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Post by halafawzi on Feb 2, 2010 9:50:43 GMT -5
Gray Harriman's on e-learning resources answers very useful questions about the blended learning. www.grayharriman.com/blended_learning.htmAfter taking this workshop: # Will be thinking about integrating blended learning in your teaching? # How are you going to create your blended learning course? # What tools are you going to use? # What are the advantages and challenges of using blended learning in your context?
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Post by carlosbarrera1975 on Feb 12, 2010 17:40:20 GMT -5
1. What is "blended learning"? The combination of online and face to face tools in a class just to provide the best learning experience for the students. 2. Bearing in mind your student population, do you plan to introduce blended learning to them? If so, what activities will you start out with? I have been doing this for the last 4 months. I have used Moodle and gmail, google docs, hotpotoes for surveys. The first tool in my case would be email and then chatroom. 3. Which of the tools that you've explored in BaW10 do you consider more appropriate for those activities and how will they be used? I really liked Elluminate and Wiziq. I ahve taken part in both and they are quite useful and the experience is like being in the classroom. Wiziq lets me use different tools and Elluminate we can add sound from the students. Wiziq can let student suse the whiteboard and elluminate as well. Little by little with Elluminate we can start using voice.
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Post by attilio on Feb 14, 2010 5:52:54 GMT -5
1. What is "blended learning"? Apart from the different definitions which can be found in the Web (all of them containing key words like ‘combined methods’, ‘interactive learning environments’, ‘synchronous and asynchronous instruction’, ‘F2F + online’), I learnt more from this wiki: blendedlearning.wikispaces.com/What+is+Blended+Learning The section ‘A better example’ was for me really illuminating! 2. Bearing in mind your student population, do you plan to introduce blended learning to them? If so, what activities will you start out with? I started introducing some simple blended learning activities three years ago, creating a wikispace for my EFL students, in which activities made with lots of other tools can be easily embedded. Before attending this great BAW 2010 course, I had already experienced working with Hotpotatoes, Voki, Voicethread, Mystudiyo, Classmarker, Elluminate (in an intercultural project called ‘Uniting People Through Literature’) and started a conference with Yahoo Messenger (between Italian and American high school students). In the next months I’d like to try some nice tools I have learnt during these weeks (see next answer). 3. Which of the tools that you've explored in BaW10 do you consider more appropriate for those activities and how will they be used? Thinking of how motivating and involving my students, I feel that Glogster, Goanimate, NineHub, Google documents, Comicstripgenerator and LingtLanguage might be the best for them. ATTILIO
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Post by Maru on Feb 14, 2010 20:44:05 GMT -5
Hi Atilio and Carlos!
It's great to have your answers right at the start of the week, congratulations! Both f you have a lot of experience with Blended Learning.
I see that Carlos goes for Virtual classrooms while Attilio goes for easy to embed tools to motiva students.
I hope you both can join us at the live session to share your experience!
See you around! P.S. Sorry I logged in as guest
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Post by mlujan on Feb 16, 2010 6:34:01 GMT -5
1. What's blended learning? Blended learning is a mixture of f2f and online teaching / learning. 2. Bearing in mind your student population, do you plan to introduce blended learning to them? If so, what activities will you start out with? I've been working with blogs and interactive exercises for a while, and will continue to do so. However, I'm going to try wikis this year. I think a wiki will make things easier for me and my Ss, since many problems arose when they had to create their own blogs (however much user friendly blogger is, it was very difficult for them to create an e-mail account, to remember passwords... then I discovered that my "digital native's" only knowledge was to watch videos on You tueb, commenting on their Photoblogs or playing around with facebook!). So, my idea is to have a "classwiki" with an editable pag for each group to work on. As regards VLE, I don't think they'll work in our secondary schools contexts, and in addition to this, I don't have the necessary skills nor expertise to handle them (yet!) 3. Which of the tools that you've explored in BaW10 do you consider more appropriate for those activities and how will they be used? I agree with Atilio that Glogster and GoAnimate can be really engaging and motivating, since they give Ss the chance to be creative and learn at the same time. I also like Proprofs, ESL videos and Lingt.
