January is upon us and the start of a new semester got me a little behind with the planning of this month's "Teaching with VoiceThread" Hangout -- but it was great, nonetheless! I especially enjoyed the terrific reflections shared in the first part of the Hangout by +Michael Kieley and +Deborah Lemon about how teaching with VoiceThread has improved their connections with their students, their understanding of their students' needs, and their ability to measure their students' abilities and growth. We also had an interesting dialogue about the value of "community" in foreign language classes, which is a strength of VoiceThread. I also had a chance to answer some "how to" questions about "Identities" and adding video files to a VoiceThread by using the 'screenshare' feature of Hangouts in the second half of the session.
This week, I sat down in a Hangout with Deborah Lemon to learn about how she uses a private Facebook group to teach spanish fully online and in a blended format. I must say, I was impressed and inspired! I've found myself thinking long and hard about some of the examples she shared in the Hangout. Deborah's point, to me, is that Facebook allows for her to seamlessly and fluidly interact with her students but also, and perhaps more importantly, the students can spontaneously stream their lives and experiences through their feed updates, functioning as authentic assessments.
As Deborah explained to me, this type of fluid connection to students is essential when teaching a foreign language. For example, (you'll see this in the video) Deborah showed a video of a student who set up her smartphone phone and recorded herself interacting with customers at her place of employment -- using the spanish skills she had just learned in class. Deborah likens the video clips that the students share in the Facebook microblog feed to an ePortfolio. Nearly all college students are on Facebook already so having them shift to a private FB group to share their spanish skills with their phones makes a lot more sense than requiring them to get to a computer and log into Blackboard or Moodle.
To me, I had always been a bit stand offish about microblogging because it's so fragmented but Deborah demonstrated how the Facebook Group function provides a simple way to sort the contributions made by each student. This gives a comprehensive view of the students' activities in one place. Deborah covers a lot of other important topics including dealing with reluctant Facebook users (which is very rare, she says) and archiving content.
I find myself thinking about how using social technologies push us, as teachers, into new and unexpected territory. We might start using a social technology for one particular reason but what blossoms from there is the exciting and unimaginable part -- that's the piece that we need to be cultivating and that's the piece that will not happen in traditional course management systems.
Finally, Deborah invites you all to join her Facebook Group "Using Groups for Teaching." In this group, you'll find lots of tips and resources for learning about how to teach with Facebook, as well as the chance to interact with other like-minded educators. To check it out, go to Facebook.com, sign in, search for "Using Groups for Teaching" using the search box at the top, and click "Join group."
The VoiceThread College Innovator Webinar Series, hosted by Michelle Pacansky-Brock
Are you curious about how to use VoiceThread in your foreign language or ESL classes? Or are you looking for some new ideas? Get together with your colleagues and join us for an hour of sharing on April 20th!
This webinar will feature the teaching innovations of:
David Thompson
Associate Professor of Spanish, Luther College
David will show you how he uses VoiceThread for a digital storytelling
exercise
in which students narrate a photo story with the imperfect and
preterit tenses in Spanish.
Vicki Curtis
Associate Professor of ESL, Ohlone College
Vicki will demonstrate how she uses VoiceThread to conduct a
virtual
writing conference with her beginning writing ESL students and
explain
how VoiceThread has played a key role in the development of her
online
reading and writing upper intermediate ESL class -- a feat that
many
said was "impossible!"
Date/Time: Friday, April 20th at 12pm PDT/ 3pm EDT
For one hour a month, Michelle and a VoiceThread team member are "in
the office" and available for live questions and discussion about using
VoiceThread in education. Bring all of your questions and comments!
Date/time: Thursday, April 26th at 12pm PDT/ 3pm EDT
VoiceThread’s College Innovator Spotlight Webinar Series hosted by Michelle Pacansky-Brock
Have you been curious about how to use VoiceThread in your foreign language or ESL classes? Or are you looking for some new ideas? Get together with your colleagues and join us for an hour of sharing on April 20th!
This webinar will feature the teaching innovations of:
David Thompson Associate Professor of Spanish, Luther College David will show you how he uses VoiceThread for a digital storytelling exercise in which students narrate a photo story with the imperfect and preterit tenses in Spanish.
Vicki Curtis Associate Professor of ESL, Ohlone College
Vicki will demonstrate how she uses VoiceThread to conduct
a virtual writing
conference with her beginning writing ESL students
and explain how
VoiceThread has played a key role in the
development of
her online reading and writing
upper intermediate ESL class
-- a feat
that many said was "impossible!"
Friday, April 20th 12pm PST/3pm EST FREE!
Registration will be available in early April.
To be notified via email that registration is available, please add your name to this list: http://bit.ly/ow0NWp
