PORTFOLIO

NEW TECHNOLOGY

2014

CRISTINA CIRAUQUI CARRIÓNUNIVERSIDAD PÚBLICA DE NAVARRA

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INDEX

I. INTRODUCTION……………………………………3

II. MY FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH DIGITAL DEVICES……………………………………………4

III. HOW DO WE USE DIGITAL DEVICES?.........7

IV. DISCOVERING NEW PROGRAMMES………..9

V. MEAGNINFUL RESOURCES……………………11

VI. THE USE OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN MY INTERNSHIP………………………………….....13

VII. REFERENCES…………………………………….14

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This portfolio is organized into five sections. On the one hand, the first four ones makes reference to electronic resources used for teaching which have been shown in the ICT subject, coursed at the Public University of Navarra. On the other hand, the last part is dedicated to express my internship experience and, in particular, my observation and viewpoint of the use of New Technologies inside and outside class by my tutor.

Not only I am reflecting on how the Information Age has created a knowledge-based society, but I also try to share different digital programmes which play a central role in education. Therefore, the best way of making use of these educational tools is to include them in my blog.

Regarding the development of teaching techniques through electronic tools, in my view, these can make classes more efficient giving access to other informative documents which help you to learn from developing new ways of teaching. This could not be possible without the contribution of millions of advanced users who create and share information to learn and teach.

INTRODUCTION

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According to the first theory and practice class, one can realize about the technological changes developed in the 21th Century. Digital competence is the most recent concept describing technology related to skills. As future teachers, we must take into account technical skills to use digital technologies in a meaningful way for working, studying and for everyday life in general. Furthermore, we have to be able to select them appropriately depending on our purposes to reach our educational goals.

Apart from that, I think that we should enable the growth of this interesting World participating in digital culture. We could use and learn from different points of view over a same thing to understand how others think and this contribution to get a better education. Sincerely, I did not used to be keen on learning about new technologies; I just worked as an intermediate user who was not worried about overcoming that level. As a matter of fact, I was not aware of the wide range of opportunities to research, select and create new content online. However, nowadays I have changed my mind and I am really interested in learning further information about this unknown world.     

At the beginning of the new course, I was afraid of the quantity of content to assimilate. However, at the moment, I am really motivated to know about Common Framework of teaching digital competence. Therefore, I decided to search for information about all of the knowledge which I had no idea. For example, which does TPACK, CALL, PLE, PLN, VLE mean? I felt completely lost.

I discovered that Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) is a framework that identifies the knowledge which teachers need to teach effectively with technology. But, what is it exactly? The following picture can show us the complex interplay of three primary

forms of knowledge: Content (CK), Pedagogy (PK), and Technology (TK).

This approach goes beyond seeing these three knowledge bases in isolation. TPACK also emphasizes the new kinds of knowledge that is obtained from the intersections between them, representing four more

MY FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH DIGITAL COMPETENCES

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knowledge which is applicable to teaching with technology: Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), Technological Content Knowledge (TCK), Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK), and the intersection of all three circles, Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). In other words, this picture shows visually what we can obtain when we share knowledge and think of the main parts which are necessary to make it more complex.

In addition, there were other unknown concepts to look up as PLE, PLN, VLE, CLE and PWT. However, it was a bit complicated to find out and understand the meaning of these confusing terms because I knew that all of them have in common some aspects, but I did not ensure how they are connected. Therefore, I have chosen this picture to explain them clearly.

Personal learning environment is based on collaborative learning and social networks within communities of practice. Attwell. Barnes, Bimrose and Brown, (2008) said that a PLE should be based on a set of tools to allow personal access to resources from multiple sources, and to support knowledge creation and communication. 

Personal learning networks (PLN) share a close association with the concept of PLE because a person makes a connection with another person with the specific intent that some type of learning will occur because of that connection, deriving knowledge from a personal learning environment. In this way, you will be able to use personal web tools that help you to be an advanced user.