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Post by marudelcampo on Feb 16, 2010 10:57:02 GMT -5
Hi Mlujan!
I see what you mean with blogs, I've suggested stds to use the same password everywhere, somehow the idea doesn't seem to appeal to them. You're so in the spot when you mention our "digital native" online skills, a strong reason to use fun tools.
All the best with your class wiki! I'd suggest you to create one with the contents of your class and to link to the sidebar another one for your students. In that way the content won't get messed up while they learn how to use the wiki.
Besos. Maru
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Post by Mounia on Feb 16, 2010 20:38:14 GMT -5
Hello all, I've read the two first articles so far and I admit that I've learned new things about blended learning. So, I'm going to try to answer week 6 questions my way 1. What is "blended learning"? For me BAW is a good example of what blended learning is. It's learning within a global community whereby some new tools are explored, used and shared. So, networking is involved, virtual meetings and online discussions are taking place and much collaboration is needed. Each member in the community is working at his/her own pace but there should be some concret achievements at the end of the courses. Most importantly, feedback and assessment come as a final step for further applications and future plannings. 2. Bearing in mind your student population, do you plan to introduce blended learning to them? If so, what activities will you start out with? I've already started planning some activities using some of the new explored tools. So, preparing exercises using web 2.0 tools, using some blog and wiki to work on topics and discuss them, using some virtual classroom and meeting online, using audio and visual tools to experience with some joyful and funny assignements, and get their opinion using some survey tool. More would come later as I need to go back to my archive and try out more others ;D 3. Which of the tools that you've explored in BaW10 do you consider more appropriate for those activities and how will they be used? I liked lingt, googledocs, zoomrang, voxopop, elluminate, wiziq, pbworks, edublog, ICA, snapvine, voicetread, mystudiyo, discoveryschool, hotpotatoes.... Regards Mounia #evomlit
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Post by mlujan on Feb 17, 2010 5:54:00 GMT -5
Thanks for the advice, Maru. I hadn't thought about that, and you're right! Everything could end up messed up if ss have to edit the samen wiki where I put my content! All of a sudden, I pictured the situation in my head =teacher going insane =)) LOL!
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Post by vesile on Feb 19, 2010 9:06:47 GMT -5
1. What is blended learning? It is a combination of F2F learning with online learning.
2. Bearing in mind your student population, do you plan to introduce blended learning to them? If so, what activities will you start you with? We have already had a site at our school to assign worksheets and students can download their worksheets which usually have videos or listening activities. We were also given a short workshop about Hotpotatoes last term but I have tried it just once. Now I think I’ll try to do more online activities for my students, especially using more authentic audio and visual materials.
3. Which of tools that you’ve explored in Baw10 do you consider more appropriate for those activities and how will they be used? I am not really sure about that because I have learned lots of new things and met with many different sites. Since the idea is to motivate and encourage the students and make them more active in learning a language I’ll use voxopop, voicethread, mystudio, and more hotpotatoes and videos and later o, I’ll see what I can do more.
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Post by marudelcampo on Feb 19, 2010 13:48:45 GMT -5
Hi Mounia and Vesile!
My best advice to you is to select a new tool you feel comfortable with, practice a bit more with it and then introduce it to your students. Some tools require several steps to register as user and I've seen that sometimes this discourages students.
I've observed that if I'm f2f with them while SS learn their first steps with the tool they usually continue using it with confidence from home or wherever they have Internet access. Of course, sometimes it's not possible due to time or facilities constraints but it pays off.
Wishing you all the best. Besos
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Post by Mariana on Feb 20, 2010 3:36:24 GMT -5
"Adults don't just "learn" in one way. Likewise, associations should not make the mistake of providing just one way for adult learners to receive their educational content."
