First steps for the use of technology in the classroom (towards a digital citizenship) by Ingrid Gallardo Sundqvist

Module 1 - Why use technology in the classroom

ingridmariegall — 2016-06-06 21:16:51 UTC

Technology is an integral part of how we work and live. Teaching students how to use technology to learn, research, collaborate, and solve problems from an early age will better prepare them for their careers and for being included in a society that relies everyday more on the use of digital tools.
This first module of the learning event aims to facilitate a discussion on the positive and negative aspects of introducing technology in the classroom. We don’t mean to reach to one single conclusion - the advantages or disadvantages. We only aim to provoke you to think and evaluate whether your class would benefit from using technological solutions for some teaching and learning activities, and if so, to understand how the students in your class use technology to enable you to enthuse them at things that they are interested in doing.
The modules to follow will suggest some concrete ideas of how to take advantage of the positive aspect of using technology and use them for the benefit of enriching your students and ensuring they are on their way to become digital citizens.
My contribution in Triceder about the cons and pros:
I definitely agree that it is only beneficial to use technology as it is very motivating and makes the students be engaged to whatever you ask them to do. it is a challenge that children like to carry out.But there are also negative aspects to consider and one of them is that not everything is possible, we cannot give them tablets, laptops without making sure they are going to five a proper use of them

Module 2 - Find, select, store digital content

ingridmariegall — 2016-06-14 04:43:06 UTC

In this module, we will focus on the use of technology for finding and curating content. We will share some tips on how to search for content, using various search tools, and how to select and store this content afterwards in order to use it in your teaching activity. Although this topic might be regarded as rather simple, the increasing flow of information and digital sources nowadays, has highlighted the importance of searching and selecting relevant information in an efficient way. In addition to collecting content we will also touch upon the topic of using Open Educational Resources (OER).
Searching the Internet
Searching the Internet is probably one of the most widespread activities among technology users. The Internet contains a huge amount of information and offers great opportunities for teaching and learning. However, we all know that we can be easily be overloaded by all this information and get lost trying to find what we searched for.
Luckily there are strategies that can help us finding our way through information overload.
Different search engines
While most of us will probably tend to use Google, it might be useful to know that several search engines exist (and are just as reliable as our favourite). The type of search engine you decide to use will depend on what you want to use it for, as they work in different ways. Here is a list you might want to check out:

Bing - Microsoft's own search engine. You can do separate searches for images, videos, shopping, news stories and mapsYahoo - Yahoo gets its results from Bing. As with Google, you can do separate searches for images, news stories, vidoes, maps, shopping and apps.
Ask - Ask will asnwer questions rather than provide content for key words. You can do separate searches for images, maps and videos. It can also translate some non-English language pages. It gets its primary results from Google.
DuckDuckGo - Emphasises privacy. It doesn't track or profile users, which means that everyone carrying out the same search will see the same results. Combines its own results with those Yandex, Yahoo!, Bing and Yummly.
Dogpile - uses metadata to take the best results from a number of search engines.
Exalead - Provides a search platform for consumer and business users.
Quora - real experts who gave their credentials beforehand answer your questions, and then provide an answer which is refined by other people who are part of the community.

If you have younger students, you might want to check these search engines that have been developed especially for them:

Kid Rex - a search engine for kids, made by kids, it emphasises kid-related webpages from across the entire web and screens and delete inappropriate content.
Kiddle - a kid safe visual search engine, that returns either sites and pages written specifically for kids, or safe, trusted sites that are not written specifically for kids, but have content written in a simple way, easy for kids to understand.
InstaGrok is a very relevant tool for organising the information and content that is found on the internet. There are however other tools or practices that can facilitate storing and retrieving content. Have you ever heard of social bookmarking? Social bookmarking is a centralized online service which enables users to add, annotate, edit, and share bookmarks of web documents. Basically, people save bookmarks on a website and “tag” them, i.e. they use key words that describe content. In this way, you can also see what other people saved using key words that are relevant to your interests. One of this tools is Diigo. What we like most about this tool is the option of having sticky notes (like post-it, but in a virtual way) on the webpages you saved.
Once we find content that is relevant for us, what do we do with it? Well, that depends on the kind of content and information we searched for. If we search for some specific content to be used straight away, we are easily served. If, on the contrary, we look for information or content to be used later on, we better find some way to easily retrieve this content. In the video below, you will find some useful information on Instagrok, a tool that not only facilitate your searches, but that on top help you storing and organising content.
So far we have been exploring how to collect and store digital content. The following example is quite different. It was kindly shared by a teacher of kindergarten (Spanish speaking pupils aged 4 and 5). In this case, the teacher used issuu (a free electronic publishing platform) to collect the work of her pupils and put it together to form a book. Children had been working together, collaboratively, to re-write and illustrate the story of the Ugly Duckling. The collection of all their work is presented here in the form of a book. Advantages: it looks like a “real” publication, everyone can get a copy (including parents) and it does not get destroyed nor lost before reaching home.
Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning or research materials that are in the public domain or released with an intellectual property license that allows for free use, adaptation, and distribution. The term Open Educational Resources (OER) was first introduced at a conference hosted by UNESCO in 2002 and was promoted in the context of providing free access to educational resources on a global scale. There are many definitions of the concept and specifics of OER. However, the most importnat aspect is the process of using and sharing knowldege and high quality educational resources. OER could be texbooks, learning activities, lesson plans and many more. There are many online platforms offering open educational resources. One such platform is the OER Commons which offers various types of resources in numerous subjects. LangOER aims at enhancing teaching and learning of less used languages through OER. One very nice OER source is also Plan Ceibal (available only in Spanish). The problem with OER is that resources could be in different languages and on various OER platforms

