e-moderation station

Six favourite teaching online activities

Nicky Hockly — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:00:21 +0000

A guest post from Lindsay Clandfield. Lindsay is a well-known ELT author, teacher and teacher trainer, and a person who never seems to run out of original and inspiring ideas! I’ve been lucky enough to work with him on a variety of projects over the years. He was one the first online moderators on our The Consultants-E online courses, and set the standards very high indeed. Below he shares more of his great ideas, this time for online teaching activities. You can check out my own guest post of six favourite teaching online activities on Lindsay’s blog! Nicky

Photo by Flnz

To celebrate the launch of our new book, Teaching Online (published by Delta Publishing), Nicky and I decided to invite each other for a guest post on our respective blogs. Of course, you can guess what happened. We both chose to do a list of our favourite activities from the book! Instead of going back and changing things, we thought “well, why not?” This way people get twelve free online teaching ideas AND we don’t have to rewrite our posts

The following then, are my favourite six activities that I use regularly when teaching online courses. By online, I mean here that both myself and the students are doing the activity 100% online and at a distance from each other (not in a computer room together, or me using a connected IWB in class).

1 My window, my world

This is a getting-to-know-you activity. Start by taking a photo of your regular workspace (preferably including the closest window and what you see out of it when you aren’t looking at the computer). Prepare a short written description of it. Post both the description and the photo to your discussion forum* or class blog. Learners then do the same. You and the learners then read each other’s descriptions and comment on them.

It’s a great way to get a window into what the other people on your course are like. The idea for this originally came from our colleague based in Italy – Valentina Dodge.

*if you are using a VLE (virtual learning environment) then you will be able to set up different discussion forums for activities)

2 Five clicks away

This is a great reading activity that really can only be done online. First find a visually attractive web page on a topic of general interest to your learners. Choose one that has several links on the page, preferably in one area of the page. A news or magazine site will work well, or a site on a specific topic, such as the World Wildlife Fund or a film review site. Tell the students they must start at this site. They begin reading on whatever takes their interest. However, they are ONLY ALLOWED FIVE CLICKS away from that page. At the end of five clicks they stop browsing and take a screenshot of the page they reached and prepare a description of 1) the end page they got to and 2) the steps they took to get there. They post these to your course website.

It’s often very interesting to see how different people ended up in completely different places.

3 Follow that story!

Here’s another reading activity. Find a large news site in English and choose four to five news stories that you think “have legs” (that is, they will keep going for at least a week, e.g. the world cup would have been a good one in July). Give the list of news stories to the students, and provide them with the URLs to several news sites in English. They must “follow” their news story for a week, reading or watching items relating to it in English from a variety of news sites. At the end of the week, they summarise their findings into a report and post it on the course site (or email it to you).

4 What’s my line?

This listening activity works as a homework activity or even in a face to face class if you have a connection to the internet. But I’ve used it in distance courses too. First, choose a series of movie trailers for movies that are out or coming out now. Four to six should do. Watch each trailer and make a note of two phrases you hear in the trailer. Then add a “distractor”, a phrase that isn’t in the trailer but that could be. Give the students the title of the trailer and the three phrases. They have to watch the trailer and identify the distractor. This activity is always very popular, and learners can make their own “What’s my line” activities for a partner afterwards.

5 Binomials

This is a synchronous activity, which means you and the learners are online at the same time, for example in a chatroom. In fact, this activity needs to be in a chatroom so people can type answers at the same time. Nicky and I have found that chats work really well for social stuff and helping a group to “gel”, as well as for little language quizzes. In this activity, the teacher starts by typing half of a binomial, e.g. bread and… The learners all then type as quickly as possible the first word that comes into their head (in this case, butter). Continue with other “halves” of binomials, but slowly widening these out so that there may be more than one choice. Here are a set you can use:

war and…; love and…; man and…; right and…; king and…. I use this activity as a warm-up, and I like using binomials. But you could do the same with irregular verbs, synonyms, antonyms or any other word pair.

6 Parting gifts

I learned this activity from Nicky herself and Gavin Dudeney (they were my tutors on my first e-moderation course some seven years ago now) but it actually was first used by Ana d’Almaida, another online tutor we work with at the Consultants-E. It’s a great closing activity. Towards the end of the course, set up a forum called Parting Gifts. Invite learners to contribute a little virtual gift to the course site as a way of saying goodbye to the group. There are so many possibilities of cool things to “gift” online for free that I am always amazed by what learners come up with. I’ve had funny youtube videos, links to great resources, jokes, recipes, video messages…the list of possibilities is endless, and people always like leaving comments on how much they enjoyed each other’s “parting gifts”.

