Wicked Problem Project: Final

Script: A Wicked Problem is one which is hard to solve and often requires a creative and innovative solution. The wicked problem I chose to address in my English as a Foreign Language classes was vocabulary acquisition. If you arrive at my classes five minutes before class starts, you’ll most likely see students pouring over lists of vocabulary with Korean translations. While memorization has its benefits, the students rarely learn the exact correct meaning of the words.

To solve this problem, I developed a wicked solution using Moodle’s glossary and games modules. Rather than students using their dictionaries to define words, students would create their own definitions using pictures, audio files, and example sentences – that is sentences from which the meaning can be inferred without a dictionary. Each pair of students would be assigned three or four words and would have to define the words using text, images, and/or audio files. The text files could then be used to create crossword and hangman games from which the other students could study. The audio and image files could be used to create Moodle flashcards which keep track of which words students know and keep drilling them on the ones they don’t. In this way, technology could be used to supplement the student’s aquistion.

As with every technology- integrated lesson, this lesson was informed by my knowledge of the interactions between pedagogy, content, and technology.  We call this the TPACK model. In this slide, you can see the TPACK interactions that informed my teaching decisions. Going clockwise from the top – the technology I chose to use was Moodle. I chose Moodle because the students are familiar with it and use if for their other classes too. In addition, all materials that are uploaded to Moodle can be viewed by the other students in the class. The content knowledge is vocabulary. Rather than having the students only know the (often incorrect) Korean translation for the vocabulary words, I want them to situate the vocabulary words within their already existent vocabulary. I want them to connect the word with its synonyms, antonyms, definition, pictures and example sentences. Finally, the pedagogy used is student-student teaching. Rather than the students using a dictionary or turning to me to help, I’d prefer that they create their own dictionaries so that they can learn from one another.

The project was successful in many ways. The students did a great job of finding pictures and building sentences. I think the knowledge that other students would be seeing their work made the students spend more time building their definitions and example sentences than they might otherwise have done. In addition, the flashcards turned out to be a big hit. The students especially liked using the image files to study. The audio files were less interesting. However, almost all of the students used the crosswords to study and most continued taking them until they got perfect scores.

In addition, I was able to see misunderstandings and correct them before they occurred. For example, one of the vocabulary words was “glamorous.” In Konglish, that is Korean-English, glamorous means voluptuous, so the pictures they’d chosen were of very large-chested women. This was a great opportunity for me to see a misunderstanding and clarify immediately. Instead, I showed them pictures of Victoria Beckham and other glamorous women and discussed why they were a better embodiment of this word.

The final benefit of this project was having the beginnings of a dictionary already in place for my next class. Instead of having the next class start from scratch, I can have them build off the glossary entries that already exist, for example adding pictures or audio to text definitions and vice versa. In addition, they can see good example sentences and learn from the experiences of the classes before them.

The advice I would give to other teachers who want to undertake a similar project would be to be bold! Don’t be afraid to try new things and experiment. Although Moodle can be intimidating to use at first, it is an extremely powerful tool and one that is worth using. The other piece of advice I would give is to pay attention to the details. Make sure everything works perfectly and try every step out before you do it. I had seen that the glossary used text, picture and audio files and that the crossword and hangman games pulled from the glossary so I thought that the games would be able to use picture and audio files, but unfortunately they only use text. Luckily, the flash card module uses audio and pictures, so I was able to use those for studying instead. In short, just do it, but do it well!

If you are interested in learning more about this project, there are several papers I would suggest reading. Wang & Turner discuss the use of wikis in the classroom in their 2004 paper. Szedmina et al. address how student-created dictionaries increase vocabulary acquisition. Finally, Szedimina & Robert note that review games have a positive effect on motivation and understanding of vocabulary words.

To see other similar projects, I would strongly recommend visiting Robin Shtulman’s blog “Beware of the Blog,” where she advocates for the use of a school-wide student-created dictionary. For Moodle newbies, Kristian Still, writer of “Kristian Still’s Blog,” discusses the use of Moodle’s glossary and games modules for vocabulary acquisition. Or, as always, feel free to contact me! I love Moodle and want to share that love with other teachers.

Thank you for listening to my project. I wish you luck in solving your own wicked problems!

Group Leadership Project

1. What tool did your group use to deliver the tutorial? Why?
We used a lot of different tools to deliver this tutorial. We used Jing for screenshots because it's easy to use and we're all familiar with it. I also used Word to make some of the pictures again because it's easy to use and can include texts and pictures. We used iMovie and Windows Media Player to create the video because I had a Mac and Dave had a PC. Finally, we uploaded the video to Youtube in order to share it with the rest of the class. Youtube is a great option because it's easy to embed and share the videos.

