EDMedia Conference in June 2014 in Finland

I love attending the  EdMedia conferences. I have attended them probably four or five times. I enjoy the spirit, its friendly atmosphere, creative interaction and tracks it offers. I presented papers, co-presented a paper with my Russian colleague last year;  ran workshops two times, one with Dr. Nellie Deutsch, one (last year) by myself and have just submitted 3 proposals for the summer of 2014. A workshop on Moodle and WizIQ with and for Best Practices presentation with Nellie and one proposal with one of my research students who completed a summer research (SURE) project last summer about iPads.
I  posted a video-promotion about it on a new website called FipGrid. View it on the flipgrid site. I am there among four male educators who are planning to attend the conference and shared their experience with EdMedia. EdMedia 2014 org committee posted the links to EdMedia Facebook page, and added a hashtag for Twitter #edmedia on the main AACE conference website. That's how I found a FlipGrid greeting invitation.

But this blog is more about my collaboration with  one of my research students, Lindsay Bordonaro.
We worked during the summer of 2013 on the project titled "iPadagogy: The Expanding Use of iPads in the Elementary Classrooms."  She and Clarisa Rosario surveyed 50 teachers about how teachers use Web 2.0 and iPads in their classrooms. During May Lindsay and Clarisa created Google doc Survey of 43 questions and  offered it to teachers from different school districts in June and followed up the survey with face-to-face interviews with a few teachers. Of course, it was very hard to do because of the end of the semester. In July - August they both worked on the survey data, analyzing the results and designing the poster presentation for the college Symposium that was held in September.

I also encouraged both Lindsay and Clarisa to present at the virtual MoodleMoot conference in August. They both were brave enough to participate among experience educators and presenters.

I am excited about the possibility to bring a student to EdMedia conference. Lindsay's mother bought her a mini-iPad so that Lindsay could try the Apps out during her student teaching. Exciting!
More work if we are accepted. I am collecting the blogs of teachers who are using iPads in their classrooms. So much to analyze and learn from! Below is one:
iPads Improve Classroom Learning, Study Finds

Teaching to Common Core

More Resources on Teaching to Common Core. Be amazed by Symbaloo collection:



Access your bookmarks anywhere | iGoogle alternative: ""

More Google Products | Hapara

Greater visibility... Deeper Insights... More Impact with Google Products | Hapara. Effortlessly.

With HAPARA teachers collaborate among themselves, connected with students, their parents and interact with the content in the safe digital learning environment. A dream to come true!
I wonder if my college will support and implement this on our campus...



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ClassBadges

Implementing the principles of gamification and making the learning process engaging, teachers can create badges using ClassBadges site and award learners for their progress and achievements. Students LOVE games and overcome difficulties, complexity levels in video or digital games. They will be thrilled unwrapping the mysteries, complexity levels of learning and getting badges in the classrooms!

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Collecting News with Newsfeed - Newsle

A very interesting way to share your thinking and connections in the professional field with newsfeed - newsle. If you have facebook and LinkedIN accounts Newsle does it for you. Amazing!

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Create! Engage! and Assess! It is Epic!

I have just learned about the new iOS application and website called Newrpod. It is Phenomenal!
Just what teachers need in order to change the way traditional classrooms are run.

It is a multi-platform! You can connect your i-Devices (iPhone, iPad, android, PC/Mac), design engaging presentations with multi-media (videos, images, websites, etc.), integrate polls, quizzes, and assign interactive homework assignments expecting the answers coming to your e-mail box.
I was so excited about the program that immediately joined the site, created account, downloaded the Nearpod App to my iPad and attended the Webinear with Edward Zelarayan.
Create! Engage! Assess! with the mobile devices. Below is the certificate of participation in the webinear.

I cannot wait to try it out with my students and during the presentations at the conferences.
I also shared the link to the Nearpod on my sharedby website 

Sharing is Caring

A new semester, new classes, new teacher candidates.
This entry is a show case for my Social Studies Methods class - adding/hiding links in the words/phrases Dr. Smirnova's Blog, adding images.

and

embedding videos and voki in the blog posts.

Have you heard about Jane McGonial's life story? Have you seen her TED presentation? You should see it! It is so inspirational and energizing and most of all, it is enlightening. She had a brain injury, was suicidal, etc. What saved her? She created a...

Better listen to her story

And read this blog: Show Me the Science! Resilience, games, post-traumatic growth, and more 

Week Three: Reflections on "The Game Elements for Learning" Micro-MOOC 2013

This is the last week of the Game Elements for Learning micro-mooc designed and held on Canvas.net by the Micro-MOOC Masters (see below). This is the time for the feedback and reflection. We were given several opportunities and ways to reflect and share the learning experience in GE4L course.

