How much is too much (New Media) ?
March 10, 2010 at 12:00 pm | Posted in Lesson Preparation | Leave a commentTags: school use
As my last entry I would like to discuss the relevance and efficiency of New Media in the foreign-language classroom.
Students
- gain media competence
- practice collaborative learning
- contribute ideas and thoughts
- have a real audience for their texts
- activate several learning channels
- experience a constant availability of material
- deal with authentic language material
New Media is interesting and motivating for the students. They expand their knowledge of technology and its use.
Although these new learning opportunities are available, one has to consider its risks as well:
Students
- could get distracted (e.g. by games)
- could do other not-topic related things (e.g. checking emails)
- suffer from information overflow
- are not familiar with the learning features (e.g. WebQuests)
In my opinion it is important to evaluate and test New Media before using it. A lot of Web 2.0 applications are only suitable for certain tasks and one should realise that it takes a lot of time and effort to introduce students to these new learning features. Still one should not underestimate the motivational potential of using New Media. Most students like to work with computer and the Internet because it is an interesting alternative to their usual school work.
In my internships at school I observed that very few New Media is used in English lessons. This is probably partly because a lot of schools do not possess enough technical equipment but also because teachers are often not qualified enough and unsure.
I personally realized during the seminar that I know very little about New Media and the teaching possibilities of the Web 2.0. It is quite frightening how fast these things develop and how difficult it is to keep track. I think it would be wise to make further education in New Media obligatory for teachers.
As a future teacher I think it is useful to include New Media into the classroom and to use its advantages. Nevertheless one should always be aware that New Media is not the overall solution. In my opinion it is important to merge several learning and teaching techniques for a varied and interesting class.
So how much is too much New Media? I think this is a difficult question. Certainly no one can deny the importance New Media of in our everyday life. That is why New Media needs to be a part of education. Although students use it privately, they need to learn how to use New Media for academic and educational purposes. Nevertheless it is only a part of countless possibilities to teach. In my opinion it is a teacher’s duty to help students to evaluate all kinds of media and to help them choose the appropriate ones for specific tasks. This can be done by talking about advantages and disadvantages of “old” and New Media.
In conclusion one can say that New Media will gain more and more importance for society. It is therefore necessary to include it into the classroom. Nevertheless it is important not to overdo it. One should introduce a variety of media to the students, so that they can choose for themselves which ones they want to use. Considering the average amount of 10-15% New Media used in the classroom at the moment, I think it is safe to say that an objective of 50% is desireable.
Teaching Film with New Media
February 20, 2010 at 1:23 pm | Posted in Helpful Internet Services, Lesson Plan, Lesson Preparation, Praxis, Technical Skills | Leave a commentTags: school use, technical basics, useful URLs
“Every time I go to a movie, it’s magic, no matter what the movie’s about.” (Steven Spielberg)
Films are part of our everyday life and culture. We associate events, emotions and memories with them. They show us unknown countries and magical places. Movies make us cry and laugh, sometimes both and they challenge our imagination again and again.
With the help of New Media it is now possible to show and work with films on a new level in the classroom. DVDs and the Internet make new teaching strategies possible.
DVD-Video
The DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) is a visual data memory. It enables the consumer to watch films in different languages. Additionally it makes it possible to add different subtitles to the movie. Single sequences can be shown and analyzed. it is possible to rewind, freeze-frame or show the certain parts in slow-motion. Another advantage of the DVD-Video compared to older mass storage devices (e.g. VHS) is the fact that it almost always contains bonus features. Depending on the kind of film these are documentaries, making- ofs, interviews with actors and creators of the film. Some DVDs feature an audio commentary of the director.
By the help of DVD-Video it is now easier for teachers to structure their lesson and film viewing. If they only want to show sequences of the movie it is easily done. Additionally they can decide whether or not they will include subtitles and if they do what language they will be in.