My contribution with InstaGrok http://www.instagrok.com/results.html?query=europe&share_id=_&result_id=Mpcv5QtTjXYmiaoKqOCj&action=view

Module 3 - Communicate, interact, share and collaborate through digital tools

ingridmariegall — 2016-06-14 19:51:18 UTC

Nowadays students and young people are engaging in social interactions on two levels: face-to-face and online. Social media and other online tools have made it easier for pupils, students and teachers to connect and communicate. This module will focus on active use of digital tools and social media for facilitating communication and collaboration in an educational context. We will also explore further the topic of Open Educational Resources, which we started in the previous module by finding out how to search for these resources. You will get some practical recommendations on how to adapt these open educational resources to your class needs, taking in consideration licence and copyright aspects too.
Communicate and share
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram… these are some of the tools that students these days use to chat and share with their peers. Why not use their experience of online interaction for educational purposes? Instead of fighting for our students attention in class why not use their tools for an educational activity. Social media can be instrumental in creating a sense of community and a more constant interaction between teachers and students, sharing information even outside of the classroom. Teachers could use social media for exchanging with colleagues or finding new resources.
Twitter has been regarded as a very dynamic and engaging tool which is fun and easy to use. This is a short video which will take you through the main advantages of using twitter in you teaching activities.
If you are new to Twitter or just want to check if you are using this tool to its fullest potential, have a look at The Teacher’s Guide To Twitter
Pinterest allows teachers to share resources and information. With Pinterest you can make a board that will provide a structured list of resources for your students. Collaboratively collect resources on a particular topic- historical event or person, next class field trip, etc. Set up a collaborative board with other teachers you work closely with so that you can all pin ideas and potential resources.
Instagram can showcase student work by offering a place to feature student artwork. Have students browse photos and create a poster on various topics. A good idea is also to organise a contest where your students share photos along a classwork related theme (this could be individual or in teams).
Flickr (recommended for sixth through eighth-graders): On Flickr students can have a class account and share photos of classroom events, projects and other notables.
Creating a class Youtube channel- Students can watch lectures and resources before entering the classroom or share videos they have created.
Interact and collaborate
Blogging
The physical classroom space creates a classroom community. Do you want to deveop and engage this community even outside of the classroom/school? Blogging is the way to go! Creating and maintaining a blog now is very quick and requires minimum technical knowledge. A blog space could be used to provide instructions for further assignments for students to work on or just ask them to do their writing assignments in the form of blog posts. This contributes to developing writing skills and promotes literacy. Another idea is to ask students to read their peers' writings and underline spelling and grammatical mistakes, which is a good way to encourage peer learning. If you a still not convinced about starting a blogging activity with your class, have a look at the image below, listing some of the main reasons why you should really consider.
Some of the most commonly tools for blogging are:
WordPress.com - WordPress allows each student to write as an individual contributor, so the possibilities are endless.
Wikispaces Classroom - Wikispaces helps you create an online platform for your class’s writings, to share with parents and other students.
Edublog - Edublogs lets you easily create and manage student and teacher blogs, quickly customize and include videos.
Blogger- This is a free blogging tool from Google, for sharing text, photos and video. This is probably the most user friendly blogging platform. Check out how to set up a blog on Blogger in this tutorial.
Collaborate
Technology and digital tools could help teachers achieve greater collaboration of students inside and outside of the classroom. It encourage students to collectively produce content and solve problems. Using one computer/laptop/tablet in a group facilitates face-to-face collaboration. However, collaboration could be also enhanced by some really engaging digital tools/apps which can allow a whole class or a groups of students to work together in one digital space and co-author various assignments.
Storybird - a new literacy tool for the new generation, which allows students to work together to create artful stories to share, print and read. Your students can even play their stories like games, or send their works of art to friends and family, as books or greeting cards.
Folding Story a free online tool which enables collaborative storytelling in language, arts and culture classes. Be sure to filter for age-appropriate content.
HSTRY is a free digital learning tool or creating interactive timelines, which promotes collaboration and engagement in the classroom.
Create and share
We have seen in the previous module how teachers can take advantage of loads of Open Educational Resources for their classes.
"Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning or research materials that are in the public domain or released with an intellectual property license that allows for free use, adaptation, and distribution. OER could be texbooks, learning activities, lesson plans and many more."
During this module, we would like to make you reflect further on how this could be beneficial for you. In fact, educators can rely on open educational resources to enrich their lessons, and can also edit those resources, improve and adapt them to their specific needs, e.g. translating them. Once adapted, the resources can be also shared with colleagues hence creating ever growing educational resources databases of higher and higher quality.
TASK 1: In some measure, social media are part of our and our students life. We do use them as we think they allow us keeping in touch with people that counts in our life, or simply connecting with interesting persons and initiatives.