So, there they are. Half a dozen of my favourite activities when teaching online. There are plenty more where these came from in our book, which I already mentioned at the beginning of this piece so will stop talking about now! In the meantime, have you taught online and if so do you have a favourite activity? Post a comment!

Free Teaching Online Webinar 22 September 2010

Photo by koukrapoc

You can experience some of our teaching online activities by coming along to our free Teaching Online webinar on Wednesday 22 September 16.30h – 17.30h CET (Central European Time).

Check the exact time in your country, and if you can make it, sign up online with your name and email. We will email you a link to the webinar room half an hour before the webinar is due to start. We will hold a raffle during the webinar to give away free copies of the book!

Rebooting the conference

Nicky Hockly — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:25:21 +0000

[or: What’s an Unconference?]

No plenary speakers. No opening speech. No PowerPoint lectures. No panel discussions. No publisher exhibition. Sound like a conference?

Hopefully not- it’s an Unconference!

An unconference is a f2f event which is participant driven, and I had my first taste of one as a facilitator in Moscow last week. And what an experience it was! Rebooting the Conference was sponsored by the British Council Moscow, and focused on learning technologies and English language teaching. Highlights of the unconference included:

an initial Pecha Kucha style presentation by pairs of facilitators describing to participants what their sessions would consist of

an Unparty in which participants brought along their own music and/or musical instruments

daily 3 hour sessions, with a topic set by facilitators, during which themes and areas for discussion and exploration were raised by the participants themselves

participants produced summaries/posters/PowerPoints of things they thought worth highlighting from each session

a team of 3 text bloggers and 1 video blogger captured the event in real time

open slots of 20 minutes each on day 2 enabled unconference participants to run a session on any topic they fancied. An excellent range of short sessions was run by participants on topics from IWBs to social bookmarking

a live videoconferencing event co-ordinated by the IATEFL Learning Technologies Special Interest Group, with contributors from 5 different countries, beamed into the unconference venue. Watch the recording.

an undebate about copyright in a groovy bar, with participants discussing issues over beers and then sharing their opinions with everyone

a final round up activity in which participants shared their impressions and learning points from the unconference

Feedback from participants confirmed that the Unconference format, although new to almost everybody there (including the facilitators!), can be a very stimulating one. Participants cited the chance to bring out their own experiences, and share these, as deeply rewarding. They appreciated the chance to contribute as equals alongside supposed experts on the topics – the Unconference format operates on the premise that there are no experts, and that everybody has something of value to contribute.

So, if you’re thinking about setting up an Unconference, you could do worse

No chairs needed for an Unconference

than use some of the ideas and format above! Best of all, there are plenty of digital assets you can check out from our unconference – the best place to start are the conference bloggers’ pages:

Many of the blog posts have resources, PowerPoints, and posters produced by participants. Enjoy!

A huge thank you to Olga Barnashova and the British Council team for superb organization; to my colleague Gavin Dudeney for his great work on the Unconference session ideas; to my co-facilitators for being such a pleasure to work with; to the bloggers for their excellent reporting; and to Moscow for the great food and vodka.

Nicky Hockly
The Consultants-E
September 2010

Mobile Learning #10: Yes we scan

Nicky Hockly — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:51:51 +0000

[Or: QR codes in the classroom]

My last blog post was a Dummies Guide to QR codes, written for educators (like myself) who are new to these. This second post on QR codes looks at two practical teaching ideas, one using QR codes to generate text, and one using QR code to generate urls. Finally, some of the pros and cons of QR codes.

A note on practicalities: These activities assume that your students have a mobile phone with camera, have already downloaded a QR Reader, and know how to use it (see my last blog post for how to do this). These activities take place in pairs or small groups, so you could have just one phone with QR reader per pair/group. The activities could take place inside the classroom, outside the classroom, or online. The second QR activity, which generates urls, requires that phones are wi-fi enabled. Just so you know.

1 Treasure Hunt

Create a series of QR codes with short text clues. Print out your QR codes and stick them up around the classroom walls, or around your school/institution. Have a prize/reward and final destination point for your treasure hunt.

A practical example for language teachers:

Level: Beginner / A1
Time: About 30 mins
Language aim: Following and giving directions

Post a series of short text clues around the school to practice directions e.g. Leave the classroom, turn left, and continue straight ahead. Open the third door on your right. Your next clue is there! Make the clues progressively a little more complicated.
In pairs, students follow the clues in each QR code, to a series of locations in turn. Each new location has a new QR code with a new clue.
At the final location, leave some sort of prize or reward e.g. a packet of sweets that can be shared among all members of the class for young learners, or important information/a pleasant surprise for adults (e.g. corrected homework assignments).
Once back in the classroom, put the students in new pairs. The pairs try to recreate the directions in writing, but change the final location clue. They then swap their recreated directions with another pair, and physically follow the newly-written directions, to see where they end up.
Feedback and round up. What were the final destinations? Were any the same? What difficulties did they have with understanding the directions? What new language have they learned? You could also solicit feedback on the experience of using QR codes!

