Thing #19: Digital Storytelling

typewriter-2306479_960_720 The first time I tried Digital Storytelling was when I was an undergraduate at Michigan State University. At the time, Digital Storytelling was still very new and not a lot of people were using it. I immediately loved the end result and could see how using them in instruction would be a great tool. I also saw the value in having students create their own digital stories.

Since I first heard about Digital Storytelling, there have been a lot of advancements and improvements to technology. Today, you have many different tools at your disposal to create digital stories. Some of them are free, while others have a small membership fee. After trying a number of the resources, I decided to use Animoto to create my digital story, as it seemed the easiest for me to use.

Preparing to Make My Digital Story

Since I am currently teaching a program which is not aligned to any specific standards, I chose to use standards with which I am quite comfortable using–the Michigan World Language Standards. I taught lessons aligned to these standards for almost 5 years, and noticed that they haven’t changed since I last used them.

As the standards address the different domains of language learning, I decided that it would be quite easy to apply these standards for English Language Learners. I chose to focus on some of the Communication Standards. Specifically, this lesson is designed for:

1.3.M.W.a: Illustrate and present materials in the target language such as an information brochure or instructions for accomplishing a task
1.3.M.W.c: Present brief written reports about personal experiences, school and community happenings in the target language

I chose to slightly modify these standards and also include spoken language.

Once I had selected the standards to teach, I had to think of an example I could share with students. As one of the most common reasons my students are learning English is for travel, I decided to use travel as our topic. I shared my experience traveling in Poland, and addressed a lot of the main things we think about when learning about a new culture: food, clothing, monuments, language, and transportation.

Screen Shot 2019-03-03 at 16.50.30 — Click here to see my Digital Story!

Reflections

As much as I love the idea of using Digital Storytelling in my practice, it is not currently feasible. We simply do not have the time or the resources in my current capacity. However, I love the idea of at least creating and sharing my own digital stories with students in order to enhance our lessons. I imagine that digital stories are something that most of my students have not seen before.

I know that many of my students currently use programs like Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides to create presentations, so why not share another option with them–the Digital Story. I think that this is an excellent way to give students some freedom of choice with their learning, as well as learning new technological skills. For a more detailed reflection, click on the SoundCloud file below.

ISTE and CITW 9 Standards:

Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity: Using Digital Stories is an excellent way to engage students and really get them invested in their own learning. As there is not a right and a wrong way of doing something, students are able to express themselves in a variety of ways.
Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments: The look of presentations and reports has changed significantly over time, specifically with the advancements of technology. Digital Stories are the next step for sharing information or giving a presentation.
Model Digital Age Work and Learning: Again, the freedom of choice is key. Both the freedom to choose what and how. Providing students with various opportunities to use these new technologies will help them be better prepared for the future.
Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility: In giving students the freedom to choose, we are also saying that we trust them. Having reviewed how to be a good digital citizen, students will be expected to demonstrate those traits when creating digital stories.

Thing #16: DI and UDL

Since my first year of studies as a university student I remember constantly hearing about differentiated instruction (DI) and how it was going to be the new norm in education. However, there have been many changes since I finished my studies. A new idea that we’re hearing more and more about is Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Honestly, prior to this course, I was unfamiliar with this acronym.

Differentiated Instruction

Recently, I’ve participated in a number of professional learning opportunities focused on differentiated instruction. I think my big take away right now is that differentiation is a process and it is not something that we will do for 100% of our students 100% of the time. After reading a few more articles and reflecting upon my own practice as an educator and differentiating my instruction. After reading the article What is Differentiated Instruction? by Laura Robb, I made a list of some of the steps that I am already taking in order to differentiate my instruction.

Ongoing, Formative Assessment: At least one per month I assess what my students have learned and what we need to review
Recognition of Diverse Learners: I recognize that my students do not all learn in the same ways and are not equally strong in all areas of language learning. For that reason, I am sure to regularly include activities that appeal to different styles of learning.
Group Work: Every single class there is at least one activity where students are expected to work collaboratively, whether that be with a partner or in small groups.
Choice: Depending on the skill being taught, students always have a certain amount of choice regarding how they apply the skills and what types of articles they read.