Furthermore, It has relation with CLE, because is an autonomous system owned by any educational institutions. The academics or learners are the users of some cloud based services, who all equally share the privileges like control, choice, sharing of content on these services. However, VLE, Virtual Learning Environment is an online educational platform. In this case, academics and the institutions have the most control on this learning environment.

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The major impact of the uses of new technologies and social networking for learning is to move learning out of the institutions and into the society. The Institutions should rethink their role as part of community and offer networks supporting learning and collaborative knowledge development.

In this subject, we have had the opportunity to create an account in Symbaloo, which will be a continuous process to evaluate at the end of the subject. It is an online bookmarking tool which is useful to have access to all your habitual websites with one click. I am really interested in developing and experimenting with this visual tool properly. I think that its colorful structure make us spend time exploring it. Moreover, you can separate some websites from others depends on their use. Therefore, it gives us the possibility to organize them in our mind, too.

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The 2nd week was dedicated to learn the dimensions of digital competences, to realize which sub-competences we are used to using, to recognize if we are a foundation, an intermediate or an advanced user and to know the meaning of an advanced user. To answer these questions, we had to search for information to analyze

HOW DO WE USE DIGITAL DEVICES?

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the meaning of these concepts in groups. Each group had to prepare a presentation to explain to the rest of our mates. It was useful to listen what they have concluded, because sometimes we say the same, but in a different way. 

To know other concepts like “digital resident” or a “visitor”, and the academic and social use of internet in Thailand compared with Spain, we had to read a survey and answer some questions. When we shared opinions, in class, most of us considered that we are digital resident because we tend to use the web in many aspects of our lives. Although some people said that they are digital and visitor resident because sometimes they use the web as a tool for achieving specific goals as needs, but it is not a venue for conducting her social life. 

According to the use of digital devices by Thai students is similar to Spanish students in some aspects. Most of us usually spend between 5-6 hours online. We do not know the exact percentage of Spanish students who owe technological devices, but we supposed to be like Thai students in this aspect. Due the 75% of them said that they have smartphone, 70% have desktop and 35% tablet or iPad.

In relation with the use of smartphones and tablets for social purposes and not for education, we all do agree that we mainly use smartphones for social purposes and laptops or desktops for educational purposes. Furthermore, we usually have a smartphone on.

However, the use of English in online gaming it is more frequent in Thai students, because 61% of them use English in section E, and 48% in section D. From my point of view and my experience, as Spanish language is one of the most common language in the world we have the opportunity to play in our mother tongue. Nevertheless, if you play with foreign people you will talk in the most important language, the English.

We can compare this example with the importance of a second language in films and TVs programmes. It is also remarkable to conclude that those countries which did not have translation of films and TV programmes were bound to learn the English basically because they needed to communicate in a single languge.

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Nevertheless, we are used to watching them in Spanish, although nowadays we get used to using English in digital devices, in general. 

83% of Thai students consider that the use of digital devices help them to practice English outside of class, and I think that it is the

same than in Spain, because we are improving our English due to the access to use digital devices, outside and inside of the class.

In the last environment, inside of the class, the use of digital devices to learn English gives us the chance of learning real word language. Moreover, it provides us meaningful interactions because we can create platforms and share opinions and

interests with students from other countries. 

The fact of using English as an official language with digital devices has caused the need of translating some words to understand the real meaning. Therefore, it gives notable importance to choose the right translation programme. Nowadays, teachers and students are aware of the potential of internet for accessing to real English. However, most of us need to have more experience to learn The English with digital devices correctly. 

To sum up, we finished the week analyzing the good points and the bad points of some webpages with educational purposes. Also, we had to realize; if those were suitable for the age and the level of our students and If we can use them for many topics and subjects like resources. Taking into account these ones, we had to choose other two websites, to work and to include in an educational context.

