WEEK 8: STARS

Hey everybody! It is us, Álvaro and Lucía, be welcomed and rejoice for this week we have been the Stars of our group⭐🙋🙋‍♂️

The activity for this week was creating our Personal Learning Environment (PLE) that we would need in order to learn how to use 3 main communication channels in our contextual school: YouTube, Podcasts and an online announcement board.

We always try to get involved in every project, but as stars we tried to further surpas our limits. Apart from working in each of our minigroups (Álvaro in announcement board and Lucía in podcast), we helped in every other aspect we could. We also prepared what we wanted to say on Thursday and made several videoconferences on Zoom as to revise the presentation together.

We must admit that it was a chaotic week, and we would have overjoyed to have more time to prepare our presentation for Thursday, but in general we are proud of our work. As for the presentation itself, we wanted to go first since it helps a bit with the nerves. We also thought that being a star on the screen wouldn't be as hard as face to face, but it is as challenging, if not more, since it is harder to communicate when you can't actually see the faces of those who are listening to you. Even Álvaro ended up stressed 😂.

As useful as videoconferences and online tools can be in these times of confinement, we would say they can't replace face to face practices we used before. Communication between peers also gets complicated or at least not as fluent as it was back in class.

As for the new concept of this week, the Personal Learning Environment, there was a bit of confusion at first about it, and we think it is a concept which can still be explored by us more deeply. For the next couple of weeks, we will try to reflect on it and will tell you what our own individual PLEs are.

So stay tuned and we will see you guys then! And don't forget to rest during this 2-week vacation period😉, for only through your corresponding responsibility will we be able to end this crisis, but also remember, there is more than what meets the eye, your house is also filled with new possibilities.

Be responsible, be strong...



Aaand don´t forget to check out our speech:




ÁLVARO


1.  Introduction: TALK ABOUT THE DIAGRAM, METAPHORS, AND WHAT WE HAVE CHOSEN:

Welcome ladies and gentlemen, to our presentation.

We’ll be talking to you about the different resources that we have taken from our Personal Learning Environment, using these to learn how to use youtube, padlet and announcement board, classifying them according to their PLE squeme, mechanisms and activities through this explanatory diagram.

This diagram is simple, its roots are the very channels themselves related through colours with their corresponding resources we have used to better understand them, that will branch of in the main body of the tree.

We have made a bit of a metaphor with the colours, this to give them a special meaning, and so pink goes for love, blue for raining and yellow for the sun.

2.  THREE MAIN CHANNELS:

Online announcement board:

TOOL 1: Screen cloud “how and why make a digital bulleting board ”

Here we are explained how to use announcement boards and whether they comprehend the goals that we wish to achieve and portray in our classroom.

-The mechanisms we see through screen cloud are reflection, metacognition, self-awareness, recreation of information, construction of knowledge, critical reasoning and analysis.

-To which we can use an activity such as mixing different learning possibilities, thinking about problems that may arise in the classroom and downloading the app from the Play Store as to investigate the services it provides

-Then from a PLE perspective, we can consider it as part of reflection.





TOOL 2: Article “HOw to use forums in educational processes”

In this article we are presented with an explanation regarding what a forum is and offers recommendations for teachers from how to plan, evaluate and helping students on how to use it.

-The mechanisms for this article represent initiative and investigation.

-As for activities, we could consider interpreting other educational articles, listening to papers that talk on this topic and so on…

-Then for defining with PLE, we go for a rather reading perspective.


TOOL 3: “How to use a Forum in Moodle”

This particular youtube video is a tutorial on how to create a forum in the most used learning tool, this being Moodle, whose app includes many types of announcement boards from which the teacher can make his own selection.

-IN terms of mechanisms, we use gathering information and knowledge, summarizçing, cognitivism and selecting relevant ideas.

-Then for activities, we strive for watching tutorials on how to publicate a video, search edition programs, sharing doubts with professionals, friends and youtubers..

-For then, we considered putting it from the reflective perspective of PLE.


TOOL 4: “Padlet in education”

Padlet on its own is an online announcement board where many people discuss about a topic and share their opinions. This is of use to us as we can find different opinions from teachers about how we can use Padlet in class.

-It´s mechanisms classify as capacity of agreement, dialogue and concerns on improvement.

-Regarding activities, we strive for creating a Padlet account, proving the functionality of the app by sending the link to other partners.

-And for PLE, we selected sharing personal knowledge.


YouTube Channel

WOrth mentioning that we have used a different methology for its first two tools, so...

TOOL 1: “an article in the website WikiHow”

We have searched an article that told us about how to create a youtube channel down to the last detail l. It outlines what steps should be followed to do so.

