I had a great time blogging this week and had a chance to interact with educators around the world and here in Japan. In fact, through Thomas' post F2F Instructional strategies and comment here, I had a great chance to reconnect with one of the first people I met when I moved to Japan 10 years ago. Also, he informed me that my globalcookbook international collaborative project appears on the Voicethread 4 Education wiki EFL & ESL page. Although I haven't worked on this project for a while, I'm happy to see that it might still be inspiring other educators.
To finish off this full week of blogging, I'd like to recommend this random collection of recent and interesting articles:
Five habits of great students: Lessons from top-ranked STEM school
Studying the humanities, developing good habits, and choosing one's own reading material
How to have the best. appointment. ever.
Be prepared before consulting a tutor (or teacher) about your writing.
The Disposable Worker
The 30 Scariest Books Ever Written
The Stranger by Albert Camus is on this list so it caught my attention. Do you agree with the author's picks?
8 New Punctuation Marks we Definitely Need
Just for fun!
Have a good weekend!
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Friday, March 01, 2013
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Learner Development
In January, I went to the Learner Development SIG get together in Kobe. If you have a chance, you should consider attending the next get together in Kyoto. There are no formal presentations at these events, so participants
have plenty of opportunities to meet new people, discuss topics related to
learner development, and share ideas. On March 23, the theme will be LD related plans for the 2013-2014 school year. Check out the flyer Gretchen made with Smore for the event!
At the last get together, the theme was learner autonomy. We wrote about our definitions and experiences with learner autonomy and then discussed them in groups. Although I haven't studied much about learner autonomy, I decided to give it a go and came up with the following definition: designing learning for oneself within the context of a broader community.
During the next stage of the event, each participant made a mind map about some aspect of learner autonomy, and I chose to make mine about technology and autonomous learning. It was interesting to share some of the things I have learned about online learning through EVO and to reflect upon these through the lens of learner autonomy.
At the last get together, the theme was learner autonomy. We wrote about our definitions and experiences with learner autonomy and then discussed them in groups. Although I haven't studied much about learner autonomy, I decided to give it a go and came up with the following definition: designing learning for oneself within the context of a broader community.
During the next stage of the event, each participant made a mind map about some aspect of learner autonomy, and I chose to make mine about technology and autonomous learning. It was interesting to share some of the things I have learned about online learning through EVO and to reflect upon these through the lens of learner autonomy.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Annotation
I'm getting ready for the new school year that starts in April and I have been thinking about my upcoming lessons. One of the skills that students learn during the first few weeks of my class is annotation. While reading fiction and nonfiction texts, I encourage students to mark important information and take notes. Although each student is free to develop his or her own system of annotating, I do provide some instruction on the basic methods. In general, it seems like a skill that students tend to improve by practicing and comparing annotations. Peer and teacher feedback on annotation can also help students refine their system.
During our EVO session, Carla, Karen, and I have been discussing this general topic through blog posts and comments. Carla wrote a post, Learning by Retrieval: Forget Highlighting. I started thinking that annotating is a step above highlighting because the reader is more engaged with the text and can use these annotations at a later date to help prepare for an examination or essay. Karen's post, Are Tags the Answer further explored the ideas of marking texts and retrieving online information though tagging. Although everyone has different preferred methods, the key point is that students need to USE their annotation! By simply asking students to compare annotations, summarize main points of the text, or write review questions, they can revisit the content. Furthermore, students need to take one more step and reflect on their readings and annotations too. By engaging in class discussions, writing responses, or even dramatizing scenes from a novel, students need to revisit the text, their notes, and their understanding; these will lead to deeper processing.
I think annotating and notetaking serve several important purposes. One is to be an active reader. Another is to make thinking visible through writing questions, connections, summaries, or ideas. Annotating can even be a way to communicate with others. Most of us have the experience of borrowing a book from a friend, buying a used textbook, or paging through an old, forgotten book in the family library. These books and their notes are windows to the minds of those who read the words before us.