I also spent time reading articles on ReadingRockets about differentiated instruction. I learned that there are four elements which we can differentiate in our instruction:

Content: the learning goals
Process: what students do (the activity)
Products: what students make/create
Learning Environment: how the classroom works and feels

Thinking about these four elements, I would say that I am already differentiating my instruction in two of the four areas. I have always differentiated my process and products, even without realizing that I was differentiating!

Universal Design for Learning

The idea of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is something new for me. Prior to this course, I had not heard this acronym. After visiting the UDL: The UDL Guidelines website, I was able to better grasp exactly what UDL was and how to best implement it in my practice.

I especially found the chart representing the guidelines on the UDL website to be helpful. It made it easy for me to not only understand the guidelines, but also how they are connected to one another. I think in my current capacity, I can easily address the three main goals of UDL:

Provide multiple means of engagement
Provide multiple means of representation
Provide multiple means of action and expression

I found it very helpful that the website not only identified the goals, but also the intermediary steps that must be taken when working toward achieving these goals.

Access
Build
Internalize

At this point in my practice, rather than trying to implement all three goals at the same time, I think that it would be more beneficial for me to focus on them one at a time (and when appropriate, introduce another goal). I would begin by focusing on providing multiple means of engagement. I really like the idea of providing students with the power to make individual choices, as well as fostering community and collaboration. It seems only natural to pair up students who have chosen to complete a task in a similar manner, thus promoting collaboration. Being able to implement this in my practice will allow me to better meet all of my students where they are, as well as providing them with a thoughtful and personalized learning experience. Also, this is a great way of getting students engaged and invested in the activity.

Text-to-Audio Conversion

While I understand the value and importance of text-to-audio for many students, I am not convinced that it is an appropriate resource for English language learners, unless it is a recording made by an actual human being. When I was still teaching in Michigan, I have many non-verbal students in my classroom, so being able to use text-to-audio was an extremely important resource. I also had a few dyslexic students who truly benefited from listening to the text, rather than struggling and becoming frustrated when reading just text.

For this activity, I chose to try a tool with which I was unfamiliar: Natural Readers. I was intrigued by the name and really hoping that the audio was going to sound more natural than most computer generated recordings I have heard. While the audio was better than many others that I have heard, it was not the greatest. One of the most challenging parts of learning English for language learners is getting annunciation, intonation, and emphasis correct. The audio that I heard did not follow the natural flow of English, and my fear is that my students would begin mimicking what they are hearing. We spend a lot of time practicing these three skills, and I think it would be better if I could find a way of recording myself reading the text so that students could listen to it with proper intonation, annunciation, and emphasis.

While this tool would not be very helpful for my students in my particular situation, I am in no way saying that it is not a useful tool. On the contrary! I definitely see many situations where this text-to-audio application would be extremely useful, especially with native English speakers. One feature I really liked with this program was that it highlighted the line that was being read, and then put smaller parts of the sentences at the bottom of the screen so that students could easily follow along.

ISTE and CITW 9 Standards

1. Summarizing and Notetaking: Using resources like the text-to-audio programs is a great way to expose students to the same material, but in a different way.

2. Model Digital Age Work and Learning: In using technology to help differentiate instruction, we are ensuring that students are being provided with the most current tools, as well as learning how to learn in a digital age. I especially like the fact that students would be able to use the text-to-audio resources for any sort of text they like.

Thing #11: Content Area

I’m currently teaching English as a Second Language to students in France. Unfortunately, there are not consistent standards or expectations when it comes to English instruction in France. I have actually found their system of language instruction to be quite outdated (often using rote memorization). So rather than using non-existent standards, I am going to be using the Michigan Merit Curriculum: World Languages.

