Making Classrooms Work

So here we are in the 21st Century and still stuck with 18th century schoolrooms and 19th century desks.

I've been exploring different seating arrangements for groups, and still like the easy mobility of wheeled chairs, central gathering places, and ways to quickly create breakouts of small groups that can still see the teacher/board and report back without too much furniture noise.

This younger children's class (described by Amy Spies at TeachingChannel  shows a nice option using the furniture at hand:

The groups of four are open-ended at the side facing the teacher/board, and the space between the desks holds a 3-drawer cabinet with supplies like paper, pencils and crayons:

SteelCase offers a much higher tech option, adopted at the U of Oregon's Yamada Language Lab, that is sleek and classy. Three boards/projection screens allow students sitting in any direction to see what is happening. The teacher is no longer fronting the class--at least in theory--though the computer/projector now seems to be the center:

From the Steelcase video

What students have to say about it is very interesting:

From the Steelcase video

With the flipped classroom, the projection multiplication may be a bit of overkill, but at least there is a strong move to put students' heads together.

Using About.me for student self-introductions

I've been away, mostly vacationing, but also working with the Electronic Village Online, which has been experimenting with some new venues, such as Edmodo and About.me. Hope to have more time to report later, but here is my personal About.me/ page:

Oddly, when I tried to embed it here, the script does not show the snazzy overlay with my picture. You'll have to visit the page at http://about.me/ehansonsmi/ to see it. However, it is kind of a handy way to do a short biography. The "3-2-1" snippet about me is an idea suggested by the EVO Coordinating Team to introduce ourselves quickly. Might be a good way to do introductions in a class. The student chooses the background and icon, and writes the text.

Mostly Free Diagramming Tools Online

I've been exploring several drawing tools, particularly those for making graphs and diagrams. I'm trying to stick to free and online in this discussion, though a few for-pay tools have some nice advantages, mainly storage space and collaboration.

Among other advantages, drawing tools can help students mind-map and brainstorm; collect and display numerical data in charts and graphs; demonstrate reflective learning in storyboards or networked images; and so on. Graphing skills become increasingly important as an academic tool as students progress through school, but charts and graphs can be a fun motivation even for younger students.

Gliffy is one of my old favorites, but it limits you to just 5 drawings, unless you go for the somewhat pricey paid account (5 users for up to 200 drawings, for about $10, as of this writing). It does very nice Venn diagrams from templates, has loads of pre-formed objects, such as arrows and rectangles, and supports HTML5.

Cacoo is entirely free and looks like a very friendly interface, and one appropriate for middle school kids. You can create:

wire frames, mind maps, network charts, and site maps . . . simply pick and "drag and drop" elements from a large library of stencils.

Cacoo is one of the free programs with a free-hand drawing option, too.


Creately is another free program with great features, and like Gliffy, allows up to 5 drawings with limited collaborative possibilities.  It gives you only diagrams, but offers nice Venn templates, and a large selection of templates for K-12, including:

...Storyboards, Fishbone Diagrams, T Charts, Y Charts, Venn Diagrams, and much more..

Google Drawings has only a very basic toolkit, so don't expect a great deal, but it is quick and easy and the interface will be familiar from Google docs.


If you want a very professional look, but have only a limited project, try Microsoft's Visio or SmartDraw. Both of these have a free trial period and many features.

EduMOOC

Google's EduMOOC is astounding and fun. You can be in touch with 2500 teachers and learners in the grand experiment in volunteer, free, online learning.

Although the MOOC is just for this summer (July-August), you can use the discussions, videos, and resources (Diigo group) asynchronously. Read all about it at Polly Peterson's Education-Portal blog.
Sign in to Google first to access everything.

TED: John Underkoffler points to the future of User Interface

This video from the TED (Technology, Education, and Design)conference in February (Long Beach, CA) has some astonishing new ways to look at user wetware-computer connections.




