Reflecting on my mobility in Dublin

July-August 2019

This website has been created and written to reflect on my experience abroad as a teacher for a project financed by Erasmus+ for my school- the secondary school Liceo Artistico G.Chierici in Reggio Emilia. There are over 20 mobilities of teachers and some others are for the administrative staff in our school. The project is called REACH and you can find it in the Erasmus+ database.

We started the project last September 2018 and now we are continuing it with some mobilities during the summer time. The project ends in August 2020 next year.

My choice was to focus on a course that would deal with the use of technology in the classroom as this is one of the priorities we have to cope with. Hopefully ,I have been working online for many years now and in some ways I know how to work and what challenges educators have to face when they want to integrate modern technology , apps and the flipped classroom in their learning environments.

I chose the course about technology at Alpha College and when I applied I knew exactly what I wanted to do once in Dublin.

I had already been to Dublin and I had admired the beauty of the city, I had learnt about its past and its culture. I must confess that all the courses I had taken had enriched me professionally and a lot of educators had inspired me to work on my CPD and methodologies.

Alpha College presented a course which combined a focus on modern technology for any educator and the importance of culture. If you have visited Dublin , you will have seen many important museums and art galleries. You will never stop learning about this country as in every street and in every park you are reminded of its past. Ireland is a modern country but it is also a young country . Its history has a lot of links with the history of the British Empire and countries like the USA, Canada and also Australia as many Irish people were forced to leave the country in the XIX and XX century.

Today the Irish do not want to forget their past and there are many cultural events or museums that can teach us about what happened to their fathers.

Dublin is also the city of " Dubliners " a collection of short stories that was written by Joyce. The novelist lived in many houses in this city and there are interesting guides online about these places.

Here you can see many images which remind us the city of Dublin. It is a modern city with a lot of tourists and young people who come to study, to work and to learn English. Dublin is an important cultural centre. Its main landmarks are related to its past but we can also find interesting places where to relax and read a book. You can go to a park or you can walk along the river. If you choose to leave the city you can take the DART trains and go to the seaside. I feel that this is one of the main reasons why many young people come to Dublin. You can leave the crowded streets and spend some hours in the suburbs. You can also explore other places, you just need to check the many excursions from Dublin to Cork or also to Belfast.

Every day I took the Dart to reach the city centre and go to Alpha College: ten minutes by train and then ten minutes on foot to reach the school in the city of Dublin.I could take pictures and look at its main places and while observing people going to work or also to school, many were students and teachers like me who were spending some days or some weeks for their Erasmus + courses in Ireland.

I chose to stay with an Irish family and the house was in Clontarf, just three minutes on foot to the railway station. I really liked the place as it was quiet and silent. I did not have the time to do this , but in just a quarter of an hour I could reach the sea.

Staying with an Irish family is important for a teacher as I feel that learning about a country means also talking to people.

I really liked the family of Mrs Browne and I would say that she is one of the best cooks I have ever met. Since I spent most of the day out we could talk together when we met for dinner but they have always been kind and have told me about the problems in today's Ireland.

Here are some documents which I shared online while I was spending my time in Dublin.

Objectives of the Course

The objectives of this Technology in the Classroom course are

• to familiarise the participants with recent pedagogical and classroom technology developments
• to increase participants’ awareness of the opportunities to integrate ICT into teaching and learning processes in their schools
• to increase participants’ skill and confidence in the use of some computer applications , particularly in an environment where many of the students are very digitally savvy
• to give participants an opportunity, as far as possible, to use all programmes to which they are introduced and to learn to adapt some ready-made programmes to their particular classroom requirements
• to provide an opportunity to develop and consolidate participants own language skills
• to improve participants confidence in their own lesson delivery
• to produce high-quality learning outcomes for participants thereby re-enforcing the capacity and international scope of their schools
• To promote awareness of contemporary Ireland
• To establish contacts between teachers from a variety of European backgrounds and facilitate future networking among these professionals.

We had lessons in the morning and in the afternoon we had workshops or visited some important places in the city of Dublin. What you can see here is the main timetable but there were some changes due to the weather conditions. Since it rained we could not go to the Botanic Gardens and visited Trinity College and the Book of Kells.

Week 1

Just on the first day of school we worked on Ice Brakers to get to know each other. I worked in Group B but there was another course Group A. We worked on the same topics and in the afternoon we spent some hours together. Our group had 11 teachers from different parts of Europe: Poland, Bulgary, Spain, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

Getting started with a Gmail Account and enrolling in Google Classroom

In order to do all the activities we had to have a Gmail account and then everything could work as the course was based on many Google apps, the most important one was Google Classroom.

