Being transparent
14 years ago
Learning about...
This year, at the Celsa, our English classes don't look like any other classes we've ever had. No more blackboard, no more chalk, no more sheet, no more pen, no more power point... no more teacher ! Well, at least, no more physical presence of our teacher. Bob Spaulding is teaching us English from his desk which actually is thousands kilometers far from us. Bob is doing class from the south of France, behind his computer, and doesn't have to see our tired faces for hours. It's called e-learning. Doesn't it sound great ? Yes it does, but in fact it's not that simple ! Let's see how we could help Bob improving his long distance teaching.
This year, at the Celsa, our English classes don't look like any other classes we've ever had. No more blackboard, no more chalk, no more sheet, no more pen, no more power point... no more teacher ! Well, at least, no more physical presence of our teacher. Bob Spaulding is teaching us English from his desk which actually is thousands kilometers far from us. Bob is doing class from the south of France, behind his computer, and doesn't have to see our tired faces for hours. It's called e-learning. Doesn't it sound great ? Yes it does, but in fact it's not that simple ! Let's see how we could help Bob improving his long distance teaching.How is this possible for Bob to be there not being here ? Good question. Well we use MSN Live. It works quite well and allows us to see and talk with Bob. Yet, sometimes we have some troubles with it, for example Bob can't see us move or can't hear us very well. I wonder if Skype would be better . We certainly lack of a adapted software and I think the Ministry of Education is a bit late on that one.
Bob asked us to create a Blog - this one for me - and to post articles on several issues and questions every week. I use Blogger but we could use Wordpress too, like my friend Camille did. I think our e-learning class could use many other websites or applications the web offers, like for example Diigo (for more information see my article below). We also use Netvibes for the RSS feeds of our blogs. Bob also created a wiki we will use soon. Youtube is also great for posting videos. The thing I like about the wiki is that all our work can be found in one place. I would like it even more if we created a website together, learning how to make nice pages with various contents.
I also think we lack of real lessons. It would be nice if we had some videos, like video tutorials, teaching us stuff. And to check if we actually payed attention, there could be on-line assessments. The classroom could be represented by a website where we could find all these stuffs and even more.
I also really like the fact that we had to discover new websites this week. I think we should be given more missions on the web. Like Bob, you could tell us to discover websites you found interested and tell us to learn how to use it and write about it in our blogs. I don't know all the resources the Internet offers but there must be plenty things to discover that could actually be used to teach.
E-learning is a surprising and interesting way to teach, although I still don't think it will replace our traditional school. And for one simple reason : it's already hard to catch the attention of kids when you are physically present, so on distance I think it's mission impossible. If the class happens that well it's also because we are grown ups.
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