DAY FOUR

What things have you covered in today’s sessions?

First of all we have met our new friend from Turkey - Ugur:)

Standing from the left: Husnu (Turkey), Alla (Ukraine), sitting: me, Paola (Italy), in the foreground Ugur (Turkey)

We used TodaysMeet to ask him questions about his work, family, interests etc.
Then we moved on to takling about Edmodo. Russell made a short introduction on Edmodo platform, showed us how to create an account, gave us the code and that was it - we started working on Edmodo:)

We have learnt to add posts, create polls and quizzes, share pictures and videos.

What technologies have you been exposed to?

Edmodo

How might you use the technologies/techniques in your own teaching and learning?

Edmodo allows you to create polls and quizzes (among other things we haven't talked about yet;) You can also post a picture or a video.

Example task for polls:

• post a question in your poll e.g. 'Where would you like to spend your next holiday', type in answers, students answer the question choosing one option (preferably at home). Later in class you can discuss the results of the poll (Edmondo actually gives you the percentage of votes), ask students why they chose a particular option. You could also teach students how to talk about results of polls. ALWAYS REMEMBER TO LINK TASKS ONLINE WITH TASKS IN THE CLASSROOM. Students must know why they are doing tasks online at home. They should not do online tasks just for the sake of doing something online.

Quiz button allows you to create a quiz using five different types of tasks - fill in the blank, True/False, multiple choice, matching and short answers.

You can create a quiz to any given picture, video or text that you post.

Example for quiz:

• search an interesting short video, share it on Edmodo, and create the quiz preferably using the same type of task (only multiple choice, or only T/F etc.)

Example tasks for pictures:

• describe the picture, comment on the picture, answer a specific question referring to the picture. ALWAYS REMEMBER TO GIVE THE WORD LIMIT AND GIVE CLEAR INSTRUCTIONS.

Example tasks for videos:

• continue the story, comment on the story, watch it mute and write what you think the people are saying, answer specific quesion referring to the video.

Another great thing about Edmodo is that you can create subgroups, which means that students assigned to a particular subgroup cannot see other groups' tasks/answers. This helps create an information gap between them and in turn can motivate them to share with and learn from their classmates some facts.

Example task for subgroups:

• group A watches video/see picture/read text X, group B watches video/see picture/read text Y, group C watches video/see picture/read text Z. They answer questions, comment on, describe (picture), summarize (text) as their homework assignment. Then they come to class, join members of other groups and ask and answer questions about their video, picture, text. REMEMBER TO ALWAYS LINK WHAT STUDENTS DO ONLINE WITH WHAT YOU ASK THEM TO DO IN THE CLASSROOM.

What value would these techniques/technologies add to your teaching and learning?

What, I guess is really important, is that all the tasks are in one place.

Students see other students' posts so they can comment on them.

It extends students learning process and doing things online is probably more appealing to students.

I also believe that it gives them a sense of community even more than when they are together in classroom.

Students can use it any time and wherever they want.

As a teacher I can post pictures and videos on different topics adjusting to my students level, age, interests etc.

It is very easy to create a quiz.

It helps teachers to track students' progress and approach them individually.

What challenges do you foresee?

Alla made me realize that there are more challenges than just the ones I have listed so far. Time spent searching right materials online but also creating tests / quizzes. Do I have the skills to prepare a good test/quiz.