This year I discovered a European website - called EMMA- which provides MOOCs, many have to do with education and learning. It is a useful website which can enhance our learning and help us develop as teachers and life-long learners.
EMMA is an innovative platform that provides free MOOCs. Some are self-paced - this implies that we can choose when to do the MOOC. I could enroll to do the MOOC about E-Portfolios before the summer but only in December I could work on the lessons as I was busy while working at school. If you do 70% of the activities you are given a certificate of attendance.
The course online was released in 2015 but they offered a " Self-development course" in 2016 too:
We had to watch videos, reflect on what we had seen and think about our ideas about ePortfolios.
Lessons were presented by providing an introduction, videos and a lot of links and documents online.The tutors made a list of sources for each lesson and I must admit that I bookmarked them as I am going to check them later.
The overall framework was clear and well-organized. I must admit that I have been given a great introduction to what is now required at work,at school and at university too.
Definition of e-Portfolios
EPortfolios have been used for showcasing learner work and to support formative or summative assessment processes.
Now ePortfolios offer many more possibilities like storing, archiving, thinking, reflecting, storytelling, collaborating and publishing about one's learning experiences.
E-Portfolios can show your achievements, your reflections and what you have been doing as part of your professional development
This is an interesting use of Portfolios and I think that we will be required to use them in our profession: this is what I have been doing when I do MOOCs online and in many cases I have been asked to reflect online and share my reflections after attending some conferences online.
ePortfolios Ownership We can have different types of Portfolios: - Individual ePortfolio - Institutional / Organization ePortfolio A good example is the European Language Portfolio - Individual ePortfolio within an institution/organization
I am already familiar with the European Language Portfolio:
In Education ePortfolios offer the opportunity to create and manage an online space of digital artefacts that provide evidence of competencies and abilities acquired over a specific period of time.
They should support growth and change .
My Reflections and what I would like to do in class with my students
First think about modern tools which can be used by them: Google Apps and in particular New Google Sites can be used to showcase their artefacts.
Here are some interesting Tutorials: I have just started my new website and I must admit that it is very easy. I might therefore support my students but I am sure they will be successful.
As a teacher I will continue blogging ....................................
As a teacher I will continue blogging and I will write about my profession and for my CPD as education requires reflecting on what we do in class, what we have learnt and how we can improve our methodologies:
Time for Christmas and time for holidays and thinking about the best ways we can better our way of working in a difficult situation for educators and also for the country.
While I was working online I came across some good documents which I could use in class with my students.
Videos online:classic tales
Useful for watching and viewing a story and learning new words.
A reading task which can be carried out while watching a film about this famous story by Dickens.
Watching a video advertising about Christmas
Watching advertising can tell us about a country and its traditions.
Watching a video about making " Panettone":
Watching how to make a special dessert in Italy while comparing what other countries have to celebrate Christmas or other special festivals.
Royal Christmas traditions in the UK
Learning about Victorian England and the tradition of Christmas.
Christmas is celebrated in a multitude of rich and cherished traditions. This illustrated timeline, brought to you by Balsam Hill Christmas Tree Company, captures the flow of some of the most popular Christmas traditions and figures throughout Christmas History.
Week 4 How can teacher collaboration facilitate collaborative learning?
We worked on our lesson plan this week and we watched a lot of engaging videos about projects and collaboration among classes working with projects and where teachers and students were engaged in collaboration and activities to be done together. Most of the activities were European projects and students were involved in working together and sharing their outputs with other learners. A good video was the one which I missed live online where Professor D.Butler answered questions related to collaboration.
Modern technologies and IT can help us while working with our students and support us when working and collaborating. A useful guide can be found online and downloaded : Colab Guide Lines . The website http://colab.eun.org/research offers a lot of useful material which we can use for designing activities which require collaboration and the use of new technologies. A good document to start with is the one presented dealing with the problem of assessment and the document shared dealing with spreading new approaches in education: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2012-horizon-report-K12.pdf
Tablets, mobile devices should not be banned but integrated within our lessons and tasks. New tools and apps are growing and they can offer a lot of applications which can help us while working in class and at home. Further resources were shared online and in the Mooc.