It's amazing to see Tom Cruise's Minority Report interface now displayed with many different ramifications. The new interfaces use computations that are "space-soluable and network-soluable," allowing a user to drag/send their visual information from one "monitor" to another,both co-located and in space, with a hand gesture. In five years' time will this be the computer we get??

For more TED Talks see http://www.TED.com.

Personas for Firefox

Just had some fun creating my own "persona" (theme) for my Firefox browser.


https://www.getpersonas.com/

This might be a good activity for your students. They need to create a long, narrow photo for the top and the bottom of the browser, and then upload it to the site. All the step-by-step directions and specifications are at the site (a good reading activity, and/or watch the tutorial video), and they can try it out before uploading. After the photo is accepted, they can share their personal favorites and/or make their theme public for others to use.

You will need to be able to download an add-on to Firefox before starting the process, so this may require the OK from your school administration or tech support. However, the download itself takes only a few seconds.

Web 3.0

Webhead Moira Hunter tipped me off (see her blog) to this interesting video about Web 3.0, the semantic Web, as seen on Kate Ray's Vimeo site:

Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.

It gets increasingly interesting as you watch: should the semantic Web have pre-defined ontologies? Of course, Vance Stevens and most Webheads would answer a resounding "no!" If contemporary Web is increasingly about social networking, it is left to developers to help us find and explore new ways of interconnecting.

TinyChat

TinyChat looks to be a very useful little Twitter-related tool for meeting up with students or colleagues on the fly, especially if you have a Webcam built into your computer. It's free and anyone can enter by typing in a nickname--or you can make the chat private.


My own room is at http://tinychat.com/twitter/ElizabethHS

Thanks to fellow Webhead, Rita Zeinstejer for the tip.

280 Slides

I was directed to 280 slides by Nik Peachey's Ten Teacher Development Tasks for Web2.0 Tools (yes, I am still slogging on with them...) The presentation tool is really fun to use, and here is my exercise task completed. It's for intermediate students, who watch the two videos and make notes using an online dictionary, thesaurus, and/or translator, then write up a description of "My Favorite House."



You can also send the embedded video to Slideshare, or email it to friends.

My writing activity is very similar to Nik's, but I gave it different twist by using pairs at the computer, some online vocabulary resources, and a writing process with note-taking and discussion built-in.

Here is Nik's simpler version: Getting Video Tasks Online

The Christmas Challenge VoiceThread

A nice holiday student project where cultural concepts of Christmas and personal greetings and wishes are recorded. A nice use for VoiceThread, which can also be downloaded to a desktop as an archive for listening practice.

The Christmas Challenge
by Alex G. Francisco

A collaborative project developed by Esayan Armenian High School in Turkey and Escola Básica e Secundária Gonçalves Zarco in Portugal, Dec 7, 2009.

WallWisher

WallWisher is not as useful pedagogically as other social networking tools I can think of.

You can add a picture (from a URL), or video, or audio file, but it doesn't have a way to put a URL into the text (without using up the tiny letter count), so that users can easily go visit the site. If you want to illustrate your sticky, you need another place/server/or knowledge of how to get an image location to stick it in. You can post to Facebook, et al., and link to pictures in Flickr.

The limited number of words/letters on a sticky means you can't say much--this is probably an advantage for young learners, but not necessarily for their education. A blog or wiki would give them the opportunity to be more expansive.


You could have a main sticky and then ask students to respond to it. But there is no way to organize the stickies besides moving them around physically. So this means the teacher/owner of the wall must do the work of organization, or let things happen at random. (See Nik Peachey's wall of teacher tools for social networking.)

So on the whole, I like the idea of a communal blog or wiki better: more opportunity to write expansively, ways to comment, RSS feed, easy ways to include URLs and lots of pictures, and esp. with a wiki, ways to organize pages.

