I thought the Gary Stager exercise to be an excellent way to teach students that planning and using their ‘world knowledge’ are skills that are required whenever they look for information online. Too often our students jump onto the internet without having a clear thought-out plan for their research.

I’ve just completed a research project with my ESL level 2 Science students. Their task required them to plan their research by considering their subject, the purpose of the research and resulting pamphlet, and their audience (what I call taking your writing to the SPA and giving it the treatment to make it read well). My students were required to use a graphic organizer as they refined their research. 

My students each had a biome assigned to them to research after they completed a K-Q (knowledge-question) chart. They then had to start their organizer with the information they wanted to find based on the questions they had about their biome. They really struggled as they wanted to jump straight into research. At each step, they had to check that they were conducting their research with SPA in mind. They had to consider if teenage tourists would be interested in the information they gathered. Thus, students quickly realised that entering ‘desert’ as a search word was too general. They refined their research by considering the words they enter into the search box. Once they had completed their note cards, they then had to start the process of decision-making and selection. We discussed the purpose of pamphlets/brochures. The students had to understand that they had to have a very focused approach to producing their pamphlets and they needed to cut out ‘boring’ information. 

Thus, in the end, I feel that most of the students learnt to think about their scientific language along with their research skills and improved both.

I sat down and designed my UbD unit plan with the focus on integrating IT in order to allow my ESL Level 2 Communication Skills students the opportunity to strengthen their speech and presentation skills. I decided on the topic “Life” as it is general, yet personal enough for students to approach it independently and from their perspectives. The challenge was for the students to think creatively, outside the box, and use figurative language. 

Once the language learning was out of the way, my students wanted to jump into PowerPoint and start on the slides. Thank goodness, I’ve learnt about storyboarding (have I mentioned this before?). The task was designed to include that students do a draft storyboard of their presentation with detailed and clear annotations (yes, they learnt a new word), which I would look at and give them feedback. Thereafter, they designed the final storyboard with revisions based on my feedback.

So, how did they do it? The task expectation was to design a PowerPoint presentation of 10 slides: title slide (how often don’t they forget titles, hey), 4 slides of images that match their storyboard design (thank you, Stale, for showing us Flickr), 4 slides with their metaphorical statements about life, and the bibliography. The students actually had 30 seconds per slide, because with their language development they are not proficient enough to speak fluently in 20 seconds.

Reflection for my planner: I was very impressed with my students. This was the second presentation they’ve done this year using PowerPoint as a support tool. It was clear that this time the students understood clearly that it was a support tool NOT the presentation. They freed themselves from speaking to the screen (Yay!), because the last presentation was very much a reading from the writing on each slide – usually too much on a slide. What else impressed me? The students had to prepare a script for their presentation. On the morning as the students were sitting down to watch each others’ presentations, I noticed nearly half had the full script clutched in their sweaty grips and my stomach plunged. However, the first 3 students presented without any notes in their hands. The fourth student was a student who had arrived and wanted to have the script in hand for the presentation. However, when she got up, she left her script behind and presented without her script. By the end, all the students had presented without reading from their scripts. I’ve learnt that integrating technology in a very planned manner and breaking up the tasks with clear expectations allow students to develop their individuality, their independence and self-confidence. 

That’s why I thank Dytham and Klein; without their concept of Pecha-Kucha I would have become increasingly resistant to having students use PowerPoint. I have also found that incorporating storyboards really focused the students and they could complete the slides in one 70 minute lesson. Relating it to visuals (pictures) and symbols, helped the students to understand that the visuals can act as cues for their speeches. 

I’m starting to think more and more about integrated technology and its implications for ISM, our curriculum planning and all teachers taking responsibility for technology and language.

1. FEAR. When we watched the Jobs and Gates videos and the TED presentation, I was so intimidated that my mind went into a deep freeze for a few days. I couldn’t face the task. My fear was of course compounded by …

2. FINDING A TOPIC. I drew a blank on this. I couldn’t think how to present a topic in 10 slides with only 20 seconds to speak per slide. Days of heart palpitations passed before I decided to focus on GoogleDocs. 

3. STORYBOARDING THE SLIDESHOW. I must thank the IT teacher at my last school who showed me how to storyboard for visual presentations such as FlashMovies. After a take-out meal from North Park Noodle, I spent an hour or so storyboarding the slides. That meant …

4. CREATING THE PRESENTATION. This I did in one afternoon after classes. I had decided to use my own photos. I felt they had more relevance to my topic, than images from Flickr. I also wanted to experiment with animations, because one of my students designed a tutorial with great animations. She directed me to the website (see, learning from my students). Stale showed me how to take screenshots and these I used to show parts of GoogleDocs that my students are using.

5. THE SCRIPT. Different from the Camstudio assignment, I did not write a script. Instead I used the notes section of the PowerPoint to write down key reminders related to topic. I also tried to memorise the visual order of the slides to ensure a logical sequence. 