2. What did you learn during the development process of the final product? 
The major things I learned were how to use iMovie effectively. I especially liked using the Ken Burns effect, which allows for panning across the pictures. I also learned how to match the pictures to audio easily. The best way I found to do this was to listen to the clip after the one you're editing rather than listening to the entire clip you're editing. By listening to the clip after, you can tell where the one you're editing ends and this makes it easier to time the whole movie. Finally, I learned that these projects are a lot easier with group members. I was able to email them and get tips and hints on how to fix any problems I was having.

3. What would you do differently if you had to develop a similar product again?
If I had to develop a similar product again, I would buy Camtasia. While iMovie is an excellent video making tool, it doesn't import most other video files including .wmv, which was the video file that Dave had made. I had to send the clips to Tammie, who put them all together. In addition, I had a lot of problems with the transitions. For some reason, any time I edited any of the clips, all of the transitions would change. After spending an hour trying to fix them, I gave up in frustration. However, I'm very proud of the end result, which you can see here, or you can visit the YouTube page at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wLMMZ_ZpPg Feel free to sign in and "like" the video or add comments. 

Professional Learning Plan

A professional learning plan is a reflection on the goals you've had in the past, those you are accomplishing now and those you would like to accomplish in the future. It lays out a specific plan of action of how these goals will be achieved. To listen to a podcast of my learning plan, click on the link below.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/31577518/PLP.mp3

Here is a script for the podcast:

A major goal of mine going into CEP 810 was to find better games for my students to learn English. I made a lot of headway exploring Second Life and making a friend who offered to give me a fully formed English learning video game that I could tweak to meet the needs of my students. However, due to time constraints at my school – we run in two-month sessions and the death of my friend – I put both those projects on hold. More recently, I switched jobs to become the head teacher at a brand-new program to teach English to the Korean staff at all the military bases in Korea. As most of my students will not have access to computers, I’ve decided that the video games, while interesting and still fun, are not an immediate priority.

One major goals I did achieve was becoming more familiar with what technologies were available. Before starting at MSU, I’d only really known about the tools we used at our school: Moodle, Audacity, Hot Potatoes and Google Apps. Since then, I’ve learned about and begun using Voicethreads, Weebly, Glogster and Podcasts with my students.

The main skill set I would like to increase is learning more about how computers and technology work. It’s very frustrating to try to trouble shoot technology problems when I don’t understand what the problems are. I’d really like to learn some basic programming code and have a better understanding of how computers work. I’ll hopefully be starting my MA in Educational Technology at MSU in the fall, and I’m hoping to be able to take a computer science course as an elective. If not, several schools offer free online courseware that I could take advantage of.  However, with my new job, I know my time will be limited.

As for what I will accomplish this summer, I’ll be building an English program from the ground up. I’ll be hiring, training and evaluating teachers as well as meeting with our clients, performing needs analyses and developing curriculum. My main concern is that while Korea is a small country, roughly the size of Indiana, there will still be a lot of travel involved. Luckily, I’ll be able to implement a lot of the tools I’ve learned about at MSU. I’ve already built a website where teachers can upload and share lesson plans. I’m planning on using web conferencing to communicate with teachers and web cams to observe and evaluate their teaching. Having learned a lot at MSU, I now need to put the skills I’ve learned to practice. I suppose that’s why I’m so nervous about trouble shooting issues. I’ll definitely need help getting a lot of this set up, but unfortunately the school I’m working for has a very limited budget and no interest in increasing the amount of technology they use. Luckily, I have a few friends who are computer geeks and who are more than willing to help me with any issues that I’m having. I’ll be relying on them heavily for ideas and tech support. While the months ahead will be difficult, they will be easier with the tools I’ve learned to use in these classes.

PART B - Storyboard and Script

The storyboard and script were both an entire group effort. I did most of the big idea stuff like putting together the initial structure of the presentation and building the "why use Facebook," "Differences between a Page and a Group," and "Conclusion." However the other group members really fleshed out and added to each of these sections. Slough it was my idea to make a Facebook page, Pam did all the leg work for that, and she did a great job. As for the script, I wrote the concluding script and added in some of the pictures. I invite you to see the results of our work here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wOME3IuH8BHQ_l3Ul-k39orydFnBZOWQh1P1-mvd7_g/mobilebasic?hl=en_US.

For the final presentation, we've decided that I will build it and do the audio since that will make it easiest to do the timings correctly. All the group members contributed screenshtos and pictures to include in the video, so it is ready to be filmed. Dave will make a video for his section and send it to be included in the final product. Tammie and Pam will both put the final edits on it. I'm really excited to see the end product. This is the first group I've worked with where I've felt like everyoneis fully invested and it makes a huge difference.

