Day 5 @NILE- The End of the First Week

Today started with an activity in which we,in groups, discussed various articles on blended learning and later on discussed the articles we took notes with the other groups. The activity was a bit long but we learned the details of other articles well. I was stunned with the article about using a blended learning program with taxi drivers in Turkey. 

What I learned from this activity was that " There is no RIGHT mix for the blended learning." One should create the right blend for the needs of their students&institutions. 

 In the second part of our lesson, we watched a video about the girls passing balls to each other.

We followed the instructions of the video but most of us missed the gorilla and the changing colours of the curtain and also the leaving lady.

what we learned from this was that we need to narrow down content while we are blending it as multitasking makes things a bit impossible ;)

NILE- Day 4

I created a video by using SNAGIT on our day 4

:)

NILE- Day3

Today has started with a very nice listening activity from www.breakingnewsenglish.com.  Although I have been using the site for a long time, I have learned two very nice traits of the site. As it comes to the activity, we took notes while we are listening. Upon listening the audio, Russel made us use our notes for the "text jumble" activity. Then we had another great activity called "missing letter". Both were engaging and fun activities that helped a lot of language processing go on. 

In the next session, we went deeper in Edmodo. We talked about how we can make the most out of "the wall" of Edmodo. We came up with some great ideas like:

• Posting pictures, videos etc. to have students describe it. 
• For feedback.
• By using "poll" option to start an activity, to get feedback etc.
• Word of the day
• 3 word story competitions. (3 words but not related to each other like pineapple- society- jacket)

Also Russel talked about the rules while we are using the wall:

1. We should be careful about the length of the activity.
2. We should give model answers to avoid misunderstanding.
3. We should know how to generate content or get from the other sites.
4. We should care about the quality of the questions we asked.

Aysun <3

NILE- Day 2

The day has a started a bit late for us, as we were not be able to cacth the bus and also there was an unexpected break of the the stop driver. Anyway as we get to the course, it had already started with a group discussion on "favourite technology-why they like it etc?

Except for the "Memrise" I have already known and used the other tools/websites. I have share my experiences on Voice thread with my colleagues and they seemed interested.

In the next lesson we talked more on blended learning, what it is and what it is NOT. Because most of the educators think that it is pure technology integration and technology revolutionise  the education. These thought are NOT correct as tech integration and technology use in the classroom is just rubbish without pedagogy.

We also talked about DELIVERY and PROCESS in blended learning. Apart from spoon feeding, delivery and the process of information can be done in an authentic way in which students can interact and the teacher becomes the facilitator.

What's more we talked about VLE's- Virtual Learning Environments.

In the last session we mostly talked about Edmodo, which I have experience on. also I have also written and presented a paper on the topic in Italy 2 years ago. We have practised different options of Edmodo. For example we created posts, polls, quizzes by using the website. Here I found a nice video on the basics of Edmodo, have fun ;)

The Edmodo Guides for Teacher from Muhammad Afif Hendrawan

Note to myself: I will make a presentation on Voice thread on Thursday, and I'm really excited about it ;)

NILE - Day 1 Reflections

Always the first days are hectic and there are many things to cover and clarify. We started our first day with a getting to know each other activity as you may guess but without using any technological devices. Although it took a bit long, it was not boring. I had the chance to meet nice people. 

Then we started talking about technology integration via "Today's Meet". We discussed why we integrate technology into ELT settings and also we discussed about the drawbacks of it. The use of the website as an online discussion board was nice, to the point and quick. By doing so we were able to catch up with the great ideas of our colleagues. 

First we discussed why technology integration should be done and the answers are thought provoking. Her are some examples:

• Appealing to students
• Keeping up with digital natives
• Mobility and flexibility
• It's motivating
• A way companies attract more students (distance is no longer a problem)
• Quick access to any info
• Fun factor
• Easy access
• Learner autonomy
• freedom to choose resources to learn from
• Work at own pace
• Instant feedback
• Cheap for intitutions to run
• Might replace teachers in future

And also we discussed the downsides of technology and we came up with these:

• Not to be seem stupid because they are not good at tech
• Find it distracting for the Ss
• Time consuming
• They find tech threatening which is known by the sts well and not by the teachers
• Tech becomes the purpose rather than the tool
• Information overload
• Too many apps platforms etc to choose from- it may be confusing
• Information is consumed ao quickly
• You may get the same results without tech

As you see, using technology has its advantages and disadvantages at the same time. In our institutions we are using technology as an integrated part f the curriculum. We have some hours allocated to tech supported activities which are lined with the outcomes of our program. But still there are some problems and I'm sure we will work them out in the future. 

Apart from technology in education, we started our own blogs as a reflection tool on our own learning. As I had experience on keeping blogs, I didn't have any difficulty in doing so.

I'm really curious about tomorrow's lessons as I really want to learn more about Blended Learning models. 

Aysun ;)