My Reflections on the course learning outcomes:

It was an interesting and challenging experience. I enjoyed taking challenges and sharing my experience with the learners on the ways I used game elements and plan to gamify my courses. 

I studied the provided on the course site, explored on my own, and bookmarked tons of resources about game-based learning, gamification; I learned and had a chance to interact with the experienced gamers Gerol Petruzella, Pete Rorabaugh and Jesse Stommel  with their Twitter vs Zombies (Hybrid Pedagogy), watched TED videos with Tom Chatfield and Jane McGonigal, I read the blogs of the game-based learning supporters. I learned another LMS platform, Canvas, and realized how I love designing my courses with Moodle. I can't wait to see the upgrade of our current Moodle 1.9 to Moodle 2.5 that supports gamification elements -- point system, badges, leaderboards, etc.

I truly enjoyed weekly twitterchats with the game design experts and our MOOC masters, and the course-mates who were sharing their insights and more resources. 

This course encouraged the learners to search for games, web tools, research tools and literature and promoted our collective intelligence on the topics of the course and engaged us in collaboration, creative sharing and new ideas' exchange.

I realized that I am a poor test taker. My entrance course quiz results were better than the final quiz results. I am not trained in taking multiple choice tests. That's why I do not use MC tests in my courses, I use them only for students' self-learning (I invite students to visit the course textbook  site and take the chapters' test). Teacher candidates complete the tests for their own check for understanding purposes and reflect on what they have learned  in the course designing the digital artifacts and adding them to their course blogs.

I had a better time creating the Game Elements for Learning QR treasure hunt on the course concepts and shared it on the Canvas forum. I also shared my ideas of how to use twitter capabilities in my future course in the fall. 

Here what I wrote:

"I am thinking of using TweenTribune (based on Twitter concept) for my Methods of Social Studies classes. Future teachers will participate in reading the news and posting their comments on TweenTribune.  A reward system will be designed for posting a certain number of comments on the site and for the feedback on other posts; badges/certificates will be created for the masters of the TweenTribune news for the best posts, for the best feedback, for the comments on the children's posts or other TweenTribune achievements."

And immediately got a response from Michelle Pacansky-Brock

1:57pm

I am just so excited that you shared this site with me -- what a great, collaborative project. Student-generated news. I love it! I'm going to make this the homepage on my family's computer.

I can see how your game will incentivize participation on the site. Great idea to get future teachers involved, Ludmila.

Michelle

Thank you Michelle for the feedback and all masters for all your encouragement throughout the GE4L mooc.

 Kudos to the Mooc masters for designing and facilitating the course during these intense 4 weeks of July. It was a rewarding learning experience!

Academic Partnerships (AP) is a leading higher education service provider working exclusively with public universities in the United States and outstanding higher education institutions around the world to help them benefit from this global phenomenon. “The great enabler today in higher education is online learning which vastly expands access to our partner institutions,” says Randy Best, founder and chairman of Academic Partnerships. “We are helping public universities transition to a much more inclusive and sustainable model.”

The Academic Services and Learning Technologies team, led by Chief Academic Officer Dr. Charles Green, is focused on providing value through research, development, and innovation that benefits our partner faculty and students. We future-proof Academic Partnerships with new models for delivery, new technology tools, compelling mobile applications, and the design and development of learning communities that position AP as a global thought leader in higher education.

The Academic Partnerships’ (AP) Faculty eCommons is  a social learning “ecosystem” for faculty across the globe to learn, collaborate and share research about effective online teaching and learning. The eCommons offers research, guidance, professional development, and national quality standards to assist faculty in preparation and evaluation of their online courses and programs.

Robin Bartoletti

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Robin Bartoletti is the Director of Online Quality and Community at Academic Partnerships. Ms. Bartoletti manages and administers the Faculty eCommons and other related projects. Robin is experienced in K-12 and university-level distance education. Prior to working as an instructional designer, Ms. Bartoletti was a faculty member teaching Master's Level educational technology and information science at Northeastern State University and the University of North Texas. She was recently selected as a research fellow at TheTexas Social Media Research Institute (TSMRI). She has presented at national conferences on the topics of online education, quality in course design, social media and many others. Ms. Bartoletti has a master’s Degree in Information Science from the University of North Texas, Post Masters Certification in Digital Content Management and is a PhD candidate at Texas Woman’s University.