Wicked Problem Project: Part D - Findings and Implications

• Formative: Did the project get implemented as planned?

The project definitely did not get implemented as planned. However, I’m not unhappy with the results of the project. I knew that I would have to change parts of it as the project evolved. I’ve consistently found that what I want is always a bit beyond what Moodle has to offer. So when I discovered that only text definitions from the glossary were used to create games, I was disappointed but not surprised. Still, I was able to use the text and (transcribed) audio to create useful review games. The students were also able to learn from each other’s sentences, so I feel the project was a success.

• Summative: Evidence of success in addressing the problem of practice
• How would you approach another project of this type differently given what you’ve learned here?

I would definitely tests out all the modules in Moodle first. For this, I tested out the Glossary and Games modules but didn’t check to make sure that audio and pictures would transfer from Glossary to Games. I would also include a lot more examples for the students to see what I expect. Luckily, this session’s students have created some excellent examples so I can recycle them.

• What are the lessons learned that others might benefit from knowing about?

What’s consistently come up in my blog posts is that most people aren’t aware of how much Moodle has to offer. Its rather intimidating interface keeps a lot of people from delving into what it’s capable of. I hope that other teachers are inspired to see what they can do.  Although it’s definitely harder to use than other websites such as Weebly or Google, I also feel like I understand how websites work better and can troubleshoot problems a lot easier. I even added pictures and larger text to my website to make it more user-friendly.

• In what ways will you endeavor to do the same project again, and what will you change or not do?

I would like to do the same project again. However, I will have to separate the text sentences from the audio and the pictures. The text can be used to create crosswords and hangman while the audio and pictures can be used to create flashcards or matching activities. I’ll probably recycle sentences from previous sessions both to increase the amount of studying that the students can do and so that they can see examples of good sentences and pictures.  I had already decided not to do the voting. I would really like to cut out the teacher feedback portion of the assignment, but I’m not sure how to do that yet.

Wicked Problem Project: Part C – Implementation

Click here for an update on my Wicked Problem Project. 
This is an example of a crossword created with sentences from my students.

Mobile Learning

Like most teachers, I like the idea of using cell phones in the classroom, but I’m reluctant to fully integrate because not all students have access to the same tools. I’ve already started using QR codes at my school, but only for optional special events not for classroom activities.

I checked out the discussion “Cellphones in Education” at Classroom2.0. The community, however, seemed not to be terribly active. There were many posts on breaking the ban on cell phone use and developing parent-student-teacher agreements. I wasn’t particularly interested in these topics, so I spent most of my time looking at the tools on the Mobile Learning page in Angel.

One tool I thought was especially interesting was Wiffiti, which allows you to post tweets on screens, jukeboxes, etc. This would be great if we had a scrolling message board outside our school that would let students and teachers tweet about what they are doing in the classroom. Other students and parents would be able to keep up to date on what we were doing inside. I think this would be especially interesting in Korea where all technology seems to move at the speed of light. I also liked the idea of using cell phones for scavenger hunts, but I cringe at how much checking would be involved. Perhaps students could upload pictures to our Facebook page and we could grade the hunt afterwards. I really like the idea as well of creating a video contest where students could post their favorite memories of our school and vote on which ones they liked best. The winners could get a prize of some variety.

Polleverywhere.com is a great tool I would highly recommend for schools. The polls are quick and easy to make and the data is displayed in an easily readable manner. In the classroom, this would work best if you have a lot of students or are asking a potentially sensitive question such as “would you like to change the date of the final?” Some students might want a different option but be shy to say anything in front of their peers. This would effectively sidestep this issue. This would also be a great way to get parental input or play games like Family Feud. However, in my current school class sizes are so small that it’s unnecessary to use cell phones for much beyond that. Nevertheless, it’s an excellent tool and I’d recommend it highly!

Web Conferencing

Today I held my first ever web conference with my group from MSU. We decided to use Vyew, a free online web conferencing tool. There were a few other options including, Adobe Connect, which offers a 30-day free trial; Yugma, which only allows you to invite 2 other people; and WebHuddle, which wasn't as pretty as Vyew and didn't have as many features. However, if you'd like to record your session, I'd suggest going with WebHuddle as Vyew's recording software is still in its alpha phase and doesn't record audio. Instead of recording a silent session, I recorded 15 minutes of the session using screen-o-matic, but it was only 15 minutes. Nevertheless, I still found Vyew's interface more intuitive and user-friendly. I loved all the tools you could use to draw and highlight.