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The third week has been dedicated to learn about creating powerful activities using different educational programmes. I was not used to creating activities with this kind of tools, but I am expected to use them from right now. For example, the first programme learnt this week it was “Hot potatoes” which is easy to understand its functions correctly, although sometimes you can have difficulties. It offers several ways of developing our instructive aims, using interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises. We had time to experiment with the programme by ourselves and we were able to do three activities in the same class including a picture in one of them. From my point of view, it is really helpful for our role as teachers, although we have not discovered it yet properly.

According to the inclusion of videos in our work projects, I can say that I knew about Movie Maker, Video Cuter and aTube Catcher because I had ever used. However, I have learnt that everyone can download a video from YouTube without any download programme and that it is possible to cut videos from Movie Maker and Power Point. For the English Didactic, in the 3rd degree, my group chose the topic of “San Fermin” for the final project and each one had to create their own lessons. In my case, I decided to introduce my first lesson which was the first one of the project with one video created by myself. The main aim of that video was to give an example of working as a TV presenter, because the students would have to present something using correctly verbal and non-verbal language as a competent TV presenter. 

Therefore, I tried to present the common places in San Fermin in an ordinary day comparing with another video in the same place, but in this international festival. It was complicated to make it by myself, because I had never done anything like this before and it took me long time, but it was worth the effort. Nowadays, I can use it to compare with my current English level and to share it in this blog. It was two years ago, so I do not look like the same person.

        Another programme to create videos is “Animoto” which it has a wide variety of styles to use. You can join different videos and clicking play, you will enjoy watching that collection. From my point of view, I think that its main aim is to attract completely the attention, and it encourages you to create new videos.

DISCOVERING NEW PROGRAMMES

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     Finally, we have had the opportunity to transcribe one video through “Dotsub” which it is a programme to subtitle a video between the groups of the practice class. This task is for the next group and it consists of the following steps, each group has to transcribe 2'10''. 

Firstly we have to download the video from YouTube. 

Secondly we cut the video in Movie Maker. 

Finally, we need to listen the video several times to transcribe it using “Dotsub”.

        This is the result of our work and effort. Click in the link: Reading & Spelling teacher training section 5.3

      The last task is really difficult for me because my worst skill in English is the listening and it was necessary to write word by word, so you cannot invent that the video says. In general, it has been a week really enjoyable, although sometimes new technologies provoke us headache.

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The fourth entry is based on explaining several digital programmes which are really effective to include in our educational resources. In the theory class, some groups gave us an explanation about the following programmes: Subtitle horse, subtitle workshop, camptionatube, youtube, overstream, dotsub and amara. They had to take into account the main advantages and disadvantages of them, to summarize the relevant points.

Regarding the presentations, I think that we got a great impression to apply them for different subjects, because, in this moment, we are aware of their conditions and we can use them with different purposes. After that class, I had a look at these programmes to investigate by my own. As a result, I think that I would not be able to use them correctly, till I will have practiced seriously. 

In addition, my group has used “dotsub” to subtitle a video about “Reading and spelling”, and we have had some problems to upload the video, to save the transcription, etc. In other words, to be an expert of using these programmes we need to practice and to make a lot of mistakes.

Another task to perform in the theory class, it was to experiment with programmes related to mind maps, in groups. We had to compare “Text 2 mind map” and “Stormboad”. The first one was very similar to Cmaptools, although I prefer to use Text 2 mind map, because in cmaptools when you add a box to write down, it appears two boxes and sometimes you do not need both and you cannot eliminate one of them. Furthermore, I would use “Text 2 mind map“because the appearance is more remarkable and you can choose different styles of writing, colors, etc.

Stormboad has too many templates to use with different purposes, although it is necessary to spend time

MEAGNINFUL RESOURCES

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discovering all of its tools. I am sure you will find that you are looking for, because it has meaningful resources.  Therefore, it will take you time to get the right template due to its wide variety. It is really difficult to choose one because they are completely different and the use of them can be orientated to different purposes. 

The practice class was very interesting because we have discussed about the differences between memory test and practice test. Teachers have been using memory tests to evaluate students for decades, but they did not realize that type of test is not use checking if students have acquired the content required for that unit and if that learning will be applied for their real lives. Because that results give us evidences that students are learning by rote and that does not make sense.