I used the film “Atonement” on DVD in one of my English lessons. The class had read the novel by Ian McEwan beforehand. I chose only some sequences to give my students an impression and asked them to compare them with the novel they had read. I also included a task where they had to transform a dialogue of the book into a movie scene. After that we watched the film-version and compared both.
The new medium DVD-Video makes it so much easier and faster to navigate through the film and find suitable scenes. Due to the limited time available in a classroom most teacher’s tend to show only a selection of scenes, which is now easily practicable with the DVD.
Internet
Another new medium one can use for teaching movies is the Internet. No other platform enables teachers to get that much information and teaching material on new and upcoming films.
A useful site is the Internet Movie Database. Here you can find all kinds of information from cast, filming locations and movie quotes to pictures and reviews. One can find pictures of the movie and characters also on the film’s own homepage and on google pictures.
If you want to show a trailer of the film you can either check its homepage or go to YouTube.
A movie trailer is always a good way to introduce the topic. A nice alternative to a “normal” viewing: try to show it to your students either without or only with sound and let them discuss their impressions and expectations.
A useful site for teaching material is Film Education. It contains a database of films suitable for school. Each film is classified with an appropriate age level and they provide study guides.
Another possibility to teach movies is to include the original script. I chose one scene from the movie, gave the script to the students and they had to act out the scene. It was extremely fun. Afterwards we watched the corresponding movie scene and compared the different representation styles. If you are looking for scripts on the Internet, the Internet Movie Script Database or Simply Scripts are recommendable. Most of the scripts are available for free.
Working with the Internet also enables students to do their own research and e.g. create reports or Powerpoint presentations.
During my internships at school I had the chance to work with movies and New Media. It is unnecessary to stress the motivation and fun students had while working on these projects. The variety of possibilities you have to choose from makes it possible to try out and create new teaching techniques. I thinks films and New Media make teaching and learning colourful, amusing and creative but also informative.
“Movies can and do have a tremendous influence in shaping young lives in the realm of entertainment towards the ideals and objectives of normal adulthood.” (Walt Disney)
Expert Talk
February 13, 2010 at 3:46 pm | Posted in Helpful Internet Services, Internet Learning, Lesson Preparation, Praxis, Technical Skills | 1 CommentTags: e-learning, internet, school use
WebQuests
January 20, 2010 at 12:34 pm | Posted in Helpful Internet Services, Internet Learning, Lesson Preparation, Technical Skills | Leave a commentTags: e-learning, internet, Lesson Plan, school use, useful URLs
What is a WebQuest?
A WebQuest defines a research project that encourages the students to
exploit certain websites and facilitates their self-learning strategies.
There is a nice introductory article on Lehrer-Online.com in which one can familiarize with the topic.
The WebQuest on WebQuests gives a nice introduction into the topic.
Elements of a WebQuest
A usual WebQuest consists out of 6 parts or elements.
(see diagram)
Introduction
The Introduction is used to raise the student’s attention and motivation for the upcoming task. Usually it introduces the central question or problem.
Task
The students have to solve a task, the central assignment of the WebQuest. It can be created according to topic and learners’ needs. It could include e.g. designing, deciding, creating, analysing and predicting.
Process Description
Here the steps are shown, which the students have to follow to complete their task. Additionally one can mention possible tools for the working process.
Evaluation
This includes a table with assessment criteria.
Conclusion
The Conclusion should include a summary of what the students have learned during the WebQuest.
Teacher Page
The Teacher Page ensures the availability of the WebQuest to other teachers with remarks and useful suggestions.
Example WebQuests
One can find a number of WebQuests on the WebQuest Database. I liked the WebQuest on The World of Shakespeare.
I liked this one because of its aesthetic layout, colour choice and its clarity. The formulation of the task is clear and understandable.
Furthermore I liked the exercises and creative work the teacher included into the Quest (e.g. students have to act-out a scene).
Create your own WebQuest
One can use two programs to generate ones own WebQuest.
