Comments on: Questions are good…

By: Dorothy

Dorothy — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:30:19 +0000

Hi Alice
I am very interested in what you have to say and there is so much I would like to respond to So I will limit myelf to a couple of points.
First “Dr. Igoa may not see the need to give up her older technology, BUT she does see that creating presentations that involve art, narration, and music so that students can tell their stories, helps them adjust to and learn English.”
In our low socio-economic NESB school we have been looking outside Education to the work of Kevin Roberts, CEO of saatchi&saatchi, on the concept of sisomo (sisomo.com). The thought of sight, sound and motion (sisomo) as being an integral part of 21st century living resonates with us and we try to ensure that teaching and learning at Pt England School reflect the students responsiveness to sisomo.
Secondly, I spent 2007 researching the impact of our podcast, KPE (Korero Pt England) on our students’ reading outcomes. While I did observe significant measurable improvement in student reading outcomes, I also measured significantly improved oral fluency. I recorded them reading aloud at the start of the research period and 5 months later recorded students reading aloud on average 22 WPM faster (with accuracy). They were also more expressive and confident. Podcasting is a wonderful way to evaluate students’ progress because they are constantly speaking and being recorded and you have such a wealth of material to base your assessments on.
I also confounded the speech-language theraphists by putting in applications for over-looked kids to have sessions by providing them with DVDs of podcasts for them to listen to as they went thrugh the selection process.

By: alicemercer

alicemercer — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 04:33:39 +0000

Tilgunas: I think the recording frankly is more important than the publishing, but that is to my mind the more complex and difficult to learn process (using Audacity–which frankly isn’t that difficult). Once you have an audio file, posting it or syndicating it is much easier. The added bang you get for publishing/syndicating is defiantly worth that effort, so I figure why not. I harp on the recording because I think it is really important to get that record of what kids are doing. I think Mr. K brought up some excellent points for keeping me (and other) honest. I wrote this because I wanted to bring up the ORAL language standards because people are treating this like it’s extra, and it’s part of the core.

By: tilgunas

tilgunas — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 03:46:17 +0000

I agree with both Mr. K and Alice. I’m a middle school teacher in a low income area, and this is what I see. On the one hand, as long a task is authentic (and yes, tied to standards), it is awesome. So it could be an oral presentation to the class, or a tape recording that would be shared with others. But when I add to these activities Internet publishing…when my students use any technologies that are public, which they can go home and share with family on the Internet, they see it as IMPORTANT. That’s saying a lot for a middle school kid. I think doing some in-class and some public publishing…mixing it up…this makes all the difference in the world.

By: alicemercer

alicemercer — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 16:49:09 +0000

It’s okay Mr. K, I got the gist of your point.

They can say it Mr. K, but if it’s not recorded…

1. Will you hear it?

2. Will you remember it?

3. Will you evaluate or grade it? Remember if you don’t do it right then when they say it, it’s gone.

This is probably why Dr. Igoa (and others) teaching language learners in the 1980s/90s started to record their students, and didn’t just have them hold up pictures and give a report to the class. I imagine that is also helps pull-out teachers (like Dr. Igoa, and myself) share what students have done with their regular ed teacher.

I think the posting, and syndicating part of the podcast could be optional, but can I point out something from my own experience? The posting of podcasts and sending them out to parents over the phone system motivated my students to participate. The students that it did motivate surprised me. It wasn’t the class-clowns, or talkers (although they liked doing it too), it was the quiet girls. I think they liked being able to work on it because they could improve on a project. There were retakes, and they did the recording in a small group. They could perfect it in a small group, but share it with a big audience once they got it right.

I don’t just have kids talk into the mic. I usually have them doing something related thematically to something we are studying, or they are weekly news podcasts from the school. I was perhaps being provocative with that statement, but I don’t think some folks appreciate how important that oral language practice is. The listening and speaking part of CELDT is where many students bomb out, and that is keeping us from redesignating students out of being English Language Learners.

Thanks for asking questions!

By: Mr. K

Mr. K — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:55:25 +0000

heh.

i guess the technology didn’t like my blockquote tags.

By: Mr. K

Mr. K — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:54:09 +0000

I don’t think it’s too far a stretch to say that Podcasts, in and of themselves, meet this standard whatever the content. Frankly, just asking for oral response to your lectures unless you really structure it, will not suffice.

I don’t get it.

I don’t see how the technology makes a difference. It seems to me that the important part is the process – how they go about deciding what to say, and then how they say it. Why does it matter whether they say it into a microphone, to the class, or into a cellphone? Don’t they all require structure to be successful?

By: Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… » More On Teachers and Technology

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 02:21:19 +0000

[...] other, Questions Are Good, can be found at her own blog, Mz [...]

By: alicemercer

alicemercer — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 01:24:29 +0000

I forgot to add this link to Larry Ferlazzo’s post on this topic: http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/02/09/the-best-ways-for-students-and-anyone-else-to-create-online-content-easily-quickly-painlessly/

It includes his thinking (technology good, but I want my peers to be engaging students with or without it), and his approach to picking sites for students to use (it’s all about ease of use and language development baby). Excellent read!