This is a VLE that can be used as the central location for your teaching. It is a central material repository and it allow to create quizzes, polls, discussion, assignments to activate students' learning.
Its possibilies can be extended by using other tools such as quizlet, voicethread, snagIt (screencasting) and all google apps.
The role of the New Technologies in the classroom
When deciding how much technology we want to bring into our classes and which technology is most suitable we may want to look ath the SAMR model.
THE SAMR model developed by Ruben Puentedura "offers a method of seeing how computer technology might impact teaching and learning".When moving from a traditional setting to a context where we include ICT it is vital to consider the affordances that traditional activities offer teachers so that we can plan and / or anticipate any changes in the setting or how the new technologies may affect the interaction in the classroom.
Substitution: technology acts as a direct tool to substitute more traditional activites and has no functional improvement.
Augmentation: technology acts as direct tool to substitute and has some functional improvement
Modification: Techology allows for significant task redesign.
Redifinition: Technology allows for the creation of new tasks that were previouly inconceivable.
Teachers should't go techology crazy and we must be aware of the the effectiveness of using technology with students. Chose the right moment and for the right activity.
In relation to this topic we read the article "Is technology tranforming education?"by Russell Stannard. We discussed it in little groups and summarized our ideas in a google document that was edited simultaneously by the different groups. This was an example of transformative teaching (SAMR). Using a technology to get a tangible outcome (the class' notes) . Technology takes you on a journey of discovery. Technology transforms the way you design your lessons and start seeing more and more possibilities.
However, when it comes to redesign your lessons, think about the benefits of using traditional activities, and consider the interaction and the communicative purpose of the task to blend F2F contents and online tasks. Remember you can have a look at SAMR Model or Bloom's taxonomy to let students do the lower thinking part at home and get some help from the teacher for higher order thinking tasks. This bears much in common with the idea of Flipped Classroom.
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