I got interested especially in this phrase, as I teach adults myself, and I was thinking if I should try to implement a blended program with them.
1. What is "blended learning"? My own understanding of this term resumes to a combination of f2f clasroom activities and online assignments/forums/interactions.
2. Bearing in mind your student population, do you plan to introduce blended learning to them? If so, what activities will you start out with?
First of all, I need to make sure they all have the Internet connection and try to draw their interest in such type of learning. Then, I will begin with small assignments, like sending their written assignemts via skype or email.
3. Which of the tools that you've explored in BaW10 do you consider more appropriate for those activities and how will they be used?
- I would like to create a blog, where my students could post comments and ideas. - Podcasts for listening. - Voxopop for speaking.
Thanks, Mariana
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Post by eannegrenoble on Feb 21, 2010 6:20:22 GMT -5
# Will be thinking about integrating blended learning in your teaching? I have been integrating a little blended learning into my courses for Physics students at the university for three years now. Mainly using pbwiki. with a voicethread the first year... Although the students did write on their own page, only 5 out of the total 80 students actually left a message on that voicethread. This year I am using pbwiki as an easy blog... each student made their own (in class time) and linked it to the page for their class on the shared wiki for the five groups of students. They are then free to invite the others or not, and I have been reading lots of interesting tales of round-the-world-trips and other things I never dreamt the students would share with me. I simply correct the English on their page, and they use the "page history" function to check out the corrections. In a course for doctoral students, I got the students to introduce themselves on Voxopop before the course began .. and "knowing" each other before the first lesson sent the (short) course off to a great start. So far, I have only used the "class" wiki to sent them links to try out things like the BBC learning English site, or the games on the OUP course books site... though it was great to be able to embed the video we had seen in class for the weaker students to be able to see it again. Obviously, working with University students is a lot different to REALLY teaching English to children ! my guys have been learning English for up to 11 years, and are extremely numerous not being able to communicate in English ! Introducing an online element to the course has been extremely positive for their self-assurance. (while those that are practically bilingual still get something out of my lessons - so I guess a major advantage is that it has made it far easier to personalise the teaching/
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Post by beabees on Feb 21, 2010 11:04:14 GMT -5
1. What is "blended learning"? The Free Dictionary defines blend as “To combine (varieties or grades) to obtain a mixture of a particular character, quality, or consistency” and I think that, in terms of learning and/or teaching, it means picking varieties of tools, strategies, methodologies, etc. to obtain a consistent learning process and outcome particular to each student’s profile. This is a short definition but each ingredient should be developed. THANK YOU TO THE ORGANIZERS AND MODERATORS TO SHOW US SOME MANY OF THESE INGREDIENTS. 2. Bearing in mind your student population, do you plan to introduce blended learning to them? If so, what activities will you start out with? I teach adults on a one-to-one basis. These adults usually need to travel a lot so, in order to keep the pace, we blend face-to-face and online classes. When online, we can have synchronous classes on Skype or MSN, and I also guide them through resources (listening, reading, grammar, videos, and exchanges) so that they can study on their own, according to their learning pattern. Now I’m happy I attended this BAW session because it showed me some new learning environments in action, such as the virtual classrooms. 3. Which of the tools that you've explored in BaW10 do you consider more appropriate for those activities and how will they be used? Wiki is a tool I’ve been using for some time now and I find it adapted to the kind of teaching I practice because my students and I can easily find the support needed for a specific purpose. I really enjoyed the virtual classroom environments which make the class seem more personal and interactive, and the voice tools to improve asynchronous communication for those who mainly need listening and speaking skills. I will also look into the Google apps presented in the live session this week to adapt them to one-to-one.
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Post by carolina on Feb 24, 2010 19:21:50 GMT -5
I think Charles Graham´s work about blended learning is very clear because it offers specific information. Actually, the three definitions that are discussed in the article clarify all the assumptions implied in this type of learning. I easily understood this topic because of this article.
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