains tend to repeat learned skills.  Unfortunately or luckily our classrooms are changing.  Some of us teach at home, others at institutions but our students change, so we should too.
I heard about a new variety of English: Estuary English, it was new for me.  I loved the physical exercises introduced by Helen Ashton, I can´t wait to put them into practice with my students!
The British Council Programme for connecting classrooms is something I would definitely check if I had a primary or secondary school class.  PD, Workshops.  http://www.britishcouncil.org/es/argentina
I can´t wait to invite Fernanda Coelo Liberali to a Learning2gether session to learn more about her innovative practises at Pre-Service Teacher Education, because I believe that would be-teachers around the world would benefit from establishing connections with other student-teachers so that when the time comes to connect the bonds will already be there.

        Things I missed at FAAPI13

      My dear teachers from Santa Fe, especially those at Almirante Brown Teacher Trainning College, namely my Adscription teacher (Language II) Adriana Díaz, whose creative and inspiring work brought me to present at FAAPI and whose silent mission continued in their workplaces.  My dear teachers Daniel Fernández and María Isabel Recamán whose lively classes I was lucky to attend and who were there all the way.  One thing I am particularly proud of is also my two colleagues from the same institute who participated in a contest by the British Council, one of them the winner of the contest! Congratulations Letizia María Russo for winning, and  María Cristina Rivas for being selected too! You can check the projects here: ICT in Action.

     More twitter linked educators.  Guys, you are missing all the fun!
     More enthusiastic people like my friend Pía, who came alone, we found each other, again! Keep coming!  Or my friend Vance Stevens from EVO Webheads and Learning2gether another inspiring soul, who arranged the hangout (twice! because I had mischedulled the time!) so that people around the world would be able to join in a workshop about being connected!  Or Gabriel Díaz Maggioli´s sessions full of data, theory, inspiration.  Fun, facts and mentoring.  Such a thrill after having met both at the EVO Mentoring Sessions.  I was one of their EVOers last summer!
     I could not help to feel so sad for a teacher from a rural area whom, I was told later made a comment about not knowing what she was doing there, since her school lacked all the technology.  I wanted to find her and tell her that it was ALL about those teachers who are far away and technology brings us, human beings together and helps us not to feel alone anymore.  I couldn find her to tell her this, I wish I could.  I have one amazing educator from Australia.  Her name is Anne Mirtschin who is living in a rural area, and also Govinda Prasad Panthi from Nepal, who does not have electricity all day long, or Endang Palupi from Indonesia who are all strugling to bring their schools connected with very limited resources.  I wanted to tell her IT IS NOT ABOUT THE TOOLS, IT HAS NEVER BEEN ABOUT THE TOOLS, BUT ABOUT PEOPLE.  Gabriel Diaz Maggioli mentioned this in his session.
      More clapping (and why not dancing!) like the spontaneous one when Sao Pablo based teacher Fernanda Coelho Liberali shared this archetypical ( Sing along and dance even if you don´t know the lyrics! ) song at the closing ceremony urging us to put Freire´s proposed theory of Happiness into practice.  Though I am not fluent in Portuguese, I could not stop my tears from falling at: "...a vida e bonita, e bonita.."  After all we are in the best time to be a teacher of English, we have a lot to celebrate!
     More TeachMeet/Unconference time where teachers could share what they are proud to have achieved with their students.  As I was walking down the hallways I heard teachers commenting among groups of friends about this and that that they were doing.  However these comments never left the small circles of close educators, they never reached teachers from different circles who might as well benefit from the experience of others.  As requested by the organizers, I had previously uploaded my presentation on Slideshare and it had already been viewed by at least 50 people BEFORE the 5 (!) attendees had the chance to take a look at them during my workshop.  One teacher from Canada even asked me if she could use the presentation for the upcoming and now running Connected Educator´s Month.  I said yes, of course, that´s the spirit!  Another pleasant surprise was the amount of people requesting permission to share the documents attached to the post containing ALL the materials in my workshop, which of course I also shared.


I left Buenos Aires under a persistent drizzle, the post began to take shape, and,  as I was finishing I realized the sun was making his way through the clouds and I remembered Fernanda Coelo Liberali´s Brazilian proberb: "Everything ends in the Summer!"  Let´s teach as if it was Summer all year round!  Our students will not probably remember what we taught them, but how we made them feel.

My friend Anne Mirtschin´s blog, from rural Australia






 

What happens when we mix teachers and social media?

     On Monday 7th July we had a very interesting meeting at Learning2gether as part of the regular sessions Vance Stevens hosts either on Sundays or Mondays with educators from all around the world to talk about different topics regarding the use of technology in education.  I have already mentioned how I met Vance.  He was the first one of many teachers willing to share, and help, and listen, and learn with you. By you I mean anyone interested in whatever the topic at hand.  The topic today was Social Media Management and the special guest was  József Horváth, from Hungary, who has given his classes a special twist so that his students wouldn´t look at the clock to see how long it is till the bell rings.
1. Picnic in the Punctuation Park How many times did we glance out of the window on a glorious Summer/Spring day wishing we could all be outside enjoying the outdoors?  József takes his students outside to teach a topic which suffers from a bad reputation among them and pretends he is not teaching, but having a picnic instead. (which they actually do because they bring food and drinks and everything else)
2. Befriend your students on Facebook.  József is in touch with his students through Facebook, and by doing so he learns a lot about them.
3. József gives his students the possibility to write for a global audience.  By using Feedbook his students´ work is available for everyone to read. The original work includes the book cover design as well. Mind you, students are not required to write a book, however most of them do!
4. Emphasis on freedom.  His students usually have a range of ten tasks to choose from and they end up choosing three or four.
5. Collaborative work.  The writing of the book is done in pairs and each student has the chance to be a writer and an editor as well.
6. Evaluation is provided by the student and the teacher, the teacher being the one who usually assigns higher marks!
What I reflected about when I heard about all these techniques and practices had to do with why I did not attempt to do any of those! I was missing all the fun in the world!  The freedom given to students has to do with acknowledging their part in the learning process and recognising that they have something to say and there are people out there who are willing to listen. (or read in this case)
A few years ago I was isolated as a teacher. I did not have access to proper internet until a 2 years ago.  Methodology books have always been extremely expensive, and the Teacher´s Seminars full of theory oriented lectures.
Fortunately things have changed.  If you ask me what I like best about being a connected educator it is the contact with teachers like József whose enthusiasm is contagious because you can tell that he is enjoying his teaching.  After all as good old Paul Seligson says it all comes down to that: "Enjoy your teaching, if you  don´t, who will?"  So eventually it´s not about what technology you use or don´t use in your class, after all as Jozsef put it very simply: "The most important app is the person´s mind.", but rather it´s about making us all want to be there!

Szia!      See you!    ¡Nos vemos!

Check out for the latest podcasts by József Horváth!