We have to help students to be competent in different contexts and to develop cognitive skills which will give them the opportunity to solve real problems. As my blog’s title says, everyone needs to learn by using, because it is the only way to acquire the knowledge properly. Mostly, if we learn something memorizing, we will forget it quickly, but if we use that knowledge in a specific context, it does not matter if we make mistakes, because we will remember what we do not have to do, so we will not forget it easily.

According to the assessment, it is necessary to make the points to be evaluated clear. When we were students, we weren't notified of what we had to know exactly to pass the exam or to be an excellent student. If we were good at something, any problem, but if we were bad at studying history, for example, what could we do?. We could spend too many hours studying, but if we were not sure about what we needed to know, we were losing our time. As a matter of fact, if we have clear how teachers are going to evaluate us and what I need to know, we would focus on that and we would do it

successfully.

Rubrics are meaningful resources to assess. Because these are divided into different sections like content and language

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written, and in each one, there are different grades of acquisition of that skill. In consequence teachers and students use these grades to be identified in any of them, and to take into account what they need

to achieve. It is easier if we make everything clear from the first time, we will take advantages of every minute.

By the end of the internship we were supposed to have an idea of the use of new technologies in the classroom to teach foreign languages, its use outside class to prepare digital resources and for organizational purposes.

What I have seen during my internship is that all the classrooms have an interactive whiteboard, but teachers are not used to making the most of this powerful tool. Actually, this happens because I know that such is a new digital challenging resource.

My teacher usually makes use of the interactive whiteboard to start the unit with a power point.  She also explains and practices theoretical concepts using games and activities online. Furthermore, she means to listen to songs and activities either watching pictures or videos.

However, the interactive whiteboard is used as a projection system. She tends to use the blackboard to rely on an outline, as well as to make the content clear and finally write the activities'key down.

Apart from the resources have I seen my tutor uses for a teaching purpose in the classroom, she also designs some activities in Microsoft Word and Power point. These are targeted to students' learning.

Indeed, not only are new technologies been used for these purposes, but they are also used for organizational ones.  For instance, she uses Microsoft Excell to create different schedules and so for, organize the course of the units. Furthermore, she makes use of this programme to carry on with the assessment. Regarding my tutor, I think that she could exploit new technologies better.

To sum up, in my view, I think that the school should provide teachers with a specific training on how bring new technologies into the classroom. I would suggest to use Cmaptool so as to create a diagram  and the use of concept maps at the same time. Another

THE USE OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN MY INTERNSHIP

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remarkable tool to carry through the teaching process is the useful programme VUE. Not only is possible to create concept maps in this, but it is also beneficial because when you create a mind map, you are connecting them with digital resources. You can have a look at the following website: http://vue.tufts.edu/

References:

Dhabi, A., (2007). What is CALL?. United Arab Emirates. Retrieve from: http://advanceducation.blogspot.com.es/2007/04/what-is-call-computer-assisted-language.html

Edublend. (2013). Technology Enhanced Active learning & Team Based Learning UK HESTEM community launch. United Kingdom. Retrieve from: http://edublend.blogspot.com.es/

Llomäki, L., Kantosalo, A. & Lakkala, M., (2011). What is digital competence? EUN Partnership AISBL. Retrieve from:

http://linked.eun.org/c/document_library/get_filep_l_id=16319&folderId=22089&name=DLFE-711.pdf

Koehler, M. J., (2006). What is TPACK?. Retrieve from: http://www.tpack.org/

Jarvis, H., Digital residents: practices and perceptions of non-native speakers. University of Salford, UK.

The following WebPages:

www.dotsub.com

www.animoto.es

Movie Maker programme

Hot potatoes programme

www.youtube.com

http://dotsub.com/   

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http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1319 /  

https://www.stormboard.com/  

https://www.text2mindmap.com/