This is my Learning Diary about the four weeks spent together ;I have added the link to my lesson plan: I could also read a lot of interesting projects online, which I think should be shared and analyzed by other teachers. The main activities were all based on collaboration.
Autumn has offered interesting courses for reflecting on education, education online and Moocs. It is a new world which is built online and where networking and digital skills are now the main features of it.Educators are connected, learners are becoming more connected and knowledge is now shared.
Emma is the European Platform that has provides the Moocs for free with interesting videos and documents related to the topic. Lots of ideas and a great overview about knowledge and the future of education. The Mooc offered short courses from September to November this year and I was free to register and follow the tasks online simply by choosing what to see and when to do it. That's the reason why I like Moocs: I can learn online while I am at home or at school in my free time and sometimes the quality of the Moocs can be great.
I have just finished the session MOOCS with Distinction and I have watched some interesting videos and learnt about experiences which have been shared by many thinkers and educators.
I have particularly appreciated some parts of the Moocs as I have come across the ideas they have presented and can help us learn about the future in education.
Stephen Downes - The emerging new Consciousness in digital culture
Stephen Downes is well-known for his theories about Connectivist learning, learning networks and how and why they emerged.
He is an international speaker and has published many books online dealing with this new way of learning and working online : http://www.downes.ca/files/books/Connective_Knowledge-19May2012.pdf
He is interested in Open Educational Resouces and Moocs :
Global MOOCs for non-native English speaking 16 – 17 year olds: increasing digital and lifelong learning skills
The Teacher involved in the project :Inge Ignatia de Waard was born in 1967 in Antwerp, Belgium. She is currently researching mobile learning and MOOCs at the Open University of the United Kingdom. She has a background in IT and pedagogy (studied at Athabasca University, Canada) and has been an international public speaker, addressing audiences across continents on the subject of online, MOOC and mobile learning.
This section of the Mooc was really interesting as it presented a brief overview of a Content Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) project that uses Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) to enhance language, digital and lifelong learning skills for upper secondary school students (16 – 17 year olds).
David Weinberger, Ph.D., writes about the effect of the Internet on ideas. He is a senior researcher at the Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and was co-director of the Harvard Library Innovation Lab, and a journalism fellow at Harvard's Shorenstein Center. His most recent book, "Too Big to Know," looks at the networking of knowledge and expertise.
Alessandro Bogliolo - Algorithms are forever
Alessandro Bogliolo is serving as e-skills for jobs ambassador, a Europe-wide campaign to raise awareness of the opportunities that digital skills offer for employment and employability.
He has been working on coding and providing courses for teachers online as coding and literacy should be mastered by everyone in today's world.
Internet is the tool, it provides us with a network of educators who are working online and they are sharing ideas, providing tips and helping us develop new approaches to learning. The learner is the centre of the new learning process as more choices are offered for learning and choosing to learn how,when and what can now be a reality.
Moocs can offer plenty of courses to people who would have never had access to learning online in the past.
How will they develop next? What kind of quality? Teachers and educators are still experimenting but the new way of learning has already begun.
The Language we study and speak
Easy or difficult to learn? It is considered the language of commerce and it is widely used by students working online all over the world. MOOCs are mainly in English and scholars and educators use it to work together and share resources and papers.
The English Language : a history about it and how it changed
English and W.Shakespeare
Learning more about the English Language: help on line and blogs
How can you assess Collaborative Learning? The week was really interesting as we had to think about assessment while students are working and collaborating. We were provided with some interesting experiences where teachers discussed how they worked and what they had to monitor and assess: formative assessment but also peer evaluation. It is important to see how our students work and see if they meet the criteria:
Anna Laghigna- one of the tutors- explained how she had worked with some projects and how students learnt and reflected on what they had done:
This is a useful guide which can help us develop rubrics and how to observe students while working together. It can be downloaded and used for assessing students better.
I appreciated the variety of tools used when writing the diaries and the experience which all the teachers showed while reflecting on the teaching practice: they have developed great skills and can work well also when working with PBL and assessing students who are collaborating,