2 Multi-media worksheets

Create a worksheet for your students on a topic you have recently covered in class. Add three QR codes to the worksheet, which provide links to further online information, in multimedia format (e.g. one link to video, one to audio, one to text + images). Include questions based on these online sources in your worksheet.

A practical example for language teachers:

Level: Intermediate + / B1+
Time: About 40 mins
Language aims: Review of class topic related vocabulary; authentic reading & listening practice
Topic: Current events

Choose an event currently in the news that will interest your students. Find three different online resources which discuss this event: one video source (e.g. the TV news), one audio source (e.g. radio news item or interview), and one source with text and images (e.g. a newspaper or magazine online).
Create a QR code for each of these resources, and add them to a single worksheet.
Add questions to your worksheet e.g.:

Do all the sources report the same information for this news story? Are there any differences?

Which source was the most comprehensive?

Which source was the easiest for you to understand? Why?

Which source was most difficult for you to understand? Why?

In class, hand out your worksheets. In small groups, students use a mobile phone to access and view the sources together. Note that the phones will need to be wi-fi enabled! Students then discuss the questions in their small groups.
Feedback and Roundup. Encourage your students to regularly access the source they preferred (video, audio, text), and to keep up with the news in English out of class time.

Variation: Create different worksheets on a variety of topics, so that the small groups of students each work on different news stories. Before the final feedback and roundup, regroup the students so that they report back on their news stories to each other.

3 Some pros and cons of QR codes in the classroom

Obviously the first question is – why bother? Why bother to generate code which contains short text messages, when you could just write/type the text messages? Why bother to generate a code which generates an url, when you could just as easily put the url directly on a worksheet in the first place?

This is a real concern, and cautions against overusing QR code in teaching contexts. Here are some of the cons:

Avoid overuse
There are technical considerations, such as compatibility between codes and readers, screen size, and too much info being added to a code which makes the image denser and harder to scan.
Students may be unfamiliar with QR codes, or just plain technophobic. Use these activities with the right class! QR codes are not a good first intro to technology in the classroom! Use with fairly tech-savvy students (or at least students who will not feel threatened by the technology).

Here are some of the pros:

It’s much faster to scan and click on an url, then to try to type it in by hand on a handheld device. It also avoids the problem of mistyping long urls (we’ve all been there).
It directly links the real and virtual world – click on a code link, go to online resources. No faffing around in between.
In the treasure hunt activity above, it adds an element of secrecy and fun. This can be especially motivating for young learners.
Codes can also be linked to location – an example of how this works in practice is described in this article. Location-based codes could be used to link to user reviews with constantly updated content, as this Mashable blog post points out

4 Read more

Yup, it’s the same QR coded link to further reading in my last blog post… if you haven’t tried it out yet, now’s your chance!

Please let me know if you try out (or have tried out) any of the above or related ideas in the classroom with students, or have any pros/cons to add, in the Comments section. I plan to try these activity types out with my next f2f group of teachers here in Barcelona on our blended Cert ICT teacher training course in October…More anon!

Nicky Hockly
The Consultants-E
August 2010

Mobile learning #9: A Dummies Guide to QR codes

Nicky Hockly — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 17:45:48 +0000

Wondering what the attractive geometric design on the left is? You’re not the only one. Until recently I had assumed that these designs were simple decoration. It turns out I’m not the only one who is unfamiliar with these so-called QR codes (Quick Response codes). A University of Bath study in 2008 found that only 13% of university students interviewed knew what QR codes are! This instantly makes me feel a lot less stupid. To be fair, a second study carried out by the University of Bath this year found that the number of students who knew about QR codes had increased to 38%. But that does make me feel stupid!

Of course if you live in Japan, you probably have QR codes for breakfast. Literally. They are apparently ubiquitous, from breakfast cereal boxes to bus stops. But what exactly are they? And why should you care? If you are in the 38% of those in the know, you can stop reading now. But if like me, you are in the remaining 62% still in the dark, below is the definitive Dummies guide to QR codes.

1 What are QR codes?

You know those barcodes you see on supermarket products? A QR code is similar to that. It’s information encoded in a two-dimensional graphic. Whereas a supermarket barcode consists of vertical lines, a QR code encodes info vertically and horizontally – so you can get more info on it. You scan QR codes with your mobile phone (more on this in point 3 below). There is of course a limit to the amount of information you can put in a QR code. Typically a code will include a short amount of text, up to a couple of lines. No adding War and Peace or the Complete works of Shakespeare in a simple code. Or a code may include a website link (url). If your phone is Internet-enabled, you can immediately click on the url and go to the web page. No having to laboriously type in a long url by hand.

