Notas y mapas

Describe an activity that you could do using technology to support the familiar “Getting to Know You” tasks at the beginning of term. Identify the technology tool(s), how you would introduce the activity and the guidelines you would give to the students for completing the task. Also, describe how you would then follow-up on the activity to reinforce the opportunity for the students to learn about each other.

Padlet would be the technology tool I would use to have the students introduced themselves to the class. Here’s a sample. (Feel free to contribute.)

http://padlet.com/azmirta/ckfe6e7balu6

[padlet key=’ckfe6e7balu6′ width=’100%’ height=’480′]

Padlet seems to be very easy to use; but just to be as clear as possible, I would add a screencast of how to use it to this guide post. This is my preferred tool because the wall would be an interesting thing to look at, and students do not need to sign up for an account in order to write on the wall, so that would reduce the anxiety of those students who are afraid of technology.

The link for this activity would be available in the course site, probably a wiki. As a follow-up activity, a page in the site can be devoted to comments on the sentences the students posted on the Padlet wall. Students can discuss their impressions on the statements of their classmates. The objective of this activity is double; on one side students become aware of their motivations. On the other side, they can develop their own ideas about language learning from the comments of their classmates.

“If your school were bulldozed to the ground, what learning space would you design to replace it?”

Well, I graduated from one of the top universities in Canada. This university has strong research programs and it is pretty rare (but not impossible) to find spaces that are not suited for learning. There are several libraries on campus, but there is a special building where all kind of subjects can be studied, and language is one of those. It’s the BARBER LEARNING CENTRE (search this on flickr). In my view a language learning place should have the variety of spaces for the variety of uses this building has.

There are classroom for different group sizes, even auditorium-like rooms, there are tables (and couches!) for individual or group study on the halls. One of the most important library branches is there too. It also has the Learning Commons, a kind of computer room, and the Digital Media Commons. This “space includes four high-tech, acoustically buffered multimedia rooms and carrels that house Mac multimedia workstations with music editing software”. As most of the buildings on campus, it has Wi-Fi, which grants internet access to the academic community.

I taught in this building both formally and informally. I taught a Spanish half-course, and I tutored there. So I had the opportunity to take advantage of all the services. Both projectors and a reliable Internet connection were very useful to me. Little study rooms were very convenient for private lessons, as language students are always interested in some privacy for oral practice.

The University uses a LMS, and the bookstore offers all the tech equipment you may need for your learning purposes, from flash-drives and clickers to desktop computers and specialized software.

This space offers so much, that I cannot imagine it being bulldozed. Instead, I can summarize what makes it important as a model for a language learning facility:

• Rooms in different sizes holding one or two boards, head projectors, speakers, and comfy furniture for students and teachers that can be easily re-arranged for different learning activities.
• Access to reliable Internet connection and equipment (for examples, a set of tablets).
• Access to more sophisticated equipment for media production and edition.
• Tech support and training.
• Photocopiers, scanners and printers.
• Bathrooms, cafeterias, offices, and lots of natural light!