We were introduced to the learning environment Google Classroom and after we were given the code we enrolled on the course " Technology in the Classroom". Each group had its classroom but the tutors were the same. Rachel and Katie did most of the work in the morning while in the afternoon we were taken to the museums or excursions by other teachers from the school.

The main focus was on the use of integrating technology in our lessons and working in a safe learning environment.

Google Classrom offers a lot of interesting features and Rachel made us work on Google Docs and how to work on our lesson by using technology.

All the tasks were shared in Google Classroom and we could also post comments .

Lesson Design

On the second day Rachel shared some interesting tools which helped her create the lesson for us

1. www.webjets.io - used to make her question board. Simple and easy to use and visually effective.
2. www.youtube.com- used to find her video to introduce the topic.
3. www.gaa.ie - text and rules sourced from an authentic website.
4. www.google.com- she used the ‘Slides’ app to make the presentation for my students.
5. www.kahoot.com- used to make my quiz for my learners.
6. Cloze test maker

The second part of the lesson was a workshop in which we had to create our lesson based on the ideas and input she had provided us with.

I chose a topic about Literature: here is my lesson plan created by using Google Doc

Digital Citizenship

On the third day Katie worked on Digital Citizenship. We reflected on the main themes relalated to it, we worked with Quizlet and then we analysed some webpages dealing with Cyberbullying and safety online. We worked in team and each group had different sources.

An interesting document shared was about the key idea of " Digital footprint".

Link to Quizlet : quizlet.com/201923687/otc04-quizzes-flash-cards/?i=fl9u5&x=1jqW

Flipped Classroom

Part of the third day was also based on the FC and some ideas supporting it. I am familiar with flipping as sometimes I do rely on the internet from home so that my students can watch videos, sometimes long videos , which cannot be watched at school.

Working with Ted-Ed for flipping the classroom

We worked on Ted-Ed and we created a lesson by using the resources. If you use another lesson and modify it you will have to wait for the approval. This happened to me as I chose a lesson about why we should read Waiting for Godot.

What was underlined was the key idea that flipping the classroom is not only by watching a video. You can do this also by giving students some reading materials which will be discussed the next days at school.

Resources for the Flipped Classroom shared by Katie

Have you ever watched a TED talk?

• TED
• John McWhorter's TED Talk

Have you ever taken any of the TED-Ed lessons?

• TED-Ed Flipped Lesson
• TED-Ed
• https://anethicalisland.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/flipping-the-classroom/

Resources shared in the lessons at Alpha College

Digital Citizenship

https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship

Resources for Primary School Teachers and families

• Digital Citizenship Resources
• Council of Europe Game (available in languages of the EU)
• YouTube Safety
• Common Sense Digital Game (available in Spanish and English)
• How to Teach Digital Citizenship
• I Keep Safe

Resources for Post- Primary School Teachers and families

• Elements of Digital Citizenship
• Media Smarts
• Common Sense Media
• Digital Citizenship Resources
• Cyberwise
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Elements of Digital Citizenship
• Netsmartz Teens
• Lesson Plan
• Trace My Shadow
• How to Teach Digital Citizenship
• Measure your Digital Footprint

Useful links

For digital citizenship

digitalcitizenship.net

commonsensemedia.org

infographic

For free images

shutterstock.com

thinkstockphotos.com

Interesting Talks

TED Talk Sherry Turkle

TED Talk Monica Lewinsky

And on that note…

Seven Deadly Digital Sins

Dealing with Digital Disrespect

Free pdf

Guidelines for Writing

A website which I like using

https://www.betterinternetforkids.eu/web/portal/resources/videos

A rap song about Oversharing which I use in class

Tech Tools for Assessment

The session by Katie was engaging and interesting and we learnt how to work by using many tools:

Quizizz.com

Quizlet.com

We learnt about an interesting website for helping learners to learn by doing online exercise

Lyricstraining.com

My laptop did not allow me to the app Geoguessr.com. The app is free and can be used by teachers of Geography and languges.

The best app which we used was Google Form to create tests or survey. We learnt how how to automatically grade the form.