Social media are also a good way to find, curate and share information, and can be good allies to spark our students interest on the subjects we are teaching.
We would like to try a little experiment with you, using Twitter. If you do not have an account no worries, you can either creahttps://twitter.com/search?q=%23eTw_Town&src=tyahte one for free, or post your intended Tweet on the padlet here below. We will make sure we publish it for you.
This little experiment is about creating tweet flows around specific themes. In practice, we would like you to simply draft a tweet and share it with your fellow Learning Event mates. This activity will allow us know each other a little better and will also be an opportunity to interesting facts and curiosities. Remember, a tweet can include maximum 140 characters, therefore you'll need to be concise.
1) First rule: close your tweet with the official learning event hashtag - #eTwIntroEdTech, so that we will be able to search for all our messages
2) Second rule: use also one of these hashtags, depending on the content of your tweet, so that we can create tweet flows and interact (reply, retweet, respond to each other tweets)
- start your tweet with #eTw_Town to share an interesting fact about your home town. What is the oldest building? What is the tipical food? When is your town main festival? Feel free to share a picture too.
EXAMPLE: #eTw_Town the first italian airship took off from Schio in 1905. Built by Count Almerico, the airship was called Italia I #eTwIntroEdTech

- start your tweet with #eTw_Nature to share an interesting fact about an animal, a natural phenomenon, etc. Feel free to share pictures/links.
EXAMPLE: it #eTw_Nature it took me some time to accept that octopus are classified as molluscs (w/ e.g. oysters, clams, mussels, etc.) #eTwIntroEdTech

- start your tweet with #eTw_Arts to share your favorite piece of art, movie, paint, song, book, etc. You can also share a quote from a book/movie for instance

EXAMPLE: it #eTw_Arts “To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.” - Fyodor Dostoyevsky #eTwIntroEdTech
Another contribution

Task 2 from Module 3 to be done: Adapt and share resources

ingridmariegall — 2016-06-16 07:35:57 UTC

If you choose this task, you are requested to find an Open Educational Resource suitable for your classroom, assess it quickly, to see what adaptation would be needed to make the resource perfectly fitting your classes, and think about how to implement this adaptation.
In practice this would translate in the following steps:
1) Find and select an educational resource.
You can find an educational resource for instance on the Open Education Europa Portal: Opening up education through innovation; or on the European Schoolnet Learning Resources Exchange portal. Feel free also to look for other resources repository, if you are a science teacher for instance, you could find interesting resources on the Scientix portal too.
2) Assess the resource you selected.
Once you have selected your resource, take a closer look at it. Does it correspond to your needs or does it need adaptation? What licence is associated to this resource? What would you need to do to make it fitting your classes?
3) Plan the adaptation process and consider sharing the final result.
Now that you know what should be improved in your resource, start planning how to do so and do not forget that if you decide to share the final result with other educators, they will also benefit from it.
Please share here what is the resource you have selected (only the name, and eventually the link), for what subject it is suitable and for what grade. Say also in one line what you will need to do to improve the resource and make it suitable for your classes.

