Direct Outcome from Module 3 for Haven Caylor-Brown? Yep!
Twitter
I have used Twitter since 2011. As an adult, I enjoy using it to promote my books, share political ideas, and share educational ideas. However, it is not a good site for children to peruse. Until Twitter, I never knew how readily accessible pornography, cursing, and physical violence was. Yes, I as an adult can “handle” and steer away from such inappropriate Tweets, but I am responsible for my students. Schonert-Reichi (2017) and I agree that we teachers are models for students and their social and emotional learning. If they experience something inappropriate in social media while in my classroom, I am responsible, so I use neither Instagram nor Twitter in the
classroom. However, in an ideal, educational world, Twitter can serve a purpose.
Once again, my school system uses a Cloud based learning program called Canvas. There is a component to Canvas where parents or guardians can log in and experience the courses their children experience: School announcements, individual teacher announcements, their children’s assignments, quizzes, and so much more. Twitter cannot enter the courses to see, but it could cover major announcements such as major due dates for projects and dates for exams. So, in the hypothetical world where neither cursing, nor pornography, nor graphic sights, nor bullying occurs, I can deal with an ideal use of Twitter.
I began Skyping with teachers from around the Spanish-speaking world March of 2018. I have followed and retweeted quite a bit of technology information from these contacts, and the contacts are usually associated with Microsoft Education. The first was a Mystery Skype with a fellow educator, Francisco Texeira ( https://twitter.com/fcotexeira ), from Spain. He is at the Marista High School in Malaga, Spain. He Tweets a lot about Skype and other products associated with Microsoft. Francisco knows another teacher, Ovi Barceló ( https://twitter.com/ovibarcelo ), from Spain. Ovi was an educator, but left the classroom to work for Microsoft Education. He has helped me find several articles regarding Microsoft educational uses, and 90% of our communications have been through Twitter. I know Twitter can provide a useful hub for connecting course topics with current news; however, I agree 100% with Jacquemin, Smelser, and Bemot (2014) when they state, “Ultimately, social media technologies should only be brought into the classroom when they are fully vetted and deemed to improve learning” (p. 27).
Podcast
I enjoyed our 60 second podcast. The more I think about it, I see it as a refresher for some good remediation. This, of course, would be asynchronous podcasting. As I have mentioned, I use Skype in the classroom. It has spoiled me for “real time” communication and collaboration. I think the idea of creating a project with other schools from around the United States or the world is awesome. I have an internal goal to do such. I want my students to make positive changes in the world: Recycling, creating goods to ship to others who are less-fortunate, clean energy ideas, etc. Our students are so intelligent and clever, and they still see the world ideally. We can help adults see in a wider, more idealistic scope to help others and the environment without always thinking of their own bank accounts. The best way I see podcasting for collaborating with others is to have live podcasting for communicating and exchanging ideas: A more synchronous way. Students in New Zealand have made podcasts about Information and Communication Technologies and the students reviewed, critiqued, and reported back to each other in a formative assessment format (Forbes, 2015). This article on the usefulness of formative assessments and podcasts was an excellent read. Once again, time, time, time. I just found PlayerFM (http://www.player.fm ) which has synchronous podcasts. If I’m going to teach something, I need to teach in the moment. I don’t want to create a teaching-learning podcast to send to another teacher somewhere in the world that will not be listened to for a few days, reviewed by its teacher, found where to place the podcast into his or her lesson plans, then that teacher write back to me with a response! By that time, I’m way past what I was teaching during the podcast. By the time I get a response from the other teacher, I may have advanced into a new unit.
I listened to two podcasts. One is from a man who travels through Spain, and the other was a husband and wife who share their school-aged children’s experiences. “Our lively tribe” ( http://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ourlivelytribe ) from Podomatic, and “Coffebreak Spanish” ( https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/cbs-em-1-01-bienvenidos-a-m%C3%A1laga/id201598403?i=1000428978964&mt=2) from iTunes. The Our Lively Tribe has a primary source of raising children. The family has three children, and the two eldest are adopted. The husband and wife were talking about their boys’ feelings of adoption. It was nice, but I wasn’t drawn in. It was like, “Brandon said he didn’t want to go through with the adoption after being bullied at school a few days ago.” “Oh, I didn’t know that!”, “Oh, yeah, but he’s over that now”. I was like, I don’t want to tune in to a podcast with personal dialogue that doesn’t have anything to do with my engagement. I say podcasters need to stick to a script and think of the audience. It’s like those radio talk shows where the host will share insignificant things about their lives that do not pertain to me nor my life situation, and they drag on and on until I turn the channel. The parents got back on topic, but I realized I had to create my own podcast for a grade, so I continued on. I thought the “Coffee Break” Spanish was good too. However, this man doesn’t podcast with regularity. If I cannot engage in something with frequency, it “falls by the wayside”, and I do not use it any longer. The gentleman would skip years at a time in his broadcasts. I was lucky that he had just completed a podcast on February 1, 2019! He had flown to Malaga, Spain, and he was interviewing people on the street
about what they were doing. The lady said she enjoyed shopping and was out to buy a few things. His idea can be expanded. Allow me to elaborate.
My students and I are just finishing direct object pronouns and shopping for clothes. We turn objects (a cap, some pants, some shirts, some shoes) into direct object pronouns (it, them, them etc.). It would be cool to audio record what the people buy then have the students recreate their sentences where direct object pronouns take the place of the objects with a podcast.
My Spanish for Native Students part one is reading a short story/legend by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer. Its name is La Corza Blanca (The White Deer). My parapro for one of the two sessions of Native Speakers One found a podcast for this legend this morning. I was so grateful. I was also cruising the web tonight, and I found another pod session on my newfound friend podcast site, PlayerFM
(https://player.fm/series/leyendas-by-gustavo-adolfo-becquer/ep-13-la-corza-blanca).
I am totally thrilled. I will use this for my students to listen to if they grow weary of reading. This way I do not have to stand over them and make them read. Many native Spanish speakers speak Spanish, but they have a hard time reading and writing in Spanish. A podcast with literary read alouds are wonderful tools for listening and practice reading in Spanish. As I mentioned further above at the onset of discussing podcasts with students collaborating, in a few days, I can ask my students to collaborate and share if listening to the podcast of La Corza Blanca helped them with their reading skills. They can collaborate, write, then report back to me in groups.
Forbes, D. (2015). Beyond lecture capture: Student-generated podcasts in teacher education. Waikato journal of education. 195-205. Schonert-Reichi, K. (2017). Social and Emotional Learning and Teachers. The future of children 27(1) 137-155. Stephen J. Jacquemin; Lisa K. Smelser; Melody J. Bernot (2014). Twitter in the Higher Education Classroom: A Student and Faculty Assessment of Use and Perception. Journal of College Science Teaching. 43(6):22-27.
2 Comments
Sean Brown
2/16/2019 09:28:08 am
I am a parent who homeschools, and thanks to Dr. Caylor we are 1) going to continue to read and hopefully glean some excellent Instructional Technology tips from his Weebly Blog for our homeschooling and 2) Do our own research of podcasts, Twitter & Web 2.0 tools that will benefit our household. Keep up the good work, Dr. Caylor!
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Lindsey Beck
2/18/2019 02:05:31 pm
Hey Haven!
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