Group items tagged

"DropTask is a task management service that has a neat user interface. To create a task in DropTask you drag a "task bubble" onto a blank canvas where you. Each task bubble can be dragged and dropped into a task group bubble. Each of your tasks can have a due date assigned to, files attached to it, and be given a priority status. "DropTask can be used individually or with a group. Group members can sign into DropTask to check on the status of a task and to assign new tasks to the group." This blog entry has an embedded insturctional video, too. This might be a good way to help students organize their tasks.

"There are ten tasks and they can be done in any order, except for the tenth one which should be last. Please feel free to use and share these tasks and by all means leave any comments or suggestions for improvement. I will also be hosting a teacher development week using and discussing these tasks and the related tools from 7th to 15th December 2009 on the SEETA Moodle site: http://www.seeta.eu/ so by all means come along for that if you want to share ideas and learn a bit more together." These ten tasks are a nice resource for teacher trainers, or if you are a teacher and want your students to try out one or more of the tools (not all of which are really Web 2.0 tools, BTW). I've used most of these before, but it is a pleasure to use them on the IMac Intel-based with very high speed Internet. If you hit this site before December 2009, do join the SEETA discussion at their Moodle.

Our pedagogical imperative is to let a course unfold according to the whim and determination of the group - to replace teacher-as-content with learning-community-as-content-maker. Doesn't this replace the content-as-authority with the random knowledges of various members of the group? How does "whim" become "content"? Wouldn't it be better to start with actual, factual knowledge? on Dec 09, 14 - Edit - Remove This is at the heart of what Freire calls "co-intentional education," in which "Teachers and students (leadership and people), co-intent on reality, are both Subjects, not only in the task of unveiling that reality, and thereby coming to know it critically, but in the task of re-creating that knowledge." The collective knowledge of a group of students will almost always exceed the expertise of one instructor. The last sentence is misleading -- not what Freire says. If the teacher is not included as part of the task, the knowledge of the group of students probably doesn't exceed the instructor's expertise.

"The key to IELTS Writing Task 2 success is to give the examiner exactly what they want and nothing else. "Below you will find everything you need to achieve a high score in IELTS Writing Task 2. "It includes: 5 Step Approach Video Writing Task 2 Tips Essential Skills Sentence-by-Sentence Structures Common Topics Full Lessons On All Question Types. Grammar Sample Answers Correction Service Easy to Understand Infographic" This lesson is oriented toward passing the IELTS Writing Exam, but it is a useful set of exercises and activities, including a video, for anyone learning how to write an academic essay

This blog entry describes what a rubric is and how to create rubrics for your own purposes. "Authentic assessments typically are criterion-referenced measures. That is, a student's aptitude on a task is determined by matching the student's performance against a set of criteria to determine the degree to which the student's performance meets the criteria for the task. To measure student performance against a pre-determined set of criteria, a rubric, or scoring scale, is typically created which contains the essential criteria for the task and appropriate levels of performance for each criterion. "

"The UMBC Assessment Resource Center for History offers sample assessments based on readings from six eras in U.S. history. The assessments include multiple choice question and performance tasks based on close reading exercises. The performance task assessments include scoring rubrics, sample responses from students, and the documents that students need in order to complete the performance tasks." T/H R. Byrne

Publication of the IEEE Computer Socity Learning Technology Task Force The Learning Technology aims to report the activities of Learning Technology Task Force including various announcements, work in progress, projects, participation opportunities, additions/modifications to the website and so on. In short, it would serve as a channel to keep everyone aware of Task Force's activities. The quarterly publication is disseminated in two ways: content list by email and in HTML and PDF form on its website. --EHS

The backwards is really what should be forwards, that is, it starts with what tasks the students need to accomplish. Blow-up the chart to see the tools that can accomplish these tasks. The second page also has a list of goals and links to tools. This should come in handy as you think about how to successfully integrate technology into your class, or flip you class.

"If This Then That helps you automate tasks like saving your Pinterest pins to your Evernote account, setting text alerts for calendar events, and sending email attachments directly to your Dropbox account. There are thousands of formulas, "recipes" is what IFTTT calls them, available in the gallery of recipes." Byrne suggests uses for teachers, but this might be an good place for students to try out simple programming skills. t/h R. Byrne

"Instead of listing my goals for 2010, I would like to invite you to accomplish some short-term goals I am setting for myself for 2010. Each day this month, I will challenge you to accomplish a goal for the day. I will be accomplishing these tasks myself, then blogging about the entire experience when I am finished. I welcome you to do the same! I am hoping this will inspire me to begin working towards my long-term goals. Join the Challenge To be part of the challenge, do the following: * Accomplish the goal- Don't worry if you just began reading this, you can accomplish these goals whenever you read about them. This is set-up to be 30 goals in 30 days so you can do this at anytime of the year! If you don't accomplish all the goals, then just do what you can. * Tweet the link, what you learned, a thought, or just kudos to yourself for accomplishing the task! Please use the hashtag #30Goals! You can subscribe to the hashtag to keep track of your accomplishments! * Add a comment, so we can share your excitement or learn about a new resource, link, or website! For support: * Post with others using the Twitter hashtag #30Goals! * Each of the goals will be listed in the sidebar widget under 30 Days, 30 Goals!" This looks like a fun way to re-charge your teaching--and you can use it over again next year!