Aside from the recording problem, Vyew was great! We were able to upload pictures and documents; share our screens; type, highlight, and draw on the board; and use webcams to communicate. In a lot of ways it was more efficient because we had so many tools to work with, and everyone was able to show documents or their screen if they wanted to demonstrate something. Another great feature was that you could have multiple pages so that if you wanted a clean slate, you didn't have to erase it, you just went to a new page. We could then flip back to a previous page if we wanted to remember the notes that we had made.

That said, we did have some technical difficulties. One of the group members never got her webcam working. Another was unable to turn his microphone off resulting in terrible feedback if more than two people had their mics on. Although annoying, this was actually beneficial because it made me think about what I said and decide whether it was necessary before I said it. Finally, the screen sharing was only partially successful in that only one person was able to see the other's screen. I think these are small problems, however, and if we did this again, we would most likely have worked out most of the glitches.

I'm not sure I would use this tool in my classroom. We see our students and they see each other everyday. There is rarely a need for out of class communication, and it would be nearly impossible for the students to find a time they could all meet. If our classes had less time together, this would be a great way for speaking classes to get extra practice. They could practice speaking, record the session and give it to the teacher for marking or just to prove that they did it. The extra tools such as typing and showing pictures could be used to better demonstrate ideas or for students to teach each other.

Furthermore, I think this would be great for communication between our branch in Korea and the University of California Riverside in the States. It's often difficult to communicate with them due to time differences and lack of easy communication. They've mentioned several times that they'd like to work with us on professional development, but all of their webinars are scheduled for them and nearly impossible for us to attend. However, with this tool, we could invite them to our webinars (at a more convenient time for everyone) and work on bridging the gap between the two campuses. In addition, we could record our sessions to show them what we're working on and maybe get feedback or ideas for them.

Group Leadership Project: Part A

Using a web conferencing tool of your choice record a group session that meets the following requirements:

All group members are present and participating in the session
- All four of us attended. 
A technology is chosen to be taught (This will be what the tutorial is about)
- We chose to teach how to use Facebook as a communication tool.
A technology is chosen to facilitate the learning (This is the tool used to demonstrate the tutorial.)
- We chose to use screencast-o-matic or jing to capture video and IMovie to put the clips together.
Technical aspects of how the work will be completed is discussed & a timeline of who will be doing what is created and agreed upon
 




 

1. What web conferencing tool did your group use?

We chose to use Vyew for our web conference. Although Adobe’s free trial was recommended, we wanted a tool that we could continue to use even after the class ended. We looked at Yugma; however, it only allowed you to invite two other people into the meeting and we needed three. Webhuddle was another option, but Vyew had a slicker look and better editing tools. The main problem with Vyew is that it doesn’t have a recording tool. Instead, I used screencast-o-matic to record 15 minutes of the web conference and uploaded the video https://www.msu.edu/~rebaemil/wc.flv. Pam also took pictures using Jing.
 

2. What were the advantages to using the web conferencing tool to discuss this project?

The advantages of using web conferencing were being able to see one another and having the shared board to put up pictures, notes from the brainstorming, and share our desktops. The tools on Vyew were great. We used video, voice, pictures, highlighting, typing notes, etc. It was much, much faster than trying to chat through emails. It was also nice to be able to see and hear everyone. We got a better feel for each other’s personalities which made assigning tasks easier. In all, I think we were able to understand the task better and know what our next steps were.

3. What were the disadvantages to using the web conferencing tool to discuss this project? 

It took a lot of emailing to find a time that worked for everyone and for a while I was worried I’d have to do it in the middle of the night. Once we all got to the room, there were definitely a few technology problems. Dave couldn’t figure out how to turn his mike off, and Tammie couldn’t turn hers on. We all needed to realize that unless we turned our mikes off when we were done, the feedback was deafening. Aside from scheduling, most of these problems would probably disappear if we did this again since we would know what to expect and plan for it. I would definitely use web conferencing again as a means to brainstorm and communicate with a group. I also like how we use it in class, and if I were doing an online class, I would definitely use it.

Part B - Application of TPACK

The technology I chose to use is Moodle glossary and games. Moodle glossary allows students to create dictionary entries for their vocabulary words using text, speech recordings, or pictures. In addition, they will be asked to define the word using an example sentence. An example sentence is a sentence from which the meaning of the word can be understood. After the glossary has been created, it can be used to create games such as hangman and crossword puzzles. 


The content is the vocabulary words. This encompasses both the students' ability to recognize the word from context (such as if there is a gap in an example sentence) as well as their ability to use the word correctly in a sentence. 


The pedagogy is the use of example sentences, the use of a glossary which allows multimedia definitions, the high level of student teaching, and the use of games to study.

1. What is the TP knowledge for the solution?  (i.e., how does the technology you have chosen support the teaching strategies and methods you have chosen?)

