AFTV Conference Friday, 22 July 2011 Veronica Deren

1. AFTV Conference Friday, 22 July 2011 Veronica Deren How to Motivate Gen Y Students Using ICT Tools

2. Motivation of Gen Y in a Changing World In life, change is imminent and we need to make the most of it as teachers and the key is to work smarter, not harder My questions are How do we engage our students more in our classrooms? and How can we embrace change without too much stress to work smarter to connect students more?

3. Four Main Reasons for Changing our Teaching 1. Students demand more connected learning 2. The change in working behaviours over the centuries have been prominent 3. Educational teaching styles have changed to be more flexible now 4. Educational Learning in different environments is current now, at home and school and during leisure time through being connected with the internet, i-phones, virtual classrooms, podcasts, mp3 players, Skype, Moodle.........

4. Time Skills Focus“Change the tools and this leads to a change in culture” Pre-1800s Manual labour and strength were what was admired and required in the centuries before the Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution Manual skills were replaced by machines of the 18th century. The focus was on getting a trade which would lead to success 1900s The skills of the knowledge worker were secure and we set up modern schools – prosperity and the new economy. 21st Century Technology and the use of MSN, Face book, MySpace, Twitter, ICT, smart chat, wikis and blogs have become the norm

5. The ‘generic’ Generation Breakdown • The Silent Generation (The Builders) - born before 1946 • The Baby Boomers - born 1946 - 1964 • Generation X - born 1965 - 1979 • Generation Y - born 1980 - 2000 • Generation Z - born 2000 +…...

6. Why ‘generic’ Generations? • In order to understand the changes in our culture and the emphasis about the way we do things and use our left and right hemisphere of the brain • In order to understand the different characteristics of each generation better • In order to build strategies to work more positively and effectively with each generation for their success, happiness and well-being

7. Change Affects Left and Right Brain Hemispheres Another disconcerting fact is that over time machines are now replacing human left brain skills, but not the right brain strengths such as creativity, empathy and intrapersonal and interpersonal abilities However, try ‘Radic 20Q I can read your mind’ (a family fun game)’ which is a toy that attempts to predict what you are thinking by asking you 20 questions

8. A Change in Culture and Thinking **Ref: Neil Postman (philosopher) in his book Teaching as a Subversive Activity stated: “We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us” – this is what it is to be human) agrees that: Change the tools and this leads to a change in culture This means as teachers we must also adapt to change or be left behind 

9. Gen Y = has an addiction to technology and being connected Gen X = how can we forge a future and make it excellent by embracing change and using technologies more? We are in the Midst of Educational Change

10. Gen X versus Gen Y Gen Y = addiction to technology, SMS, Facebook, MySpace, Skype, blogs, twitter, iTunes, iPods and iphones Gen Y students have a need to be connected to their peers, much more than we did It’s not about the topic, but the need to converse by texting!

11. Motivating Gen Y Inevitable cultural change and the way we work now, means we need to learn to use new tools such as. Web 2.0 Technologies, Blogs, web-blogs, wikis, photo-sharing sites, Moodle as a platform, Audacity, Taggalaxy.de, i-Photo, i-Tunes and the list goes on………. to engage our students more

12. Research Findings John Hattic (2003) Research “Cause and Achievement Variance” states that: ‘...we need teachers in the future. But...the role for teachers will change, and we must remember that teachers make a big difference in the life of students”(See poem)

13. How to Create Better Connectivity with our Students? Using connected learning and its technologies in classes/home research and in the curriculum Creating motivated and self-confident ICT teachers and learners as users Accepting this technological cultural change Being enthusiastic about tools that enable students to feel more connected

14. Gen X versus Gen Y The challenge: Gen X = how can we forge a future and make it excellent by embracing change? Ref: The New Rules Of Engagement by Michael McQueen - a must read for teachers of Gen Y students.

15. Let’s use Web 2.0 Tools? Web 2.0 describes a loose grouping of social technologies where its users are actively involved in interacting with each other to build communities across the web. Examples of Web 2.0 applications are: Picasa 3 and Flickr for photos, Wikipedia for encyclopedia articles, YouTube for videoclips and Facebook for creating friendships For more research about the Web see: http://e-language.wikispaces.com/

16. Research about connected students in classrooms Over 90% of our students use web2.0 technologies on a daily basis and many of these are used in the classroom such as: Blogs, micro-blogging, wikis, JAlbum Animoto - photo-sharing websites and file-sharing ones like ‘delicious and diigo’ and games such as languagesonline and comicmaker and other educational free websites

17. Blog? What’s a Blog? a website that provides opinions and ideas about a specific topic it includes links and images to co-related topics interactive status - bloggers seek others’ opinions about their theme and they write for an audience in mind (a class, collectors etc..) it can be used as an online diary see http://doucheys.edublogs.org/

18. How to Blog Go to http://wordpress.com sign up for a New Blog and an email will be sent to you for confirmation Give your Blog a specific name so that your students can access it. Then activate it Upload articles to the Dashboard Voilà!

