Following the National Curriculum in England, our English programme of study has four key elements:

• Writing
• Reading
• Spoken language
• Spelling, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation (SPaG)

When we transitioned over to e-learning, during lockdown, we wanted to make sure to provide as many opportunities as possible to facilitate teaching and learning for each one of these areas.

We therefore fully embraced the best e-learning platforms we could find, to replicate children’s experiences in the classroom while they were working from home.  In fact, in some areas, we went beyond simply replicating children’s classroom experiences, and we were able to enhance children’s learning experience through the use of digital technologies.

Let’s take a look at some examples of how we have been doing this:

1. Quizlet to help children with their spellings.  Quizlet is a web application that enables users to easily make digital flashcards and has been particularly effective for memorising spellings as well as consolidating understanding of word definitions.

2. Screencasting software such as Loom to deliver read-aloud sessions for children.  Screencasting is where you narrate a video recording of your computer screen – a very handy skill to learn when teaching online!  The advantage of an app like Loom is that it also records a video of the teacher talking, and this appears on the side of the screencast, making the teacher’s explanation much more intuitive to follow. 

3. EdPuzzle has proven brilliant for supporting children’s reading and developing their comprehension skills.  Our teachers have been making interactive read-aloud videos for students, which are embedded with comprehension quizzes.

4. Flipgrid is an exciting platform video discussion platform that enables children to post short video responses to questions, thereby helping students to practise their speaking and listening skills   

5. Google Docs & Slides has provided many writing opportunities for our students.  The school’s Google suite of tools, in particular, has proven particularly useful for teachers to provide feedback on written assignments via the use of private comments.

6. Google Classroom has remained our core platform for handing out and collecting in assignments.  It also allows us to easily track students’ work submissions.

Digital Resources for use at Home:

Kindles 

While we use Kindles in the school, they can be brilliant devices to encourage and help students with their reading at home.  Firstly, unlike smartphones or tablet devices, they do not have a luminous screen, which means they cause less eye strain.  In fact, they employ a special type of display, commonly referred to as an “e-paper” display.  As devices specifically designed and built for reading, they also come without the many distractions associated with other digital technologies.

Secondly, the new Kindles help young readers tackle challenging vocabulary.  The built-in dictionary software, which turns itself on when the student long presses a word, quickly looks up the definition of the word.  This is generally something that teachers are doing automatically; when teachers are reading with or to students, attention is paid to new vocabulary – both a word’s meaning and its correct punctuation.  When students are reading alone therefore, the Kindle’s in-built dictionary and vocabulary builder can be a really useful set of tools.

Thirdly, every word looked up is automatically added to a ‘Vocabulary Builder’, which creates flashcards that students can use to learn the definitions and usage of words.

Finally, it is much easier to find a range of appropriate books from the Kindle store than hunting around bookshops!

Classroom Flipped

Classroom Flipped provides learners with easy access to the best resources on the Web, to help support their learning.  I originally designed this website to link all relevant, child-friendly resources to our International Primary Curriculum.

Bug Club 

Bug Club is a platform that contains hundreds of fiction and non-fiction books.  Each book is carefully levelled so that children can access books, which are appropriate for their reading level, before moving onto more challenging books as their reading skills improve.  It also comes with ‘Progress & Assess’ quizzes, which tests children on what they have read, while helping them to improve their reading fluency and comprehension skills.    

Concluding thoughts…

Our e-learning environment has facilitated an environment in which students are becoming more active creators instead of solely passive content recipients.  After all, students learn best in an environment that they “own”, which adjusts rapidly to meet their learning needs and interests.  As a team, we are continually learning how to effectively embed these learning technologies into our teaching practice.  Indeed, as we gradually return to normality, we are looking forward to taking what we have learnt during these peculiar times, to further enhance our teaching practice and develop students’ learning.

Dr. Ruben Puentedura has developed what he calls the SAMR model, which provides a framework to show the impact of technology on teaching and learning.  The model moves through various stages, beginning at a basic level of learning in the substitution phase through to a level where learning is transformational at the redefinition level.

The SAMR model is powerful because it enables us to think about how learning can be extended through the use of technology.  I have summarised the four stages of the SAMR model here:

SUBSTITUTION – Technology acts as a direct tool substitute, with no functional change.  For example, students may type up notes on a word processor instead of writing by hand in an exercise book.

AUGMENTATION –  Technology still acts as a direct tool substitute, but with functional improvements.  Taking the example of typing on a word processor, augmentation means that the learning process can become more efficient and engaging.  Images can be added, text can be hyperlinked and changes to the text itself can be made quickly.

These first two stages of the SAMR model represent enhancements of existing ways of working.  Digital technology is not necessary in order to carry out the learning task.  The technology simply  provides a digital medium for learning to take place, which may enhance learning.