The technology supports pedagogy in that the students create their own study materials and therefore teach each other. It also supports different learning styles by allowing students to use pictures and recordings as well as text to define the words.  The games allow for fun revision rather than cramming.

Moodle is especially well suited for this assignment because it includes a glossary, where students can add new entries.  The glossary allows students to use different media to define the words. Moodle then automatically uses the words in the glossary to create any games the teacher makes. Finally, the teacher can monitor how often the students use the study materials and how well they score on the games. This makes the students more accountable since they know that someone is watching them.

2. What is the TC knowledge for the solution? (i.e., how specifically does this technology make the content in your problem more intellectually accessible?  Be sure to think about representation.)

The technology makes the content more accessible because the words are defined in pictures and sounds as well as words. The use of games such as crosswords and hangman increases motivation and repetition, which is necessary for vocabulary retention. In addition, students can study from anywhere. Most of them have smartphones, tablets or Ipads so they can study even on the bus or subway.


Also, I can save previous groups' sentences and use those to build games if we're running out of time or if the students are very low. This allows them to benefit from lots of examples without having the stress of making all the sentences immediately.

3. What is the PC knowledge for the solution? (i.e., how specifically do your pedagogical choices make the content in your problem more intellectually accessible?) Be sure to think about how the student will experience the content given these instructional strategies.

The pedagogy supports content in that example sentences demonstrate a full understanding of the words including spelling, grammar, and meaning. Example sentences also help improve students’ vocabulary acquisition skills. In class, we study methods to guess the meaning of new vocabulary words. Students are able to practice these skills when trying to put the appropriate word in a sentence with a blank.

The use of Moodle as a teaching pedagogy allows the students to teach each other. They are able to see and learn from each other’s sentences and then use them to study.  In addition, the teacher can check the students’ sentences for misunderstandings before the quiz.

Survey

Summary

I also used the Google Forms to create my survey. I changed a few questions since I was mainly having my friends fill the survey out, and not all of them are students. In total, 8 people between the ages of 24 and 50 filled out the survey.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dEJZeFAtbmhuRTMxWnR5T0ZpV2FTSEE6MQ

Google Forms was pretty easy to use. One important thing is how to re-edit the form. When you click on it, an Excel file pops up, and you have to click on "Form" "Edit form" to be able to edit the survey.

Another useful point is that when you email the form it gives you the option of including the form in the email. While this is useful because people can fill the form out in the same window, they can't see the pretty background. I decided not to include the form to force people to see the prettier form.

I didn’t like that each scaled question had to be entered individually; however, you can duplicate questions, which makes it easier. The spreadsheet was clear. It allows you to see each person’s individual responses and edit them if need be – my friend Jon chose “female” by accident.  "Show summary" was great because it gave you graphs of total responses. This would be very useful for a presentation on results to the school, parents, other teachers, etc.

Results

For a complete view of the results, use this link: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/gform?key=0An-PGaY2awXjdEJZeFAtbmhuRTMxWnR5T0ZpV2FTSEE&hl=en_US&authkey=CP3q0voF&gridId=0#chart. In total, 5 men and 3 women completed the survey. Most of them used and learned about technology at home. Everyone used DSL or high speed cable. The most commonly used technologies were email, finding information and downloading files. Spreadsheets, computer games and blogs were the least commonly used.

While everyone felt comfortable using email, editing papers and downloading files, most people were less familiar with creating videos and maintaining blogs and websites.

The technologies most commonly used outside of school or work were laptops, smartphones, and digital cameras. No one used DVD or CD burners, which surprised me because I know many people still watch DVDs.

The results for how people learn while using computers were varied, which shows the many different learning styles in this group. No one said that they copied information directly from the internet or CDs. Most people seemed to produce better work and be less confused while working on a computer; however, the results were not strong enough to be significant.

Questions

I used an Iframe to embed my survey in my blog. Does anyone have any other ideas on how to include it in a blog?

My First M4V!!!

This was surprisingly fun and easy to make. While iMovie is far from intuitive, it is very powerful, and it's video tutorials are excellent!!! To anyone wanting to use it, I would suggest either knowing what you want to build before you open the program or watching a few tutorials to get an idea of what is possible.

PART A - Description of Need or Opportunity

The Problem
A major problem we have teaching English in Korea is vocabulary. The Korean education system emphasizes rote memorization of terms rather than focusing on how to use the words. In reading class, we address that by having the students create "Vocabulary Logs," where they write down 1) the word 2) the part of speech 3) the definition or a synonym and 4) an example sentence.