The first one is called Aula 21. No registration required, you just enter your
text and pictures and the program creates an html code. The program is free and one can quickly create a WebQuest like “The World of Shakespeare”.
WebQuest Wizard is another program that requires registration and that is more complex. It provides a web space and offers more designing opportunities than the Aula 21.
8 Steps on how to create a WebQuest
The following steps give an overview of what steps are involved when you are creating your own webquest:
Advantages and disadvantages
I always like the idea that student’s experience as much exploratory-learning as possible. With WebQuests they learn to research and work on a schedule. The teacher only functions as a moderator. The students can work independently and are encouraged to creative processes. Additionally this form of learning is new to the students and more motivating than other methods.
On the other hand, creating such a project is very time-consuming. An enormous amount of preparation time is needed to collect and create the needed material. One has to master the complexity of such a project without loosing track of the learning aims and the topic.
Nevertheless I think this is a useful tool and I would include it in my class, but one has to keep in mind that only a well-structured and elaborated WebQuest is useful (especially on tasks, process and evaluation) and a GOOD one.
Salamis in CD-ROM-Drives – A Field Trip
January 20, 2010 at 12:33 pm | Posted in Praxis, Technical Skills | Leave a commentTags: school use, technical basics
On the 19th of January we did a field trip to the Alfred-Wegener-Schule in Kirchhain, to gain some practical experience on the use of new media in school.
The School
The school is a “kooperative Gesamtschule” and therefore includes different school forms e.g. “Hauptschule”, “Realschule” and “Gymnasium”.
1500 students and 130 teachers study and work there. 
The school takes part in the COMENIUS-program and organizes a variety of student exchange-programs (e.g. to Spain, USA, France, Australia, South America)
Further information can be found on the school’s website.
The school was nominated “Medienschule des Monats: Januar 2009″.
The usual Computer Room(s)
The school has 3 computer room for “Sek 1″ and additional rooms for “Sek 2″ students. Each room contains about 20 PCs and a video projector. Students work in pairs or alone. These rooms are generally used for computer science classes, but other teachers are more than welcome to use them too.
“Lernwerkstatt”
This room contains the students library, three group-work rooms and about 12 computers. The room is supposed to combine new and old media and to provide a productive working environment.
Upper School Media Room
This room is strictly used by “Sek 2″ students. It has two PC-isles with 6 PCs each, a video projector, a library, working tables, a mobile presentation unit and a smart board.
Additional Services
Laptops and portable video projectors are lendable for teachers, so that they can use them in every classroom. WLAN is installed in all the buildings. These factors enable the teachers to use new media (Internet, Powerpoint Presentations) in every part of the school. They do not depend on computer rooms.
Computer experts maintain and supervise the technical equipment.
In 5th grade students take part in a six-week crash-course that familiarise them with the basics on word, spreadsheet and Powerpoint processing.
Most teachers use new media in the context of projects. Some create blogs, wiki and websites with their students. They write and design online diaries, newspapers and poetry volumes.
Comments and thoughts
The Alfred-Wegener-Schule in Kirchhain has numerous new media offers.
I personally liked the new forms of new media rooms e.g. “Lernwerkstatt”. The concept of combining old and new media creates a very special and comfortable learning environment.
I thought it was a pity that some of the media was only available to some learners e.g. the upper school media room. I don’t know whether it is supporting school spirit if some students are consciously excluded.
Nevertheless it was very interesting to see new media in praxis and it provides us as future teachers with realism and basic orientations that although new media is present, only 20% of instruction relies on it, at least for now.
Web 2.0 Applications
November 25, 2009 at 8:04 am | Posted in Helpful Internet Services, Internet Learning, Lesson Plan, Lesson Preparation | Leave a commentTags: e-learning, internet, Lesson Plan, school use, useful URLs
During our last in-class session we talked about Web 2.0 applications and their use in school. One Blog gives an overview over some of them.
I picked applications, that I thought would be useful in class.