Whitney Kilgore

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Whitney Kilgore is the Vice President of Academic Services at Academic Partnerships.  Ms. Kilgore more than 10 years of experience in educational technology leadership in both Higher Education and K-12.  She has made numerous presentations around the country on topics such as: retention, mobile technology, engaging learners, and expanding your personal learning network.  She has co-facilitated numerous MOOCs (Engaging Technology and Online Pedagogy, Learning Open Educational Resources, and Instructional Design for Mobile Learning). She is a member of the Sloan Consortium, EDUCAUSE, and is a Quality Matters certified peer reviewer. Ms. Kilgore received a post-graduate certificate in Educational Technology Leadership from George Washington University, and holds a M.S. in Curriculum and Instruction from Texas A & M Corpus Christi. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Learning Technologies at the University of North Texas.

Dr. Melissa Kaulbach

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Dr. Kaulbach has been in the education industry for twenty three years. Experiences in education include: Educational Consultant, University Director of Internships, University Instructional Specialist, University Director of Faculty Training, University Instructional Associate, and University Adjunct Professor. She has presented at numerous conferences and has served on university-wide committees including: University Accreditation Committee, University Curriculum Redesign Committee, University Rubric Development Committee, Representative for a university at the Ohio Board of Regents (OBR), and a Representative for a university at the Illinois State Teacher Certification Board (STCB). Dr. Kaulbach is interested in research that focuses on improving the student experience in adult learning environments. She is specifically interested in strength-based education that allows students opportunities to learn in their desired mode of instruction with an emphasis on their preferred learning style, while infusing technology into the online curriculum.

Dr. Heather Farmakis

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Heather Farmakis, Ph.D has extensive experience in professional development, distance learning and online instructional design. Dr. Farmakis is an adjunct professor at Lynn University where she currently teaches graduate courses in technology. For over 10 years, she has worked for the School District of Palm Beach County. Dr. Farmakis has conducted extensive research resulting in her dissertation titled "Investigating the Impact of E-Learner Cognitive Style on the Predictive Value of Student Success in Online Distance Education Courses". Dr. Farmakis currently serves on many dissertation committees assisting doctoral candidates in their topic. She has presented at national and state conferences on professional development and online learning.  She is the author of iLearn: Tips and Tricks for Online Learners.

Michelle Pacansky-Brock

Twitter
LinkedIn

Michelle Pacansky-Brock is a noted college educator and online faculty development specialist.  Michelle has received two Sloan-C awards for her online teaching effectiveness and has spoken nationally at conferences and faculty development engagements. Currently, Michelle is Director of Academic Services at Academic Partnerships, online Associate Faculty at Mt. San Jacinto College, and is completing her EdD in Educational Leadership and Management on a full, merit-based scholarship at Capella University. She is also the author of Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies .

     

Thank you!

July is winding down. I have to design a new course and add it to Moodle. For the first time I will teach Psychology of Learning and definitely game-based learning will be one of the topics and I will add the game elements to the course. I will also have to upgrade the syllabus of the Teaching Methods of Social Studies course. I will be teaching two sections of it in the fall.  I plan to gamify them as well. I teach the courses for elementary school teachers and feel that this is a great time for developing kids' imagination, creativity and collaborative skills. I plan to play a lot in my classes. I am inspired and equipped!
Off to work on the courses design! 

Understanding Quest Based Learning Week 3 in GE4L Micro-MOOC

I am in the third week of the Micro-MOOC on Game Elements for Learning on Canvas LMS. I joined it because I am interested in effective ways of educating future teachers and because I am a lifelong learner, I am game to learn. This is the first summer in 12 years that I am not teaching. A great time to LEARN!

The masters of the course provided us with a lot of resources and challenges to overcome and offered different venues for achieving our personal goals. We are connected via Canvas official space for the course and also via Twitter using #GE4L, via personal blogs and forum discussions. Canvas is an LMS platform similar to Moodle or Blackboard. I am still learning the tools and interface of Canvas. I am a fan (expert!) of Moodle and think it is an easier and more user-friendly platform for a course design.

I have been collecting the resources about gaming, game-based learning, game elements, and the gamification principles. It is now the time to stop and ponder a little about what game-based learning is about.

First of all the terms: game-based learning and gamification. I had a conversation/discussion with my husband, Michael Edelstein, a more than 40 years experienced college professor. He was trained in the school of Kurt Lewin, the founder of social psychology and group dynamics. Being a follower of Lewin, Mike uses the term game-based learning and supports the idea of real life situations, experiential learning where learners do not rely on the extrinsic factors like rewards, points, etc. He was using some elements of games in his courses that encourage students' self-search, self- and others' exploration and etc. when I told him about Gerol Petruzella and his philosophy course based on Dungeons and Dragons, he immediately got interested and said that that game is surely can be used in the ethics course design.