During our EVO session, Carla, Karen, and I have been discussing this general topic through blog posts and comments. Carla wrote a post, Learning by Retrieval: Forget Highlighting. I started thinking that annotating is a step above highlighting because the reader is more engaged with the text and can use these annotations at a later date to help prepare for an examination or essay. Karen's post, Are Tags the Answer further explored the ideas of marking texts and retrieving online information though tagging. Although everyone has different preferred methods, the key point is that students need to USE their annotation! By simply asking students to compare annotations, summarize main points of the text, or write review questions, they can revisit the content. Furthermore, students need to take one more step and reflect on their readings and annotations too. By engaging in class discussions, writing responses, or even dramatizing scenes from a novel, students need to revisit the text, their notes, and their understanding; these will lead to deeper processing.
I think annotating and notetaking serve several important purposes. One is to be an active reader. Another is to make thinking visible through writing questions, connections, summaries, or ideas. Annotating can even be a way to communicate with others. Most of us have the experience of borrowing a book from a friend, buying a used textbook, or paging through an old, forgotten book in the family library. These books and their notes are windows to the minds of those who read the words before us.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Reflections on why I blog ... sometimes
I haven't blogged lately, so when Carla Arena tagged me to answer the question, "What are YOU blogging for?" I thought it would be the perfect chance to create a post for this blog.
For me, I started this blog in the beginning to continue my learning and professional development. At the beginning, I thought learning to blog was just a set of technical skills; however, I quickly realized that blogging isn't just a technology thing, it is people thing, and it is all about learning, reflecting on learning, and connecting with others who are interested in continuing to learn as well. Especially this year, as I co-moderated Blogging4Educators, I found that commenting and sharing our learning was very powerful, indeed! I commented on participants' blogs, and they commented on mine. By working together and finding connections, we discovered the power of synthesizing our reflections through blogging, tagging, and RSS.
That's why after watching this video, I couldn't agree more with the second speaker, who stated,
"Not only did it [blogging] enable me to comment on their [the students'] learning, which they were reflecting on in their blogs, but they were commenting on my learning, and I thought that was really very powerful."
As for this blog, sometimes I blog a lot, and other times I blog little here. Unfortunately, a lot of posts I only think about, but don't carve out the time to actually write. As a teacher, during the last school year, I blogged with students for the first time, and we ended up making some amazing contacts with people from many countries through our class blog. To be honest though, I have blogged most consistently on my personal blog and this has allowed me the opportunity to deepen connections with friends and family, even though we're miles and miles apart. Blogging lessens the distance somehow. We can see and feel each other's thoughts and that's why I blog -- to feel connected -- both personally and professionally to those I care most about and those who I'm just meeting.
I would like to pass the question on to a few bloggers who I hope will share their thoughts about blogging: AnaMaria, Monica, Jen Verschoor, Illya, and Patricia.
For me, I started this blog in the beginning to continue my learning and professional development. At the beginning, I thought learning to blog was just a set of technical skills; however, I quickly realized that blogging isn't just a technology thing, it is people thing, and it is all about learning, reflecting on learning, and connecting with others who are interested in continuing to learn as well. Especially this year, as I co-moderated Blogging4Educators, I found that commenting and sharing our learning was very powerful, indeed! I commented on participants' blogs, and they commented on mine. By working together and finding connections, we discovered the power of synthesizing our reflections through blogging, tagging, and RSS.
That's why after watching this video, I couldn't agree more with the second speaker, who stated,
"Not only did it [blogging] enable me to comment on their [the students'] learning, which they were reflecting on in their blogs, but they were commenting on my learning, and I thought that was really very powerful."
As for this blog, sometimes I blog a lot, and other times I blog little here. Unfortunately, a lot of posts I only think about, but don't carve out the time to actually write. As a teacher, during the last school year, I blogged with students for the first time, and we ended up making some amazing contacts with people from many countries through our class blog. To be honest though, I have blogged most consistently on my personal blog and this has allowed me the opportunity to deepen connections with friends and family, even though we're miles and miles apart. Blogging lessens the distance somehow. We can see and feel each other's thoughts and that's why I blog -- to feel connected -- both personally and professionally to those I care most about and those who I'm just meeting.
I would like to pass the question on to a few bloggers who I hope will share their thoughts about blogging: AnaMaria, Monica, Jen Verschoor, Illya, and Patricia.
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