2 Where can you find QR codes?

A QR code might contain nutritional information on your breakfast cereal box. Or it can contain travel information at your bus stop, or a link to an online timetable. A code can be included on your business card, e.g. to include a direct link to your online CV. A QR code on a class handout may contain further references, or links to resources such as an online video. In short, a QR code is placed on a physical object (such as a cereal box or a bus stop). You scan it with your mobile phone, and can then access specific information, or online resources, connected to that object. It’s a quick (hence the Q in QR) and easy way to link the physical world with the virtual world. You’ll find some unusual and interesting uses of QR codes in this Mashable blog post. And you can see them in some unusual places below:

3 How do you read QR codes?

These are the two essential things you need to read a QR code:

a mobile phone with a camera
a piece of software called a QR reader

You’ll have noticed that I have cunningly placed a QR code at the top of this blog post. Have a go at reading it! Here’s how:

Download a free QR reader to your mobile phone. This site helps you choose the correct reader for your phone. I have an iPhone, and use Barcodes, which works fine.
Open the QR reader app on your phone. Point your phone camera at the bar code at the top of this blog post. Take a photo. Resize and fit the photo so the QR reader can scan it properly. Click ‘ok’, ‘use’, or ‘read’ (depending on your reader).
If your phone is scanning the code correctly, you will then see a link. Click this link ad you will be taken to an example of a real For Dummies book I co-wrote last year with my colleague Gavin Dudeney. If you can’t get your phone to scan the code properly the first time, try again. The quality of your camera, how close you are to the computer screen, and your screen quality will all affect how easily your camera deals with QR codes.

4 How do you create QR codes?

Creating your own QR code is remarkably easily. There are a number of free websites which will generate the code for you. You can then print it out, download it, or embed it in a web page. Try creating your own QR code right now! Here’s how:

Go along to a QR code generator site like Kaywa.
Decide whether you want a code that shows an url, a short text message (aim for about 160 – 250 characters), an sms, or a phone number. Fill in the relevant details.
Click ‘generate’. Voila! The code appears. You can now embed it, save it as an image, or print it out. How cool is that?

Tip: The more information you store in your QR code, the more complex it will be. In other words, the geometric pattern will be denser, and therefore more difficult for phones to accurately scan and interpret. And not all the information may be stored if you try to include too much – bits may be left off. If you want to generate a QR code for a website, it’s useful to first shorten the url, for example by using a service like Bit.ly. Put the shortened url into a QR code generator and the QR code ‘picture’ will be less complex.

5 How can you use QR codes in education?

Here are some ideas for using QR codes in education that I have found and especially like. These are all from my recent reading on the web. The sources of all of these ideas are in the ‘Read more…’ section at the bottom of this post.

Add a QR code url to extra reading/resources on the final slide of a PowerPoint presentation in a talk. Participants with QR code readers can scan it before they leave. (Of course it’s also a good idea to include the url in full on your slide for those without a QR reader! The idea is that for those who have readers, it saves copying down an url letter by letter.)
Include QR codes in published books, journals, or on paper handouts, which link to further resources. Especially for academic text books and course books, this has great potential, imho.
Create a series of QR codes and attach them to physical objects in or outside the classroom, as part of a treasure hunt. Each code can supply a clue and a link to further information, which students need to collect to complete the treasure hunt.
Students research a topic and present their findings in posters which are stuck on the classroom walls. The students create and include QR codes in the poster presentations, which link to online multimedia resources connected to the project topic. An excellent way to create low-tech multimedia poster presentations!

My next blog post will include some more classroom ideas for QR codes, and also look at some of the disadvantages of QR codes. (It’s never all roses).

Read more

A great one-stop place for some online reading is included in the QR code on the right (use ‘QR’ as a search term once you get to the site). Yes, I could just provide a link as you are already online, but this is a chance to try out the steps in point 3 above!

Nicky Hockly
The Consultants-E
August 2010

Mobile Learning #8: Five Top Tweets

Nicky Hockly — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 11:35:42 +0000

As part of this week’s computer housekeeping, I’ve been going through my Twitter favourites of the past two weeks on the topic of mLearning. Below are five of the tweets I’ve found most interesting or useful. I’ve ordered them from tweets on more theoretical issues, to those with a more practical slant. Hope you find them useful as well!

1 mLearnCon2010: Mobile gets real

Learning Solutions Magazine provides a good overview of the mLearnCon 2010 conference, divided into key sections, including lessons learned, and considerations for developers.

One thing I especially like about the post:
Thorough, with a nice list of other blogs posts about mLearnCon 2010, at the end – good for further reading.
My favourite line:
Designing mLearning is more about the user and less about the technology.