I like this presentation of Gerol at the INSTRUCTURE conference this summer:



Mike hasn't heard the term gamification. I shared my understanding of the terms.
Game-based approach means to me using a FULL game suitable for the course content with its roles, rules, levels, etc. and engaging students in it for learning.
Gamification means taking some elements of the game design and applying them to a non-gaming environments. Somebody shared this MindShift blog post in our GE4L course where a good explanation of the differences is provided.

I shared my experience with gamification in my course design on the GE4L discussion forum:

"I think gaming is in my blood. I started my educational career back in Russia in 70s as a pioneer leader at a prestigious English language school. I designed games to engage students in social activities to help them learn to stay active, curious and become leaders. When I became a student of the School of Foreign Languages I was assigned to supervise a summer teacher training camp. I used the same approach: future teachers played roles of their future children and participated in the activities as children to learn the rules and conditions of  summer camp life. We created troops, followed the routine of a summer camp, arranged the activities that teacher candidates would be organizing for their kids, etc. That environment was very powerful. When I became a University professor, I taught English through songs, games, simulations and role pay to immerse English learners in authentic socio-cultural situations. After defending my theses in Educational theory and Practice, I gamified my education classes to immerse teacher candidates in the pedagogical situations for them to learn about children and effective teaching. I am in the U.S. since 2000. I first started teaching the Russian language and I applied similar approaches. The results were amazing. Learners mastered the Russian language through Russian games, songs, real life situations, and role playing. The final exam was a Russian fable in rhyme "Mukha-Tsokatukha" that the lcourse participants had to first learn, understand, memorize and perform to the college community. The main result was I found my wonderful husband through gaming. He had the main part in the Tussian fable and learned the main words in Russian -- how to propose! I was flattered by his Russian and agreed to marry him!  

Anyway, I believe in the power of gaming in education. Last semester I used BizWorld projects in my Social Studies methods classes to teach economics and entrepreneurship. Three of my classes were challenged to create companies in the elementary school classrooms:  Friendship Bracelets companies in the second grade, Movie production companies in the fourth grade and Investments Teams in the 5-6 grades. What an experience it was! Both teacher candidates and school children were learning through real life business situations, facing challenges of communication, team work responsibilities and reliability, the grounds and consequences of competition.  

I am taking this course to learn more about gaming in the new digital context. I have already read a lot since the beginning of this course and am finding more and more resources on the course gamification. Here is one with the list of ideas and apps to help meaningfully integrate augmented reality into education: "Meaningful Integration of AR.

Gaming is very powerful. There is a lot of research on the benefits of gaming in learning. Beow is the infographic poster illustrating it.

Attribution to OnlineColleges.net for this graphic.




I also like the term "quest-based learning" that is discussed in this slideshare article by Chris Haskel.

Playing with Flavors.Me in #GE4L course!

I have just joined  "Game Elements for Learning" (GE4L) course on Canvas. This is the zero week of the four week mini-mooc. One of the assignments in the first week is, of course, introducing yourself using digital tools.
We were recommended to use About Me or Flavors.Me sites. I have already had About me profile created. So - I played with FlavorsMe. Here it is:

Ludmila Smirnova: I am an educator with a a lot of educational experience in a diverse cultural and educational, F2F and virtual contexts.
The gaming fun has begun!

Ludmila Smirnova's Vizify Bio | Overview

Every day I learn something new and immediately try it out.

Today I learned about Vizify and Twitter video tools. It took me seconds to create a graphic bio and a Twitter video. It was fun!

 Ludmila Smirnova's Vizify Bio | Overview:

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IC4LE about Rigor, Relevance, Relationships

I came across this research article that discusses three Rs of current situation in education. I plan to discuss it with my fall Social Studies methods classes. This is a DIIGO link that will allow to highlight, add sticky notes, and more..

International Center for Leadership in Education - Rigor, Relevance, Relationships

Teachers Love Freebies

This is a very informative and generous blog. It has a lot of creative ideas and useful tools.

Bokmark and subscribe to this blog.

Teacher Trap: freebies:

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Creativity Course in Creativity - Reframing the Problem by Amin Saberi

Our college is promoting a creativity initiative on campus. A group of faculty got together to discuss what creativity means and how to encourage professors stimulate creative efforts of students in their courses and in extra-curricular activities. In April we had a week of creative projects shared with the college community within a Library week. The students from my classes contributed a lot to the events during this week. I am sharing this video to ponder more on what creativity means and how design my courses to encourage creative efforts of pre-service teachers.