19. Wordpress.com Wordpress is a Web publisher and it is an incredibly powerful web-content management system. It enables students to: freely create web posts, and blogs easily It can be a special webpage for the class to upload information to the Dashboard and share photos, blogs and information

20. Our Goethe Institut Munich Blog June 2010

21. Our Goethe Institut Munich Blog June 2010 Participants

22. What’s the Educational Value of Blogs? used to share ideas with other students increase motivation about a subject and develop their ideas, reflect and publish these on-line create an avenue for feedback from others are chronologically based so that the thread of the research can be followed by the audience enable students to have complete control over its on-line content and their opinions/research

23. Implementing the Blog in your classroom Use it as a tool to create active dialogue with your students As a tool to manage knowledge and promote student reflections and extra materials into the class for all to use and discuss in their research ( i.e. LOTE detailed studies, WW2, Immigration, film studies) Visit other Blogs such as: www.schoolblogs.com to stimulate discussion

24. Practical strategies for Blogging Demonstrate to students, how to blog, explain the rationale for it and use good and bad blogs as examples for their own writing and idea sharing Set strict rules about length of posts, themes and do’s and don’ts When quoting others’ work, make references and offer citations Publicise student blogs by sharing links with the outside world to make their blogs real and stimulating

25. Benefits of Student Blogging Blogs can increase student motivation and ownership of their learning it can create active researchers on a particular topic it can promote different perspectives both in and outside the classroom it can motivate all class members to participate and have their say

26. Useful Educational Blogging Sites These sites are free and act as hosts Their design is for an educational environment They have FAQ and ‘Blogger Basics” to assist with technical setups for all These blogsites do not link to inappropriate sites like Flickr or Facebook that can compromise teachers

27. Useful Educational Blogging Sites Schoolblogs http://www.schoolblogs.net Edublogs http://www.edublogs.com jAlbum Blog goes multilingual Also have a look at: EduBlog, WordPress http://www.shapecollage.com/blog/ http://www.mltav.asn.au/

28. What is a Wiki? (inspired by the Hawaiian word ‘wiki-wiki’ meaning ‘quick’) It is a website that allows visitors to remove, add and basically edit the available content of a wiki ‘Wikipedia’ is a free encyclopedia and it is one of the most well-known examples of a public wiki (but, because it is a wiki, that is why its content cannot always be trusted as fact - beware!) Any topic that has the potential for collaborative collection of content is suitable for a wiki (Many wikis are private existing on intranets or behind firewalls and they have restricted access to registered users)

29. The Benefits of Using Wikis It enables collaboration between teachers/students using wikis around the world - this could be ideal for language learning in different LOTEs/ sister schools It can build and strengthen learning relationships amongst students and educators as creators of knowledge and information as a group effort It has multiple country boundaries and it can host different content such as podcasts, videos and pictures and expand chat potential in the LOTE and you can also always revert to the last saved copy

30. Worthwhile Educational Wikis http://www.wikispaces.com/ Wetpaint: http://www.wetpaint.com/ PBWorks (educational version of PBWiki) http://pbworks.com/academic.wiki

31. Photo-sharing Websites JAlbum = http://jalbum.et/ JAlbum enables you to create your own photo album site to share with friends. It is very user-friendly - see the collection as a slide show or see it in large-scale print (now multi-lingual) Animoto: http://animoto.com enables you to make 30 second video clips from your photos, using your music or a range supplied. The finished movie can be imbedded into a web site, downloaded, e-mailed or sent to YouTube Note: (as teachers be very careful of using Flickr in the classroom, it can bring up inappropriate sites for your students also be very careful of Facebook, it can also provide inappropriate content)

32. Picasa 3 and i-Photo Picasa 3 is free Windows software to improve the definition and resolution of pictures taken and they can be used in Photostory, Powerpoint or Animation slides Windows Live Photo Gallery for PCs: http://download.live.com/photogallery i-Photo does the same for Apple users and it enables photos to be sorted under theme or city and it produces it to you in a booklet

33. Podcasts using Audacity Audacity is a free Windows audio editor and recorder. It can be used very effectively on a server such as Moodle. It can have up to 4 speakers participating in a role play, tape music as background and it can modify voices to create different dramatic settings and edit recordings and sounds for professional production This has been very popular for students to create their VSL role-play projects at Saturday morning classes