2 Mlearning on multiple devices: A practical guide

A blog post from The Learning Journey blogger Nicole Fourgere, which summarises her notes from a session of the same name at mLearnCon 2010.

One thing I especially like about the post:
Provides a useful overview in list format of general considerations, development options, ad testing options.
My favourite line:
If you are going to go with cross platform be sure not to favor the logic of one OS over another.

3 Layar & Augmented Reality for Your Campus

From the Mobile in Higher Ed blog, this post briefly describes a project to use the augmented reality (AR) app Layar with a campus map. Includes some helpful videos on location-based AR and object/simulation-based AR if you’re not sure what these are!

One thing I especially like about the post:
It’s critical and points out some of the shortcomings of location-based AR (the ‘Yes, but…’ factor).
My favourite line:
Location-based augmented reality isn’t quite there yet.

4 Classroom iPod Touches: Do’s and Don’ts

Tony Vincent’s excellent blog has a post on iTouches from Feb 2010, which I had missed. Useful, very practical advice for educators planning to use these devices with classes.

One thing I especially like about the post:
The advice is based on experience, and covers a range of areas, from tech considerations, to implementation issues such as having a fair usage contract (with several examples).
My favourite line (ok, two lines in this case):
Don’t forget professional development. There’s always something new to learn when it comes to teaching and learning with iPods.

5 A Phone for Geography

An interview with Noeline Wright (University of Waikato, NZ) about using mlearning in the secondary school geography classroom, with practical examples.

One thing I especially like about the post:
It’s practical, and the project could be replicated by foreign language teachers, especially for CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning).
My favourite line:
Secondary school learners that I’ve interviewed say that mostly, they prefer to be able to work with others to develop knowledge, understanding and skills.

Please add any tweets or resources related to mLearning YOU have found especially helpful, in the Comments section here – thanks!

Nicky Hockly
The Consultants-E
July 2010

Mobile Learning #7: mLearning & social networks

Nicky Hockly — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:23:14 +0000

[Or: Two ways to integrate social networking into mLearning]

What social networking sites do you use? Facebook? Twitter? Linked in? You Tube?

If you are reading this blog, chances are that you use at least one or more of these sites on a regular basis. And what about where you access these sites from? Your work or home computer, or your mobile device? Or both?

Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have seen massive growth in the last year or two. No doubt you’ve already heard that ‘’if Facebook were a country, it would be the third most populous country in the world’’. Part of this massive increase has been driven by the rise in the use of mobile devices and smartphones. It’s now quicker and easier than ever before to access these sites. And this is true in both the developed and developing world. (See this article from the Guardian Weekly about the increase in Facebook access in several countries in Africa, for example).

I recently came across this infographic about mobile phones and social networking sites. It shows how people use social networking sites on their mobile:

See the full infographic here. Note the range of things a user can do (post and tag photos, instant messaging, post to a message board, comment on a blog etc).

A second infographic that got my attention is one that shows what apps people are using on smartphones. What do you think are the most popular apps on the iPhone, Blackberry and Android? Facebook is in the number 1 spot for all three.

So, more people than ever before are using mobile devices such as smartphones to access social networking sites. And the numbers are rising. What does this mean for educators? Well, clearly that we can tap into and exploit this trend to support learning. How?

1 Integration
Use of social networking is integrated into the app or learning program. An example is the new British Council radio-style podcast Learn English: this includes a Facebook page for the podcast presenters, where learners can post comments and questions. This app is thoroughly reviewed by David Read here.

2 Addition
Use of social networking sites or tools are external to the app itself, but learners use these networks to support the learning programme. An example is the K-Nect mobile project: US high school kids used specially created apps for learning algebra and maths, but insisted on being allowed to set up blogs and to use instant messenging through which to communicate outside of the program itself. Teachers were initially skeptical, but the social networking part of the project proved immensely successful. I’ve blogged about this project here.

I’d love to hear about other examples of mLearning projects that are using social networking to support learning … Please feel free to post any examples below and share your project!

Read more

An excellent summary of the recent mLearnCon2010 (mLearning Conference) from Learning Solutions magazine. Links to a number of blogs at the end are worth checking out as well.

A good place to look for infographics is Visualoop.

Four ways with webinars

Nicky Hockly — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 15:00:15 +0000

[4 formats for running webinars]

Have you ever attended an online seminar or ‘webinar’? If so, did it follow

by davidking

this pattern?

introduction by moderator
talk by presenter (with PowerPoint slides)
question-and-answer time

Chances are that it did. This is a common format for a webinar, and an example of the chalk and talk presentation style, delivered online. It can also be the least engaging type of webinar.