Nik Peachey explains how to create lessons using video files. Create Quick Video Task Sheets Vidinotes is an interesting site that I spotted a few weeks back. It's a great way to produce instant (almost) video worksheets to go with YouTube videos. Basically, what it does is to convert an flv video file into a number of screen shots with a space next to each screen shot for the students to take notes."

Nik Peachey's blog has 5 tasks for starters: "...anyone can download them and use them either to do teacher training or to develop their own ability to use technology."

"As various means of computer mediated communication (CMC) have been incorporated within language classrooms over the past two decades, it has become important to critically understand whether, to which extent, and under what contextual factors, a particular type of CMC is more effective than other modes of communication. This study examined the magnitude of the effect of text-based synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) on second language acquisition (SLA). By searching the studies published between 1990 and 2012, this meta-analysis explored 10 experimental and quasi-experimental journal articles and doctoral dissertations and reports their overall effect on SLA, and the contextual factors that influence the between-study variation. A small but positive overall effect (m = .33) indicates that text-based SCMC could make a larger difference on SLA than other means of communication. Findings further suggested that intermediate learners may benefit more from SCMC tasks if they are grouped into pairs or small groups and participate in SCMC interactions on a weekly basis. In terms of suggestions for future research, authors should provide more description about the SCMC task in order to confirm or disconfirm the factors that are associated with effectiveness of second language (L2) learning in technology-mediated language learning contexts."

Azendoo helps teams assign and track their various roles in a group project. I can imagine this as a nice way for teachers to help students decide on tasks and roles with the group as well. Reminders to the team help keep work on track. Azendoo allows as many workspaces as need, and each space has 10GB of storage. works with Evernote, Google Drive, Dropbox, and Box to help sharing.

Article on PBL: The assumption of non-constructivist approaches to learning has been that as long as learners are provided with knowledge, they will be able to use it. Education based on that assumption is thus primarily concerned with transferring substance to the learner, and little importance is placed on the role of the learning activity. From a constructivist view, on the other hand, learning is the process of constructing knowledge - not merely obtaining it - in social environments (Brooks & Brooks, 1993). The theory of situated learning consistent with this view asserts that what we come to know and understand is fundamentally a product of the learning situation and the nature of the learning activity. Learning tasks should thus, as far as possible, be embedded in the target context and require the kind of thinking that would be done in real life (Brown et al., 1989; Lave & Wenger, 1991).

If you train other teachers, these templates -- free and downloadble as docs -- should help with the task of planning and preparing. Also a free Trainer's Kit is available. Haven't had a chance to try any of them out, so caveat emptor.

Continuing improvements in speech recognition technology may lead to some useful CALL applications to ESL/EFL: "By the use of automatic speech recognition (ASR), oral tasks can be practiced more easily because it is the computer itself which understands and gives feedback to the learner so that the learner feels much more involved, and in contrast to traditional methods, a learner can enjoy engaging in activities more."

""Most early-childhood classrooms in the United States," writes Paul Tough in his new book How Children Succeed, "are designed to develop in children a set of pre-academic skills, mostly related to deciphering text and manipulating numbers." Nevertheless, research conducted in the last few years suggests that stuffing this kind of information into a child's head is not the most important task in those early years. "What matters, instead, is whether we are able to help her develop a very different set of qualities, a list that includes persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit, and self-confidence." How Children Succeed describes the new discoveries and reports on the ways innovative educators are developing techniques to help children develop these traits. The interview lasts about 30 minutes. "

"What you are looking for is a clearly structured sequence of learning activities and tasks that lead somewhere. You want a beginning, middle and end that relate to learning content.... But at the same time, your online course needs a beginning, middle and end that relate to the group...." A good way to think about how to structure both learning and your students' relationship to it.

Offers songs in multiple European languages with text lyrics which you can manipulate as cloze activities. Lots of student control to repeat lines of a song, click on tab to show an answer to a missing lyric, etc. Students ign-up to keep a record of songs and the tasks completed. Provides 3 different levels of activity; e.g., "expert" is total cloze.