Collaboration
Meebo is a chat- platform that provides the possibility of instant messaging between icq, AOL, Yahoo!, Google and MSN.
Etherpad enables the users to chat in real-time, so collaborative work is possible. I liked this application because it is easy accessable and operable.
Bookmarking and Note-Taking
See delicious post.
Research
One should introduce google scholar and answers.com as alternatives to usual google research.
Study Tools
SparkNotes provides information about various academic subjects including literature and history.
Mind Mapping
Bubble.us and gliffy enable students to create mind-maps or flowcharts without registering.
Various Tools
Applications like google maps, google earth and the interactive periodic table of elements should be familiar to the students.
My group created a Lesson Plan with the applications bubble.us (mind-mapping tool) and answers.com (search engine). Additionally the students had to create a Powerpoint-Presentation.
Internet Learning Sites
November 19, 2009 at 2:22 pm | Posted in Helpful Internet Services, Internet Learning, Lesson Preparation | Leave a commentTags: e-learning, internet, internet-games, school use, useful URLs
During our last session we analysed certain internet learning sites. The analysis can be found in the Blog of our group.
I personally liked the site “Game Zone” because of its well-structuredness and variation. The site contains mostly grammar and vocabulary games for all learner levels.
I would recommend to use this site in school to additionally practice certain phenomena.
Scoyo.de – From F to A?
November 12, 2009 at 2:36 pm | Posted in Helpful Internet Services, Internet Learning | Leave a commentTags: internet, learning platform
Skoyo.de is a learning platform on the internet. It claims to be Germany’s biggest so far. The Slogan “Spielen, Lernen, gute Noten” sums up the general concept of the site. The program covers grades 1-7 and was created and based on the curricula of all German states. The goal of the platform is to combine learning with games to make it more interesting (“spielendes Lernen”).
Scoyo Overview English grade 6
I had the opportunity to take a look at the program in a test-version. My first impression was, that the site is VERY colourful. It contains a lot of pictures and comics.
The program for English, is divided into units namely “Vocabulary, Grammar and Pronunciation”.The tasks contain gap-texts, vocab-games and inter-textual exercises.
Scoyo English Vocab Game
Although the students listen and read new words for example the gaming approach is (earning credit points to improve level, a lot of games) too strong in this program. It is likely that the learners only concentrate on winning and not on the actual context. Furthermore, the grammar exercises do not contain an explanation of the rules or the context. The students are not asked to produce any texts and the interaction between learners is not given through the program.
Scoyo English Grammar Exercise "Present Progressive"
The fee for the program is 15 € per month and in my opinion parents have to closely observe children when using this program, because they can’t know at this age which exercises are suitable for them.
All in all I think it is rather difficult for young learners to stay focused when using this platform, because there are so many things that distract you. The program is useful for learners who are relatively independent and prefer the audio-visual learning approach. Students with problems in the subjects should rather not use the platform because it does not support such learners. It is a program to practice and improve your English if you’re already a good student.
Delicious- Social Bookmarking
November 12, 2009 at 2:30 pm | Posted in Helpful Internet Services, Lesson Preparation | Leave a commentTags: bookmarks, internet
Delicious is a social bookmarking site on the Internet.
Delicious Logo
One can save bookmarks on it and access them from every computer. Another possibility is to search for bookmarks for a specific topic. The site lists the bookmarked pages by frequency.
Delicious Search "Lesson Plan"
I think the site is very useful, if one does a general internet research. You quickly find the most common sites. In contrast to search engines like google the suggested pages are rated by users. I think this is a useful tool, that should function as an additional help finding information.
Problems with Internet Connection
November 2, 2009 at 10:08 am | Posted in Technical Skills | Leave a commentTags: internet, technical basics
There is always something: You need to write an important Email or you want to use the Internet on a research project with your students…and… the Internet doesn’t work.
Here are some suggestions how to fix the problem:
- Check if other websites are available
- Is the LAN cable plugged in?
- WLAN: is wifi-component switched on (LEP- lamp)?