So what other options do we have? Here is my webinar format guide, which currently includes four formats*. I’ve ordered them from the most straightforward to the more complex format (and given each a groovy name):

1 Chalk and talk

PowerPoint slides and presentation. Framed by an introduction from a moderator, and a question-and-answer slot at the end. There are ways to liven up this format, which I blog about here, but plenty of webinars I have attended don’t get any audience participation at all during the presentation stage. Added to this, there are unfortunately still some webinar platforms out there that only allow PowerPoint slides and voice. So no text chat window for participants to use as a back channel, or to socialise among themselves, or to respond to questions asked by the speaker. To me a webinar platform that allows no place for participants to interact with each other and the presenter should be shunned. We are in the age of Web 2.0 for Pete’s sake.

2 Talk and talk

Basically an interview. The moderator interviews the speaker, possibly with pre-prepared questions, or questions which have been collected from the participants beforehand. The moderator should also be able to integrate relevant questions that are appearing in the chat window as the interview progresses. The advantage of this format is that participants are listening to two people speaking; the cut and thrust of real conversation makes listening far more engaging. The session can be rounded up with one of the short finishing activities mentioned here. A variation on the talk and talk format is the ‘Coffee with…’ format, where you get two subject experts shooting the breeze on a topic, in a less formal ambience. Doubly engaging. Here is an (audio) recording of a Coffee with.. session we ran with well-known language teaching experts, in Second Life (SL) last year. This recording is of Jeremy Harmer giving his first ever presentation in SL.

3 Listen and do

This is an effective webinar format if you would like participants to actually try out a tool for themselves during your presentation. Obviously, it is especially effective when you are talking about web-based tools. A few months back I gave a webinar about how to use a micro-blogging tool (Edmodo) in teacher training — and participants actually tried out Edmodo in the talk itself. You can hear me describe in 2 mins how the talk was structured – if you’re interested, take notes and you’ll have a webinar session plan!

Edmodo Webinar

4 Guided tour

Using shared browsing in the webinar platform, the presenter walks participants through a process, or a website. Especially effective for showing complex sites such as 3-D virtual worlds like Second Life to newcomers. It’s a good idea to stop broadcasting the presenter’s video when giving a guided tour, as it detracts from the shared browsing window. It also helps save bandwidth. The downside of shared web browsing is that not all webinar platforms are robust enough to support it. My own experience of shared web browsing has been patchy — sometimes it works fine, especially with smaller groups, but sometimes it can crash the platform. Make sure you try it out in the webinar platform a couple of times beforehand, if you are planning to use it.

What about you? Have you attended or given any webinars that follow other formats? Please add them to the comments section!

*Thanks to my the Consultants-E colleague Ana d’Almeida, who inspired me with ideas for this post through her recent work in writing a short online course for the British Council.

Nicky Hockly
The Consultants-E
June 2010

Mobile Learning # 6: Six key m-learning resources

Nicky Hockly — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:54:45 +0000

How do you feel about housework?
Personally, I’m not a big fan. But in a recent fit of (late) spring cleaning, I decided to sort out my mobile learning bookmarks in delicious, in preparation for some research I’m doing on the topic. And voila! I came across all sorts of fantastic stuff I had forgotten about.

Given the power of lists, here are 6 key (to me) mobile learning resources. Actually, this is cheating a bit, because some of the key resources in my list of resources are themselves lists of key resources. If you know what I mean. But hey, my list only has 6.

What are these resources good for?

showing you how others are using mlearning in education
inspiring you to try out some mobile learning with your own classes (see especially number 1 below)
providing you with specific apps and activities to use with classes
showing you case studies and success stories that you can refer to with aplomb
persuading colleagues and managers at your institution that mlearning is a Big Thing in education (by referring to the point above)
getting managers at your institution to invest in mlearning (by referring to the two points above)

Number 1: Kids with iTouches video

I have tweeted and blogged about this video, which is still top of my list for seeing mlearning in action. It describes a project carried out in the UK at a primary school, in which an entire class of 32 8-year olds were given an iTouch each. The video shows how the device was seamlessly integrated into the curriculum over a period of time, and the video includes comments from the teachers and kids themselves. Totally inspiring.

Number 2: St Marys City Schools project

Schools in St Marys City in Ohio, USA, have been using mlearning in a series of pilot projects. This website includes not only experiences and reports on the St Mary’s projects, but also links to other case studies, and news articles on topic. Also worth a look is their Acceptance Use Policy for those of you considering introducing the use of handheld devices into your class/school. Plenty to keep you busy on the site for several hours.

Number 3: Learning 2 go project

Another school-wide initiative in mobile learning, this time from the UK, and started in 2003, and this is another site worth browsing if you are thinking of introducing mobile learning into your school/institution. The site includes this very clear graphic of factors to consider in implementation.