One of my favorite lessons to do with students is comparing and contrasting schools in France with those in the United States. This is a great way to learn new vocabulary (which is not only practical, but necessary in the classroom) as well as to learn about the culture of an English speaking country. The Michigan curriculum standard that relates to this topic is: Intermediate Low and Intermediate Mid (M): 2.1.M.E.a: Compare the educational systems in a community or country in which the language is spoken with one or more other communities or countries.

Screen Shot 2019-03-02 at 10.25.26.png Trying to find resources about American culture while living and working overseas seems like a double-edged sword most of the time. I spend a ton of time researching quality resources and materials, and when I think I’ve found a video that will be perfect for my lesson, when I try to open it I receive an error message along the lines of “due to copyright law in your region, you are unable to view this video.” When exploring the PBS Learning Media website I found so many videos that I thought would really enrich my lesson. Unfortunately, none of the videos were available for viewing in France. As this has become a common occurrence, I’ve become quite good at finding videos through a variety of means. However, this also means that I spend a lot more time preparing my lessons.

In order to teach my lesson about American Schools, I would begin with a KWL chart with my students. Then, I would introduce an article describing American schools, such as the one that I found on the ieLanguages website. Here are just a few of the resources that I found which I thought would enrich my lesson.

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Finding an appropriate audio/video support for this lesson proved to be much more complicated. After much research, I stumbled upon the American English website. On this website I found audio files for students talking about their experience in American high schools. In additional to the audio files, there were also documents with the text written (an important support for ESL learners). I liked that students could hear a variety of accents by listening to many interviews.

CITW9 Connections

When thinking about the nine categories of best practice instruction and how these resources could help me to support and meet these best practices, I came to a few conclusions.

Nonlinguistic Representations: I love the idea of incorporating relevant media into my lessons. Adding videos and audio files is especially important when teach a language.
Summarizing and Note-Taking: Students will be expected to organize their ideas using a variety of resources. Creating Venn Diagrams will be extremely important for comparing and contrasting.
Cooperative Learning: Students will be expected to work together and exchange ideas in order to develop a richer understanding of the content.
Identifying Similarities and Differences: Students will not only be expected to identify similarities and differences, but to then add personal reflections and experiences.

Thing #10: Search Strategies

The Internet is a magnificent tool. It’s hard to imagine a time when we couldn’t simply look something up online. However, we must teach our students how to use online resources responsibly. One of our roles as educators is to prepare our students to be well-equipped to use the almost endless resources that are available online.

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I first discovered MeL when I was still in college, and I immediately fell in love with all that it had to offer. I loved that I was no longer limited to the resources available at my local library. For years I advocated for students and colleagues alike to use this amazing resource. Thankfully, I am still the proud owner of a local library card, so I am able to use the resources no matter my physical location. While there are seemingly countless resources available on MeL, I am going to focus on one that immediately stuck me as extremely practical and relevant for student learning, Britannica School.

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On this electronic resource two things immediately caught my attention: Compare Countries and Tour the U.S.A. I can only begin to imagine the fun my students could have using these resources to improve their learning. Both of these tools feature the focus of my curricula–America and comparing/contrasting cultures. I think this would be a great starting point for students who are unfamiliar with the United States, as well as to learn about cultures of different English speaking countries.

I’ve added a number of links to resources that I found on the MeL website which I think would be especially helpful to my students to my classroom website.

Critical Evaluations of Websites

One important thing to keep in mind when using the internet is that anyone can create a website or publish information. For this reason, it is critical that we teach students how to evaluate the authenticity of different websites. One strategy was designed by Joyce Valenza, called the Elementary (Basic) assessment. What I liked about this strategy was how easy and clear it was, especially for students who are just beginning to learn academic or scholarly English.

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So, I decided to try and use this website evaluation strategy myself. I visited the following websites:

All About Explorers

NASA for Students

At first glance, both of these websites seem legit. They are both well organized and easy to navigate. Visually, they are appealing and seem very professional. However, when you begin to read the content on the websites it becomes clear that one is not at all accurate (All about Explorers). The years are completely incorrect. The locations are not even close to correct. Even with a very quick reading of the information and utilizing other websites, it should be extremely easy to prove that this website is inaccurate. This evidence immediately decreases, if not eliminates, all credibility of the website.