- Re-establish the connection (stopping/restarting network service)
- Help (technician)
- And if nothing works: always have a backup plan!
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In unserer letzten Sitzung führten wir ein Skype-Gespräch mit Herrn Donath. Die Studierenden hatten die Möglichkeit ihre Fragen zu stellen und der Experte beantwortete sie sehr freundlich und geduldig.
Er berichtete das er sich schon seit 1989 mit neuen Medien im Unterricht befasse. Seine ersten Erfahrungen sammelte er mit Email-Projekten. Seiner Meinung nach sind diese jedoch in der heutigen Zeit weniger attraktiv, da man viel leichter über Platformen wie facebook und Blogs kommunizieren kann.
In seinem Unterricht arbeitet Donath viel mit Lerntagebüchern in Form von Blogs. Außerdem verfügt die Schule, in der er arbeitet, über ein Multimedia-Zentrum “Bahnarum”. Hier können die Schüler an Gruppentischen mit Computern arbeiten, es gibt einen Beamer und eine Teeküche. Die Schüler verwalten den Raum selbst. Neben dem normalen Unterricht werden dort das Jahrbuch, Abizeitungen und eine englische Zeitung entworfen.
Um die Privatsphäre seiner Schüler zu schützen rät Donath Lehrern, den Schülern eine skeptische Distanz zu den Neuen Medien zu vermitteln und sie immer wieder auf entpersonalisierte Einträge hinzuweisen. Dies sollte ein Teil der so genannten “Medienerziehung” sein.
Der Experte schätzte den derzeitigen Anteil an genutzten Neuen Medien in der Schule auf maximal 20-30% ein. Zukünftig werden seiner Meinung nach immer mehr Laptop/Netbook-Klassen eingeführt werden. Herr Donath setzt sich für einen didaktisch wohl überlegten Einsatz der Neuen Medien ein, wobei der Computer ergänzend zu den “Alten Medien” genutzt werden sollte. Er hält ein Verhältnis von 50% Neue Medien zu 50% Alte Medien für durchaus realistisch.
Abschließend sind hier die Antworten zu meinen davor ausgearbeiteten Fragen:
1) Wie schätzen Sie den wirklichen Anteil an “Neuen Medien” in der Schule ein? Zu wie viel Prozent werden “Neue Medien” tatsächlich eingesetzt?
Der maximale Anteil des neuen Medien Einsatzes liegt bei 20-30%. Herr Donath selbst gestaltet 15-30% seines Unterrichts Web-gestützt. Er wies weiterhin darauf hin, dass diese prozentuellen Angaben für die Unterrichtssituation auch sehr stark von der vorhandenden räumlichen Umgebung abhängen.
2) Was muss getan werden um Lehrer zu motivieren, mehr “Neue Medien” einzusetzen?
Die Lehrer müssen in Fortbildungen stärker auf die schon vorhandenen Unterrichtskonzepte und Unterrichtseinheiten hingewiesen werden, sodass Medieneinsatz nicht unbedingt Mehraufwand bedeutet. Außerdem muss Lehrern (altersunabhängig) der Schritt vom Privatnutzer zum professionellen Nutzer (ebenfalls auch durch Fortbildungen) erleichtert werden.
Mir gefiel sehr, dass der Experte seine eigenen Unterrichtserfahrungen in das Gespräch mit einbrachte. Neben all den Möglichkeiten, die das Internet und die Neuen Medien bieten, sollte man sich jedoch gewahr sein, dass sie ebenso Gefahren (besonders für Schüler) beinhalten. Deshalb halte ich die “Medienerziehung” für einen unverzichtbaren und wichtigen Bestandteil des Unterrichts. Überdies teile ich die Meinung Donaths, dass man Neue Medien sinnvoll einsetzten sollte. Sie sollten ergänzend zu anderen Unterrichtsformen bestehen und in Zukunft das Lernen sowie den Unterricht verbessern.