6. LEARNING FROM OTHERS. I was fascinated by the other presentations. There was something to learn from each presenter: either their presentation style or the presentation content. I found that I would like to learn how to have multiple images fade in and out in the same slide. How was that done? I want to watch some of them again, because there were so many that I felt that there were much that I missed. 

Essentially, it comes down to realising what the possible problems are that may inhibit my students and decide on what other skills they may need in order to complete a presentation in an effective and concise manner suited to their target audience.

 Recently, I’ve discovered the ‘dark side’ of blogging. On the website of a local newspaper I read about how blogging can be used for a personal agenda to air personal grievances and direct anger at another person. This has resulted in a court case of defamation. 

This reminds me that we have to be clear of the purpose of our blogs and keep our writing within those parameters. Thus, as teachers, if we design units in which we expect our students to express their learning through blogging, we have to help them understand that when they blog in the ‘real world’ they have to set a purpose and define their audience carefully. This relates to lifelong learning and the dispositions we expect of the youngsters we teach.

There’s more information about the dangers of blogging and types of blogging on The World of Blogs.

These seem to be my brain cell responses lately to any discussions about technology. Somewhere in my grey matter, the cell that’s supposed to keep me updated on technology is hiding from the tsunami of applications. I feel that I’m sitting in a room of people who speak a language of which I only know “Hello” and “Goodbye”, and can thus not participate at length or in depth. However, during the holiday, I’ve gone searching for that brain cell and have dragged it out of hiding, whipped it into shape and given clear orders that now is not the time to fear, but the time to take risks and overcome the horror I’ve felt blanketing me for some years. Like Morpheus in “The Matrix” I’m wiggling my fingers at Technology and whispering my battlecry fiercely, “Bring it on, buster!”

I find the most difficult part about learning how I can use the resources of Web 2.0. as a teacher and a learner is that there’s so much I have to discover that I don’t know before I can think about the educational applications and impact on my and my students’ learning.

So, I decided to draw up a organiser to determine what I need to discover. A-ha – just discovered something I don’t know how to do. Can I create a table in a blog? I tried Tools and to copy and paste from a word document, but no go. Who can help? Instead, I found the Web 2.0. Meme Map on the O’Reilly site useful to get a picture of how the web developed, and is developing. I also found John Lewis’ slideshow interesting as it got me thinking about Web 2.0. in more detail and the quotes he used were particularly mind-opening for me. 

Interface: My students have been accessing GoogleDocs to access tasksheets and worksheets, as well as posting their assignments on GoogleDocs. However, although it’s easy to edit each other’s work, I wished that there was a way in which students can share their comments about their own writing and that of their peers. So, I’m looking forward to the next assignment on wikis. I’d like to explore sites that serve as discussion forums, such as Ning. I definitely need to explore Ning. 

With Web 2.0., I think it may be so much easier to hook up my students with other ESL students around the world. I simply have to find sites where those students are – could we go seeking on Facebook? Or shall I piggyback on Jillian’s use of Skype – could I get my students to converse with other students through Skype? I want to give this some more thought and definitely want to discuss this with my colleagues in the ESL department.

It’s a question of finding out what’s out there, get hooked onto some RSS, technology blogs and sites (even if I don’t always understand the language), and then going through a decision-making process to determine what can be used best as a learning and teaching tool. I’m discovering that more and more teaching is changing from us teaching and imparting our knowledge to the next generation to us sharing learning with our students. I have discovered that my students can teach me a lot about technology and how I can use technology to help them learn.

The dawn is rising for me, at last.

It also brings to mind the concept of the global village – the Web is allowing for increasing ways to interact with ‘strangers’ and learning from other cultures through virtual connections.

I found the metaphor of a toolbox intrigueing as it brings to mind what Alan November reiterated when he offered his lecture at ISM: Know what you don’t know. This has been my challenge – to discover what it is that I don’t know. How can I use the tools, if I don’t understand the problem first. So, technology is to me like looking into a car engine; I know the parts and most of the functions, but if something electronically were to go wrong I would not know what tool to use to fix the problem.

VOlP looks interesting, but I don’t fully understand its application. 

Where does Googledocs fit in? I find it a very useful teaching tool as it allows me to make comments to students writing while they are writing, which means the students benefit from immediate feedback. I also used it as a peer editing tool – go green – without having to print off multiple copies as students go through the editing process.

However, I’m also finding that there are some basic things I need to learn, such as how to use excel for graphing (macbook). In Science, the students have to draw line graphs of their results. Fortunately, they have learnt how to do it in IT classes (but not all). I have to rely on the students to teach each other and me how to draw graphs. 

I also wish I knew more about how to use Publisher to incorporate into my lesson materials for students. 

That is the best part of doing a course like this I suppose: discovering along the way what technology is truly applicable to my own learning to improve my teaching and to support IT development in my subject area.