TOOL 2: YouTube video “How To Make A YouTube Channel! (2020 Beginners Guide)”

Youtube is of course a useful tool when creating a youtube channel because with this app you learn how to modify it, edit it and use its different functions. Although it seems obvious the best way to know how to use Youtube is using the platform itself.

(Now in this case, we have used the same PLE elements, mechanisms and activities for both tools)

-Speaking of mechanisms, we find worth mentioning the ability to select the most important information and outline or distinguish between principal and secondary ideas.

-For then referring to activities, summarizing, outlining key points, extraction of the most important information and understanding steps.

-Thus for PLE, we have put these last two tools within the reading area.

LUCÍA

I’m going to continue talking about the tools we used to learn how to use YouTube (with educational purposes).

TOOL 3: The next tool is 3play media, an application useful as a complement to YouTube, for including subtitles, transcriptions or audio descriptions to our videos easily.

-The main PLE part in this tool is: reflecting by doing, since it is a platform where we can transform information and reflect upon it.

-Among the mechanisms, the most important one is the ability to manipulate different tools that are complementary to Youtube (and increase the quality of the videos)

-The activities involved are: editing a video and putting additional features on it

TOOL 4: The last tool we used for YouTube is a discussion on the forum CNET, about the best way to start a YouTube Channel.

We used this tool in order to to read other people’s points of view. Of course forums are not the most reliable sources, so after using them it is important to contrast the information with other sites or tools.

-The main PLE part in this tool is probably the most obvious one: sharing and reflecting within the community, because in forums people share knowledge and experiences and learn from and with other people.

-Regarding the mechanisms in the use of this tool, some of them are: Assertiveness, resolving problems, critical thinking, conversation and debating skills

-And activities involved could be: discussing on forums, writing one’s own opinion, as well as giving advice based on our experience, etc


Podcast

And we finally arrive to the last channel, which is the podcast.

TOOL 1: the first tool we used was a Web article written by Colin Gray about the benefits of podcasts in education. It is an interesting article which explains the several possibilities and advantages that podcasts offer in education (to revise previous lessons, help the students understand a topic at their own pace, etc…)

-Regarding the PLE, we could name two main parts involved: reading/acceding to the information, because the main function in this article is showing us the positive aspects of podcasts in education; and PLN (sharing and reflecting within the community), since it also has a sharing aspect, which is a comment section where people discuss about the article.

-Mechanisms put into practice here are: reading comprehension, differentiating main and secondary ideas, curiosity.

-Activity: text reading

TOOL 2: The second tool is a YouTube video by Garrett Pedersen and Sarah Lasseter on how to use a podcast as an educational tool. It also gives us useful resources to create podcasts and shows us how students can use this tool as well.

-About the PLE parts that it involves, we chose 2 main ones: Reading/acceding to the information, due to the fact that this video acts as a guide for teachers to learn how to implement this tool in their daily lessons; and Sharing within the community, because it is also possible to share our views in the comments as a community of learners.

-Among the mechanisms displayed are: investigation, curiosity, dialogue (in case we use the comment section).

-The main activity within this tool would be: watching audiovisual content (listening+watching)

TOOL 3: phone application Anchor. It is used for recording podcasts just with your phone, and it is super simple to use. Anchor is a lot like Instagram or Twitter in that it allows users to publish content to anyone who follows their feeds. The app lets users record several audio sections and then publish it all together as a podcast, even adding music and effects if you want to. Users can reply to posts with their own audio messages.

-PLE part: doing/reflecting while doing (because we learn about it by doing and think about it); and sharing and reflecting within the community (because we share with the students and they can interact with us as well).

-Mechanism: planning and organizing (for the structure and content of a podcast), synthesis and reflection about the podcast

-Activity: creation of a real podcast, with all that comes with it (recording, editing and publishing) and sharing it with your viewers.

TOOL 4: Article about how to use podcasts to develop listening skills in our students. We found this article super helpful, because podcasts would be an amazing tool for us in the future in our English classes for developing listening skills in our students. That’s why we chose it, since we are bilingual students at the university.

-PLE part: reading/acceding to the information

-Mechanism: search, curiosity, initiative and investigative spirit based on our personal interests

-Activity: text reading

3. Conclusion
Those are basically the tools that have formed our PLE this week, in order to learn about the 3 channels as educational tools.

To sum up, everyone has their personal learning environment; but we would like to highlight the importance of us having a personal learning environment about education, that is, being independent to keep learning about educational aspects on our own, since we will need it as future teachers, playing technology now more than ever a huge role.

That was our presentation, thank you for listening and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask them.