But I can see Wallwisher as a way to make comments on an event or single Web page. You might have students visit a page or view a video (or put one into a head sticky), and then make a short comment on a Wallwisher page. If you have only 15-30 students, they could all read each other's comments (but if they then make more comments, you've quickly got a huge, disorganized mess...) If you use WallWisher the way it was intended, perhaps to wish a class member happy birthday, or to congratulate someone on getting citizenship, or to make a wish list, or to put up reminders for a project, then it's a nifty application.

Google Wave

Google Wave (see The Complete Guide) looks like the re-invention of email, kind of a combination of bulletin board, screencast, and mail. It will definitely be a pleasure to use. This is a nice illustration of the Wave:



There are a number of other things it can do, like embed "attachments," and I imagine it will have some audio/voice capability. You need an invitation to try it, however.

Sidebar RSS Aggregator for Firefox

The explanation below is pretty minimal, but the Firefox site will give you illustrated directions to get started. While it claims not to be a replacement for a full-fledged aggregator, it functions quite nicely as a quick and easy to install reader. This might be an easy way to get students reading each other's blogs.

Feed Sidebar

Online Magazines

Webheads have been collecting ideas for creating e-zines. Here is the list of potential Internet sites and software that might be used for free or cheaply:

To create a magazine online
http://www.formatpi xel.com/go/ en/index. php
http://www.presspub lisher.com/

To publish in the form of magazine (first you need to create the
contents and export to pdf)
http://issuu. com/
http://www.yudu. com/
http://www.mixbook. com/

To export to pdf (an example):
pdfcreator:
http://sourceforge. net/project/ downloading. php?group_ id=57796& use_mirror= switch&filename= PDFCreator- 0_9_7_setup. exe&a=75987836

For desktop publishing
Scribus (locally in your computer)
http://sourceforge. net/project/ downloading. php?group_ id=125235& use_mirror= dfn&filename= scribus-1. 3.3.12-win32- install.exe& a=17416234

to draw a poster
inkscape (Vector Graphics Editor)
http://sourceforge. net/project/ downloading. php?groupname= inkscape& filename= Inkscape- 0.46.win32. exe&use_mirror= garr

OpenOfice Draw
Download: http://download. openoffice. org/

to create posters online
http://www.glogster .com/

Thanks to Fernanda Rodrigues in Portugal for summarizing this thread.

My Interview on Absolutely Intercultural

I was very pleased to be interviewed by Anne Fox for Absolutely intercultural. It's a great podcast for learners, carefully planned and executed, and Anne has a terrific speaking voice.

Our interview topic was language learning websites, and I spoke about my experiences with using Babbel (see my earlier blog on that). Unfortunately, I have been unable to find the time to keep up with it, but I notice I am getting a lot better at following conversations on TV programs in Spanish, so I guess it was of some use.

Learning Spanish Online

Since I am trying to brush up on my Spanish, I was lucky to find the Webheads are also interested in the subject. Turns out there are a number of places to get at learning a language online. Here is a compendium of places to learn Spanish online from the Webheads e-list:

---

Spanish proficiency exercises on video:
http://www.laits.utexas.edu/spe/siteindex.php
and again from Twitter, here's a student of Spanish who blogs/twitters abou his learning: http://www.spanish-only.com/
--Graham Stanley

---

Netlanguages.com
--Gavin Dudeney

---

What started out as a fundraiser for a good cause through a series of podcasts back in 2006, has developed into an online Spanish language school for Ben and Maria, the British/Spanish couple that started it: Notes in Spanish
--Jane Petring

---

Have you looked at the BBC Spanish courses and resources? Some great stuff here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/
--Johanna Stirling

---

I am really enjoying Babbel.com.

There are sets of typical exercises, but done in a more imaginative
way than the usual drill-and-grill. Also, when you enter the site
there are short movies with a brief writing assignment. You write in
Spanish and send it to "Community" or "Friends" (once you get some).
They correct your Spanish, and you correct their English version in
tandem learning. I have since starting acquired about a half dozen
friends who correspond with me at the level I am capable of. It's
really Community Language Learning. So after studying the
Introductions exercises, I wrote a letter of introduction to send to
my Spanish-speaking Friends list.