Number 4: 50 Top m-learning resources

From Upside Learning, this slide show consists of 50 resources, one per slide, including a short description of each. I really like this as an original way of producing a (long!) list of resources. It also cunningly takes my list of mlearning resources up to a total of 56.

Number 5: Top 50 iPhone Apps for Educators

Another (long!) list, this time of iPhone apps for education across a variety of disciplines. This list was published in December 2008, so there have been some additions to this list since then. To update this list, especially for language learning, check out Graham Stanley’s blog post (on iphone apps), and Neil Ballantine’s blog post (on iPhone and Android apps), as well as the British Council mobile learning site. But in the meantime, this brings my list up to 106 resources.

Number 6: 7 Things you should know about… Mobile apps for learning
I am a big fan of Educause and their ‘7 Things you should know about…’ series. One of the earlier educational organisations to start using the web and numbered lists to get key concepts across, it’s clear and to the point, and perfect as an introduction to the topic, for both teachers and managers.

Now for the disclaimer. This is a very personal, very short list of what I consider to be useful and interesting resources on the topic of mobile learning. To keep the list down to these 6, I had to leave out plenty of other resources that equally deserve to be included. You can find a fuller list of resources on my Delicious account – just search with ‘mobile’, or ‘mlearning’ to see what else I have.

But in the meantime, I’m sure you have a favourite mlearning resource that I have left off this list, and that you are tutting to yourself about right now. Please add it to the comments section below!

Nicky Hockly
The Consultants-E
June 2010

Mobile Learning #5: A Case Study

Nicky Hockly — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 11:34:31 +0000

[Or: Mobile learning in your high school]

Imagine you are the principal of a high school in the USA. Students are constantly bringing their mobile phones and iPods to school. Last year you banned these devices from the premises. Parents and teachers supported you in this. Bags are searched at the school gates every day, and any mobile phones or iPods that are found are confiscated. But the kids keep finding ways to sneak them into class. Now teachers are complaining about the amount of time and effort they spend punishing the kids, confiscating their devices, and reporting them to their parents. And still the kids come to school with their mobile phones and iPods. What do you do?

This is the situation that Edward Spurke, the Principal of Roswell High in Georgia USA, found himself in last year. What he decided to do was to stop fighting a losing battle, and to persuade teachers and parents to embrace mobile technology in the school (the kids needed no persuading).

Education Week recently ran a webinar on the topic of mobile learning in high schools in which Spurke outlined experiences of trying to fight the technology that students were already bringing to class. Spurke was followed by Shawn Gross of the K-Nect project, both with first-hand experience of implementing mobile learning. You can access a recording of the webinar – or read my summary of key points below! Here are some of the things I learned from this great webinar about mobile projects in schools:

There is no point fighting a losing battle. Kids are already bringing mobile devices to class — find ways to embrace the technology, not suppress it.
Investing in class sets of one device (e.g. iTouches, or netbooks) ensures that everybody can use the same software and apps on the same machines.
Using devices with no inbuilt cameras or sms/telephone facilities will avoid kids constantly taking photos during class, or needing expensive phone data plans.
You can allow students to take home the mobile devices. But get students and parents to sign a liability form to deal with lost, stolen or damaged devices first.
Make the entire school building WiFi, and forget website blocking software — the kids will find a way around it. Instead ensure that you have an Acceptable Use Policy in place.
Ensure constant free access to the WiFi in your building — kids will then use their mobile devices e.g. during lunch and their free time.
On the K-Nect project, when asked what sorts of technology students would like to see in the classroom, 90% of them preferred mobile devices.
On the K-Nect project, students also wanted access to social networking facilities such as blogs and instant messages on the devices.

What is particularly interesting about the use of mobile devices for the K-Nect project is how students used these social networking facilities to help each other problem solve. Also, they generally spent a lot more time on mobile-enabled schoolwork than they had done previously (and we are talking about algebra and maths!). Also interesting are the research results for this project, which showed higher test scores in maths for the classes that used the mobile devices and mobile-enabled materials, as opposed to classes who use traditional methods and content.

Here’s a video overview of the K-Nect project

If you want to find out more:

Listen to the recording of the Education Week webinar.
Listen to podcasts produced by the Roswell High student is with their mobile devices on the school website.
Find out more about the K-Nect project on their website and blog (some interesting videos on the blog) .
Read about other case studies in mobile learning.
For the private language schools sector, Nik Peachey has a good blog post about why all schools should have free wifi.

Any more pointers to specific mobile case studies, or anecdotes and suggestions welcome!