MODIFICATION – By this stage technology not only enhances the learning activity, it also significanly transforms it.  An example might be students setting up a blog in which they open up their work to a worldwide audience.  The blog means that students are much more accountable for the work they present, so will tend to spend more time refining their written work.  In this way, both student learning and literacy improve.

REDEFINITION – This level requires the teacher to think about learning activities that were previously inconceivable without the use of technology.  This could be for instance, a Google Hangout session that takes place between students from different countries in order for students to swap information about their home countries in real-time.  Likewise, the use of Google Docs for students in different parts of the world to collaborate on a shared assignment facilitates learning opportunities that would be impossible without such technology.

The modification and redefinition levels represent transformational stages in terms of student learning, as the technology is actively helping to transform the way in which learning can occur.  

Concluding thoughts…

The SAMR model is essentially a planning tool that helps to design better learning activities for students.  The framework provides pedagogical insight into how technology can and should be used in the classroom.  I would make the following recommendations in light of the model:

1. Always consider whether or not the technology improves the learning process.  I have already written about what makes technology ‘appropriate‘ in a learning context.  If the learning process is enhanced through the use of technology, then it’s appropriate to use – if not, more traditional (analogue) methods can work just as well (if not better).
2. Collaboration is extremely important, particularly if you’re looking at learning from a social constructivist perspective.  Consider how you can use technology to facilitate collaboration.
3. Ensure that you use technology to expose students to the outside world.  This not only helps to improve their cultural understanding and international-mindedness, it can be great for building key literacy skills.

Google Docs is an online word processor and one of Google’s free suite of tools, which many students and teachers all over the world now use.  My experience with Google Docs is that it makes a very significant contribution to social constructivist learning.  Social constructivism is the idea that learners construct their own mental models, and these models develop through collaboration with others.

The concept of social constructivism began from the work of psychologists, namely Lev Vygotsky and Jerome Bruner.  Vygotsky came up with the idea he referred to as the ‘zone of proximal development’ – the notion that there is an area of activity just a little bit beyond what a child can already do – it is what they can do with help.  Bruner gave educators the analogy of ‘scaffolding’ the new skills that the child was learning, by providing support and guidance to get to the next point.

Google Docs not only makes these elements of social constructivism possible, but it actively promotes this type of pedagogy.  One of the most important benefits of Google Docs is that documents can be shared, which means several users can work on the same document from different computers – synchronously or asynchronously.  In my experience, this gives a feeling of shared ownership and collaborative effort, helping to increase student motivation.  The document below is an example of a 4th grade group project in which groups of three students work as a team to research and answer the following questions about oil.

It’s easy to see what each individual student contributes to a document like this because Google Docs assigns every contributor a unique colour. My advice though, would be to keep the groups working on the same document small.  You don’t really want too many students working on the same document because it does become difficult to disentangle who has made which changes, and as with any online collaborative tool, it simply becomes more of a challenge to coordinate who should be doing what.

In small online working groups, it’s also easier to keep track of different comments made on the work by others.  This brings another benefit of Google docs documents, which is the ability to add comments on the side of the work.  To insert a comment, highlight the text, then choose Insert a Comment under the Insert Menu.  You just highlight some text in the body of the document and the comment will appear on the right side of the page. It’s basically a digital post-it note on the side of your document.  Click on any comment and watch the highlighted text in the document change colour to quickly pinpoint the suggested revision. Comments are clever and they disappear after the issue has been addressed by the author so students feel a sense of accomplishment as they work their way through the suggestions of their peers.  I would also say that students are more likely to revisit their work if they know someone else will be commenting on it.

This feature of comments can be particularly good for documents shared just between a teacher and student – the teacher can use the comments to bring the student’s attention to mistakes, and to facilitate a form of scaffold questions to improve the student’s writing.

The comments also remove barriers between writers and further creates a sense of class community.  In addition, Docs provide support for collaboration in real time so students and teachers can have a virtual mini-conference about the work in front of them from any location if the timing is right.  This can be done by instant messaging chat, in which users shared into the document can chat synchronously about their project.  By adding this synchronous communication medium into the tool, it also gives a feeling of social presence, which adds to student engagement.

These features of Google Docs gives rise to what I consider to be the most valuable of all pedagogical benefits – small group work.  By producing the conditions of small group work, concepts, skills and attitudes such as cooperation, collaboration and rational argument can be developed. Exploring and valuing the contributions of others is excellent preparation for life in a culturually diverse society.  According to the ideas of Brown, Barnfield & Stone (1990), small group work can lead to:

– a secure environment that some less confident students need in order to express their ideas;

– some children accepting responsibility to help others;

– full involvement of all the children in the task;

– children recognising the contributions of others as important as their own; and,

– children being able to recognise the individuality of others.

Small group work that is faciliated through the use of Google Docs naturally leads students to pool their ideas, listen to each other and to have respect for each person’s contributions to the work of the group.