The example sentence is the most important part of this task as the sentence should be written in such a way that a reader should be able to understand the meaning of the word from the sentence. For example, "The room was xxxx," would not be a good sentence since you can't guess the meaning of the vocabulary word (represented here by xs). In contrast, "The room was xxxx; there was nothing in it," would be an excellent sentence. The reader can guess that the vocabulary word is "empty."

Since theses sentences are difficult to create, students are allowed to use dictionaries, the internet, etc., with the understanding that the sentence must convey the full meaning of the word. They are also aided in this task by the "understanding vocabulary from context" activities we complete in class. They are shown how to guess the meanings of words through techniques such as recognizing synonyms, antonyms, and guessing from context. Then they are encouraged to use these techniques when writing  examples sentences. However, even with this amount of support, creating example sentences is difficult, and it's not clear that it's not just another type of memorization.

The Solution
I plan to use the Glossary and Game Modules in Moodle to address this issue. The Glossary Module allows students to create their own dictionary. They can enter in a vocabulary word and define it using text, pictures, audio, and/or video. The Game Module can then be used to create crosswords and hangman games using the definitions from the Glossary. 

This solution addresses the problem as it helps to spread out the workload. Rather than having each student create their own individual log, I will have pairs of students create definitions for half or a third of the words. The students will then vote on which sentences they want to use to study and only those will be used in the games. This provides extra scaffolding for the students as they can receive feedback from their peers and instructor before the quiz. In addition, the students can view other students' work and learn from their examples. Finally, the students will be required to complete the crossword and hangman games showing that they are able to correctly recognize contexts in which to use the vocabulary.

This solution also addresses the UDL principle of allowing students to choose how to define the word (ex: picture, text, video, and/or audio) and which of these they would like to use to study. The definitions that are not chosen for the games will remain in the glossary for students to study with if they wish.

Scope of the Project
This scope of this project is one session - a two-month period. The tool will mainly be used outside of the classroom although classroom time will be used in the first week to introduce the technology and method of use. Unfortunately, as I am sabbatical this session, I will not be able to implement this until after CEP 812 has finished.

Research
Research supports the use of wikis in the classroom. Wang & Turner (2004) found the following:
"Wiki collaboration systems encourage student-centered learning environments ... The class wiki becomes a central repository of knowledge acquired and expressed by students in the class. As a result, the class develops a sense of community ownership of course content, and students become active contributors in each other's learning."

In addition, it has been shown that student-created dictionaries have a positive effect on vocabulary acquisition. Szedmina et al. (2005) showed that
"Often the user does not have a clear idea of the context in which the word can be used, and either goes for the 'trial-and-error' option, or relies on the use of that word in his native language ... sample sentences included in OpenDict will hopefully be of help to users of English in order to avoid using the the right expression in the wrong way."
They also not that "(The Wiki system) is self improving while it is used. When someone finds a better translation for a certain vocabulary item, they can alter the dictionary."

Finally,  Szedima & Robert (2004) note that the use of review games are useful.
"As a user of this multimedia application the student is given to opportunity to work (and enhance his knowledge) by himself. There are two options in the application to choose from, ‘practice’ and ‘test’. When going for the ‘practice’ option, the solutions of the exercises can be immediately checked. This enables the student to set his own learning pace. It is a well-known fact that one’s learning pace is individual, and unfortunately, it is inevitable that the teacher’s teaching pace will be too fast for certain students, and too slow for others. While practicing on his own, the student does not have to take into account anyone else’s (fellow students’) learning pace, but work in his own time."

In addition, similar projects have been done at other schools, demonstrating that other teachers have found this technique useful. For example, Robin Shtulman, in her blog "Beware of the Blog," writes a proposal for a school-wide vocabulary wiki. She highlights the benefits of this project including: vocabulary building, community building across grades, friendly competition, critical thinking, community building across roles, technology skills, archive, and opportunities for kids with different learning styles. Kristian Still also discusses the use of Moodle glossary and games to help students learn vocabulary in her blog, Kristian Still's blog. She says that she edits the students' entries rather than having them vote, which may be a more time-effective strategy although it fails to provide feedback on mistakes.

The tools I chose to use for this project are Moodle Glossary and Moodle Games. I chose these tools because our school already uses Moodle so it will be familiar and easy to access. In addition, I liked that students are able to use pictures and audio to define the words as well as text.

Indicators of Success
The most obvious indicator of a successful project will be higher scores on vocabulary quizzes. This will show that the students studied more and/or had a better understanding of the vocabulary words. In addition, at the end of the session students will be asked on their program evaluations whether they enjoyed using the Moodle to learn vocabulary or not. This will indicate any change in motivation based on the use of glossary and games.