34. Moodle Moodle is a free open source e-learning software platform/web-application It produces modular internet-based courses that support a modern social constructionist pedagogy the VSL uses this effective platform to interact with students, producing their workbooks, written activities and recording recitations of poems and dialogues for assessment from Years 7-12

35. Using Moodle in the LOTE Classroom Moodle is a server that is used by the VSL to store student modules of work, post current notices about seminars or helpful grammatical sites and it also enables students to interact with their teachers by recording their oral work (mp3 files), and to send back their responses as written text and e-mailing messages about seminars The Education Departments in different states offer curriculum resources using this platform as well. See http://www.moodle.com.au/ and see the VSL one at: http://www.vsl.vic.edu.au for Centres that teach languages and www.languages.vic.edu.au for Distance Education students enrolled in language courses

38. Reliable Resources to Use with Students A very reliable resource to use is: https://fuse.education.vic.gov.au and it is filtered by the Education Department

39. Elluminate a Video-conferencing Tool Elluminate Live! is a web conferencing program developed by Elluminate Inc. It "rents" out virtual rooms or vSpaces where virtual schools can conduct lessons from remote locations It is a video-conferencing tool that enables a VSL teacher to link in with students from many different schools and be treated like a class - with interactive capabilities for the teacher to answer questions, observe behaviours through web-cam and motivate those students with questions Skype is also a powerful tool to use to motivate remote learners too

40. i-Tunes i-Tunes is the world’s most popular digital jukebox! Most students have an account already. It can be used to download music and LOTE podcasts download podcasts onto students’ mp3 players for revision and pronunciation practice for French songs, poems, while walking the dog to improve effective learning (i.e. Fou de Fa Fa by Flight of the Conchords)

41. Google Earth with Real Maps Google Earth enables you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings, from galaxies in outer space to the canyons of the ocean Use it to take you to the exact place that may be discussed in a poem, text or story. Track it and motivate your students more to feel and see the culture

42. Quizlet for Juniors Quizlet has access to ready made flashcards or the teacher can make their own (good for junior classes) http://quizlet.com ‘Glogster’ also creates on-line posters for juniors http://www.glogster.com

43. Taggalaxy.de Creates Wonderworlds to Start a New Theme or Research Taggalaxy.de. Tag Galaxy. is a spectacular visual photo search engine. It uses Flickr to source photos and display related tags. It provides a world vision of images that may be studies under a particular theme. It takes the student on a visually motivating journey to different places and enables students to focus on specific towns, cities or monuments they may wish to talk about - perhaps in a project or research study

44. Create Creatures Using Voki.com www.voki.com Create a speaking character and add a voice and communicate and interact with class mates. This creates an Avatar that you can customize to look like any creature you want. You can change the shape of the head, the hair colour, skin, eyes, etc. You can choose different backgrounds and so much more. You can record or type in what you want the character to say. You can embed it into a number of blogs or programs including edublog, and wordpress for students to use. It's fun, but you can only do 30 seconds of recording. It allows your students to be creative and use their own designs

45. What is Wordle? Wordle is a program that creates word ‘clouds’ at http://wordle.net Use the following link for 23 ways of using Wordle for educational purposes: http://languagesresources.wordpress.com/2009/05/07/23-ways-to-use-wordle-in-the-mfl-classroom/

46. Wordle

47. Wordle in Action The Wordle ‘clouds’ are selected as they appear more frequently in a LOTE source text Change the clouds with different layouts, fonts and colours for emphasis You can use accents in Wordle (not Asian script at present) These words can be printed, saved in the Wordle gallery or to the computer to focus/motivate students with a new or completed topic

48. Bubbl.us bubbl.us enables students to brainstorm online. Easily create colourful mindmaps to print or share with others. It assists with WebQuests too It is an ideal program that creates concept maps to assist students with essay planning and a logical organisation of ideas and it is fun 

49. WebQuests A real WebQuest is an interesting task that is ideally a scaled down version of things that adults do as citizens or workers. requires higher level thinking, - it includes synthesis, analysis, problem-solving, creativity and judgement. makes good use of the web for its research as the heart of the lesson isn't a research report or a step-by-step science or math procedure. isn't just a series of web-based experiences

50. Lyrikline.org Lyrikline.org hosts contemporary international poetry as audio (read by the authors) and text (original versions & translations), plus bibliographies. It is free. Students can use it to find the words to poems and find them on the internet, it also enables the student to find any YouTube clip that relates to the search. For language teaching this can be a bonus to find an artist like The Flight of the Conchords with their song Fou de fa fa and practice pronunciation with the French accent, this was our theme song on the ELTF tour of Vichy and Paris in 2010…..