When students are at the planning stage of an assignment, they can use the Word Art feature (as shown below) to make mind maps and do collaborative brainstorming.  The asynchronous nature of digital brainstorming sessions provides all students with an opportunity to contribute, unlike traditional brainstorming sessions which encourage contributions from the “quick thinkers” in the room. Students can use shapes, arrows, text, and imported images to build a visual map for any task. Again, the revision history uses colours to highlight and track changes to the Google Doc, making it easy to see what each student has contributed to the big picture.

Another big advantage for students and teachers is the use of templates.  You can provide students with a starting point for digital writing by creating templates. This saves time and guides the learning by giving students a consistent page format which can include links, images and directions, all helping to jump start the learning. All you have to do is just create a Google Doc and then save it as a template. Students can pick up a copy of a template and instantly store it in their own list of Google Docs.  The Google Sheet below is a brilliant example of a template for a maths project in which students need to complete the information about regular polygons.

As you would expect for a word processing tool, there is a built in smart spell-checking system that identifies spelling errors as you type. There is also a context-sensitive grammar checker, which can make appropriate suggestions for corrections. While Word uses color coding to make distinctions between spelling and grammar errors, Google sticks with one colour (a red wiggly line), but the suggestion box offers smart and appropriate suggestions.  There is also a built-in dictionary and thesaurus, allowing learners to look up words without leaving the document.

This is a video I made to summarise some of the benefits of Google Docs:

Google Docs at a Glance:

• Google Docs enables the creating, uploading and storing of documents
• It facilitates collaboration with others in real-time or asynchronously
• It is a free tool available anytime anywhere
• There is no worry of losing your work because it is continually and automatically saved
• There are many useful features for teachers and students, for example:
• Word Art facilitates collaborative brainstorming
• Templates save teachers time and help guide students’ learning
• There is a Smart Spell Checker with Grammar Support
• And, there are Integrated Reference Tools, which are ideal for research

Remember though, to get the best out of Google docs, you and your students need to:

• Have a google account and reliable high speed Internet access
• Use folders to keep documents organised and easily accessible
• Keep student online working groups small – especially important for the editing of documents and discussions
• Finally, think carefully through the levels of sharing – what roles do you want your students to have for specific documents and folders? When should your students be editors, viewers, or commenters?

References:

Brown, Barnfield & Stone, 1990, ‘Working toward social justice’ in A Spanner in the Works

Last year I completed my MA in Digital Technologies, Communication & Education with the University of Manchester.  Living in El Salvador had made it necessary to study this course by distance, and I was very satisfied with the guidance, course materials and teaching that I received online.  As a result, I enjoyed the whole course from start to finish, as it was challenging and kept me engaged all the way through.  I credit much of the success of this course to be down to the right combination of asynchronous communication, in which students are separated by time and space, and also synchronous communication, in which students can participate simultaneously.

Using Google Docs and Google Hangout, I discussed with two of my fellow students, Susan Johnson and Nick Kiley, who were based in Ireland and Latvia respectively, what is the best approach to delivering a distance learning course.  Together we wrote a Paper titled, The Best Combination of Asynchronous & Synchronous Communication.  I include an abridged version of our Paper below:   

The primary purpose of any online communication tool for education is to provide a means of discussion and collaboration between participants, thereby enabling the sharing of knowledge. For Vygotsky (1962), discussion and collaboration are fundamental to learning because the act of articulating an idea is itself a contribution to what it means to know that idea – this has formed the basis of an approach that is now referred to as “social constructivism” (Laurillard, 2012, p. 49). Swan (2005) summarises the importance of social constructivism for online practices by making the suggestion that “learning is essentially a social activity, [and] that meaning is constructed through communication, collaborative activity, and interactions with others” (p. 5).

Both synchronous and asynchronous tools can serve to promote an exchange of ideas between participants.  However, the nature of the ideas exchanged varies according to the communication tool used.  Synchronous communication brings a much greater level of social presence onto an online course, which helps to maintain student motivation and engagement.  Asynchronous communication on the other hand, by having a time lag between responses and thus allowing thinking time, can facilitate deeper understanding of the subject matter.  By combining the two modes of communication in the right way therefore the benefits of both modes can be maximised, and the potential pitfalls minimised.

In order to strike the best balance in the complementation of these two distinct modes of communication, my peers and I came up with a sequence to follow for when to use the different modes of communication.  This is because we believe that the best way to combine synchronous and asynchronous communication tools to maximise student learning should be determined according to the stage in which learners find themselves on an online programme.

[embeddoc url=”https://technologyforlearners.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/The-Best-Way-to-Combine-Asynchronous-Synchronous-Communication.docx”]

Without conducting research to test our hypothesis, it can be argued that, although rooted in a review of relevant literature, the effectiveness of the above outline is based on conjecture. However, the outline attempts to establish a sequence that most effectively balances the positive and negative features of synchronous and asynchronous communication, to determine the best way to combine these modes.