Module 4 - Create digital content, construct, design

ingridmariegall — 2016-06-16 07:37:06 UTC

Teachers have the difficult jobs these days to educate a new generation of digital citizens. This is not easy, since the term itself has no commonly accepted definition yet. One opinion has been widely shared - digital citizenship entails active participation in the digital society: engaging with digital technology, creating and sharing of digital content, instead of just consuming it.
In this last module of the learning event we would like to focus on coding as a way to empower students to become creators and not just consumers of digital content.
Why coding?
You have probably realised that coding became a favourite educational topic in recent years, and might have questioned the relevance of this skill. The idea of getting kids to learn how to code is not only linked with possible wider job opportunities. We reckon that the main positive element of introducing coding to children and students lies in the fact that young people are passive users of technologies, and that if they learn how to code they can move to the driving seat. Even if they might not in the end become programmers, knowing how to code or how codes are created might help them understanding how technology works.
Coding and other subjects
Coding is not something you can do only in Computer Science classes. You can integrate coding exercises in almost every subject in both primary and secondary education. Coding could be used as a tool for teaching languages, arts, maths, history and many other subjects. Making students to create something using code is not an aim in itself, it is just a way to develop important skills such as logical thinking and problem- solving. Moreover, it encourages creativity and collaboration. And here you can find some experiences of linking code with different subjects.
This section of the module aims to give you ideas about tools and apps that you can easily integrate in your teaching activity. Regardless of the subject you are teaching, or the level of your students. The tools suggested here a easy and fun to work with.
If you are stil not convinced about using technology in your classroom there is a way to foster computational thinking and problem-solving even without using computers. CS Unplugged is a collection of free learning activities that teach Computer Science through engaging games and puzzles that use cards, string, crayons and lots of running around. Understanding binary numbers or sorting algorithms, this is all possible though the fun and engaging activities, developed by CS Unplugged collection.
There are also some tools that do not use complex text-based code but rather engage students in learning new concepts through visual blocks.
Here is a short list of visual programming tools that you can start with:
ScratchJr for young children (ages 5-7) and Scratch for ages 8+ is one of the most common tools out there. It offers a simple visal language for creating interactive stories, animations and even games. The amazing thing about Scratch is the huge community behind it and the endless examples and projects associated with it. If you a new to Scratch here is a tutorial on how to get started with it.
Pocket code - Pocket Code is an Android application with which you can programme animations, games applications, play and share what you’ve created on on a phone or a tablet! Pocket Code aims to inspire teenagers to create their own games and interactive stories directly on their smartphones.
If you want to learn more about Scrach, PocketCode and other tools don’t miss our next webinar on 17 Friday 2016 at 17:00 CEST.
Two tools that are more suitable for secondary school students are TouchDevelop and Appinventor. TouchDevelop is a tool (from Microsoft) which lets you create mobile apps from any device and pretty much all platforms available.Explore some really useful tutoarials for using Touch Develop here. Appinventor is tool for developing mobile apps for Android using visual programming language. It is not necessary for all your students to have an Android device in the classroom to work with the AppInventor. You can install a so-called emulator on any PC to work with AppInventor in classrooms.
All you need is {C<3DE} has many fun tools for you to try out with your classes, as well as resources designed specifically for teachers. If you want to explore lesson plans for introducing coding in your teaching activities, see the All you need is code Lesson Plans.

The tools shared in the previous section of this module highlight the focus of transforming teaching and learning into an interactive process which fosters creativity and logical thinking. Why not go one step further by helping our students experience the true meaning of being creators by introducing game design to your teaching activities.
Game design tools aim to build interactive experiences that motivate and actively engage in the learning process. The process of game design entails several very important steps which have important educational value:
- Identifying a problem/ a goal
- Identifying steps/actions to achieve goal and implement steps alone or collaboratively in a group
- See results and evaluate against initial goal; learn from experience/ mistakes
- Gain recognition (which could be acknowledgment or feedback from the teacher or classmates).
The great thing about game development is that all these steps are implemented in an interactive environment fostering creativity and not simply following assigned activities. Game design tools enable the development of cross-curricular projects and are a useful tool for teachers from various subjects.
Scratch - We already mentined Scratch in the previous section of this module. Many teachears already use it in their activities by making short animated stories. Scratch is also very useful for designing games. The good thing about Scratch is that it give teachers the opportunity to use it in almost any kind of topic or activity. If you are new to Scratch or just looking for fresh ideas and new strategies for using it in your class explore ScratchED for reseources.
If you are interested, you can ask your students to take part in the eSkills for Jobs 2016 competition, aimed at 16+ who want to develop a game using Scratch following our tutorials.
Minecraft - if your students like Minecraft, the we recommend using it in the classroom! you can easily combine learning and fun by trying the Minecraft: Education Edition. The website offers tutorial and very good lesson plans (divided in age groups of students).
MinecraftEdu "The craft of digital citizens" from Institute of Play on Vimeo.
Kodu - Kodu is a famous 3D game programming environment for windows and Xbox for kids ages 9-14. It has a very nice interface with lots of attractive icons and a library of 3D models and environments to choose from. Kodu can be used to teach creativity, problem solving, storytelling, as well as programming.You can find a Kodu classroom kit including a set of lesson plans and activities for educators. Have a look also at the Kodu Video (YouTube) Guides.
Alice - If you have tried the tools and resources above? Then try Alice - a 3D educational software tool with a drag-and-drop interface to create animations. It is designed to encourage problem-solving and critical thinking in students as old as 12. It is more often used in advanced secondary school. You can find useful video tutorials here.