Teacher Appreciation Week song --Test Me, Baby! by Kelley Jo

Teacher, Teach Your students so that You Would Be Able to Learn From!

 There is a saying in Russia, "Teacher, teach your students so that later on you would be able to learn from them!"  I have just experienced a moment of bliss when Rebecca, my former student (graduated in 2005), came to my current graduate class and shared her phenomenal teaching experience in her second grade classroom.

The teacher candidates were blown away by what Rebecca had to say. She designed a prezi with the fragments of her teaching philosophy and her approach to educating, as she said not just students, but Human Beings! "Yes, Rebecca continued, there is a Common Core standards initiative you have to implement, the guidelines to follow...but there is also the CORE in you, who you are; do not loose it, apply your talents and skills to teaching your little human beings about life, instill in them a spirit of discovery, curiosity, sense of community, belonging, ownership and a sense of WONDER!" It was an amazing talk!
Below is the prezi  of Rebecca's talk with the pictures of her second graders and her WONDER-full classroom.



It was such a pleasure to see Rebecca and hear her creative ideas about teaching! She shared a lot to learn from! She was so inspirational and wise! It was an unforgettable experience!

This was a great finale for the course.

Global Education in Action

Global Education, global classrooms, global citizenship, global thinking -- these are new concepts of the current world we live. World is really becoming small with the new technologies and Internet. My Literacy and Technology class is participating in the global project, called Flat Classroom with July Lindsay, Vicki Davis and Lisa Durff. In the previous semesters I engaged my classes in the projects with Russia via Skype and WiziQ ("It's a Small world" The Moscow Institute of The International Relations); with Japan, China, Germany, France and Israel in IWE (International Writing Exchange Project), etc. It is exciting to open the doors to the world and expose students to different cultures, traditions, life styles and world view. Below is an example of a global collaboration between schools and students. Wikispaces and Glogster are used for students' interaction and project exchange.




PenPals2012 - home:

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BizWorld Programs at Bishop Dunn Memorial School

Since February 4th my three Social Studies methods classes were designing and implementing the lessons for the students of the three classrooms at Bishop Dunn Memorial School in Newburgh, NY. It was a great experience! In a way, it was an experiment. Instead of having the fieldwork in the end of the course, I started the semester with the fieldwork. Besides, teacher candidates were learning the content of the Bisworld programs and applying their new knowledge through designing 3 lessons each week: the direct instruction lessons to introduce and drill the new concepts; the inquiry lessons for students to explore and apply concepts they learned earlier in the new situations, and the cooperative learning lessons to engage students in creative tasks assigned by teacher candidates, bizworld-consultants. The three BizWorld programs were: BizWorld project in the second grade, where students were learning about economics, entrepreneurship via creation of friendship bracelets companies. BizMovie project in the 4th grade via starting movie production companies and creating movies. The third project was called BizWiz, in which older students, from 5th and 6th grades were exploring the investment strategies, investment trends and trading techniques. Below is the smilebox creation featuring the participants of the projects.

Create your own free picture slideshow

The Goal of Teaching is Learning!

http://flippedlearning1.wordpress.com/ 

The audio-article I found on the Internet supports my philosophy of teaching, it is about learning and placing the learners in the center of the pedagogical process, not about teaching.
Hear it for yourself!

Turning Learning Right Side up!

Reflective Writing: Academic Skills Crucial for Becoming Successful Teachers

In my teaching practice I have noticed that teacher candidates in general are lacking reflective writing/thinking skills. I introduced blogging in all of my classes to help future teachers develop these crucial skills and become reflective practitioners.  I like the Bloom's taxonomy levels applied to the Reflection practice. Below is the picture of these levels designed by Peter Pappas

I share the following examples of the reflective writing with the color-coded comments provided in the following resource:

Reflective Writing :: Academic Skills Resources, The Learning Centre UNSW

10 Ways to Use Lucidchart Online Graphic Organizers in the Classroom : Teacher Reboot Camp

I am a big fan of Shelly S Torrel's blog or FB posts about the new technology tools. Below is the blog post about the role of graphic organizers in effective teaching. Specifically, she introduces a new web 2.0 FREE tool called LucidChart Graphic organizer.

10 Ways to Use Lucidchart Online Graphic Organizers in the Classroom : Teacher Reboot Camp:

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