SAMR LP

SAMR conclude :

In this opportunity, I have modified this lesson plan I got from BBC British Council Teaching English to create a SAMR based activity. The topic is about Sea Creatures and the target are young learners at the age of 6-12 years old. Time Allocation is about 50-60 minutes. I would like to use the SAMR method to teach young learners because they can learn from the very beginning and it is important so that they can learn more actively and know more as it is easier to learn from the very young age than older ones.

Blended Learning

Bored with the same presentation? with the teacher centered class? with the classroom based class?
No worries, since Blendspace is now here!
Like what I have mentioned before. Blendspace did not require a classroom with teacher centered activity, instead you can bring the activity home and also do some interesting exercises. You will only need, 1. your gadget and 2. internet connection. And.. Walaa, you can make a completely different ways of teaching and of course it will decrease the boredom of your students and maybe also yours.

The learning goal of my blendspace is to help the students to learn about rooms (also some furniture inside the rooms) better and also easier by doing some exercises. The target are young learners, around 5 or 6 years old and included as novices. They are taking this class so that they can learn about the names of rooms inside their house.

In my blendspace, first I will show a video to trigger their general knowledge of the topic. Second, I will give them a small quiz about the video that I have shown before. Third, I will display a power point slides about the rooms and their furniture. After that, I will give them a link which leads directly to the website for the next activity. The activity is to hear and watch a video, and do the comprehension questions exercise after listening. Then, I will give them an exercise called fill-in-the-missing letters and check the answers afterward. Lastly, I will  give a last activity which is matching exercise and last slide to check the answer by using power point. When all the exercise has been displayed, the last row is about farewell and closing part by reviewing the lesson. I also include some instructions inside each slides on the description/notes box so that other teachers can use my blendspace with no or minimum difficulties. They will spend at least 30 minutes on doing the activities and I think it can be done in the class or as a homework after class.

I would like to use the technology to teach my students in the future. I think when I do so, the students will not get bored as the variations of the learning activities are changing from time to time. The internet connection might be the major problem for using this kind of teaching method but I think somehow we will figure out the way later. I like blendspace because it provides me the opportunities to  explore the way of teaching, it provides me with tools that I can directly use without changing the tabs which requires more time and energy, haha :). I think the students will adapt to it very quickly as the way of learning is much easier and fun I suppose. The resources are provided by more than one source of information, the information can be taken directly from tes resources, youtube, google, flikr, and many more. So, the information is fully covered, you can even put a website link on your slides. I think the autosaved need to be improved, because it is a crucial thing for saving our hard works. The autosaving sometimes got stuck and we need to refresh which means we will lost our work. It is better to give the save button also in the option so that we can try to save it again

link to my blendspace: https://www.tes.com/lessons/Qg0W1M2fy-K7rg/rooms-in-my-house 

Collaborative Writing with Google Docs

In this collaborative writing, I chose to be the Outlining Facilitator. My main job as the outlining facilitator is to structure the essay based on model argumentative essays. So, first I should show my group the examples of argumentative essays and the generic structure we should include. Also, I did some changes on my friends' works in order to make the essay better and coherent in the correct grammar. I also give contribution in giving opinion about the topic and how we should arrange the essay. 

We have fun on writing the essay, as the topic is related to our current situation, so it makes me especially, feel interested in the topic. I find it also exciting to do the teamwork in a far distance but still can communicate well and give comments to the writings. I think our group have successfully create the essay because we already follow the rules and structures of argumentative essay and also we work really hard on writing the essay.

I think the time is the major problem in our group, because not all of the member could join at the same time as we are busy with other thing outside the writing project. So, I think the unsuccessful one is the gathering time of working together and do the chit chat. What I kind of pity from the app is when you copy and paste someone's work to make the better arrangement, it will be yours and your friends' works will be gone. Although, in the other tools we could see who did the writing at what time but still, for me it is confusing. 

Based on my individual experience, I would like to use the technique for my students' assignment, because it is not only so simple but the contributions of each students are also clearly visible. I would ask them to do the work together and I will be present at the time to see their work. I would not give short period of time because the work consumes time, maybe a week and so so.

Here is the link to our collaborative writing: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ASo_yAn_PGfSG8W4UbRBJvmEMLWuHFzswLmQGip6c5M/edit#

Teaching Using Nearpod

Which one would you prefer?
All of your students pay attention to your board and do lots of work on the paper OR use gadgets to deliver your explanation to the students individually in their gadgets and do paperless work?
If you chose the second one, then Nearpod is one of your alternative apps.

Nearpod allows you to teach without using projector or LCD, you just have to connect all the gadgets of your students to your code of the class and the students can see what you see in your laptop. Well, you can actually use the LCD to perform the slides, but the students' gadgets are useless then. You can also add some small quizzes or exercises inside your Nearpod and paperless works here we go.

I will explain a bit about my Nearpod.
So in my Nearpod, my friend and I will teach about Procedure text to high school students grade 2. This is for the school learning type of setting as the material is used to be taught inside the classroom. Our target skills are reading and writing, while the component is grammar.