Additionally, the website is extremely biased, as it only presents the positive side of the story. While Christopher Columbus did many great things, he also did many horrible things, none of which were addressed on this website. Based on my evaluation using the criteria above, I can say without a doubt that this website is a hoax.

On the other hand, the NASA website is very clearly an authentic/real website. We can see that a wide-range of topics is presented in a variety of ways: graphically, textually, etc. Additionally, everything is very well organized, making it easy to find what you are looking for. (Content and Usability/Design)

Additionally, we can see that this website is owned and managed by the US government, and that it is updated regularly. This addresses the authority/credibility of the website.

Of the links that I clicked on, I found the information to be well rounded, often addressing both sides of an argument (when applicable). Overall, when you begin reading the content on the NASA website it becomes apparent that it was designed by experts in the field.

Citation Makers

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I remember when I was a college student and had to master both the MLA and APA style of citation. I spent hours trying to correctly cite any sources that I used in my papers. Oftentimes, I felt like I spent more time working on the citations than I did writing my papers! However, with today’s amazing technology, we have tools and resources which can make this daunting task much easier. Two common resources are BibMe and LandMark Citation Machine.

I’m currently reading The Zookeeper’s Wife, by Diane Ackerman (which I highly recommend). It’s historical fiction and is set in Warsaw before and during World War II. If you’re interested in historical fiction, I definitely recommend giving this book a try. I decided to try and create the citation that we would use in the MLA style. I used BibMe to create the citation. It looked like this: Ackerman, Diane. The Zookeeper’s Wife. W.W. Norton, 2007. While this tool might be useful when citing well known works, I found it to actually take more time than simply creating the citation myself, as I had to enter all of the information about the book.

ISTE and CITW 9 Standards Addressed:

Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity: All of the valuable and appropriate digital resources discussed would be invaluable to a wide-range of students. Teaching students how to utilize and assess these resources is key to student growth and achievement.
Model Digital Age Work and Learning: With tools like BibMe and LandMark Citation Machine, students will be better equipped to ensure that proper credit is being given where it is due.
Generating and Testing Hypotheses: With the tools to assess websites, students will be able to make their own decisions about validity based on their own analysis.

Thing #5: Collaboration

I’ve never really been a traditional classroom teacher. My only experience as such was during my year as a student-teacher-intern. My passion was never to teach students the traditional subjects, but rather to enrich their education with languages. Being an auxiliary (or ‘specials teacher’) is an entirely new experience. You realize how much you do not matter. You realize that you are always an afterthought (and sometimes not even that). You feel isolated and alone. No one quite knows what to do with you or how to help you. This is especially true when you are the only person in your department, and it is your sole responsibility to make decisions, as well as create the curriculum.

While this might make being an auxiliary teacher sound awful, it was a truly rewarding and enjoyable experience that I would not trade for anything. However, all teachers, but especially auxiliary teachers, have to become resourceful when it comes to finding a team and creating a support system in the school. I was very fortunate because I quickly became very good friends with a handful of teachers in each of my buildings.

Even in my current role, I feel very isolated, but am still thankful for the connections I have with so many former colleagues and teacher friends. I can’t imagine living and working overseas without being able to use technology to keep in touch with them. During my first year in France, my students were digital penpals with students in my best friend’s class. Being able to use Google docs to exchange letters and create authentic learning situations and interactions was essential. Being able to see first hand the collaboration that was taking place between students on two different continents, who did not speak the same native language was truly fascinating.

I’ve also used Google docs to collaborate with former colleagues and to improve my teaching. We’ve often used various platforms to talk and exchange ideas–Google Hangout, Skype, FaceTime, etc..With technology, the possibilities are virtually limitless.

