Opening Classroom Doors to the World

I found the blog and a wiki site of the Epic Romeo and Juliet Project. It illustrates how a teacher, Nicholas Provenzano prepares his students for the global world and develops their 21st century skills. He a high school English teacher trying new and innovative ways to connect his students to the world and literature around them. He is always looking for fun projects to collaborate on with different teachers. In this project, he connected two classrooms from two U.S. states via blogging and a wiki site to collaborate on the design and the performance of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet play and share the process of staging it via his wiki site, his students' blogs, photos, and videos. Read what a student wrote about the end of the project in the final post Romeo and Juliet Essay. Visit the Nerdy Teacher blog yourself and read more stories about innovative teaching in the 21 century classroom.

21st Century Literacy. Alan Tofler

I love this quote of the famous futurist, Allan Tofler, who said:

TWW: Life Beyond the Lecture Blog and a New Professional Connection

As always during the school breaks I sign up for different webinars to learn new things about teaching with technology. This winter break I signed up for a seminar about Voicethread, a wonderful program that allows you creating interactive learning teaching events and staying connected with the learners. I have been using Voicethread for a long time for my online and F2F classes and for my global projects at IT4ALL, International Writing Exchange or Moodle for Teachers. I enjoy using it because it combines the innovative pedagogy and the tools of the 21st century learners through audio, video, and written responses.

I signed up for a webinar Integrating VoiceThread into Your Campus-Wide Teaching ToolKit on January 12th at 3:00PM EST. My computer crashed right at the moment I was about to join the webinar. I missed it. When I got back in, I immediately contacted the website in regards of the recordings. That's how I met Michelle Pacansky-Brock. We were e-mailing each other back and forth. Michelle recommended to visit the VT website and view the previous webinars and also share the link to her Blog, Teaching Without Walls: Life Beyond the Lecture (Resources, tips, best practices and more for innovations in college teaching and learning.). I viewed a couple of webinars and was amazed at how similar our views are about pedagogy and the use of technology in teaching. Michelle was s a full-time art history professor at Sierra College (she taught a Art Appreciation course!) from 2002 to 2009 and now she is a doctorate student specializing in teaching instructors how to build community online with social media; and she is a learning consultant for VoiceThread.

Here is one of my VT lessons. I created it for my Methods class on Collaborative Learning.

I also used VoiceThread for running a global CT Netcity Project with Israel, China and Russia in 2009. I am excited to learn more about the tips and tricks of using VT in teaching and may be inspire my colleagues at MSMC to add it to our Teaching ToolKits college-wide.

A New Moodle Book: Moodle 2.0 Course Conversion

I am in the process of reading and reviewing a new book about Moodle titled "Moodle 2.0 Course Conversion: Beginner's Guide. A Complete Guide to Successful Learning using Moodle 2.0." It is written by Ian Wild, and will be published by PacktPub.

I am interested what the author has to say to what hhad been already written by William Rice in his book "Moodle 1.9 Teaching Techniques." it sounds intriguing, and promising. The author promises to enlighten the educators how to convert their courses to the new upgraded Learning Management platform. To be continued!

Authentic Learning: Transformation Level (5-8) | Arizona K12 Center

Authentic Learning: Transformation Level (5-8) | Arizona K12 Center

A wonderful example of using technology in teaching Social Studies lesson about Race.

Impressive and powerful!

Book Review. Science Teaching with Moodle: Raw

Book Review of Science Teaching with Moodle 2.0: RAW (Raw book by Vincent Lee Stocker)

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

This book is about using the new version of Moodle 2.0 in teaching science. The author gives a detailed explanation of the Moodle tools and resources in creating an interactive courses and classes for elementary or high school classrooms. Having a vast experience in teaching science with Moodle, the author provides a good overview of different aspects of interactive, engaging teaching and helpful tips for educators of how effectively use different tools and techniques. The book is written in a generic format and can be applied for designing a course using Moodle in any subject area.

