During our last lessons in ECO II, we have been working in the preparation of presentations in the classroom, using technology as a tool, not only for us as future teachers, but also for our students. This included PowerPoint and one of the alternatives to it, Prezi. We worked with Yohana Daján and Julieta Grassino (http://thinkingabouteco2.blogspot.com.ar/) and then we shared our presentations to the rest of the classmates. We worked with the Task-Based Learning approach (TBL), which main points consist of teaching the language for communication in a creative and innovative way, in this case, using technology as well. We chose a Prezi presentation about “our ideal holiday” to show our students a model of what we were going to do in the following lessons. This would engage them since they knew how to work with this website and all the possibilities it can offer. So as to carry out this task with students, we bore in mind the SAMR and the TPACK model.
The SAMR is a model which offers various ways of making use of technology at different levels. It represents the Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition. We worked with technology at the levels of Augmentation in a matching activity in which students joined pictures with their corresponding photo caption. This is Augmentation since technology provides a new way of presenting pictures and activities, with the advantage of giving the whole group the possibility to do this at the same time and with more attractive images.
We also worked at the level of Modification since the technology was used to redesign some parts of the task and transform students, that is the case of the video they watched in order to discuss it later. In this case, students played a game which consisted on guessing their classmates' “ideal holiday” and some of the activities that they can do there. Using the prezi presentation we make this more enjoyable because they do not have to use photocopies that are generally not so attractive and engaging for them and it is even better for the teacher because she does not have to spend money on buying the material.
As regards the TPACK model which means Technological knowledge, Content knowledge and Pedagogical knowledge, we took into consideration the three concepts when working with this task. First, we taught the vocabulary related to the activities that they could do in the places they chose, and we emphasised the use of the ‘be-going to’ structure as regards grammar content. Then, the pedagogical knowledge was involved when students had to listen and watch a video about two people talking about their holidays, discuss and make an agreement in one place, use online dictionaries to start working on the project and at the end, create a Powerpoint presentation. The technological knowledge was included when we presented the prezi to our students as support, providing them with an interesting tool to express their creative ideas in a more flexible way, since this webpage allows students to incorporate images, videos and music to their final product.
We consider this a really worthwhile experience and a very good task since we could learn from our classmates’ presentations new ways of reaching our students' interest and attention and we also learnt how to enrich our teaching practices. Through the T-PACK and SAMR model, we can redefine and reflect upon our practices, while taking into account important factors to innovate our lessons. By means of technology we, as future teachers, are given a wide variety of possibilities to teach English in more innovative and creative ways, with the advantage of giving our students the opportunity to talk about themselves and create their own presentations to share with their classmates and have fun while learning English.
Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us0w823KY0g https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2&v=FagVSQlZELY
Hello girls! We are Lucrecia and Lara. We were reading your entries and we wanted to leave a comment here!
ResponderEliminarAt first sight, we can see that this particular entry is much longer than the others and the font size you chose make it a little difficult to read. We believe that you could keep it shorter by including websites, as you did at the bottom, where readers could find the information about T-PACK and SAMR by themselves and not explaining every aspect of these models. The thing is that the link below is only about the SAMR model. Also, to make your entry more appealing, you could embed the youtube link or directly add the video in your post.
As you explained that you created a presentation, it would be a good idea to include it in the post, at least some images or a hyperlink, so that the reader can actually see what you were talking about and see these models at work. In addition, you could have also linked the blog of the girls who worked with you, so readers can visit it and find more information there.
On the bright side, we think that this entry is really interesting for the information it provides. You included pictures that contributed to the understanding of the topics and also you justified in detail the decisions you made regarding these two models. Your conclusion is great because you reflected upon the topic of the entry.
Thanks for your comment girls!! It's really useful and we will take into account your suggetions.
ResponderEliminar