Here is a screenshot of my Nearpod:



The first step of our Nearpod is opening slide, which has the title of the topic materials. Then description, we used a video for the explanation. After that, we add some activity, which are multiple choices in a form of quiz. Lastly, we give a homework that we relate to British Council link. In the site, the students will have to see a video and then do some exercises bellow the video, and that's all. We only show and work on the lesson once and hopefully they can understand the lesson by the end of the lesson

I think making this kind of work is actually not so complicated because the template is basically there, we can also see the examples provided or from the other teachers. One thing that is a bit difficult for me is to organise the lesson and make the quiz because I have to think critically about the choices and the possible answers.

After doing the demonstration, I feel like I have to conquer my anxiety better next time and also the classroom management. But, I guess the most important thing to improve is the creativity of the teaching so that is not boring.

The link to my nearpod:
https://share.nearpod.com/vsph/LVdIT6QC5H

Flipped Classroom

ED Puzzle

 

According to wikipedia

Flipped classroom is an instructional strategy and a type of blended learning that reverses the traditional learning environment by delivering instructional content, often online, outside of the classroom. It moves activities, including those that may have traditionally been considered homework, into the classroom. In a flipped classroom, students watch online lectures, collaborate in online discussions, or carry out research at home and engage in concepts in the classroom with the guidance of a mentor.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_classroom  

So, flipped classroom is a simply switched classroom activities. The one that should be taught or explained by the teacher in the classroom will be learned outside the class or school time. Usually, they consider it as homework but only to hear or to discuss about the next topic given by the teacher. While in the classroom, the teacher will directly give the students some exercises regarding to the topic. So basically, the one that usually being taught at school (on traditional type of learning) will be the one that should be learned outside the class (homework) and vise versa.

I never experienced the flipped classroom yet while I was in my high school. But in the university, well, at first I don't know that the teacher used flipped classroom and just realized it now. It was my Pedagogy teacher. So she gave us the students some texts about the topic and we have to read it before the class started. After that, she asked us some questions about the texts and we have to know the answer, if no, she will consider us not reading the texts she have given. At the class, she did not explain anything except if someone ask about something or show difficulties.

I think this kind of technique can be effective enough to be applied, because it can save us some time to learn more. For Indonesian people, I guess if there's a will there's a way. I still think it would be effective to be applied in Indonesia if the students themselves have the will to learn.

The technique is quite simple, why? Because we can just prepare the materials and the students learn outside the class, then we prepare some exercises and done. As simple as that. But we have to remember there are some things we have to be careful of. The first one, make sure the students have the access to the materials. Second, make sure the materials are relevant and clear enough. Third, make sure that the students really read or discuss about the topic, maybe by using the same technique as my Pedagogy teacher. Lastly, make sure you have the access to reach all the students, so even tough they are not present in the previous class they still can learn about the materials.

I used ED Puzzle to help me creating one kind of flipped classroom. ED Puzzle is quite interesting for me. It gives us (especially new comers) a guidance for editing videos for listening comprehension which we will use for our flipped classroom in the future. It is super helpful for me as a new comer, since I did not know anything about how to use the tools inside the web. It also reccomend you some videos you can use for editing and some kind of examples inside. 

The tools inside ED Puzzle include:

 
1. Search: Where you can search for the other source of examples.
2. My Content: Where you can create the materials of your own.
3. My Classes: Where you can create the classroom type. (You can also change the subject of the materials and the targeted learners).
4. Share: The tool that allows you to share your masterpiece(s).
5. Your profile: Where you can change your setting and persnal data.
6. Log out button.

In my ED Puzzle here I will teach about how animals see the world. It is certain that I teach about science as the topic mentioned animals and the ability of their eyes. In my lesson, I hope that the students are able to identify the difference of sight between certain animals. So, the skill is certainly listening, the target of my teaching is senior high school students.

Here's the link to my Flipped Classroom:
https://edpuzzle.com/media/5a085c76b2f5df4109fca5a9

 

Memories of mine

Hi guys! Welcome back..
Today I want to introduce another technology we can use for teaching and learning, it's called "Adobe Spark". As what the name says, it's own by Adobe. Some of you might have heard about this, but for the others who don't I would gladly explain it to you..

So, Adobe Spark, from my experience it's like a best place to create digital storytelling videos. Where you can give photos and record your own voice. Not only videos, but you can also create a post or maybe pages, but I will focus on the videos.

Adobe Spark provides us with free account, the template and the story line are there already. So, you can use the available story line or you can actually create it yourself. You can choose your own theme and layout as well.

It's good for us to use this, especially if we are not too confident with our direct performances, it also let us train our fluency in speaking and our listening when we listen to other's story. Another benefits are we can share our opinion and story freely by using this application, also we can directly download the videos, free.

Every good things have flaws. So, here are some from my own opinion about Adobe Spark: The first one, since it's online you cannot use it as free as offline ones, you have to have internet connection and it should be a good one. Second, if you don't have the good connection or only so-so, the process of making the storytelling will be so slow and it sometimes lagging because it also auto saving (it happened to me :'( poor connection). Next, it limits the photo display for each layout or template you use, I don't really know but mine is like only 4 display choices for maximum 2 photos. There are also time limit for recording your voice and the slides are also limited. The last, The cropped image for the slides are too big, so we have to minimize it ourselves. It's okay tho for people who have great internet connection, but for me.. well I had to wait like 2 minutes for each time I click the minimize button and it's so desperating. But you know, I still in love with this website. Haha.

Here is the link of the website, feel free to make yours ^^
Adobe Spark

Here are the example of my storytelling by Adobe Spark, enjoy!

Me as a Child - Adobe Spark