Other tools which were shared in the lesson:

• http://l.georges.online.fr/tools/cloze.html
• https://www.thatquiz.org/ (for maths and language teachers)
• https://padlet.com/
• https://web.seesaw.me/
• http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/ ( user friendly and easy to use)
• https://get.plickers.com/

I am already familiar with some of them but the one which I really want to use if Google Form as I can create formative assessment, summative assessment and exit tickets. Once they are ready you can use your Google Forms in other tests and thanks to an add-on you can grade the task.

A cloze maker can be found online with OUP : you will have to be registered. I tried http://l.georges.online.fr/tools/cloze.html and I liked it.

https://access.oup.com/eac/login.htm?url=http://elt.oup.com/teachers/englishresult/clozemaker/cloze1?cc=gb&selLanguage=en&mode=hub

My Test by using Google Forms

Working with Google Apps

On the fifth lesson we worked on GOOGLE apps: Google Docs and also Google Slides but we learnt that there are many tools which can be used thanks to the Google apps.

I was already familiar with some apps from Google Drive to Docs and Slides but I learnt that there are many more apps.

For those who had never used the shareable link Rachel taught us how to create a document and share it with others without having to ask them their email. The link can be used by anyone, you need to give them rights to edit the document if you want to collaborate.

Task 2 Creating a Google Slide

• Once you have opened the slide app. Click blank presentation.
• Choose a theme from the right side of the page.
• Create the opening screen of your presentation entitled ‘Our Time in Dublin’.
• Create one slide telling us about why you came to Dublin and what you have been doing here.
• Create a second slide which includes a photo and text explaining one part of your trip to Dublin.
• Find and embed a video on YouTube in the third slide.
• Share the link with us on Google Classroom.

Week 2

The second week was shorter but intensive. We had lessons on four days and we had a long weekend as Monday was Bank Holiday in Ireland.

I decided to spend the long weekend by visiting as many museums and places in Dublin as I could. Shopping, going to the theatre, vising parks and museums and learning about the past. I have already written about my love for visiting places which were new to me and thus I did this before starting school again.

PBL and Podcasting

The beginning of the second week started with PBL and podcasting.

I am already familiar with PBL as I have done courses online and also workshop. I really appreciated the tasks related to Podcasting.

Katie introduced PBL with Quizlet https://quizlet.com/218095652/otc10-project-based-learning-flash-cards/ .

I did appreciated this as she made us work on the main ideas to revise or to learn something more.

Katie shared a project which they carried out at Alpha. I think that I will try to copy some of the ideas which were presented in the website " The Museum of Us" - here is the link https://sites.google.com/view/themuseumofus/home

The part about Podcasting was the nicest part of the course as I could see which tools you need to work with in order to make your podcasts.

What is a podcast?

A podcast is defined as a digital audio file made available on the Internet for downloading to a computer or mobile device, typically available as a series, new instalments of which can be received by subscribers automatically.

Why Podcasting?

• the process is pleasurable (for example, Csikszentmihalyi's (1990) idea of flow.
• the starting point matches their existing expertise (Vygotsky's (1962) "zone of proximal development")
• It reflects their values and concerns (for example making podcasts connected to the syllabus/ project based learning)
• It promotes learner autonomy.
• It promotes 21st century skills.
• It’s recorded against a background of continued dialogue with peers and mentors (social constructivism, Siemens' (2006).
• It is motivating and reflective of real life.

Our Task

We worked on a persuasion map and created a text for our podcast by using Google Doc. We used then Audacity for recording the task - our podcast about the importance of CPD and then we uploaded it to a website for podcasting. We chose " free apps". I had already downloaded Audacity but I had to create the account for Soundcloud.

Katie , our tutor, suggested these tools

• Audacity (open source)
• Garage Band (Mac users)
• Windows Movie Maker

Same with publishing…

• Itunes
• Spotify
• Stitcher
• Soundcloud

We downloaded Audacity on our laptop, we recorded the podcast, we saved it as Mp3 then uploaded it to Soundcloud.