When reading Stocker, it was comforting and inspiring to confirm some of my personal educational convictions and understanding of the constructivist nature of Moodle philosophy. I agree with the author’s position regarding the effectiveness of Moodle tools that allow teachers to create a collaborative classroom environment: these tools are discussed in chapters 3, 6, partially in chapters 8 (blogging, reflections, and blog commenting), chapter 9 (feedback, peer reviews, involving in creating quizzes, etc.). Augmented with pictures, the author provides clear steps explaining the HOW TOs of adding resources and activities on Moodle. The examples are based on the author’s teaching experience of science topics.

As I have just completed the development and teaching of a Moodle-based science methods course, myself, I was in a good position to compare notes with this resource. Indeed I found many similarities in the use of tools for my own teaching of a Science Methods course. Stocker does a good job of communicating the improvements found in Moodle 2.0, including such tools as wikis, blogs, etc. Several of the illustrated features sound very promising for empowering student learning: monitoring student learning outcomes and progress, integrated feedback, and specifying what activities and attainment in these activities have to be met for users to complete the course.

A raw book format implies that the author is still working on the book’s content and there is always room for improvements. What are the aspects of the book that need some change editing or perfection?

I think this book is more about Moodle 2.0 tools than it is about Science Teaching. I wish the author gave more examples from his Moodle course design, the Science assignments, the activities’ selection and the look of the Module patterns. By way of an example of what is missing from Stocker, here are two screen shots showing module formats from my own Science Methods course, which employs the following text book:.. Cited content from this volume is included in these screenshots.

Example 1: This illustrates the module format used for my Methods Course. The reader can see that the Module starts with an overview of the week’s learning outcomes and goals; highlighted terms are words from the course glossary; note that color coding is used consistently for various aspects of the course.

Example 2: The example below illustrates the use of external links, in this instance the Wordle word cloud site.

That such concrete illustrations are missing from the book is particularly surprising given the title “Teaching Science with Moodle.” I fully expected to learn from this book how to design a science course using Moodle 2.0, how to use the Moodle integrated tools to engage students in Science study and how to distribute use of such tools throughout the course, and so on.

It was refreshing to see a chapter about the tools and websites beyond Moodle. However, it would be more effective and useful if those Web 2.0 tools for science classrooms were classified by type and presented in a table or chart format – E.g., productivity tools, stimulating creativity sites, collaborative tools, science interactive websites, etc. By way of example, look at the table I created to compare and contrast the features of Web 2.0 tools (at: http://litacme21.pbworks.com/w/page/17924811/Web-20-Tools).

Last but not least, it was disappointing that there were typos, wrong words used, or Grammar errors in the book. Even "raw," a higher standard of professionalism is expected. Here are some examples of errors found in the text that suggest a need to proofread the work and make corrections before any copies are sold:

"Question Back" when Question Bank is intended (p99); "conditions very depending on the nature of the activity” when vary is intended (p. 113); "Blooms taxonomy" when Bloom’s taxonomy is meant (p.136) and " it is always goo to explain the reasons..." when good is meant (p. 184).

In conclusion, this book will be definitely helpful for the beginning teacher who desires to design an effective course with the constructivist Learning Management System Moodle. Stocker generously shares his ideas of building an aesthetically pleasant course with a productive, engaging learning/teaching environment. At the same time, the volume is indeed "raw;" perhaps too raw for publication without further improvement.

I am in the process of reading new Moodle books published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

More reviews are coming soon. Here are the new titles: Moodle 2.0 for Business Beginner's Guide, Moodle 2.0 Multimedia Cookbook and Moodle JavaScript Cookbook

Encouraging Student Creativity

I strongly believe in the importance of creative teaching. If a teacher creative and love to create, his or her students will be also creative. I came across this blog of a teacher who stimulates creativity of her students. Visit Mini Matisse and enjoy the selected music, creative assignments, videos and learning products that students are producing in Mrs. Hahn's class. There are no limits to student imagination and the flight of their ideas.