At the beginning of an online learning programme, the first type of interaction between participants should be synchronous in the form of a video chat in order that faces can be put to names and to enable a learning community to be created.  After this stage, we suggest that the subsequent progressive stages should alternate from asynchronous to synchronous communication and then back again.  The asynchronous communication, be it in the form of discussion boards, emails, or wikis all serve to afford the learner time to process information in which to plan, coordinate and share ideas with others.  Intermittently, synchronous communication should be used, which by this stage can be video chat again or an instant messaging tool.  This type of communication then offers the benefits of immediacy for the learner, enabling the learner to collaborate in real-time and therefore receive instant feedback from the instructor and peers.  When used in this way, synchronous communication also helps to maintain learner engagement and motivation by maintaining a sense of social presence, which can be particularly important for many learners.

We acknowledge that flexibility needs to be afforded to online learners, due to the diverse range of personality types that come onto a course, ranging on a spectrum of extroverts to introverts. Given the myriad of different factors then that can affect a learner’s preference for either synchronous or asynchronous communication, as well as the apparent benefits of combining both, it is our conclusion that following the sequencing pattern presented in this paper is the best way to combine asynchronous and synchronous tools, in order to encourage collaboration, cognitive processing, and engagement – and therefore maximise student learning.

Information Communication Technology (ICT) is an area that touches every subject.  As educators (whatever our specialism), we need to look at how we embed ICT into our daily pedagogy.  I’ve put together here some top tips with primary, secondary and tertiary students in mind:

1.  Get students blogging as a way to consolidate their learning. The fact that students have a potentially global audience for their blog entries means that most will spend more time refining their written work, which not only improves literacy but serves as a valuable tool for reflection.  It’s also a good opportunity to explore digital literacy with your students, helping them to understand the important concepts of e-safety, netiquette and effective search techniques online.

2.  Use word clouds to showcase key words.

A word cloud is just a collection of words that have been tiled together, as illustrated above. The most frequently used words are automatically made to appear larger by word cloud generators, which makes them a great tool for showcasing the learning outcomes of a lesson or analysing the key themes of a text.  Many great word cloud generators such as Wordle can be found online.

3.  Encourage collaboration through the use of Google Drive.

Google Documents for example, provides an ideal space for students to work together on group essays and research projects.  I provide here a review of Google Docs Documents:

4.  Promote Assessment for Learning by creating tests and quizzes for your students to complete online. My personal favourite is Google Forms – these can be embedded into students’ email.  It provides a quick and easy way to flag up any deficits in students’ knowledge and understanding, which can then be addressed in the follow up lesson.

5.  Use a good quality webcam on a stand as a cheap alternative to digital microscopes and visualisers.

As a former Year 6 (5th grade) teacher, I would often project students’ writing onto the whiteboard, and as a class we would up-level the work together.  This helps students to see what teachers or examiners are looking for when they mark a piece of work and is a great Assessment for Learning tool.  More recently, in my role as a 1st grade teacher, we’ve put our class webcam to good use by looking at mini-beasts the children have found in the playground!

6.  Use iMovie on iPads to get students creating video presentations of their learning. These can then be uploaded (private or unlisted) to a class YouTube channel. Not so long ago, if you wanted students to film, record, edit and annotate a video, multiple pieces of kit would be needed.  As well as being super portable, one of the best features of tablets is that they come with all the built-in devices necessary, including camera, microphone, keyboard, speakers and screen – not to mention the fantastic video editing software now available.

7.  The trailers provided on the iMovie app also serve as wonderful templates in which to create very short professional quality slideshow presentations. I have made many such videos for assemblies, parent workshops and training events.  These videos can be made extremely quickly and will easily engage an audience.

8.  Microsoft Word has a fantastic review tool. This enables you to annotate work students have sent you, providing comments and suggestions for improvement.  The student can then review these comments one by one and action them as appropriate.  That being said, it is important that you retain the original copy of students’ work, as annotations made will be deleted from the working version once they are accepted or rejected by the student.  This can be done by saving the work under a different name (e.g. Filename original).

9.  Search Engines are rarely used to their full potential by teachers and students. Google for example, can be your go to dictionary (just type ‘Define’), an efficient translator (try typing ‘happy in Spanish’), and the advanced search options provide many more possibilities such as allowing you to refine your search by reading level or file type.  If you’re looking for a mental maths starter on fractions let’s say, you may just be interested in search results that only show PowerPoints.

10.  Remember, with all of these top tips the focus should be the learning and not the technology (unless of course, the learning is about the technology itself). Outstanding use of ICT takes place when technologies are used transparently such that they blend seamlessly into the learning process, enabling students to become creative problem solvers.