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Creating a Collaborative Lesson

It used to be that distance was a restrictive factor in communication. Today, that is no longer the case. With technology, you are able to easily communicate with people around the world. As I am still working without a department or cohort, I still rely on friends and colleagues in the United States to help with with lesson planning and brainstorming. Now, there is a six hour time difference, which can complicate things from time to time (especially with video conferencing). However, with collaborative documents (such as Google docs) sharing ideas has become much easier.

I recently contacted three of my friends who are also teachers to get some feedback regarding an upcoming lesson I am preparing. I typed the lesson in a Google doc and then shared it with them, and gave them editing rights. This is a quick and easy way for everyone to not only share ideas, but to interact with each other. I also created a Padlet where we could share other resources we found that might be useful. With both of these examples, we are able to have asynchronous collaboration that is beneficial for everyone.

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Collaborative Lesson Reflection

I love exchanging ideas with other teachers! When I first started my career I was very hesitant to accept any sort of feedback (positive or negative). Luckily, that is no longer the case. What I really like about my self-created cohort is its diversity. I love getting perspectives from a wide-range of levels and backgrounds, as well as learning about resources other teachers use that I may be unfamiliar with.

What I appreciated most about this collaboration was how easy it was to organize and the thoughtfulness of the feedback I received. I loved the idea of adding a kinesthetic element to the lesson. I also had no clue about Coogle, but it seems like a great resource to use since all of my students already have Gmail/Google accounts. Prior to this collaboration, I was unfamiliar with the idea of using inquiry based hooks, but thanks to the example that was given, I believe that this activity would be extremely beneficial and enable me to do some slight differentiation with my students.

We also used Padlet to exchange ideas. I like this resource, but if I were to do it again, I would have chosen a different format. I didn’t like that I wasn’t able to directly reply to posts from other people.

Even though we’re over 3,000 miles apart, technology made this collaboration super easy and super meaningful. I think that this is an activity that all teachers should try to complete at least once per year in order to push themselves beyond their comfort zone.

ISTE Standards Connections:

Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity: Using tools that allow collaboration, such as Google Drive, Padlet, etc. not only encourages collaboration, but truly facilitates it in a way that is engaging and enriching.
Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments: Preparing students for the future means giving them the opportunity to use programs that are currently being used in the workplace. Authentic learning experiences are key to student success.

Thing #4: Cloud Initiation

It’s hard to imagine a time in my life when the digital cloud was not present. Unfortunately, I do remember a time, and I remember the moment when I became forever grateful for the cloud. I was a traveling teacher, so organization was key. That being said, I was far from perfect, and often felt scatterbrained. I remember the day when I went to plug in my USB key to my laptop, only to find that it was missing! I practically burst into tears and was unsure what to do, as I had a class scheduled to begin in only a few minutes. Needless to say, I was forced to get very creative that day, but once my USB key was located (phew!), I talked to my tech-savvy friends and learned about the cloud. Ever since that day, I’ve never looked back.

I’ve loved using DropBox for many years, but find that the space restrictions for free accounts is quite limiting. Once my DropBox became full, I began using Google Drive, which comes with significantly more storage space, and I love that it is connected to all of my Google accounts. I honestly don’t know what I did before Google!

Here’s a sampling of my current Google Drive account. I love putting documents into folders (probably a little bit too much), so I create new folders almost weekly.

Screen Shot 2019-02-23 at 18.03.31 — Here’s a screenshot of my Google Drive homepage. I love keeping all of my documents organized by using folders and sub-folders.

Screen Shot 2019-02-23 at 18.03.47 — This is an example of what one of the folders looks like. This folder was designed to organize my documents for teaching verbs.

Screen Shot 2019-02-23 at 18.04.08 — This is another example of what the contents of one of my folders looks like. This is for all resources related to my current position as a Cambridge English Teacher.

Screen Shot 2019-02-23 at 18.04.25 — This is the folder I use for anything related to administrative documents at school.

Symbaloo:

Prior to this course, I had not heard of Symbaloo. However, after watching videos and reading about it, I found it to be a very valuable tool. I am a very visual person, so I love that you can customize each website with whatever image you see as appropriate. Below is an example of what my Symbaloo page looks like. It is just getting started, but I’m looking forward to adding more websites as I discover them.