Final Reflection

1. Through taking CEP 812, the most useful thing I learned was how to build web pages. I'd never even thought about designing my own web page and frankly, I was a bit scared. Luckily, the tutorials were very simple, and eventually I felt confident enough to start playing with HTML and even CSS. Since then my newest hobby, much to my husband's chagrin, has been editing Wikipedia. There are a lot of fun projects to collaborate on, and I'm learning how to do cool things like merge pages and copy edit.

2. The main technology I've integrated into my courses has been the use of Moodle Lesson. It was a challenging module to build, and I'm not sure I'll do it again unless I move into blended or fully online teaching. Still, it was great to be able to learn how to do it. In addition, a large part of this course was evaluating the utility of resources. My favorite session was the one on UDL because it really forced me to focus on what I could be doing to better meet my students' needs online. As a result, I've made a point of embedding videos into each of my online lessons to appeal to my many students who (I know) love that sort of thing. I've been keeping up with You Tube's autocaptioning initiative and really wish they would let users help edit the captions. Hopefully, in the future, they will!!

3. My goal for this course was just to build my confidence in using technology.  Although it's easy to feel like I understand something, I get nervous about trying it out for the first time. This class forced me to try things I never would have done on my own.  I'm really glad I had the opportunity to lear how to read and edit HTML. I've even started teaching myself a little bit of code just to be able to do more in Moodle. At this goal at least, I feel like I succeeded. 

4. My new goal is to learn how to read and write basic code. I've been watching MIT's free online lessons and watching these great online tutorials. Between the two, I've been able to write some really, really basic programs. Still, it's more than I've ever dreamed of doing. In the future, I plan to continue following MIT's coding course. In addition, next session I'll be taking CEP 812, which I hope will continue building my technological skills and confidence.  My long term goal is to get a Masters in Educational Technology and get a job in technology integration.

TWICE (Two Way Interactive Connections in Education )

The Michigan Merit Curriculum's Online Learning Experience Guideline document has a great list of online courses, learning experiences, and ways to incorporate online learning into the classroom. My favorite of these was TWICE. It allows you to video conference with other classrooms on collaborative projects. One of my favorite ideas is reading the same book as another classroom and discussing it with them. However, this would be effective if the students simply communicated with other students in English. Monolingual classrooms often fall into the habit of translating because everyone can understand them. Being forced to talk with a speaker of another language would show them how to communicate when they can't slip into Korean.
The main pedagogical strategies I would use would be scaffolding until the students are comfortable using the technology, having the students work together collaboratively to check each other and make sure that they understand, and then having the students do the work on their own. I try to make my lessons as student-based as possible by having them use their own content and ideas.

I'm not sure which technologies would actually be hard to use with my students. In fact, since my students are in university, they're often more comfortable with technology than I am.  The main problem they face with technology is when they can't understand the texts. Therefore, the most difficult tool to use would be an RSS feed. However, there are RSS feeds for websites like breakingnewsenglish.com which might be useful. To be honest, I think all of these technologies would be useful and easy to use with my students.

Wikis

This week's topic was wikis. First, we had to build our own wiki. Building a wiki was surprisingly easy and fun. I wasn't sure what to write so I just started writing about the new apartment we're looking for since that's been on my mind. After that, I asked my friends to edit the wiki. They didn't really want to create new accounts. Luckily, PBWorks has an option for teachers whose students don't have email addresses. I was able to assign them accounts through my "education account" without them having to sign up. To be honest, I wasn't that excited about the result, probably because we were all sitting together while they were working on it. I can see the potential for student projects however - especially for writing collaborative essays. We also have students write scripts for presentations in our speaking classes. A wiki would be incredibly useful for that as well.
See my wiki here: http://missemilyreba.pbworks.com/w/page/39055415/Apartment

I also had to edit my school's wikipedia entry. I edited the UCR academies site rather than building an entirely new site for my school. This task was much more difficult for me.  I felt like the article was well written and I didn't want to add something for the sake of adding something. First, I fixed the broken links at the bottom of the page, most of which were outdated. Then, I edited the wiki to mention that students are encouraged to study at UCR rather than California because that's more truthful. I also added a detail about them getting a discount on tuition because it's something we really try to play up at our school. Here's a picture of the changes I made in the website:

Universal Design for Learning

UDL is the idea that learning school be designed to accommodate all kinds of learning. I'm a strong believer in this idea, so this assignment was both enjoyable and humbling for me. Our task was to take a lesson plan and see how well it stood up under the UDL guidelines. Here are my results:

UDL Guidelines – Educator Checklist Version 2
I.    Provide Multiple Means of Representation:	Your notes
1.     Provide options for perception
1.1 Offer ways of customizing the display of information	Feature: As the information is online, the students can change the size of the text. They can also change the size, color, font, etc in their responses. In addition, each student has a picture that appears next to their post which they can change if they wish.
1.2 Offer alternatives for auditory information	Feature: Instructions for how to use the forums are given in text and video.
1.3 Offer alternatives for visual information	Feature: There is a video with voiceover explaining how to use the forums. Barrier: It includes comments such as “click here,” which might not be useful if a student cannot see where here is.
2.     Provide options for language, mathematical expressions, and symbols
2.1 Clarify vocabulary and symbols	Feature: There is a vocabulary list at the top of each document explaining hard to understand words.
2.2 Clarify syntax and structure	Feature: There is a video explaining how to use the forums. In addition, each forum includes text instructions on how to use it.
2.3 Support decoding of text, and mathematical notation, and symbols	Barrier: There is no text-to-speech.  Feature: There is a list of key terms they will need to use the forum.
2.4 Promote understanding across language	Barrier: There are no pictures. There are no links to definitions of words with pronunciation – although now I love this idea.
2.5 Illustrate through multiple media	Feature: There is a vocabulary list at the top of each forum task explaining difficult vocabulary.
3.     Provide options for comprehension
3.1 Activate or supply background knowledge	Feature: Each forum task is prefaced by an article or blog that the students have to read and respond to. The article provides vocabulary and ideas and shows which topics the students are expected to address.
3.2 Highlight patterns, critical features, big ideas, and relationships	Feature: The instructions are clear and concise. Barrier: No major ideas are highlighted.
3.3 Guide information processing, visualization, and manipulation	Feature: Each step is clearly written in sequential order.
3.4 Maximize transfer and generalization	Feature: The final forum task sends the students out to a forum used by English speakers in Seoul and requires the students to post on a “real world” forum.
II.   Provide Multiple Means for Action and Expression:	Your notes
4.     Provide options for physical action
4.1 Vary the methods for response and navigation	Barrier: Since the goal of the class is to improve writing, using voice recording or pictures would not serve the same purpose.

4.2 Optimize access to tools and assistive technologies	Barrier: This is actually completely out of my control. Everything about the computers is controlled by the Korean government. I can’t change any settings, hardware or software.
1.     Provide options for expression and communication
5.1 Use multiple media for communication	Feature: Online forums are being used as a tool for communication. Students can also upload pictures.
5.2 Use multiple tools for construction and composition	Feature: Moodle has spelling and grammar check.s
5.3 Build fluencies with graduated labels of support for practice and performance	Barrier: The goal of this activity is to allow students to practice freely without any pressure to perform “correctly.” However, they all tend to follow the same model since it’s the easiest.
2.     Provide options for executive functions
6.1 Guide appropriate goal setting	Barrier: The students are given a schedule but no rubric.
6.2 Support planning and strategy development	Barrier: This behavior is not modeled for or expected of the students.
6.3 Facilitate managing information and resources	Barrier: Resources for this are not provided.
6.4 Enhance capacity for monitoring progress	Feature: Each task has a list of what they have to do in sequential order.

 

III.  Provide Multiple Means for Engagement:	Your notes
1.     Provide options for recruiting interest
7.1 Optimize individual choice and autonomy	Feature: Although the teacher sets the topic, the students are free to address the topic any way they wish.  The only limit on the posting is that it include 150 words. They can add pictures
7.2 Optimize relevance, value, and authenticity	Feature: This is a real world task that students do everyday in their native language. Also, the final task is for the students to post on a real forum.
7.3 Minimize threats and distractions	Feature: Online forums have been shown to build community in a classroom. In addition, forums can give otherwise shy students an opportunity to express themselves openly.
2.     Provide options for sustaining effort and persistence
8.1 Heighten salience of goals and objectives	Barrier: I usually expect the motivation for the forums to be intrinsic in the activity itself, but a formal statement of the goals would doubtless help the less motivated students.
8.2 Vary demands and resources to optimize challenge	Feature: The forums get progressively harder starting with the students talking about themselves, moving to talking about less familiar topics and finally to having discussions with native speakers.
8.3 Foster collaboration and community	Feature: Forums foster community and the sharing of ideas. Barrier: There isn’t any collaboration.
8.4 Increase mastery-oriented feedback	Barrier: The teacher does not provide students with feedback at any point since the goal is for students to practice freely without worrying about a grade or feedback.
3.     Provide options for self-regulation
9.1 Promote expectations and beliefs that optimize motivation	Feature: Students in our program often lack faith in their ability to write. The act of posting on a forum helps to boost their belief in their ability to write.
9.2 Facilitate personal coping skills and strategies	Barrier: This behavior is not modeled or dealt with.
9.3 Develop self-assessment and reflection	Barrier: Students are not given a rubric, nor are they asked to grade a sample forum post using the rubric.