Ideas for some activities to be done with our students

Digital Citizenship

• Your Digital Footprint : Students make an infographic on digital footprints

Primary School

• Family Ties : Students interview grandparents, parents and create their own journals and timelines
• Trash to Treasure : Students learn about the environment and present a recycled product
• The Bee Project : Students explore the reasons and consequences of the declining bee population

History / Language Arts

• Does History Repeat Itself? : Students research and explore the question before making an audio recording
• Historical Voyages and Events : Students explore and evaluate historic figures who impacted their community
• The Hunger Games Project : Students examine the global economic crisis of pre- World War II

Language Arts

• Chalk Dust or Guitar Hero? : Students investigate how to use their ‘everyday’ tech to create a lesson plan
• A Great Place to Visit : Students develop a walking tour of their town

Geography / Language Arts

• Humans vs. Nature : Students explore environmental issues affecting their community

Maths

• PBL for Maths : Six PBL for maths ideas
• Code Breakers : Students use algebra to crack codes
• Geo Soccer : Students use geometry to maximise the chances of scoring a goal

Physics

• Go, Score, Win : Students use physics to gain a competitive edge

More ideas online at https://my.pblworks.org/

Suggested language to be used in podcasting

1. Welcome to our podcast about… (1)

2. Me too! (3)

3. Really? (2)

4. Today, we’re talking about… (1)

5. Tell me more about… (2)

6. Oh wow! (2)

7. Don’t forget to like and share. (4)

8. What a + adj + noun! (What a great idea!) (2)

9. Can you tell me about…? (2)

10. I’m with you (3)

11. How + adj! (How interesting!) (2)

12. Thanks for listening (4)

13. I’m X and these are my partners Y and Z and today… (1)

14. O.K. so that’s all we have time for (4)

15. Bye (4)

16. Exactly (3)

Categorise

1. Introductions
2. Showing interest
3. Agreeing
4. Conclusions

Recording materials from our screen

Our seventh day was great as we worked on screencasting our screen and recording our lesson by using a free tool which I am familiar with and we firt saw Rachel's lesson and the materials she had used. At the end of the day we had created a lesson about any topic we wanted to teach and by using Google Docs and Screencast-o'matic.

Rachel asked us to create an account with Screeencast-o'matic and we had to download it. Just a few seconds and we were ready to post and share our lesson.

Apps for Education

Flipgrid was the new tool which we explored. It is a free app which can help learners to express themselves on a topic by recording themselves.

You need to work on the tool but it offers a lot of interesting tasks to do in class.

Here is the new updated Flipgrid guide for 2019. I will have to read more and learn about it.

Other apps which we were suggested to explore

• Thinglink - tool to create interactive images / videos
• Wokabulary - app to learn new vocabulary
• Piktochart - tool to create infographics
• My Simple Slideshow - tool to create explainer videos
• Duolingo - app to learn languages
• Camscanner - app to scan, save, archive and upload your files
• Canva - tool to create postcards
• Padlet - app to create boards for collaborative work / create groups for projects etc.
• Words with Friends - app to expand range of vocabulary
• Timeline Eons - graphic representation app of our entire history
• Plickers - app / tool to carry out polls
• My Study Life - app for students to organise their course load
• Periodic Table - IOS app to explore the periodic table

For primary school teachers

• ChatterPix Kids - free app for Android and IOS to create talking pictures
• Capital Toss - tool to practice geography
• Explore.org - live nature webcams
• Math Training for Kids - app for Android
• Jelly Math Quiz - app for IOS
• Phonics Silly Sentences - app to practice phonics
• Elementari - tool to create and share interactive stories

Podcasts in the Classroom

British Council Elementary Podcast

BBC The English We Speak

Better at English

Higher level students - useful for cultural activities

Myths and Legends

This American Life

Implementing Google Classroom

On Thursday we worked on Google Classroom and we created our Class- we then shared the code to have new learners. We discussed the advantages and any drawbacks of this learning platform which is becoming very popular as it is safe and you can re-use the classes you have created and also the materials in Google Drive.

Worksop

We spent the afternoon checking the main options and what materials we can use by just using our Google Drive. You need to be organized but Google Classroom can really help you.

Stig used a free webtool to introduce himself and his life . It is an app by GOOGLE. You need to register and create your account to work online.

https://tourbuilder.withgoogle.com/

Resources online to learn more

https://www.google.com/earth/outreach/learn/storytelling-with-maps-using-tour-builder/

Eric Curt had already shared this tool some years ago but I had never tried it . It is very user-friendly and we all ended up with creating our story or trip.

Here is my creation by using the tool

You do need to have precise addresses of places and then you are guided by using Google Maps. "Simple tool" and I think useful for creating tours in English about the life of a person or a city /place you have visited. It can be used for history or geography lessons too. I will use it with my English language learners.

My learning diary is about to end. The last hour of our day was about the course evaluation. It was positive and I must say that it was a pity to have to leave as I would have liked to learn more about Google apps.

On Friday I visited 14 Henrietta Street Museum. More details about the places I visited can be found in the other pages of the website.