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Personal Reflection:

I found this Thing to be extremely useful and informative. All of the information I learned will really help me to stay organized and enable the sharing of resources with other educators. While I was already familiar with a number of the tools discussed during this course, I also learned about new tools, which I will share with my students as well as colleagues.

I really like the idea of creating a class Symbaloo so that all students have easy access to resources related to course work. I have also used Google Drive in a number of ways with my students. I find that using Google Drive and Google Docs is a great way to collaborate and quickly provide feedback to students.

CITW Connections:

Cooperative Learning: Using Google Drive or DropBox is an excellent way to promote student collaboration. Best of all, the resources are free and very easy to use!
Summarizing and Notetaking: I really liked learning about the different things that Diigo can be used for. This is a great way to teach students a variety of methods for notetaking, as well as summarizing.

Thing #3: Visual Learning

There are so many great (and usually free) resources available not only to teachers, but everyone! In my experience, I often find a program or website that I really like and find easy to use, and then stop trying to find additional resources. This is something that I am actively trying to change about myself.

With Thing #3, I was forced outside of my comfort zone, and as a result found myself becoming frustrated with the websites that I was trying to use. In the end, I persevered, and as a result, now have many other tools in my belt to help integrate technology into my teaching.

During this unit, I learned about many resources to help improve my instruction for visual learners. I learned about a number of resources to help me to organize lessons and ideas in a visual format. Some of the ways I learned were:

-Graphic Organizers -Infographics

-Word Clouds -QR Codes

Graphic Organizers:

There are many, many great mind mapping resources available. I chose to try Bubbl.us because it was a resource I had never used or heard of. What I liked best about this website was how easy it was to manipulate and make changes once you got started. I think this website would be an excellent tool to organize brainstorming sessions during class. Here’s an example of a mind map that I would use to help introduce the idea of verbs to my students. We would then work together to add more information.

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Word Clouds:

I absolutely love using word clouds! I have used them for many years, not only for teaching, but in my personal life as well. I think word clouds are engaging and fun and can be used for so many different reasons. Students also love making word clouds. In the past, I used the online version of Wordle to create word clouds. Unfortunately, the online version no longer works and you must download the program. This has some potential drawbacks, especially limiting when and where it can be used. Here’s an example of what a word cloud might look like when talking about why English language learning is important. I’ve also shared this visual on my class website, as I think it’s an interesting representation of languages in the world.

Infographics:

I also love infographics! I have used them on countless occasions and find them to be very easy to use and understand. While I love reading infographics, I find creating them to be less fun. I became very frustrated when trying to create an infographic using Piktochart. While I absolutely see the value of this for some content areas and students, I do not think that this is a visual representation that I will use regularly in my instruction. Here’s an example of a inforgraphic representing the results of a class survey:

QR Codes:

For many years, I’ve been seeing QR codes everywhere I go. When I finally downloaded the application to scan them, I was quite intrigued. I thought this was a genius way of using technology to quickly and efficiently share information with a very large audience in a very short period of time. I find the available websites to be equally user friendly and easy to use. For this activity, I tried QRstuff.com. Unfortunately, this has not caught on in France. In fact, I can’t remember ever seeing a QR while living in France. So again, I think this technology has a very important place in learning, but not in my current situation. To get an idea of how QR codes worked, I made one to reach the website of the company I work for (the website is in French). If you’re interested in learning about the company I work for, scan the QR code below!

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I love the idea of incorporating things for all learner styles into my teaching. I think that the websites I mentioned in this post could be very useful for helping me to use more technology in my teaching.

Connections to ISTE Standards:

Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity: As the possibilities are limitless with these resources, students would be given the opportunity to express themselves in countless ways.
Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments: As technology is constantly changing, so are the resources which are available to us. Employing these new technologies will ensure that students are being given authentic opportunities to learn and explore.
Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility: Remembering that once we create something on the internet, it is there forever (even if we delete it). Helping students learn appropriate ways of questioning and disagreeing.