Also Babbel has just added a chat function to have live meetings with
Friends--I haven't set one up yet, as I've been traveling. And one of
the people on my Friends list has requested a Skype conference. So
it's fun and very encouraging. You can start with beginning lessons or
select intermediate or advanced. I think it is already helping my
facility in the language. It is motivating to see what Friends are doing.

[And they don't seem to care that I am a 66-yr old grandma.]
--Elizabeth HS

---

I'd recommend Live Mocha.
Haven't been there in a while, but all this conversation has gotten me excited again to practice Spanish!
--Carla Arena

---

If you are looking to learn with a real online tutor you could
explore Speakshop.com.

Most of the tutors are based in South America and the project is set
up under a kind of 'fair trade ' model. The site acts as an agency
that trains and helps to equip teachers in poorer countries so that
they can earn money online internationally. You can find out a bit
more about the project here:
http://speakshop.com/06_aboutus

And the tutors here:
http://speakshop.com/02_tutors

--Nik Peachey

---

Join http://ar.groups.yahoo.com/ group/idioma-espagnol/. There are some interesting LINKS to practise the language.
--Nelba

Nelba is also organizing free Spanish sessions in Second Life. [address to follow]

I'll come back and re-edit this if more spots appear on the list, or I run across any further. I have been very negligent of my Babbel Friends, as the site was not very responsive when I was traveling--kept getting stuck in the exercises. This shouldn't happen.

Webheads Tenth Anniversary

We Webheads are whooping it up, celebrating (virtually) our 10 years of association as a thriving Community of Practice. Nice to have a history.

Here are some commemorations:

Michael Coughlan started a Webheads Tenth Anniversary VoiceThread which many have contributed to.
Vance in San Antonio demonstrates the intellectual level of our CoP.
Buthaina wrote this tribute some years ago about what she had learned from the Webheads.

It's great to be a part of this virtual/real community.

--Elizabeth

SLExperiments - Negiz (Daffodil Fargis)

Negiz has been experimenting with Second Life and has set up a wiki, SLExperiments, to carry on the dialogue. The wiki begins with a rather nice instructional video about how to use a wiki to create a lesson plan, so it's a two-fer.

I hope to be able to follow some of the live lessons and report back further on how SL is being used.

Nik Peachey's Technology Blogs

Today I had a chance to explore Nik's blogs in more depth. These are very rich because he indicates ways to use the technology with students and/or for teacher training. Following through with each of his blog entries is like a full course in IT for teachers.

His two blogs are

Quick Shout

and the more cumbersomely named

Learning technology teacher development blog for ELT

Enjoy!

Embedded Chat Widgets

Although I have found it inconvenient for users (and me) to have interactive widgets on this blog, one of these might be useful for a wiki page as it could be more self-contained.

Suggestions from the Webhead elist include (from Robert Squires):

Yackpack - the Walkie Talkie Widget formerly available directly on PBWiki, and which has Voicegroups.

Meebo - you create your own chatroom and paste the code into the sidebar of your wiki or blog.

Gabbly - the PBWiki default, was mentioned several times as having horrible advertisements that you can't get rid of. However, any person who visits the wiki can chat with other visitors who are there at the same time while with Gtalk or Meebo, the visitors can only chat with the owner of that widget (ie.e, the creator of the wiki) but not with each other (per Negiz in a responding email).

Robert also offered an interesting blog site with a list of ten more chat widgets: ReadWriteWeb.

I followed this breadcrumb trail and found an interesting site, built by Kiernan, that strings together YouTube videos so that you get continuous play, one after another, on a particular subject (in this case rock groups). Anyone can add a video without a password, though this feature might present problems in a school setting. Nice code, though a little removed from the original subject, chat widgets: http://www.chann3lz.com/.