Nicky Hockly
The Consultants-E
June 2010

Not waving but drowning

Nicky Hockly — Tue, 18 May 2010 12:17:07 +0000

Coping with social media, professional development and information overload

Meet Olga. Olga teaches English several hours a day. Apart from preparing her classes, teaching, and marking assignments, in the course of a normal week she also does the following things:

She accesses the online staffroom of her school to download material to use in some of her classes.
She reads daily digests of e-mails from the five online professional development discussion groups belongs to. Sometimes she contributes a posting to the group on a topic she is interested in or knows something about.
She notes down the date of a free webinar in her calendar, which she plans to attend next week.
She checks her RSS reader and catches up with postings on two or three blogs written by other teachers around the world.
She posts to her own professional blog about a new podcasting project that she has started with her elementary class. She usually posts once a week to her blog.
She listens and responds to the podcasts her students have contributed to the podcasting site.
She logs into Twitter once a day, to see what colleagues are up to, and to quickly follow a few links or articles recommended by her Twitter network. She sends a few tweets, including one about how her new class podcasting project is going.
She bookmarks a few recommended sites from Twitter for later reading. She will add the really useful sites to her social bookmarking account (she uses Delicious).
She catches up on postings and coursework from the free online course called ‘Digital Storytelling’ she is currently taking. She attends a video conferencing tutorial session with her online course colleagues and tutor.
She updates her ePortfolio with the name, dates, length and a brief content description of her online course ‘Digital Storytelling’. Next week she’ll add a description of her class podcasting project and a link to what the students produced.

Olga is a teacher who knows how the Internet and social media can help her develop as a teacher. She is also Superwoman.

How many of the above things do you do? How many do you plan to do, but not have time for? How guilty and pressured does this make you feel? And admit it, are you one of those people who can’t get through a meal with friends without checking for new email or tweets on your phone surreptiously under the table?

Web 2.0 has brought us many varied and wonderful opportunities for professional development. This we all know. What is less talked about is the psychological stress that being exposed to an endless stream of information causes us. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a technophobe. I love technology, and adore the vast range of options that technology brings to my teaching and training. Hell, I even have my own blog! But I also feel a bit stressed out. A lot of the time I feel as if I’m only just keeping my head above water. I also feel that everybody else knows a lot more than I do. Everybody else seems to be so much more active on their blogs, on others’ blogs, on Twitter, on Facebook, on YouTube, on discussion lists, on …

And worst of all, I worry that it’s just me. Am I the only one who feels unable to cope with all of this information? Am I the only one who wakes up at two in the morning thinking about that article I only half read last night, because I just didn’t have time to finish it? Am I the only one worrying that I haven’t logged on to Twitter for two days, and have probably missed lots of really important stuff? Am I the only one wondering how to juggle my normal workload (large), my family life (demanding), my social life (meagre) and all this extra stuff?? I suspect I may not be the only one, but I don’t hear a lot of my colleagues talking about it.

So let’s talk about it. Let’s share some coping strategies, some tips & some advice for how we can best manage all of the rich resources that Web 2.0 provides. Below are some of the strategies I (not always successfully) try to use.

7 Tips for coping with social media:

Tip 1: Accept the inevitable. You will never know everything, and you will never be able to fully keep up. Be very Zen about this.

Tip 2: Make a list of all your ongoing online professional development sources (Twitter, discussion groups, blogs, webinars…). Prioritize them. Choose just a few to focus on each week or month.

Tip 3: Put your list on the wall above your desk (yes, on paper – I do!) so you don’t do too much. Relax – you will cover those other things on your list, but all in good time.

Tip 4: Use time management – allow yourself to log on to Twitter, say twice a day for 15 minutes only. Allow another 20 minutes a day to check your RSS feed, read a few new blog posts by colleagues’, and comment on one or two. No more. One or two comments a day is plenty!!

Tip 5: Use personal management tools to help you organise incoming info. For example, use some sort of ‘read it later’ application or strategy to deal with fast incoming info from a source like Twitter. Send tweets with useful-looking links directly to Evernote, to Instapaper, or to Read it Later, to check out when you have time. Or mark the tweets as favourites (eg in Tweetdeck, where you get a separate Favourites column) and read them later, in your 30-minute daily Twitter slot.

Tip 6: Be selective about links you save permanently. And make sure you use social bookmarking, NOT your old Firefox or Explorer Bookmarks! Very passé (those folders!) and only accessible from one machine. You want your bookmarks accessible from anywhere, and searchable by tags – by you and your network. Delicious and Diigo are two popular options.

Tip 7: Finally, when in doubt, ask your Twitter network for help. Here’s the advice some of my Twitter colleagues gave me for coping:

None of my tips are rocket science. But sometimes it helps to sit down, set things out, and take a good look at them. Then to make a plan, and (try to) put some strategies into practice.

Please add any tips or advice you may have for coping, in the Comments section below, and help me not drown in information overload!

Nicky Hockly
The Consultants-E
May 2010